Hi all jewish, muslim and christian mythologies record a great flood. some go into detail about 40 days of rain. and how god asked noah to build an ark. animals canme by two by two . hurrah.. goes the song. most of these I beleive came from mesopotamian mentions of a great flood.
we should discuss similar mentions in hinduism.
the macha aathar and the cosmic flod is one. the other i can think of is depicted in sirkali with shiva being the thoniappar who ferried mankind to safety. can somebody throw more light on these floods. venketesh
--- In > > we should discuss similar mentions in hinduism. > > the macha aathar and the cosmic flod is one. > the other i can think of is depicted in sirkali with shiva being the > thoniappar who ferried mankind to safety. > can somebody throw more light on these floods. > venketesh > hi venkat
bagavat puranam - remember reading something about rishi markandeya being saved from the great flood by krishna floating on ala ilai...
There is another place called "Tittai" near Thanjavur, my grandmother hails from this place, also claims to be place where mankind was ferried to safety and landed, during the great flood. There is a beautiful but small shiva temple here also.
Vaishnava scriptures point Puri Jaganath to be the 'Noah's landing arc'.
My view of this is, there are pralayams and maha pralayams. Aalilai kannan is a maha pralayam, Noah's is a smaller scale.
The smaller pralayams happen as each cycle of sun or when major planetary configurations change as in Gd's will.
The larger ones (maha) happen when yugams end. Dwaraka was one. Rama walking into Sarayu is another, Muruga drying up entire 7 oceans in quest of surapadma etc, macha avatar is a part of one such large one.
Tsunami and Gujarat earth quake, Katrina , 911, WWII are all 'mini' pralayams...
One view of study... i seem to take a siding to this.
I am not sure how 911 and wwii can classify among 'pralayams' big or small, they are man made disasters. What I find interesting is how humans are connected into natural disasters - Sri Krishna's tribe kills one another due to over indulgence and Gandhari's curse, before Dwaraka goes down, Surapadman's misdeeds lead Lord Muruga to war to kill him. Ditto with machha avatara. We don't wait for God though these days, we will create and perhaps go down with our own misdeeds and pralayams :)))
Thanks. My take on the Mahabharat and especially the Gita is that it is an allegorical war, not a real one. This was a great movie, no offence to that but I dont' believe the war and the message of the Gita was so literal, it is a lot more deeper and personal than that.
Depends on which plane you view the Mahabarata or Gita from. That is the beauty of Gita. Gita can be taken as a concept - epitome of philosophy and also as a physical existance. Krsna and others were very much physical too.
When there is a Maha pralayam entire records are erased but traces are left behind that is the base of us wanting to learn our past and hence the interest in history etc. That is a part of our embedded code that makes it want to talk to motherboard...
Ravi, to me it does not matter if Krishna was 'physical' or not. Matter of fact the more we want to see all these things like present day/in movies etc the more of a hurdle it is to spiritual progress.
The Mahabharat by the way is not a simple 'good over evil' story as this movie shows or other movies show. All the pandavas after they die go to hell. Duryodhana is found in heaven, along with Karna and some others. The consequences of what each person did manifests in many different ways. To me whether there is a physical 'pralayam' or not is less important than whether there is individual consequences which make it compelling to live according to our dharma.
Man is an integral part of nature, how nature cycles and recyles itself using various components of itself is the key to understanding Lord's larger frame.
911 or WII or any such similar instances (Iraq war, Kargil etc), are various ways in which pralayams happen, they not necessarily mean water in flood, flood is a term for catastrophe.
Krsna's yda yadahi dharmasya practically means balance of nature, you can witness it every walk of life. The maha pralayams are ones when it takes an eternal cosmic energy to balance the universe in a large form of manifestation.
Surapadman, practically controlled every law of nature as did Ravana or other asuras who took over. Man to come to that stand will take a long time. When that (Forcing nature to act against her ways) happens the larger cosmic energy will manifest and flood the universe to restore His favourite game. Narasimha avatar, prior to the single combat came to a stage where the Lord manifested himself in every atom across the cosmos, for want of the child to point anywhere, it was Hiranyakashipu's bad time or egoistical arrogance forcing him to show his own jayasthambam he made with his own hands in the center of the court. THe fact that Lord sits in every single atom waiting to equate the universe makes it a cosmic flood.
These are various instances of cosmic floods, Chandi fusing herself in every atom to drink the ounce of blood falling from Mahisha was cosmic flood. Skanda hunting down surapadma in all the lokas in various forms - happend as the Lord flooded the universe with his shakthi.
Maha pralayams are way beyond our imagination especially if we believe in the western ideologies and science to factor with limited knowledge. Other balance of nature will happen as and when it is destined where Mother earth and her subordinates will be able to fight back, it takes a subtle difference in thought process to think out of the box solutions to the query.
Ravi, very well put!!! I agree with most of what you say. Scientists like Stephen Hawking though do not agree that the 'bigger intelligence' is necessarily kind to man, or more appropriate the restoration of 'dharma' need not be in ways we understand. Second point is the parellels between 'bigger acts' and 'smaller ones', and why many times personal dharma or looking for justice in one's own life is so much at conflict with the bigger 'dharma' as we understand. In other words, who are villans and who are heroes in this huge cosmic drama? We rarely see Ravanas and Hiranyas in black and white in modern terms - if an industrialist polluted rivers and caused global warming, there were hundreds of families that his business supported and lived off of, just an example.
Just sharing some ideas, not necessarily looking for answers.
Dear Malathi, I agree to your statement however, i still feel a person of Hitler's magnitude or Osama's magnitude or industries polluting rivers and global warming etc - will fall into the smaller pralayam.
When there is a negative soul (or a collection as in Kauravas) that generates the energy to control elements of earth and other planets / their influences on our worlds, that is when a larger cosmic energy will balance the act.
That is not possible for us to imagine in our meagre knowledge of the Almighty in His full flow. The closest we can imagine is Lord Rama's passage on earth. How would we be able to imagine an earth bare of water dried up by the Lord's spear? Yes - if you think only from a factor of spiritual plane, that is easily deduced to Oceans of 7 samsaric births as humans, physical plans - there is no law of physics that can explain it.
My thought process (may be a bit biassed with religious materials), fails to hail a person like hitler to equal with Kamsa or sooran etc. Physical damage hitler did create, a soul like Sooran was a staunch siva bhaktan, he generated so much of energy and soul power to rule for thousands of years across so many galaxies. I doubt if a person like hitler even had one micro granule of such soul power. Such was the soul power of Suran - Tharakasuran - Sihamukan that Skanda toyed around with him for 7 days (cosmic days may be equal to so many light years) to show the Devas the power of Paramasivan's powers given to His devotee, in fact by the second day, Devas almost think that Suran is a greater force than the Supreme Himself. We all know how it ends however.
Anyway, long story short, these low faced criminals have no great soul power to match the calibre of the Anti hero's in Asuras. Anti hero is because, the increase their power not by mayic force but breaking that shield and attaining boons by austere penances. I am yet to see or hear such force for another flooded massive cosmic manifestation. Well, Lord Kalki is due so lets hope that He does not need to show up for a few of our younger generations.
Ravi, very interesting points of view!! I agree completely with you that the asuras cannot be compared to Hitler, matter of fact very few of them could even be classified as 'evil' all their acts were very subjective, and that is often times what makes God's reactions very difficult to understand. Ravana was a great ruler, which is the reason why Sri Rama gives him 'one more day' - indru poi naalai vaa. Duryodhana was not 'evil' as we think, he was showered flowers when he died. Sakuni was avenging the death of his brothers by corrupting his mind. There is no evidence that Duryodhana and Kauravas were bad rulers or mis treated their subjects in any way.
I find the Prahlada story inspiring among all since Prahlada was a child and what was done to him was child abuse. The other avatars are difficult to justify from present day perspective. I think good and evil are strongly dependant on cultures and living standards of any given time. Even RRC and Narasimha Pallava, great rulers as eulogised by Kalki had strong elements of subjectivity to their 'goodness', we have to forgive or ignore their acts of bloodshed and wars if we have to respect them.
So even if God wants to come as Kalki, only He can perhaps understand why. One man's hero is definitely another man's villain, not just in our times, even as far behind as Ramayana. (In the Thai version of Ramayana Ravana is the hero, to this day).
iniya chitirai thirunal matrum puthandu vazhthukual. :) I hate to do this again, talking of Kalki bhagavan, we already have enough dupes masquerading as "Kalki" avataram. I wish people stay away from such dupes, and find godliness within themselves.
If we are not able to find who is real and dupe, it is our problem, not dupe's. There is no point in blaming these dupes. My college correspondent brought Premanandra Maharaj (!), opened a block and didn't allow us to wear shoes/chappel when we enter inside and his name is inscribed outside of the block. If this is the case of correspondent, then think about ordinary people, all these because he took lingam from his mouth.
On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 7:09 AM, Nandakumar Selvaraj
It is our problem and more of a problem with our self esteem. There are very few saints, because it is so difficult to be a true saint. True saints rarely advertise or perform 'magic'. Ultimately God is within us, we have to have courage to believe that.
A major part of the impetus for the atheistic movement in TN to survive is belief of people in all magic and fake swamis, instead of true self seeking spirituality. Some people talk of Kalki like christians talk of 'second coming', like there is some big answer to the world's problems and it can end like that. There may be, but really that is a little escapist type of thinking to me. The only difference is what difference we make, each and every one of us. Or like Mother Teresa says we cannot do big things we can only do small things in a big way.