don't listen to the edgelords, being nice is the coolest thing to be

ultimately it is the pro-death who will perish first, materially and spiritually.

also, this is what i mean when i say the account of the BP *reads* as being highly adulterated. this is like the puranic example of "and then the whole bus clapped" making an account immediately dubious of embellishment.

I havent addressed this issue with the book because its so frequent as to make me complacent, but there are so many times when Krishna is described in ways not befitting the Supreme Lord He is extolled as being. I'm not just talking about the obvious issue of His conduct, but rather about Him being described as "realizing" or "planning" or thinking/feeling certain childish things as a young child. basically what i seek is a treatment like the Adhyatma Ramayana, where for example Rama is explicitly described as searching for Sita despite always knowing where she is, playing at being a mortal. tulsidas's rendition is similar.

erm actually, evil demons have their powers by birth or by sorcery or by horrible austerities (the latter only grants boons that are curses), not by yogic achievement. if they had success in yoga, they would quickly no longer be evil.

this guy says "impersonalists" (advaita vedantins) only gain beatitude by realizing identity with Gods "bodily effulgence". what nonsense. and he doesn't mean it in a sri vaishnava way where the souls are metaphorically the body of God, he seemingly means to say that impersonal Brahman is not an aspect of Para Brahman but is quite literally the radiance of Gods true human form. how silly.

lots of vaishnavas admit that Lord Shiva is Vishnu and Shiva's abode is equal to Vishnu's abode, or otherwise they admit Shiva is eternal like Bhagavan. but this author calls Shiva a demigod akin to Brahma. typical sectarianism.

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

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.

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.

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.