thanks for a good class. we had a nice discussion introducing some of hinduism's basic categories.
1- the atman/brahman apparent duality, which is really one. ONE leads to this idea of monism and even pantheism (here is a previous phi 2070 post focusing on spinoza's monism).
2- yajna, or sacrifice, as local exchange for the sake of sovereignty. that is to say, one can see yajna as turning upside-down received notions of economic exchange. how? yajna for its own sake. of course, we'll expllore this deeper when we read from the gita
3- maya brings forth what i call hall-of-mirrors effect. some think that maya expresses our ignorance (avidya) but that is too simplistic. maya is constitutive of the side or reality that we call appearance, & appearance and reality are co-terminal, they need & support each other.
take this paradoxical morsel from the gospel of sri ramakrishna:
Disciple: Why has God created wicked people?"very clear. so, maya loves to play games.
Master: "That is His play. In His maya there exists avidyā as well as vidyā.
4- ineffability is another term discussed in class. in the upanishdas there is this idea of neti, neti
which tries to explain brahman as undifferentiated, how can you explain the inexplicable?
i propose this alternative.
5- moksha, the oneness with the ONE. what is the soteriology of hinduism? let me put it in a different way, salvation is brahman's digestion, i.e., eventually --as ONE-- you get reinserted in samsara.
karma: this is a difficult concept and i ask you to be patient with it. i prefer for now to talk about how we reincarnate constantly ourselves as different individuals that evolve from earlier experiences. more of this as we get deeper into hinduism.
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say what you want in at least 150 words. please, wear hinduism's clothes. even if briefly, make an informed comment based on the concepts we've discussed. of course, you could remain skeptical and say it, as long as you show you are primed to hinduism's angle. you can post more than one comment, and sometimes that makes for great discussions. i'm the moderator and may interject but this is YOUR forum!
i close the comment option wednesday at 11pm. if you have not made your comment by then, you loose the opportunity to comment for that particular week. remember that comments-to-posts is a for- point assignment and part of your final grade.
