Einstien was a atheist/agnostic of Jewish background. He discovered some of God's most profound material laws of nature (E = MC square for e.g.). God has simillarly revealed to other scientists of various religious backgrounds including atheists and agnostics some of the most profound and beautiful laws of how the material universe works.
The greatest discovery's have been made when a human has somehow able to connect two previosuly totally unconnected ideas together..a act of God in my view.
If God is reevaling his material laws of nature to ordinary humans (of all faiths and even by agnostics), why are the orthodox of some faiths (specially the Abhramic faiths) so fixated with the mistaken idea that the spiritual laws and insights of God's creation will be revealed only to specific ancient individuals and that too revealed only to people within their own religious framework ?
In my view every human irrespective of religion he believes in has the potential to gain spiritual insight into the spiritual nature of the Universe. Every human is a potential prophet. This is a Hindu perspective and also my perspective.
Just like the revealation of material laws of nature is a ongoing process, the revealation of spiritual aspects of the universe is a ongoing process..many people in the humanity in all walks of life are contributing to this revelation..its not a monopoly of some few choosen ancient prophets of a selected "choosen" religious framework.
When I use the term Prophet here I mean someone who reveals a spiritual law or aspect of the divine.. I am not talking about predicting the future..all of this predicting the future stuff is pretty fluffy stuff anyway.
Nice to see you on a Hindu thread for a change. :)
If you were to reveal words that would move hundreds of millions of people to obey and to study them for over a thousand years, I would probably be persuaded to believe you're a Prophet of God as well.
I have no rational reason to demote the handful of individuals in world history that have influenced mankind to the above-mentioned extent, into the lesser categories of great social reformers, politicians, mystics, philosophers and sages.
With kind regards,
LilWabbit
"The whole universe is but a handful of clay in His grasp."
Arjun, it is true that every human is potentially divine but that does not mean every human has the same capacity. The best analogy that I can think of is this: every human can in theory become a Physicist but can all of them become Einsteins? I think not.
Thank you for regarding Einstein, a great Jewish scientist on the Hindu forum. Einstein was a pantheistic Jew. A pantheist is one who promotes love and care of Nature, reverence of the Cosmos, concern for human and animal rights, and positive affirmation of life. Jews have great respect for the Hindu people, as they were the only country that gave protection to them during the Hitler era. Some Jews are pantheists, some are secular, and other still practice the customs of the older religion. Jews do not read their bible literally, as many faiths who followed them do. Judaism gives freedom to practice their faith anyway that seems right to them. There is no central authority or rabbi to insist they practice their religion or faith in one particular way as long as they do not worship any god but the one unique God who is spirit. As to the Messiah adventure, some believe it, others don't, but all Jews agree if such a person ever exists, he certainly hasn't come yet, for our teachings are that the real Messiah will bring world peace and that certainly hasn't happened yet.
Judaism, Islam and Christianity are collectively known in the west as "Abrahamic religions" though to the Jewish people and many anthropologists that is a misnomer. Early on, Jews traced their history to the covenant God made with Abraham in the very ancient Hebrew Bible. There are a few different movements within our faith today, mainly through the understanding of science and the views on modernization. Each is a little different, more or less secular, than the other in practices yet we are all Jews. As to other religions we are different on many issues and with certain religions, there are very serious differences and concepts. For one thing, we are definitely not fond of religions that proselytize or those that think that they are the only ones with the right religion, or we're going to hell unless we believe in Jesus. We view that as absurd. Judaism regards itself as the religion of the descendants of Jacob the grandson of Abraham. (thus Abrahamic) It has a unitary view of God in their central holy book. Almost all branches in the Hebrew Scripture are elucidated in the oral teachings:
In the 1st century CE, a separate religion evolved in Israel. It had distinctive beliefs and practices and likely was begun by the pagans who lived within Judaea at the time. After Jesus' death the idea spread into the pagan world, especially Greece and Jesus, the Jew became the central figure of Christianity. By the 4th century he was considered by almost all Christian denominations to be divine, typically as one person of a Triune God. Neither Jesus nor the New Testament, (the Christian bible) has anything to do with the Jewish religion, or Abraham and never did. Becoming more and more warlike as the Romans before them, Christians proselytized across Europe with the point of a sword and bloody battles.
Islam arose in Arabia in the 7th century CE, claiming they were the only true religion. They had a strict unitary view of God which they probably first learned about through trade with Jews and Christians. Muslims typically hold their Qur'an to be the ultimate authority, as revealed and elucidated through the teachings and practices of their prophet Muhammed who supposedly got it from an angel. According to their teachings, the Jews and Christians had it all wrong, and they corrected it, but of course non Muslims think that their story is a myth which was invented by one of their leaders, Muhammed. Following the example of Christianity, they too proselytized Islam across the Middle east and parts of Asia and Europe with a sword, soldiers and battles. They still do.
In any case neither of these two religions are considered by Jews to be Abrahamic. Both still proselytize, Jews do not, rarely did. In fact, one can only be a Jew who has a Jewish mother or is converted by his own wish, as the religion is inherited from the mother's side only. Belief is personal.
“Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject.”
PS I also like the holiday of Diwali. My daughter in law is Hindu, and Diwali is a favorite festival. (especially for the kids!!) I used to have an Esoteric Book store. We carried many books and statues of Hinduism and other eastern religions. (Though, Buddhism was a favorite.) Oh well. I'm especially fond of Genesha, and collect elephant statues, and statues of Ganesh. Also fond of pujas. Though my daughter in law's mother moved to a smaller house and doesn't have them much anymore. I love the chants, and played them in the store all the time.
Check out Facebook if you're on it. I have an album of their most recent vacation in India.
“Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject.”
"In my view every human irrespective of religion he believes in has the potential to gain spiritual insight into the spiritual nature of the Universe. Every human is a potential prophet. This is a Hindu perspective and also my perspective."
I agree. Your point is "potential to become..." In spiritual path this is the basic concept. Spiritual path knows no religion. A religion is restrictive in nature. Exceptions are religions like hinduism, buddhism etc. which do not put restrictive pre-conditions. For example, hinduism holds:
This self cannot be obtained by instruction, nor by intellectual power, not even through much hearing. He is to be attained only by the one whom the [self] chooses. To such a one the self reveals his own nature. [Katha Upanishad-1.2.23 & Mundaka Upanishad-3.2.3] and,
Vashishta: She [Sucika] had gained direct knowledge of the supreme causeless cause of all by her own examination of intelligence within her. Surely, direct enquiry into all the movements of thought in one's own conciousness is the supreme guru or preceptor, O Rama and no one else. [Yoga Vashista-III-74/28]
Every clergy-controlled religion will by nature reject anything that remotely denies the "authority" of the clergy. Now if the clergy can claim that they are the sole mouth-pieces of their prophets/messiahs etc, I see no problem is saying that everybody else has the potential to become great seers and masters. It should be remembered that after the prophets/messiahs who moved human civilisation there have been several great masters upto this day. Only we don't call them Prophet/Messiah!
Nisargadutta used to say" I AM" is the only Reality, everything else is assumption or false. Science looks outward for the answer to Universe, spiritualism looks inward for the answer. This is the only difference I see. Strangely enough since 20th Century on scientists also are turning to the spiritual view. "Tao of physics" or "Dancing Wu-li Masters" for example. Love & God Bless.
Nice to see you on a Hindu thread for a change. :)
If you were to reveal words that would move hundreds of millions of people to obey and to study them for over a thousand years, I would probably be persuaded to believe you're a Prophet of God as well.
I have no rational reason to demote the handful of individuals in world history that have influenced mankind to the above-mentioned extent, into the lesser categories of great social reformers, politicians, mystics, philosophers and sages.
With kind regards,
LilWabbit
Hi Lilwabbit, Good to see you here. Actualy I had made this post in the Islamic forum..but my new friend Miraj decided it did not belong there and moved it here :)
Any how as to your question about moving thousands of people...There are two things to consider.
1. At its root, many Hindus believe the divine is a transdential entity..i.e. we cannot make assumptions that a transdential enity works via the classical method humans assume he will work with i.e. sending messages via famous Prophets...A transdential divine entity is operational in infinite number of ways throughout the Universe in our view..
2. Its also likely that atleast some of the wisdom ariticulated by the "famous big-time" prophets was actualy learned either conciesly or unconciesly from other not so famous and ordinary people who happend to be highly spiritualy evolved but not famous.
Thats the way natural processes work in all spheres of human activity in my view and the spiritual domain is no exception.
"In my view every human irrespective of religion he believes in has the potential to gain spiritual insight into the spiritual nature of the Universe. Every human is a potential prophet. This is a Hindu perspective and also my perspective."
I agree. Your point is "potential to become..." In spiritual path this is the basic concept. Spiritual path knows no religion. A religion is restrictive in nature. Exceptions are religions like hinduism, buddhism etc. which do not put restrictive pre-conditions. For example, hinduism holds:
This self cannot be obtained by instruction, nor by intellectual power, not even through much hearing. He is to be attained only by the one whom the [self] chooses. To such a one the self reveals his own nature. [Katha Upanishad-1.2.23 & Mundaka Upanishad-3.2.3] and,
Vashishta: She [Sucika] had gained direct knowledge of the supreme causeless cause of all by her own examination of intelligence within her. Surely, direct enquiry into all the movements of thought in one's own conciousness is the supreme guru or preceptor, O Rama and no one else. [Yoga Vashista-III-74/28]
Every clergy-controlled religion will by nature reject anything that remotely denies the "authority" of the clergy. Now if the clergy can claim that they are the sole mouth-pieces of their prophets/messiahs etc, I see no problem is saying that everybody else has the potential to become great seers and masters. It should be remembered that after the prophets/messiahs who moved human civilisation there have been several great masters upto this day. Only we don't call them Prophet/Messiah!
Nisargadutta used to say" I AM" is the only Reality, everything else is assumption or false. Science looks outward for the answer to Universe, spiritualism looks inward for the answer. This is the only difference I see. Strangely enough since 20th Century on scientists also are turning to the spiritual view. "Tao of physics" or "Dancing Wu-li Masters" for example. Love & God Bless.
Hi Samst, Good to see old friends like you again. I thought I may never come back to beliefnet..but I guess it got into my DNA a little.
Arjun, it is true that every human is potentially divine but that does not mean every human has the same capacity. The best analogy that I can think of is this: every human can in theory become a Physicist but can all of them become Einsteins? I think not.
Gangajal
Gangajal...The larger point I was making is that God is operating at many levels big and small through the famous and the not-so-famous , directly and indirectly and without the artificial man made boundaries of organized religion...even atheists/agnostics (e.g. Bhagat Singh) can be highly spirtualy evolved. Man made boundaries and hierarchies of organized religion are just the delusionary play (Maya) of the divine in my view.
Nice to see you on a Hindu thread for a change. :)
If you were to reveal words that would move hundreds of millions of people to obey and to study them for over a thousand years, I would probably be persuaded to believe you're a Prophet of God as well.
I have no rational reason to demote the handful of individuals in world history that have influenced mankind to the above-mentioned extent, into the lesser categories of great social reformers, politicians, mystics, philosophers and sages.
With kind regards,
LilWabbit
Hi Lilwabbit, Good to see you here. Actualy I had made this post in the Islamic forum..but my new friend Miraj decided it did not belong there and moved it here :)
Any how as to your question about moving thousands of people...There are two things to consider.
1. At its root, many Hindus believe the divine is a transdential entity..i.e. we cannot make assumptions that a transdential enity works via the classical method humans assume he will work with i.e. sending messages via famous Prophets...A transdential divine entity is operational in infinite number of ways throughout the Universe in our view..
2. Its also likely that atleast some of the wisdom ariticulated by the "famous big-time" prophets was actualy learned either conciesly or unconciesly from other not so famous and ordinary people who happend to be highly spiritualy evolved but not famous.
Thats the way natural processes work in all spheres of human activity in my view and the spiritual domain is no exception.
Regards
Arjun
Hi there, bro!
It is my understanding that within Hinduism there are also different schools of thought on this issue. There are the more "theistic"/"dualistic" schools (dvaita theology), if you will, believing Brahman is not the same as Atman, and He only reveals/manifests Himself through designated avatars (Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Kalki, etc.). And then there are those like yourself who believe God is Atman/Universal Self and everyone potentially has direct access to it by striving to attain moksha. Am I mistaken?
With kind regards,
LilWabbit
"The whole universe is but a handful of clay in His grasp."
