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/lit/ - Literature

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20181056 No.20181056 [Reply] [Original]

How do we know we understand these religions accurately? There's so much variety and so many sects for Hindu religion that their own members often don't treat them as a familial group of sects, and they have many strange pagan beliefs like cow dung is purifying, hence the dung throwing festivals. Hinduism and Buddhism have both been marketed and politicized in the West for easy financial gains by sect leaders. It doesn't help that Western "intellectuals" (including image board fringe pseuds and the occasional smart poster), who only half understand these religions with thousands of years of texts and commentaries, gatekeep and filter our knowledge of them.

>> No.20181433

>>20181056
We don't. All the extant and documented schools of Buddhism come from a single side of a huge schism that shattered the original community of monks a few centuries before the Pali canon was written down. We're not even sure if the Buddha was a real person or what he actually taught. As for Hinduism, it is not a religion, it's a family of religions that vary wildly from what they postulate and require of their followers. It was built on the ancient Vedic religion, but it is not a continuation of it in any way.

>> No.20181496

>>20181056
Why don't you try to read the actual scriptures and make up your own mind?

>> No.20181523

>>20181496
They don't have any scriptures. Hinduism and Buddhism are both very fague at Thier core and pretty much designed so you can insert your own made up stuff into it.

>> No.20181559

>>20181523
The Vedas, Upanishads, Agamas, Bhagavad Gita and Puranas isn't enough to gain some insight into the gist of Hindu thought?
If you can't trust yourself to interpret it, there's commentary on literally everything from different teacher of various schools.

>> No.20181567
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20181567

>> No.20181860

>>20181523
For me it doesn't matter what their original teachers and texts said. We can work around them and gauge the truths ourselves, especially thanks to later teachers and commentarians. It's obviously not the neo-perennialists like Guenon, who don't say things as meaningful and deep as Shankara, despite their aping of Shankara.

>> No.20181910

>>20181523
Centralization is cringe. If you can't trust a paragraph based on it itself, why should you trust any other because of their authority?

>> No.20181915

>>20181567
Is that young Einstein on the right?

>> No.20181942

>>20181860
I personally don't see immoral actions like ethical casual sex and violence to be bad in themselves by any stretch. The problem with immorality comes from the distractions that occur when it makes one blind to the truth of God. At the personal and social level, these harmful distractions should be suppressed with high prejudice. Politics should follow from this model.

>> No.20181959

>>20181910
Some singular unitive authorities accomplish and progress more than others. They say what precepts need to be said, and lessen complications and failings. I'd rather treat those as the core and center, and expand them against their competition.

>> No.20182361

>>20181915
Ananda Coomaraswamy (yes, that was his name). Basically Guenon but not insane.

>> No.20182639

>>20182361
>a LITERAL coomer
>intellectually sound, btfo's pseuds, pursues the genuine spiritual path
Based.

>> No.20183228

Completely unrelated but why do modern Indians seem so retarded? The history/religion is quite interesting but the vast majority that i've interacted with (as a westerner) are completely braindead consoomer types. Plus they stink. Sikhs seem cool though.

>> No.20183324

>>20182361
>COOMaraswamy
He had 3 failed marriages.

>> No.20183350

>>20181433
>It was built on the ancient Vedic religion
>It is not a continuation of it in any way
What an oxymoron
Pick one

>> No.20183382
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20183382

>>20181523
Start with What the Buddha Taught, then read the Heart Sutra.
>b-b-b-but the pali canon
You can't even watch your breath for five minutes without your mind drifting and you want to sit down and read the entire Pali Canon? Yeah, nah, just do what the Theravada have been doing forever and read commentaries (that's what What the Buddha Taught is).