User talk:Joshua Jonathan

For convenience: <small>{{mdf|1=[[User talk:Joshua Jonathan]]|2=reason, ~~~~}}</small>

Old image

isn't this image dated as of now? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 14:53, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Fylindfotberserk dated I'm not sure, but definitely incorrect; 'Aryavarta' encompasses a smaller territory. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 14:58, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This page List of ancient Indo-Aryan peoples and tribes shows the map and the kingdoms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1 july 2025 (talk • contribs)

Reconsider your edit to Credential Inflation

Hey, Joshua. Ten years ago you merged my Credential inflation article with other topics, and I want you to reconsider. In its own right, Credential Inflation is a scholarly topic now receiving the attention it deserves. It should not be confused with other aspects of education. Please, disaggregate "Credential Inflation". The Credential Inflation article needs updating. Much has changed in ten years. http://encyc.org/w/index.php?title=Credential_inflation&action=history Thanks, Glen McGhee PS On a monthly basis, I contribute money to wikipedia, and have been for a few years. 50.4.132.185 (talk) 20:22, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Damn… Joshua has been terrorizing and merge-scarring editors for decades. Lol, just kidding. Joshua is a wiser person now, with a bit more humility and understanding I guess. Or maybe not. In any case, here's a cookie for Joshua : [1] 2409:40C1:59:8D2:3D53:8A3E:5772:6FA8 (talk) 06:23, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A little bit; all I think may just be beliefs or wishfull thinking.... Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 07:48, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Even what you call “belief” or “wishful thinking” arises within awareness. The real question is: what is the substratum of even belief and doubt? I’m not attached to the form of belief, but to the insight that arises when one turns inward. Call it a belief, but belief has built temples, split atoms, and crossed oceans. What matters is whether it points toward something deeper than the self that doubts it. I don’t mind if it’s wishful - I wish to awaken. All thinking starts as wishful. Civilization did. Science did. Even your belief that something is “just belief” is a belief. So the question isn’t whether it’s belief, but whether it’s worthy of belief. Wishful thinking is a wave in Consciousness. Whether it’s a mirage or a map, it still reflects the longing for the Real. It is not “you” who is thinking like this. The gunas of nature always balance themselves - sometimes through you, sometimes through me, but essentially through neither of "us". 2409:40C1:59:8D2:ED34:8D69:1872:B62E (talk) 08:27, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That 'awareness'... - Krishnamurti seems to have been well aware of it, yet at the end of his life he stated that nobody had understood the energy that went through him. He too framed his experience, and he believed he was a vehicle for something higher, yet he realized that he was incapable of 'transmitting' this - well, actually, he felt that the rest of mankind had failed. So, if even Krishnamurti felt ununderstood, and framed his experience, then what of the caleidoscope the rest of us is living in? Emptiness - as in sunyata, but also 'lucht en leegte' (Ecclesiastes). Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 10:54, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, even Krishnamurti couldn’t transmit it, because truth is not transmissible like information. It is not an object passed from mind to mind, but the recognition of the flame within. If no one understood him, perhaps that was the point. Silence is the final language. Words only circle the fire, but sometimes a spark still leaps.

You say he “framed” his experience, but even the rejection of all frames is a kind of frame. The kaleidoscope we live in is not a failure of insight; it is the play of the gunas, the lila of awareness watching itself in infinite mirrors. Emptiness is not a void to be feared; it is the womb of all arising. The void is not barren. It is sacred.

For example, the universe is an infinite emptiness humming with life. What we call the universe is infinitely empty, yet something exists, like silence giving birth to music.

That no one understood him doesn’t mean no one saw something. Some concepts are not meant to be understood. they are meant to be realized. And realization has never been a mass phenomenon. It happens in silence, in solitude, in surrender.

I personally try my best to follow my own synthesis of Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, and Raja Yoga, keeping Karma as the main foundation and Jnana as the final consequence. It gives me peace and a kind of inner satisfaction, which I cannot share. I want to share it, but if I did, I would probably end up saying that no one understood me.

I am here. I am aware. I must act. No one is coming.

As I said, even good begins to blur its boundaries between the ontological and the ethical when grounded in the play of the gunas.

So yes, perhaps all belief is a dream, but so is doubt. If I am dreaming, let me at least dream in the direction of awakening. Maybe it is all just play of niyati.

But who can tell? Who among us can proclaim it?

"Darkness there was at first, by darkness hidden

Without distinctive marks, this all was water

That which, becoming, by the void was covered

That One, by force of heat, came into being

Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it?

Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?

Gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe

Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whether God's will created it, or whether He was mute

Perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not

The 'insert-your-preferred-term' of the world, all-pervasive and all-knowing

He indeed knows. If not, no one knows" 2409:40C1:59:8D2:C70:65BE:9E09:A3B (talk) 11:50, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

sorry to join this discussion, but question in my mind... Regarding emptiness may be the sacred womb where all arises, but is it truly the end in itself? Could Krishnamurti's feeling of being "ununderstood" point to a deeper longing - that our hearts seek more than emptiness or pure awareness? Asteramellus (talk) 22:08, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ahhh, look who’s here. My first disciple! Was expecting you. Looool.

Yes, emptiness as sacred womb is a powerful insight. Śūnyatā is not a void to fear, but the potentiality from which all form arises. But is it truly enough? Perhaps not in the human sense. Whether it is the "end" depends on how one views the path. From a certain vantage, emptiness is not the goal but the clearing. It undoes the false so that what lies beyond falsehood may reveal itself, not necessarily as “something,” but as the luminous clarity that remains when all grasping ceases.

As for Krishnamurti, I do not see his being misunderstood as a flaw in his communication, but perhaps as a mirror to our collective reluctance to dissolve into the silence he embodied. Still, I feel you. Maybe there was a longing not just for emptiness but for communion—not conceptually, but through the heart’s recognition of itself in another. Awareness alone, even radical emptiness, does not satisfy the relational dimension of being. There may be a longing that moves through emptiness, not away from it. A yearning not for more content, but for resonance, communion, or even grace.

Is the heart content with pure awareness alone, or does it seek love or mutual recognition as the flowering of that awareness? I would say both are true. Emptiness is the ground, but love is its fragrance. The jnani may abide in silence, but the bodhisattva or avatar returns with eyes moist from knowing the world’s dream and still embracing it.

The question is not whether emptiness is the end, but whether it is the whole.

What is the relationship between zero and infinity? Between nothingness (Shiva) and everythingness (Vishnu)? Are they opposites, or are they paradoxically one, as not only mysticism but also calculus with its limits approaching infinity, quantum physics with vacuum fluctuations, uncertainty, and entanglement, string theory with vibrational emptiness, loop quantum gravity with quantized spacetime, and even Gödel’s incompleteness theorems suggest?

Maybe we exist as a mean between these two extremes. That is Brahma, the principle of creation, which is Maya.

Is the universe finite, as seen by the naked eye, limited by the observable universe estimated at around 93 billion light years in diameter, or is it infinite and perhaps even cyclical, as proposed by conformal cyclic cosmology, string cosmology, or the Puranic models of endless creation and dissolution?

Perhaps this paradox between zero and infinity is what the sages called nirguna or para, that which is beyond all attributes, beyond all dualities, beyond all mental grasping.

"All phenomena are ultimately empty, but this emptiness is not separate from the great compassion of the Buddha.

The true Dharma is not one, not two, but infinitely adaptable." – Lotus Sutra

"As people approach me, so I receive them. All paths, O Arjuna, lead to me."

If you do not know where you are going, any road may seem to take you there. But if you do know your destination, there are infinite paths that can lead to it, just as in calculus, where an infinite variety of functions can approach the same value. That convergence, that simultaneity of difference and unity, is the paradox.

"Who truly knows? Who here will proclaim it?" – Rigveda 2409:40C1:59:8D2:3C28:2933:423F:D37B (talk) 01:19, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Asteramellus a perennial issue exposed in one question/observation; wauw! This is one of the best comments/formulations I've ever read on this topic; thanks.

Indeed, Mahayana, but even more than that. Do we really need/want to be without needs? Love is more than wishless emptiness. I once asked a (very intelligent) kid: 'what is more (higher, better)? The One, or the Good (love)?' Same question, but lacking something which is in your question. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 04:19, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Joshua, Thank you for your reply and your suggestion. I will try that. Can you explain your reasons for merging Credential Inflation with other topics? I don't want to repeat my earlier mistakes. Glen McGhee 50.4.132.185 (talk) 19:31, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See Talk:Grade inflation#Merger proposal. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 19:35, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Second try: Reconsider your edit to Credential Inflation

NB: I don't know what a cookie is, sorry. NBB: I also don't know what it means to log into WIKIPEDIA. Sorry.

This is my second try for a response from Josh J. I am a monthly financial contributor, and a believer in WIKI until stuff like this happens. Where is the accountability? Thanks, Glen Ten years ago you merged my Credential inflation article with other topics, and I want you to reconsider. In its own right, Credential Inflation is a scholarly topic now receiving the attention it deserves. It should not be confused with other aspects of education. Please, disaggregate "Credential Inflation". The Credential Inflation article needs updating. Much has changed in ten years. http://encyc.org/w/index.php?title=Credential_inflation&action=history 50.4.132.185 (talk) 17:25, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@50.4.132.185: I think you should put a proposal at Talk:Credentialism and degree inflation, not here. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 03:49, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So, Joshua, are you saying that you are unable to disaggregate "Credential Inflation" from the article on Credentialism? Thanks, Glen 50.4.132.185 (talk) 19:33, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a fuzzy topic, interconnected with other topis. "Credentialism" has similarities with "professionalisaton," but also with degree inflation etc. So, having these tooics together is choice, but there are also other possibilities; therefor, ask the community! Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 18:28, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help -- I just noticed that "Grade Inflation" has its own article now. That's great!

I am having difficulty navigating -- a whole lot has changed at wiki in 15 years! Glen 50.4.132.185 (talk) 23:00, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maurya Empire reversion

I’m not sure why you’ve reverted my edit on the Maurya Empire page - it was to remove repetition. Without my edit, the page reads ‘Seleucus I received 500 war elephants, that were to have a decisive role in his victory against western Hellenistic kings at the Battle of Ipsus in 301BCE. a military asset which would play a decisive role at the Battle of Ipsus in 301BCE:’

‘a military asset…’ is clearly a repetition of the preceding sentence and should be cut. Shnen2 (talk) 13:31, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Shnen2 you're right; I self-reverted. Next time you should add an edit-summary, though. Regards, Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 16:26, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! You’re right about the summary. Take care! Shnen2 (talk) 16:32, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What does this mean?

Josh, I found this from 2015, but I have no idea who "someone" is. How is this supposed to work? Did it ever happen? Thanks, Glen

"Hm, that was a little bit too bold... could someone please delete Grade inflation, so this page can be moved back, including the merged info, and the talkpage and history retained at the correct page? There-after I shall split this article into "Grade inflation" proper, and "Credentialism and grade inflation", containing a section on "grade inflation." Thanks! And apologies for the extra work. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:32, 20 May 2015 (UTC)" 50.4.132.185 (talk) 22:29, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think now that this seems to be irrelevant. I wish that I reviewed recent article changes before I went off on my lone horse! 50.4.132.185 (talk) 23:01, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]