Is it possible to understand the God through intellect (mind)?
[QUOTE=CityMonk;70998]Is it possible to understand the God through intellect (mind)?[/QUOTE]
Absolutely not, even the thought this writer (Ray) just wrote interferes.
Yes, it is possible. Jyan Yoga is one of the four basic Yoga paths. It is path of VIVEKA (ibest translated in english as ntellect/discrination). Get to know more about JYAN YOGA.
‘‘Is it possible to understand the God through intellect (mind)?’’
What you are calling ‘‘God’’, one should not even assume that God exists. Whatever has not entered into ones own direct experience, at the most, remains just a hypothesis - an idea in the mind. If you mean by ‘‘God’’ a Supreme Being who is watching over you, with his likes and dislikes, an ego created in ones own image - then such a God is just a projection of the mind. The mind is in such a way - that it is capable of as many projections as it can manufacture, creating everything in its own image. Depending on your identifications, your ideas about God will be different. Hence, the Christians have their own idea of God, the Jews have their own idea of God, the Hindus have as you very well know thousands of different images of God, the Gods of the Chinese are all Chinese projections. This is how the mind is - it can only provide you with a subjective interpretation of things through the senses. That is why the intellect is never capable of grasping that which is divine. To grasp it would mean that it has become included as part of your knowledge, you have made that which is boundless into a limited object. When we are talking about the so called divine, we are talking about a dimension which is simply empty of all limiting qualities, identities, and forms. Beyond all mental categories, try as you may, you cannot grasp it through the small hooks and nets of your thought. Inexpressible, words cannot contain it, neither silence can contain it. This is something that can only be revealed through coming to a direct perception of something within you, if there is such a thing, which is birthless and deathless. Even then, through you yourself would have become the living truth - it is not something that is to be understood. Truth is not something to be understood, it is something that is to be lived.
Health and Yoga,
''Yes, it is possible. Jyan Yoga is one of the four basic Yoga paths. ‘’
If you mean by this, that it is possible to prepared your inner atmosphere for enlightenment through the intellect, then yes. Otherwise, awakening itself is not an intellectual happening, it is something experiential. It is not something to do with mind, it is moving beyond mind. All effort along the path is not for awakening - that is well beyond ones control. You cannot pull a lotus out of a seed. But if you take care of the soil, prepare the ground, the lotus starts blossoming spontaneously by itself.
[QUOTE=HealthAndYoga;71006]Yes, it is possible. Jyan Yoga is one of the four basic Yoga paths. It is path of VIVEKA (ibest translated in english as ntellect/discrination). Get to know more about JYAN YOGA.[/QUOTE]
as I understood that all YOgas originated from Samkhya philosiohy which denies existence of god or any other higher power…
[QUOTE=AmirMourad;71013]’‘Is it possible to understand the God through intellect (mind)?’’
What you are calling ‘‘God’’, one should not even assume that God exists. Whatever has not entered into ones own direct experience, at the most, remains just a hypothesis - an idea in the mind. If you mean by ‘‘God’’ a Supreme Being who is watching over you, with his likes and dislikes, an ego created in ones own image - then such a God is just a projection of the mind. The mind is in such a way - that it is capable of as many projections as it can manufacture, creating everything in its own image. Depending on your identifications, your ideas about God will be different. Hence, the Christians have their own idea of God, the Jews have their own idea of God, the Hindus have as you very well know thousands of different images of God, the Gods of the Chinese are all Chinese projections. This is how the mind is - it can only provide you with a subjective interpretation of things through the senses. That is why the intellect is never capable of grasping that which is divine. To grasp it would mean that it has become included as part of your knowledge, you have made that which is boundless into a limited object. When we are talking about the so called divine, we are talking about a dimension which is simply empty of all limiting qualities, identities, and forms. Beyond all mental categories, try as you may, you cannot grasp it through the small hooks and nets of your thought. Inexpressible, words cannot contain it, neither silence can contain it. This is something that can only be revealed through coming to a direct perception of something within you, if there is such a thing, which is birthless and deathless. Even then, through you yourself would have become the living truth - it is not something that is to be understood. Truth is not something to be understood, it is something that is to be lived.[/QUOTE]
thank you for the post…but man, you are trivial today:))
well, i think you try to say that the God can not be understood by the mind?
‘God’ is a word, too gross to contain meaning.
The meaning here is too finite to be about the infinite.
The infinite can only be, free even from its own awareness.
Let us play, “Superman, Superman!”
[quote=suhas tambe;71028]
let us play, “superman, superman!”[/quote]
:d :d :d LOL
"well, i think you try to say that the God can not be understood by the mind? "
No. In the first place, if you are truly a seeker, you should not assume that there is even such a thing as God, whatever one may mean by that word. When somebody is a seeker - it basically means that he has come to a recognition of his ignorance, that he does not know. Otherwise, if you are entering into the search for Truth thinking that you already know - you are entering into it with a prejudice. God - is just an empty word. It will mean whatever you want it to mean, like all words. Depending on your own way of thinking, your ideas about God are going to be different. That is why - it is far better from the very beginning, to do away with the idea of God completely. There may very well be something which is infinite, birthless and deathless. But, if there is such a thing, the moment you try to grasp the ungraspable, you miss it.
Lao Tzu had said, that the Tao that can be named is not the Eternal Tao. It is one of the most insightful statements that has ever been said in the history of humanity.
Suhas,
‘’ God’ is a word, too gross to contain meaning.’ ’
Yes, it is. In the Upanishads, it was said not just ‘’ Aham Brahmasmi’ ’ (I am divine), but also Sarvam Brahmasmi (’ ’ Everything is divine’ ’ ). There is a reason why in Hindu mythology - there have been around thirty three thousand gods and goddesses, and yet at the same time they have always been saying that all of these gods and godesses are manifestations of one Brahman. The problem that we have as human beings is that our intellect always tries to divide everything into bits and pieces, it fragments our experience. If we talk even about the divine, we usually assume that there is something which is in contrast to it, which is the opposite. God and the Devil, Heaven and Hell, sin and virtue, the sacred and the profane, right and wrong, good and bad, light and darkness, and so on. With the intellect - we categorize everything according to our own prejudices, creating polar opposites out of everything. This understanding of the Oneness of things, if it is to be well established as an experience, it is merciless. There can be no clinging to one thing in favor for another, you know very well that whatever we are calling, ’ divine’ , it is inescapable. Your consciousness has come to such a way of being, that it is impossible not to experience the divine in everything. The Buddhists say, ‘’ Samsara is Nirvana, Nirvana is Samsara’ ‘. Buddhists, like Hindus, are trying to become free from the cycle of birth and death (samsara). So they say that the cycle of birth and death is not separate from moving beyond the cycle of birth and death. What they are saying is that there is no division between the relative and the absolute, the ordinary and the beyond. It is this very division in our experience which is an enormous hindrance for self-realization, it is largely a hallucination of the mind. Once one moves beyond mind, then even the ordinary, becomes extraordinary - even the mundane becomes divine. In Zen, they say, ’ ’ Before enlightenment, chopping wood, carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood, carrying water’ ’ . If one penetrates into the meaning of this, then one is in harmony with all of the Buddhas throughout the ages.
[QUOTE=CityMonk;71023]as I understood that all YOgas originated from Samkhya philosiohy which denies existence of god or any other higher power…[/QUOTE]
I’m afraid that this is not quite accurate. Samkhya philosophy is definitely the oldest of the darsanas, and its influence can be found in many places, including the Yoga Sutras, but as a student of Samkhya, I would not say that all yogas (or any yoga) originated from it.
It is a common misconception that Samkhya denies the existence of god or any other higher power. The misconception comes from a statement in the first book of the Samkhya Pravachana Sutram, which states unequivocably that Isvara (God) [I]is not a subject of proof[/I]. But notice that this is very carefully worded, and does not state that there is no god, only that he is not a subject of proof.
If one delves deeper into Samkhya philosophy (apparently few people have), then you find that the Samkhya philosophers had a clear idea of who god is. They rejected the notion of an eternal god in favor of the concept of an [I]emergent[/I] god. This theory is based on the belief in cycles of evolution and devolution. Under this theory, Isvara is a soul who in a previous cycle of creation attained the highest level of development short of liberation. This soul is reborn as Isvara at the beginning of the current cycle of evolution. I talked about this in some detail in another thread.
The Samkhya philosophers also believed that the material principle, Prakrti, has the ability to act spontaneously of its own accord, resulting in the universe that we know and love so much. This was treated by the ancient people as a divine power in its own right, and is personified in the Upanishads as shakti, and the many forms of the mother goddess.
In the parable of the 6 blind men and the elephant, even though none of the descriptions of either of the men can describe the elephant, one thing is very clear: There is an elephant!
Similarly, though our descriptions of god maybe so different, so many and none can describe god, one thing is very clear: God is.
well…with all said … i’ve concluded that the intellect brains and mind is nessesary to understand the God… or maybe not:) ? do stones mountains and rivers, or anumals [U]know [/U] or [U]question[/U] about existence of the God?
[QUOTE=CityMonk;70998]Is it possible to understand the God through intellect (mind)?[/QUOTE]No scripture states that God can be understood.
[B]“They say that you have to ask for three things called salokya, samipya, sanidhya from God; meaning to see God, salokya; samipya, the closeness with God and sanidhya is the companionship of God. But you have got tadatmya, is oneness with God which is not in the concept of any one of the yogis and the saints and the seers who have been before.”[/B]
“i’ve concluded that the intellect brains and mind is nessesary to understand the God… or maybe not ?”
Through the intellect and the mind - it is impossible to grasp that which is boundless - you yourself will have to turn inwards and become as boundless as the whole existence. But at the same time, without the intellect and the mind, one cannot make an effort to come to turn inwards at all. The intellect and the mind are necessary tools along the path, without them even the very idea of turning inwards, or sitting in meditation, would not arise. They are necessary as part of the whole spiritual process, only that the process cannot end there.