The God of Death continued:
The sense Functions of the sense Organs are touch,smell,vision ,sound, taste . These sense Functions are subtler than the sense Organs themselves. The Mind is subtler than the sense Functions.The Intellect ( the discriminating or judgemental faculty ) is subtler than the Mind. The Unexpressed Reality/Unmanifest Reality is subtler than the Intellect.
God is subtler than the Unexpressed Reality.
Humans should try to merge their faculty of Speech into their Minds.They should merge their Minds into their Intellects.They Should merge their Intellects into God.
Arise,Awake,Go to those learned Sages who know this and learn from them the Knowledge of God.
God is indescribable, untouchable, formless,tasteless, odourless, inerodible, greater than the greatest and permanent.
God has made it difficult for humans to acquire this knowledge by making their sense Organs oriented outwards.Common people fail to orient their sense Organs inwards.It is an uncommon person who is successful in orienting his/her Organs inwards and realize God.
After the Self leaves the body, nothing worthwhile is left behind.
When people die,some Selves may take up new human bodies, some Selves may take up animal bodies or some plant bodies.
This is in accordance with the" Karma" of the previous births.
Nachiketa asks: How will I know that God has illumined my Intellect ? Does he/she/it illuminate at all ?
The Lord of Death replied: Yes. God illumines. The Lightning,the Moon , the Sun, the Stars do not illumine themselves.God illuminates them.
It is God's Law that is obeyed by the Sun when it warms the Earth.It is the Law of God which the Fire obeys when it burns.It is the law of the God when the Air blows this way or that way.
Originally posted by rvsakhadeoHi, apart from the bit about reincarnation I didn't understand any of that (yeah yeah I know I'm incapable of grasping the hidden truth and all that). But I am particularly interested in what this actually means?
God is subtler than the Unexpressed Reality.
God is subtler than the Unexpressed Reality.
Originally posted by divegeesterWelcome ! I understand that many westerners may find it difficult to comprehend the nuances of Hindu spiritual theory. But I thought there were no abstruse words in my post. Except perhaps,as pointed out by you,the Unexpressed Reality.
Hi, apart from the bit about reincarnation I didn't understand any of that (yeah yeah I know I'm incapable of grasping the hidden truth and all that). But I am particularly interested in what this actually means?
[b]God is subtler than the Unexpressed Reality.[/b]
In our spiritual thought, this world in which we all live and die is the Expressed Reality or the Manifest Reality. This world of objects having names and forms, is so to speak the Manifest Reality or Maya. We say that this Maya is dynamic and ever changing and cannot be trusted. We say that just behind this curtain of Maya lies the Unmanifest Reality.The Unmanifest Reality is the seed of the Universe, a state of aggregation of all powers of cause and effect. ( Something,that probably existed before the big bang---my guess!) God is subtler than the Unmanifest Reality. You see the God of Death is describing to Nachiketa,the ascending sequence of subtleness.
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Originally posted by rvsakhadeoI like this account of God:
Welcome ! I understand that many westerners may find it difficult to comprehend the nuances of Hindu spiritual theory. But I thought there were no abstruse words in my post. Except perhaps,as pointed out by you,the Unexpressed Reality.
In our spiritual thought, this world in which we all live and die is the Expressed Reality or the Manifest Reality. Thi ...[text shortened]... ality. You see the God of Death is describing to Nachiketa,the ascending sequence of subtleness.
"In his classic work, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas Hofstadter depicts a scene in which Achilles, while conversing with a certain Genie, questions it as to just who (or what) GOD is (pages 103 to 126). The Genie, having made numerous references to this GOD entity already, is all too pleased to answer. He informs Achilles that "GOD" is an acronym which stands for "GOD Over Djinn" (where "Djinn" designates a rather large collection of genies).
"Achilles is perplexed and a bit disturbed by this answer. How can an acronym stand for something that includes the original acronym? Isn't that circular? Self-reference? Nonsense?
"But the Genie is unperturbed. It calmly explains (though it thought it was well-known) that "GOD" is a recursive acronym; it stands for "GOD Over Djinn", as already noted, and this in turn stands for "GOD Over Djinn, Over Djinn". This second expansion, of course, can be expanded a third time into "GOD Over Djinn, Over Djinn, Over Djinn", and so on. So, unlike regular acronyms (which have just one measly expansion), the recursive acronym "GOD" has an unending sequence of expansions! "
http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/Summer2009/ABjorndahl/extension.html
Also,
"In Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, published 1979, Douglas Hofstadter uses the acronym GOD, 'GOD Over Djinn'. As a genie explains to Achilles, GOD stands for GOD Over Djinn, remarking that "GOD can never be fully expanded." In the German translation it is rendered as "ZEUS ewig über Schinn", meaning "Zeus eternally over Djinn"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym
So I like to think that the concept "God" rolls up an unlimited number (inartfully stated, an 'infinite number'😉 of layers or degrees of ascending subtleness, all of them together comprising God. A person who becomes aware and realizes that such a God can never be fully expanded in the human consciousness, (and that any purported God who can be fully expanded, is incomplete) is thereby enlightened, as in, lightened of a load.🙂
Originally posted by JS357Yes,excellent ! But the Achilles and the Genie story was ascribed to Godel--who I think was a great Mathematician/Logician(?) but not a theologist or meta-physicist.Thus while a God encompasses infinitely great numbers as well,his/her/its overreach is over the entire manifest and unmanifest reality.
I like this account of God:
"In his classic work, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas Hofstadter depicts a scene in which Achilles, while conversing with a certain Genie, questions it as to just who (or what) GOD is (pages 103 to 126). The Genie, having made numerous references to this GOD entity already, is all too pleased to answer. He i ...[text shortened]... mplete) is thereby enlightened, as in, lightened of a load.🙂
Originally posted by rvsakhadeoThanks for the explanation. I don't think it's because I'm a westerner that it isn't comprehensible though.
Welcome ! I understand that many westerners may find it difficult to comprehend the nuances of Hindu spiritual theory. But I thought there were no abstruse words in my post. Except perhaps,as pointed out by you,the Unexpressed Reality.
In our spiritual thought, this world in which we all live and die is the Expressed Reality or the Manifest Reality. Thi ...[text shortened]... ality. You see the God of Death is describing to Nachiketa,the ascending sequence of subtleness.
Originally posted by divegeesterWell, many westerners on this forum are either not familiar with Hindu spiritual thought or unnecessarily antagonistic to it. Sorry, I stereotyped you. You are most welcome to ask anything about Nachiketa's story or anything about Hindu spiritual thought.
Thanks for the explanation. I don't think it's because I'm a westerner that it isn't comprehensible though.