I'm a Buddhist, so the closest I personally come to bhakti is daily prayers to the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. If anything I'm closer to nondualism myself.
Having said that: Sen was a 19th-century Bengali reformer (in the circles with Ramakrishna and Vivekananda). I learned about him years ago through taking a course with the wonderful Jeffrey Kripal. I don't remember too much about him beyond the quote; he's not affiliated with my own practice. But I do think it's a banger of a quote, and it seemed really apt for what you're saying here.
I am kind of against Advaita not gonna lie, because it's a classed interpretation. But that's just me injecting class into everything lol. And thank you for reading <3
Yesterday, I was physically and willingly taken back to a very vulnerable past. It took conscious effort to remind myself that I was not the person I was purported to be in that place.. I thank my relationship with my God that He never leaves me, and that He conditions me to see through any notion of performance.
Such a wonderful and undeniably true poem! Reaching divinity is not when one earns a college degree deeming them intelligent or dogmatically sticking to a set of beliefs or values. Achieving divinity is when one finds true happiness in life and in the people around them and remains open minded and keeps in mind we are always learning. This belief that political ideologies can bring you to the ultimate state of enlightenment is just wrong and led to the rise of so many totalitarian states and dictators such as Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, Vladimir Lenin in the USSR, Benito Mussolini in Fascist Italy, Francisco Franco in Fascist Spain, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Mao Zedong in Red China, The Kim Family in North Korea, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Idi Amin in Uganda, etc. It has led to the birth of horrific ideologies like Nazism, Fascism, Communism, Socialism, and Anarchism. It has led to the birth of evil cults and hate groups like like Jim Jones’ People’s Temple, Heaven’s Gate, Charles Manson and his family, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, the Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party, the New Black Panthers, and the Nation of Islam. It has led to political polarization and tribalism that has torn America apart. It led to terrible atrocities like the Holocaust, 9/11 and the October 7th attacks. It created psychos like Osama Bin Laden, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, Baruch Goldstein, and Bob Mathews and his group the Order. It created white supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t strike me as being enlightened or having reached a state of nirvana. That’s become radicalized and having you’re brain warped. Ideologies, religious beliefs and awards and accomplishments can never lead you to true happiness. You can only find that it your family, friends and neighbors and practicing learning from everyone you meet as Socrates once advised.
People will see only what they want to see. We squander our own peace for others to “see”, and it comes at our own expense. I learned this lesson the hard way in the last few years. But when the lesson clicked, it clicked. I got it. Now, I only now invest time and effort in people I genuinely care deeply about: the relationships I value and those who value me. Everyone else can take a number… 😆😘
I was not familiar with the word "ineffable". I think it is a beautiful word that will now join my limited vocabulary.
I think that some of our political divide is described by one side that believes there is no such thing... that everything can be defined and explained by science, engineering and tweeded faculty lecturers on campus. I have had this ineffable background perception of recognition looking into the face of an animal. My friends on the left would attribute it to evolution... the fact that homo sapiens and other lessor animals evolved from the same semi-biological molecules a billion or so years ago. But I have to wonder am I seeing God in them... or otherwise is my reaction due to some Godly creative design, maybe including the evolutionary process of mutation, that would naturally result in familiarity.
The latter "God" explanation, even if wrong, seems that a people holding that belief would much better get along. If you and me and every other living thing on this planet are of the same God and derive from a similar design, we would be family and thus should care more about each other. If we are simply explained as random scientific lab rats that just happened from some random primordial ooze, we would more likely not care.
Currently reading a book that for me, as a “tweeded faculty lecturer”, made the most articulate argument for extending compassion to ALL living things (not only humans). Animals, to include humans, cannot survive without plants. Plants make all of our oxygen, provide all of our bodies with energy (whether we eat plants or eat the animals that eat plants), and are the life force that allows all animals (including humans) to survive and thrive on this planet. Our very fragile survival depends upon the humble category of life we call plants. If that perspective doesn’t inspire awe and reverence for all life in the world, I’m not really sure what will. Aloha and mahalo for sharing your observations 🌺
I hadn’t thought about this, but an astute observation. I’ve wondered the same. I am sure my cat senses my emotions in my face, and I see emotions in him. In some Hindu thought, one is said to go through births in every category of living being before attaining a human one, which is the only chance to break the cycle of birth and death.
I think the slickest bhakta critique of nondualism came from Ramprasad Sen: "I want to taste sugar, I don't want to become sugar."
I appreciate this so much. I actually don’t think I’ve ever even come across sen. Does your bhakti go to any manifestation in particular?
I'm a Buddhist, so the closest I personally come to bhakti is daily prayers to the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. If anything I'm closer to nondualism myself.
Having said that: Sen was a 19th-century Bengali reformer (in the circles with Ramakrishna and Vivekananda). I learned about him years ago through taking a course with the wonderful Jeffrey Kripal. I don't remember too much about him beyond the quote; he's not affiliated with my own practice. But I do think it's a banger of a quote, and it seemed really apt for what you're saying here.
Advaita Vedanta? Dvaita Vedanta? Visista Advaita Vedanta? The language doesn’t matter. Only the experience.
What an absolutely exquisite poem; mahalo nui loa for sharing 💝🌺
I am kind of against Advaita not gonna lie, because it's a classed interpretation. But that's just me injecting class into everything lol. And thank you for reading <3
What I love about bhakti yoga is that it's accessible to anyone as it doesn't require any academic qualifications.
I'm excited about your writing and where you're going with it!
Which is exactly why it became so popular! And the most popular practice among Hindus today! Jai! 🙌
Yesterday, I was physically and willingly taken back to a very vulnerable past. It took conscious effort to remind myself that I was not the person I was purported to be in that place.. I thank my relationship with my God that He never leaves me, and that He conditions me to see through any notion of performance.
Thank you for your poem💛, Anu.
That is beautiful Lincinda 💛
Thank you for having been a source of comfort yesterday♥️.
Really appreciate what you're doing over here at your substack.
that means so much.
Such a wonderful and undeniably true poem! Reaching divinity is not when one earns a college degree deeming them intelligent or dogmatically sticking to a set of beliefs or values. Achieving divinity is when one finds true happiness in life and in the people around them and remains open minded and keeps in mind we are always learning. This belief that political ideologies can bring you to the ultimate state of enlightenment is just wrong and led to the rise of so many totalitarian states and dictators such as Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, Vladimir Lenin in the USSR, Benito Mussolini in Fascist Italy, Francisco Franco in Fascist Spain, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Mao Zedong in Red China, The Kim Family in North Korea, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Idi Amin in Uganda, etc. It has led to the birth of horrific ideologies like Nazism, Fascism, Communism, Socialism, and Anarchism. It has led to the birth of evil cults and hate groups like like Jim Jones’ People’s Temple, Heaven’s Gate, Charles Manson and his family, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, the Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party, the New Black Panthers, and the Nation of Islam. It has led to political polarization and tribalism that has torn America apart. It led to terrible atrocities like the Holocaust, 9/11 and the October 7th attacks. It created psychos like Osama Bin Laden, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, Baruch Goldstein, and Bob Mathews and his group the Order. It created white supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t strike me as being enlightened or having reached a state of nirvana. That’s become radicalized and having you’re brain warped. Ideologies, religious beliefs and awards and accomplishments can never lead you to true happiness. You can only find that it your family, friends and neighbors and practicing learning from everyone you meet as Socrates once advised.
My life goal is to get people to see uncomfortable truths. Unfortunately that also means fighting human nature.
People will see only what they want to see. We squander our own peace for others to “see”, and it comes at our own expense. I learned this lesson the hard way in the last few years. But when the lesson clicked, it clicked. I got it. Now, I only now invest time and effort in people I genuinely care deeply about: the relationships I value and those who value me. Everyone else can take a number… 😆😘
“Emotion and I keep each other at arm’s length.”
🔥
I'm sure you know, but I was thinking about you while writing this
I am honored!!! ♥️
“Humans are easily duped into enlightenment
Degrees
Beliefs
Politics
The trappings of the infinite soul
in the finite body.”
My favorite part 🥹 infinite soul
You’re so kind. If you’re interested in the concepts I can point you to entry points.
I was not familiar with the word "ineffable". I think it is a beautiful word that will now join my limited vocabulary.
I think that some of our political divide is described by one side that believes there is no such thing... that everything can be defined and explained by science, engineering and tweeded faculty lecturers on campus. I have had this ineffable background perception of recognition looking into the face of an animal. My friends on the left would attribute it to evolution... the fact that homo sapiens and other lessor animals evolved from the same semi-biological molecules a billion or so years ago. But I have to wonder am I seeing God in them... or otherwise is my reaction due to some Godly creative design, maybe including the evolutionary process of mutation, that would naturally result in familiarity.
The latter "God" explanation, even if wrong, seems that a people holding that belief would much better get along. If you and me and every other living thing on this planet are of the same God and derive from a similar design, we would be family and thus should care more about each other. If we are simply explained as random scientific lab rats that just happened from some random primordial ooze, we would more likely not care.
Currently reading a book that for me, as a “tweeded faculty lecturer”, made the most articulate argument for extending compassion to ALL living things (not only humans). Animals, to include humans, cannot survive without plants. Plants make all of our oxygen, provide all of our bodies with energy (whether we eat plants or eat the animals that eat plants), and are the life force that allows all animals (including humans) to survive and thrive on this planet. Our very fragile survival depends upon the humble category of life we call plants. If that perspective doesn’t inspire awe and reverence for all life in the world, I’m not really sure what will. Aloha and mahalo for sharing your observations 🌺
I love plants. What Martha Stewart said. Get a husband if want a good companion for a year. For ten years get a dog. For a lifetime, grow a garden.
I hadn’t thought about this, but an astute observation. I’ve wondered the same. I am sure my cat senses my emotions in my face, and I see emotions in him. In some Hindu thought, one is said to go through births in every category of living being before attaining a human one, which is the only chance to break the cycle of birth and death.