Assumptions, Warrants, Hypotheses and Heuristics
You say: “there seems to be an underlying assumption that all participants in the thread seem to be making. The assumption being that all these texts have the same end goal in…
Read moreNirvana Shatkam
If you want to use Nirvana Shatkam, it might be more productive to choose translations which do the job that the text can. Because of that, a ‘faithful’ translation of…
Read moreTranslating vibhaktis
The problem is more complicated and the implications far more massive than either of us can even dream of. In fact, I think we are not even aware of the…
Read moreOn the Indian Notion of Enlightenment: Reflections Based on Experience
Balagangadhara’s recent article on Enlightenment (Gyanodaya); this is based on his enlightenment. If you got questions on this paper, participate on The Heathen in His Blindness egroup. Check the embedded…
Read moreIs Jesus a mystic?
You claim that Jesus of Nazareth is a mystic. From the conversations so far, I presume that this is both your gut-feeling and conviction. The one deriving from your own mystical experience…
Read moreHow to speak for the Indian traditions: an agenda for the future–SN Balagangadhara
Editor’s note: This article appeared in the Journal of American Academy of Religion Abstract The paper attempts a contrast between the process and the structure of the Christian and the…
Read moreIndian heathens’ misunderstanding of meaning(purpose) of life
I 1. The Sanskrit word (that I know) that comes closest to the Greek ‘telos’ is ‘Sankalpa’. It means ‘to mentally determine’, ‘formulation of an end’ ‘desirous of (an end)’,…
Read moreHow to access Indian traditions?
1. As I have often said, the most intriguing aspect of the Indian culture is the kind of knowledge it produced and encouraged people to produce: experiential knowledge which emerges…
Read moreReal vs. Existence
[For the latest on real vs existence, why such distinction needs to be made, check this paper, What do Indians need: a history or the past ] With some justifiable distortion,…
Read moreHistoricity of Rama, Krishna, Anjaneya
One of the questions that has come up in this discussion is the following: are we logically forced to assume the ‘existence’ of, say, Rama or Krishna, when we ‘believe’…
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