God in Vedas and Upanishads

Both urstruly and krishna_abcd are my friends and there seemed to be a missing bridge between them for developing understanding. Furthermore, their interchanges made me curious, so I looked for the Cosmology in Islam. Of course, my findings are mere scratches on a vast field but I present them so that the first bricks for the formation of the bridge may be laid.

So here it is from an interested ignoramus in Islam. Please note that the discussion provided below is not a peer review but rather a question from a recent convert to an admired imam. First the introductions:

Imam Mohamad Jawad Chirri
Director of the Islamic Center of America Revised Edition 1986 Published by THE ISLAMIC CENTER of AMERICA
and
``I am one of the many who have benefited from Imam Mohamad Chirri`s teaching. I was his first ``convert``; but never having been a believing Christian, it would be more exact to say that I came to believe in God for the first time through the path of Islam, patiently guided by my imam. ``
Wilson H. Guertin, Ph.D. University of Florida

The Question

Wilson: Of what material did the Almighty create life?

Chirri. The Holy Qur`an declares that God has created all living beings out of water:

``Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the Earth were closed up, so We split them, and We made from water everything living? Will they not then believe?`` 21:30

``And God has created every walking life out of water, of them that which crawls upon its belly, and of them is that which walks upon two feet, and of them that which walks upon four. God creates what He pleases. Surely God is Possessor of power over all things.`` 24:45

The references above are to the three separate translations of Koran by Yusufali, Pickthal and Shakir.

With best wishes to all for dveloping understanding not argumentation.

#179 by Urstruly

``I went silent because I had got the feeling that no matter what I would have done or written would never be accepted as a qualified answer.``

A student once tried this explanation to explain why he did not answer any of the questions in an exam.

The examiner still gave him a zero.


``Even though the choice is yours, but what I was telling you was for your own good.``

I think you should resist this impulse to do good to others and just stick to answering my question.

And no, please don`t direct me to any website.

Just:

1) Cut and paste a few philosophy-laden suras from the Koran (just 2 or 3 would do for now),

2) Cut and paste their translations.

3) Explain the philosophy contained in the suras you cut and pasted (a few lines will suffice).

Re: # 182, urstruly:
Do you know the parts of Koran that would supply what Krishna is asking for??

If you do, then why don`t you quote the way you have quoted your instruction???

That is all he is asking for. No need to quote the vaporous article of Maududi. None for any of the sites you provided.

CENTRAL THING IS TO UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER.

Re: # 181

I delivered, what I was asked to deliver. He had another agenda, which he admits to in the post below.

But keep in mind that I am not disappointed with this excahnge and do not feel betrayed. Communicating with people at chowk has enabled me to read between the lines; but I had an agenda of my own. Anyway, in these situations our instructions are clear:

``“So if they dispute with thee (addressing Prophet Mohammad (pbuh)), say: ‘I have submitted my whole self to Allah and so have those who follow me,’ And say to the People of the Book and so to those who are unlearned: ‘do ye (also) submit yourself? If they do, they are in right guidance, but if they turn back, thy duty is to convey the Message”

(House of Imran Surah 3:20).

Re: # 179, urstruly:
You probably have noted my response to Krishna_abcd.

You need to think through yourself first as to what is of significance in your references and then summarize it in your response. You simply put the burden on krishna. No one is so interested in your answer as to derive the data from references provided by you.

Re: # 178, krishna_abcd:
Thanks for responding in detail.

There are many issues but I will select a few.

a. `` As most people on this board know, my previous nicks are Ajeya and Ramanujan.``
****I recall some Ramanujan, but not clearly. Did you have many a tiff? Enough to require a new pen-name?****

b. ``No I don`t agree. In SOME OF Christ`s teachings alone there is an emphasis on love. That is a crude approximation, for example, to the interpretation of the Heart Chakra - where we see ourselves in others. ``
**** I am not sure if you understood what I meant. So some clarifications. By stating that the Semitic religions are an approximation to Vedant what I mean is that Upanishads have tried to go beyond the arbitrary specification of the nature of God. See the article: Summary paragraph and the last but one paragraph under Upanishads. The Semitic religions start with arbitrary statements which every believer HAS to accept. Please explain the Heart Chakra statement.****

c. ``Exactly which summation is it that is ``not one hundred percent correct``?``
****By writing ``there is not an iota of sophistication of thought in that book. It is for simple-minded and superstitious folks, or sheeple, as someone put it in a post recently. Not very different from the other Semitic books.`` you are making a very sweeping statement. Admittedly, there may not be a cosmology in Koran - though I tend to doubt it, see, e.g., urstruly`s #170, http://www.al-islam.org/inquiries/4.html; it may not be grounded in philosophical psychology, but it is there. Your above statement indicates a desire to condemn without giving just consideration. ****

d. ``Now THAT is a crude (inexact - not necessarily untrue, though - it depends on what you mean by it) statement. What do you mean when you say that 75% of Muslims are ``crude``?``
**** I think You misunderstood me. I did not say that the Muslims are crude. I only implied that seventy five percent of Muslims crudely state the superiority of Islamic tenets. Notice it does allow for 25 % for the refined Muslims. Any group of humans with 25% of them classified as refined is doing well, Hindus included!!****

Finally, notice inspite of our differences, we are trying to asymptotically reach an understanding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went silent because I had got the feeling that no matter what I would have done or written would never be accepted as a qualified answer. I don`t care about traps; only those are scared of traps who intend to hide something.

Even though the choice is yours, but what I was telling you was for your own good.

#174 by Inquirer

[I am glad you responded to my summation. You were probably cut to quick by my inference 3. ]

I really hadn`t noticed. And even if I had, would have made no difference.

[It is not for me to say how you could have introduced your question to urstruly but I proffer this so that a statement may be made about the dialog process.

1. If you are so well informed about Koran, then you set a trap for urstruly. How nice it would have been if you had clearly stated your familiarity with the depth of Koran by referring to the contents of their relevant statements about a selected issue? Then may be urstruly would have excused himself or some more sophisticated respondent would have picked up your question.]

I have. Many times. I have quoted chapter and verse, and what it means. Urstruly types always go silent at the end. Masadi etc. become abusive and don`t bother to respond in the end. So this time I was giving him a free hand to see what he had to say. Urstruly started by trying to avoid having to respond directly, by directing me to websites. When I persisted, he clammed up.


[Without any presence of your profile, urstruly reasonably assumed you to be a non-Islamic person who needs general information.]

Well I corrected him, didn`t I?


[2. You also were a little bit appearing to indict the Koran by brusquely demanding a quote and its translation. That attitude would be OK for a non-believer Muslim but with a name like krishna it reeked of communalism. ]

As most people on this board know, my previous nicks are Ajeya and Ramanujan. Also, in that case, he would not have responded at all. But he did respond - and directed me to different websites.


[3. As I have repeatedly indicated in the thread, Semitic religions, nay even the Vedas, are approximations to the socio-psychological interpretations of reality in the Vedanta. If you are a professor in religion, then I would have loved you to pick up that statement and assess it. ]

No I don`t agree. In SOME OF Christ`s teachings alone there is an emphasis on love. That is a crude approximation, for example, to the interpretation of the Heart Chakra - where we see ourselves in others.


[4. WE NEED TO EXCHANGE VIEWS NOT BRICK BATS IN THE CHOWK. AGREEMENT AND REFUTATION SHOULD LEAD TO SOME SORT OF UNDERSTANDING OR THE SEMBLANCE THEREOF.]

You are sorely mistaken if you think ``AGREEMENT AND REFUTATION SHOULD LEAD TO SOME SORT OF UNDERSTANDING``. I have almost NEVER seen anyone on this site acknowledge that they were wrong about anything. As I have said many times before, if they don`t have anything left to argue with, they shut up, and start mouthing the same arguments and the same reasonings two minutes later on some other forum.

[5. Finally, your summation to me is not one hundred percent correct. You see you may be the most informed person on Koran including even the Muslims but you can not compare yourself to a believer. Because the believer represents, in howsoever miniscule fashion, the faith in the religion which makes alll the difference. Dry academics are important for the analysis and guidance of action but they cannot provide how the foundations of any religion constitute the religion itself. ]

Exactly which summation is it that is ``not one hundred percent correct``?


[PS. After all this, I think it behooves on you to present a brief analytical article on Koran/analysis of cosmic ideas of the Semitic religions.]

Really? Why?

[We Hindus generally fail to indicate any desire, to learn about different faiths - though I am not sure it even exists - and have a clear tendency to look down upon them.]

I think you should speak for yourself. In my opinion, Hindus are the most liberal bunch of people on this planet. You will find pictures of Jesus Christ in many Hindu households, and when I was growing up, the cross on a chain was a fashion statement amongst the youth. We don`t think anything of adopting traditions and rituals from other religions like Valentine`s day etc. This, in spite of statements like ``Holy Cow`` etc. amongst Christians. My wife used to work with some Goanese Christians. It is amazing how they are taught in Church to look down on Hinduism. Sanyasis are portrayed as some kind of perverts, and the whole idol thing as somehow backward and low-class.

It is the left-wing hand-wringers in our midst that will one day result in the obliteration of Hindu culture as we know it.


[Of course, we are not crude like seventyfive percent of Muslims.]

Now THAT is a crude (inexact - not necessarily untrue, though - it depends on what you mean by it) statement. What do you mean when you say that 75% of Muslims are ``crude``?

Re: # 61, rizwan:
Upon reading harshreality (#175), I noticed that I had not responded to you though I did want to at that time.

You and pmishra2 interacted on the issue of supremacist attitude in religions. pmishra2 was saying that Islam regarded itself as the final word in the field of the sacred (which by the way is the fault of all religions) and the followers of Islam have continued to literally champion that statement which obviously might have been relevant at one place and one time.

In response to this, of course, you pointed out that Hinduism makes no mention of other religions and prophets. All of the Avataras are supposed to have happened in India and they all spoke Sanskrit. What you point is correct but that has not translated among the followers of Hinduism into a political statement that all others should be converted or wiped out.

It is this distinct difference in the attitudes of the followers - between Islam and Hinduism - that is clearly the important issue.

All religions developed at one place and one time period so they are bound to be local and temporal. There is nothing wrong in it. It is to be expected. BUT THE FOLLOWERS NOW HAVE THE RAPID COMMUNICATIONS AND THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE APPROACHES OF THE FOLLOWERS OTHER THAN THEIR OWN RELIGION. Therefore, we need to separate the politics of the religions from the spirituality. We have to consistently adhere to the uniqe spirituality of our own religion but we MUST accept and ACKNOWLEDGE the right of the followers of all other religions to do the same.

Re: # 175, harshreality:
I am glad you returned. Your statement regarding your cut and paste may have some truth even though he persisted for some time without referring to your posts.

I appreciate your not taking offence at my summation regarding your massive post! Believe it or not, I did print good part of your posts and found that it is a detailed discussion of the the Karma Theory in Jain interpretation.

Now, generally all religious treatises are in general very hard readings due to their arbitrary demand on submission to them. Yours was not an exception. Therefore, like all of them it was ineffectual because no body probably reads it.

A constructive way to enhance and assure communication which is really our sole purpose we should summarize the main points. Only then can we be effective in spreading a view point.

I would still value your summary of the previous posts.

172 by Inquirer on June 19, 2006 9:51am PT
Inferences from the discussion of my presentation at the Chowk.

Dear Friend,
rijwan not express his desire to learn but starting to abuse the theory of karma & vedic philosophy.
Its only my copy & pest post from some learned site he ran away with tail in legs else you people are to ill equipped to face him with his third rate arguments.

Thanks

Re: # 173, krishna_abcd:
I am glad you responded to my summation. You were probably cut to quick by my inference 3.
It is not for me to say how you could have introduced your question to urstruly but I proffer this so that a statement may be made about the dialog process.

1. If you are so well informed about Koran, then you set a trap for urstruly. How nice it would have been if you had clearly stated your familiarity with the depth of Koran by referring to the contents of their relevant statements about a selected issue? Then may be urstruly would have excused himself or some more sophisticated respondent would have picked up your question. Without any presence of your profile, urstruly reasonably assumed you to be a non-Islamic person who needs general information.

2. You also were a little bit appearing to indict the Koran by brusquely demanding a quote and its translation. That attitude would be OK for a non-believer Muslim but with a name like krishna it reeked of communalism.

3. As I have repeatedly indicated in the thread, Semitic religions, nay even the Vedas, are approximations to the socio-psychological interpretations of reality in the Vedanta. If you are a professor in religion, then I would have loved you to pick up that statement and assess it.

4. WE NEED TO EXCHANGE VIEWS NOT BRICK BATS IN THE CHOWK. AGREEMENT AND REFUTATION SHOULD LEAD TO SOME SORT OF UNDERSTANDING OR THE SEMBLANCE THEREOF.

5. Finally, your summation to me is not one hundred percent correct. You see you may be the most informed person on Koran including even the Muslims but you can not compare yourself to a believer. Because the believer represents, in howsoever miniscule fashion, the faith in the religion which makes alll the difference. Dry academics are important for the analysis and guidance of action but they cannot provide how the foundations of any religion constitute the religion itself.

PS. After all this, I think it behooves on you to present a brief analytical article on Koran/analysis of cosmic ideas of the Semitic religions. We Hindus generally fail to indicate any desire, to learn about different faiths - though I am not sure it even exists - and have a clear tendency to look down upon them. Of course, we are not crude like seventyfive percent of Muslims.

#168 by Inquirer

[As an intelligent and probably a well informed person you wanted information direct from Koran facilitated by a believer.]

Inquirer,

If you think that I am waiting with bated breath for Urstruly to unlock the secrets of the Koran for me, you are dead wrong. I have read several tranlations of the Koran. I have read explanations of the passages by different scholars from different periods in history. And I have been forced to conclude that there is not an iota of sophistication of thought in that book. It is for simple-minded and superstitious folks, or sheeple, as someone put it in a post recently. Not very different from the other Semitic books.

I put the question to Urstruly to see how he could reconcile this lack of any philosophical content with his insistence that Islam is the best thing since sliced bread.

As I mentioned earlier, this is more of an exercise in human psychology, than anything else.

Inferences from the discussion of my presentation at the Chowk.

1. I appreciate the interest taken by the correspondents but I cannot hide my disappointment at the absence of any correspondent taking specific statements in the presentation and elaborating/disputing/confirming them.
I am led to the conclusion that the people did not lead to enhancement of my own knowledge for which I was really hoping.

2. Interesting sidelights were provided on the aspects of polytheism in Hinduism and how to to interpret it.

3. I was hoping for a more interactive and fruitful conclusion of urstruly and krishna interchanges but evidently it did not materialize because of the non-specific questions and even more non-specific answers.

4. I noticed the random fire approches of harshreality and rizwan. People should avoid quoting unrelated articles when what is really needed is thinking, crystallizing and concisely presenting the thoughts for consideration by others. Rizwan at least expressed desire to learn, harsh reality`s downloads served no purpose.

5. I think the contributions of swarrier, pmishra2 and jang are valuable and have served to provide useful thoughts.

6. Finally, thanks to all for their effort for interactions.

#170 by Urstruly

[Krishna

I am not trying to wiggle out of anything. I am in fact trying to get your iquiry focused on one specific thing so that we are do not start discussing Encycopedia Britanica starting from letter A. ]

Urstruly,


You DO NOT have to discuss the Encyclopedia Brittannica.

But since so far you have been able to type about 3 long responses to my statements, it should be quite easy, in comparison, to type (or cut and paste from the websites you mention), a few lines from the Koran, and the corresponding translations, along with the explanations of the philosophy behind those lines.

Now is that too much to ask?

Krishna

I am not trying to wiggle out of anything. I am in fact trying to get your iquiry focused on one specific thing so that we are do not start discussing Encycopedia Britanica starting from letter A. Qura`n has discussed almost every aspect of human inquisition and any behavior that man is capable of doing as individual or as a group. Similarly it has put forth arguments to convince doubters and deniers and it has provided evidence to support its arguments not merely by logic but by the phenomenon and things that even the most uneducated person observes almost daily. In other words, its argument is so simple yet so wholesome that no one can claim that any part of it she did not undersatnd.

The following website discusses in detail the Islam`s Views on creation of the universe and man. The argument is put forth in a question answer format which has been the classical mode of teaching islamic teachings for centuries. As per your demand almost every argument is supported with the Qura`nic quotes or verses. Use the navigation arrows to go to several next pages. For a visual concept, I would recommend you to read the the An Illustrated Guide to Islam through the link that I had sent in my previous post. As a matter of fact open the two websites in two windows simultaneously. Here is the website with Islams views on Creation of Universe:

http://www.al-islam.org/inquiries/4.html


In some of the arguments the writer has not put the actual verse but only the number of it. In that case I would recommend you to open the Qura`n online with English translation from this website and find the verse:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/#M