nectaroflife

Atheists and agnostics denigrate religion by saying that it is based on faith, implying that their own positions are not. But faith doesn't belong solely to the domain of religion. Atheists have faith that there is no God. Agnostics have faith that God's existence can never be proven. Why do different people believe in different concepts of reality? Our faith is not entirely our choice. Many factors affect our beliefs, especially our actions in past lives (our current beliefs are part of our karma) and various influences in this life (our family, friends, school, what we read, and so on). Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita that the over

Does some aspect of our personality survive bodily death? Some say no. But there are strong reasons for thinking it does. You'll find some of them discussed later in this article. Meanwhile, here are the basic teachings of the Vedic philosophy, the teachings given by the ancient wisdom literature of India. According to the Vedic literature, the psychophysical entity with which we now identify ourselves is not our true self. The true self is neither the body nor the mind, nor a combination of both. The Vedic sages tell us that the body and mind are but gross and subtle coverings of the self. Underlying these temporary coverings, the real se

In much of the civilized world, the idea of reincarnation, or transmigration of the soul, is the prevailing point of view. More than a third of the world's people accept reincarnation as a fact of life. And even in the West, the doctrine of reincarnation has a long list of distinguished adherents.  1. Pythagoras (Greek philosopher and mathematician, c.582-c.500 BC)    2. Socrates (Greek philosopher, 469-399 BC)  3. Plato (Greek philosopher, 427-347 BC)  4. Plotinus (Greek philosopher, founder of Neoplatonism, 204-270)  5. Giordano Bruno (Italian philosopher, 1548-1600)  6. Francois Voltaire (French philosopher, 1694-1778)

The Vedic literature tells us that we souls can inhabit any of millions of forms of life, including aquatics, plants, insects, reptiles, birds, animals, and human beings. At the time of death, we leave one body and enter a new one. That is called reincarnation. The concept of reincarnation is not as foreign as it might seem. We can observe that we change from one body to another in our own lifetime. Your body at birth is completely different from your adult body. Yet throughout these changes, you—the conscious self—remain the same. Similarly, the conscious self remains the same from one body to the next in the cycle of reincarnation. Our pr

The Vedas describe three forces, or modes, whose influence pervades the universe: goodness, passion, and ignorance. "Mode" is a translation of the Sanskrit word guna, which literally means "rope," implying that goodness, passion, and ignorance are the ropes that bind us souls to the material world. These three modes, or qualities, underlie everything we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. Permutations of these qualities make up the world, mixing like the primary colors to produce countless variations. The mode of goodness controls virtues and qualities such as joy, wisdom, and altruism; the mode of passion controls greed, anger, lust, ambiti

Karma is the cosmic law of action and reaction. Under its control we souls in the material world reap good or bad results according to each act we perform. Karmic reactions include not only things that happen to us, but such things as our health, wealth, intelligence, physical appearance, and social status, as well as our personalities and inclinations. While we have some freedom to choose our current acts, our choices are influenced by our natures, or personalities, which have developed from our previous actions. For example, good choices tend to make us good persons who make further good choices. The law of karma begins to act upon us whe

Although one might assume that time is a fundamental aspect of reality, it is in fact a feature only of the material world. Time as we know it does not exist in the spiritual world. As difficult as it is to comprehend, in the spiritual world things take place even though there is no past or future. Without time, nothing happens in the material world. As the most powerful force in the world, time is considered Krishna (as He says in the Bhagavad-gita). Time controls everything, and Krishna controls time. With the rising and setting of the sun, everyone's life is diminished by the influence of time. Time is relative. A year in higher planetar

The first tier of universal management consists of three executive heads: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Each is such a powerful controller that they are sometimes given equal status within Vedic literature—and inaccurately called "the Hindu Trinity" by Western scholars. The Srimad-Bhagavatam explains that Vishnu is God, or a full expansion of Krishna, whereas Brahma is a finite soul, and Shiva is in a category of his own, slightly less than God. Both Brahma and Shiva are servants of Vishnu, empowered by Him for universal work. 1. Vishnu is in charge of primary creation, as well as maintenance and the mode of goodness 2. Brahma is in charge of

The Vedas tell us that life exists everywhere in creation. Scientists looking for life on other planets may never find it, because their criteria for life-supporting environments are too restrictive. Life, being spiritual, doesn't depend on a certain mix of chemicals. The soul, or the life force, can exist within subtle forms imperceptible to scientific instruments. (We have some experience of this at night, when we exist in a subtle dream world.) The total material energy contains many universes, which float in a relatively small space in the unlimited spiritual sky. Each universe is shaped like an egg, the shell being made up of seven elem

After God (Maha-Vishnu) supplies the basic ingredients, He empowers Brahma, the first created being, as a secondary creator and universal manager. Brahma creates all the species of life, which are the bodies for us souls to inhabit, as well as all the planets, upon which we reside. Krishna gives us material bodies because of our desire to enjoy separately from Him. But material bodies are foreign to us, so we need help accepting them. For that purpose, Brahma first creates fives types of ignorance that cover our intelligence: 1. forgetfulness of our identity as a soul 2. thinking the body to be ourselves 3. the mad pursuit of material