On Sep 16, 2007, at 11:51 PM, Bronte Baxter wrote: I think it dismisses way too much to reduce the gods to qualities of consciousness. In the sense that we are all just qualities of consciousness, I suppose you could say that's true. But in the practical sense, the gods are unique individuals, no different that way than a flesh-and-blood person. They simply exist on a dimension that is vibrating faster than this one and therefore not visible to the eye.
In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]: Just glancing over it, it smells of TMO reductionism. It makes westerners feel more at ease or as if there is no form corresponding to the sound (of the bija) that they'd have to worry about. Emptybill says: So Vaj help me out. Are you simply saying that Bronte's explanation accords with Aurobindo and the TMO? Because saying it accords with Vaishnava explanations doesn't make sense to me. Most of them are super-concretizers. However, saying that many Westerners attempt to find a diffuse, metaphoric way to explain deva-s is certainly true of the typical Western intellectualizing Buddhist and also of some "Hinduized Westerners". Also, are you suggesting that Vajrakila and Yamantaka have wings so that they can fly? Please clarify. And don't waste the time of both of us by ranting about the TMO. What are you actually trying to point out here? empty