Eastern and Western approaches to Theism - Split from "East Coast gathering."

Haribol,

Yea, that's interesting. That's about how it went for me. I never got the answers in Christianity and Islam about the forms and pastimes of the Lord. So then I explored Western new-age monism, then went Eastern, and although I think was attracted to Krishna katha all along, I started in the world of mayavadi and all the diiferent advaita gurus around these days. Till ending up in Vaishnavism..

Now I would have to think that the three big religions, JCI, were meant for a time, place and circumstance similar to Shankara's mayavad, except in this case was to bring a non-vedic theism. To me, JCI is personal but underdeveloped.

Supposedly there is a Bhavisya Purana that foretells Jesus and Muhammad. And the bringing of a mleccha dharma to West during Kali Yuga. Unless that is just a Iskcon thing, lol. Please forgive any offenses.

Your Servant

What I was trying to say is that Indian theism grows out of a milieu where monism is the main religious/philosophical idea. So certain presuppositions from the Upanishads, etc., are assimilated into Indian theism. Even metempsychosis arises out of a faith in sat-chit: If there is existence, there can not be not-existence. (Even a single 1 erases all zeros.) Similarly, the existence of consciousness, awareness of existence, eliminates all possibility of unconsciousness. Thus death is an illusion. na caivAham jAtu nAsam, etc.

And then Ananda (Anandamayo'bhyAsAt), which is the result of the interaction consciousness with the "Other." In material consciousness, that translates as senses with sense-objects; in higher levels of material consciousness, with other conscious entities. In even higher levels, it is interaction with the Brihat. (bhUmaiva sukham).

So, in India, it is really out of "speculation" on this element of Ananda that we arrive at the idea of a personal God. Monism has an inadequate explanation of ananda.

Anando brahmeti vyajAnAt | AnandAd dhy eva khalv imAni bhUtAni jAyante | Anandena jAtAni jIvanti | AnandaM prayanty abhisaMvizantIti | etc.(Taittiriya Upanishad 3.6.1)

The world of plurality exists out of Brahman's desire to experience bliss. Since the highest bliss comes out of love, Ananda means full personality, with body, senses, etc., even for God.

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The Judaeo-Christian point of departure is the "mysterium tremendum et fascinosum." The idea of a directed, teleological, historical creation, rather than one that is ever-existing. Thus everything begins with a personal creator God who interacts with the world.

Philosophical interaction with the Supreme Being thus takes on a different form than it did in India. In the west, the tendency has generally centered around trying to defend the existence of God against atheistic deconstruction.

These arguments (The ontological and cosmological arguments have equivalents in India, the teleological and others, like the pragmatic, etc., not) center the argument on whether there is a God or not. In India, the argument is "What kind of God?"

Many Western Vaishnavas seem to have a tendency to fall back into a Judaeo-Christian culturally conditioned debate about God, and approach Krishna as a kind of Yahweh equivalent or competitor.

This is of course a gross oversimplification of a huge topic. Forgive me. I am trying to go on a bit of a GD diet. So I am going to limit this post to here.

Does it? Seems to me that it goes from personal this-worldy (vedic hyms) to sometimes impersonal/sometimes personal (upanishads), then the impersonal Buddhism, etc. and then finally back to personal, only in a new way which transcends the first two...

I would also wonder... while the theologians and philosophers were debating as to whether God is a person or a non-person or whatever... what were the common people doing? What was the religion of the people, even when Buddhist impersonalism was dominant? How about Buddha bhakti (which is probably not something the early Buddhists would've liked) and such things?

Anyway, I didn't read the original post, but going to try to find it now. Gonna check it out...

Yes very true Jagatji,This impersonalism -personalism east vs west views has always been one of my favorite subjects so I could not help but jump on this. I guess thats why it was easier to debate a mayavadi in a chat then a christian or atheist because as you said its whether or not theres a God at all in west.So it takes on whole other texture because both the christian and atheist is thinking in those terms usually of a ex nihilio type creation.

I know the idea that the Supreme Lord himself did not directly create this material world but a demigod and that we the jiva were never actually created but are eternal, never sat well with western theists.