/lit/ - Literature

>>15821918
Schopenhauer, and then Nietzsche.

>>15821993
I don't read old dead white men

>>15821918
How's Advaita Vedanta nihilism?

>>15822009
ok sorry good luck pal, hope you find what you're looking for.

>>15822038
thanks friend I appreciate the thought

>>15822033
why because the idea that atman is identical to brahman is the same as universal voidness of course

>>15822033
Advaita Vedanta is memed on here by a single hipster who thought that Buddhism was too mainstream.

Actual Hindus view it as nihilistic atheism even greater than Buddhism, as Buddhism allows for gods and demons and spirits, it just argues that they aren't top of the line. It denies God (Brahman) in the sense of saying that even God (Brahman) is subject to Samsara, but God (Brahman) can still be there. Advaita totally annihilates the personhood and mind of God in favor of constructing a purely mechanical being that's only there to solve a few metaphysical problems. It's basically Spinozism, but for Hinduism ("okay God is real but he's really just an unthinking impersonal mechanism"). You can't talk to God, he doesn't talk back, he can't talk, he can't do anything except a very small handful of things (namely exist).

This goes completely counter to orthodox Hinduism where God is very real, very active, very personal, and does many many things. It also goes completely counter to the orthodox Hindu belief that you cannot achieve moksha in this life (you have to be reborn to have union with God), whereas Advaita Vedanta believes you can get it now, in this life. This totally denies the Hindu idea of karma and reincarnation in a way that's completely illogical, whereas Hindus accept that the Buddhist idea of rebirth and karma are totally logical, they just believe that they're wrong (Buddhist enlightenment is stepping outside of the wheel of karma entirely, Hindu enlightenment is achieving a final reincarnation to perfection within karma, Advaita Vedanta mashes them together inconsistently).

>>15822088
Orthodox Hindus also reject the entirely textual basis for Advaita's claims, as Advaita Vedanta is based around the works of Shankara, who was basing his works around commentaries on the Upanishads from between the first and fifth centuries AD. This is totally inconsistent with the rest of Hinduism, which holds that not only are the gods and beings mentioned in the Upanishads real, but more importantly that their interpretations are correct (there are many, many, MANY interpretations of these texts, Shankaras are not the one ones by far). This is sort of a pedantic point, but it's worth pointing out that the majority of Hindus reject the Advaita Vedanta claim that all the Upanishads are ACTUALLY leading to Shankara. I've seen this claim made here that all Hindus accept this, which is just flat out wrong. Like, bafflingly wrong.

The orthodox Hindu line on Buddhism is that Shiva made it so atheists would get hoodwinked into practicing a religion, realize it was dumb, and then come back to Hinduism. When that turned out not to work, Shiva made Advaita Vedanta, a doctrine so shockingly dumb that it would make people realize that Hinduism was correct and any attempts at logic and reason would either lead back to Hinduism, or would produce results so worthless that you would return to Hinduism anyways.

So, OP, really, if you don't want Buddhism OR Advaita Vedanta (within the context of Eastern Religion), just go find a Hinduism 101. Hell, go find your nearest Krishna Center and ask for literature, they'll load you up.

Nagajurna is based BASED

>>15821918
This stems from the confusion of Hinduism with Buddhism
Hinduism and Mahyana, ZEN, Vajaryana are a monistic Universalism: the totality exists and nothing else. There is no multiplicity, everything is absolutely identical. THis is qualified of ''acosmatic''
They mix this view with a huge amount of symbols, incantations, rituals, worship, idolatry, mantras, deities, chanting,entertainment with lengthy Scriptures with thousands of verses, sacrifice and sacred objects, and rules for lay people in order to create a religion.
For the Hindus and mahyanaists, people have the knowledge that they have a true nature, but people are misguided on what they take as their true nature. This is why the Hindus say that people are already enlightened, they just do not know about it... The true nature of people is not the 5 senses or their objects, but the mind itself with theworld [loka] itself identified with the cosmos, or their deification of this, ie their Brahma or their Buddha or non-duality, and when people realize this they are enlightened. The way to realize this is by relying on lots of sacrifice, chantings and rituals, also on material objects which magically purify the minds for them, like sounds, logic, mantras, little beads, amulets.

It is only when there is a alledgedly good creator [a god or just ''nature''] that it makes sense to ask the usual question ''why the cosmos produce things which do not know that they are the cosmos?'' ie ''why some good god did not get people to be born directly enlightened? instead of being born unenlightened which produces lots of suffering?''
So far the Hindus have no answer to this ''problem of evil''. The Hindus keep replying with their main thesis, ie ''because people do not know their true nature, which is pure being and cannot be described'' and that's their answer...
in Buddhism, there is no non-duality, people do not have a true nature, people are not the cosmos, people are not Brahma, people do not come from Brahma, people are not nibanna, people do not come from nibanna, people are not Buddha, people do not come from a buddha, people are not their mind, people are not loka, people are not born already enlightened. In Buddhism there is only craving for pretty things and the pretty ideas of having ''a true nature'' and there is a lack of craving for pretty things and pretty ideas. People get enlightened when they stop craving for those. The way to get enlightened is to purify the mind, however not with useless incantations and rituals nor with magical objects, unlike the Hindus do, but with the mind itself, ie all the time inclining [with the mind] the mind towards what the buddha calls good qualities and then directly knowing the mind as it really is, which is anicca, dukkha, anatta [contrary to what the hindus say], which is the condition for dispassion, dispassion which is the condition for liberation, liberation which is the condition for direct knowledge that dukkha is ended.

>>15822124
I should add, part of the reason Hindus believe this about Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta is the timing. The Buddha lived somewhere between 400-500BC. Shankara (>800AD) was writing commentaries of commentaries made varyingly between 100AD to 500AD. Orthodox Hindus hold that their doctrines were established thousands of years before this, I've seen the figure 2000BC thrown around so let's just go with that (it doesn't really matter, because it's before writing anyways). So if Shankara was correct and the Advaita Vedanta position is just so clearly obvious, and all Hindu scripture is so obviously leading to this, why did it take so long to figure it out? This is part of why Hindus say that Advaita Vedanta is atheistic nihilism, because the reason Hinduism is right is that God(s) said so, proving their existence, in ancient times. Advaita Vedanta denies the possibility of this, and sort of has to based on the timeline (the denial of the personhood of the divine means the Gods literally cannot say that Advaita Vedanta was correct, because they can't say anything at all). So, in order to save Shankara, you have to give up the Gods, and because all moral objectivity and objective truth is based on the existence of God(s), and because you're denying God(s), you're also denying moral authority and objective truth, therefore, atheism and nihilism.

>>15822050
Brahman isn't the same as universal voidness because Brahman in Advaita is eternal Bliss-Conciousness that forever peacefully resides in Itself.

>>15822088
>Advaita Vedanta is memed on here by a single hipster who thought that Buddhism was too mainstream.
No I like it because it makes more sense than Buddhism, which is completely illogical, Shankara correctly writes about Buddhism in his Sutra Bhasya "From whatever new points of view the Buddha's system is tested with reference to its probability, it gives way on all sides, like the walls of a well, dug in sandy soil. It has, in fact, no foundation whatever to rest upon and hence the attempts to use it as a guide in the practical concerns of life are mere folly."

>Advaita totally annihilates the personhood and mind of God in favor of constructing a purely mechanical being that's only there to solve a few metaphysical problems.
Just because a Deity is non-anthropomorphic does not make it mechanical

>This goes completely counter to orthodox Hinduism where God is very real, very active, very personal, and does many many things.
No it doesn't, the Upanishads mention both a higher and a lower Brahman and when talking about the higher Brahman the Upanishads describe It with such terms as 'unchanging' 'pure intelligence' 'undifferentiated' etc

>It also goes completely counter to the orthodox Hindu belief that you cannot achieve moksha in this life (you have to be reborn to have union with God),
This is not a belief of "orthodox Hinduism" but the Upanishads themselves discuss attaining moksha in this life such as in Brihadaranyaka .4.4.23. - "Evil does not overcome him, but he overcomes all evil. Evil does not afflict him, but he
consumes all evil. He becomes sinless, taintless, free from doubts and a true Brahmana. This is the World of Brahman, O Emperor and you have attained It."

>This totally denies the Hindu idea of karma and reincarnation in a way that's completely illogical, whereas Hindus accept that the Buddhist idea of rebirth and karma are totally logical,

1) Reincarnation/Transmigration and Karma are not Buddhist ideas but appear first in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads like the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads from the 8th-7th centuries BC and then they were copied by Buddhism.
2) Advaita Vedanta does not deny karma and transmigration at all but they are taught as part of it, do you even know what you are talking about at all?

>>15822124
>Advaita Vedanta is based around the works of Shankara, who was basing his works around commentaries on the Upanishads from between the first and fifth centuries AD.
Incorrect, Shankara wrote commentaries on much older Upanishads including the pre-Buddhist ones from the 8th-7th centuries BC, some of his longest and most in-depth commentaries are on the pre-Buddhist Upanishads

>that Shiva made it so atheists would get hoodwinked into practicing a religion,
Wrong, it was Vishnu who did that not Shiva. This story is from the Bhagavata Purana which is a smriti text and not a revealed scripture anyway, it's not an axiomatic view of "orthodox hinduism"

>>15822166
>This is part of why Hindus say that Advaita Vedanta is atheistic nihilism, because the reason Hinduism is right is that God(s) said so, proving their existence, in ancient times. Advaita Vedanta denies the possibility of this, and sort of has to based on the timeline (the denial of the personhood of the divine means the Gods literally cannot say that Advaita Vedanta was correct, because they can't say anything at all)
This is not true, Advaita still says that the various Gods are created through Brahman's maya and that Narayana can incarnate as Krishna through his power of maya etc, which is literally what it says in the Gita, "Although I am unborn, the Lord of all living entities, and have an imperishable nature, yet I appear in this world by virtue of Yogmaya, my divine power." - Bhagavad-Gita 4.6

>you're also denying moral authority and objective truth, therefore, atheism and nihilism.
No it's not you dumbass, Advaita doesn't deny the Gods anyways but says that they are transient creations of Brahman, but the moral order in Advaita does not come from individual Gods but things like Dharma, righteousness, the caste system and ashramas are all viewed as ordained by Brahman, it has nothing to do with atheism and nihilism

>>15822146
>The true nature of people is not the 5 senses or their objects, but the mind itself with theworld [loka] itself identified with the cosmos, or their deification of this, ie their Brahma or their Buddha or non-duality,
wrong, the Atman is not the mind

> The way to realize this is by relying on lots of sacrifice, chantings and rituals, also on material objects which magically purify the minds for them, like sounds, logic, mantras, little beads, amulets.
Wrong, the Upanishads disparage rituals and instead say that knowledge of Brahman/the Self alone leads to liberation

>So far the Hindus have no answer to this ''problem of evil''.
Wrong, this has already been answered by Hindus centuries ago, It is Brahman's very nature to effortlessly create the world by wielding his power of maya just as it is the nature of the sun to emit light, and this for Brahman is equivalent to His divine disport.

>>15822322
>makes more sense than buddhism
>is an exact copy of buddhism
pick one

>>15821918
Nietzsche, the Antichrist.
carlos castaneda.
but you also need to love, appreciate, understand spiritual music, it is very important. discover AC/DC, Napalm Death, Morbid Angel. Uplifting trance.

>>15822385
The main teachings of Buddhism all appear first in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads (pic related) which is where Buddha obtained his teachings from. The Upanishad revelation of the 9th-7th century BC was very influential in the region, and Samkhya, Jainism and Buddhism all initially started as spin-offs of Upanishadic teachings. Buddhism then over the centuries degenerated into a bunch of confused schools propagating foolish ideas, but thankfully Shankara in the 8th century came in to deliver the region from nonsensical teachings by simultaneously exposing all the inherent contradictions of Buddhism while at the same time proving in his masterful exegesis's that the Advaita doctrine is and always has been the true doctrine of the Upanishads.

>>15822344
The problem you have is that you've internalized your own strawman. You're uninterested in what others believe, you just want to dunk on other people, so you make these weird opponents up that only exist in your head so that you can dunk on them.I explained what Orthodox Hindus believe, and you jump down my throat about how this weird strawman you've constructed in your head is what I actually believe (I'm not a Hindu). Why? Nobody is going to convert to your weird heresy if you keep demonstrating that you're a dumb asshole. Why would anyone want to take anything you have to say seriously if you won't even listen to what they have to say? Why would anyone believe you're right if you can't even get what your opponents believe right? It just makes your opponents think even less of youm and baffles bystanders who see you talking past everyone. Every thread you fill with garbage ends the same: people laughing at you for your pride and ignorance.

You picked a religion so you could fling shit on the internet, you got retroactively refuted, and now you're mad. If you want to stop getting bullied, stop being shit.

>>15822420
>the buddhs was influenced by existing hindu philosophy
>therefore he, in 500BC, was stealing ideas from a dude who would be born 1300 years later
do you have any idea how dumb you sound?

>>15822421
>You're uninterested in what others believe, you just want to dunk on other people, so you make these weird opponents up that only exist in your head so that you can dunk on them.
No I'm not you retard. YOU were the one who posted multiple paragraphs of blatantly incorrect information, all I did was call out and correct the numerous errors in your posts.

Why is it that when someone points out all the incorrect information that you write, that your first response is to try to pathologize the person who corrected you instead of admitting that you were wrong?

perez is better than bot and ham on the same car

>>15822448
>do you have any idea how dumb you sound?
In that picture are cited the numerous passages from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and Chandogya Upanishads (8th-7th century BC) where all the key tenets of Buddhism appear first before Buddha taught them. The natural conclusion to be drawn is that Buddha obtained them from the Upanishads, he may have not even known they were from the Upanishads and may have just heard some ascetic somewhere teaching lessons from them but its quite clear that many of Buddha's teachings are just repeating what the Upanishads were saying centuries earlier.

I'm not saying that Buddha stole ideas from Shankara who lived later, but I'm saying that the pre-Buddhist Upanishads teach non-dualism, transmigration, karma, monasticism, abandoning desire, dis-identifying with the psycho-physical aggregate etc and many other teachings, and that these are all repeated a few centuries later in Buddhism, way too many of them for it all to just be a coincidence

>>15821918
views of an impersonal God can only lead to soulless nihilism. come home, western man. hinduism degenerated into buddhism and hinduism. imagine following the sect of a kshatriya

>>15821918
Read the Bhagavad Gita ASAP

>>15822512
buddhism and avaita*

>>15822512
>views of an impersonal God can only lead to soulless nihilism.
>come home, western man
Westernes arrived at the impersonal God conclusion too, so i don't get your point. (Unless you consider the christian subversion as western, in which case i have some bad news for you)

>>15822512
where do you suggest home is for me who is white? Christianity? I would need to know christian metaphysics.

>>15822322
>>15822564
>personhood is anthropomorphic
this is wrong

>I shall give only one example of this, but it is a crucial one—the possibility, for reason, of knowing that God is personal. I mean by this that he possesses preeminently the perfection that personality on the human level constitutes. Even the idea of impersonal mind is a contradiction. The person seems to be the supreme value on the human level, and therefore it must needs exist in God.

>This, then, is an essential truth; one is all the more struck by the fact that most philosophers have overlooked or misunderstood it. The Ancients seem hardly to have reached it. This is certainly true of Indian philosophy, which has never been able to bear the idea of divine transcendence; and if Plato or Plotinus glimpsed something of divine personality, they never expressed it clearly. It is after the revelation that philosophy was able to make this ultimate progress in the natural knowledge that it could have of God. “Theoretically,” writes Borne with justice, “reason could have risen by her own efforts to the notion of a personal God; but in fact it was necessary for her attention to be attracted by faith towards charity, in order that she might concern herself with what she already knew implicitly, that God is a person.”8

>Modern philosophers in their turn have stumbled against this idea. The pantheism of Spinoza, as well as the idealism of Hegel or Brunchvicg, deny the impersonality of a God subsisting apart from the world. All their difficulties derive from that of reconciling the infinity of the divine perfection with the limitation that seems to be implied by the notion of personality. “God the person and God the principle of unity exclude one another by all their characteristics,” says Parodi, “the former implying determinacy and singularity, the latter infinity and indeterminacy.”5 He could not have expressed more neatly the antinomy that was already a stumbling block to Plotinus. It results in the rejection of a personal God as an anthropomorphism; God is taken to be nothing but the supreme ideal principle of explanation.

>There is a duality, almost an antinomy, in the prevailing conception of God; for he is regarded from a twofold standpoint— that of metaphysics, in which he appears as the supreme principle of explanation and the center of intelligible unity; and that of morality and religion, in which God is, above all, the basis and guarantee of human values, with whom man enters into spiritual communion. I have maintained that here, in a certain sense, is to be found the contrast between Hellenism and Judaism.

1/-

>But it seems to us that such a distinction is unacceptable, founded as it is upon the idealist conception of philosophy, which eliminates from the field of metaphysics any consideration of existences, in order to concentrate on intelligibility, on the essence of things. It is abundantly clear that such a philosophy could not admit the idea of a person, which is a perfection of the existential concrete order. But that is an undue mutilation of metaphysics, whose aim is to know beings in all that they require for existence, that is, at the same time in their nature and in their substance. The distinction between God the Person and the God of Nature leads finally to a distinction between two modes of attribution of the divine perfections, those indeed which St. Thomas distinguishes at the beginning of the Summa: “De Deo loquentes utimur nominibus concretis ut significemus ejus subsisten-ciam, quia apud nos non subsistunt nisi composita, et utimur nominibus abstractis, ut significemus ejus simplicitatem.” 11 Subsistência, simplicitas, personality, unity—these are the very terms of the antinomy presented above by Parodi, and it is here that we see them resolved.

>In opposition to M. Le Roy, who declares that “pure philosophy is not required to demonstrate any reality with regard to divine personality”,12 we hold with Maritain that “metaphysics knows demonstrably that the divine essence subsists in itself as infinite personality”.6 If in fact human reason did not already know divine personality before the revelation, it could nevertheless arrive at it by its own resources, it already knew it implicitly. In this matter, as in others, revelation led metaphysics to the discovery of truths that were new, but that none the less were strictly metaphysical.

>To understand this, we must first of all make it clear in a general way what are the constituents of this perfection of personality that we claim to attribute to God. In fact it is in the very idea that they have of “person” that for many people the real difficulty lies, when it is a question of giving this name to God. “Person” is conceived by them in an anthropomorphic manner, as something essentially finite; how, on that basis, are they to avoid contradicting the divine infinity? For if, in spite of everything, God is to be regarded as a person, they would have, with Renouvier, to make him a finite being. Le Roy puts the antinomy as follows: “Either we shall define the word ‘personality’ and so fall into the pit of anthropomorphism, or we shall leave it undefined and fall into the no less terrible pit of agnosticism.”

2/-

>I shall not insist on the error that lurks in identifying all “determinacy” (as Parodi did just now) or all “definition” (as Le Roy now does) with limitation. I shall turn without delay to the fundamental charge of anthropomorphism. What do I mean by this? If it is maintained that we ought not to picture God as a human person, with all the imperfections that personality implies in man, I shall be quite willing to agree. “But”, as Maritain rightly says, all that is laborious and complicated, all that is twisted round an inadequate center and based on an inadequa’te design, in the current usage of the word “personality”, the whole anthropomorphic burden that weighs the word down, refers uniquely to that in us which connects personality with individuality, and thus with material conditions. . . . We must deliver the idea of personality from this matrix, in order to grasp its transcendent value and its anoetic power.15

>If, on the other hand, by the charge of anthropomorphism we mean a refusal to the mind of the strict right to form positive notions of infinite being—starting with man, who is a finite being—when these notions do not imply any limitation, the criticism falls to the ground. In fact, between anthropomorphism, strictly understood, and agnosticism, there is a certain analogy. But, rightly considered, the main difficulty that the moderns find in comprehending divine personality is the intellectual contempt that makes them misunderstand the analogy and reject as anthropomorphic every effort aimed at knowing God through the medium of man. This is what Père de Grandmaison replied to M. Le Roy:

>Divine personality presents a difficulty if, as it seems, anthropomorphism is here inevitable, and if, in the desire to eliminate it, we risk depriving what we are saying of all precise meaning. It is true that we naturally model our distinct concept of a person on the ever-present reality that we are. But a more careful reflection reveals, beneath this anthropomorphic image which usually conceals them, certain features that do not necessarily imply the mode of human existence, and which surpass human limitations.16

3/-

>We have, therefore, the right to form our own idea of divine personality, beginning with the only personality we know, human personality, but on condition that we retain only its essential features, those that have analogical value and so justify the attribution of personality at once to God and the creature.

>Thus we can set aside the preliminary objection that sees in its attribution to God a form of anthropomorphism. We must say, on the other hand, that if, in the order of knowledge, it is on the basis of knowledge of human persons that we form our notion of divine personality, in the order of being it is to God that primarily and properly belongs the personality in which our inadequate human persons are only feeble participations. In fact, there is nothing in the concept of a person that indicates anything other than the perfection of being that is in itself at all the levels of knowledge which it implies.

Having said this, it remains for us to ask how the human mind can, by the sole light of intellect, rise to the knowledge of divine personality. The latter results from the absolute independence of God within being, from his aseity. In fact this being that necessarily exists, since it is necessary that there should be being which exists through itself, from the mere fact that it possesses existence in itself, is also necessarily a anthropomorphism. We must say, on the other hand, that if, in the order of knowledge, it is on the basis of knowledge of human persons that we form our notion of divine personality, in the order of being it is to God that primarily and properly belongs the personality in which our inadequate human persons are only feeble participations. In fact, there is nothing in the concept of a person that indicates anything other than the perfection of being that is in itself at all the levels of knowledge which it implies.

4/-

>Having said this, it remains for us to ask how the human mind can, by the sole light of intellect, rise to the knowledge of divine personality. The latter results from the absolute independence of God within being, from his aseity. In fact this being that necessarily exists, since it is necessary that there should be being which exists through itself, from the mere fact that it possesses existence in itself, is also necessarily a substance, because that is the very definition substantial being. It is even the most perfect of substances— since the independence in being that defines substance is not complete in created substances (which are always at the same time dependent), it could only be from being that they receive existence; while in being, which is a se, there is, on the contrary, absolute sufficiency within itself to exist, a total independence within being. It could not be a se without being, by the same token, in se. Every form of pantheism is hence excluded. The proper existence of the Creator is irreducibly distinguished from that which he communicates to his creature. Being subsists by essence in itself. “Ecce distinctio personalis: Ego sum qui sum.” 8 God can say “I”.

>We may notice, on the other hand, that the transcendence of a personal God is that of a spiritual and willing substance, one that not only subsists itself, but moreover perfectly possesses itself through the will and perfectly knows itself through the intellect; it is the transcendence of a being who can say “I”. It follows, as we have said, that the divine personality participates, to a sovereign degree, in the “dignity” that attaches to the person as such, and which seems the first thing that comes to mind in the current use of the word; a person is contrasted with a thing in that it has a right to a certain respect. Père de Grandmaison emphasizes this aspect when he defines the person as “a living, knowing, willing and loving ego whom one cannot, without doing him an injustice, treat as a thing, who cannot without revaluation be considered as such”.

>If human personality implies this dignity, it is abundantly clear that, insofar as God has not been conceded personality, there is at least one sense, that of spiritual substance, in which man is not transcended. If God is not a person and man is one insofar as he is a person, insofar as he judges and chooses, he escapes from the domain of God. Perhaps it would be necessary to seek here for the deep reason that causes the wise men of this world to be reluctant to acknowledge God as a person. In fact it is for this reason that God deserves, to an infinite degree, that respect which we owe to a person as such-—and which, in his case, is adoration. It is for this reason that we fundamentally depend on him, not only in the physical, but in the moral order as well. It is this—that it offends a person and violates the sacred rights of an infinite person—

[...]

bonus:

>Divine personality expresses, above all, the infinite abyss that separates God from his creature. God is sufficient to himself, the whole creation lies before him as pure nothingness, it adds nothing to what he already is. But to this first aspect there is added a second, which seems at first sight to contradict it: the very attribute that succeeds in making God inaccessible is at the same time the one that will permit us to enter into a relationship with him. “This sovereign personality”, says Maritain, “is at once that which removes Him farthest from us—the inflexible infinite stands face to face with me, a wretched mortal—and at the same time brings Him nearest to us, since the incomprehensible purity has a countenance, a voice, and has set me before it so that I may gaze upon Him, so that I may speak to Him and He to me.”

those who held that God is impersonal have been therefore extensively BTFO

>>15822632
>>>I shall give only one example of this, but it is a crucial one—the possibility, for reason, of knowing that God is personal.
god is a mental proliferation out of craving.

>>15822711
>those who held that God is impersonal have been therefore extensively BTFO
Honestly it mostly seemed like a bunch of empty rhetoric and circular appeals. I didn't see any good arguments against God being impersonal made there. If you really do think that he BTFO'd the idea then I would earnestly challenge you to summarize his reasons why in a few sentences. It seems like he actually spent most of that writing defending the idea of God being personal, rather than making any attack on God being impersonal. Underneath all the flowery rhetoric there is not much of substance being said.

>>15822512
>views of an impersonal God can only lead to soulless nihilism.
nonsense

>>15821918
Kashmir Shaivism

>>15822758
>>15822781
>>15822791
cope and hyperventilate pseuds

>>15822124
hey, I spotted this thread from the front page and as someone who was raised in iskcon from birth I feel like there is something to be said about the nihilism even in gauryiya vaishnavism.

that is that even though there are gods most of them are beaurcrats and the material world is just meant for suffering anyway. atleast in vaishnavism the end goal is basically rid yourself from the material attachment and that includes your persnality family and mind. the idea is that in following scripture properly in service of krishna you will transform your body and mind from material to trancendental into the ideal devotee for krishna. only then will krishna bring you out of the material world (to be clear this includes the 7 lower and upper worlds (swargaa lokh, basically judeo christian heaven) to join his cowherd vrindaan free from reincarnation

so the idea is to erase your personality and mind and body to go serve krishna for eternity to avoid suffering of the material world.

it seems pretty nihilistic to me but whatever im a depressed NEET codependent on my parents. I have no future here or on anther planet. just going to do whats easiest and stay alive for my parents and when they die I will probably kill myself. idgaf what happens after death meditation is pretty fucking stupid even if you kinda get into it. the most I got from these philosophy or religion is that the life is suffering and that seems to be holding up true, but idk what i am supposed to do with that info. the rest of this philosophy garbage just seems like a dog chasing its tail

>>15822808
You posted 6 posts worth of rhetoric and all I did was ask you to summarize why and how you think it BTFO'd the idea of an impersonal God, that's not coping it's asking you to explain yourself. I didn't find any argument of substance in there to respond to but if you want to try to form one out of it I would gladly respond in good faith.

>>15822820
>so the idea is to erase your personality and mind and body to go serve krishna for eternity to avoid suffering of the material world.
This is not what the Upanishads teach, instead the Upanishads teach that knowledge of the Self frees one from all sorrow and brings bliss, and that this is not for any other aim like serving Krishna but is simply done for its own sake so that one can be completely free and fulfilled.

>>15822821
guenondude, it already addressed the problem you raised about personhood being anthropomorphic. i don't know what else i could say. read carefully if you have time

>>15822711
you realize that buddha awoken, and reading all your long comments will put him back to sleep? now you do.

hold on wait so
wait
buddhism is
not good??

>>15822859
Defending the idea of God being personal is a different subject than attacking and attempting to refute the concept of God being impersonal. You wrote "those who held that God is impersonal have been therefore extensively BTFO" as if to imply that in that essay the writer attacked or offered a refutation of God being impersonal when he really didn't, and all he did was defend the idea of a personal God and defend the position that it's not inherently anthropomorphic. Simply defending God being personal does not do anything to BTFO those who hold that God is impersonal.

>>15822459
You're literally arguing that all Hindus agree with Shankara: that is wrong. That's just flat out wrong. That is so bafflingly wrong that you frankly doesn't even deserve a RETROACTIVE REFUTATION, you deserve to be mocked bullied for being such a dumbfuck. I explained why that's wrong.

See >>15822421. Take a second to reflect on yourself. You're never going to achieve Moksha at this rate.

>>15822877
to occupy stupid faggots who seek easy larping Buddhism is excellent.

>>15822877

Yes.

>"From whatever new points of view the Buddha's system is tested with reference to its probability, it gives way on all sides, like the walls of a well, dug in sandy soil. It has, in fact, no foundation whatever to rest upon and hence the attempts to use it as a guide in the practical concerns of life are mere folly. Moreover Buddha, by propounding the three mutually contradicting systems, teaching respectively the reality of the external world, the reality of ideas only and general nothingness, has himself made it clear that he was a man given to make incoherent assertions or else that hatred of all beings induced him to propound absurd doctrines by accepting which they would become thoroughly confused…Buddha’s doctrine has to be entirely disregarded by all those who have a regard for their own happiness."

Sri Shankaracharya - Brahma Sutra Bhasya 2.2.32.

>>15822892

>>15822884
>You're literally arguing that all Hindus agree with Shankara: that is wrong.
No I didn't you moron, I was only correcting all the false information in his post. Everyone who doesn't belong to the Advaita Vedanta school by default disagrees with Shankara in some way.

okay this is probably not the best thread to be asking this in given the ongoing piss-fit but
where to begin with vedanta?

>>15822896
why philosophers talk about reality when philosophy is not able to talk about reality?

>>15822846
I more meant strip away everything about oneself except the pure atman which is part of krishna's energy (you can ignore this if you don't play vaishnavism), scripture say that stripping away that which is material and accepting one's "true self" will bring happiness, but does it?

what exactly do you have to strip away until you have to find the spirit soul? greed? sex? attachment to other people, yourself, your loved ones?do you have to strip away everything that makes you human because being human itself is being attached?

what even is knowledge of ones self, where does ones true self stop and the material self begin some say that the true self is actually Ksirodakaśāyī Vishnu so there may not be any true self beyond Vishnu/krishna.

if the mind is not true and there is nothing about me this is true beyond this abstract concept of atman then whats the difference between nihilism and hinduism, call me too attached to the material world or whatever idc, I actually have nothing against nihilism, even if you argue that the true self has nothing to do with god or krishna or shiva or whoever, then what do you argue is your true self what is the meaningful line between what is "true" and what is material?

how much of yourself do you discard as not your true self?

in my opinion there is nothing about my life mind or body that is meaningful, there is no meaningful soul or god because I just don't think there is any meaning to find this defining line between what is true self and false self.

honestly I don't understand why religion was even created by god or man. it doesn't seem to ease the pain of existing.

maybe I am just saying this because I want to kill myself but whatever I dont give a fuck anymore.

>>15822933
A good place to start is the Ashtavakra Gita, which can be read online in 30 minutes, and you can read it with reading any other book or anything else first

https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita.html

The best way to understand Advaita Vedanta is to read through Shankara's works, I recommend beginning with his short Upanishad commentaries such as these ones below.

https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-Vol-1.pdf
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-vol2.pdf

Understanding Shankara's works requires a pretty good understanding of Hindu philosophical terminology though, and so if you haven't read much Indian stuff before I would recommend reading a book on Vedanta or general Indian philosophy before reading Shankara's works, such as "Advaita Vedanta a Philosophical Reconstruction" by Deutsch, "Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta" by Guenon, "The Essentials of Indian Philosophy" by Hiriyanna or "The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy" by Sharma

>>15822941
philosophers, metaphysicians and theologians ARE able to talk about reality though

>>15822820
you sound enlightened, teach me master

>>15822905
Motherfucker you literally just denied that Orthodox Hindus disagree with Advaita Vedanta. Anon wanted to know why Hindus think Advaita Vedanta is nihilism, and you sperged out about how Orthodox Hindus don't believe that.

>>15822820
I have no routines or personal history. One day I found out that they were no longer necessary for me and, like drinking, I dropped them. One must have the desire to drop them and then one must proceed harmoniously to chop them off, little by little. If you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts. It is best to erase all personal history because that makes us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people. I have, little by little, created a fog around me and my life. And now nobody knows for sure who I am or what I do. Not even I. How can I know who I am, when I am all this?
Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan

>>15822958
>what exactly do you have to strip away until you have to find the spirit soul? greed? sex? attachment to other people, yourself, your loved ones?do you have to strip away everything that makes you human because being human itself is being attached?
Yes in the teachings of Advaita you do. According to them you are not a human being but are Brahman. Being is a human being is basically a limitation you have imagined upon yourself. Dis-identifying with all these things is only meant for people who become monks/sannyasins though, people who still have householder lives with families and occupations are not supposed to strip away everything in the path of knowledge but are instead supposed to follow the paths of Karma-Yoga involving participating in the world while renouncing the fruits of one's actions and living life while remaining happily unattached to anything; or the path of Bhakti-Yoga involving constant mediation on the qualified Brahman as Vishnu, Shiva etc all throughout the day to produce happiness and fulfillment.

>what even is knowledge of ones self, where does ones true self stop and the material self begin
If you are observing something, that thing cannot be the observer. Since you observe your body and thoughts in consciousness, the body cannot be yourself, and the mind and the thoughts which reside in it cannot be yourself. The Self is the witnessing-consciousness in which everything else appears.

>if the mind is not true and there is nothing about me this is true beyond this abstract concept of atman then whats the difference between nihilism and hinduism, call me too attached to the material world or whatever idc,
Nihilism can mean that nothing exists or that there is no inherent meaning to anything. On both counts Advaita is not nihilistic since it says that Brahman exists forever as eternal Bliss-Consciousness and since Advaita says that the meaning of existence is to realize our true nature and to thereafter peacefully dwell forever in that true nature as eternal Bliss-Consciousness.

>how much of yourself do you discard as not your true self?
Everything aside from my witnessing awareness, i.e. everything that appears in that awareness as physical and mental objects to be aware of

>in my opinion there is nothing about my life mind or body that is meaningful, there is no meaningful soul or god because I just don't think there is any meaning to find this defining line between what is true self and false self.
ok, I disagree

>honestly I don't understand why religion was even created by god or man. it doesn't seem to ease the pain of existing.
Not to disrespect you or your parents but I disagree with Gaudiya Vaishnavism and it seems to depart from the teachings of the Upanishads, and I think this may be why you have not been very spiritually satisfied. Maybe you should try studying a different sect of Hinduism or something. Or try reading the Ashtavakra Gita linked here >>15822968

>>15821918
Buddhist texts are already non-nihilistic

From the Lankavatara Sutra:
>"Mahamati, I teach existence to refute the nihilistic view that nothing exists and so that my disciples will accept samsara, so that they will accept that where they are reborn involves differences in karma. Thus, I teach existence so that they will accept samsara."

>“Mahamati, I teach the illusoriness of self-existence so that they will get free of self-existence. But due to erroneous views and hopes, foolish people are unaware that these are nothing but the perceptions of their own minds. To refute arising from causes and attachment to the self-existence of conditions and to prevent foolish people from clinging to erroneous views and hopes regarding what belongs to themselves and others and from creating mistaken doctrines about how to see things as they really are, I teach that the self-existence of everything is an illusion and a dream. Mahamati, to see things as they really are means to transcend what are nothing but perceptions of your own mind.”

>>15823018
>Motherfucker you literally just denied that Orthodox Hindus disagree with Advaita Vedanta
I never wrote "Orthodox Hindus don't disagree with Shankara", I was just correcting all the wrong information in the other anon's post. That was just disingenuous smokescreen bullshit of that anon to write that, it doesn't mean anything at all. There is no widely agreed upon standard of what constitutes "orthodox Hinduism", there was no basis to it whatsoever when he wrote "orthodox hindus disagree with Shankara" so I didn't even bother responding on that point but only pointed out the factually incorrect information.

There are something called the '6 orthodox schools or darshanas' which includes Nyaya, Mimansa, Samkhya, Vedanta, Vaisheshika and Yoga' but this includes many dozens of sub-schools who all disagree with eachother and who criticize each other in their writings. There is no "orthodox hinduism" existing separably from Shankara. Advaitins regard Advaita Vedanta to be the most orthodox form of Hinduism. So it's pointless to say "orthodox hindus disagree with Shankara" because Shankara was the founder of the first Vedanta school and Vedanta is one of the 6 orthodox schools of Hinduism.

>Hindu philosophy refers to philosophies, world views and teachings[1] that emerged in ancient India. These include six systems (shad-darśana) – Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta.[2]
>In Indian tradition, the word used for philosophy is Darshana. This word comes from the Sanskrit root drish (to see, to experience).[3]
>These are also called the Astika (orthodox) philosophical traditions and are those that accept the Vedas as an authoritative, important source of knowledge.[4][note 1][note 2] Ancient and medieval India was also the source of philosophies that share philosophical concepts but rejected the Vedas, and these have been called nāstika (heterodox or non-orthodox) Indian philosophies.[2][4] Nāstika Indian philosophies include Buddhism, Jainism, Cārvāka, Ājīvika, and others.[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_philosophy

>>15823104
>i didnt say that all hindus agree with me
>i just said that all hindud agree with me
talk about disingenuous smokescreen bullshit lmfa

go ahead, seethe, it won't RETROACTIVELY UN-REFUTE you

>>15822088

Wow advaita vedanta suddenly seems heckin' based, and most hindus seem like cringe niggercattle

>>15822088
>>15822124
>Orthodox hindus
Hindu refers for an ethnic group. There is no "orthodox hindu" religion, there are hundreds or thousands of disparate local practices that just do whatever they want.

>>15823215
>talk about disingenuous smokescreen bullshit lmfa
It makes no sense to say "Orthodox Hindus disagree with Shankara" because Vedanta is one of the 6 orthodox schools of Hinduism, and as a founder of a Vedanta school Shankara is thus an important orthodox Hindu theologian. That's all there is to it. Of course different sects within orthodox Hinduism all disagree with one another. You are trying to make a point about something which isn't even a real issue.

>>15823067
>Not to disrespect you or your parents but I disagree with Gaudiya Vaishnavism and it seems to depart from the teachings of the Upanishads, and I think this may be why you have not been very spiritually satisfied. Maybe you should try studying a different sect of Hinduism or something. Or try reading the Ashtavakra Gita linked here >>15822968

nah I take no offence but to be honest most of what you said I have heard in the temple since I was a kid and it does nothing for me. I mean I get it but I don't get what you get out of it .

>>15821918
>What should I read when I don't want to be trapped in buddhist and advaitic nihilism?
J.L Mackie, The Miracle of Theism

>>15823285
>I mean I get it but I don't get what you get out of it .
Since getting into this stuff I have found increased satisfaction, inner peace, calmness, fulfillment, fearlessness, happiness, freedom from anxiety and the ability to remain unruffled in the midst of drama, although I still have a ways to go.

I'm not sure why you have had a different experience from me. I'm not sure how many Hindu scriptures and philosophical writings you've read but for me it was reading primarily translated Vedantic writings such as those of Shankara along with Yogic and Tantric writings which made me take it seriously. Maybe some people are just naturally inclined to spirituality while others have a natural aversion to it.

>>15823269
>orthodox hindus can't disagree with shankara because he is founder of one orthodox school
>different sects within orthodox hinduism disagree with each other
Dude, are you just thirsty for (you)s?

>>15823343
The point was that the other anon was falsely trying to create the impression that there was a unified "orthodox hinduism" which clear boundaries and that Shankara was outside of this group, whereas in reality as the founder of one of the orthodox schools Shankara is solidly within the grouping known as "orthodox hinduism" and the disagreements other schools had with him and just part of the typical disagreements within orthodox hinduism; hence it's false to imply that Shankara does not belong to or is outside of orthodox Hinduism as the other poster was doing.

>>15822322
This. Also as to the previous poster's asinine point about the Upanishads admitting multiple deities beneath Ishvara, they are clearly explicated as aspects/powers/processes of Ishvara/Lower Brahman

>>15822385
>What is critique
>What is synthesis

read the buddha nature sutras, and yogacara literature. Nagarujna's philosophy only seems nihlistic because he uses negative descriptors to describe true nature, yogacara uses neutral langauge and buddhanature doctrine uses positive.

Also you retards equate emptiness to nothingness which is wrong view. Avoid the extremes, follow the middle way.

Read Iamblichus.
Become Platonist.
The goal of existence is to become Guardians, co-creators. All liberation seekers are nihilists, for they debase the world, any state of existence not worth revisiting is not worth existing in the first place.
The One is nothing but the pure Will and Love for the Other to be. You delude yourself you seekers of Rest. To behold the Good is to be filled, and we are limited, so what happens when something limited is infinitely filled?
It overflows, to overflow is to act and become Gods, or lovers, custodians of the earth, artists, leaders, philosophers.
The only reason to escape the cave is to joyously and eagerly return into it.

>>15824757
>people wanting to escape the samsara are nihilists
>not the ones who want to become Gods
You're delusional. You try and use this anti-materialist viewpoint to justify your own vain want for power and dominance. Western Gnostism was a mistake.

>>15822088
>>15822124
>>15822166
Based, accurate, and saved.

>Advaita is the true meaning of Hinduism. That's why it negates 99% of what Hinduism and its scriptures have said for thousands of years, negates what every practicing Hindu believes fervently, and was invented 1500 years after Hindu scripture was written down.
>Oh and the majority of its adherents are white people on the internet.

>>15822322
Oh boy it's another "when guenonfag wants the divine to be unitary and simple with only illusory differentiation, it's unitary and simple with illusory differentiation, but when he needs it to have real differentiations, it's suddenly a realist emanationism" thread!

>>15822795
How u holding up Injr?

>>15822820
interesting post, thanks for dropping in and sharing, i hope you keep resisting your depression and things get better anon

>>15824847
>power and dominance
Go and be spiritual communist somewhere else, even Hinduism has the concept of guardians who descend from beyond the wheel.
The Platonic wisdom is that this is the ultimate goal of every Soul. Not solely the transcendence beyond but the even higher transcendence INTO, God is omnipresent, real liberation is to have henosis through love. You nor God have any need for some specific state of existence, God is beyond states of existence. To become co-creators is a kingly obligation not tyrannical indulgence to power willy nilly.

>>15824757
>>15821918
>>15824847
>>15825117
Better, therefore, is what you ask of us, to point out to you the road to happiness and where its essence lies; for from this the truth shall be discovered and at the same time all doubts may be easily resolved. I say, then, that the man who
is conceived of as “divinised,” who once was united to the contemplation of the gods, afterwards came into possession of another soul adapted to the human form, and through this was born into the bond of necessity and fate.
Hence we must consider how one might be liberated and set free from these bonds. There is, indeed, no way other than the knowledge of the gods. For understanding the Good is the paradigm of well-being, just as obliviousness to the Good and deception concerning evil constitute the paradigm of evil things.
The one, therefore, is united with the divine, while the other, inferior, destiny is inseparable from the mortal; one measures the essences of intelligibles by sacred methods, while the other, abandoning its principles, gives itself over to the measuring of the corporeal paradigm; one is the knowledge of the Father, the other is a departure from him and an obliviousness to the divine Father who is prior to essence and is his own first principle, and the one preserves the true life, leading back to its father, while the other drags down the primordial man to that which is never fixed and always flowing. Know, then, that this is the first road to well-being, having for souls the intellectual plenitude of divine union. But the sacred and theurgic gift of well-being is called the gateway to the creator of all things, or the place or courtyard of the good. In the first place, it has the power to purify the soul, far more perfect than (the power) to purify the body; afterwards, it prepares the mind for the participation in and vision of the Good,
and for a release from everything which opposes it; and, at the last, for a union with the gods who are the givers of all things good. (1/2)

>>15821918
Vasistha's Yoga. It's a discussion between a young prince afflicted with nihilism, and a wise sage attempting to talk him through.

http://93.174.95.29/main/747000/635070c7ea1a63b58ef3cb5b563a93f0/Venkatesananda%20-%20Vasistha%27s%20Yoga%20%20-State%20Univ%20of%20New%20York%20Pr%20%281993%29.pdf

>>15825236
And when it has conjoined (the soul) individually to the parts of the cosmos and to all the divine powers pervading them, this leads and entrusts the soul to the keeping of the universal demiurge and makes it external to all matter and united to the eternal logos alone. What I mean is, that it connects the soul individually to the self-begotten and self-moved god, and with the all-sustaining, intellectual and adorning power of the cosmos, and with that which leads up to the intelligible truth, and with the perfected and effected and other demiurgic powers of the god, so that
the theurgic soul is perfectly established in the activities and the intellections of the demiurgic powers. Then, indeed, it deposits the soul in the bosom of the demiurgic god as a whole. And this is
the goal of (the soul’s) sacred ascent according to the Egyptians.

Good itself they consider, in its divine aspect, to be the God who transcends intellection, and, in its human aspect, to be union with him, just as Bitys has interpreted it for us from the Hermetic books. But this part (sc. of philosophy) is
not, as you suspect, “overlooked” by the Egyptians, but is handed down in an appropriately pious manner. Nor do the theurgists “pester the divine intellect about small matters,” but about matters pertaining to the purification, liberation and salvation of the soul. Neither do they “concern themselves diligently with things which are difficult and yet useless to human beings,” but rather to things which are, of all things, of most benefit to the soul. Nor are they “exploited by some fraudulent daemon,” those men who have conquered the deceitful and daemonic nature, and ascended to the intelligible and the divine.

>>15824859
>but when he needs it to have real differentiations, it's suddenly a realist emanationism
I have never said that Advaita is real emanationism or that there are fully real differentiations

BUmp