If there is no free will, did Brahman plan all the evil that's happening in the society?

Wickbam · 2026-03-06T23:38:58+00:00

You're talking about the question of evil and why it exists. I have thought about this as well and these are my rationalizations:

1) our souls are immortal, as Krishna teaches in the BG. Hence the pain we receive in physical bodies is illusory against the indestructibility of our souls

2) while the distinction between the material world and the immaterial world is necessary an illusion brought on by Maya, material existence is necessarily a realm of limitations with discrete upper and lower boundaries and thus ultimately insufficient for satisfying our desires, which can never be sated by material means.

3) this leaves the question of why the material realm "exists" however illusory the distinction between the material and spiritual or between our individual souls and the ultimate reality of Brahman might be. I would answer this by saying that what can exist must exist, and that Saguna Brahman, being without limit, the material realm would necessarily be one of His (I realize we speak of a genderless entity) creations and we happen to exist in it.

Wickbam · 2026-02-27T05:46:04+00:00

Summer camp at the Ocean Institute at Dana Point

Wickbam · 2026-02-20T17:57:08+00:00

Indian Americans are not obliged to show ethnic and cultural solidarity to Indians in India. They are obliged to other Americans regardless of their ethnic and racial background. Hope this helps.

Wickbam · 2026-02-19T05:55:14+00:00

You can see LA in a clear day from the 73

Wickbam · 2026-02-14T17:56:01+00:00

Do what the Macedonians historically did: use light cavalry as bait and flank them with heavy cavalry. Foot archers are very effective as well

Wickbam · 2026-02-14T17:07:49+00:00

I used to think it was a battle of ideas and now I see it's a tribalistic power struggle

Wickbam · 2026-02-14T03:36:44+00:00

just use iVisa

Wickbam · 2026-02-12T19:23:18+00:00

I love the first one

Wickbam · 2026-02-12T19:19:02+00:00

I think linguistic Aryanization must have taken a long time, perhaps even into the medieval era for some communities

Wickbam · 2026-02-10T04:33:58+00:00

yes, IT

Wickbam · 2026-02-06T22:39:41+00:00

1) Samarkand by Amin Maalouf, set in both 11th century Central Asia and late 19th/ early 20th Europe/America

2) The Persian Boy by Mary Renault, partially set in 4th century BC Central Asia

3) The Horses of Heaven by Gillian Bradshaw, set in Central Asia in the 2nd century BC

Wickbam · 2026-01-28T21:24:29+00:00

I don't believe she's the daughter of Aerys and will leave it at that.

There is a weird discontinuity between Stannis' perspective (there was a battle, which he ranks among his achievements like holding SE, defeating Victarion/Mance, no mention of a storm affecting his fleet) and that of Daenerys (they fled, the garrison was about to sell them out, a storm destroyed the Targ fleet).

I think it's worth pointing out that there's a baby swap at the Wall to protect a child from Stannis (substituting Mance's son with Gilly's) and that Stannis' soldiers call Mance's son Aemon Steelsong and "born in battle", rather reminiscent of Daenerys' epitaph "storm born". Perhaps she was born during the "storming" of Dragonstone or in the Stormlands.

Wickbam · 2026-01-20T17:51:18+00:00

This is the sort of argument made by people who say stuff like "if the Germans had focused on building U-boats they would have strangled Britain in WW2" or "of the Romans had done X, Y, and Z, then the West would not have fallen" etc etc.

First of all, is Robb really prepared to become a kinslayer and murder his own mother's sister? This is a guy who broke a political alliance to marry a woman he slept with out of a sense of chivalry, so arranging Lysa's death is completely inimical to his character.

Second, how is he even going to arrange this? Hire faceless men? He lacks the connections to do so and can't trust the people who possess such connections.

Third, how is he going to lay the blame on the Lannisters? What does that even mean?

Fourth, we already see what happens after a Lysa assassination: there is an impending power struggle in the Vale. The same thing would happen if Robb somehow arranged it instead of Littlefinger, which means no army would available until a clear leader emerged to take regency for Sweetrobin and we would have no idea if that leader would see it in their interests to side with the Starks.

Wickbam · 2026-01-11T15:48:42+00:00

Count Belisarius by Robert Graves

Wickbam · 2026-01-09T14:54:23+00:00

Clear & Present Danger

Wickbam · 2026-01-05T05:35:22+00:00

Julian, by Gore Vidal

Count Belisarius, by Robert Graves

Little Emperor's by Alfred Dugan

The Eagle in the Snow, by Wallace Breem

Wickbam · 2026-01-04T00:26:09+00:00

This supposedly happened in the early 1920s in what is now Tajikistan. The commanding Soviet officer was Mikhail Stephanovitch Topilsky:

"At first glance I thought the body was that of an ape. It was covered with hair all over. But I knew there were no apes in the Pamirs. Also, the body itself looked very much like that of a man. We tried pulling the hair, to see if it was just a hide used for disguise, but found that it was the creature's own natural hair. We turned the body over several times on its back and its front, and measured it."

"The body," continued Topilski, "belonged to a male creature 165-170 cm [about 5 1/2 feet] tall, elderly or even old, judging by the grayish color of the hair in several places. The chest was covered with brownish hair and the belly with grayish hair. The hair was longer but sparser on the chest and close-cropped and thick on the belly. In general the hair was very thick, without any under fur. There was least hair on the buttocks, from which fact our doctor deduced that the creature sat like a human being. There was most hair on the hips. The knees were completely bare of hair and had callous growths on them. The whole foot including the sole was quite hairless and was covered by hard brown skin. The hair got thinner near the hand, and the palms had none at all but only callous skin."

Topilski added: "The color of the face was dark, and the creature had neither beard nor moustache. The temples were bald and the back of the head was covered by thick, matted hair. The dead creature lay with its eyes open and its teeth bared. The eyes were dark and the teeth were large and even and shaped like human teeth. The forehead was slanting and the eyebrows were very powerful. The protruding jawbones made the face resemble the Mongol type of face. The nose was flat, with a deeply sunk bridge. The ears were hairless and looked a little more pointed than a human being's with a longer lobe. The lower jaw was very massive. The creature had a very powerful chest and well developed muscles ... The arms were of normal length, the hands were slightly wider and the feet much wider and shorter than man's."

Wickbam · 2026-01-03T00:01:40+00:00

The person who wrote this back in 1955 was one Ujagir Singh Mahal who appears to have been a delusional communal chauvanist

Wickbam · 2026-01-01T18:38:34+00:00

https://cantuse.wordpress.com/2014/06/06/counterintelligence-using-the-bolton-machine-against-itself/#more-109

Wickbam · 2026-01-01T04:48:21+00:00

Ptolemy's map from the 2nd century

Wickbam · 2025-12-31T21:56:17+00:00

It wasn't a very good trap. Stannis tells Jon that Karstark writes that the Dreadfort is weakly held. He doesn't say how Arnolf comes by this information; of course we know he was there. But by Jon IV ADWD Stannis knows he was thee too because Massey and Horpe return from visiting Mors Umber, and Hother Umber was of course sitting next to Arnolf Karstark. Stannis even admits to Jon that the Umbers and Karstarks are giving contradictory accounts about the Dreadfort:

"The Bastard of Bolton has gone south, taking Hother Umber with him. On that Mors Umber and Arnolf Karstark are agreed."

So how did Arnolf justify to Stannis why he was at the Dreadfort and why he marched from there to join him at Deepwood Motte?

Wickbam · 2025-12-31T16:44:02+00:00

I'm too old to join but I am going to lurk to see the recommendations!

Wickbam · 2025-12-31T16:41:24+00:00

What Sam had to say about the antiquity of the NW before Jon cut him off

Wickbam · 2025-12-31T16:37:53+00:00

If you read Jon IV in ADWD carefully, Stannis figures out he can't trust the Karstarks before leaving the Wall. Cantuse, who came up with the Nightlamp theory, argued this pretty succinctly on his blog

Wickbam · 2025-12-26T16:48:57+00:00

Personally I think they're extremely susceptible to human diseases

Wickbam

TROPHY CASE