i greatly wish there were an account of Krishna's life as historically reliable as the gospels which very clearly convey Jesus's actual teachings and many of His deeds.

honestly, fuck this guy. you aren't going to win anyone to krishna consciousness by being an asshole.

i fucking hate the antiquated notion that the male contributes the seed of the new organism and the female germinates it in her womb. the female both contributes an equal amount of genetic material AND gestates the fetus. no one can deny she has vastly more of a share in reproduction, which for a man is wholly pleasurable and a woman is mostly quite painful and arduous.

this book just gets more and more awful

so basically, even if you believe that Shiva is a great demigod and not a form of the Supreme Lord, it is foolish to say he lives on this and that mountain, though not foolish to say such a place is holy because of its association with Him.

i've spoken about my belief on types of higher planes before here https://netzsphaere.xyz/notice/B6oYRxg1yXRRwJ8zGy (i should rehash my belief about lower planes because i've lost that post) but on the same subject the buddhists are correct that these worlds can be divided into a hierarchy of three with pleasurably sensuous worlds of form at the bottom, then sense-desire-less worlds of form, then arupa worlds where non-liberated saints and the highest devas are.

note: i believe His body is pure sattva guna, although obviously to monists, sattva guna is Brahman too

its a bit funny how Krishna is considered to be simultaneously less and more human than Jesus. while his body and mind are pure Brahman, and he is not a hypostasis, His activities are much more human.

its silly to say powerful jinn are real but not the celestials/devas.

its a pet peeve of mine when were told about people's past lives and they deliberately have the same sex and very similar role as they used to. "in your past life you were married to eachother just as you are now, and just as you are now you are the husband and she is the wife." why no gender swap? its silly to say so incessantly that the body is not the self and then to treat the soul as gendered in this way.

what i was seeking from this book is a better more beautiful less egregious (in places) srimad bhagavatam, but instead i got a very plain much less moving retelling with added dogma from his sampradaya that often veers into polemics and despite being modern is unabashedly casteist and sexist (like the SB!). the illustrations are quite lackluster and some of it departs from the text of the purana, no doubt influenced by whatever his guru said about the "true meaning" or "what actually happened".

obviously, the only way to return to God is through Gods grace. yoga is the greatest means by which grace is received. it is actually infinite grace, because only infinite karma could merit obtaining infinite bliss and infinite beatitude.

vaisnavas be like "we can never become God through any discipline, but we can be Gods mother and father through dharmic conduct and austerities".



muslims in the chat:

another hot take on vedanta, this one should be obvious. i hate when devas/celestials are called rulers of the senses. while powerful beings can influence the senses, and have higher knowledge about what we experience, only Vishnu is enshrined within the heart and experiences all that we do. the only Lord of the senses is Hrishikesha.

@Hyperhidrosis huge if true

it makes little sense to me to concieve of a vaisnavite kingdom of heaven (vaikuntha, goloka) as being 100 percent made of Brahman and blissful people in realized identity with Brahman but also full of various different and changing/moving things, like diverse bodies made of Brahman, wish-granting trees, surabhi cows. how terrestrial! (of course, they say the terrestial takes after the celestial not vise versa, but this is silly). Brahman is one thing and all things, but its not discrete. this is different from christians who call heaven "a holy place pervaded by Gods presence." i mean, anything is possible with God but "anything is possible with God" esp as it relates to the jivas is called "maya". so there would have to be maya at play in the highest abode. theres a lot of assumptions i'm making and assumptions theyre making to support their views, but oh well.

@lait-accompli i have had so many skin problems but right now my skin is aight

@Saorsa so true!!

@georgia agreed. Maya is Lila and inherently the divine actions of the Lord/Lady(same thing). Somewhere deep down is the knowledge we are actors and through jnana, bhakti, and raja we can strive for this realization.
Even though I'm discussing this realization I don't quite understand it. Just like the way that somebody describing basketball, but has never played basketball wouldn't properly understand how to play it.

@lait-accompli yes but i have brown eyes unfortunately