Belindi wrote: ↑August 26th, 2019, 5:38 am
GaryLouisSmith wrote:
Yes, Hinduism has a hierarchy of deities, though that hierarchy keeps transmogrifying and inverting and turning inside out. It's like a torus strip. In Tantra, the most popular form of Hinduism here in Nepal and Northeast India, it is Kali that is beyond even Brahman. See what I wrote to Greta below.
"Turning itself inside out" It's like a torus strip." : e.g. Atman is Brahman.
The supreme and only deity in monotheism can and does intervene in history to change history when it suits the god to do so. This is not what the gods in Eastern philosophies do, they are impersonal and closer to philosophy than the theists' deity. I think this is why a lot of people took up eastern religion/philosophy in the 1960s, because people rebelled against the old authority of the momotheist God.
Krishna is personified, for instance in sacred dancing, but is unlike Christ because Krishna did not atone for sins. By the way, Gary, what if any is the concept of sin in Tantra? Is there any system for atoning for sins either an ndividual's sins or a society's sins?
"Nature ------ red in tooth and claw" . Is an approximation of Kali perhaps?
You have asked a very interesting question about sin in Tantra. All of Hinduism and Buddhism has the Law of Dharma or Dhamma. One must follow Dharma to be a good Hindu or Buddhist. It’s rather complicated. Tantra is all about gaining Shakti, power. The way to do that is to violate the Law of Dharma. Without “sinning” or violating the law you will never have power. A Tantrik on a moonless night will go to a cremation ground. Remember that a corpse is unclean and you should not touch it or what it has touched. There he must drink wine, eat meat and fish and what is probably fermented barley. And he must have sex with a low caste whore ingesting her menstrual blood. All those things are unclean, forbidden. Then he will receive Power, Shakti.
Hinduism has a very elaborate system of laws that govern all of life. And the rituals that must be performed to rid oneself of the pollution one gets from violating that law are equally elaborate. A lot of it has to do with doing something unclean, like letting an untouchable enter your house.
Krishna is an interesting fellow. When he was 15 years 8 months and 6 days old he performed the Rasa Lila. He was in the forest and he started to play his flute. All of the married women in the area were entranced and went to him. There he had sex with all of them behind sand dunes by the river. Then later when the women were afraid that their husbands and families would come for them, he assured them that he had strong muscles and he could stop them. Also the forest was full of tigers and serpents. They were safe; he assured them. Naturally Hindu pundits have had a problem with that story, because a woman should not abandon her duty to her husband and children. So what they theorized is that all those lovers of Krishna were just Krishna himself. He had fallen into lust for himself and he became many. Today at some temples there are boys who dress in drag and wait at night for Krishna to come to then and make love. Hindu pundits have a marvelous way with logic.
- By Cathal
- By Thomyum2