Apr 22, 2007

Maya - illusion/delusion

Helping a friend working on the connections between Schopenhauer, Einstein, East and West.

My first comment as a Hindoo is - What if the translations that were available to Schopenhauer were in error? I think Max Mueller did a fair bit and - in fact - got a fair bit right. You have to understand that by the time these Europeans accessed "Hindoo" thought, India had had nearly 1500 years Buddhism "on the rampage" on its land - and influence that became intolerable to "tolerant" India*. Vivekananda has admired the Buddha as a Vaidik but says Buddhism did "sarvanaash" - destroyed everything.... I'll elaborate on this later...

But, to me, the greatest mischief is interpreting the word "Maya". As I understand its best English rendering would be "indeterminate"; but this is not what is generall understood - ost, including a large section of the "Hindoos" understand it is "illusion/delusion"...

Maya can be immediately and easily understood if one recalls and has no cause to disagrees with - what Bucky says: that 99% of what is going on is subsensorial. An expanded meaning would overarch entropy/chaos and the general 'determinism' that embedded itself in European thinking and is still hard to uproot, Einstein's efforts not withstanding - (Universe is stranger than you can think) - or those of Bucky, Heisenberg etc.

A linkage to this 'determinism' leads me to recall my comments on "destiny believers" - the faith-based belief systems that have no 'give' in them; new interpretations are vlue-judged peripheralized as 'cults' 'fringe' by the custodians of the 'Good Word" which have 'sin' as a given , contradicting Divine intelligence, grace and mercy etc.

Bottomline: 1. Extract/use relevant Backburner: Get a hold of how/who vetted those translations. Remember: The Moghuls followed the Buddhists during whose time the Macedonians also came a-conquoring. Until about 1600 much that was "Hindoo/Vedic" was lost - Then Mädhavächärya-Säyanächärya & Harihara-Bukkarai set about "picking up the lost pieces" in Vijayanagaram

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