In Indian philosophy, the voidism of Buddhist philosophy is seen as the opposition to the materialism of demigod worship and rituals. Then, classical impersonalism or Advaita is seen as the opposition to voidism in Buddhist philosophy. Finally, classical personalism or Vaishnavism is seen as the opposition to the impersonalism of Advaita. However, Sri Chaitanya’s philosophy …
The problem of evil refers to the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil in this world with an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God. The argument for the problem of evil goes as follows: We can see that evil exists in this world—cheating, misery and suffering, poverty, disease, etc. Why would God create …
Modern society is constructed on the idea of contracts. This idea can be traced back to Judaism which instituted a “covenant” with God in which God will do certain things for Abraham if Abraham did some things for God. The first covenant of Judaism for instance says: “You shall be circumcised in the flesh of …
Many people say that the God of Abrahamic religions is a “jealous” God. However, they don’t ask: If we can be jealous, then why can God also not be jealous? Similarly, if we can be non-jealous, therefore, God must also be non-jealous. This contradiction makes it very hard to understand God’s nature.
In the Śrīmad Bhagavatam, two verses—nearly identical in the text—are present in two places. They talk about the destruction of the knot in the heart, and the realization of mastery.
Beginning with my first book, “Six Causes”, I have been describing a paradigm of creation that stems from conscious creativity. In this paradigm, the self goes missing in the self, and when this “absence” is created, then creativity occurs to overcome this absence by expanding the self into works of creativity. E.g. in human creativity, …
Recently, while preparing for a presentation, I started looking up Bhagavad-Gita translations and found some curious discrepancies, which make the translations scientifically inaccurate. On finding these in the select verses that I was looking up (i.e., not an exhaustive study), I went back to the original translations and found that these scientific inaccuracies do not …
Many of us have become accustomed to impersonal interpretations of Vedanta, where Brahman is identified as a transcendental state of Oneness, and the soul is the Brahman, in that transcendental state. However, a closer look at Vedanta Sutra reveals that Brahman actually doesn’t refer to the impersonal state. Rather, Brahman refers to the Supreme Lord, …
Below are some verses from the Nyāya Sutra that discuss the nature of the Supreme Lord, and describe how He is one and many, how He is attained by devotees and yet never truly attained by anyone, and how the varied aspects of His personality are hidden inside the other aspects, such that knowing any …
