I wonder, is devotion anything but projection?

Yeah, it kind of is "anything but."

Or it could be that the creations of the mind ultimately mean everything.

My colleague who is a translator says:



We invent every meaning that exists in this world. We are the magicians and language is our wand. That's why think that trying to explain religious myths as something factual we are actually creating big obstacles in our devotion.

Yes, now we are getting somewhere. I used to do all of that, but then, in that frightening moment, I saw the emptiness of it. We fill symbols with meaning, but that meaning leaks out because the symbol is inherently empty, leaving us with nothing, with emptiness. I know. I have been there.

Again, what insightful thoughts, extranjero. I have these very thoughts myself (no wonder I find them insightful).

This magician metaphor you use is used also in buddhism in a similar way.
This idea that everything is a fiction is popular in postmodern literary theory.
(It seems once you get really into these things it's impossible to go back and it's possible to drive yourself existentially berzerker because it is such a razor's edge. I think this is part of why they talk about the poison of mayavadi ideas but that's another story).

I like how you are able to simultaneously maintain the cognitively dissonant ideas that on the one hand we create every meaning in the world, and on the other hand, these fictions we make (like magic) mean everything. What you are saying is like the german existenstialism whereas the more straightforward approach oneiros is saying is like the french existentialism. I don't think many gaudiyas think like you though, and it also creates a problem when you look at the offense of not taking the potency of the holy name to be imagination. However, I think that the point is to feel so much emotion that the awareness of the act of meaning-making gets totally phased out by exstacy, or at least even if there is still awareness of it, it loses all importance or relevance.

The first time I read this was in 1994 (or maybe 1993). At that time I went with other devotees to Moscow to meet with Harikesha. Afterwards we had one extra day to spend in Moscow and my friend wanted to visit one special library -- the Library of the Academy of Sciences and I went with him. The entrance was limited only to the members of Academy of Sciences, so we decided to tell them that we are from the Academy of Sciences of Latvia; our tactic worked, we got in. Time was short and just tried to get a glimpse of as many books as possible. I read the introduction of some book, I think it was Noam Chomsky "Transformational Grammar" and it was exactly about how, using language, you can become your own magician. Afterwards I and my friend shared what we had read that day and I told him this story. He got very interested and later bought that book. He successfully applied many theories from this book in his translation work but after some time he encountered the underlying emptiness you were warning about and abandoned vaisnava path and went to study psychology in the University. He told me that it all started with me, telling him this story. I still have no idea what he means by this.



I am not a very philosophical person, so I might miss some things you say. But my belief is not that there is nothing but the imagination. Quite the contrary, I believe that there is real Radha and Krishna and the spritual world. Maybe not exactly as we imagine it right now and basically because in our state we have no posibility to realize or experience it in any other way than through myths. Myths do not arise just in our minds, the have some origin. At least, those myths and tales that are important to many people through ages. I just don't accept myths at face value or facts.

Vedas are supposed to be infallible and faultless but in reality they are full of cultural biases etc. Clearly all scriptures are simply ideas of some ancient spiritual seekers, but they are not just random fantasies. Are spiritual revelations mercy things that happen without the involvement of spiritual practicioner, or are they merely creativity of his/her mind? I think both factors come in.

Sometimes I find certain antique Vedic texts so culturally conditioned that it is impossible to repair them. Fortunately the practice in Hinduism is that you write new scriptures when times require it. In fact, everybody rewrites scripture in his mind all the time. I very much love Krishnadasa's Caitanya-caritamrita but there are some places I don't agree with. For example, that everybody who doesn't accept Lord Caitanya as a God is a demon. I don't force myself to accept such statements. Instead I build my own beautiful myth on the foundation that is given by Krishnadasa and others. It may not be exactly the traditional GV but religions adapt to changing times all the time.

You say this:

But you also say this:

As for myself on the one hand I believe we construct meaning onto everything via our creativity but despite that I don't want to dismiss Radha and Krishna as being mere "figments of the imagination" in the dismissive way that this is usually implied so as to negate their Real existence.

On the one hand there is the idea that Krishna is independant of our ability to believe in him, just saying his name -by mistake- has potency, but on the other hand there is the idea that his name loses potency if you dare entertain the idea that the power of his name is linked to imagination.

Here is a line from a poem by Wallace Stevens:

" It was her voice that made --
the sky acutest at its vanishing."

Here is one tendency of how some people can read these lines of that poem and do.

A girl is walking along beneath the sky and singing about it. Her singing about the sky is making the sky more acute, more vivid, than the actual sky. Krishna too is so much more vivid when looked at through the song of his best devotee Radha. But back to the poem, her song is -so- enchanting, in a sense it is as though she is the one who "makes" the sky. In fact, when her singing reaches such a peak that we can't even see what is what anymore, and the sky "vanishes," just like Krishna "vanishes,*" and all we can hear is her song, then that is the moment paradoxically when the sky feels the most acute, factual, real.

*like when Krishna vanishes, separates from Radha.

One can say that her singing is just constructing meaning onto the sky and this is bogus because there is no meaning there, just a sky. But oh!! how do you know the sky is more Real than the song that is sung about it?

I know that my views do not pass the philosophical scrutiny but I say that Krishna may exist independently of us but still we cannot have any meaningful experience of Him unless we create Him in our minds or rather hearts. We don't want just some natural law that governs material or spiritual existance like the law of gravity and electromagnetism. We want pure love and love is pure creativity. Even the material love is all about imagination and when that creativity stops, we fall down and start to hate each other. Krishna may give a hint here and there in different forms, and others may try to help us but ultimately it is up to us to open our hearts and let the amorous feelings flow towards Him. That may not be easy and that's way there is the whole process of various sadhanas. But when love reaches certain level, Krishna will reciprocate and support it and in this way we can never fall down.



I always thought that this offense is that one should not think that the powerful effects of the holy name are imagined, not that the holy name itself is imagined. Still the argument is that we should chant purely, without offenses. Isn't the one who chants purely is seeing all the pastimes of the Lord in his heart? I think that such person is special because he has the ability to imagine them with full love, and not that he has somehow been able to negotiate to open video channel from the spiritual world. But are the vision of such a devotee factual or figment of imagination? What's the difference when nobody else around him is capable to understand his feelings? He might as well have created some special, unique relationship with Krishna who is responding to a devotee. Who can know the Absolute Truth? I only believe that such a state of devotion is somehow possible.

Talking about defining your own meaning I find this verse from Padyavali entertaining:

Conversation Between Krishna and Radha

"Who taps on My door with one finger?"

"O crooked girl, it is Madhava."

"Madhava is a name of spring. Has springtime come knocking on My door?"

"Certainly not. It is the holder of the Sudarsana wheel."

"Potters hold wheels. Are You a potter?"

"I am not. I am the person who holds up the entire world."

"The forked-tongued serpent king Ananta holds up the world. Are You He?

"No. I am a person who crushes serpents."

"The bird-king Garuda crushes serpents. Are You he?

"No. I am Lord Hari."

"Hari is a name of the monkey-king Hanuman. Are You he?

May Lord Krishna, who holds the Sudarsana cakra, and who smiled to hear these clever words from Srimati Radharani, protect you all.

What a fitting and fantastic quote I recall reading this exchange on another forum and thinking oh I have to remember this!

I agree with every single word.

Sure, that is the case. I just wonder if there might be some "intelligent design" in the way we see Krishna in our minds "evolves." (Of course our vision of Him is also affected by ahamkara/our own flaws). The Krishna we desire tries to manifest Himself in our minds through deity and kavya. There are many obstacles to this and then we get a Krishna that either does not excite or looks like a psychopath. As you said, I think sadhana is supposed to help this process. As long as there are not other elements making the sadhana counter productive.




Well, we see this kind of concept in Bhagavatam also. Radha takes Krishna's name and so does Putana. Putana is eventually saved just by taking His name with a completely horrible and violent consciousness. In my opinion this is the most beautiful example of Krishna's presence in Bhagavatam, because as you said, it shows that He has potency as an independent agent. However, Putana's salvation is a bit violent affair. He did suck the life out of her breasts afterall. She didn't get to experience any of the bliss of bhakti during her lifetime. I suppose that is the difference. A sadhana executed correctly (ie. sans "offenses" as much as possible) will bring bliss in this life as well as the next. Wheras, simply taking Krishna's name and remembering Him, even in anger, hatred, or excruciating pain, will bring you bliss in the next life because you will go to Him... but this life doesn't look too hot, that's it.

Yes. I still wonder, how come that after facing this emptiness I still somehow go on as before and even feel the appeal of some of the meanings I make. The mind seems to have a mind of its own
As a child I was fascinated by the discovery that some things -- like small blades of grass on the lawn, moving in the wind -- stood out more clearly when one looked at them out of focus. Now I am trying to look at reality out of focus, not too sharply. I know I can deconstruct everything, I do not need to prove it by doing so.

God has made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through. (Paul Valery)

Two "realities" seem to be forming here. The first: the unreal world, the out-of-focus world, the world that we infuse with meaning through our constructs. The second: the real world, the-word-in-focus, the world as-it-really-is minus the constructs we apply onto it to create meaning. We seem to be saying the first is false and the second is true.

The second however is no less a contruct than the first. Why do we hypothesize the existence of some kind of as-it-is world independant of our meaning-constructing consciousness? This is the faith of positivism, that a world beyond the world as seen though the altering skew of our sense organs exists. Even though no one can ever see it. Even if we think we are looking at the 'as-it-is' world we are not because as long as that supposed world comes in contact with our subjective organs of perception, it is re-organized and altered by the lens of our subjective consciousness. We cannot even look at a blade of grass without our brain re-organizing that information into a mental representation in our heads. We are walking around, our brain interacting with constructed mental representations of reality even on a biological level level alone.

I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians.

I discern the highest conception of emancipation as a golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminated ones as flowers appearing in one's eyes.

I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime.

I look upon the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons.

Buddha

Would this depend on just what the devotion is directed toward? When I think of falling in love for the first time toward someone, the devotion one feels toward that person is this real sensation throughout the body, it’s about as real and tangible as putting a rock into your mouth and trying to chew on it! But devotion to God, now is or is that not a projection? When I first moved into an ISKCON temple, I was in a pretty big awe and reverence type of mood, and because I did not see Radha and Krsna outside of their deity form, in many ways I was projecting my devotion to an ideal that was in my mind and heart, something I wanted to be real, but it was not the same feeling like when I first fell in love with somebody, there was no rock in my mouth to chew, but plenty of good Prasadam … and I did have some real devotion to that!

So when it come to God, I feel a sense of real devotion to the mysteries and beauty in life, like seeing a dramatic sunset by the ocean or a view from a mountaintop, or seeing all the stars and planets on clear moonless night not to mention getting to see a baby being born, this stuff is tangible and points to something greater, something worth being devoted to and not a projection.

I can recall an experience at the Detroit temple in 1982, during a Janmastami celebration, when Bhavananda walks up to me (a common local visiting Bhakta) and asks me, “ So have you left your girlfriend and are you ready to move into the temple?” … I replied, “ In all honestly, I wish I loved Krsna as much as my girlfriend of 8 years, I’m working on it though!” He kind of gave me this weird smile and shook his head while walking away.

So in 18 years of being a practicing devotee, I am still working on my devotion to Radha and Krsna to be as real an experience as when I first fell in love with someone, and not just being a projection of the mind and heart, but I do know that there is something deep inside that is real and tangible, but I just don’t really have a name or way to explain it without sounding like a total idiot … and start talking about putting rocks in a mouth to chew!

So to me personally, it seems like a lot of projection, but there is also something inside consciousness that reeks real and tangible, something worth pursuing, calling out for some type of devotion, even if it means going totally outside my Krsna Consciousness experience.

I agree wholeheartdly with the last paragraph Kalisurfer, but I think Bhavananda could have helped you really understand detatchment from girlfriends, and girls in general.

I have found that the concepts of devotion, belief and projection are not that easy to separate from each other.

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I wonder, is devotion anything but projection?

Would this depend on just what the devotion is directed toward? When I think of falling in love for the first time toward someone, the devotion one feels toward that person is this real sensation throughout the body, it’s about as real and tangible as putting a rock into your mouth and trying to chew on it! But devotion to God, now is or is that not a projection?

To project or not to project, that is indeed the question. "Regular" love being so tangible, one is a little bit lost when the love affair of devotion has to be defined. At least I am. I feel like the character in one of Goethes books, the hopeless romantic young Werner, who fell in love with love. I feel that there is something out there and there is some truth in that feeling, but because "that there" remains mute and invisible to me I have no other option but to just try to revere that feeling of devotion or reverance. That is after all the only thing that is really tangible to me! Thus I try not to take too seriously the different projections people have of their objects of devotion.