This is nice, but all this information is available on Wikipedia, and you never actually bothered to explain why rationalists ought to care about Hinduism in the first place. I happen to be very fond of Kashmiri Shaivism, due to my own spiritual experiences mysteriously having led me to nearly replicate its theology (though with different names, symbols, etc of course, since I’m a white American!) as a teen. Maybe someday I’ll have the courage to write a post on here about how I manage to be a rationalist and a gnostic theist at the same time. But it’s unlikely to appeal to most readers.
Dang, it’s nice to find another ‘Kashmir’ Shaiva here, of all places!
Do you practice? (I mean this in the sense of practicing the inner yogas/meditation, not in the sense of joining a religion.)
(I found this post when searching for the word ‘dharma’ on LW, to see what the word means for the community. I actually think this post is def instructive, but still written from within a reductive lens that privileges the Astika schools rather than now.)
Well, as I attempted to express in the original comment, I am not a Shaiva, but rather I had mystical experiences and things as a teen that led me to invent my own religion from scratch which has similarities with various other belief systems, and Kashmir Shaivism is one of them. For the most part however it’s just a kind of background element of my existence, part of my ontology, and not something I put much attention towards actively anymore. In practice I’m effectively an atheist physicalist like everyone else here. It’s just… there’s also something that lurks beneath. Or there used to be. I’ve gotten more disillusioned, more empty-souled and this-worldly as I’ve gotten older, and I don’t really know how to get back the way I used to feel. Probably psychedelics is the only way; meditation doesn’t do anything for me.
This is nice, but all this information is available on Wikipedia, and you never actually bothered to explain why rationalists ought to care about Hinduism in the first place. I happen to be very fond of Kashmiri Shaivism, due to my own spiritual experiences mysteriously having led me to nearly replicate its theology (though with different names, symbols, etc of course, since I’m a white American!) as a teen. Maybe someday I’ll have the courage to write a post on here about how I manage to be a rationalist and a gnostic theist at the same time. But it’s unlikely to appeal to most readers.
Dang, it’s nice to find another ‘Kashmir’ Shaiva here, of all places!
Do you practice? (I mean this in the sense of practicing the inner yogas/meditation, not in the sense of joining a religion.)
(I found this post when searching for the word ‘dharma’ on LW, to see what the word means for the community. I actually think this post is def instructive, but still written from within a reductive lens that privileges the Astika schools rather than now.)
Well, as I attempted to express in the original comment, I am not a Shaiva, but rather I had mystical experiences and things as a teen that led me to invent my own religion from scratch which has similarities with various other belief systems, and Kashmir Shaivism is one of them. For the most part however it’s just a kind of background element of my existence, part of my ontology, and not something I put much attention towards actively anymore. In practice I’m effectively an atheist physicalist like everyone else here. It’s just… there’s also something that lurks beneath. Or there used to be. I’ve gotten more disillusioned, more empty-souled and this-worldly as I’ve gotten older, and I don’t really know how to get back the way I used to feel. Probably psychedelics is the only way; meditation doesn’t do anything for me.
Added a TL;DR to explain that. And please do write that article. Would love to hear the rationalisation :)