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Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: February 04, 2025 11:13PM

A really well written piece. Covers a lot of points I've brought up here as well.

https://www.outlookindia.com/national/the-trouble-with-the-quest-for-a-vedic-civilisation

RUN

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Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: February 05, 2025 05:48AM

Culthusiast.

I thought of you and your recent comment on mathematics.

A timely piece commenting on the oft-mythical relationship Hinduism has had with numbers. https://www.thequint.com/opinion/maha-kumbh-covid-the-great-indian-habit-of-miscounting

Truth matters. Numbers matter. Indian spirituality has always been full of exaggerated numerical claims. Gaudiya Vaishnava texts, along with many Puranic and Vedic scriptures, are packed with outlandish figures—massive armies in ancient wars, impossibly tall mountains and trees, and wildly inflated attendance numbers at mythological events. Yet, modern archaeology has found no evidence of mass battles at Kurukshetra—no human or animal remains, no physical traces of these grand wars that supposedly shaped history.

Then there’s the obsession with so-called sacred number combinations, the absurdly long durations assigned to yugas, and various astronomical or geographical measurements that have no scientific basis. And of course, there are the laughable claims—Krishna’s thousands of wives, the number of sons he supposedly fathered, or the ridiculous notion that the soul is 1/10,000th the tip of a hair. These numbers aren’t just exaggerations; they’re absurdities.

The purpose behind these inflated figures is obvious: they create the illusion of mathematical precision to make scripture seem more credible. The unspoken logic seems to be that if one claim appears numerically sound, then the rest must be valid too. This kind of wordplay is so deeply embedded and taken at face value by the average Hare Krishna practitioner that it raises the question of whether truth or accuracy—let alone absolute truth—even matters at all.

Regardless of where you stand on faith or science, these claims deserve scrutiny. Based on what we know, I’d estimate that 80% of scriptural assertions—across traditions—are nonsensical, irrelevant, or outright preposterous. And in the rare cases where they happen to align with reality, it's most likely by chance.

I remember devotees claiming that in celestial realms, there exist Vedic texts thousands of times longer than the ones on Earth. If the scriptures we have now are already riddled with contradictions and inaccuracies, one can only imagine the scale of nonsense in these so-called heavenly versions—assuming, of course, that these places exist at all, which, unsurprisingly, no technology has ever detected.

At some point, Hare Krishnas and the broader Vaishnav community, and the countless cult offshoots of these archaic religious systems need to be honest with themselves. They need to have the humility to admit: We don’t know. Modern science has uncovered far more than any ancient religious text ever did. That’s just a fact. And yet, despite their flaws, myths, and empty rituals, spiritual traditions have played a role in shaping human psychology and culture. In eras before rationalism took hold, they provided meaning, hope, and a sense of direction. Of course there’s always room for exploring mysticism, analyzing altered states, and engaging in spiritual frameworks. But these systems always collapse when subjected to real scrutiny.

That’s why platforms like the Cult Education Forum matter—they pull back the curtain on these belief systems and expose why, in the end, they fail to provide any real solutions to life’s problems. The idea that we are "not this body," that we are just tiny divine sparks waiting to reunite with some cosmic source, is just another rebranding of metaphysical fluff. Sure, such ideas can serve a psychological function—they might offer comfort, a sense of connection, or a philosophical way to frame equality—but beyond that, they don’t hold much practical value. In everyday life, walking around pretending your body is irrelevant is just absurd. As far as we can tell, this body is as real as it gets. And if some form of energy or consciousness continues after death, great—but what does that actually do for anyone right now? It’s about as useful as knowing the molecular structure of rain when all you really need to know is whether to bring an umbrella.

And for the last time—stop crying “Hinduphobia” every time someone critiques your religion. If your faith is truly as strong, timeless, and full of wisdom as you claim, then either defend it with reason or ignore the criticism altogether. But if a little questioning makes your faith wobble, that says more about its fragility than about the strength of the argument against it.

RUN

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Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: February 06, 2025 11:16AM

Relevant—I’ve always said this here. If Shankaracharya is considered sectarian, then Krishna consciousness is definitely sectarian. Any religious system—whether cultural or otherwise—that promotes a specific scripture, god(s), guru, or ideology is a sect and, by definition, sectarian. Krishna is no more a universal deity than Ra, Rod, Zeus, or Jehovah.

Opinion: How Scholarship on Adi Shankaracharya Ignores His Sectarian Views

Krishna is an Indian god, wearing Indian clothes, always incarnating in India, and only historically recognized as a deity by those within India. It wasn’t until Swami Prabhupada took advantage of modern inventions—printing presses, airplanes, and recording devices—that Krishna consciousness was exported to a bunch of stoned hippies, who did the rest of the work for him.

Focus on your own authentic spiritual journey. Stop appropriating cultural religions and cults from other countries—it’s fake and has nothing to do with you or anything real. There’s always a fallout, an eventual end, and an inevitable reckoning with the truth.

Officially Done (Ex-Hare Krishna Thread)

RUN

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Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: February 07, 2025 02:25AM

Nearly 100 people dead. Fifteen more days to go. The glory of religious fanaticism on full display. Kumbh Mela 2025.

Report: 79 Pilgrims Died in Kumbh Mela Stampede—Far Exceeding Official Toll

The average Hare Krishna will likely tell you that those crushed to death in this chaotic stampede were karmically fortunate, that they died at an "auspicious moment", and that this was somehow a blessing of the Lord's mercy. This kind of fanatical and fatalistic thinking, deeply embedded in their belief systems, prevents accountability, reform, and critical thought from the ground up.

The Samudra Manthan myth (churning of a milk ocean by demons and demigods using a snake and a giant turtle with a massive mountain on it's back), which supposedly explains the origins of Kumbh Mela, is taken at face value in Puranic texts, with no inherent symbolic meaning—only in modern times have scholars attempted to attach deeper cosmological significance to it. Historically, there is no evidence that Kumbh Mela existed before the early medieval period, and its connection to the "spilled nectar of immortality" is a later justification rather than an actual ancient tradition.

Yet today, millions believe that bathing in a polluted river (and polluting it even more) during an astrological alignment will cleanse them of lifetimes of karma, while stampede victims are seen as "chosen" rather than as casualties of religious hysteria and poor event planning.

What is the reality of the grand "planetary alignments" touted as "auspicious"? None. No unique gravitational, magnetic, or energetic influence occurs during these alignments. The universe continues functioning as it always does. The idea that bathing in a river during this time has a spiritual or cosmic effect is purely a human-created belief. There is nothing unusual about these celestial positions beyond the fact that astrologers subjectively assigned meaning to them in the Middle Ages.

Scientifically/Spiritually/Realistically/Mystically/Transcendentally, there is nothing happening during Kumbh Mela that makes it special (aside from a mass experiment in human psychology related to fanatical cult-like religious behavior). The event is based on fabricated astrological traditions that have no physical impact on reality beyond what people choose to believe. The "alignment" is just a recurring, predictable pattern of planetary motion with no mystical properties.

This is the problem with belief in mechanisms like karma and divine mercy—it conditions people to accept suffering, injustice, and even mass death as "destiny" rather than failure. It numbs societies to preventable tragedies, allowing them to look the other way, do nothing, and dismiss even the most blatant failures of religious authority and governance.

And within cults like the Hare Krishnas, it's the most vulnerable—women, children, and the poor, psychologically vulnerable—who suffer the most at the hands of deluded men who justify what mostly amounts to mind-garbage as the will of God/guru.

RUN.

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Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: February 07, 2025 10:55PM


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Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: Culthusiast ()
Date: February 08, 2025 04:17AM

RUN_FOREST_RUN Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Culthusiast.
>
> I thought of you and your recent comment on
> mathematics.

> Truth matters. Numbers matter. Indian spirituality
> has always been full of exaggerated numerical
> claims. Gaudiya Vaishnava texts, along with many
> Puranic and Vedic scriptures, are packed with
> outlandish figures—massive armies in ancient wars,
> impossibly tall mountains and trees, and wildly
> inflated attendance numbers at mythological
> events. Yet, modern archaeology has found no
> evidence of mass battles at Kurukshetra—no human
> or animal remains, no physical traces of these
> grand wars that supposedly shaped history.
> The purpose behind these inflated figures is
> obvious: they create the illusion of mathematical
> precision to make scripture seem more credible.
> The unspoken logic seems to be that if one claim
> appears numerically sound, then the rest must be
> valid too. This kind of wordplay is so deeply
> embedded and taken at face value by the average
> Hare Krishna practitioner that it raises the
> question of whether truth or accuracy—let alone
> absolute truth—even matters at all.

It's true. You can see attempts to stretch various numbers or proportions from the world of astronomy etc. in various "Vedic" environments, but a trained eye will quickly distinguish "party" elements from the objective pursuit of truth and showing the culture of India in this context. Either way, India has a significant contribution to the development of mathematics, but other civilizations or continents have also contributed. A very good book:

"Seventeen Equations that Changed the World
Ian Stewart (Author) John Davey (Author)"

[www.awesomebooks.com]

With a soul smaller than 1/10,000th the size of a hair, there is a conceptual problem. If you distinguish between the elements of earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, false ego, the unmanifest (forces of material nature) and the soul above that, there is a problem - ether is space plus a medium. So it has the concept of size. So the soul cannot have the concept of space. At least in material sense.

> What is the reality of the grand "planetary
> alignments" touted as "auspicious"? None. No
> unique gravitational, magnetic, or energetic
> influence occurs during these alignments. The
> universe continues functioning as it always does.
> The idea that bathing in a river during this time
> has a spiritual or cosmic effect is purely a
> human-created belief. There is nothing unusual
> about these celestial positions beyond the fact
> that astrologers subjectively assigned meaning to
> them in the Middle Ages.

Generally, the planets move in a certain synchronization. The rotation of the Moon is synchronized with the movement around the Earth. Sometimes there are disturbances, etc. However, from the point of view of the neural network and its limitations, it has the ability to pick up certain information that even a twinkling star can transmit, which is easy to explain - a skilled sailor would be able to read the twinkling of a small lamp with Morse code transmitted if he only paid attention. So in this sense, a scientific explanation has an impact. The signs of the zodiac and the effect on the fetus can also be explained as the tissue stress of the fetus, which, depending on the seasons, experiences e.g. heat or cold at different times, but again this cannot have an absolute reference due to the fact that the fetus will experience different conditions in the body of the mother living, for example, in India and, for example, in Siberia. Today, there are already results of research on the prenatal impact on the human psyche.

Certain Vedic statements were subjected to research along with calculations. Paying attention, for example, to the influence of food. And the result was surprising. If any clear influence has been found, it has turned out that the calendar of this or that group seems to be off by 2 days. The effect is there but not at this moment.

Either way, I subscribe to the principle that if God gave man a brain, he must have used it.

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Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: February 08, 2025 09:08AM

Adani Group, who ISKCON rubs shoulders with to serve prashad slop to kumbh pilgrims is a mafia style crime family organization.

https://hindenburgresearch.com/adani/

How devotees make it big in the world. A story as old as cults.

You should read Adanis naive take on kumbh mela being some sort of blueprint in sustainable business and society. Pure delusional fantasy.

https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/kumbh-is-blueprint-for-sustainable-civilisation-has-lessons-for-global-business-gautam-adani/ar-AA1xWkZK

Look, the Kumbh Mela is impressive, no doubt—it’s a logistical feat that brings millions together in a massive, temporary city. But let’s not kid ourselves: this is not a model for sustainable civilization or business. It works because it’s short-term, faith-driven, and disappears as quickly as it appears. That’s not how real cities or economies function.In less than 30 days fires broke out and nearly 100 bhaktas died getting trampled on. Sustainable my ass.

And as for the free labor thing? Sure, it’s nice once. But try pulling 5,000 employees away from their jobs for unpaid service every few months, and you’ll have a workforce ready to riot. People need stability, not an endless cycle of makeshift settlements and unpaid work.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about sustainability—it’s a PR move. Adani gets to align himself with something deeply cultural and spiritual (and pretend he's not a criminal), but the reality is, nobody is building the future on pop-up tent cities and temporary goodwill. If anything, the Kumbh Mela highlights how much effort it takes just to keep a short-term settlement functioning—let alone a real, long-term civilization.

Nice speech, nice visuals, but let’s keep the fantasy separate from reality.

This idealism and naivety is what a cult mindset dreams up and tries to push on society. Eventually devotees get burnt out, move out of temples, or flounder for years waiting for a hail Mary.

RUN

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Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: Culthusiast ()
Date: February 09, 2025 05:12AM

RUN_FOREST_RUN Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Look, the Kumbh Mela is impressive, no doubt—it’s
> a logistical feat that brings millions together in
> a massive, temporary city. But let’s not kid
> ourselves: this is not a model for sustainable
> civilization or business. It works because it’s
> short-term, faith-driven, and disappears as
> quickly as it appears. That’s not how real cities
> or economies function.In less than 30 days fires
> broke out and nearly 100 bhaktas died getting
> trampled on. Sustainable my ass.

Of course. An event, but not everyday life. As for the 100 victims, the question is where they died. Because maybe not in the Ganges, but trampled 100 meters from the Ganges. Then, taking into account their sharp philosophical rigorism, we will have to conclude that they were extremely unlucky and did not gain any benefits. Remember Caitanya and lamp-oil offering? Unless they add some new verses to the shastra - "whoever dies trampled 100 meters before the Ganges gains the same benefits." - and what about those who died at the airport before flying to India for Kumba Mela? Will the blessing not apply to them?

> And as for the free labor thing? Sure, it’s nice
> once. But try pulling 5,000 employees away from
> their jobs for unpaid service every few months,
> and you’ll have a workforce ready to riot. People
> need stability, not an endless cycle of makeshift
> settlements and unpaid work.

Exactly. How will they pay for the dentist? How will they pay for panties in the store and food if they go back to their own country? How will they pay their alimony? And so on.

Back to Tulsi Gabbard:

On the profiles of even the most deserving ISCKON members, you can find suggestions and memes that Trump should order every US citizen to chant the Maha Mantra and they started to wonder what's wrong with that. You can find conclusions that there's nothing wrong with that.

"BG 9.26: If one offers to Me with devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or even water, I delightfully partake of that item offered with love by My devotee in pure consciousness."

We answer - it will not be with love and devotion. It is against the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita - your own teachings. Coercion is against love. We can conclude - your understanding of your own faith is not worth a pound of hair and the mentality of coercion of religion and prayer - a truly Butlerian mass of dog stool...

Conclusion - after RUN FOREST RUN:

RUN. Your cult is spirituallny worthless...



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2025 05:16AM by Culthusiast.

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Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: February 09, 2025 06:33AM

This hagiographical story about Chaitanya rejecting the oil as an act of humility just doesn’t sit right with me or really make any sense, like many puranic and gaudiya stories.

It’s always told like it’s some great lesson in detachment, but when you really think about it, it just reinforces an elitist mindset that only the finest things are worthy of offering to God.

The temple priests already rejected the oil, so telling the merchant to offer it to Jagannath anyway is just sending him back to a situation where he’s going to be turned away again. How is that supposed to be a lesson in devotion?

It’s the same kind of arrogance that trickles down in guru movements today—where only the best quality food, incense, clothes, and whatever else is "good enough" for Krishna or the guru. Meanwhile, the actual followers, the ones breaking their backs trying to serve, are often struggling just to get by.

It creates this impossible standard where people are always feeling like their offerings, their service, even their own worth, are just never enough.

That’s what really bothers me—this idea that devotion has to be expensive or ritually perfect or pure to be accepted. That’s not humility, that’s just disguised elitism. If sincerity is what actually matters, then why should someone’s offering be rejected just because it’s not fancy enough? Feels less like a spiritual lesson and more like a way to keep people in a state of constant inadequacy, always trying to give more, sacrifice more, and never quite measuring up.

So yeah, RUN!

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Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: February 12, 2025 10:43PM

Pasting thos here where it belongs.

https://substack.com/@realchrissyg

RUN

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