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Aaron Admin
Number of posts : 1919 Age : 52 Location: : Connecticut Registration date : 2007-01-24
| Subject: Maya Sat Aug 22, 2009 11:33 pm | |
| I just came across the concept of Maya the other day and feel that it's very much compatible with Panendeism. From wikipedia... - Quote :
- Maya, in Indian religions, has multiple meanings. Maya, is the principal concept which manifests, perpetuates and governs the illusion and dream of duality in the phenomenal Universe. For some mystics this manifestation is real, but it is a fleeting reality; it is a mistake, although a natural one, to believe that Maya represents a fundamental reality or Truth. Each person, each physical object, from the perspective of eternity is like a brief, disturbed drop of water from an unbounded ocean. The goal of enlightenment is to understand this — more precisely, to experience this: to see intuitively that the distinction between the self and the Universe is a false dichotomy. The distinction between consciousness and physical matter, between mind and body, is the result of an unenlightened perspective.
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Gnomon Moderator
Number of posts : 660 Location: : Birmingham, Alabama Registration date : 2007-09-30
| Subject: Re: Maya Sun Aug 23, 2009 7:48 pm | |
| - Quote :
- I just came across the concept of Maya the other day and feel that it's very much compatible with Panendeism.
I just posted an item on the Positive Deism forum related to the Hindu teaching that our reality is actually an illusion. In my emerging Panendeist worldview, our material universe is, from G*D's perspective, nothing more than a dream---an immaterial conceptual flow; a mind movie. What we perceive as physical is ultimately metaphysical---the realm of mind. Although I find the Maya metaphor useful, I don't necessarily buy all of the other aspects of the Hindu philosophy. And anything I say about ultimate reality is of course only a metaphor anyway. Perhaps the easiest way for a Western mind to conceptualize the illusory nature of reality is to follow the Powers of Ten* procedure right on down to the sub-atomic level. As you zoom in on a leaf, it looks like solid matter. But as you continue on down to the atomic level the view looks remarkably like outer space, with more nothing than something. At the quark level though, the artist's conceptualization looks misleadingly grainy even though a quark has no known sub-components. Quarks are mathematical constructs that may or may not have any material reality. Is that realistic leaf ultimately made of nothing more than the "fig-leaf-ment" of a mathematician's imagination? * http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/index.html | |
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Uriah
Number of posts : 536 Age : 50 Location: : Tucson, AZ Registration date : 2007-10-11
| Subject: Re: Maya Sun Aug 23, 2009 11:57 pm | |
| I've often wondered how Western culture is going to reconcile Quantum discoveries with our decided Objectivist mentality.
At some point it will impossible for Science to keep spirituality out of the equation.
Last edited by Uriah on Mon Aug 24, 2009 1:28 pm; edited 1 time in total | |
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Aaron Admin
Number of posts : 1919 Age : 52 Location: : Connecticut Registration date : 2007-01-24
| Subject: Re: Maya Mon Aug 24, 2009 9:08 am | |
| It's like the picture on a television screen that looks like it's projected on the full window but is actually just one small beam of light moving back and forth at a rapid rate. The "fullness" of the picture is an optical illusion.
I think that the apparent "fullness" of the material world is a similar type of illusion. | |
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Grimli
Number of posts : 4 Age : 52 Location: : Ohio Registration date : 2011-12-06
| Subject: Re: Maya Tue Dec 06, 2011 12:59 am | |
| Hello all,
I came from the Gaudiya Vaishnavism tradition (a major monotheistic tradition, known academically as Vaishnavism or Sanatana Dharma, "the eternal religion." The core practice is bhakti (devotion) to God (Krishna). Although seen as a major strand of Hinduism, it is a transcendental and nonsectarian process of devotional (bhakti) yoga that can be harmonized with any theistic religious practice.) We were taught that Maya was illusional energy that covered the eternal spirit soul like dust covers a mirror and once one became enlightened we would be able (thru service) to remove the dust and see what we are eternally...a spirit soul in service to God.
Maya was/is a servant of God also and it is Her job to make us sincere. In Gaudiya Vaishnavism God Has a material energy and a spiritual energy and we are part of His eternal spiritual energy. Thus we are not our bodies and everything material is an illusion because it is not eternal. | |
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Aaron Admin
Number of posts : 1919 Age : 52 Location: : Connecticut Registration date : 2007-01-24
| Subject: Re: Maya Tue Dec 06, 2011 9:18 am | |
| Interesting. Welcome to the forum. | |
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Aaron Admin
Number of posts : 1919 Age : 52 Location: : Connecticut Registration date : 2007-01-24
| Subject: Re: Maya Tue Dec 06, 2011 10:29 am | |
| It's funny reading this thread back a few years after it was written, it took me a few minutes to understand what the hell I was talking about. | |
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Gnomon Moderator
Number of posts : 660 Location: : Birmingham, Alabama Registration date : 2007-09-30
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Aaron Admin
Number of posts : 1919 Age : 52 Location: : Connecticut Registration date : 2007-01-24
| Subject: Re: Maya Tue Dec 06, 2011 3:25 pm | |
| I think it was a reference to the "fully" lit up television screen and the limits of our apprehension of reality.
Anyway, I'm sure it made perfect sense at the time. | |
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