Is that a 'yes', or a 'no'?
Identity, individuality
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Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
My view is similar to what we know about Charvaks/Lokayat (what is prevalent among people). They did not seem to have believed in superstition.
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Nope. Unless you're saying that Brahman is just matter.
Ionised plasma is just ordinary matter in an ionised state, one of the four states, as distinct from solids, liquids and gases – all of which can be ionised. Plasma itself is "a quasineutral mixture of free electrons and positively charged ions, with roughly equal numbers of positive and negative charges." (Brave browser). Ionised plasma is the result of a prior cause ...
If you're referring to a 'quantum soup' kind of thing, then you're still talking about a "quark-gluon plasma" – a composite, formed in the first millionth of a second of the universe.
Even reducing it to a theoretical and philosophical concept of sea of subatomic particles, the fundamental stuff of the material cosmos, then by every account I've read Brahman transcends that. That fundamental stuff appears as effects within the field itself, so we're still in the realm of dependent causation.
I mean, saying "I am Brahman" means no more than saying "I am stuff", surely? Where's the wisdom in that?
If you're saying Brahman is just matter and that's it ... then OK, but that's not what the vast majority of Advaitins would say – again, as I receive it, consciousness / awareness or however one wishes to define it when applied to Brahman is that which is prior to matter, not arising from it.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
What is matter? In Quantum Mechanics, mass and form are imparted to energy. If you have seen my previous post, <98% of it is because of strong interaction and >2% by Higgs mechanism.
Yeah, everything is "stuff", as you said 'quark-gluon plasma'. Of course, we do not have all answers, the research is progressing. We do not know where from the 'quark-gluon plasma' arose. The possibility that it arose from 'absolute nothing' has not been denied by science. That is close to what RigVeda said 3,000 years ago, "Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent."
Rig Veda: Rig-Veda, Book 10: HYMN CXXIX. Creation. | Internet Sacred Text Archive
Hinduism: 1. THEN was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
sacred-texts.com
This would not work for my framework. “Then” was neither non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air and no sky beyond it.What is matter? In Quantum Mechanics, mass and form are imparted to energy. If you have seen my previous post, <98% of it is because of strong interaction and >2% by Higgs mechanism.
Yeah, everything is "stuff", as you said 'quark-gluon plasma'. Of course, we do not have all answers, the research is progressing. We do not know where from the 'quark-gluon plasma' arose. The possibility that it arose from 'absolute nothing' has not been denied by science. That is close to what RigVeda said 3,000 years ago, "Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent."
Rig Veda: Rig-Veda, Book 10: HYMN CXXIX. Creation. | Internet Sacred Text Archive
Hinduism: 1. THEN was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.sacred-texts.com
During the development of that creation story, I do not think they, perhaps the sages, would have known about there being a time when there was no air. So I am guessing it means something entirely different.
This would seem to follow atheism. I actually had to look that one up because God does not seem to have anything to do with the religion. However, I feel like I am reading ideas that developed throughout this religion without really understanding why they developed. Am I understanding that clearly, or am I missing the point of something?
I'm going to hold my thought on this for now and wait until I understand it in greater detail because there might still be more to this that I do not understand.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
That is the beauty of this poem. It was one of the later verses of RigVeda composed after Aryans had come to know of the indigenous philosophy and before RigVeda was canonized (therefore sometimes around 1,000 BCE). They had no scientific information, used their brains for analysis. I consider the writer of the poem, Prajpati Parameshthi, as one of the greatest philosophers of Hinduism, and perhaps the first atheist of the world, who boldly declared that "Gods are later than the creation of the universe". Accepting existence of any God creates the question as to how the God came to exist. Prajapati Parameshthi was the first philosopher to claim "Ex-nihilo" creation.
"at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos.
All that existed then was void and form less, by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit."
How true, even after 3,000 years. Do not we think that the ball of 'quark-gluon plasma' had great temperature and pressure at the time of Big Bang?
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Hmmm. Not necessarily. If our universe is a subset of a greater one, external gods are possible too. We've no way of knowing so we can't rule them out.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
In my belief, neither there is evidence of God interfering in the affairs of the world in history nor I have seen any in my 83 years. Therefore, there is no reason that I should accept the existence of any God or Goddess.