Tuesday, October 6, 2009

"Row, row, row your boat"

It is kind of like how that nursery rhyme went: just stop to think when you get to "Life is just a dream."
Murali and I touched on one of our fav topics - nothing Darwinian - but the fact that many of our saints in the past (Adi Shankarar, Ramanujar, Thirunavukarasu) had had visions of seeing God. We touched on a few questions along the discussion:
  • "Mela poyachu" மேல போயாச்சு - Why does heaven get to be above (and vice-versa)?
  • Why does your current life get the results of what you did in your past life (when you can't even recall who you were or what you did)?
  • How does God really look like? Human features?
  • Your "atma" has no likes/dislikes, positive/negative actions attached to it - it is the body, the container, that gets involved in these tendencies: then, why does the body suffer? (This question becomes more quizzical if you factor past-life karmas...)
  • And, of course, the most common of 'em all, "What is the purpose of our lives?" The big picture. Not our individual goals, rather, the collective, universal, goal.