The amazonian banana republic: the strī-rājya in Hindu tradition

mAnasa-taraMgiNI

amazon_2

The śaiva tradition shows a dichotomy with respect to the role of the sex in ritual and purity. The earlier antimārga or pāśupata tradition focused on abstinence and the so-called “upward flow” or ūrdhvaretas. This indeed the underlying idea behind the ithyphallic depiction of Lakulīśa, the founder of one of the key atimārga traditions. However, within the śaiva tradition there was another ambivalent practice with earlier roots in the shared pool of ascetic practices, which were also inherited by the vaiṣṇava-s (e.g. Vaikhānasa-gṛhyasūtra). This was the asidhārā-vrata. Here the practitioner engages in kissing and coital contact with his wife or another beautiful and sexually active woman without spilling his seed. Successful practice of this for a certain fixed period is said to confer rewards on the practitioner. This practice continued within the śaiva-mantra-mārga both in the saiddhāntika (e.g. in the Mataṅga-pārameśvara tantra) and bhairava (e.g. Brahma-yāmala) streams. Thus, the practice…

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What is God

NOEMAYA

The atheist is a man or woman disbelieving in a god of his own understanding. In rejecting God as an absolute principle of reality, he unjustifiably promotes his own fallible reason to omniscience, a station whose very existence he had set out to refute. Atheism, like relativism, is self-contradictory for merely logical reasons. But perhaps we may offer a few more or less intellectual and esoteric conceptions of God, in the sense of Godhead, as food for thought for those who rather see than believe.

God is:

“The coincidence of all opposites.”Rumi

“An infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”Liber XXIV Philosophorum

“The synthetic unity of all antithetic determinations.”Eugen Fink

“The permanent actuality of the Self.”Rene Guenon

“The eternal present.”Don’t Remember

“The undifferentiated and un-differentiable state of consciousness.”Tomaj Javidtash

“Awesome.”Arthur Vandelay

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A day at school

mAnasa-taraMgiNI

It was the English class in school. The teacher, a swarthy man with somewhat liberal political leanings, strode into the class: “Today we shall be studying a poem by the white American poet Robert Frost, Fire and Ice. Dandadipa, stand up and read the poem aloud.”
Dandadipa did as directed by the teacher:
“Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.”

The teacher then turned to Lootika and said: “Lootika, stand up and tell the class what you think about this poem you just heard.”
Lootika: “I think, if by world we mean the earth, undoubtedly, the end will come by fire. By fire I…

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Sectarian ADambara in Internet Hinduverse: More noisy than jayanta bhaTTa’s AgamADambara & not nearly as insightful or constructive

aryanthought

Context: https://twitter.com/MadhvaHistory/status/959408605152739329

1. A brief note for those interested in learning rather than sectarianism: The attempt by abrahma-s to study mAdhva-s or rAmAnuja-s should be understood carefully. It should NOT be understood as mAdhva-s sharing some features with abrahma-s; which is clearly superficial
2. Understanding mAdhva-s & abrahma-s as “sharing” them gives a false impression that these so-called “shared” features independently originated among abrahma-s, or are an original insight by them, & therefore the mAdhva-s too have evolved in a similar pattern as the abrahma-s.

3. So, for instance, let’s take one such “shared” feature, that brahman is only an effective cause (nimitta kAraNa) & not the material cause (upAdAna kAraNa) of the universe. Of the 3 major schools of vedAnta, only mAdhva-s argue this. The rAmAnuja-s & advaitin-s argue otherwise.

4. This is one feature that attracted abrahma attention to mAdhva-s. However, mAdhva-s aren’t the only ones to boldly…

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Logos From Eidos

NOEMAYA

“The stupid cannot become wise, and the non-existent cannot become existent, nor can the existent go into non-existence.”

Of all beings in this field, the only one capable of turning away from the incessant stream of phenomena, from mundane existence and the life of the field, is human being. This being roams the field while standing on the fence between the two worlds; facing the world he’s standing against The Abyss. But he is standing against the abyss in such a way that one could even say man is the abyss staring into the world.

Every night after a long day of work in the field, after planting my seeds, I takes off this human disguise and withdraw back into that abyss, I return home.

In every man, woman, and child that wakes up from sleep, in all beings starting from the first cause up until now, I alone have…

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Of lives of men; of times of men-I

mAnasa-taraMgiNI

Sharvamanyu and Vidrum arrived at the campus where Somakhya and Lootika were in their final days of college. Sharvamanyu had already been working for several months while Vidrum had just completed the last but one of his major exams for the time being and had a couple of days free. Hence, he joined Sharvamanyu to see his old friends whom they had not met in a while. Under their favorite haunt of the elephant apple tree Vidrum brought up the issue of their impending dispersal: “These may be the last few days we ever see each other. Somakhya here has remarked that companions in life are like a vesture, which when old is cast off. He would cite the Sanskrit cliché ‘vāsāṃsi jīrṇāni’. Since, you two would be going away in the near future we though we should have that more serious conversation that in past I did not much…

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