its funny when christians poke fun at islam for being a newer faith and theyre literally protestants

why am I wired

Thomas's big-eared brown bat (Histiotus laephotis)

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dont get me wrong theres a lot I actually like about the monism-lite vaishnava sampradayas (sri vaishnavism and the pushtimarga sect and to a lesser extent gaudiyas), but one of my qualms is that serving God forever in a kingdom of heaven just feels like a fanciful eternal end "somewhere else" to an all-to similar (having a body and residence and role in both) temporary material existence "here". I believe that only God is eternal and unchanging and has no abode being omnipresent and incorporeal, and thus to transcend life and rebirth is to merge into God. I dont see this being necessarily in opposition to what I call monism-lite either, because the dependent parts or emanations one with the emanator can return into the supreme whole. but yes, I find vishishtadvaita and shuddhadvaita both very intellectually stimulating, interesting and compelling ideas about the relationship of God to souls and matter. the sri vaishnava concept that the souls are atomic parts of God which en masse and together with prakriti form Gods "body" is quite neat and reminds me of sabellianism (according to johann lorenz von mosheim according to wikipedia). perhaps even neater is the similar pushtimarg idea that everything is a part of Krishna, and nothing is illusory but all is an authentically real expression of God without being covered by maya. of course, I disagree with this, as my form of monism is closest to kashmir shaivism, but its very neat.

suya

qualified monists be like "the sparks come from the fire but they NEVER merge back into it"

he's big on saying "God never changes so we can't become God", but that's not the purport of true monists. we simply believe that everything is God aka all is pure consciousness, including us, and temporary conditioned existence in samsara is due to maya.

take that mimamsakan

this guy says he's a madhva-gaudiya but some of his views are strikingly like qualified monism

man i forgot that the bhagavata purana is written like this

this author is so insufferable

this book hasn't done much in terms of educating me, all its done is produced some banger hinduposts

damn that was kind of an effortpost

what a silly thing to call a high blunder! he is overplaying his hand here regarding sankara. i haven't read enough sankara but yes sankara would have believed in an unmanifest material creation that precedes manifest material creation. this is just pradhana, the essential undifferentiated root of prakriti which is co-eternal with purusha (purusha and prakriti are one, but lets be a dualist for a bit. samkhya 101). and if he said krishna transcends the unmanifest (sankara believed that nirguna brahman, attributeless and non-dual, is the ultimate true form of Brahman but he did certainly believe in a personal God/Ishvara and wrote quite stirring hymns and stotrams to Vishnu, Shiva and Devi. he just viewed a personal God as God viewed through the influence of maya, hence the term "mayavada". i don't believe this, i don't believe God is ultimately impersonal, i believe He is both impersonal and personal and transcends the duality of both.) sankaras just stating the obvious here. imo Krishna is God, He is Lord of and transcends pradhana which still lies as a potency "within Him" when the universe ceases to exist. just because sankara viewed Ishvara (a personal God with qualities and with a role of creating, maintaining, and destroying the universe) as a product of mayas illusion upon the jiva doesn't mean he should have necessarily viewed the root of material nature (also a product of maya, but then everything except Para Brahman is seen as maya in advaita vedanta) as on par with Ishvara. in other, somewhat reductive words, krishnas form is made of the most good "matter", but his being transcends it, being Para Brahman (as seen through the lens of maya). to explain further, sankara believed that Krishna and other avataras have bodies made of sattva guna, the view criticized by the author. this is in line with his belief that Ishvara is an illusory view of nirguna brahman conditioned by sattva guna.

i honestly don't see why viewing Gods being as transcendent and his form when he descends as material is so offensive. in guna theory, Gods form is still very special, because all matter is either a combination of gunas or in the case of the flesh human body, mostly composed of tamas guna with some rajas and sattva. only akasha (ether/space/sky, often compared to Brahman, i can explain why if youre curious) is mostly sattvic, and Gods form is said to be entirely sattvic, despite it being physical and tangible (when He wants it to be). so clearly, Gods form is special! why the outrage???

this is so silly. "God LITERALLY is a cowherd boy dark like a beautiful monsoon cloud with a peacock feather on his head". God has no "true form!" He/She takes many forms, whether created by Himself to educate humanity about His nature or in forms approved by Him that are dear to His worshippers.

i find this view of final beatitude to be incoherent. "being fit for liberation means realizing identity with Brahman" (strange for a madhvavada, because madhva said only vishnu is Brahman). this is true. however, he goes on to say that after identity with Brahman is realized, through devotional service (bhakti/seva), one attains eternal residence in vaikuntha/goloka, where one merely "associates" with God, ie is separate from Him. so are we Brahman, or separate from Brahman? also, note how he says "they don't fall down" and also "if they fall down".