Tattva-viveka
Reincarnation
Hari Bhakti - February 5, 2009 9:57 pm
I've recently heard that there are some people (not GV's but people in the yoga community) that believe once you've taken human birth there is only progression. No possibility of regression or taking a lower life form. This seems to contradict the laws of karma. I'm wondering if any one on the board might speak to where this idea comes from?
Gaura-Vijaya Das - February 6, 2009 1:42 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EITEUL0kdSE...feature=related
This is where a muslim actually speaks about how reincarnation is just a problem with not being able to handle unequal birth questions logically by hindus. So he justifies how islam is giving the best logical answer.
Audarya-lila Dasa - February 6, 2009 8:56 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EITEUL0kdSE...feature=relatedThis is where a muslim actually speaks about how reincarnation is just a problem with not being able to handle unequal birth questions logically by hindus. So he justifies how islam is giving the best logical answer.
His talk was illogical. Allah has a child born with defects to test the parents? What about the child? The explanations he gave from Koran only left me with more questions. I don't see why this speaker, or any for that matter, feels the need to deride an idea from another faith tradition in order to try to establish their own idea. I think it would be illustrative enough to simply say that all people are born in different situations because that is how Allah wishes to test them.
Personally I don't find the idea logical, but then again I am not a moslem.... 
Bhrigu - February 6, 2009 9:31 am
This idea was propagated first I think by the theosophists around 1900. It fits better in with the all-dominating Western idea of gradual evolution and progress. In this version of samsara, karma has an educational role. We learn something in every life and then progress to the next level, or, have to take birth again in the same level until we get it. Like school. If you really suck, you don't graduate to the next grade, but they won't send you back to the last one. This sounds good, but of course it does not square with the vedantic understanding of karma. In vedanta, karma only has a retributive function. There is no automatic, inbuilt educational system in it -- since we have been here since time eternal, we would otherwise all have been liberated already. For this reason, in the theosophical understanding of karma, the souls are not eternal but created at different points of time. This is where you get ideas such as "old souls".
Gaura-Vijaya Das - February 6, 2009 4:59 pm
His talk was illogical. Allah has a child born with defects to test the parents? What about the child? The explanations he gave from Koran only left me with more questions. I don't see why this speaker, or any for that matter, feels the need to deride an idea from another faith tradition in order to try to establish their own idea. I think it would be illustrative enough to simply say that all people are born in different situations because that is how Allah wishes to test them.
Personally I don't find the idea logical, but then again I am not a moslem....
Deriding ideas from other faiths to establish one's own faith is done by preceptors of every sect including GV.
Swami - February 6, 2009 5:09 pm
Sufis are Muslims, but many of them believe in reincarnation.
Gaura-Vijaya Das - February 6, 2009 5:19 pm
Sufis are Muslims, but many of them believe in reincarnation.
Mainstream muslims don't accept sufis as muslims.
Nitaisundara Das - February 6, 2009 5:19 pm
Deriding ideas from other faiths to establish one's own faith is done by preceptors of every sect including GV.
Of course, but does that make it any better?
Sometimes derision has a solid philosophical foundation and is not just a tool to boost kanistha-type faith. And sometimes in Gvism derision is just the manifestation of the intense feelings of advanced devotees. Like Prabhodanand Sarasvati's statements about the avatars. This video is not that. Ultimately what he is saying is unequal births are because of God's will. That only begs the question, why, in god's magnanimity does he choose such inequality?
Gaura-Vijaya Das - February 6, 2009 5:29 pm
Of course, but does that make it any better?
Sometimes derision has a solid philosophical foundation and is not just a tool to boost kanistha-type faith. And sometimes in Gvism derision is just the manifestation of the intense feelings of advanced devotees. Like Prabhodanand Sarasvati's statements about the avatars. This video is not that. Ultimately what he is saying is unequal births are because of God's will. That only begs the question, why, in god's magnanimity does he choose such inequality?
I was just talking about the point made by Audarya Lila.
Otherwise logical defects in his theory are there and I don't support his theory(obviously). Just trying to present opposing logic all the time strengthens our own faith.
Derision used by most devotees currently in GV does not seem to be out of intense feelings of advanced devotees but it may well be who knows.
Swami - February 6, 2009 5:59 pm
Mainstream muslims don't accept sufis as muslims.
There are fundamentalists everywhere.
Yamuna Dasi - February 11, 2009 11:55 am
If God is by Himself and for Himself to what level at all we should try to search for justice and logic in the motivation for His actions just for the sake of approving our acceptance for them? It seems to me that this direction of search serves only the preaching purposes and our own shradha at some lower levels.
Seems that for the sake of preaching at a lower level we do point out and "prove" God's justice and logic, but to the higher levels of understanding we rather preach "be ready to accept whatever comes to you as just /and/or merciful and/or good for your growth and purification without searching the exact logical chain of reasoning or justice, because your understanding of justice and logic might not fit that of God and it's you the one who has to adjust". If we want to dance with God we are the ones to follow His step and rhythm.
As logic itself declares: "I am not a science for the Truth, but for how thoughts follow one another as a chain". Real seekers of the Truth (what to speak about those of rasa) do not limit their search in the frames of logic.