r/Philosophy_India

Tell me some books (good one) to know more about Socrates only reliable books . Because I don't want misinformation.

What do you all think of independence day??

Like ik we got independence on that day , but im saying that thats the stigma we have

Like we were ruled and killed by those ruthless foreigners for 300+ yrs and we as a बलहीन just say we got independence like why th do we need this , to remind us the weakness of the ppl who let them control us??

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I was reading a Bengali philosophical passage about seva (service), and one idea really caught my attention.

The argument is roughly this:

We are constantly receiving from the world—our food, knowledge, culture, nature, other people's labor, opportunities, even life itself. So in some sense, we are all indebted to the world.

The way to repay that debt is through service.

But the passage takes it further. It says that when we serve, we shouldn't think:

"I am doing something for the world."

Because even the thing we are giving is ultimately something we received from the world. Our abilities, intelligence, resources, circumstances—all of these came through countless causes beyond ourselves.

And if we serve while expecting recognition, gratitude, money, status, or even spiritual merit in return, then service becomes another transaction.

So perhaps genuine seva means:

Give without keeping an account.

Serve without building an identity around being a “good person.”

Do something useful without asking what the world owes you afterward.

But here's where I'm unsure.

Are we really indebted to the world?

I never asked to be born. The universe didn't make a contract with me. So why should existence create an obligation?

Maybe “debt” is the wrong word. Maybe what we call debt is actually gratitude.

And perhaps the deepest form of service isn't “repaying” anything at all. It's simply recognizing that I am not an isolated individual—I am part of an enormous network of life that has already given me more than I could ever calculate.

What do you think?

Are human beings genuinely indebted to the world, or is service something we choose freely without owing anything?

And if someone serves completely without expecting anything in return, who exactly is serving whom?

Causality is the explanation for two events in succession. The prior event is termed as “cause” and the next event is termed as “effect” with the assumption that the “cause-event” necessitates the “effect-event”.

But what exactly is the nature of this necessity? Is this necessity an imposition/deception/illusion of the mind or an something more? What could the nature of this necessity look like? Another cause? But then that creates the same question, what is the relationship/necessity between those two explanations? Does the cause actually determine the effect? Modern science is shockingly undecided as of now.

In our capacity to think about causes and effects using science and reason, can we ever come to clarity of why an effect comes after a cause? To me it seems like all we can ever think about is a never ending resolution of discrete thoughts which we can label as cause and effect that are in succession but we can never really answer the question of why those discrete thoughts should be in that sequence.

I want to discuss Atheism with someone who’s really a Athiest, who lives like an Athiest.
I am an Ex- muslim, at least that’s what I call myself, not sure about my family. Anyway, it’s better if someone comes from the same background as mine.
Just want to discuss some stuff, please send a text if you’re interested, if it goes good, we can even connect on G-meet and discuss the same stuff.

I am talking about buddhism, jainism, etc.

these are religions with an emphasis on there being no all powerful god, yet arguably these are more fanatical than even islam and judaism.

People fast themselves to death, burn themselves alive, perform religious obligations which are often times very draining and time consuming, I wonder why's that so?

I sometimes wonder… what's the point of learning all these things just to be dead in the end? We don't know why we exist in the first place..so why participate in this game of survival?

Nothing feels like home. Even when I learn something I love, I sometimes think, What am I going to do with this? Nobody cares about my knowledge. People judge you based on how much you earn. Nobody respects a person simply for having an interest in learning. People respect those who earn more, regardless of whether they have virtues or vices. The ones with vices are leading the world and they are winning.. while the virtuous ones seem to suffer the most..Even if a virtuous person is happy with their choices and is willing to accept suffering, why should they face adverse consequences for doing right?

Tell me, why do we exist?

I used to think that sages knew the reason for existence, but perhaps even they didn't... Philosophical and spiritual texts often focus on ideas such as the impermanence of everything and the importance of respecting even the smallest living being.. But why is that being here in the first place?

I know that when I touch something, I don't literally have the classical kind of contact... at the microscopic level, electromagnetic interactions between the electron clouds of atoms prevent the atoms in my body and the atoms in the other object from simply passing through each other. But why is matter structured in such a complex way in the first place?

Nobody knows why?...

Why should I build a home when I know that, someday...my body will decompose and its atoms will return to the environment into the soil, atmosphere, water and etc .. eventually become part of other living things..

We don't even fully understand why the universe contains more matter than antimatter. Somehow, the early universe ended up with a tiny excess of matter over antimatter..otherwise, universe would've annihilated the moment it was created .. today we know the Sakharov conditions required for generating a matter and antimatter asymmetry...but we still don't know exactly what physical mechanism produced the observed asymmetry..

Still… why?

Suffering lies in the gap between how things are and how it should've (according to our expectations) .. But why do we expect anything at all? Why does a collection of particles(humans) have expectations? What is the “I” that is expecting something? And why do I expect to receive something that was never inherently mine?..

Nobody knows why..

Just knows...Atoms in your body existed before you and after you, those atoms will continue participating in other chemical systems. But the 'you' keeps on changing

I have been recently reading buddhist philosophers , and something i am unable to understand is : are asang-vasabandhu and nagarjuna are they talking about the same thing , for nagarjuna shunya is the ultimate truth whereas for vasabandhu it is mind , maybe i am getting stuck in the concepts but are they different or talking about the same thing in different ways

What do philosophers say on this ??

Any philosophers west or east

And aslo share ur personal experience and opinion too

Thanks❤️🙏

An observation of mine-

As I continue to read the works of different philosophers and thinkers, I feel like there are less and less things or Ideas I associate myself with. Ideas like Nationalism, which is instilled into us since childhood feel hollow when you learn the situations and historical background that necessitate it and how every thought or Ideology has been fed into us for some reason or other.

Even when I discuss politics or religion with someone, I really feel aloof with partisanship when I know that no matter the party or ideology, the ruling elite serves itself perpetually. I am no longer a Rightist/Leftist/Centrist or anything, I just try to know things and observe, trying to fit my observations into what I've learnt and learning more.

I no longer see Ramayana or Mahabharata as simple stories- I feel they're figurative devices telling us the right conduct to follow, which people miss entirely and focus only on things like building a temple at the correct place. Same can be said about other religions as well (Islam being radicalized- but then you look into the geopolitics and history associated with it and you find it's not so simple).

But, in other ways, I am open to new ideas more- like on the coexistence of religions, political issues like Kashmir and Palestine- I understand that there is no 'truth'. And that helps me see the issue from multiple POVs.

I often catch myself analyzing 'why my Mother says this?' or 'why do people do this?' more and coming back with the answer- 'Its complicated'.

Sometimes it's frustrating, feel like everything is a lie. But then the fact that very few things need to be true liberates--you can have your own opinion, wildly different from the prevailing one, and still be valid.

If you'd like to ramble along with me, I'm open to discussions!

recently i noticed a weird pattern of life , People like samay raina , saurav joshi, aryan kelvin, mizo gaming gets name fame money by doing immoral things ,

they earn more than ias doctors lifetime earning

eg. ias lifetime earning is 15 crore max , thats samay rainas saurav joshis 6 months income

world is unfair, unjust and complete randomness

whats your thoughts on this

and important thing is Philosophers are biggest victims of this thing

Why the world works this way

people with 3rd tier audience in india are way ahead of intellectuals

i remember the dialogue in jannat movie where imran hashmi says people who talks about morality just hide their failure and inferiorness

shouldnt we all philosophers dump down morality and start doing immoral things ???

please reply i need a reply from PHD holder.

or am i just too self aware

Why do people act as if hard work is the only metric for success? I don't believe everything can be reduced to a binary rule. There are numerous other factors that often compound over time and go unnoticed, things like brain chemistry, mental health, emotional regulation, and tolerance for delayed gratification.

Why do we ignore these factors and simply label someone as "lazy" when they don't succeed? Is it because we believe we live in a fair world? Or is it because we assume that these factors don't really matter?

Do you think a true democracy is possible under capitalism? I think not, here's why

People often claim "democracy is dead" but was it truly ever even there? Think about it, since capital can easily buy power (through political campaign funding, advertising and Even pure bribery) why would a billionaire ever allow any law against him to pass or even be put against the elite class? He could just buy off politicians. Why would the elites push for education of the masses? Since education often favour leftist thinking which is a known phenomenon.

The right wing so often dismantles western thinking yet they fall for the same anti socialism western propaganda which is almost humourous.

I wanna know why the Indian right wing is so against socialist thinking but then the answer becomes so obvious when you spend a minute thinking about it, the capitalist oligarchs know how to control the hate of the masses and they just shift the blame to minorities instead and the RW thinks the left is "Islamist" which again is so funny since communist thinking rejects religion outright

Advaita Vedanta and buddhist views on consciousness, works very well with quantum physics and neuroscience, and I also think understanding consciousness can offer a deeper perspective on the nature of love, and why separation, division and hatred creates a darker world, while love will create a better world. And also how history proves this itself based on all the hatred and division. I know we're also in Kali Yuga cycle, however I think we can work on improving the outcome of things by the way we engage with the world.

Some judgement is based on fair assessment in my opinion. Judgement can help create fairness. I believe if the judgement is based on creating fairness then it can be a good thing. There's also condemnation. Condemnation to state one's position as being against what someone does, can be a way to make sure others knows that they disagree with a certain act or behavior. It can also be a way to try and create justice by standing up for what is wrong. However, condemnation can also be perceived as something that is negative and toxic. And this is the type of judgement that I think has no real love behind it.

When judgement in the form of condemnation stems from hatred, then it's more about outlet of emotions alone, but very little about actually making the world any better. Sometimes it could be for other reasons someone hate, like projection from personal pain, or basically through being influenced by other people and their world views.

My argument for positive judgement vs negative judgement stems on the way it affects those involved, the collective, as well as the way it is a hatred towards an aspect of your own creation as consciousness itself, in which case I want to argue for the Advaita Vedanta perspective.

A) Positive judgement: It helps to 1. encourage positive change. 2. creates a positive ripple through the impact it has on the collective and those involved. 3. can create long term positive benefits for those involved. 4. Long term positive benefits from fair assessment of a situation, brings the world closer to peace and unity and shows that division isn't a good solution.

B) Negative judgement: 1. It is more about hatred but less about actual change. Positive judgement is more about justified anger but less about pure hatred which is toxic because of the negative ripple it has on the collective. 2. It doesn't bring change in the collective in a positive way, but leads to more division and hatred that spreads. 3. The encouragement of more hatred, leads to even more division, bringing peace and unity further away.

Now the Advaita Vedanta aspect: If there is no "you" or "I", but just consciousness, then what are you? You are consciousness, but not "you" in an egoic sense. So it's not "you" in a semantic sense that the mind can comprehend with thought, because thought is an illusion. Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta is inherently the same view about consciousness, but there is a focus on the semantic aspects which causes some disagreement among these groups. However the way consciousness is "you" is not in a way for your mind to understand. So you may as well just say "consciousness just is".. like the buddhists does. The semantics is confusing here, because we are dealing with levels beyond the mind. Thoughts would be part of the dream that consciousness is experiencing.

Here's my position on why from an Avaita Vedanta/buddhist perspective, negative judgement is bad for the collective.

1. There is consciousness. If "we" are consciousness itself, and this world isn't real which is supported by quantum physics and neuroscience, then thoughts are part of the illusion. Thoughts are fleeting in nature and yet we grasp on to them and believe them. They are even more fleeting than the illusory world we think we're seeing outside ourselves. In reality, there is nothing out there, because you're seeing the world because of what science can measure as physical light that bounces off of objects in the form of various wavelengths. Turn off the lamps in a room and you don't see the objects, and make it dim and you can see the objects but not the colors.

This physical light is decoded in the brain as neural light and you're only seeing a small fraction of the visible light spectrum itself. And the objects that your brain perceives is just an illusion that the brain think is there. The objects are not actually there, because you don't even see the real light if you turn on the lamps in a room, but the neural light. So the objects that seems to be there is created by the visual cortex based on the neural light that it receives through the retina and then interpreted by the visual cortex. It's like we're wearing VR glasses that we have forgotten about wearing.

Quantum physics supports neuroscience, and philosophically, Advaita Vedanta and buddhism offer a way to explain consciousness, which when taken quantum physics and neuroscience into consideration, becomes a very good model for why this world seems to be here to begin with. The holonomic brain theory may be how this illusory world is processed, like encoded memories or perception of reality, which is reduced in access, because of the limited access we have to visible light spectrum. Almost as if someone is controlling the holonomic brain, directing what our brains are allowed to see or not through frequency control.

Besides that, your very body itself is an illusion based on perception, and you only see the brain if its removed and then it's a perception as well as you won't really see the true nature of it, nor your own eyes which you only see if you look in the mirror or if you see other people that is part of the projection. And so what eyes are seeing, if the perception of seeing your own eyes in the mirror or that of other people is part of the illusion?

When you dream you're living in a subjective world of your own imagination, but your eyes are closed, it's dark, and you experience a complex landscape. So who is seeing when awake? Are you even awake when your perception is an illusion? You could dream of seeing your eyes as well, and you wouldn't say that's real when awake. How do you separate dream from the real world?

This goes deep into the very nature of consciousness. The atman (self) being the brahman (world soul or consciousness), and you're an actor. Everyone else that you see as a projection of consciousness is also actors. Consciousness perceiving itself as separate actors through a state of dissociation, but still just consciousness.

So from a moral standpoint I argue here that: Love is better than all judgement. And while some judgement can be beneficial depending on definition of judgement, I argue that the common way people judge others are in a divisive way which we see in the real world or on social media, and that even the elites of this world, shouldn't be judged in a way that is of hate. If we're gonna judge the powers that be, then there's a better way than doing it in a hateful way. And my position is that love will always be the best option, where we look beyond the division and remind ourselves that we're all the same consciousness playing as different actors.

So my position is that 1. If you bash on the elites and spread hatred towards them, then you're choosing to use your role as actor in the illusory dream world "maya", to hate other actors, and therefore you forget you're dreaming it all. Meanwhile you're wasting emotions as well. 2. My position is that constructive criticism, judgement in a way that is just and fair, not based on hatred, is what can bring about change. Likewise my position is that, just like constructive criticism can bring in change, so can love.

3. The reason constructive criticism can create change is through the encouragement of positive change, and empowering people to find their own voice to use in a way that benefits the world and doesn't divide. And here love comes in: because love brings unity, not division. Love brings healing, not hatred. And through division and hatred we keep encouraging this dream that we're in by engaging in it. Since everyone is an actor, the elites are not different from us, because there is no "us" to begin with. So seeing the unity in things, allows for transformation to happen in the world.

Further more, I argue my position by stating that throughout human history we have been divided and held hatred of one another or of another group that is different from us. And this hatred and division has led to war and conflicts all over the world. Therefore I argue that the real world demonstrates my position, that love is better than judgement which is often out of hatred, and that the real world shows through evidence itself, that hatred leads to a darker world whereas love is the cure for real change in the world.

I'm a westerner by the way, but I'm interested in the nature of consciousness based on Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism. I would never call myself an expert however, so I don't know that much because of my background as a westerner. So I may get a lot of things wrong about how I explain consciousness here.

I now firmly believe those that never had a chance with a musical instrument in their formative years miss out on something in their human development.

But are there other things besides music that would help us to be more rounded, developed, empathetic humans?

I've been thinking about the relationship between philosophy, religion and culture, and I ended up developing a hypothesis that I'd genuinely like people here to challenge.

At its simplest, my idea is:

Religion may be one of humanity's ways of turning philosophy into a practical, communal way of life.

Philosophy asks questions like:

How should we live?

What is right and wrong?

What makes a good person?

Why do we suffer?

What is the purpose of life?

What happens after death?

What do we owe other people?

But most people aren't going to independently construct an entire moral and existential framework.

So societies inherit frameworks:

stories → moral principles → rituals → traditions → community

Over generations, these can become religious traditions.

India makes this particularly interesting because of its enormous variety of philosophical schools, religious traditions, regional practices and interpretations.

This also made me wonder whether religion and culture co-evolve. Local environments, customs and existing beliefs may influence how religious traditions develop, while religion in turn preserves those cultures through stories, temples, festivals, rituals, art and inscriptions.

But I don't think this automatically means religion is "made up."

That's where the philosophical question becomes much more interesting:

Did humans create the idea of God because we needed answers to questions about morality, meaning, suffering and death?

Or:

Did God create humans capable of asking those questions?

And perhaps there's a third possibility: humans developed concepts of God through culture and psychology while those concepts may still be attempts to understand something genuinely beyond us.

I don't have a conclusion.

I've written a longer essay where I try to develop this idea properly, while also discussing where I think the theory fails or becomes insufficient.

[Read the full essay: "Did We Create God? — Religion, Philosophy, and the Human Search for Meaning"]

I'd especially appreciate criticism from people familiar with Indian philosophy, Hindu philosophy, Buddhism, Jainism, Charvaka, Sikh philosophy, or philosophy of religion.

I'm not looking for "religion is obviously true" or "religion is obviously false."

I'm interested in the harder question:

What exactly is the relationship between philosophy, religion and the human need for meaning?

And if my argument has historical or philosophical flaws, please point them out. That's the whole reason I'm posting it here.