Kyros

These varna designations are not something intrinsic to the soul or mind.

You aren't kshatriya, vaishya or sudra if you aren't working within a varnashrama system

 

Like, if I say I am a doctor but I have no training and no work as a doctor then that is just an illusion.

 

One's guna and karma would get one a position as a ksatriya or vaishya etc. if in fact one lived in a varnashrama society of a Vedic king.

 

What it means is that we all have an acquired nature - a guna or combination of the three gunas.

 

A person in the mode of goodness is of the brahmincal nature, though if he doesn't have a position in a Vedic culture as a brahmana then how can we say he is a brahmana?

 

A ksatriya is predominantly in the mode of passion - raja guna.

 

The Vaishya is in the mixed mode of passion and ignorance.

 

The sudra is appointed his work as a sudra because he is predominantly in the mode of ignorance - tama guna.

 

However, in the western world things are very mixed-up.

A teacher might be in the mode of ignorance even though in the Vedic system a teacher would come from the brahminical class in the mode of goodness.

 

So, in the western world we cannot say that one's karma or work is correctly reflective of his guna.

 

The priests are supposed to be brahmans but we can see that in western world most priests are meat-eaters in the mode of ignorance.

 

So, without a proper Vedic king and a cabinet of brahmans, it is totally ridiculous to try and compare western people in divisions of labor and castes.

 

That is basically what the caste system has done.

It let's ignorant sudras pose as brahmans while some persons in the mode of goodness are labled as sudras.

 

As such the caste system of India has become just a bigoted, prejudiced system of false designations based upon some family traditions.

Hey, something I agree with you on!

It would probably be more correct to say that one who inquisitive is potentially a brahmana, but like you said, you have to follow the rules of varna and ashrama.

I only made those statements because just as AncientMariner said, I too saw it from a book that was written by one of the previous acaryas, and I remember it said that a person who was attracted to Krsna Consciousness through curiousity is (potentially) a kshatriya.

I read something that one of the acarayas said that if you go to the lord because you are in distress you are a sudra. If you go to him for money you are a vaisya. I can't remember what the ksaitrya one was. If you go to the Lord for wisdom you are a brahmana.

Could the ksatriya be inquisitive? Was this from Prabhupada or a predecessor acaraya?

RCB

A brahmana is inquisitive.

If you were curious as to what was going on (in the Krsna conscious movement) you are a kshatriya.

I don't remember who said it though, but definetly not Prabhupada.

Kuli-Yuga happens because people deserve to be born in this time period due to their karma.

So would you say Brihaspati rishi was incompetent for allowing defeat of devas and let asuras rule the heaven. Answer yes or no, your evidence is very watertight.

The only asuras that were able to "rule" heaven were those blessed Lord Brahma and/or Lord Shiva.

Brhaspati rishi, while competent, isn't powerful enough to stand against demons blessed by Lord Brahma or Lord Shiva.

Especially Lord Shiva.

As far as I know, the Brits and Muslims weren't blessed by any demigod, for obvious reasons, yet they were still able to take over India.

I'll leave it at that...

Can we take it from this, using the same yardstick the countless fall down in Iskcon of so called Sanyasi never mind the average Joe, to be attributed to the leader?

I'm assuming you want to put the blame on Srila Prabhupada, right? Sorry, but that belongs to the GBC, which were incomplete in their training.

The very next thing Prabhupada was going to teach was varnashrama, but he passed away before he could do anything with that.

Perhaps you can list some of the countless war that might have happened because of Brahmans at the head of society, or are you just stating this of your own whim.

The vedic scriptures are littered with wars when the brahamanas at the head of society, but that's not my point.

I'm talking about the ridiculously easy takeover by foreigners.

Funny how the British found us before they ruled us even that under Muslim period and I quote, for your unbiased appraisal.

 

It was February 1835, a time when the British were striving to take control of the whole of India. Lord Macaulay, a historian and a politician, made a historical speech in the British Parliament, commonly referred to as The Minutes, which struck a blow at the centuries old system of Indian education.

His words were to this effect: I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.

Note; all this under the occupation of brutal regime whose sole goal was to destroy our Dharma.

I fill utterly repugnant by these so called followers of sanatan dharma, who are always eager to heap insult to our ancestors, who gave their blood, and under all odds kept the Dharma alive.

These guys have no shame, take our money by false pretence and through it back in our face. Dharma is under threat and this time from those who are masquerading as devotees, those who want to justify, under the guise of following Vedic dharma, things like guy marriages, making money by deception, sanyasis adopting life style more suited to CEO of big corporate,

Selling Vedic knowledge to maintain those life style.

That is not to say there are no pious followers out there but would they insult us like some of you have?

Jai Shree Krishna

Hence why I said "fake" brahmanas. It is clearly stated in what you quoted that they could not have conquered us unless they broke our very own culture, and how else to do this than to manipulate incompetent (fake) brahmanas?

They used our own culture against us. This is what happens with the caste by birth concept.

spokensanskrit.de gives these definitions of the word "nakSatra"

1. constellation of stars

2. stars

3. asterism

4. constellation

There is also a word called "nakSatramaalaa" which means star group.

Spoken Sanskrit

Your ashrama isn't static; it's dynamic.

Visvamitra had qualities of a kshatriya and raised as a kshatriya, but in due time he became a brahmana without having to go through rebirth.

What was the British colonization of the rest of the world evidence of? You conveniently skipped the question.

Not at all, the rest of the world didn't have brahmana's.

There was no India at that time. His empire was the North Indian region including Afghanistan. South Indian kingdoms were not part of the Maurya empire. And so what if he was a lower caste guy and if Chankaya was a Brahmana? I fail to see the relevance here.

 

Please write intelligently if you can or else I advise you to keep silent and not embarass yourself with such nonsense.

Use some common sense when reading my posts, as well as other people's posts. It would answer a lot of your questions.

I was giving an example of what a real brahamana could do. I thought that was obvious, sorry for giving you too much credit.

Most Indian kingdoms were ruled by Muslim kings when the British came to trade in India. Brahmanas are not required to keep foreigners out. That is the job of rulers and evidently, they did not do a good job.

 

And what has any of this got to do with caste? There have been countless wars all over the world where someone always lost. To single out Indian wars and blame it on caste tantamounts to stupidity.

 

Cheers

More evidence that caste by birth people are incompetent.

1. Real brahamana's wouldn't have allowed Muslim kings to sit on the throne, but they did.

2. Real kshatriya's (leaders), who were trained by brahamana's, wouldn't have allowed foreignors to take over.

3. Those countless Indian wars happened because fake brahamanas were the head of society, and if the head of society is weak so is the rest of the civilization.

"Cheers"

You will have to do better than that. Show me evidence that the Indian caste system was the reason for Indian colonization or are you just repeating something you heard somewhere without thinking it out?

 

And then, please explain how the British colonized almost the entire world, but it is only in the case of India that caste was the reason.

 

I'll wait,

 

Cheers

The takeover itself is evidence.

Chanakya Pandit, a real brahmana (head), single handedly guided Chandragupta (arms) to unify India 2300 years ago. That's what a real brahmana could do; and get this, Chandragupta himself was the son of a dasi.

Just look how easily the British took over India. The brahmanas didn't know how to lead or even care about teaching society.

http://news.iskcon.com/node/1650

They don't seem to have a problem with it. Why does everybody else? Why should anyone else?

Kyros says,

 

 

and SY responds,

 

 

See why one cannot identify Varna by observation?

 

Cheers

It's better than the caste by birth concept which put India in such a pathetic state that allowed it to be taken over by the British and other foreignors.

He wants you to play football.

 

What other purpose do you think this forum serves? Do you intend every post to propose something? Some grand proposal for building a temple or are you looking for a proposal of a bailout plan to be drawn here? Discussion forums are simply a method of exhanging opinions. You give yours and others give theirs.

It doesn't help when your opinions are either deleted by mods, reported as a bad post by envious users, or just simply disappears into dark abyss of the Internet like one of my latest posts.

okay

It's not just the Tachycardia, it's his other journals as well.

Satsvarupa das needs to renounce his gosvami status, and tell his disciples to find another siksa guru.

Then what he needs to do is just spend the rest of his life chanting Hare Krsna and bhajans. It's the only way for him to get out of his infamy.

Perhaps, there's a lesson in all of this: we shouldn't try to be smarter than Krishna. Prabupada made this mistake, and Iskcon is paying the price now.

Prabhupada wasn't trying to be smarter than Krishna, he was doing exactly what Krishna wanted him to do.

Before you open your mouth and speak on topics you obviously have no deep knowledge of, why don't you look for yourself on the history of the Gaudiya Sampradaya and all the deviations and upasampradaya crap it's had to deal with.

What happened to ISKCON is nothing new. Some people don't know how to follow simple rules or they want to interpret things in their own ways instead of taking things in face value.

Despite all the deviations and oppositions, the Gaudiya Sampradaya is growing and growing, and as predicted, it'll flood the entire world.

"Not a single blade of grass can move without the will of the Lord."

They are accorded Tier1 status as they were not authored. Where does it say they are not authored? The Samhitas do not specify an author the Purva Mimamsa school, has laid out details on why the Vedas are unauthored and this justification is borrowed by Vedanta schools.

(All the scriptures come from the Supreme Lord, and it is stated above that the study of the Vedas must be complimented with the Itihasas and Puranas. Regardless of what you want to believe. The Puranas are just as good as "Tier 1" scriptures.)

How could you miss the word "quality" in the sentences. I also included the sanskrit verses. Guna means quality. If Lord Krishna meant that it was based on birth, He would've used the word janma."

Also, it questions me. Srila Madvha is said to use verses from the Puranas. Why can he do it, but we can't?

From your previous post it almost sounded like you knew what you were talking about.

Sorry to disappoint.

Sama Veda 7.1.2

Atharva Veda 11.7.24

Madhyandina-sruti, Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad 2.4.10

duh.

If I couldn't get past the contradictions then why do I still study the books?

 

Your logic is missing a critical component; signs of intelligence.

Not really, instead of spending time studying, just chant the Hare Krsna Mahamantra.

I'm reading the Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavada Purana, and Garga Samhita.

So raghu, kaiserone, why don't you follow Baladeva prabhu's advice and not study the vedas?

And you, Sonic Yogi, you can't even get passed the "contradictions" despite after 34 years of reading the books.

I am not seeing references from the books in you posts.

Science of Self-Realization: Choosing a Spiritual Master--What Is a Guru?

Prabhu, what I said was exactly what Prabhupada wrote in one of his books.

I'm sorry but not everybody needs to spend decades to understand the books. Not everybody is like you.

Some people are taking up Krishna consciousness for the first time in millions of lifetimes; some are halfway through the process; and some are nearing the end.

I'm nowhere near the end, but I'm nowhere near the beginning.

Truth can have no contradictions.

1 + 1 = 2 is truth, but so is 1 + 1 = 1.

Contradictory, but add some more information, and it goes away.

Say you have a drop of water, that is one, and add another drop of water, it is now two, but it still is one.

Hence, 1 + 1 = 1 is also true.

I was a follower of Sri Vaishnavism until I read Prabhupada's books.

Now I'm a follower of Gaudiya Vaishnava. Why?

Because Krishna has blessed them to spread their influence far and wide, and the Maha-Mantra works!

Hare Krsna Hare Krsna

Krsna Krsna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama

Rama Rama Hare Hare

Unfortunately you have to be aparadha free to taste the nectar.

Haribol

People see contradictions because they have poor fund of knowledge.

Say for instance someone said that shooting a gun is good, and then later on the same person said shooting a gun is bad.

Both are apparent contradictions, but in order to explain them you need to add more detail.

Shooting a gun to save your life is good, but shooting a gun to unnecessarily kill someone is bad.

There are no contradictions in Prabhupada's books.

It's also hard to take someone serious when they use childish labels like "dreamervadi" and "fallvadi."