Sai Ram, as a devotee of Shirdi Sai Baba I am very happy to see the wonderful discussions going on and learn about the greatness of Shree Krishna.

I am confused however by the inclusion of ahamkar in this discussion? I think Krishna is rolling around in laughter as we attempt to convince others that our knowledge of him is more than imperfect.

God only takes form to give us the pleasure of admiring his form, and we all have different preferences and affinities. As a Shirdi Sai devotee I am forever in debt to Krishna as it was he whose temple was built which is now Shirdi Sai's Samadhi Mandir. Without such great devotion to Krishna and his endless merit the Mandir would not be.

For me personally, Shirdi Sai and Krishna are the same. We are all one with the Brahma, though our ego and ignorance prevents this perception. The great veil of Maya often tricks us into thinking of ourselves as separate from God and that is always the path of ignorance and leads us into ruin.

To even bear discussion of which incarnation of God is better is indeed an exercise in futility as they are all One. I respect the original posters question, but such a question must be sought on your own, as I don't think any of us could answer as to the greatness of Krishna and do him proper justice.

Om Sai Ram,
Arjun

We Hare Krishnas of the Planet earth and this Brahmanda, do not have any confusion as to the position of Krishna and the multitudes of expansions incarnating from him.

Krishna is Bhagavan in his 'original-original form'. His eternal personage is not sought on ones own but rather through Sri Krishna's own spoken words and instructions as it is that he speaks in the Gita.

We must repeat 'verbatim'--word for word what Krishna himself proclaims--this is the stuff of which great mantras are composed.

It is a bereftment of intelligence to think that God is not an Absolute entity.
The definition of God is: The source of all qualities in full--this is an absolute state of existance that constitutes the Existance of only one entity in the whole of all the created cosmos and universes.

The relative statements of a mental spectulation is limited to the degree of worldly experiences.

The Absolute state of existance is not relative nor subjective.
The Kingdom of heaven where Krishna lives requires all souls to learn the Absolute requisite ettiquette to gain entry.

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Sri Isopanisad Mantra 15:
O my Lord, sustainer of all that lives, Your real face is covered by Your dazzling effulgence. Kindly remove that covering and exhibit Yourself to Your pure devotee.

Purport: . . .
“The Personality of Godhead, who is perceived as the impersonal, blissful Brahman by the jnanis, who is worshiped as the Supreme Lord by devotees in the mood of servitorship, and who is considered an ordinary human being by mundane people, played with the cowherd boys, who had attained their position after accumulating many pious activities.”
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Thus the Lord is always engaged in transcendental loving activities with His spiritual associates in the various relationships of santa (neutrality), dasya (servitorship), sakhya (friendship), vatsalya (parental affection) and madhurya (conjugal love).
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Since it is said that Lord Krsna never leaves Vrndavana-dhama, one may ask how He manages the affairs of the creation.
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This is answered in the Bhagavad-gita (13.14–18): The Lord pervades the entire material creation by His plenary part known as the Paramatma, or Supersoul. Although the Lord personally has nothing to do with material creation, maintenance and destruction, He causes all these things to be done by His plenary expansion, the Paramatma. Every living entity is known as atma, soul, and the principal atma who controls them all is Paramatma, the Supersoul.
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This system of God realization is a great science. The materialistic sankhya-yogis can only analyze and meditate on the twenty-four factors of the material creation, for they have very little information of the purusha, the Lord. . . .

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It is total self-serving illogic to say, "God is limited, and thus is not an etenal transcendent all-mighty spiritual person with his own name, fame, form, personality, paraphenlia, entourage and pastimes that are beyond the material world of the manifest 24 elements---but, we humans with our short life spans that we are awake for for only two-thirds (2/3) of each day, we humans possess our own persona form albeit for a relative short flash of a moment in space."

The creation has as it's back ground an absolute empty field called "brahman"--but the purpose for all this is to allow a place for persons (souls) to re-link with the absolute person through their own volition--using the hours of their life in cultivating this work acumen that is directed toward an absolute end: Krishna

Bhaktajan

Good point, the tricking of humanity into ignorance seems in full swing.

Present leaders of the world attach great importance to providing an external enemy: Nazis, Communists, Muslim Terrorists etc. This in return creates internal enemies based on race, sex and class.

Thus the whole setup perfectly diverts our attention from itself, the real enemy - godless leaders, who control our political, cultural and economic life with demoniac skill.

They don't even pretend to pose serious opposition. Bush has doubled the national debt and cut the value of the US dollar in half but do you hear any criticism for this?

On the international front, president Bush, PM Dr. Manmohan Singh, Ahmadinejad, Sarkozy, Merkel and Putin are all members of the same club.

Our leaders work for the international banking cartel, aided by a small army of dupes who may or may not be knowing what they actually trigger but have a keen sense of how to keep their high paying jobs.

Their goal, overthrow the values of human civilization and establish a primitive tyranny.

In Moscow there is communism, in New York capitalism. It is all the same as thesis and antithesis. Analyse both. Moscow is subjective communism but objectively State capitalism. New York, capitalism subjective, but communism objective.

In sum it represents the translation of an economic monopoly into absolute political, social and cultural control and involves the total destruction of the four pillars of dharma.



The overthrow of human civilization means the end of the belief that human beings are made in the image of God, i.e. we're spirit souls and have the potential using sadhana to evolve into better creatures living in a happier society in harmony with nature and God.

It means the end of the idea that God is our eternal Father who is the organizing principle behind actual human development.

Present political leaders consider that they cannot afford the luxury of man's spiritual advancement and conclude to arrest our development by transferring our loyalty from God to atheism. So they teach us there is no such thing as God, scripture or truth. They arrest our personal development by destroying marriage and family using taxation, porn and promiscuity.
They are destroying families by brainwashing women to seek careers instead of husbands and good children.

You can identify their agents as the people who “want to change the world.” These dupes don't realize that they are making it worse. “Progressive” is defined by their agenda as more and more control and world domination. They don't realize that so called social programs are temporary bribes to put their agents in power.

We are fed a diet of lies, trivia, sex and dogmas designed to make us dysfunctional and docile. They want us to be producers and consumers, debtors and drones -- animals, not human beings.

It is all closely associated with socialism and communism, as well as with organized crime, to combat knowledge of the real world and to ignore the facts from vedic culture.

Only entertainment that advances the atheist program will be tolerated. Literary and cinematic art reflect a decadent godless philosophy and fools us that it serves as an important psychological modification function.

Dupes are the overpaid people who maintain the “formal” and hoodwink the masses. This includes most successful people in media, science, education and culture.

Peoples lives are built on a monstrous fraud. Gradually we are being mentally enslaved by atheistic leaders. Humanity has passed into a twilight zone of chosing between genuine spirituality and evil tamasic existence.

Our only hope - that the spreading of Krishna's Holy Name cannot be stopped.

It seems SaiAyurveda believes that we are God ourselves and we are simply bewildered by maya therefore we are not realizing that we are God.

Now please explain how can God be controlled by Maya? Maya is the Lord's energy and is subservient to the Lord and she doesn't have the audacity to try to overpower the Supreme Lord like that. So yes, we are bewildered by maya but how can we be God?

If you say we are part and parcel of the Supreme Lord then I can accept that.

Pls forgive me if I am misunderstanding here.
indulekhadasi

I don't remember Lord Krishna ever drinking, but then again, it was okay for the Kshatriya class to indulge in a little drinking (that doesn't mean it was good).

To understand Lord Krishna's pastimes takes a great deal of understanding. One shouldn't go on reading about him and thinking him as an ordinary person.

If that's the case, then there was nothing wrong with Krishna looking at the gopis naked, or him in the Rasa dance, because by mortal standards, he was at most 7-8 years-old at most in the later. A normal boy that age wouldn't even care about that stuff.

If you don't understand Krishna, then don't speak about him. There is always a reason why he does things.

[quote=indulekhadasi]
Even in the spiritual world there are divisions. Above Vaikuntha is Ayodhya. But on the topmost level is Goloka Vrindavana. So you can say both Narayana and Rama are incarnations of Krishna. But then why is Ayodhya above Vaikuntha? Why is Goloka above Ayodhya?

As far as bhagvatam is concerned it is not mentioned.From which scripture you have mentioned the above statements????

Because Krishna can incarnate as Narayana or Rama, but Narayana and Rama can't incarnate into Krishna. The same thing with Lord Siva. He is just as important an incarnation as Narayana and Rama but he cannot become Lord Krishna. Why can you not see the importance of the Lord's dear devotees? They are sometimes even higher then the Lord.

First canto, third chapter deals with the incarnations of Lord Narayana.It is Lord Narayana/Vishnu who incarnates as Krishna ,Ram etc...
Before appearing as Krishna to Devaki & Vasudev, He showed his four armed original swaroop.If Krishna incarnates as Lord Narayana then why he appeared with four arm???

Again in bhagvatam, when krishna was about to leave for his personal abode, he appeared in his original form i.e. with four arm.

I hope you would have read the above two instances in bhagvatam.If you consider Bhagavatam as supreme authority then it is clear that it is Lord Narayana/Vishnua who incarnates.

This are purely my interpretation.

Pranaam

The mental image.

Because it is the mind that you must control to perceive true reality, you have to give it something to focus on. Something that represents the highest idea of what humanity can aspire to.

All deities perform this function to their respective followers.

Krishna for many represents this idea. It has the advantage of being one of the oldest ideas of divinity that has survived into the modern day and this explains Krishna's widespread following.

Krishna is just a name. A label. But it represents an absolute spiritual truth.



x

[quote=guliaditya] Yes, for those who are immersed in aishwarya bhava- the mood of awe and reverence Narayana is the all in all and Krishna is his avatara. However Gaudiya Vaishnavas prefer to worship Krishna in madhurya bhava- the mood of pure loving devotional service, and since he is the only one who accepts this type of love we worship him as the Supreme. Narayana does not accept worship in this mood.

Whatever I wrote came from the Brihad Bhagavatamrita written by Srila Sanatana Goswami. In actuality it is a narration to King Janamejaya (son of Parikshit) by Sukadeva Goswami. Therefore it is just like the Bhagavatam, being spoken by Vyasadeva's highly exalted son. It is about a cowherd boy Gopa Kumara. When he was brought before Lord Narayana he realized something was not complete- he realized that the mood was not proper to offer love to the Lord as a friend, or as a parent. The relationship was very tight and rigid and too formal. Therefore he didnt hesitate to go to Ayodhya- but he still felt that there was too much reverence involved. He then went to Dwarika, and then Mathura and it was getting better but still there was some lack. Then finally he went to Vrindavan and he was ecstatic to see that no aishwarya bhava was present there.

When Lord Chaitanya incarnated, he sometimes also showed forms like Varaha etc. Therefore we can understand that when the Lord wishes to be worshipped in the mood of aishwarya he takes up such a form. Therefore there is definitely importance too the mood of awe and reverence. However we see that Lord Chaitanya was much more engaged in Radha Krishna worship and madhurya bhava.

It is obvious that the Lord wanted to show his oppulences to his dear parents, Devaki and Vasudeva. But since they saw that form, the relationship wasn't as sweet. They would be afraid when later on the Lord touched their feet. But we can see Nanda baba wouldn't hesitate to ask Krishna to bring his sandals. And Krishna would take those sandals on his head and give it to his father. And even when Krishna showed all the universes within his mouth, Mother Yashoda continued to believe that she was just dreaming and that Krishna was no more than her little son.

These are the points that I was trying to make. But Sri Vaishnavas have a different understanding and that is ok. After all, they are also very great Vaishnavas and I offer my humble obesiances to all of them, including you.

indulekhadasi

Respected Indulekhadasiji,

Thanks for your nice reply.

Sorry Induji, but this is a mistaken conception that is prevalent in the Gaudiya school. If you get the chance to go to Ayodhya, you will see that many sadhus of the Ramananda lineage (a branch of the Sri sampradaya) perform sadhana for Lord Ramachandra in the same rasika manner that you are familiar with, and they have extensive poems and literatures that detail the methodologies that they employ. Likewise, there are people who worship Lord Shiva with amorous feelings in order to obtain Him as their husband. However, in order to have this knowledge, one should refrain from studying Indic dharma with ideologically tainted glasses, and develop a more universal and ecumenical approach to religion.

Pranam

Radhe Radhe

Lover of the Bhagavat:
Sorry Induji, but this is a mistaken conception that is prevalent in the Gaudiya school. If you get the chance to go to Ayodhya, you will see that many sadhus of the Ramananda lineage (a branch of the Sri sampradaya) perform sadhana for Lord Ramachandra in the same rasika manner that you are familiar with, and they have extensive poems and literatures that detail the methodologies that they employ. Likewise, there are people who worship Lord Shiva with amorous feelings in order to obtain Him as their husband. However, in order to have this knowledge, one should refrain from studying Indic dharma with ideologically tainted glasses, and develop a more universal and ecumenical approach to religion.

Hey, Loverof the bhagavat, that maybe so, that the lineages you mentioned practice also in the the same mood of madhura, but does it say anywhere in any sastras, like in Canto 10 of Srimad Bhagavatam where Krishna's rasa lila are described where he enjoys such madhura interactions with His "devotees, that Lord Ramachandra ör Shiva perform rasa lila like Krishna, with any of their "devotees"?

I'm not so well read in Indic literature so I would like to know.
Kind regards

I have never said that there is no madhurya bhava in Rama lila. Actually there is a good amount of it. However there is also that tinge of where people accept him as a great king with too much awe and reverence. Gopa Kumara noticed the difference when he went to Ayodhya from Vaikuntha. However I was simply citing the feelings of the young cowherd boy Gopa Kumara in Srila Sanatan Goswamis Brhad Bhagavatamrita. Sanatan Goswami was a Gaudiya Vaishnava and perhaps you may not be able to agree with him on all points. But this was actually spoken by Sukadeva Goswami to King Janamejaya, please keep that in mind.

Pranam Malatiji and Induji,

Of course, Rama-bhakti and Shiva-upasana are not identical with Krishna-bhakti in every respect. No two deities are revered in exactly the same manner. In Mathura and Dwaraka, some awe and reverence is certainly present in devotion to Lord Krishna, and this is accepted by Bengali Vaishnavas. I know that these Krishnas are considered to be prakashas of Vrindavana Krishna (well, I spent 13 years exploring the lineage of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu), but the point is that Bhakti is a vast, nay, infinite ocean, and the only point where I disagree with you two is the gradational tendency which is inherent in the religion which you follow. I'm pretty certain that not one of us feels as powerfully and as deeply for our respective Lords as Hanumanji or Tulsidasji did. The Gosvamis were certainly transcendentalists par excellence and their very fine theology (even if I no longer take it as THE final say) attests to that. I happen to own the brilliant three-set BBT edition of the Brhad-bhagavatamrta and love the book, even if I do not count myself as a votary on the path that it details.

As for Shiva bhaktas, if you were to study the lives and shiksha of the 63 Shaivite saints called the Naayanmaars, to name one category of devotional Shaivas, you would find much in common with the Vaishnava ideal of spiritual love of God. Check out this link http://www.shaivam.org/naayan_f.html if that says anything to you. Of course, have no expectation that what you shall find on that reference is going to be the same as what you're used to. However, in dharma, sameness is not the predominant criterion. It is the supramundane essence that really matters.

hi,

i am new to this forum , but i know some what as per my knowledge,
Here all people are worrying about lords,
who is lord, shiva r vishnu r krishna r some x...?
lord is only 1 ,
let us take a ex: your father is there, some times he will act like a commander, some times friend, some times like mom , some times like well wisher :depends up on the situation, father playing his role.
like that god is also, depends on the situation , he changed his activites,

SHIVAyAH ViSHNU ROOPAYA , VISHNU Roopyah SHvahey,
SHIVASCHYA HRUDYAM VISHNU,VISHNU HRUDAYAM SHIVAHA.

Means shiva is nothing but vishnu.

Y Defferent Roopas?
ANS: the above example (father).

SO GOD IS ONLY ONE but having different roopas,
we only divided it,
THINK MAN , THINK , DONT BE POOR

This is exactly the point that I'm trying to drive home. Otherwise, I too am quite displeased by the sectarianism that is all too prevalent on these forums.

I am really not trying to put other people's faith down. Rupa and Sanatan had a younger brother named Anupama. He was supposed to be a partial incarnation of hanuman. So Rupa and Sanatan were trying to explain to Anupama to try and worship Radha Krishna. So Anupama said he would try to do it the next day. But the next day he came crying to his elder brothers and he said he couldn't do it because if he left his Rama his life would be useless. So Rupa and Sanatan were very happy. You cannot change someone's svarupa. You cannot make Hanuman into a sakhi of Radharani. Everyone has their own svarupa which they are most happy in and it is proper to leave them in the service of their chosen Lord.

I was not referring to you in my comment to Subramanya, Indulekhaji. I know you to be a respectful and very civil young lady. Never did I insinuate that you were putting others down. You are right to be as committed on your chosen contemplative path as you are, and by condemning sectarianism, it was mainly some of the folks on "Spiritual Discussions" that I had in mind. In fact, for this reason, I hardly even go to that section now, but remain in the other divisions of Audarya where people are more open-minded.

My main point was in the story of Anupam.
You can never change one's own faith or one's own swarupa.

"God" = is the Coolest Guy ever and ever. [Got a problem with that?]<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:" /><o:p></o:p>
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There was a person who spent all his time seeking out the extent of his own prowess.

He found that [actually he knew it instantly] he was unlimited and that there was only one of Him to be found.

He was also the only one with a personality. So he sought out the extent of his potencies and as he did this created the cosmos and thus so many living entities to play with and he's been doing this always.

He is the coolest Bon vivant, indeed he is the standard of coolness and sophistication and grace. He's also so good looking and amiable that everyone falls in love with him.

Sometimes folks ask him permission to leave his company to pursue an independent path [ie: to start his own Rock Band] where they could pretent to be him.

But then this coolest Guy is seen reflected in all things and so the Sojourner sees that wherever he goes he can't escape remembering the "Original Primeval Supreme Coolest Godhead".

And so, the Sojourner, ironically feels cheated so, out of a perverted sense of determination, he tries harder to enjoy independently until he is smashed --thus again he recalls what the good life was like when all he had to do was be part of the coolest's entourage.

Let get on the band wagon and jamb with the coolest--but remember that it takes practice, practice, practice.

ys,
bhaktajan

this was definitly a point worth noting...once theistji said that in the attempt to explain things to others we sometimes forget the point...which is to discuss the Lord...so thank you for your in sight and please tell us when you feel that we are missing the point.

nevertheless, discussion is wonderful and we have some very intelligent and knowledgable people on this forum...so welcome!

Jai Shri Krishna