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/lit/ - Literature


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19182531 No.19182531 [Reply] [Original]

where do I start with Indian literature and philosophy?

>> No.19182551

in the loo

>> No.19182632

>>19182531

Start with the Bhagavad-Gita, after that read the Upanishads. After the Upanishads, you could read some of the Puranas, the two Epics (Itihasas), or their poetry or philosophical writings.

>> No.19182784

Anons I impulsively bought The Middle Discourses and Connected Discourses from a thriftshop for $8 each, but I only read the Upanishads from the jeets. Should I throw them out?

>> No.19183016

>>19182531
the greeks

>> No.19183023
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19183023

>> No.19183027

>>19182531
just read the wiki about Non-duality and smoke weed once. you dont need to read that much

>> No.19183032
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19183032

>> No.19183039
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19183039

>> No.19183237

>>19182531
Cow poop

>> No.19183246

>>19182531
start with the greeks

>> No.19184379

>>19182531
how can brahma and maya be the same and different at the same time?

>> No.19184401
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19184401

>>19182531
start with the 'jeets

>> No.19184424

>>19182531
Kalidasa

>> No.19184435

start with modern Hindustani writers like Premchand and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, not this ancient meme shit

>> No.19184438

Sit down and start meditating and don't stop meditating until you're enlightened

>> No.19184523

An Introduction to Indian Philosophy by Satishchandra Chatterjee is textbook used by philosophy students which I've recently started. It's very comphrensive, and readable, if a little dry at times, but seems to be a good start for the philosophy part.

>> No.19184534
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19184534

Anyone else start with this crazy shit? Some cult guys gave me a copy of pic related when I was like 12 and it blew my mind with the transcendental sorcery and Godhead powers.

>> No.19184557

>>19182531
read spinoza and kant, same basic thing contains in indian philosophy, different in some points

>> No.19184590

>>19184534
A supremely stupid book. Surely impressive to a child, but to someone with normal powers of thinking quite transparently the ramblings of a charlatan.

>> No.19184658

>>19182531
In literature do not start with the Ramayana and Mahabharata, start with Kalidasa

>> No.19184776

>>19184379
>how can brahma and maya be the same and different at the same time?
protip: they don’t say this, if you think they do, then you don’t know what you are talking about.

>>19184438
>meditation produces enlightenment
retroactively refuted by Sri Shankaracharya (pbuh)

Only knowledge can remove ignorance and thereby reveal enlightenment, actions like meditation cannot destroy ignorance because they are not opposed to it; actions and ignorance can co-exist but knowledge and ignorance of the same subject cannot.

>> No.19184777

>>19182531
With the Rigveda. Very aryan stuff

>> No.19184789

>>19184435
fuck off with those minor mediocrities


>>19182531
start with Naipaul and some Kipling
also the Gita and some Upanishads
end there
rest is garbage

>> No.19184838

>>19184789
> where do I start with Indian literature and philosophy?
>start with Naipaul (a westernized self-hating non-Hindu raised outside of India) and some Kipling (a non-Indian and non-Hindu)
huh

>> No.19184856

>>19184789
>diasporoid and an anglo
>random religious bullshit
ay ay ay

>> No.19184864

>>19182531
if you want all the entertainment for NPC, then any hindu or mahayana text like >>19182632
will do

if you want the real sutff, then the pali canon

>> No.19184874

>>19184776
>Only knowledge can remove ignorance and thereby reveal enlightenment, actions like meditation cannot destroy ignorance because they are not opposed to it; actions and ignorance can co-exist but knowledge and ignorance of the same subject cannot.

Okay, what knowledge?
Vidya - Scholarly Knowledge that can be transmitted by text and speech
Jnana - Knowledge gained by and of direct experience that cannot be separated from it, especially a divine reality. Also translated as „insight“.

I highly suspect Jnana, since it’s antonym is Ajnana and means „ignorance“.

Your text reads like you imply Vidya, when actually Jnana is the type of knowledge destroying ignorance. It can ONLY be gained through meditation (+ probably fasting, drugs, NDE…).

So while Meditation can’t remove ignorance, Jnana can, which is achieved by meditation.

>> No.19184888

>>19184864
Denying the soul is what NPC’s do, much of Theravada is a NPC religion

>> No.19184889

>>19184888
>a NPC religion
An*

>> No.19184901

>>19184888
Theravada has the most practical steps to enlightenment you can find.
It works with what you can know, not what you would like to be true.
Belief in a personal soul is just a subconscious way of escaping death anxiety, as Metzinger correctly points out.

Scared of death Virgin vs arising phenomena Chad.

>> No.19184913

>>19184874
>Jnana is the type of knowledge destroying ignorance. It can ONLY be gained through meditation (+ probably fasting, drugs, NDE…).
No, that’s not true. Jnana can arise from studying scripture under the instruction of one’s teacher/guru; this is not a scholarly, verbal or intellectual knowledge, but the teaching of the scripture when grasped directly results in the flowering of experiential spiritual realization.
>So while Meditation can’t remove ignorance, Jnana can, which is achieved by meditation.
Then, what you are saying is that meditation produces Jnana, in which case you are conceding my point that it’s knowledge in the form of Jnana which is what leads to enlightenment, and not the meditation itself; since meditation doesn’t automatically produce Jnana and plenty of people meditate without significant results.

>> No.19184925

>>19184901
>Theravada has the most practical steps to enlightenment you can find.
Meditation can be found in any tradition, what is found in Theravada isn’t more practical than plenty of stuff found elsewhere.
>It works with what you can know
Wrong, it involves faith-based claims like any religion (you can’t empirically verify that rebirth in another life after your body dies takes place)
>Belief in a personal soul is just a subconscious way of escaping death anxiety
This is just a subjective opinion, there isn’t any way to prove this
>Scared of death Virgin vs arising phenomena Chad.
The Virgin annihilationist crypto-materialist versus the Chad endowed with the divine inner spark

>> No.19184927

Just look at the image, hinduism is ooga booga tier shit. I'm starting to think the atheists were right about religion.

>> No.19184949

>>19184913
>>19184874
Also, meditation doesn’t either produce new knowledge or eliminate ignorance, so to speak of it as producing liberating-jnana is incorrect.

>> No.19185013

>>19184913
>Jnana can arise from studying scripture under the instruction of one’s teacher/guru
While I respect your belief, it is not mine. I also think this belief can lead to quite problematic teacher/student power dynamics stemming from idealization of the guru.

>you are conceding my point that it’s knowledge in the form of Jnana which is what leads to enlightenment, and not the meditation itself

And this is where we disagree.

The question seems to be wether a causal relationship is only a causal relationship if it is direct.

You argue:
Cause -> Effect !=
Cause -> Cause/Effect -> Effect

I argue:
Cause -> Effect =
Cause -> Cause/Effect -> Effect

I do this because you can always adjust your scope to find less/more causes of things that lead to an effect.

I also argue that:
∃Meditation -> Jnana
is enough to establish a causal relationship

whereas you argue that
∀Meditation -> Jnana
Is needed to establish a causal relationship.
>plenty of people meditate without significant results

Yes. Just like many people work out without getting leaner or stronger.
Or many people study without learning.

My point is that if done effectively it leads to it. Just like effective working out leads to strength. Just like effective studying leads to learning.

While I do admit that this is kind of „no effective Scotsman“ type situation, I stand by my point.
Which is: Does Meditation produce Jnana sometimes? Yes.
Does Meditation also not produce Jnana sometimes? Yes.
And in every case it produces Jnana it has before that not produced it.

Now the question for you:
Did the meditation that came before the meditation that produced Jnana produce Jnana or not? Looking back.

>> No.19185034

>>19184949
>meditation doesn’t either produce new knowledge or eliminate ignorance
So you’ve never meditated an then gained knowledge about the world, your perception, your habits, your relationships?
I genuinely wonder then, what you call meditating.

>> No.19185127

>>19184838
where do i start with American democracy?
start with Tocqueville

how old are you? 13?
go back to video games

>> No.19185469

>>19185013
>I also think this belief can lead to quite problematic teacher/student power dynamics stemming from idealization of the guru.
The Upanishads recommend asceticism and celibacy for those pursuing enlightenment, it’s largely Advaita who follows this but some other schools also do so to an extent; in a context where someone is following this traditional format there isn’t really any problematic power dynamic which can arise, since the teacher neither seeks nor is willing to accept money, material gifts or sexual activity, nor are they likely to seek to develop fawning acolytes for their own validation if they already have the willpower and mental strength needed to enter into celibate monasticism. Whenever there are abusive Gurus its always some ‘Neo-whatever’ thing which is not affiliated with any traditional religious order (except for Tibetan Buddhism, where the people at the near top of an entire sect sometimes turn out to be violent sex abusers like Sogyal Rinpoche etc). The traditional Advaita orders like the Dashnami Sampradaya dont have any issues with abusive gurus since they actually take celibacy, asceticism etc very seriously.
>Now the question for you: Did the meditation that came before the meditation that produced Jnana produce Jnana or not? Looking back.
I don’t think meditation produces jnana either way, in saying what I said earlier I wasn’t agreeing that meditation produces jnana but I was just examining the implications of what you said
>>19185034
>meditation doesn’t either produce new knowledge or eliminate ignorance
>So you’ve never meditated an then gained knowledge about the world, your perception, your habits, your relationships?
No, I’ve attended an SN Goenka Vipassana retreat before and have tried other forms of meditation as well and I disagree that it produces any new knowledge. In the act of meditation, you are not supposed to be thinking about other things, there is no additional content aside from what you are meditating on (i.e. in meditation on breath or one-pointedness, there isn’t anything in addition to this). When you meditate and then afterwards your mind is more calm and this leads to you not thinking about the world or your relationships differently, this isn’t actually new knowledge, it’s just you thinking about something which you already know in a new way.

>> No.19185483

>>19185127
>where do i start with American democracy?
>start with Tocqueville
That’s a bad comparison, since America is a several hundred year old experiment where Hindu literary culture is thousands of years old, and there are no greater authorities on it than Hindu philosophers/theologians themselves, there is not a strong reason to read people with little grasp of Hindu metaphysics if you want to study Hinduism.

>> No.19185499

>>19185469
*and this leads to you thinking about the world differently

>> No.19185530

I have the Hare Krishna version of the Gita, I don't know if its a good version, I'm planning on reading the RigVeda and other similar books soon