There is a widespread misconception at present that those who adhere to the Bhakti tradition do not criticize others. This misconception arises because Bhakti is equated to “love”, which is then equated to non-violence and acceptance of others, which is then mixed up in the pseudo-secular woo of tolerance and equality. Many people even argue that the Acharyas in the Vedic...
There are many misconceptions about what constitutes a religion and a religious person and how we should evaluate them. In this post, I will discuss two such criteria—(a) the method of judging three symptoms of love of God—morality, knowledge, and bliss, and (b) the method of two negations due to which a person or religion acts steadfastly despite failure or success....
Everything in Vedic philosophy is based on qualities. Since the advent of modern science, everything in modern thinking is based on quantity. The focus on qualities needs the distinction between better and worse. The focus on quantities needs the distinction between more and less. Under the influence of quantity thinking, people stop thinking about quality improvement. They think that more of...
We can scan the length and breadth of Vedic texts and we will not find anyone asking for proof of God’s existence or someone providing it voluntarily. That doesn’t mean we cannot provide an argument for God’s existence based on what is already present in the Vedic texts. In this post, I will present an argument by elaborating on the four...
Recently an Indian politician commented that Bhagavad-Gita also teaches Jihad (a religious war). This post lists the differences between what Lord Kṛṣṇa teaches in Bhagavad-Gita (and what happened during the Mahabharata war) and religious war. It is important to have detailed answers to such questions. We will go through the historical background, the events that led to the Mahabharata war, how...
There is a prominent misconception about religious equality under which all religions must be treated with respect. According to this misconception, sacredness is a private belief, and there is no objective sacredness in anything. Hence, either all religions must be rejected or all of them should be given equal respect. In this post, I will discuss why religions are objectively better...
Some religions argue against the Vedic system that its followers worship “idols”. An “idol”, or a deity, as most of us call it, is a symbol of God, like symbols in a book communicate meaning. If you burn a book, you don’t burn the ideas denoted by the book; you only remove one way of accessing those ideas. Conversely, if you...
Vaiṣṇavism presents a conception of God that doesn’t fit into well-known categories such as monotheism, polytheism, monism, pantheism, panentheism, henotheism, deism, and others. This is because Vaiṣṇavism accepts all their assertions and rejects all their negations. For example, the monotheistic claim that “God is one” doesn’t negate the polytheistic claim—i.e., “God is many”. Likewise, the panentheistic claim that “the world is...
A few articles ago, I discussed the nature of Personhood as six traits—self-awareness, intention, emotion, cognition, conation, and relation. Then we discussed Personalism vs. Depersonalization: A person is governed by free will and the depersonalized is governed by laws. As a follow-up, in this article, I will discuss what I mean by a machine in contrast to a person. I will...
The problem of evil has two distinct flavors. The first flavor says: There is famine, war, pestilence, and disease in this world and since God created an evil world, therefore, He must be evil. The second flavor says: So much suffering is caused by evil people, and since God created people, therefore, He must be evil. These two flavors of the...
God is the greatest, but it is not easy to live in the presence of greatness. When we encounter greatness, there are many different types of responses we can have. Those responses to greatness are also our responses to God. This post discusses how our acceptance of greatness, ability to distinguish the great from the not-so-great, and our readiness to serve...
The first important thing we learn from Bhagavad-Gita 2.13 is that “just as the soul passes from childhood, to youth, to old age, in the same way, the soul passes to a new body at the time of death”. Most people take this to mean that after death there will be another life, which is true. But that is not all...
