Ganesh & Dattaswami

[Iwannaplato]

God is never fearful or scared. It was the role taken by Him. In a drama an actress cries seeing her husband is dead. This is only acting. There is no actual emotion there. Roles are played in the drama.

Exactly. But when such things happened in the Ganesh origin story you did not have this level of understanding. You did not treat Ganesh, Parvati and Shiva as roles in that story and complained about what the characters did. You took the story literally.

[dattaswami]

God is never fearful or scared. It was the role taken by Him. In a drama an actress cries seeing her husband is dead. This is only acting. There is no actual emotion there. Roles are played in the drama.

Exactly. But when such things happened in the Ganesh origin story you did not have this level of understanding. You did not treat Ganesh, Parvati and Shiva as roles in that story and complained about what the characters did. You took the story literally.

But in that story no such divine aim of giving message is involved. But in the story i mentioned the aim was to give the message to devotees about the need of control of emotion was stressed.

[Iwannaplato]

God is never fearful or scared. It was the role taken by Him. In a drama an actress cries seeing her husband is dead. This is only acting. There is no actual emotion there. Roles are played in the drama.

Exactly. But when such things happened in the Ganesh origin story you did not have this level of understanding. You did not treat Ganesh, Parvati and Shiva as roles in that story and complained about what the characters did. You took the story literally.

But in that story no such divine aim of giving message is involved. But in the story i mentioned the aim was to give the message to devotees about the need of control of emotion was stressed.

Then that was the problem (for you) not what you said.
There are different interpretations of the story, but one, for example, is the importance of duty. Even faced with someone more powerful than himself, Ganesh did his duty to his parent. In the end he is rewarded with an elephant head, symbolizing intelligence.

[Iwannaplato]

Do try and not be a jerk. The forum is all stocked up.

This echoed for me. Did it for a second occur to you that I think DS is doing harm to good and innocent people? Did you for one fucking second consider things from my point of view? I get it you think I am wrong, but framing what I am doing as trying to be a jerk WHILE supposedly going along with DS on be just with the unjurst and do not harm and all that is not just ironic but hypocrisy. I disagree with DS about a lot of things, and I do think there is a cowardice at the root of some of his spiritual ideas, a cowardice that has been in place for along time in many 'spiritual' places. But he's committed to what he believes. You're a dabbler. You barely know the type of spirituality that you're defending. That doesn't mean I'm right about it, but you sure look silly when you engage in mean-minded interpretations of what I am doing while showing you don't even know what you're defending.

[dattaswami]

Then that was the problem (for you) not what you said.
There are different interpretations of the story, but one, for example, is the importance of duty. Even faced with someone more powerful than himself, Ganesh did his duty to his parent. In the end he is rewarded with an elephant head, symbolizing intelligence.

It is OK. However based on that story the Ganapathi's idols are made and people used to worship that idol by submitting food materials and other things. But a statue cannot take your food and eat it. Thus your submissions are not reaching God. At the same time if one give food to present alive human incarnation of God, He will eat it and also get energy and will preach such a person the spiritual knowledge which will really benefit that devotee in his or her spiritual uplift. Thus from idol worship one shall move to the worship of present human form of God. That is the essence.

[Iwannaplato]

Then that was the problem (for you) not what you said.
There are different interpretations of the story, but one, for example, is the importance of duty. Even faced with someone more powerful than himself, Ganesh did his duty to his parent. In the end he is rewarded with an elephant head, symbolizing intelligence.

It is OK. However based on that story the Ganapathi's idols are made and people used to worship that idol by submitting food materials and other things. But a statue cannot take your food and eat it. Thus your submissions are not reaching God. At the same time if one give food to present alive human incarnation of God, He will eat it and also get energy and will preach such a person the spiritual knowledge which will really benefit that devotee in his or her spiritual uplift. Thus from idol worship one shall move to the worship of present human form of God. That is the essence.

That has NOTHING to do with whether Shiva is presented in a way that does not befit a deity.

I notice this with great regularity. You seem to find a reason to give short and long lectures in response to people's responses to you. But they are generally not related even to what is quoted. They are tangents.

Here you are talking about feeding the statue of Ganesh, which is not something I wrote about and has nothing to do with the issue I brought up in response to your criticism of the story of Ganesh.

[dattaswami]

Then that was the problem (for you) not what you said.
There are different interpretations of the story, but one, for example, is the importance of duty. Even faced with someone more powerful than himself, Ganesh did his duty to his parent. In the end he is rewarded with an elephant head, symbolizing intelligence.

It is OK. However based on that story the Ganapathi's idols are made and people used to worship that idol by submitting food materials and other things. But a statue cannot take your food and eat it. Thus your submissions are not reaching God. At the same time if one give food to present alive human incarnation of God, He will eat it and also get energy and will preach such a person the spiritual knowledge which will really benefit that devotee in his or her spiritual uplift. Thus from idol worship one shall move to the worship of present human form of God. That is the essence.

That has NOTHING to do with whether Shiva is presented in a way that does not befit a deity.

I notice this with great regularity. You seem to find a reason to give short and long lectures in response to people's responses to you. But they are generally not related even to what is quoted. They are tangents.

Here you are talking about feeding the statue of Ganesh, which is not something I wrote about and has nothing to do with the issue I brought up in response to your criticism of the story of Ganesh.

My point is that treating Ganesha as elephant and feeding grass etc to its idol there is no use because whatever fed to the idol, the idol cannot eat! The best way is to give food to contemporary human incarnation of God who will preach the devotees about spiritual knowledge.

[Iwannaplato]

It is OK. However based on that story the Ganapathi's idols are made and people used to worship that idol by submitting food materials and other things. But a statue cannot take your food and eat it. Thus your submissions are not reaching God. At the same time if one give food to present alive human incarnation of God, He will eat it and also get energy and will preach such a person the spiritual knowledge which will really benefit that devotee in his or her spiritual uplift. Thus from idol worship one shall move to the worship of present human form of God. That is the essence.

That has NOTHING to do with whether Shiva is presented in a way that does not befit a deity.

I notice this with great regularity. You seem to find a reason to give short and long lectures in response to people's responses to you. But they are generally not related even to what is quoted. They are tangents.

Here you are talking about feeding the statue of Ganesh, which is not something I wrote about and has nothing to do with the issue I brought up in response to your criticism of the story of Ganesh.

My point is that treating Ganesha as elephant and feeding grass etc to its idol there is no use because whatever fed to the idol, the idol cannot eat! The best way is to give food to contemporary human incarnation of God who will preach the devotees about spiritual knowledge.

Perhaps you are biased since you consider yourself a human incarnation of God. And why is that best?
I am pretty sure everyone who puts food in front of an idol knows it's not going to get eaten by the idol. It is a ritual act.

And most gurus, like yourself, are incredibly well fed.

Perhaps the best solution would be to give a symbolic portion of the food to the statue and the rest to the poor.

The gurus can manage on their own and have no need to be jealous.

[Dontaskme]

The spiritual hunger in the West was caused by a culture evolving towards the pursuit of materialism as an end.

And part of that END was the added pursuit of materialism in the form of a loving eternal God. Humans shopped for God as part of their addiction to the pleasures of retail therapy. The self-serving acquisition became you're most treasured possession.

This has evolved into the spiritual materialism of retail therapy for the soul. The pleasure is found in the acquisition rather than the possession.

This results in egotistical notions of spirituality through superior consumption. For example, some products are more virtuous than others: electric cars, bamboo clothes, hair ties for hair buns, and Apple consumer electronics.
This is good to remember for last minute gift shopping. Buy the spiritually virtuous gifts, and support the planet.

So in you're own words, feed the ego and get fat, then laugh heartily until you're heart is so over loaded, it attacks itself, it smites you dead.

[Dontaskme]

Do try and not be a jerk. The forum is all stocked up.

That's quite rude as intended.