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Thread: The Equality of Vishnu and Shiva

  1. #31
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    Re: The Equality of Vishnu and Shiva

    Don't mix the words Vaishnavaism the faith from the philosophical term "Advaita"!


    Why one should obey Maya if he knows Atma is untouched by maya?
    He has to obey as he is yet to know that Atma is untouched by Maya! ( As the "He'ness is still there..."i" ness is still there.. i am, you are, we are, Shiva, Vishnu etc. The same point i am repeating for the benefit of understanding is that, as long as they exist, duality and rank exists and we are arguing on the duality realm reals of Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu and not the absolute NirgunaBrahma Tattva). And when "He" knows it, He is no more! Nothing to compare! Nothing to realize! Nothing to talk about!

    I would say this is only for real vaishnawa who's established himself in oneness.
    I appreciate your love for vaishnavas and thank you very much for that and i guess you do not mind the progressing ignorant vaishnavas making some statements here.

    Hare Krshna!

  2. #32
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    Re: The Equality of Vishnu and Shiva

    No sir!

    I am only addressing some of the harsh words expressed here as unsupported and has no basis at all for "non dual' philosophers as well. The personal love for one "form" of Lord is overwhelmingly making our non dual philosophers blind that they are the one who try to equate Shiva with Vishnu but when questioned, some are ok to expand that equality or Oneness to everyone and everything else but most do not! ( Browse through this forum - On one side we learn from Lord Krshna but on the other side, we are spending so much energy and intelligence making Him an ordinary mortal yet claim He is not ordinary! What the heck....). Incidentally, the supremacy and order are more forcefully debated and held by some of our non dual lovers especially when they rank veda higher than upanishads higher than puranas higher than itihasas with out any sort of troubles or problems. Why so? A letter a or Om or full rgs or complete ramayana should all be one and same - as they are as well nothing but the One! When you can accept such order and ranks revealing truths, at least on such basis you should acknowledge the order and ranks in the different realm of reality!

  3. #33
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    Re: The Equality of Vishnu and Shiva

    Quote Originally Posted by grames View Post
    No sir!

    I am only addressing some of the harsh words expressed here as unsupported and has no basis at all for "non dual' philosophers as well. The personal love for one "form" of Lord is overwhelmingly making our non dual philosophers blind that they are the one who try to equate Shiva with Vishnu but when questioned, some are ok to expand that equality or Oneness to everyone and everything else but most do not! ( Browse through this forum - On one side we learn from Lord Krshna but on the other side, we are spending so much energy and intelligence making Him an ordinary mortal yet claim He is not ordinary! What the heck....). Incidentally, the supremacy and order are more forcefully debated and held by some of our non dual lovers especially when they rank veda higher than upanishads higher than puranas higher than itihasas with out any sort of troubles or problems. Why so? A letter a or Om or full rgs or complete ramayana should all be one and same - as they are as well nothing but the One! When you can accept such order and ranks revealing truths, at least on such basis you should acknowledge the order and ranks in the different realm of reality!
    How hypocritical is the attitude of the dual lovers where the same harsh words against advaitins and Lord Shiva just go uncontested as long as they are spoken by someone from their own line of thought. However if someone speaks out the truth people start getting supersensitive. The same people laud some self titled acharya who calls advaitins as mayavadis and shaivaites as ghosts
    However my point here is the equality of Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu to the Supreme Brahman,
    And i never knew that our personal love for one imaginary form can give us a right to call other forms as subservient demigods
    And i can presume when the same people ofcourse have no basic tenets of morality where their personal love for one form makes them go against not only commonsense but also give them a right to forgive a person who not only treated women and africans as inferior and dependent but who supported child marriage and was against the birth of female children all of which conform to neither spiritual nor moral but boorish plain cultural standards of living
    Also why do they take only parts that are convenient. Puranas might speak of Shiva or Vishnu worshipping each other but does that purana tell us that we are in a position to call either of them as demigods? All the puranas state both Hari and Hara are equal and give a safe residence of hell to any one who seperates them. And while this whole demigod thing is subjective to self discernment,,, the "harsh" statement that those who differentiate Hari and Hara live in hell for eons is not my personal opinion but a standard statement from the same puranas that the dualists worship

    SB 4.7.54 — The Lord continued: One who does not consider Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Śiva or the living entities in general to be separate from the Supreme, and who knows Brahman, actually realizes peace; others do not.


    SB 4.7.52
    tasmin brahmaṇy advitīye
     kevale paramātmani
    brahma-rudrau ca bhūtāni
     bhedenāj�o ’nupaśyati

    The Lord continued: One who is not in proper knowledge thinks that Brahmā and Śiva are seperate, or he even thinks that the living entities are seprerate.
    Last edited by ganeshamylord; 17 July 2014 at 06:58 PM.

  4. #34
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    Re: The Equality of Vishnu and Shiva

    I beg to differ and the contention here is not about people at least from my pov but the concepts, philosophical tenets! I believe, the non dualists should not have any iota of disrespect when a "realist" or dualist follow the idea of Surrender and thus a "Supreme" path ( that includes realists from Shaiva, Shakta, Vaishnava etc. and the list is not only ISKCON or Bhakthi groups alone).

    When non dualists uphold the idea of Oneness ( equality of Lord Shiva to Lord Vishnu to Brahman), only from such PoV or philosophy it holds good ( and should that equality be expandable to anything and everything).

    Who has better moral and or not is only the level of maturity and understanding of their very own following and faith! No point or merit assuming a Dualist or realist insulting the highest Bhaktha in the hierarchical order when such equality is in fact insult to the Supreme from their PoV. ( Its not the case of just Lord Shiva being equal to Lord Vishnu... this is true for Shaivaites who uphold Lord Shiva as Supreme and no for them Lord Shiva is not equal to Lord Vishnu). How about respecting their philosophy and not teaching morality etc. when your pov alone creates conflicts?

    With a much broad mind, we should start to accept the fact that, though we may have similar faith, our philosophical understanding and thus practice are always different and unique.

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    Re: The Equality of Vishnu and Shiva

    Quote Originally Posted by grames View Post
    I beg to differ and the contention here is not about people at least from my pov but the concepts, philosophical tenets! I believe, the non dualists should not have any iota of disrespect when a "realist" or dualist follow the idea of Surrender and thus a "Supreme" path ( that includes realists from Shaiva, Shakta, Vaishnava etc. and the list is not only ISKCON or Bhakthi groups alone).

    When non dualists uphold the idea of Oneness ( equality of Lord Shiva to Lord Vishnu to Brahman), only from such PoV or philosophy it holds good ( and should that equality be expandable to anything and everything).

    Who has better moral and or not is only the level of maturity and understanding of their very own following and faith! No point or merit assuming a Dualist or realist insulting the highest Bhaktha in the hierarchical order when such equality is in fact insult to the Supreme from their PoV. ( Its not the case of just Lord Shiva being equal to Lord Vishnu... this is true for Shaivaites who uphold Lord Shiva as Supreme and no for them Lord Shiva is not equal to Lord Vishnu). How about respecting their philosophy and not teaching morality etc. when your pov alone creates conflicts?

    W.
    Pardon me i didnot name anyone
    So since you already decided that a person supporting racism,child abuse, female domestication conforms to "maturity" and if such a person is the "highest bhakta" then it talks more about the hierarchy than the person himself.
    And who is the highest bhakta or not is not for us to decide but for God to decide so lets stop calling someone highest or lowest bhakta based on our level of indoctrination And if number of followers make a person a highest bhakta islam should be the highest religion Because it is the statement of the puranas that people who differentiate between Shiva and Vishnu have a safe residence to hell. It is not my pov...If you think that is insulting then you are insulting the puranas

  6. #36
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    Re: The Equality of Vishnu and Shiva

    Not sure what you are referring to and if you got some opinions due to behavior of people who support racism, child abuse etc. that is not the subject matter i am talking to and as i said, i am not talking about people.

    Since you have your own idea of everything else, i am interested to only respond to something related to the subject we are sharing! In the same line of what you said, it is equally path to hell if you compare and act yourself same as Lord Shiva! and that is an insult to the very own you are falsely upholding but 100% possible with a faith and philosophy that is written here.

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    Re: The Equality of Vishnu and Shiva

    Quote Originally Posted by grames View Post
    it is equally path to hell if you compare and act yourself same as Lord Shiva! and that is an insult to the very own you are falsely upholding but 100% possible with a faith and philosophy that is written here.
    Well i have quotes from scriptures to support my statement
    Where did you get this statement from? That it is insulting and a person goes to hell if he acts like Shiva? Can you provide quotes from some scriptures?
    Also can you provide quotes which ask people to differentiate between shiva and vishnu from your own scriptures?
    Last edited by ganeshamylord; 17 July 2014 at 06:49 PM.

  8. #38
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    Re: The Equality of Vishnu and Shiva

    Namaste prabhu

    I think that your argument is for someone else. I never even suggested that I thought Bhagavatam was supreme nor have I said a word in support of this sect that you keep alluding to. However I don't feel the need to criticize hyperbole motivated by love. I already said that I pick and choose from passages of scripture so I stand by what I chose to quote in the original post. If you disagree with that then it would be more relevant to me.

    Hari Aum

    Quote Originally Posted by ganeshamylord View Post
    Namaste prabhu
    But however the point is not about me or you thinking about the shape of earth. The point is about the truth.We both dont claim we are the supreme absolute truth and that we know god and neither do we make our own presumptions about His form and names. But bhagavata does so and it calls itself the best purana speaking of truth./However any book, in this case a purana says it knows God or calls some person as God then it better know the universe too. We cant say Bhagavata isnt in our time so it gave the wrong depictions of the shape of earth because it calls itself timeless. If Bhagvata knows the form of God isnt it ridiculous it doesnt know the shape of earth? Thats tantamount to saying i know a+b2 but i dont know 1+1=2 because earth is a tiny part of God too.
    If a medical book claims to know the body and yet prints wrong notions about the shape of liver or brain then it will be immediately repealed and corrected. But the problem with fanaticism of puranas is it can neither be revoked nor repealed but should only followed by closing our intelligence.
    And science is always open to corrections and admits to being restricted
    but a purana always claims to be perfect and brainwashes its followers to believe it as truth despite the truth being the other way round.
    That means two things. Either the purana is an imagination just like how it imagined the shape of earth it imagined the shape of god too and one is already proven to be false the other might be false too.
    Second since it propagates varnashrama or caste system it might have been written by brahmins who wanted to prove themselves superior because as far i know the supreme soul has better things to do than propagate caste system.
    And the proof also lies in the pudding. As far as i know i have seen people like vivekananda or paramhansa yogananda or ramakrishna or ganapati muni and they never utter one ill word about any soul or sect and were always open to a better society. But i have seen those who believe in personal forms always abuse the others and they have no spiritual significance but a big loud mouth to sing and abuse others and two legs to dance. So many people got killed due to shaivaite vaishnavaite wars//// also I have read statements of a personal form worshipper who even said a womans brain is half that of a man and women enjoy getting raped and that moon is farther away from the sun. and He is self titled acharya by his own sect and i dont think he had any qualities of devotees that Krishna himself mentions in His gita....
    My personal contention with people who follow puranas is just this. Puranas are like 1+1=2 of spirituality. They were introduced for laymen. But now some fanatics started calling puranas as the ultimatum and avoid the actual vedanta and that pains me. Due to this fights about names forms occur. If only people realize there is a lot more to spirituality than just singing and dancing in front of deities the world would be a better place


    But an itihasa is different and it is more of a report than some imagination.
    But if a book is considered supreme just because it bestows peace is it wrong on my part that if i consider harry potter to be supreme as that gives peace to me too?
    With our ears may we hear what is good.
    With our eyes may we behold thy righteousness.
    Tranquil in body, may we who worship thee find rest.

    AUM Peace Peace Peace

  9. #39
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    Re: The Equality of Vishnu and Shiva

    Quote Originally Posted by R Gitananda View Post
    Namaste prabhu

    I think that your argument is for someone else. I never even suggested that I thought Bhagavatam was supreme nor have I said a word in support of this sect that you keep alluding to. However I don't feel the need to criticize hyperbole motivated by love. I already said that I pick and choose from passages of scripture so I stand by what I chose to quote in the original post. If you disagree with that then it would be more relevant to me.

    Hari Aum
    Namaste Prabhu

    I wasnt disagreeing with you rather i was supplementing your view. Its just sometimes i dont know how to put things in words so please forgive me if you thought so. My only point was this inequality and differentiation between deities causes more loss than good which is totally in accordance with your view. I feel the main problem happens when people fail to understand vedanta and start believing the superfluous stories of the puranas instead of taking into account the motive behind them.

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