Genocide In A Different Light

Sitaram: Since we all must die one day, therefore, all things eventually pass away. It is hard for people to recognize the benefits of a frame of mind which desires the respite of death. If one fears death, and desires to live forever, then they are doomed to disappointment

Krishna: One should accept death

Sitaram: Whereas, if one welcomes the relief of death, then, one is guaranteed that their wish shall one day be granted

Krishna: True

Sitaram: Even though it may seem an eternity away

Krishna: I personally try to live life like there's no tomorrow for I might die even right now

Sitaram: I suppose the greatest tragedy of every childhood is the deception that we are special, unique, loved unconditionally,.... but we mature to discover a world that is indifferent to us

Krishna: Sigh

Sitaram: A world in which we are not special, but, rather, disposable. That is one of my recent insights into what seems the tragedy of my childhood

Krishna: well I could share that sentiment, but everything in my course of life had its purpose for happening

Sitaram: well, without each and every experience in life, we would be someone slightly different than who we are

Krishna: its only when you reflect upon the past to understand its purpose that you tend to progress in the future

Sitaram: without the Nazi Holocaust, there would be no "Schindler's List", no Viktor Frankl, and perhaps no independent state of Israel

Krishna: yes

Sitaram: so, everything is interconnected in some fashion

Krishna: yes, certainly. I had a discussion with a friend of mine with regards to Hitler and all the other evil(s) in the world and I would suppose everything has a purpose and despite its accidence in occurrence

Sitaram: this weekend, we rented a DVD of a German film entitled "Downfall" (with subtitles, and a commentary in English), of Hitler's final weeks and the actor looks EXACTLY like Hitler, it is freaky

Krishna: hahaha
well they never found Hitler's body

Sitaram: when I watch such things, I always feel intense admiration for the perfection of the German military machine. My father was present the day the German army surrendered. He looked over a vast sea of soldiers

Krishna: wow

Sitaram: and thought "this was the finest army that ever marched the earth
to this day, the German style machine gun is in use a miracle of simplicity and reliability

Krishna: yes

Sitaram: in the 1960s, an American senator of German ancestry wrote " years of the German High Command" in which he demonstrated that, decade after decade, battle after battle, even in defeat, they were superb, with enormous kill rates. Of course Nazi ideology was monstrous

Krishna: yes

Sitaram: oh that movie documentary mentioned that only ONE person in the German high command, during his trial, admitted that what they did is wrong he did not apologize, but he stated that it was wrong all the others sought to escape blame...

Krishna: hmmmm

Sitaram: but, they all knew that defeat meant standing trial

Krishna: yes

Sitaram: the movie emphasized that Hitler was never mad, but always knew exactly what he was doing even when he seemed to have rages of temper violent temper he used everything as a tool to influence, manipulate and his charisma was astonishing the German people worshiped him, and called him "Uncle Addie" Addie being a nickname for Adolph

Krishna: yes, being in absolute control of himself

Sitaram: and his affair with mistress Eva Braun was kept a secret
They interview people who were still alive, who had been with Hitler in their attempt for accuracy. One elderly woman had been a secretary to Hitler. They interviewed her, and she said "I did not HAVE to take the job, but I was curious..."

Krishna: ah

Sitaram: She now feels or rather sees, the sinister evil of the entire enterprise

Krishna: Yes

Krishna: but its something that much of the world cant fathom, that the German people actually loved this man

Sitaram: well, but, stop and think, whenever we are in the midst of something like slavery, or Japanese internment, or Guantanamo, or Iraq, it all seems to make perfect sense it is all righteous and justifiable.... or at very least, a necessary evil you know, that rock star who converted to Islam, many years ago... before 9/11 and all that...

Krishna: hmmm

Sitaram: was interviewed in some documentary,.... and when questioned regarding death sentences prescribed for those who insult Mohammad, answered "well, yes, they should be killed"


Stevens was his name with some first name like spike, or rip,... cant remember
oh, Cat Stevens, of Greek descent, most likely, raised Greek orthodox Christian


I read about one preacher turned civil war hero, after the civil war, who then became an Indian fighter

Krishna: ohhh

Sitaram: he was the one who killed all the women and children in one unarmed village... and said "Nits make lice" (meaning, kill even the infants the women came out of their tee pee tents, and opened their dresses to show their breasts, that they were women not to be killed and they hid the infants in the bushes

Krishna: God!

Sitaram: but, the soldiers sought out the infants, and smashed their heads on rocks
but.... consider the Hutu Tutsi genocide in Rwanda

Krishna: hmmmm

Sitaram: but... they would slaughter innocent people with machetes

Krishna: its heinous

Sitaram: my point is, in each circumstance, at that moment, people felt justified
think of those in Africa who might still poach ivory,... or Brazilian entrepreneurs who continue to cut down rain forest

Krishna: yea

Sitaram: they see it as survival, or some right

Krishna: the concept of rights and freedoms

Sitaram: I was thinking of writing a curious hypothetical scenario

Krishna: needs much elucidation in modern times

Sitaram: imagine that you are a native American Indian, living in the 13th century, long before the white European really began to explore the new world and your tribe gains the knowledge and foresight that there is a continent filled with a race of people who will come and destroy your entire way of life as hunters and food gatherers and, they will ultimately destroy the entire ecosystem

Krishna: hmmm

Sitaram: furthermore, imagine that your tribe discovers some means to commit proactive genocide, and destroy the entire continent of Caucasians now, in your mind, your way of life represents everything that is good you need no medicines or health care, because natural selection means that all who survive are most hardy

Krishna: ok

Sitaram: perhaps they live only years, but those are years of vitality, and a meaningful life

Krishna: hehe I see where your question is going

Sitaram: so, you see the alien nations of Europe as some disease the coming industrial revolution ultimately destroys the planet, and all life forms

Sitaram: so, you see the Europeans as the camp of Satan

Krishna: what would you do?

Sitaram: not only are you justified in genocide, in your mind, as a defensive measure
but, it seems to you as your moral duty to annihilate all Europeans and Asians because you must defend the environment itself and all the animals

Krishna: well.. I would suppose my approach would be different

Sitaram: so, your tribe sees European and Asian civilization in the same light as Marxists see capitalism. They are your ideological enemy


Krishna: Kill them all right off the bat???

Sitaram: well, genocide only works all at once and right off the bat, while one has the window of opportunity

Krishna: and perfection only lies at the balance of both I wouldnt.. participate in genocide

Sitaram: now, I am not saying that this scenario makes things right or wrong. I am simply pointing out how genocide might seem the only choice to those native Americans

Krishna: yes but I realize humans the fallacy of mankind has been throughout time to take a camp and try to stick to it and not appreciate the balance of both

Sitaram: the most foolish comment I have ever heard in my life was one fellow on the Internet who insisted that war was not necessary during World War II, but that the Nazis might have been dealt with in a more peaceful fashion

You see, your horror at genocide, or anyone's horror, is a product of cultural conditioning Americans see the death penalty as necessary and justified...
whereas the European Common Market will not admit any nation who imposes capital punishment

Krishna: I simply dont have the right to take another's life.. even forcibly wouldn't convince me until it comes to a point where I have to for my own interests life is at harm


Sitaram: and in America, you see conservative protestant Christians, who pay lip service to love of ones enemy, ... and yet they thirst for the justice of an execution

Krishna: that's hypocrisy

Sitaram: but, don't you see, those native Americans, in that hypothetical scenario, see their fate and the worlds fate in a crystal ball so, for them, there IS not choice

They MUST deploy their weapons of mass destruction NOW, to prevent the future enslavement

Krishna: well this was exactly what I was talking about with my friend days ago
if the British empire had ceased to exist would we be still here?

Sitaram: there was a British Television series in the s called "Dr. Who" in many episodes he battles the evil Daleks, who are like Nazi robots but, in one episode, Dr. Who has found a way to touch two wires together, and complete a circuit, which will destroy all Daleks in a kind of genocide

Dr. Who hesitates, and his companions ask WHY, why do you hesitate? Why not destroy this hideous Dalek enemy?

Dr. Who says "Well, two reasons...
1, I would become just like my Dalek enemy, who seek genocide

but, 2, I know the future, of how so many adversarial nations unite to fight the common Dalek enemy so, all that unity and harmony would never come to pass, should the Daleks be destroyed NOW

Krishna: ah

Sitaram: so, Dr. Who never touches the wires to complete the circuit and annihilate the Daleks well, the native American tribe in our hypothetical scenario might have TWO crystal balls in one, they see the future of enslavement, and the destruction of the ecosystem in the other, they see some THIRD possible human society, which is superior to both European and native American

Krishna: hmmmmm
or perhaps even some future in which humans become extinct, but, consciousness persists in their cyborg AI creations much like those aliens who visit the earth in Spielberg's A.I. movie

Krishna: hmmmm

Sitaram: where the robot child, David, has survived frozen for millennia, on the dead planet

Krishna: yes

Sitaram: but, the aliens who visit, are possibly (i cant remember), the products of a similar AI technology and they seek to study the original organic human life forms.... to understand something of the spirit which existed in such creatures

Krishna: hmmm

Sitaram: and which now no longer exists in cyborg consciousness. So, from one point of view, true and sincere pacifists should choose slavery or death over violence
and were the western societies truly pacifist, they might all convert to Islam, simply to achieve harmony and peace. Yet we know that if all the world was Muslim tomorrow, the Sunnis, Shias, Sufis, Kurds etc, would most likely continue their slaughter and mayhem, fueled by doctrinal disputes

Krishna: hmmmm
well slavery in the form of religion

Sitaram: we might gaze in that OTHER crystal ball, and see, or seem to see, the greater good in aggressive measures which transform the Islamic world into a world of secular humanists now, the destruction of a culture or way of life is reckoned as ETHNOCIDE, even if the people remain alive

Krishna: hmmmm

Sitaram: an example of which is China's ethnocide of Tibetan culture

So, in a sense, the west contemplates the ethnocide of the Islamic Umma Sharia way of life. They do not desire to annihilate/exterminate the people, but only through Internet and Nike and McDonalds, to annihilate the cultural values and way of life

Krishna: yes

Sitaram: since technology, prosperity, and pleasure is quite seductive to the youth

Krishna: ok I like this perspective,interesting

Sitaram: so, Islam is defeated by ipods and hotdogs, and Netflix
but, it is STILL a form of ethnocide,

Krishna: hmmmmmmm

Sitaram: so, you see, now in our dialogue, I have sketched out what I was hoping to write/blog

The Broken Tray Koan

(8-17-2001)

The Broken Tray Koan and Commentary

There once was a little hut called Fei-t'ien, meaning rich field, where a monk lived for thirty years.

(Fugai: Maybe he did not know how to move.)
(Sitaram: Wherever we are is a "rich field" of experiences, Sukkha and Dukkha, in which we may find meaning and solve the Koan of Self. Wherever we are may be a sacred Tirth, if we cultivate the proper mood or bhava.)

He had only one tray made of clay.
(Fugai: Expensive things are not always precious.)
(Sitaram: All possessions are made of clay, in that they are temporary and we must relinquish them at death. We too are clay.)

One day a monk, who studied under him, broke that tray accidentally.
(Fugai: The real treasure appears from the breaking.)
(Sitaram: The real treasure, the only treasure, is non-attachment and the realization of the futility of the fulfillment of any and every gratification. This does not mean that we cease to gratify desires, but only that we cease to view gratification as our goal.)

Each day the teacher asked the student to replace it.
(Fugai: Why do you want another?)
(Sitaram: There is no end to desires. The fulfillment of one desire spawns dozens more. Nor do we ever escape regret.)

Each time the disciple would bring a new one, the teacher threw it out saying, This is not it. Give me back my old one!
(Fugai: I would open my hands and laugh.)
(Sitaram: Nothing ever satisfies us. We can always imagine a perfection which transcends any possible reality. This ability of human imagination to conjure impossible perfection is both a curse and a blessing.)

(Genro: If I were the disciple, I would say, Wait until the sun rises in the west.)
(Fugai: I will search for it before I am born.)
(Sitaram: Desire is the source of all suffering. Even desire for the cessation of desire is itself a desire).

Genro's Poem

It is broken;
(Fugai: The whole tray remains.)
(Sitaram: The whole tray is our hope, our dream, our memory, our regret.)

Run fast after it.
(Fugai: The sword disappears in the water.)
(Sitaram: As the Gita says, there is never a moment when We cease our activity, nor is there a moment when God ceases activity. Were there such a moment, countless worlds and beings would perish. But we have some choice as to that activity which engages us. Abandon all fruits of activity.)

The disciple cannot understand it.
(Fugai: It has returned to him already.)
(Sitaram: All wisdom is subjective and experiential. Such wisdom can never be translated into words which can substitute for experience and manner of life.)

Call an iron kettle a bell.
(Fugai: You can call the earth heaven . . .what's wrong?)
(Sitaram: Every word is a finger pointing at the moon, but the finger is not the moon.)

Plato's Dialogue: The Gorgias

Discussing Plato's Dialogue "The Gorgias"

Category: Religion and Philosophy

We are discussing Platos dialogue, The Gorgias.

Below are some excerpts from the thread.

For greater detail, look first here:

http://www.literatureforums.net/vb3/showthread.php?t=4622

or find a copy posted here:

http://literarydiscussions.myfreeforum.org/ftopic1009.php

To read a Platonic dialogue is to watch ideas in motion, not just any motion, but the special motion which takes place when giving birth. Socrates at times describes himself as a mid-wife, helping minds to give birth. There is a wonderful adjective for this role which Socrates plays; maiutic.

Socrates has two different nick-names in the dialogues; sting-ray and gadfly. In ancient Greek, the word for sting-ray is Nar-kay, or Narke, which is the root word for narcotic.

A sting from the tail of the sting-ray causes the body to become numb. Socrates was called narke because of his ability through a series of questions and answers, to numb his opponent into a motionless cul-de-sac, called in Greek "a-poria" which means "no way out."

Now, the gadfly nick-name denoted the very opposite of numbing. The gadfly, through its bites, could sting the lethargic horse of the state into motion. Socrates also stings up those who feel hopeless by "mytho-poiesis" or making a story or parable to give them a feeling of what it shall be like when they finally come to understand.

Someone who presumes to know is smug and complacent and does not seek or inquire. But also, those who have lost hope and given up do not seek or inquire.

Notice how these two opposite qualities of motion and rest are united in the one person of Socrates. We may better appreciate the conflict between motion and rest if we consider that Aristotle speaks of an "unmoved mover" as that one principle which somehow must exist as a source for everything else.

To understand Socrates' narcotic strategy, we must understand his theory of knowledge.

Socrates had a woman named Diotema as a mentor who instructed him in a theory of knowledge which is likened to a ladder of divine ascent, which describes an inductive ascent from love of objects, to sexual love, to love of mathematics, and finally to the love of the EIDOS of justice or beauty.

Socrates states that "God does not love wisdom, because he possesses it." Remember that the word "philo-sophia" means "love of wisdom." If we have something or believe that we possess it, then we do not go in search for it. We are smug and confident that the wisdom is ours. This smugness can be a form of illness, and the medicine to restore us to a state which is suitable for inquiry is refutation through a syllogistic chain of questions and answers which ultimately forces us to admit that we do not really possess true knowledge about a particular matter like justice or happiness.

We may see this theory of knowledge or dialectic illustrated in a well-known Sufi teaching story, made popularized in the many books of Idres Shah.

Nasrudin is a comical, sophomoric (or wise-fool) character. One day, someone sees Nasrudin frantically searching the street outside his house. When asked what has been lost, Nasrudin explains that he has lost his keys. When asked where he lost them, he explains that he lost them in the house. When asked why he is searching in the street for something lost in the house, Nasrudin explains that it is dark inside the house, and there is more light outside in the street.

Abraham Heschel illustrates something of this problem, in volume one of "The Prophets" when he writes (paraphrased) "We must learn to understand what it is that we see, and not merely see only that which we understand." Our compulsion is to search where the light is better, even if that means looking in the wrong place. Abraham Maslow put it differently: "When the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem tends to become a nail."

Most of what I explain here will be things that I learned at St. John's College in Annapolis in the 1960s. It is worth mentioning that the teachers there prefer to call themselves "tutors" rather than "professors", in honor of this Socratic method, since a "professor" professes to already know the truth, and will convey it to students in a lecture and for a price, much like the rhetorician Gorgias in this dialogue. The term "tutor" better reflects the role of a mid-wife who aids the student during this maiutic process of giving birth.

I would like to focus in quite a bit on this notion of uniting opposites, such as motion and rest.

Socrates and Odysseus share something interesting in common. Homer describes Odysseus bodily build as a paradigm of this uniting of opposites. Odysseus had very short legs, so that when he stood amongst the other Achaians, he was the shortest. But Odysseus had an unusually long trunk such that, when he sat in council, his head was above all the rest, and his words poured forth like a flurry of snow.

Socrates unites outer homeliness with inner beauty.

Rabelais made reference to this quality of Socrates in his Prologue.

Regarding Socrates' homeliness, I am reminded of that verse from Isaiah Ch. 53,2 "He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, [there is] no beauty that we should desire him."

This harmonizing or balancing of opposites is a very ancient notion. The Greeks called it the golden mean. The Buddha called it the middle way. According to legend, Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha (a term meaning "Awakened One"), had tried every form of philosophy and religion, and was meditating near a river's bank, close to death from fasting. A boat passed by on the river, and Siddhartha could hear the voice of a master musician instructing his disciple as the young student strung an instrument: "Do not leave it loose, or it shall not sound, nor tighten it overmuch lest the string break." Suddenly, Siddhartha realized the wisdom of "the middle way", the mean between extremes.

I realize that I might appear to you to be jumping about a bit with all these topics, but you must remember that when I read the Gorgias, all of these notions are within me at once, as a gestalt, and I perceive the dialogue through this lens of experience.

With regard to the similarity between Socrates and Odysseus, I want to make a certain point about the position of Odysseus' ship in Homer's "Catalog of Ships" in Book II of the Iliad. I am going to use the figures at this url to assist me:

Notice how the 12 ships of Odysseus are in the exact middle of this line-up of ships, as a mean or balance between extremes.

At one extreme of the line-up of ships along the shore is Ajax, who is so massive, that his epithet is bulwark or "wall".

Achilles epithet is "swift-footed".

Achilles and Ajax possess opposite virtues which are difficult to unite or harmonize; Ajax' size, and Achilles' speed.

We see Odysseus as a mean between these two extremes of opposite but necessary virtues.

Once, in Book Eight of the Iliad, we find one verse which clarifies the logic of positioning in the catalog of ships:

Again, in Book 11, we are reminded of this same geometry:

Ajax, who is massive but slower, is placed closest to Troy so that, during an attack, the approaching enemy will first encounter Ajax' massive strength.

Achilles is positioned furtherest from Troy, since his virtue of speed allows him to meet the approaching enemy before anyone else.

Plato stresses this role of Odysseus as a harmonious balance in The Republic

I suppose one might say that the assortment of possible lives for rebirth, spread out before the souls which have drawn lots, resembles the assortment of facts and phenomena in reality, spread out for the mind to choose, or the assortment of careers spread out before students.

But it is not the phenomenon or fact which casts the mind into a certain state, or the career which shapes the student, but rather it is the harmony of the mind, the balance of the student, which conditions the choice of attention and specialization. Hence the task of the Socratic method is not to offer facts upon a platter, or sheet music, but rather to fine tune and harmonize the mind of the student as a process rather than a destination.

It is not the scenery which colors the vision, but rather the harmony or focus of vision which determines the scenery.

What follows may seem a non sequitur, but it is good for the reader to have some insight into the educational philosophy of the college which influenced me; a college which attempts to put into practice the maiutic process harmonization which I describe.

The Motto of St. John's College Motto

Facio liberos ex liberis libris libraque ( I make free men from children by means of books and a balance)

This metaphor of our education as a lens which shapes our vision reminds me of a true story which I entitled "Eighth Grade Existentialism"

When studying Plato, it may be helpful to realize that, in the 20th century, Kurt Godel the mathematician was essentially a Platonist and viewed number as having some independent and mystical existence, along with Einstein, who was a personal friend of Godel. Opposite to the Platonist is the empiricist and positivist, who see number as a human instrument or construction, and a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. Remember that over the entrance to Plato's Lyceum was written "Let no one enter here who has not mastered Euclid's Elements of Geometry".

After this long prelude or prologue, we may begin to look at the Gorgias itself.

Gorgias is an orator and rhetorician. Socrates and his companion arrive late upon the scene, just missing Gorgias' demonstration of expository speaking.

We should keep in mind that one of the charges against Socrates at his trial, in addition to corrupting the youth of Athens, was that he taught people the art of "making the weaker argument defeat the stronger."

I sometimes wonder if our contemporary educational system isn't corrupting the youth by heaping scores of sheet music before the symphony and never attempting to tune the instruments in the orchestra. Society shall prepare and drink its own cup of hemlock for that crime.

An offer is made to have Gorgias repeat his performance for Socrates' benefit, but Socrates convinces Gorgias to enter into a simpler dialogue of brief questions and answers. Socrates gleefully compliments Gorgias on how well he complies with the rules of this simple form of dialogue.

Socrates is leading Gorgias into his dialectic trap. I once saw a cartoon in a magazine depicting a dog, who has laid down a trail of cat food, leading to an open dryer, hiding and gleefully waiting for the cat to step inside the dryer. Once the cat is in, the dog will slam the door shut and rejoice as the cat spins round and round. Once Gorgias agrees to enter Socrates' "laundromat" of syllogisms, then poor Gorgias will find his head spinning like that cat.

For me, the age old struggle between platonists and empiricists arrives at a dizzying plateau once the question is finally asked "is reality digital or analog?" which is related to issues of holism versus reductionism. It will be helpful to read this link as a refresher on holism and reductionism:

Perhaps by now some readers are ready to throw up their hands and shout

Sitaram! Whatever does this enormous mountain of baloney that you have amassed have to do with Plato's dialogue with Gorgias?

I am only beginning to realize one excellent answer to that question just now, after hours of reading and writing. The rhetoricians and sophists, such as Gorgias, quite possibly represent the empiricism and reductionism inchoate, while the socratic method of dialect inquiry represents the holists with their model theory.

I may be quite mistaken in my notion, but it is exciting to thing of the possibilities should such a notion be plausible.

With todays science and technology, we can take images, sound, and even the human genome, and digitize it to a sequence of numbers. If we should find one day that a digitized representation of reality can exactly match reality and be indistinguishable from it, then we may conclude that reality is digital. If, on the other hand, all attempts at digitization are doomed to be mere approximations to the original, or counterfeits, in the sense that the number pi is irrational, then we may conclude that reality and being are analog.

I was struck by all of this when I stumbled one day across a casual remark by Einstein to the effect (paraphrasing) that "no one could ever have arrived inductively at a notion of relativity simply from empirical observations." What Einstein is pointing to involves a branch of mathematics called "model theory". There are numerous axiomatic systems of mathematics (e.g. euclidean, hyperbolic, ellipical and riemmanian geometries) mutually exclusive to one another in how they describe space, and all dwelling in the human imagination much like Plato's "eidei" or ideal forms. One day, someone notices that one of these axiomatic systems resembles observable phenomena. Ptolemy could account for the observed motion of the planets with epicycles, with an accuracy equal to Kepler's system of ellipses. Model theory has to do with the initial phase of stumbling upon a system which seems to match observations, as well as the later phase of asking "is this system actually the way things are (i.e. the noumena)? or is the system only an ad hoc contrivance for measurement?"

The laws of relativity and quantum and thermodynamics in no way lead inductively to the existence and nature of bunny rabbits, and yet the existence of rabbits in no way violates those laws. The laws of statistics do not inductively lead to the rules of poker or blackjack. Such games of chance obey the laws of statistics and probability, yet we would not study statistics in order to learn how to play the games themselves.

The Socratic line of questions and answers, a series of syllogisms and predications, is the tail of the sting-ray. At the end of the tail is a stinger, the numbing and silencing narcotic of "aporia" and refutation.

How Free Is Free Will

How Free is Freewill?

Category: Religion and Philosophy

It is a paradox that, on a microscopic level, the motion, direction and temperature of any given molecule of gas seems totally random and unpredictable, and yet, on a macroscopic level, the temperature, pressure and volume of that gas, enclosed in a container, obeys very precise laws.

Quantum events appear not only random but acausal, yet the intergalactic events composed of those quantum building blocks seem as smooth and regular as some orchestrated performance.

Consider the analogy of this paradox in relation to societies and history, composed of the actions and choices of countless individuals exercising their free wills.

Our Greatest Sin

Our Greatest Sin

What is our greatest sin? Our greatest sin is that we lack vision.

Our greatest sin is that we became gods, but we never became godly.

Unlike Faust, we do have the means to sweep back the ocean and make dry land. We have power but we lack vision. It is not that God looked and saw that it was very good. The goodness was in the seeing, in the vision. Vision is seeing before there is yet anything to look at.


Our second greatest sin is that, lacking vision, we do not even go in
search of vision. We do not look for vision, and we look askance at
visionaries because we do not care. None so blind as those who will not see. None so deaf as those who will not here. The age of miracles is when the blind see, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised. But we are the miracle of the walking dead, who neither see nor hear. We are not Moseswithout his staff. We are Moses who leans upon his staff and does nothing.


We have laid down our instrumentality upon the shores of Babylon, and we weep, not for Sion, but for our lack of tears. Lack of tears is the greatest draught. Lack of hunger is the greatest famine. As Rumi said, Do not seek water. Seek thirst!" Water is everywhere, but without thirst,all the water in the world is useless.

The Freewill Choice of Good over Evil

Category: Religion and Philosophy

A question was posed at a literary forum

http://www.literatureforums.net/vb3/showthread.php?t=2757

(regarding "Clockwork Orange")

Is it better to be able to choose to be evil, or to be forced to be good?

Sitaram replies:

This is an interesting thread. I am a bit short on time this morning, so I must come back and re-read all the posts carefully.

I am reminded of something which Moses said in the Old Testament (Torah or Pentateuch). I will look up the exact reference. Paraphrasing from memory: "This day is placed before you life and death (good and evil). Choose, therefore life."

How interesting that the scriptures of the Old Testament stress that there is a freewill choice.

The Old Testament also makes it clear that we cannot always be certain what is good and evil. When the brothers of Joseph come to him in Egypt and ask his forgiveness for their attempting to murder him but then instead selling him into slavery, Joseph replies (paraphrased), "You intended evil. But God transformed your evil into good." The evil action of selling their brother into slavery made it possible for Joseph to rise in power to be number two in all of Egypt, and thereby, to have the power to save his family from famine.

By contrast, the Qur'an basically says that Allah only helps those who do good, but those who choose not to believe, are blinded by Allah, and lead further into error and deception by Allah, so that their punishment in the afterlife may be increased.

I must post this now, so I do not loose what I have written so far, and return via edit to add further thoughts.

I have done a google search to locate the quotation of Moses, above.

http://www2.jrf.org/recon-dt/dt.php?id=160

Deuteronomy 29:9 - 31:30

Ultimately this comes down to choice, and this brings us to one of the final, and most familiar, passages from the parasha. Here we read, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life...by loving the Eternal your God, heeding God's commands, and holding fast to God." (Deuteronomy 30:19-20). This verse is meant to remind us that, though we are given a suggested path down which we should walk, we must ultimately exercise our free will and choose the path we are to take. Hopefully this will be the path towards blessing and life and not the path towards curse and self-destruction.

Our sages, in Midrash Tanhuma (Re'eh 3) expressed this beautifully in a parable: "An old man sat on a highway from which there branched two roads, [one full of thorns at the beginning but level at the end], and the other level at the beginning but full of thorns at the end. So he sat at the fork of the road and cautioned passersby, saying, "Even though the beginning of this road is full of thorns, follow it, for it will turn level in the end.' Whoever sensibly heeded the old man and followed that road did get a bit weary at first, to be sure, but went on in peace and arrived in peace. Those who did not heed the old man set out on the other road and stumbled in the end. So it was with Moses, who explicitly said to Israel, 'I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life, that you and your offspring may live.'"

Socrates is famous for frequently saying that "All people by nature desire (or choose) the good." Socrates stacks the deck in his favor, I suspect, by defining the very act of choice as stemming from a desire, and assuming that desire for something is ipso facto, a desire for something desirable, and that which is desireable is ipso facto, good. Now, Socrates would allow that often people are mistaken in their notion of what is good. As Solomon wrote somewhere in Proverbs, "There are ways which seem good unto a person, but the end thereof is death."

We might say that an athlete chooses to triumph and win, because winning is good in the athlete's eyes. The athlete might choose to take steroids to achieve the goal of winning. The steroids might injure health, or be discovered and ruin a career. Illness and scandal are evils, and not good, but the athlete who makes such a choice is only looking at the seeming good of triumph and awards.

The most interesting line in Milton's Paradise Lost, for me, is where Satan says, "Evil, be thou my good."

Abrahamic religions depict Satan as initially the brightest of angels, Lucifer, the bearer of light, who, in a sense, admire God so much that Lucifer desires to BE God. This misguided desire of Satan is decribed as the first sin, of Pride.

Satan is cast out of heaven, so the story goes, but obviously still holds onto a desire for excellence. Since Good is the dominion of God in heaven, and Satan has been forever cast out of heaven, I ask, what choice is left to Satan but Milton's choice, to choose evil as good, and strive to excel in evil.

In the long (5 hour) PBS (Public Television) interview of Joseph Campbell by Bill Moyers, there is a brief segment in which Campbell relates a Sufi tradition about Satan. God casts Satan out of heaven with a stentorian voice saying "Begone!" and that last word of God is all Satan has to
remember God by. The idea is that Satan really loves God, and the separation is punishment. Campbell chuckles and adds, "The last words he hears are 'Go to Hell', and that memory is all Satan has to cling to for eternity." I thought it was a very interesting story.


Sufi spirituality always seems to be greatly concerned with the notion of "a beloved" and yearning after the beloved. There is one Sufi story about a Fakir (religous ascetic), who is sitting by the roadside, begging, when he sees another Fakir passing by in a determined fashion and a quick pace. "Where are you going?" he calls out to the passerby, who replies "I am going to visit with God." The first Fakir shouts "Well, ask God what he thinks of my prayers." A few days later, our Fakir sees his fellow Fakir returning. "Did you speak with God?" he asks. The second Fakir replies, "Why yes, and he told me to tell you that he detests your prayers. They
are the worst he has ever heard." The first Faker jumps up and down joyfully, laughing and shouting. "Why are you so happy?" the puzzled traveller inquires. "Because God heard my prayers!", answers the first. Once again, we see something beloved in the act of hearing and listening, even if what is heard is discouraging.




This devilish esthetic which Milton presents of "Evil, be thou my good" becomes interesting when examined in the light of Socrates' proposition that "all by nature desire the good, and no one willingly chooses what they consider to be not good", along with Plato's Euthypro problem, "is the good good by fiat simply because it is what God desires, or does God desire what is good for some inherent quality residing in goodness (or substitute virtue, morality, holiness, or
righteousness for the word good,if you prefer).


I was a great fan of the cartoon series "Earthworm Jim". In one episode, through some bizarre radioactive accident, Earthworm Jim spawns an evil twin. They are about to battle to the death. The evil twin gives a speech first, boasting essentially the boast of Milton's Satan, that he hates
everything that is good, and likes everything that is not good." So, Earthworm Jim (who is not always the brightest of worms) reasons, "Well, winning is good, and losing is bad, and since you like what is bad and hate what is good, then surely I shall defeat you.) Of course, we know that our hero, Jim, proceeds to dispatch his evil twin in no time flat.

Doing Your Thing

Doing Your Own Thing
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Religion and Philosophy

This is an important point you raise, about the homeless man who could not paint that well but did it because that was all he could do.

There is a saying, "If something is worth doing, it is worth doing poorly (badly)." Not that we should not give everything we do our best effort. But we should not be discouraged and stop jogging or practicing the violin, or singing, simply because we are not at Olympic/Carneige Hall/Julliard level.

I am also reminded of a passage in the Bhagavad-Gita which states that it is better to do your own dharma imperfectly, than the dharma of another. Oh gosh, now I have to come up with an explanation of "dharma".

Google brings me to World Religions: An Introduction for Students
By Jeaneane D. Fowler
page 209

There is a UNIVERSAL dharma, satanadharma, the cosmic norm, to which everything is subject.
For any individual there is svadharma (one's personal dharma), which is the result of all present life and past life karma. To go against ones personal dharma path is to be adharmic, which will cause negative karma in the future. Sitaram thinks of svadharma as the knitting needles we receive to undo the knots in our karma. We could attack this Gordian knotwith violence of the sword, but that is not what is needful.

Back to the passage in that text book:

which then quotes the Gita, "Better one's own dharma, devoid of merit, then the well-discharged dharma of another.Death in one's own dharma is better; the dharma of another is fraught with fear.

Now, the ultimate goal is not increasing good karma, but achieving moksha, reuniting with Brahman like a river which merges into the sea. Since the inner atman, which must merge with Brahman, is beyond dualities, it is beyond both good and bad karma.

I once read that "the desire for liberation itself, that very desire, is an impediment to liberation." (Liberation being moksha).

There are edition of the Greek Orthodox philokalia which show monastics ascending a ladder to heaven (John Climacus, John of The Ladder), and as the ascend higher and higher towards saintliness, some are falling from the ladder because they succomb to pride.

Once there was an old monk in a Russian monastery, who seemed so meek and long suffering. The other monks were always picking on him. A priest questioned the old monk, as to how he endured such things, and the old monk answered "they are simply dogs nipping at my heals." But, you see this remark revealed the underlying pride of the old monk, who endured by means of the thought that he is superior.

I work for a man who comes from a wealthy and powerful family in France. He is totally optimized in his personality to be a successful entrepreneur, and break into an existing market place which is dominated by giants. His optimism is boundless, even in the face of circumstances which might discourage others. He takes bold and daring risks which might terrify others who are more conservative in nature. If he is ultimately successful, he will succeed precisely because of all these characteristics which are part of his svadharma. He usually converses in French, and assumes I do not understand anything of what he is saying. I once heard him say of me, "ah, he is nothing but an intellectual, but in the end I shall have the last laugh and achieve wealth and success."

Yes, he is correct. I am an intellectual. But, I am what I am, not because I woke up one morning and decided to be an intellectual, rather than an entrepreneur. It was in my nature from my infancy. Yes, I did make conscious choices to pursue and exercise those "talents" which are innate within me. I recognized what my own dharma is, and I surrendered to it. That did not make me the best intellectual, or some olympic champion in a world hall of fame. I had the opportunity to "become" what I "am" and, in my case, to write about it. Perhaps a few of my thoughts shall survive on in the world, or perhaps not.

All of this makes me think of President George Bush. Every little boy in American has been encouraged at some point to proclaim "I want to be president when I grow up." I feel deep in my heart there there was something in this world, some path, some svadharam, at which he would have excelled. Even fellow former president Jimmy Carter exclaimed that Bush is perhaps the worst president in history.

The New Yorker Magazine once published a cartoon of a frustrated clown, seated in front of his dressing-room mirror, emoting, and reciting Shakespeare. The clown was a good clown, but hankered to be a Shakespearean dramatic actor. We see the same thing in "The Simposons" cartoon, where Side-Show Bob yearns to be taken more seriously.

Here is some correspondence I had in 1999:

8-3-99)

(correspondence from Andre)

Hi Sitaram

My belief structure is based on the Law of One and I would greatly appreciate if you could put words to an emotion, a feeling I know and yet cannot summarize in a sentence.

What knowladge can you share with me regarding the question - What is soul ?

Thanx for a great site

Love and Light

=======================

Hi , nice to meet you.....

Excellent question....

Quickly, off the top of my head so you will have some kind of answer (for there is no easy answer to this)..... in Old Testatament, Hebrew word for Soul is Ru-ah (which I believe means somthing that flows, or blows like the wind). In New Testament, of course, we have the word Psyche for soul, but we have Pnevma for spirit, which also means wind or breath. Then we have, in Isaiah book of Old testament,... God saying.... "As high as heaven is from earth, so high are my ways from your ways, my MIND from your MIND (or My thoughts from your thoughts)"......

What I am driving at is the Hindu notion that the soul, atman, jiva, is a spark from God, who is brighter than 10,000 suns (phrase from the Gita).

In Hinduism and Buddhism, and other religions, it is CONSCIOUSNESS ITSELF which is divine, sacred, non-different from the Divinity.

Perhaps we could look at the words of Jesus "The Kingdom of Heaven is WITHIN you" which might also accurately be translated "The Kingdom of Heaven is AMONG you"..... and also where Jesus says "In my Fathers house, there are many mansions, I go there to prepare a place for you."..... well, in the COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS of the Divinity there are many individual personalities, souls, jiva,.....

I suppose one could also see this concept in the Christian teaching that the people of the Church are collectively THE BODY OF CHRIST.

But do re-read page 2 of my website which quotes the thoughts of Meher Baba on the relationship between God and individual souls..

I hope this will give you some food for thought.....

============================================

Andre, your words: { a feeling I know and yet cannot summarize in a sentence. }

remind me of the verse from the "Way of the Tao" by Lao Tse,

The TAO which can be spoken is not the TAO.

and also,

He who KNOWS does not say, and he who SAYS does not know.

Also a hymn by Shankaracharya of India in the 8th century C.E. which begins

"Oh Thou from whom all WORDS recoil...."

(in otherwords, the Divinity is ineffable, much like the APOPHATIC {speaking AWAY from} theology of the early centuries of Christianity..... in other words we cannot say what God IS, we can only say what God IS NOT)

an also, pay particular attention in the website to the Jain religious term

ANEKANTAVADA, which means "No one view", also called "Doctrine of Manifold Aspects"..... it means that every attempt at verbalization of reality is but a partial truth of reality from only one of an innumerable number of aspects....

====================================

I was listening to an interview on Television regarding the works of the now deceased author, Jennifer Lash, who wrote "Blood Ties".

One of her daughters read an excerpt from one of her mother's novels (I did not catch the title).

In the passage, some people enter into an abandoned church. A large white owl has become trapped inside the church.

As they watch, it frantically flies back and forth, dashing itself into the walls.

There are holes in the roof which would afford an escape, but the owl is too panicked to find them. The woman in the church who recounts this scene cannot bear to stay and watch the owl destroy itself while they stand by, helpless, watching.

Later in the day, that woman recollects the scene, and thinks to herself,

"Suppose the SOUL is like that owl, trapped in the mind, dashing itself frantically, injuring itself, destroying itself. There are exits, escapes, ways out, but the soul cannot see them. And God watches helplessly (I suppose because of the inviolable sanctity of the soul's free will). What anguish might that be for God, watching?"

===============================

Another thought which comes to mind (I dont know where I heard or read this)

"Man is Matter which contemplates Itself"

Carl Jung wrote a small monograph entitled "On the Nature of the Psyche (Soul)"

It is rather difficult reading.

In it, he states that MATTER has a PSYCHOID nature. In other words, matter STRIVES to evolve into CONSCIOUSNESS. Consciousness, conversly, has a MATERIAL nature (sort of like Freud's Death Wish, or Death Instinct). Consciousness is wounded by feeling, and secretly yearns for NON-EXISTENCE.

One striking statement which Jung makes in that monograph is the following:

"If the time ever comes when mankind builds a rocket, strikes Mars with the rocket, and causes damage to the planet Mars, it will certainly be accurate to say that Mars was damaged by the 'Psychoid Nature" of Matter, since matter evolved lifeforms, and consciousness, and the human consciousness invented the rocket and aimed it at Mars."

=====================================

(correspondence from Siddhartha)

Hello,

I visited your site. It was very informative.

I have a question. Do you have any idea as to why the Supreme Brahman bothers to project the material universe from within itself?

I have been pondering the question a lot. A Gaudia Vishnava (Hare Krishna) said that the spiritual realm is timeless (fair enough) and then the Supreme Brahman projected the material realm from itself. Why is my question?

If you have an answer, could you point me to the scriptures that inspired that answer.

Your assistance is appreciated.

==========================================

Sitaram,

I read page 2. It was very nice but the passage mainly talks about how everything aspires to realize Brahman. And not about why God bothered creating us and the Universe.

I have heard the quote u mentioned, i.e. about even Brahman not knowing from whence it came but... that makes me feel very scared. EvenGod does not know :(?

Maybe I should tell you why this is so important for me. This may seem childish... and I am a child as far spiritual matters are concerned. I am 20 years old now. Ok I aspired to be an Astronaut (told you it's gonna be childish) because I believed that I would find God up there. I have enrolled in Aero Engineering at my University. I am an average student. I believed that my path toward God would be through union with the Mechanical aspects of the world. But as time has passed I have immersed myself in nationalism and politics (it is written in my Jnamakshar that I would be a small time politician). I have strayed from what I believed to be my path to God. Ok, then now the real thing. See if I know why God bothered to create the Universe then I would know if it is worth striving for union with God. In other words, is it worth uniting with him at all?

I hope you humor me and help me.

On Thu, 15 Jul 1999 SITARAM wrote:

one of the best answers i have encountered, was a little passage written by Meher Baba, which I reprint on Page 2 of my website..... have a look at that page 2 dialogue.... and then we can talk some more..... these are not easy questions, and I certainly do not have all the answers, anymore than anyone else does..... what was that passage in the Upanisads which said,.... "Perhaps Brahman knows, or perhaps Brahman is unawares..... " it is the first page in my paperback edition of Bramhasutras translated by (i think) Sarvapali Rhadakrishnan, I dont have it in front of me at the moment... it is such a startlingly openminded and honest point of view in an ancient scripture....

============================================================

You said:

SITARAM: for some reason... God creates Other... Separation... and part of God becomes that Other... and suffers SEPARATION... but ... learns something in the process... and ultimately REUNITES with the source "

What is that reason for God to initiate separation? See Judiasm and Christianity have creation defined in Genesis but I feel that makes Earth far to "speacial." I believe there is other life or universes. And the concept that God created the Universe for his pleasure-well I have one word if that is why God created us-sadist. And that u go to heaven and feel no sorrow blah blah if you are good is so childish, like u get candy if u r good

The problem with hinduism is that it dwells on the path to unity but doesnt seem to bother with do I want this unity with God? And for me it directly ties in with why God created the Universe?

I know I am flooding you but I am kinda... deperate.

============================================================

Thanks. I will do so.

Can you tell me when you are online for chatting and (I read in one page that you are usaully on @ 6am) and what chatroom you are in. I wish to stay in the background and just read and learn.

On Thu, 15 Jul 1999 SITARAM wrote:

regarding concept of "only one universe".... look at page entitled "Black Holes, Lord Krsna's Pearls "

======================================

I was talking with a friend a while ago and asked him this same question regarding creation and he said the even Brahman must do karma and he said that there was proof of this in a verse in the Gita when Krishna is in Virat-swarup and tells Arjun that even Brahman must do karma and thus he creates and destroys. I looked for the verse in the copy of the Gita I had and could not find it. Maybe I have a bad translation or did not look carefully enough (I have that problem-too much skimming)? I will look again.

You speak of our souls being "sparks" of Brahman, I loooooooooove that. Then my question is... why does Brahman frizzle and crackle :) (partly j/k) I understand that is hard to answer.

That karma applies to Brahman is nice. Since we are part of God and we are bound to do karma so even the Supreme should be bound by that. But one attains, jivanmukti only when the karma they do has no consequence (u know I do not understand the idea of an action having no consequence, do you have a webpage on that?). So I would think Gods karma has no consequence.

Any thoughts?

================================================================

Ok, so Brahman is beyond karmic consequence... but he does perform karma right?

But still, why bother creating... sometimes in your webpages you talk about a causal universe and at other times about spontaniety-i.e. sparks. If I were Brahman, in supreme bliss and absolute equamity with good and evil, truth and untruth, all duality, why would I want to exert a part of me and makea part of myself not realize this equamity and engrain this part with an urge to evolve, to look for this equamity and eventually return to my Supreme self? Do I not know that I am in perfect equamity that I must go through this process?

On Fri, 16 Jul 1999 SITARAM wrote:

I suppose i could offer you a typical Vaishnav answer from Srimad Bhagavatam,..... sort of a Hare Krsna answer.... namely, that the Supreme Personality of Godhead and Primal Lord, (Krsna), is beyond karmic consequences, and there are passages in Gita which indicate this.... but that other Demigods like Indra, Bramha, etc.... are Dieties who are subject to Karma.... there is a story about someone experiencing a vision of millions of ants,.... passing through a palace, and it was revealed that each of those ants had, in a previous birth, been Lord Indra, and "in charge" of a universe.....

====================================

I just read your page-"A hard day online" :o) You are GOOD man. Haha. But I learnt a lot. My roomate in college 1 year ago is christian, I dont know whether protestant, I had asked him what demonination and he told me something real long anyways one day he mentioned out of the blue... "jews are bad, they smell they dont take baths." I was surprised. Now that comes to my mind again after reading your page.

You mentioned on that page that it is a thankless job and someone has got to do it. Well, I am sure many have said this but, thank you. Thank you very much for what you have done.

Regarding what u wrote below. A circle is perfect because it has no jagged edges? I dont know. What do you mean by "Why did it set out in the first place..." ?

On Fri, 16 Jul 1999 SITARAM wrote:

if a perfect circle returns to the point from which it started, why did it set out in the first place.... and why is it "perfect".....

God is an infinite circle, whose center is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere

===========================================

I have decided to think about what you said before responding in anyway. I am going to go through some webpages, look for that verse from the Gita and look at the verses in the Rig Veda on creation (Purusha and Prakriti sacrifice). I have to get a better understanding of Maya for I have a feeling that this Universe is Maya and since my concern is with the creation of Maya (for I am comfortable with the idea that we are part of the Supreme). Now, why create Maya and we get separated from the Supreme, I want to concentrate on Maya for a while.

I was supposed to write a profile on Keshab Chandra Sen, social revolutionary in India born in 1834. He was very attracted to the west and was blamed of being too sympathetic toward Christianity. I also have to go to a info session on Kashmir tomorrow.

=================================================================

On Fri, 16 Jul 1999 SITARAM wrote

Why does Brahman cast out the phenomenal universe, as a spider castes out its web..... only to draw it back to Himself, and what does He catch in this web of Maya?

And what does the circle enclose?

The reason I can see is that Brahman wants the sparks that have left Brahman to return. Does this make sense?

Then the question I asked in one of the previous emails, why does Brahman crackle and fizzle and give out these sparks?

Please help... ============================================================

In a message dated 7/19/99 11:20:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Siddhartha writes

{ The reason I can see is that Brahman wants the sparks that have left Brahman to return. Does this make sense? Then the question I asked in one of the previous emails, why does Brahman crackle and fizzle and give out these sparks? }

=============================== (my reply)

I have been thinking about your most excellent question, namely, why does ANY OF THIS take place to begin with.... or... as you put it... why does Brahman "crackle and fizzle and give out these sparks"......

Of course, you are asking about the very fountainhead of all CAUSALITY.

I recently read that Physicists have discovered sub-atomic "EVENTS" which are PURELY SPONTANEOUS, i.e., have no other cause, but are CAUSELESS.

Of course, I am neither a physicist nor a mathematician, so I must take the word of documentaries regarding such discoveries.

But it is interesting that scientists have found in Nature what truly seems to be CAUSELESS sparks or events.

Funny how the word "causeless" makes me think of Lord Chaitanya's words "Causeless Mercy" in Vaishnav writings.

The only other help thing I have found concerning the reason for this "crackling" and "fizzling", is on page 2 of my website... the words of Meher Baba which I quote....

I enjoy hearing from you....

Please do write again, even if only to tell me news about your life and thoughts...

Not everything that we write has to be of a profound religious or philosophical nature.

========================================

It is your very words below that I echo back to you when I speak of the circle, why does it set out, if its nature is to return to itself?

{ But still, why bother creating... sometimes in your webpages you talk about a causal universe and at other times about spontaniety-i.e. sparks. If I were Brahman, in supreme bliss and absolute equamity with good and evil, truth and untruth, all duality, why would I want to exert a part of me and makea part of myself not realize this equamity and engrain this part with an urge to evolve, to look for this equamity and eventually return to my Supreme self? Do I not know that I am in perfect equamity that I must go through this process?}

Why does Brahman cast out the phenomenal universe, as a spider castes out its web..... only to draw it back to Himself, and what does He catch in this web of Maya?

And what does the circle enclose?

================================

if a perfect circle returns to the point from which it started, why did it set out in the first place.... and why is it "perfect".....

God is an infinite circle, whose center is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere

=======================================

I suppose i could offer you a typical Vaishnav answer from Srimad Bhagavatam,..... sort of a Hare Krsna answer.... namely, that the Supreme Personality of Godhead and Primal Lord, (Krsna), is beyond karmic consequences, and there are passages in Gita which indicate this.... but that other Demigods like Indra, Bramha, etc.... are Dieties who are subject to Karma.... there is a story about someone experiencing a vision of millions of ants,.... passing through a palace, and it was revealed that each of those ants had, in a previous birth, been Lord Indra, and "in charge" of a universe.....

==========================

one of the best answers I have encountered, was a little passage written by Meher Baba, which I reprint on Page 2 of my website..... have a look at that page 2 dialogue.... and then we can talk some more..... these are not easy questions, and I certainly do not have all the answers, anymore than anyone else does..... what was that passage in the Upanisads which said,.... "Perhaps Brahman knows, or perhaps Brahman is unawares..... " it is the first page in my paperback edition translated by (I think) Sarvapali Rhadakrishnan, i dont have it in front of me at the moment... it is such a startlingly openminded and honest point of view in an ancient scripture....