God’s guidance: the Vedas

For greatest ease in understanding, i recommend that you read the Introduction before this Chapter and that you then read this Chapter in the order i recommend There.

God’s guidance: the Vedas, selected, edited and with Commentary by Victor Luis Villalon-Suarez

most recently reviewed on 3/17/2022 at 7:43

improvements since the immediately preceding review: Substituted “everlasting” for “eternal” throughout.

Upanishads, translated by Patrick Olivelle, Oxford World’s Classics, Oxford University Press, 2008.

page 28, 2.4.3: “What is the point in getting something that [shall] not [enable me to live in Heaven]?”

page 30, 2.4.12: “after death there is no awareness [unless God creates Heaven].”

page 35, 3.1.6: “[The only way one might] climb up to [H]eaven […] [is] by means of the mind […].”

page 69, 4.5.6: “‘[…] [I [L]ove my] [W]ife […] not out of [L]ove for [my] [W]ife[, but] out of [L]ove for [my]self […].’”

page 69, 4.5.6: “‘[…] [I [L]ove] [God] […] not out of [L]ove for [God][, but] out of [L]ove for [my]self […].’” What if i substitute “God” for “Wife” and “myself” in the two immediately preceding quotes? I get “God Loves Itself not for Itself, but for Itself”, a contradiction, which means the statement does not apply to God. Rather, God Loves Itself because of Itself, for What God is, for Itself. God is grateful to Itself for being What God is. For this ultimate mystery, miracle, that something so good could exist at all, let alone have come into being out of nothing, of Its own, not created by anything, not even by Itself, for then God would have been Its own creator, but the creator must precede the creation in time, and before God there was no time, so God could not have come before God, because then there would have been a time before time, which cannot be by the meanings of the words themselves. I have concluded for now that before time there was nothing: the absence of time and space.

page 110, 2.9.3: “[…] [people] are […] fond of praise […] and acclaim […].”

page 133, 4.10.3: “‘The desires that lurk within [people] are many and bring various dangers. […].’”

page 227, 1.1: “By [what] impelled, by [what] compelled, does the mind soar forth?” This is one fundamental question leading to God’s awakening within a person, for if a person thinks it is he or she him- or herself who “impels” and “compels” his or her mind, this would mean the mind was driving itself. But what drove together

(“im-pelled”, “com-pelled”, for “pellere”, where the “-pelled” comes from, is Latin for “to drive”)

the matter that makes up the brain, of which i think the mind is but an epiphenomenon, an emergent phenomenon? Some force did this, for a force is that which causes a change in location, direction or speed, and the components of the brain, which are material, moved together to form the brain. So a force moved them, because only a force can cause motion. They did not move themselves. Matter is not a force. What shall we call this force? I call it “God”. And what sustains the mind? What drives the chemicals in the neurotransmitters together to form them? The electrons in the electrical signals to flow so as to produce their current? Again, a force, because the atoms in chemicals and the electrons are forms of matter, and they move, so something causes them to. And what drives insight? Discovery? Epiphanies? Realizations? Where do they come from? The unconscious? Then the person is not their origin, because a person by definition cannot will an unconscious process to happen, as the will is a conscious faculty. I prefer “God” to “nature” because God is commonly and primarily thought of as the creator, whereas nature can be many different things, only one among which is a creative force, so “God” seems to me more precise, thus better as a word, whose purpose is to convey meaning as accurately as possible. The universe is also often thought of as a supreme, all-inclusive, entity, and the word often capitalized in this sense, as i do. In this sense it is almost identical to my definition of God, except i think it would be doing violence to “Universe” to identify it as the creative force. Rather, something other than the Universe created It. This is one advantage of using “God” instead. Another is economy: “God” is just one syllable; “Universe”, three. But this is secondary. What is primary to me is exactness of meaning. Also, God as the drive to live in everlasting happiness is what leads the Rest of the Universe, what gives it direction, order, thus meaning. “Universe” to me lacks this sense of direction, but is, rather, more associated with randomness unless thought of as ordered and created, which implies an entity superior to It, for which i can think of no better name than “God”. What has direction is not random, because what is random has the same likelihood of happening as anything else of its kind, but in direction, the position in space of what is moving can be no other than it is, because it is determined by its immediately preceding position. Direction is movement along a line, which may be straight or curved. But every point on a line is unique and can be no other than it is, has no likelihood of being anywhere but where it is. So because in my definition of “God”, Which i believe God has revealed to me, God is in part the force that gives direction to the Universe, “God” seems to me preferable to “Universe” to denote the creative force of all of reality other than nothing.

page 233, 1.12: “In the world of [H]eaven there is no fear;/there one has no fear of old age of you./Transcending both these—both hunger and thirst,/beyond all sorrows, one rejoices in [H]eaven.” All that is missing is an image of Heaven, thus of how there would be only rejoicing, thus “no fear”, “hunger and thirst” nor any “sorrows”. I have found such an image, but because it is sexual, it may offend those whom bad sex has traumatized against sex. We need the System to heal them of this trauma and thus make them receptive to this image.

page 233, 1.13: “People who are in [H]eaven enjoy th’immortal state[…].” The positive, “everliving”, would have been better instead of “immortal”, which is negative: it expresses what something is not, namely mortal, rather than what it is with, namely everlasting life.

page 233, 1.14: “[H]eaven/[…] an endless world.” The positive,“everlasting”, would have been better instead of “endless”, which is negative: it expresses what something is without, namely end, rather than what it is with, namely everlasting duration.

page 234, 1.27: “With wealth you cannot make a man content[…].” This is because the only wealth that could content us would be Heaven.

page 236, 2.6: “This transit lies hidden from a careless fool,/who is deluded by the delusion of wealth./Thinking ‘This is the [W]orld; there is no other’,/he falls into [death’s] power again and again.” The worst danger is the belief that there can be no other life than the present one, that all must end with death, for then whoever believes this gives him- or herself over entirely to trying to fill the vacuum the absence of Heaven leaves in us all with the inadequate pleasures of this life, caring nothing about the fate of the World. The only cure for this error is to supply a perception of beauty great enough to kindle in such a person the desire to live forever just to keep enjoying. at least it, and this desire, combined with the awareness of the possibility, even if thought improbable, of Heaven.