Talk:Moksha

I added Raja marga since it is a central understanding of Hindu thought about moksha and removed shunyata since Hindus and Jains don't believe in nothingness while Buddhists avoid using the term moksha.

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Should it be noted that the translation for विमुक्ति is vimukti (or vi-mukti if you prefer)? I realize the वि- prefix makes it the more proper term here, just note it in the transliteration. Khirad^talk 22:49, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Moksha central theme in Buddhism

Moksha is the central theme in Buddhism. In fact, hindus were unaware of moksha before Buddha. Look at [1]. --Anirudh777 10:38, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Hm.. I have never heard of this before. But can you point to the exact reference please. The site is a large collection of ebooks, so if you can pull out the ebook that says Moksha is a central theme to buddhist, that would be helpful. Thanks Monkey Brain 15:11, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I also have never heard that, but would not be too suprised. BTW, can anyone please indicate more distinctions between moksha and nirvana. Le Anh-Huy (talk) 17:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

This is unfortunately a buddhist identity political talking point. There are several users on wikipedia defacing buddhism/hinduism articles in this fashion, they seem to see it as a righteous act of resistance against "hindu right wingers" (who in turn try to claim that everything originated with hinduism). The result is not only an edit war, but also the loss of all perspective and balance on questions of origin or influence. It is absurd south asian identity politics playing out on wikipedia pages. Dont know that there is any way permanent way to stop it given wikipedia's very liberal editing policies, and as a result corrupted information inevitably will appear on wikipedia pages as the edit war goes back and forth forever. Its sad. As a cross reference see the discussion about origins of moksha with user Mitsube below. I should add that part of the edit war agenda from both sides seems to be a concerted effort to retroactively "essentialize" both "hinduism" and "buddhism", when the overwhelming evidence is that of a shared conceptual world particularly in the early writings 2000 or more years ago. Any modern scholar will tell you about the problems of retrospectively "imagined communities" and their political uses in the present, but this edit war seems immune to such balance or perspective. Hulahoo (talk) 10:07, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Mention of Aldous Huxley

There is a misleading mention (probably an edit) of Aldous Huxley's novel 'Island' in the Buddhism subsection. This should probably be removed to the end in a 'References in Popular Culture' subsection as seen on many Wiki pages. Further, both Huxley and the Novel have pages of their own to link to. I am usually not one to edit any pages I casually read, leaving that to those that are more informed than myself.

Some basic understanding

This article should include some basic spritual information as well before going into the details to assist the reader...eg understanding of what happens when an individual while still possesing a body on earth reaches the point when the last sin their soul bears becomes perfectly balanced by act of good deed...

Now 'soul' means what survives when the 'body' ceases to exist as a living form[and those who believe when they die its just everlasting blackness this topic is of no further interest to you...but i would be very careful what i believe about my soul...]

'Sin' means what the soul/souls that by act of 'unbalanced-self-interest' causes 'disruption, destruction and trauma' on other soul/souls(which by the way is the definition of 'evil'), earns...so, taking an example, a soul cannot commit sin by damaging something that does not have a soul eg rock...unless the amount of rock damaged causes above said to souls...but a soul acting on another soul does earn sin...so 'sin' is a currency that only goes with the 'soul'...

And this topic of moksha or samathi or nirvana...is eastern religion in essense saying if you keep doing good deeds to counter balance the evil in ones soul then it is possible to bring your soul back to balance...albeit a mature old soul. As compared to western religion that says you evil will be balanced in 'hell' through suffering to bring the same balance...again with 'escape clause' of if you beleive in jesus then its all forgiven...again be careful what one believes when it comes to your soul...

And for the budding theologians out there...the most interesting question is this 'what happens at the moment when the last good deed balances the the last evil act in ones soul'...in eastern religion, the belief is that the body can no longer exist with the soul, so the body energies back to its basic elements releasing the soul...as with budda and other swami's...in western religion, when all the evil is balanced by suffering, then the soul can no longer exist in hell and will go back to become one with the body of god, and which in same balance, to complete the cycle which started when a small part of god energy separated to become your soul...,

And the most important of all is the understanding that god does not have a physical form, ie exists as energy...so to understand topics relating to god ie spirituality one must have their spiritual eye ie the 'eye of energies' open first and use it in their daily situations of life eg how does one explain the colour yellow to a blind from birth person...

Sam —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.86.137 (talk) 00:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Referencing and Bibliography

Clear referencing and bibliography should be inputted as without, this article has no academic quality.

Moksha

"The impersonalist schools of Hinduism also worship various deities, but with the idea that such worship is ultimately abandoned - both the worshiped and worshiper lose their individual identities." That depends which school of Advaita, you're obviously ISKCON all impersonalists are the same to you but there are several different schools of Advaita i.e. what can be known as 'Reform Advaita' of Sri Ramakrishna even Sri Aurobindo and other modern gurus... Vishishtadvaita or Ramanuja's school...Ishvaravada Advaita(monistic theism, panentheism Shaiva Advaita which is also known as Ishv. Advaita...some lose their identities some don't! Ishvaravada contends that the Supreme(insert whatever name) really exists and is also the absolute and creative forces... The key is total or near-total identification with Brahman the Absolute. Also pure Advaita Vedanta Sri Adi Shankara's school of complete identification with Brahman though that can depend...It's important to note that one must separate definition of the ego from the idea of individuality...ego is known as 'ahamkara'(I-maker) so one can still exist but completely identify with Brahman..DomDomsta333 (talk) 01:56, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Indian identity politics and the Moksha concept

There is some indication that Indian identity politics (which tends to be all-pervasive on Indian religion articles) has shown up in this Moksha article as well. For instance, in the section on the "origins" of Moksha, the claim is that Moksha and related concepts originated with non-aryans and were incorporated into hindusim by brahmins priests. This may or may not be true, and every single source (of the 7 footnotes given) acknowledges the speculative nature of this theory. Yet, the narrative here had presented it as a done deal. I fixed the narrative to include an indication of the speculative nature of this theory with the appropriate phrases ("may have," "the theory is", etc). - jak. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jak68 (talk • contribs) 08:00, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

1, 5, and 7 make firm declarations. Altering sourced material within a reference like you did is not allowed. Mitsube (talk) 08:05, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I did not alter any reference and have no idea what you're insinuating there. I merely added three phrases to indicate what your own references are indicating: that the origins of Moksha is speculative, and not definitive. 3 out of 7 does not count as a scholarly consensus (even those being obviously cherry-picked). There has to be a scholarly consensus for a definitive claim on this. By your own argument, half of your own references acknowledge the speculative nature of your claim about Moksha's origins, which you are presenting as definitive. All I did was include the appropriate phrases to ensure we are not misleading wikipedia readers that there is some kind of definitive consensus about Moksha's origins. I dont know why you would want to mislead readers that way except that -- as indicated on your user page -- you seem to be engaged in some kind Buddhist identity politics and this problem has come up with you before. Hulahoo (talk) 08:29, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

For the third time you have added a "may" to Masih's quote. I have no idea what you are talking about regarding Buddhist identity politics. And there have never been any claims of scholarly consensus. Mitsube (talk) 08:36, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Mitsube, we may be able to agree on the language to use here. But I must say that your insertion of "This either certainly or highly probably happened" and "which is probably correct" are very clear NPOV violations. Maybe we can try some other language but I dont want to violate NPOV.Hulahoo (talk) 08:43, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I will note here that you are altering a directly attributed sentence in quotation marks. Regarding your NPOV idea, you are incorrect. I am repeating what the scholars say, as you will see. If you find a dissenting scholar then we can give that view appropriate weight. Mitsube (talk) 16:58, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

mitsube, you have not simply repeated "what the scholars say" as you claim. 4 of your own references deny the certainty that you are claiming. You cannot pass off as fact something that is -- by your own references -- in scholarly dispute. Reporting you to admins at this point. Hulahoo (talk) 09:51, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Not a single source gives any hint of scholarly dispute. That is your wish, not reality. Mitsube (talk) 19:45, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

"The Origins" section needs to be written in an "Encyclopedic" manner. Terms such as "highly probable", "likely", "greatly influenced" etc. should be minimized or eliminated altogether. The user mitsube has used superlative adverbs in several cases. In an "Encyclopedic" setting, such language is discouraged. An element can either be a fact, or a proabability... not both. So please distinguish between the two and recompose. I tried doing so by moderating the article, but my changes were reversed. I am going to change this piece one last time to make sure my usertalk is noticed. Also, if one is qouting sources, it is advisable to just go ahead and quote sources... why try to reword them? -- Dandekar (talk) 20:31, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I also do not understand why Mitsube, keeps mentioning karma, reincarnation, samsara in the first line of the article on Moksha. If Mitsube so desires, he/she can discuss these in greater detail in subtopics, rather than bombarding the reader with links, even before the user has grasped the main topic of interest. Try putting this links in related content. IMO, this is a very poorly written article, with no clear references, but as I do not have an expertise in the topic myself, I am just paying attention to the linguistic details. -- Dandekar (talk) 20:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The reason for including all of them is that the entire worldview was borrowed. Saying "moksha" by itself doesn't really make sense. In the Rigveda the situation is the opposite, with one life followed by heaven. Mitsube (talk) 22:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

"The entire world view was borrowed" !!!!... Those are strong words, comrade. No one knows what really happened. Not even scholars... You can give estimates, and that is it. It amuses me when people try to push agendas in such areas as 'Moksha'. I think the admins can shed more light on this. I am but a simpleton. For now, I am keeping your article, the way you want it to be and reporting this article to the admins. ---- Dandekar (talk) 15:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you should read WP:V first? Have you read it before? Mitsube (talk) 18:24, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I see no violation of WP:V anywhere. Dandekars edits were merely wording related. He left all sources the way they were, and changed a summarised version to a quote. IMO direct quotes are much more reliable than summaries, but as a compromise, could we have the quote with a summary after?Drew Smith What I've done 21:27, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Similar to Salvation?

First parapgraph states: "Its meaning is similar to that of Salvation in Christianity..."

This seems wildly inaccurate. The Christian concept of salvation depends on the concepts of sin, original sin, blood atonement, the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, grace, and other concepts that do not fit with the Dharmic worldview. In addition, most Judeo-Christian beliefs regarding the afterlife are very different from Dharmic beliefs. Christianity has no concept of samsara, the cycle that moksha promises escape from.

Moksha and salvation are only similar in that they are positive endpoints in major religions. The similarities end there. I am going to remove the reference to salvation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.68.144.87 (talk) 15:23, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Advaita and Vaishnavism

The current state of the entry makes Advaita seem in some way opposed to Vaishnavism (i.e. "according to advaita" and later "Vaishnava sects follow one of Shuddhadvaita, Vishistadvaita, Dvaitadvaita, Dvaita, or Acintya Bheda Abheda")...which I am fairly certain is not the case - I mean, Bhaja Govidnam, a text about devotion to Vishnu, was written by the founder of Advaita.

Furthermore, the phrase "on the other hand, works of the non-dualistic Hindu school, Advaita Vedanta or Brahmavada has a doctrinal position similar to Buddhism" is nonsensical...Advaita was founded in part as a response to growing Buddhism in India. There are points of similarity, undoubtedly, but at the level of similarity between Advaita and Buddhism, the philosophy shares similarities with several other philosophies, thus either necessitating inclusion of these other philosophies in order to make the term "similarity" not arbitrarily exclusive, or removal of that phrase. Including this point of similarity does not seem to be adding any value to the article. 169.229.76.4 (talk) 23:15, 28 October 2009 (UTC)