For those AGAINST starting with the Greeks: What alternative do you suggest?

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Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:39:13 2019 No.12391831 [Reply] [Original]

For those AGAINST starting with the Greeks: What alternative do you suggest?

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:41:46 2019 No.12391848 File: 54 KB, 586x518, 1541242303420.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12391831 start with the beats

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:42:49 2019 No.12391852 >>12391831 Start with Romans

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:42:53 2019 No.12391853 start with the brits and only read english language texts, fuck the rest

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:43:33 2019 No.12391856

>>12391831
I'm not against the Greeks, Plato is a God. But if you aren't looking into the Indians, specifically Advaita and Buddhism, what are you even doing with your life? Have you not realized yourself to be this whole world, anon? Have you not realized you yourself are what this entire world is made up of, all of it being your Dream? Have you not realized you are the Supreme, experiencing itself in this finite form? C'mon anon, that's such a silly mistake. Don't let this Maya delude you.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:46:04 2019 No.12391867 >>12391856 if indian's ideas are so great why are they racist, sexist, and shit in the street?

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:51:12 2019 No.12391894 >>12391856 >Have you not realized you are the Supreme, experiencing itself in this finite form? Archelaus, Plotinus, Averroes, and Fichte thought of that without ever reading the Upanishads or the Pali Canon.

>>	lactiferousducKs Sat Jan 12 00:54:00 2019 No.12391906 you can get a lot out of a bildungsroman for instance without any context of the history of ideas Or am i wrong?

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:57:58 2019 No.12391926 >>12391867 Because Brits stole our knowledge from us. They took our Vedas and translated them to reveal all the scientific information hidden them. The west is built on East's knowledge. We even invented genetic science thousands of years ago.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:00:23 2019 No.12391937 >>12391926 indians live in a fuckin fantasy world

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:01:47 2019 No.12391943 File: 417 KB, 726x649, niggerfairytale.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12391926 This is you.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:02:15 2019 No.12391950 >>12391867 Well Greeks are vain denpt thieves throughout history. A cultures smart people and dumb people don’t necessarily have anything in common with each other. Soc died son.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:03:32 2019 No.12391956 >>12391856 >Have you not realized you are the Supreme, experiencing itself in this finite form? this sounds a lot like Spinoza who I'm reading at the moment. pretty based anon.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:03:33 2019 No.12391957 >>12391856 Plato is not worthy of worship.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:04:05 2019 No.12391959 >>12391831 probably kys or get off this board brainlet

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:04:10 2019 No.12391961 >>12391950 >implying socrates was worth a damn read nietzsche son

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:07:40 2019 No.12391977

>>12391894
None of them realized it to the fullest in the manner the Hindus and Buddhists did, though. For them it may have been personal speculations, for the Indians it was directly experienced, and subsequently written of. The chakra system, the subtle bodies, reincarnation and things similar, all of them were discovered primarily by these two groups. Plato, who I said was a God, also came to the notion of nondualism through his own angle of "ideas", and also believed in reincarnation/metempsychosis possibly from Pythagoras, but again, none of the Greeks actually understood the logistics of how these would work, they merely believed in them. But if you look into the Dharmic traditions, they identify the various types of body which we consist of (physical, etheric, emotional, etc), and that Karma is the metaphysical law by which our present and future births were determined. There is no system of spiritual practise found among the Greeks, who were solely intellectual in their approach. If you want extensive spiritual practises, Hinduism and Buddhism is what you look into. Kundalini and all that other stuff also, was only discovered by the Indians.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:09:51 2019 No.12391987 >>12391926 i think you're parodying, but if not, and assuming your information is incorrect (since i don't know), you don't have to stretch information to give credit where due

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:12:53 2019 No.12391999

>>12391987
indians are the most credulous retards i've ever seen, some new arrival at my work was showing me some video of this guru yogi that he thinks can do all kinds of magic, and i've also heard indians try to claim that there are secret indian billionaires richer than jeff bezos or warren buffet, its like bro the whole world knows u only got a 2.5 tril gdp, where is the money gonna come from? indians do not have critical thinking skills, which is why they make great cogs to outsource mind numbing tech work too

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:17:15 2019 No.12392017 >>12391831 I started with Animorphs.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:22:53 2019 No.12392044

>>12391956
and it's true anon, i can tell you that from direct experience. i can't comment on spinoze bc haven't read him, but what I'll tell you is that you're simply Pure Consciousness who has presently taken on a body, and an identity, which now delude you into thinking yourself as different from everything else, and that you were "created", when really consciousness is uncreated and eternal and that only when you no longer desire further births and reach enlightenment will you be free of having to reincarnate again. everything u see in front of you is you, but ur not in a high enough state of consciousness to see it yet. every night you dream, and every morning you wake up realizing all the features of the dream - the people, locales, events - were yourself. this is true even now, in this waking dream which differs in no way as an experience from what you experience in your nightly ones. but u arent at a high enough consciousness state to see it, and live thinking of yourself as "James Fitzgerald" or whatever identity you're wearing. the purpose of the spiritual path is to shed your illusion of individuality and realize you were everything all along, like the water droplet who thought it was an individual now realizing it was always the whole ocean, and no longer identifying as a droplet. follow the spiritual path anon, don't let the modern meme-terialism get to you. its just a ploy they use to keep us as consumers and producers, but we're all much more than this bullsh*t you see in the world today. and false scarcity too. all the wars, all the political division, all the chaos you see today. its all orchestrated. none of this is normal.its called the Kali Yuga, the lowest spiritual age. if prophecies are correct then there is going to be major events at some future point wherein a Savior will come and free us all from this hell, and rid the evil from earth

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:25:08 2019 No.12392055 >>12392017 based

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:28:24 2019 No.12392070 >>12391831 Start with the children's classics.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:31:24 2019 No.12392087 >>12391831 Don't read.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:58:45 2019 No.12392170 >>12391831 start with the keats start with the yeats or better yet, start with your face you fucking flaming faggot bitch shit dick ass boy nigger

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 03:36:14 2019 No.12392437 >>12391999 and we fuck your bitches

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 03:48:32 2019 No.12392460 >>12391831 Bump. Considering starting with the Greeks.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 03:53:13 2019 No.12392471 >>12392070 An interesting response.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 04:15:51 2019 No.12392502 Start with The Selfish Gene and then read The Revolutionary Phenotype. At this point you already intellectually dwarf 99% of /lit/. Then, you should start with the Greeks and realize that they were wrong about pretty much everything.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 05:09:17 2019 No.12392633 >>12391831 DON'T start with the Greeks.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 05:13:45 2019 No.12392639 >>12391831 Anything. Start with what you think it's interesting.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 05:19:31 2019 No.12392645 >>12392044 >all the features of the dream - the people, locales, events - were yourself So the poster of this is also me? Shit, I never knew I was such a dumbass.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 05:20:00 2019 No.12392646 >>12391956 I don’t remember Spinoza saying anything like that

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 05:20:44 2019 No.12392648 >>12391831 The upanishads

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 05:22:50 2019 No.12392651 >>12391831 Life is short, read whatever interests you.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 05:22:57 2019 No.12392652 >>12391831 Start with the contemporary and work your way backwards. Seriously.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 05:29:24 2019 No.12392666 >>12391831 Start with shit that's relevant and interesting to you. Nothing more, nothing less.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 05:44:57 2019 No.12392691

>>12392639
>>12392651
>>12392652
>>12392666
This is what I want to do because the Greeks aren't piquing my interest at this point in time but I also suspect a lot of the things I'm interested in reference or follow from older works and the best way to appreciate most literature is to read a lot of the canon.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 06:56:38 2019 No.12392829 bump

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 07:16:46 2019 No.12392870 the only thing as relevant as the Greeks is the Bible and christian writings in general if it doesn't suit you, I see no reason why you would "start with" anything anyway, unless you just enjoy it.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 07:35:36 2019 No.12392927 >>12392652 I am somewhat conflicted on this. On one hand, it makes sense because the contemporary is more familiar. On the other hand, its weird to read some guy's polemics with book you don't know and have little to no idea of what it is about.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 07:43:13 2019 No.12392947

In perfect honesty, you ought to start with understanding simple references to Grecian events. That's all you need to know. Then start going backwards. Post mod, mod and then the enlightenment.

Alternatively, just start off with Sartre. Then read Derrida and Foucault. You've got a solid base. Then read Wittgenstein and finally realize the futility of philosophy.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 08:34:30 2019 No.12393047 Start with the fucking Mesopotamians

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 08:38:31 2019 No.12393056 >>12391831 Start with what you enjoy

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 08:51:37 2019 No.12393083 File: 69 KB, 679x452, images (17).jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Start with THIS

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 08:55:00 2019 No.12393090 >>12392947 >start off with Sartre this has got to be the worst advice i've read on this board and that's saying something

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 08:55:32 2019 No.12393094

>>12391831
Start with something that interests you then think about it using your own faculties and bring a fresh perspective to /lit/.

It just so happens the Greeks are as objectively good as it gets so many people are going to arrive at an appreciation for them, but that's not to say those who don't appreciate the Greeks are in any way wrong.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 09:00:41 2019 No.12393105 >>12392691 Just google whatever you don't get and look it up on Wikipedia. Starting with the Greeks is a massive waste of time when you can get a basic summary of most major philosophical works in the canon on the Internet in a fraction of the time.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 09:05:28 2019 No.12393113 >>12392646 Neither do I. He's often misunderstood, or misrepresented.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 09:08:16 2019 No.12393120 Start with 4chan.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 09:08:48 2019 No.12393121 >>12392044 interesting, desu

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 09:10:09 2019 No.12393123 >>12392044 I have come to similar conclusions myself, funnily. Nice to know I'm not alone.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 09:26:08 2019 No.12393183

Start with authors that interest you
Spend time getting familiar with literature (knowing the canon, important eras and regions)
Challenge yourself but also find importance in reading "easy" lit
Don't be afraid to read things like the Greeks but don't burn yourself out because of the /lit/ meme
Reading is meant to be leisurely even if you are treating it more intelligently or academically, always remember that

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 10:00:22 2019 No.12393303 >>12391848 unironically this

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 10:44:16 2019 No.12393483 >>12391831 Start with the Creeks.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 10:47:06 2019 No.12393495 File: 16 KB, 259x194, biff and chip.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >he didn't start with Biff and Chip doomed to failure

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 10:49:13 2019 No.12393505 File: 44 KB, 459x329, platos man.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12391856 >Plato is a God >Can't even define a man properly

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 14:14:37 2019 No.12394661 File: 418 KB, 747x1417, 1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Start with something from here.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 14:18:23 2019 No.12394679 >>12391831 start with confucius and sun tzu

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 17:59:30 2019 No.12395933 >>12394679 This. poems by Li Bai are the shit

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 19:05:08 2019 No.12396232 Mesopotamia, Egypt and Israel, Ancient China and India, then the Greeks.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 19:05:57 2019 No.12396236 The Italians

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 19:55:02 2019 No.12396465 >>12392044 If Maya is able to delude Brahman to this point, wouldn't that mean Maya is greater than God? You're basically saying that Maya have the power of tricking Brahman to the point that it doesn't know what it is.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 19:58:49 2019 No.12396481 >>12392927 why do you type like this? stop it

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 20:06:43 2019 No.12396521 >>12391831 Why would you ever recommend people start at a wrong conclusion. Just tell them to pick up the German Philosophers and be done with it.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 20:14:11 2019 No.12396571
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Start with a few primers on literature and poetry, things with "introduction to" in the title. Then read a big anthology of poetry and a big anthology of fiction like the Norton or Oxford. Then read the Complete Shakespeare, a King James Bible, a Montaigne, Paradise Lost, Ibsen and Tolstoy. Then you're ready to read basically anything in the western literary tradition. If you want to read philosophy too, tack on a historical introduction to philosophy like Kenney's and then decide what primary works are essential for your philosophical project.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 20:18:34 2019 No.12396597

>>12392044
Why are you talking to us? Like we differ one from another even when you said everything is me? Would't yourself be part of me? If we are in different planes us, given you can communicate without implying you are part of myself, how do you explain that?

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 20:48:02 2019 No.12396730

>>12396465
I'm no expert, but think of Maya as a fog in front of Brahman, which is a mirror, that keeps it from seeing itself clearly. And this fog is self-caused, in a sense, because Brahman desires to experience itself subjectively - to lose itself in its own dream. I probably sound pompous for speaking on this from personal experience, but I'll just tell you, from what I have seen in myself, it is very, very, very difficult to detach from your personal identity and sense of selfness, simply because it no longer feels rewarding to be in this world and in this body, when you no longer feel that much like an individual subject. And to realize that everything and everything you know (your family, friends, and any person you ever see) was merely yourself, brings you to great tears - a level of empathy which is very difficult for an individual soul to handle. Again, I am drawing from my actual experiences here so don't call me pompous or whatever, but I'll just say that I personally don't keep myself in the state of "expanded consciousness, reduced personhood" at all times I could be in it, simply because it is painful, sentimentally, to be in it. To realize you were never a person, that everyone was always you, and that all of this is was the illusion of something transient, yet completely eternal in essence - it is a difficult pill to swallow, in a sense, and so one can find much meaning in Maya, of thinking yourself a distinct entity with a distinct life and all these other things you are attached to. It's difficult to articulate. Basically, Maya is atleast partially (if not entirely) in your will, and you, Brahman, keep yourself in it because you gain enjoyment in deluding yourself. It is fun to not remember what you truly are, and go through this world as if its an adventure which much more to be learnt and accomplished, compared to you already being the Supreme at the base of it all.

>>12396597
We are separate in sense of two droplets of water being found in two different parts of a ocean. They are identical in substance - different only in distance. And yet, really, an ocean does not consist of some finite number of individual droplets, but is an entity of entirety, with no internal divisions. While we presently embody these human bodies, and while you and I are still living under the illusion of difference (as absurd as one tree thinking itself different from the tree next to it), then communication between us is needed and will happen. But if you could lose all your attachments, which form the basis of the construct called "identity", you would thereby see clearly that you were this entire experience.

I've told other anons on here before that I'm writing a text on spirituality that will explain this to laypeople, and how they can help to spiritually ascend for themselves. But it'll take some time to finish, as I only recently felt this whole ego-death & better understood the nature of reality from doing so, and I have much farther to go.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 21:05:54 2019 No.12396827 >>12391856 Based and red-pilled

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 21:07:24 2019 No.12396832 >>12391867 all of those are good things my man

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 21:18:01 2019 No.12396879 >>12396465 God decided to manifest as individuals out of his own magnaminity so that they could know the limitless bliss of resolution into One >>12392044 praise Kalki desu

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 22:17:33 2019 No.12397164 >>12396879 praise Kalki desupai

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 22:33:33 2019 No.12397233 >>12394661 other than Lolita that whole list is pretty high school english class tier

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 22:37:22 2019 No.12397262 >>12391926 >We wuz geneticists n shit

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 23:49:46 2019 No.12397569 >>12391867 >racist, sexist, and shit in the street? based

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 23:56:05 2019 No.12397592 >>12396232 >reading the bible before the greeks >when most of the relevant parts were stolen from Mesopotamia, Persia, or heavily influenced by the Greeks

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 23:58:27 2019 No.12397600 >>12396879 So, is the bliss of resolution into the infinite considered superior than simply the bliss of the infinite?

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 00:00:04 2019 No.12397605

>>12391831
Start with Rudin, Munkres, and Shilov in real analysis, topology, and linear algebra respectively. Then get Dummit/Foote for abstract algebra, then after that you're free to pursue a large number of more specific books in complex analysis, differential geometry, algebraic topology, PDEs, functional analysis, etc. etc.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 00:01:39 2019 No.12397614 >>12396730 very interesting, anon. was a great read

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 00:06:45 2019 No.12397635

Read whatever you want to read. Reading isn't a competition. Those holy literary references you're so worried about not understanding if you don't read the entire canon of western thought aren't very important, and if that's the reason you want to spend countless hours reading the Greeks you're just wasting your time. If you actually run into something that stops you from being able to understand a text you can just Wikipedia. If you're worried about it get an edition with footnotes -- problem solved.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 00:06:58 2019 No.12397640 Start with the prehistorics

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:12:31 2019 No.12398537 >>12397600 The former merges into the latter

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:25:25 2019 No.12398604 >>12392044 You can choose eternity or freedom.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 08:29:57 2019 No.12399603 >>12391977 >Plato, who I said was a God, also came to the notion of nondualism through his own angle of "ideas", and also believed in reincarnation/metempsychosis possibly from Pythagoras It was from the Zoroastrians.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 09:00:57 2019 No.12399714 >>12399603 Cool theory, too bad Zoroastrianism is hard dualism.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 09:30:04 2019 No.12399815

>>12399714
I'm not that guy but he is correct, within the larger dualism of Zoroastrianism was a sect called Zurvanism which taught something very similar to Neoplatonism/non-dualism, we don't know exactly how far back they go but Eudemus wrote about them in the 4th century BC and since the doctrinal basis for them seems to have be an exegetical interpretation of the already existent holy texts (like Vedanta) it's possible the roots of it could go back quite far.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zurvanism

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 09:42:11 2019 No.12399878 >>12391831 start with the greeks

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 10:46:09 2019 No.12400126

>>12399714
Nigger, everything in terms of intellectual grey matter from the ancient greeks was taken from Zoroastrianism because it was the first institutionalized monotheist/monolatric religion in the world, which enhanced it's understanding of the world through astrology. It's not so hard to assume this since ancient greek mathematicians all started out in persian owned cities and most of greek Philosophy ( Ahura Mazda means Lord of Wisdom) started out as worshiping Zoroastrian metaphysics (Love of Wisdom), which eventually became the bedrock for ancient greek intellectual thought.

All of these foundational informations about the world were taken by the greeks at face value, and only by doing so could they start asking themselves continuously "But how and why did these things come into being?" which eventually made them create their own separate tradition of thinking.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 10:47:23 2019 No.12400135 >>12392044 The 60's called, they want their New Age drug infused ramblings back

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 10:48:24 2019 No.12400144 >>12391831 Start with Christianity

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 10:55:12 2019 No.12400163 >>12400135 the truth is eternal

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 10:57:20 2019 No.12400170 >>12391831 "Readers of Reddit who are AGAINST starting with the Greeks: What alternative do you sugggest?"

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 10:57:25 2019 No.12400172 >>12397233 would be p fucking embarrassing if a highschooler were more well read than you, yeah?

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 11:02:02 2019 No.12400185 >>12400163 There is only one Eternal Truth in this plane of existence, friend, and that Eternal Truth is God.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 11:19:04 2019 No.12400253 >>12400185 That poster was saying the same, although you may not have realized it

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 11:22:29 2019 No.12400263

Starting with descartes
Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Schiller, Maimon, Hegel, Marx, Nietszche, Frege, Ayer, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Heidegger, Anscombe, Naussbaum, Philippa Foot, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Gramsci, Adorno, Nick Land, Jordan Peterson

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 11:27:08 2019 No.12400285 >>12400253 I was talking about God, he was talking about pantheism or some shit.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 11:42:50 2019 No.12400370 >>12399815 >>12400126 >everything that have similarities comes from the same place >dude it's all connected woaahh (((western scholarship))) was a mistake

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 11:51:43 2019 No.12400422

>>12400285
What you understand as God is really just a way of anthropomorphizing what he is talking about, which includes your understanding of God as one component of it. Also, pantheism is when the universe is considered to be a real entity forming the body of God or God consisting of the universe, what he is referencing (mostly Advaita) is different because that doctrine holds that the universe is unreal and there is only God, that He is the only truth; and so pantheism is the wrong word to use.

As Sanai says 'He it is who is alone, and ha; no partner; to whatever thing thou ascribest fundamental existence, that thou assertest to be His partner; beware!'

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 11:52:25 2019 No.12400429 >>12400263 Horrible advice

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 11:58:40 2019 No.12400460

>>12400370
You're retarded. It goes far beyond similarities. If there was no Zoroastrianism there wouldn't be primitive scattered tribes on it's edges reinterpreting their holy text's main ideas, and by extension there wouldn't be any Ancient Greek Philosophy, nor Ancient Israelite Yahwinism nor Christianity.

There's barely any similarities between Zoroastrianism and the late Hindu commentaries other than starting out from a common Indo-Aryan polytheistic pantheon.

When it comes to the West, there wouldn't even exist such a thing if it wasn't for the Ayranian Zoroastrianists.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 11:58:57 2019 No.12400463

>>12400370
It's quite ironic that you are implying their ideas are somehow the agenda of Jewish-dominated academia when in reality most Jews would loathe the idea that the Israelites weren't the foundation and origin of western culture via the Judeo-Christian tradition and that it actually comes from the Persians. I'm hard-pressed to think of another plausible origin theory that would upset Jews more.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:03:32 2019 No.12400497

>>12400422
>Hindu mental gymanstics

We get it, Atman is a highly abstract entity that only your Brahmis can comprehend and explain to the masses.

However, in the West we believe this entity which you call Atman and that you vaguely define as being rooted in everything surrounding us, we hold that he is actually defineable and has a quite logical way of creating this reality, since Existence does not exist without a cause, and a cause without a reason.

This reason we hold lies within understanding this entity which we call God, so that we can understand his reasoning behind creating Everything, so we could understand our ultimate purpose within this universe and the universes beyond it.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:04:47 2019 No.12400502 >>12400460 >There's barely any similarities between Zoroastrianism and the late Hindu commentaries Besides Zoroastrian Zurvanism that is

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:05:52 2019 No.12400510 >>12391848 fpbp Starting with Kerouac or Burroughs is a great way for the average person to get into literature. But really though, you should get back to the Greeks before you start on any classical or modernist novels.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:07:45 2019 No.12400517 >>12400263 >no Berkeley

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:09:30 2019 No.12400524 >>12400460 >we wuz the original thinkers and shieeet

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:10:10 2019 No.12400526 >>12396465 This is actually a brilliant question, but I think he answered it well here >>12396730 Great, great question though.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:11:25 2019 No.12400534 File: 30 KB, 640x558, 0ee8110c84fac0742fc312bf626329e8.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12391926 >Brits stole our ability to cover up our own feces

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:21:38 2019 No.12400582

>>12398537
Yeah but you said that Brahman manifested himself out of himself in order so the manifestations could know the limitless bliss of resolution into the One. But they were already in the One.

So resolution into the one has to be superior to the state of being one with Brahman, why else would he do it?

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:29:09 2019 No.12400635

>>12400524
Why is it that the ancient greeks made a comeback to the West, in a time when their philosophies have long been assimilated into the larger and more significant parts of rigid monotheistic worship? Surely if the greek's writing had any intrinsic value to actual human literary creation, they would have still be studied by the Byzantines. Rather, their ideas were incorporated into a more sophisticated level of human mental understanding of reality, which is by theology. The rest were left useless. Only in the West did their ideas make an ancient comeback, because the nature of their works reflected the same backward mental state of the West at the time of it's adoption.

You have all these Indo-European tribes migrating everywhere south of the globe's civilization, did you notive a pattern? Wherever these tribes migrated their interpreted the culture of the locals somehow, some of them sophisticated, some of it backward. On the opposite side of Europe, there were tribes upon tribes scattered through the peninsula fighting each other for dominance for most of their history.

It is why the ones migrating to the Indus Valley that managed to achieve such humongous human literary achievement that single-handedly spawned the world's biggest and oldest religions in the world.

Now compare that to what the Greeks, and indeed what the "West" was doing at that time, and you will notice a pattern. Like a rope, one end begins with a tight node, and the other with loose strings.

The tighter the string gets, historically, is when that human's mind evolves to understand higher abstract thinking in the form of worshiping divinity. It is why the West has historically been so chaotic and there's nothing changing significantly other than the flavors of the existential trends it's part of, as well as the circumstances in which they formed.

The entire mental "Mechanism" on the Western man is to rationalize his existence within a very clear set of strictly material parameters. It's what gave us all these centuries of politics, wars and expansions. His mind is too primitive to understand higher abstract notions of the divinity. And even when he does begin to grasp it, he dumbs it down so he can justify war, politics and expansion, with examples in Western history like this being numerous.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:35:28 2019 No.12400663 >>12391831 Start with Bertrand Russel's "The Problems of Philosophy".

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:39:56 2019 No.12400693

>>12400582
I disagree with that anon - Brahman doesn't enact Maya for the sake of the bliss when it finally escapes it, but simply for the thrill of the adventure born from doing so. It's like how, after you've beat a video game, if you love it enough, you often wipe your saved accolades and achievements and start all over again anew. For there's no fun once the adventure is done, and you feel desire to re-experience it all again, sometimes doing this over and over.

But true liberation is when you no longer desire to, and free yourself from said cycle, merging back to what you truly are.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:44:36 2019 No.12400720 Start with the Mesopotamians. If it’s 100 years younger than the epic of Gilgamesh you’ll lack the necessary context.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:15:47 2019 No.12401193

>>12400582

>>12400582
>Yeah but you said that Brahman manifested himself out of himself in order so the manifestations could know the limitless bliss of resolution into the One. But they were already in the One.

When I said that I was at a very crowded dinner at a bar last night, was very drunk and briefly scanned the thread on my phone before commenting, I did not put a lot of thought into that post and it was mostly me trying to express it in terms that a Christian would understand. The other anon here >>12400693 rightfully disagreed with my post because what I said would be considered incorrect by Advaita from the perspective of the absolute truth. Advaita considers the absolute truth to be that Brahman is pure consciousness free of attributes, conditioning or intentionality, that it never actually manifests, that it is never fooled by Maya or goes from life to life, that the universe is never actually manifested. Brahman is considered to be completely changeless, spotless infinite consciousness. This is sometimes referred to as the doctrine of non-origination. Anything that contradicts this is seen as being only conditionally true, which equals false from the perspective of the absolute truth in which everything is sublated.

To tie it all togather as illustration, Brahman is considered beginningless, unborn (both as in without birth/origin itself but also never being born as individuals), but conditionally, there is a beginninless and endless cycle of universes being created, sustained and then dissolved back into Brahman, but again all this is considered to take place only as illusion and not in reality. Stuff like karma, craving etc is along with the entire universe is made unmanifest (which is not non-existence) when the universe is dissolved into Brahman, the momentum of these remain when the universe is made manifest again which is what is considered to propel the existence of individuals etc in the cycle. From the perspective of the absolute, Brahman is free of intentionality/action and never created anyone or anything. Rather there are illusionary cycles of universes which seem to (but not in reality!) manifest endlessly within Him. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad in the beginning takes this concept as a given, when describing the primordial/first being within the universe Prajapati/Virat (sometimes used interchangeably) it talks about how he attained that status through meditation/yoga/etc before all the other aspirants and speaks of him burning them figuratively as though one burns an opponent in a race, this is the same being who is the only one who exists at this point, the people he is spoken of as burning are all the other aspirants in the previous cycle of manifestation who desired to attain the status of Virat, but who failed to do so. Then it describes how because of desire Virat expanded himself and split in two (forming females) and then these change into every animal and populate the universe.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:16:47 2019 No.12401200

>>12401193

So there is no question of motivation or action in creating the universe(s) because from the absolute truth it never actually exists or is created, and its continued illusory existence is propelled by the momentum of the previous universe in a beginningless cycle taking place within Brahman which never needed Him to kickstart it because both are without beginning.

Advaita does not claim to completely understand why Maya exists but accepts it for among other reasons because the Upanishads say multiplicity is only perceived because of Maya, but it is a mystic theology and not a philosophy devised with the intent to prove itself to logicians. Shankara considered speculation on the origin of Maya to be grounded in Maya and hence useless. Maya and the cycle of existence has been spoken of by Hindus as Lila, which translates to divine art/play/sport and which conceptualizes it nicely. Because Brahman is considered to have a sort of 'fullness' in the sense of it being a not an absolute void/nothingness, part of that non-nothingness is that there are these contingent and illusory cycles which are His art and which reflect His order. Brahman is considered to remain forever unaffected and at peace and so it's not as though He is tainted by it, but rather we are part of the rainbow appearing on the surface of the soap bubble, co-terminous with the beginningless existence of the soap bubble which infinitely transcends the appearence of the rainbow, and at which at any time one can puncture the illusion of the rainbow and remain as the bubble (or rather, one no longer is preoccupied by the distraction which was the cause of mistaken identification with the rainbow).

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:51:55 2019 No.12401375

>>12401193
Also I would add, what I was thinking of in the first place when I said that was saguna brahman or qualified God. Brahman is considered to be in its absolute truth without qualities (nirguna) but within manifestation Brahman appears (conditionally, like all of manifestation) as the gods of the trimurti whereupon it takes on attributes such as magnaminity, protector, dispenser of justice and restorer of order. And so in a lot of Hindu poety/texts even when composed by Advaitins when describing qualified aspects of Brahman like Vishnu/Shiva will use terms which contradict nirguna Brahman. I was super drunk and distracted when I posted that which I apologize for if I caused any confusion, I should have made the distinction. As an example of this distinction being demonstrated in a Hindu text you have in the Bhagavad-Gita Krishna says,
"Though I am unborn, and are of imperishable nature, and though I am the Lord of all beings, yet, ruling over My own nature, I take birth by My own maya' - BG IV-6

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 15:56:10 2019 No.12401731 >>12400693 based analogy, desu

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/lit/ - Literature