Posted on: 02 Mar 2023
1. Why are most of the followers of a spiritual Guru violent while the teaching of the Guru itself is non-violence?
[Hinduism How is it that most of the followers of a spiritual Guru are violent in protecting the sanctity of the Guru while the teaching of the Guru itself is non-violence?]
Swami replied:- Violence is also required to fight the violence coming from the wrong side.
2. Who said Radha was an incarnation?
[A person in a discussion forum told like this: Who said Radha was any incarnation? After all, it's not mentioned in Bhagwad Geeta, Mahabharat or Vedas? Nowhere to be found in any old scripture.]
Swami replied:- I said this. God Vishnu acted as female (Mohini) wife and God Shiva acted as male husband. The reverse of this happened when God Vishnu acted as Krishna and God Shiva (as sage Durvaasa) acted as Radha. This shows that God Vishnu and God Shiva are not only equal but also one and the same. An illogical insertion in a scripture is not authority, but, a logical statement from a soul can be authority. The Veda means logical knowledge and not something told in a specific language.
3. Did Urmila do the biggest sacrifice in the whole of Ramayan?
[A person told like this: The biggest Sacrifice in the whole of Ramayan was by Urmila, the wife of Lakshman. While her husband was serving his elder brother Ram and his wife Maa Sita in the forest, she was left to suffer for 14 years without her husband.]
Swami replied:- Sacrifice is the real measure of true love to God.
4. Is Vishishtaadvaita closer to the spirit of the Vedas?
[“God, the creator, is not any item of the creation and is totally unimaginable. Hence, God and soul are totally different (poorna dvaita)”.
On the above piece of knowledge, a person commented as follows: I think this doesn't gel with the process described in the Purusha Sukta where the transcendent Purusha became the Virat which then went on to emanate the world with itself as the substratum and becoming all things. Vishishtaadvaita is closer to the spirit of the Vedas atleast from my own reading.
ṭri-Pād-ūurdhva ūdait-Pūrussah Pādo-āsye[a-ī]ha-ābhavat-Punah |
ṭato Vissvang Vya[i-ā]krāmat-Sāśana-ānaśane ābhi ||4||]
Swami replied:- The word ‘Purusha’ means the creator called God Datta, the first energetic incarnation of the unimaginable God or Parabrahman. The creation is Prakruti. The Gita says creator and creation as two items (Purusham prakrutim caiva). Purusha can mean the soul also because the awareness lies in the body. God effectively lies in the creation (not in physical sense) due to His Omnipotence.
5. Is the atman beyond human conception as per the Atma Shatakam of Shankara?
[The three parts of the purusha is high above (in transcendental realm), and his one part becomes the creation again and again. There, in the creation, he pervades all the living (who eats) and the non-living (who does not eat) beings. Also neither is the atman imaginable. the Atma Shatakam of Shankara defines the Atman and it does by negating all things conceivable, hence by inference the resulting atman is beyond human conception.]
Swami replied:- Atman is a word used for ordinary soul of a human being and it also denotes the human incarnation, which also looks like a human being externally. In Sanskrit, Atman also means the body apart from the soul. The word ‘President’ is commonly used to both the president of the country and the president of a village. The meaning of a common word shall be selected as per the context.
6. Please reply to this comment on the YouTube video on “One God or Many?”
[Questions of atheists: On the YouTube Video of Shri Datta Swami “One God or many?”, an atheist replied like this: Personally, I believe that respecting difference and reveling in diversity is a better approach than attempts at homogenization through absorbing beliefs. Secondly, this also introduces a false dichotomy. One God or many? Why not none? Attempting to resolve inter-religious discord in this manner necessarily leaves out agnostics/atheists. Coming to a consensus where nearly everyone gets to say, "well we're all correct on some level," only to turn around and say, "except you guys. You're still wrong," is disrespectful to the philosophical integrity of atheism, dehumanizing to its members, and frankly kind of rude.]
Swami replied:- You, the atheist, speak very bad words about God and devotees in a very nasty way. You are finding vulgarity with us, who have presented only logical arguments! Without finding faults unnecessarily, please present your arguments about the existence of God after going through our arguments. Don’t beat around the bush and waste time.
7. Please reply to the following comment on homosex.
[Regarding homosex an atheist told the following. Marriage is not natural. It is not present in the natural world and is a cultural phenomenon designed by man. It is not necessary for reproduction. If there is a God then He is the designer of nature. Homosexuality is natural, therefore is true by design of God. Swami please give a reply to this.]
Swami replied:- This is present in animals of nature. Humanity is different from other living beings. Humanity is the most advanced phase of nature and there are several laws framed by the intellectuals of humanity in several subjects, which constitute the legality that differentiates human beings from the other living beings.
8. Is the Hindu God Brahman perfect?
[An atheist asked: Is the Hindu God Brahman perfect? I understand Brahman is claimed to be the "Absolute." Do Hindus attribute 'perfection' to Brahman? If yes, please provide quotes from the holy texts.]
Swami replied:- “Na tatsamaścābhyadhikaśca” from the Veda means that there is nothing and nobody even equal to Brahman and not to speak of greater than Brahman.
9. Please give a reply to the following comment.
[Probability of existence of hell and heaven Regarding existence of hell and heaven, a person told the following. You are confusing "probability" with "outcomes." In the case of existence, something either exists, or it does not, but that does not mean there is a 0.5 probability that it exists and a 0.5 probability that it does not exist. An example of this is a fair die with six sides, with each side having an equal probability of being on top when rolled, yet only one side has the number "1" on it and the remaining sides have the number "2" on them. There are only two possible outcomes when the die is rolled - a "1" or a "2" - but the probability of a "1" is 1/6 and the probability of a "2" is 5/6. So, "probability" is not the same as "outcomes."]
Swami replied:- OK, you take it as outcome. Whatever may be the word, there are two possibilities fundamentally that one exists or does not exist. You can replace the word probability as fundamental possibility. The fundamental aspect is about the existence or non-existence of an item resulting in two outcomes or two possibilities, which are 50% possibility of existence and 50% possibility of non-existence. Since the options in the possibility of existence are only two angles, the above quoted logic of 6 angles is out of logic.
10. Please give a reply to the following comment.
[Another person said: This 50:50 argument can be applied to deities, since we can look everywhere in the universe and still fail to prove their non-existence. The probability of the Christian God not existing is 0.5. The probability of each Hindu God not existing is also 0.5. The probability of no Hindu God existing is 0.5 raised to the power of the number of Hindu gods. If we assume just the 14 major Hindu deities, we can work out that the probability of at least one of them existing is 0.99994. On this basis, the logical choice is to be a Hindu rather than a Christian.]
Swami replied:- All this is the overgrowth of over-intelligence of wrong side of logic. All the deities in the Hinduism are the external waves of one basic truly existing God called Brahman. The question is that whether the fundamental God exists or not. Deities are only the various roles of a single actor. Science will end with good harmless fruits if scientific logic runs on proper lines without such perverted brain leading to mad twists exposing the ignorance in the name of over-intelligence.