Arguement Against Shankara’s Ideas of Reality Essay

The Hindus call their supreme reality “Brahman,” a God of infinite being, infinite awareness, and infinite bliss. “Utter reality, utter consciousness, and utterly beyond all possibility of frustration is the basic Hindu view of God” (Smith 1991). Hinduism sees their God as an archetype of supremacy with the noblest crown, a parent, loving, merciful, almighty, eternal salvation, and an understanding companion. There is also a distinction between personal (ramanuja) and transpersonal (shankara) notions of God in Hinduism; “God so conceived is called Saguna Brahman, or God-with-attributes or God-without-attributes, Nirguna Brahman” (Smith, 1991). Also, it is important to realize that God’s relation in Hinduism varies on symbolism and what is embraced: the creator, the preserver, and the destroyer who resolves all finite forms of life. They view the world as “God-dependent.” A personalist in Hinduism “will see little religious availability in the idea od a God who is so far removed from our predicaments as to be unaware of our very existence” (Smith, 1991). Were as a transpersonalist sees God serving as a master in their life to guide them through their struggles and becomes possessed by this

In Buddhism, the three marks of existence are three characteristics of all existence and beings. And they are impermanence, suffering and non-self. Impermanence doctrine is one of the foundational premises of Buddhism, which asserts that all physical and mental events are not metaphysically real, that they are not constant or permanent, they come into being and dissolve. Therefore, Buddhism declares that in this world there is nothing that is fixed and permanent. Everything is subject to change and alteration.

Tralfamadorians would argue that humans never know the difference between the things they cannot change, nothing is negotiable in a universe of predefined, structured moments.

Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism are all religions that connect in more than one way. One major way that these religions connect is through the afterlife, otherwise known as the unconditioned reality. Hinduism and Buddhism have very similar views on the afterlife while Daoism has a slightly different view. In the end, they all have the same goal which is to achieve the final state that lasts forever. Even though this is true, that does not mean they do not differ in more than one way. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism rely strongly on theoretical, practical, and sociological standpoints. A large part of the theoretical standpoints, are myths about the gods and how things are. A large part of sociological standpoints are festivals, and temples. Lastly, practical is practiced through mediation, yoga, and payers. In Hinduism, there are various sects that worship a total of roughly 360,000,000 different gods. As you could imagine, this would be difficult to generalize in just one essay, so the branch of Hinduism I will go over just includes the basic trinity and Vedic gods. Along with this, this essay will include information on the two major types of Buddhism and how one attains enlightenment. Finally, we will go over how one is to attain immortality through Daoism, along with the beliefs of the traditional Chinese Folk religions.

What if people mastered everything the first time they tried, would that steal our individuality? What if people were honest, would that really make everything better? What if all crimes were solved, would we really be safe? What if we all gave up our faults and flaws, would we really be perfect? Our world is cruel and people are here to tear you down, or are we just not doing our job of building each other up?

we just respected other cultures, there would be less wars and disagreements and we would live a

Many things are incorrect in our world, but the main gist of it occurs naturally due to mankind itself. Imagining if these qualities were eliminated is almost impossible to conjure up. I’ve only known it to have blunders, and I honestly feel that no one can remember a time that was much different. If these qualities cease to exist, the world may become a better place, but there’s very high chance that few will have any sort of internal feelings or the ability learn from their mistakes. Although faults prevent something from being perfect, we may be less perfect without

Furthermore how would we be able to transfer all of our knowledge to the next person, better yet, how would we improve our capacity of knowledge as a whole. We

In addition, the priest at the temple presents offerings in form of coconut, flowers, or fruit to the deity then he gives back some of the blessed objects to the devotees in the temple. These blessed gifts from the deity are known as prasada (divine favour) (P18). Within the Hindu tradition, six schools of philosophy are recognized and they include: Vedanta, Yoga, Mimansa, Veisheshika, Nyaya, and Samkhya. Among these six schools of philosophy, Yoga has attracted a wide popular following more so among the followers of Hindu, however, by far Vedanta is by far the most important school of philosophy (P 330). Shankara was who was one the earliest interpreters of Vedanta sees reality as non-dual (advaita). To the followers of Hinduism, both Atman (human soul and Brahman) are identical thus, the phrase “you are that” upholds unity of what many people perceive as two distinct entities in their lives. Followers of Hinduism believes that, under the influence of maya (illusion) human beings do believe that they are different from Brahman, however, when illusion is dispelled then the soul is automatically liberated by realization of its true

Historically, humanity has been obsessed with discovering the nature of reality. Every person eventually develops their own worldview based on their beliefs, morals, and experiences. At one point in their lives, many people undergo a radical change in perception that forces them to change this view, eventually adopting a new perception of reality. Such a transformation occurs once one starts to question the fundamental nature of one’s own existence and that of the world around them. This realization begins with the disillusionment with one’s environment, continues with the questioning of one’s life’s worth, and concludes with the acceptance of a new worldview.

“An advanced Bodhisattva who has experienced Nirvana does not rest content with [Samsara]. He turns again to samsara in the service of others… He does this by sending forth a seemingly physical ‘mind-made body’ in which he tunes into and perceives the apparent ‘world’ of those he is seeking to aid.”(Harvey, 113)

This view of reality has its challenges. It’s a difficult concept to grasp for a human: being not I, and being one with. Perhaps that is why Hindus also have the dualist viewpoint, which places divine reality, or God, as separate from the rest of reality. The hymns from the Rig Veda offer a more

As well as there being an end to the causal chain, the cause must contain within it the reality and all qualities of that which exists, just like an idea must possess actuality or formal reality in order to exist. If an idea is more perfect than it’s possessor, that which is more perfect must have put it there. Just like physical causes of a stone containing what can be a stone in reality, it is applicable to the notion of ideas containing all that is reality or existent. This, although arguably non-transferable, makes an idea just as real.

The distinction between jiva and ajiva is feeling, consciousness, soul, and spirit. These two things, are the things that are mixed together throughout the universe. Jiva and ajiva create what we know today. Their presence indicates to us the distinction between the things in the world. Jiva is feeling and consciousness; it encompasses soul and the spirit. Ajiva is everything else in the universe, it doesn't have feeling or consciousness.

The Daoism literature on human life and the end of it, suggest that Daoists are interested in, and have been on a continuous quest for immortality. Daoism, like other ancient Asian traditions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, offer a way out of cyclical human existence in a practice known as asceticism. However, the motivations and the methodology behind asceticism vary greatly in each of these Asian traditions in the East. The main focus of this paper