Is the Hindu principle that everything fits into "I"?

[Seawolf]

Originally Posted by sunsoul

There are many different views and traditions within Hinduism, and so you would get different answers depending on the perspective (i.e. Yoga, Vedanta, Mimamsa, Vaishnava Bhakti and others).

I would recommend reading some introductions to Hinduism to give you some framework from which to build up from..

I agree, Hinduism is probably the most diverse religion on the planet. There are literally millions of gods, and probably millions of different views of Hindu beliefs and traditions within it.

[Honza]

Originally Posted by srikanthdk71

Dear One, its so simple. Just for a moment lets forget the Sanskrit verses which may confuse your senses. Lets apply a simple logic.

Question yourself as to who created the whole universe, the void and the full, and surely the answer would be 'GOD' or 'Supreme Power' or Almighty or whatever you may call it. Now, did God require something to create? If yes, then there is something above god which he takes help of. If no, he would have created out of a will. Whatever was the will assumed a form and shape and creation happened. Now, if all the creation is Divine, You and Me also are divine. The divinity is encapsulated in ignorance. We think the body is Me. The body is I. But the Divinity within me is the I. This is the truth.

Now, coming about the DemiGods. Demi gods are for experiencing the worldly truths. Invoke the Demigod and the Demigod would help you. But in the Spiritual sense, we are invoking one of our own untapped senses. When it is invoked, we feel that we have been bestowed upon by the external. The logical truth remains the same that 'We cannot change anybody. Change can happen within ourself'. Only its because of ones hardwork to find the God or Invoke a power within oneself, one tries hard and the endresult is called as a 'Siddi'. Thats it. Everything is within you. Find it with your senses. You will know that I within you is the force that pervades the entire cosmos.

Cheers...

Thankyou very much. That is very understandable.

[jimrich]

Originally Posted by Honza

Am I correct in thinking that the Hindu's proclaim that existence itself is contained in and fits into and stems from the "I"?

A study of semantics and definitions may reveal that "I" or any word for that matter can be translated or defined in a number of ways and some cultures contain words that do not appear in English so one would have to define or examine how the "I", existence, contained in, fits into, stems from and some other words is being used in that sentence to adequately understand it. There might also be a need to study and fully understand the culture from which that sentence came.

Do they proclaim that the "I" is in fact the only God?

In my current understanding, god is all that there is - which will include the "I" or whatever that is supposed to stand for. All there is is god!

This has been puzzling me for some time - and my conclusion is that it just does not seem possible that the "I" is big enough to contain the whole of reality. Reality seems too vast and selfless to be contained in and to stem from the "I".

LOL, there is a self-less "I" but that's another story altogether. I learned that there are several levels or definitions of "I" - the personal 'I', the impersonal/universal 'I', the non-existent 'I', the Absolute 'I' the imagined/illusory 'I' and so forth. Its ultimately all about Semantics so start anywhere and enjoy to journey from a personal 'I'/'me' to the Ultimate where there is no longer an 'I'/'me' but always and Eternally a YOU.

[jimrich]

Originally Posted by Vinayaka

There are two 'I's.

From what i've learned there is only one 'I' or 'i'. And all the other apparent 'I's are just imaginary illusions that are taken as real. I suppose it just comes down to semantics and definitions.

They are incredibly distinct. The normal 'I' is the ego, the personality, who we think we are under the bondages of anava, karma, and maya.

Yes, its the imagined, illusory self-entity or ego.

That is very different from the 'I' in the religious sense. It's really too bad there aren't two pronouns.

There are two pronouns: 'I' and 'i' but English and convention won't allow that! The ego will never accept that it's just an 'i'.

That would be less confusing. Sometimes 'self' with a small s indicates this.

I've seen many ways to separate real/divine Self from the egoic self-entity, 'me', self (little s), etc. It's just not acceptable in conventional English which only recognizes the little 'i' or ego.

[jimrich]

Originally Posted by Honza

That makes sense; that there are two "I". A big one and a small one. Never thought of it that way before.

There is only ONE 'I'. All other 'I's or selves are ILLUSIONS.

[jimrich]

Originally Posted by srikanthdk71

Dear One, its so simple. Just for a moment lets forget the Sanskrit verses which may confuse your senses. Lets apply a simple logic.

Question yourself as to who created the whole universe, the void and the full, and surely the answer would be 'GOD' or 'Supreme Power' or Almighty or whatever you may call it.

I'd call it Me. I did it!

Now, did God require something to create?

No! I created all of it from, by and of myself. All that there is is ME!

If no, he would have created out of a will. Whatever was the will assumed a form and shape and creation happened.

I created all of this with and out of my own "will" or being or whatever term applies here.

Now, if all the creation is Divine, You and Me also are divine.

There is no (separate) "you" or "me". There is only Me: Divinity, Awareness, Being, Life or whatever it is currently labeled.

The divinity is encapsulated in ignorance. We think the body is Me. The body is I. But the Divinity within me is the I. This is the truth.

The "truth" is that there is only Divinity, Me, 'I', pretending to be objects and conditions such as: atoms, space, suns, planets, rocks, water, plants, animals, fish, We, Aliens, etc. It's all just a Play or Game.

Everything is within you. Find it with your senses. You will know that I within you is the force that pervades the entire cosmos.

Again, there is no (individual) "you". You are all that there is. Thou are that!

[Pleroma]

Originally Posted by Honza

Am I correct in thinking that the Hindu's proclaim that existence itself is contained in and fits into and stems from the "I"?

Yes, tat tvam asi, Thou are That. You are God. I can back up this view from the Upanishads (Hindu scriptures) dating back to the Vedic period.

Do they proclaim that the "I" is in fact the only God?

Wrong, Hinduism believes in the theory of Emanationism, all the gods, worlds and heavens emanated from only one God.

"Modalistic emanationism does not maintain that all of the Gods are names of one God, nor that “all gods are one God, all goddesses one Goddess.” Instead, that all of the Gods are distinct and unique personalities, all descended from one Divine Unity, which exists, collectively, in all of Them together. The Gods are sacred wine, poured out from a single krater, though each is an individual kylix, and thus removing any of these kylices takes away a portion of the wine, leaving the fullness incomplete."

God in Hinduism is both personal/anthropomorphic as well as impersonal. Yes the only thing that exists in the world independent of us is God and nothing exists apart from that. Stars, planets, galaxies, the milky way galaxy does not exist independent of us. Reality is only a state of mind.

This has been puzzling me for some time - and my conclusion is that it just does not seem possible that the "I" is big enough to contain the whole of reality.

What's so puzzling about it? Doesn't the entire information to produce a giant being like you was embedded inside a micron size genome inside a cell?

Reality seems too vast and selfless to be contained in and to stem from the "I".

Reality is not real and it is only a state of mind. We are inside the matrix or in other words we all are prisoners of the cave and the objects which we perceive are just mere shadows.

[Shivani Devi]

Namaste, my friends.

Going through a few weeks of spiritual turmoil in a 'neti neti' search has led me to realise that 'It' is whatever you think and believe "It' to be at the time until such times as there's no more thought or belief about what 'It' is.

The problem is, is that this tends to be just a tad isolating from all other forms of embodied consciousness still trapped in the material world plane.

I follow Advaita Vedanta, so I guess 'I am' a pretty big fan of all this stuff, however, at the end of the day, even sruti says 'neti neti' so there's no "I" and no "am" there's just what the Buddhists term 'suchness'. Everything just exists how it was meant to be, either with or without your involvement in it.

How I reached this understanding was to question why I was getting annoyed with others who called our gods 'devils' and myself a 'devil worshipper' when they were clearly blinded by the light of heaven.

Yes, at first I took offence at that label being attached until I realised all that didn't matter and if they thought my soul was going to hell, then to hell my soul would go, however that again, is just another version of mithya (falsehood).

I realise that the spirit world is also mithya and as just as 'fake' as the real world, but it amuses me greatly people somehow believe that 'the real world' is the only 'real world' out there when they all aren't real at all.

So, I can identify with being 'dark', 'evil' or a 'satan worshipper' if I like now because it makes absolutely no difference to me and I am pitying those poor souls still lost within the three dimensional universe...even if they've managed to find a 4th and 5th one...even if they have managed to 'raise the kundalini' I'm like 'yeah, that's great and all, but do tell me more'.

I've had to go back to the roots of my Tantric left-hand path and some say that's 'evil' so yeah, I'm 'evil' now - what are you going to do about it?

Aum Namah Shivaya

[WuWei]

Originally Posted by The Necromancer

Namaste, my friends.

Going through a few weeks of spiritual turmoil in a 'neti neti' search has led me to realise that 'It' is whatever you think and believe "It' to be at the time until such times as there's no more thought or belief about what 'It' is.

The problem is, is that this tends to be just a tad isolating from all other forms of embodied consciousness still trapped in the material world plane.

I follow Advaita Vedanta, so I guess 'I am' a pretty big fan of all this stuff, however, at the end of the day, even sruti says 'neti neti' so there's no "I" and no "am" there's just what the Buddhists term 'suchness'. Everything just exists how it was meant to be, either with or without your involvement in it.

How I reached this understanding was to question why I was getting annoyed with others who called our gods 'devils' and myself a 'devil worshipper' when they were clearly blinded by the light of heaven.

Yes, at first I took offence at that label being attached until I realised all that didn't matter and if they thought my soul was going to hell, then to hell my soul would go, however that again, is just another version of mithya (falsehood).

I realise that the spirit world is also mithya and as just as 'fake' as the real world, but it amuses me greatly people somehow believe that 'the real world' is the only 'real world' out there when they all aren't real at all.

So, I can identify with being 'dark', 'evil' or a 'satan worshipper' if I like now because it makes absolutely no difference to me and I am pitying those poor souls still lost within the three dimensional universe...even if they've managed to find a 4th and 5th one...even if they have managed to 'raise the kundalini' I'm like 'yeah, that's great and all, but do tell me more'.

I've had to go back to the roots of my Tantric left-hand path and some say that's 'evil' so yeah, I'm 'evil' now - what are you going to do about it?

Aum Namah Shivaya

Your internal narrative is quite loud. You are also thrashing, having a spiritual tantrum for some reason, I assume it's because deep down you know everything spiritual you believe in is essentially superficial. Just an arrangement of words you're seeking for that somehow justify reality to you. The hard world is winning against you right now, but it wont last.

I will look forward to reading your post when you finally release yourself from the bondage you've got caught in.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by WuWei

Your internal narrative is quite loud. You are also thrashing, having a spiritual tantrum for some reason, I assume it's because deep down you know everything spiritual you believe in is essentially superficial. Just an arrangement of words you're seeking for that somehow justify reality to you. The hard world is winning against you right now, but it wont last.

I will look forward to reading your post when you finally release yourself from the bondage you've got caught in.

Why does everybody believe I am somehow caught up in some "bondage I need to be released from?" This is what I do not understand...at all!

I guess the only problem and the 'tantrum' I am having here is that if I overcome this whole 'superficiality' thing, there will be nothing left for me to say whatsoever and no point of me even being on this forum anymore and that's what I am fighting with here.

Aum Namah Shivaya