Often it seems to be more like the case of a moth spiraling into the flame. The intensity obscuring all of the nuance the shadow offers, any sense of orientation and perspective.
Yes, the merchants in the temple, a lovely bunch. From my visit to an alpine pilgrimage place, I still have a plastic bottle of blessed water, in the shape of a pope, with a screw-on cap at the top.
Fire and water in nature, represent the primal yin/yang opposites. But often the primal spiritual opposites are simplistically confused as the light and darkness that manifest in nature.
You got it. Speaking in terms of Divine light of course.
Well, there you go. Well put!
There is a passage in the Bhagavad Gita I think apropos here, in which Arjuna asks to see God in his truest form. Krishna agrees going on to say:
And sends him shaking to his knees. Brilliant. I love these interlinks which make you go: "Oh yeah!"
There's no one to guide you through that. It's you, and God -- that's it.
I can't think of any book that is more against physical war than the Bhagavad Gita. It is simplistic to employ the Bhagavad Gita's metaphor of spiritual war, as a call to physical conflict. Imo. But there are always going to be those to try ...
Indeed. It's the classic battle of good vs evil. Krishna did everything possible to avoid conflict and reach an amicable solution, but at the end of the day it was, as it has always been, up to each individual to choose which path to follow. So, with conflict inevitable, Krishna offered each side the choice of either himself or his own army to wage war. The instigators took Krishna's army (that part always puts in mind of the fallen angles of Abrahamic lore) and the defenders, led by Arjuna, took Krishna himself. Arjuna was up against insurmountable odds, but Krishna needed, but one thing from him for good to prevail. His faith and belief. And so it goes to this day. Shall we kick Satan's butt or shall we join forces with him...?
Ha! Like that analogy.
That should be the Silver Rule, after the Golden Rule.
Excuse me. That is how a theist would look at it. However, my reading of BhagawadGita is different. What the later Vaishnavas made Gita into is not what it started with. Please remember, Prabhupada's translation is heavily biased in favor of his sect's views. He puts in words which are not their in the verse. Krishna's advice was to a dithering soldier, who was being influenced by relationships (family, teacher). Krishna asked Arjuna to abandon all emotions and engage in what his duty demanded. That is the most important message and purpose of BhagawadGita. The same rule can be applied in every thing in life - 'Don't be influenced by anything whatsoever, but continue to perform your duty for its own sake'.
No surprise there, of course believers and non-believers are going to see things differently and yes, like all religious text, interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita do vary. The fact remains though, regardless of what you think Krishna's message is, it was still up to Arjuna whether or not to heed. In other words, Krishna required of Arjuna his faith and belief in him and his words for that message to prevail.
Does he really do this? It is inexcusable to add words to scripture. Do you know the Yogananda Paramahansa translation?
That disparaging sound you just heard was the simultaneous cringe of all the actual theists in the room at the thought of having NJ's perspectives lumped in with theirs. -
LOL! Yeah, I do catch it from both sides sometimes, don't I?That disparaging sound you just heard was the simultaneous cringe of all the actual theists in the room at the thought of having NJ's perspectives lumped in with theirs. -
I've not read the Yogananda Paramahansa translation of the Gita myself, but I can tell you that the problem with any BG translation is that Sanskrit is very difficult to translate into English. From what my wife tells me, almost all of the words have more than two meanings and each meaning multiple senses. Then some Sanskrit words have no English equivalent at all.
It was an advice from a friend and a relative (Brother and Brother in law, related through Kunti and Subhadra). Not a demand of belief in his divinity.
Yogananda fares even worse in my consideration.
ok ... lolYogananda fares even worse in my consideration.