Guruvani

Now, watch all the vapuvadis run for shelter!!! If you clowns followed hari-bhakti-vilasa you wouldn't be loitering in internet forums due to a lack of engagement in suddha bhakti. Get real and quit posing. We know you clowns down follow hari-bhakti-vilasa. Nobody follows hari-bhakti-vilasa. Your guru or acharya didn't follow hari-bhakti-vilasa because it was for smarta brahmanas that the Goswamis tried to convert to vraja bhakti. You guys need to stop profiling and get real. You are nowhere near hari-bhakti-vilasa, so please don't use it as a club to fight your losing battles with.

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll make sure to walk out the door and wave as you go by. I hope you enjoy your visit. Have you ever been to Gator land before? When you get here you must cough up the 5 bucks to see Kanapaha Botanical Gardens and also spend at least one day at Crescent Beach. Maybe you are too "advanced" for such worldly pleasures? don't expect to see me. I am a hermit. I haven't had a personal friend in years and I don't expect to change my ways anytime soon. My kids are my only association. But, they are all I want.

don't be so testy PRABHU!!! I am just trying to see if you are more humble than grass and tolerant as the tree, but you just failed the EXAM mr. professor.:wacko:

Srila Prabhupada teaches us:

The Maha Mantra is better than all the Vishnu mantras combined. The Maha Mantra contains all the Vishnu mantras within it. So, getting Maha Mantra from a Vaishnava is the topmost diksha into Vishnu mantra. The Maha Mantra is supreme above all Vishnu mantras. In fact, there are no proper brahmanas in kali-yuga to chant Vishnu mantra. The Maha mantra is the only mantra fit for kali-yugites to chant. No Vishnu mantra can be chanted effectively in kali-yuga. The kali-yuga dogs are only eligible for Maha-mantra - not Vishnu mantra that is the right of genuine brahmanas that don't exist in Kali Yuga.

So, expert study of the revealed scriptures is the process of diksha. Any fool that thinks some formal ritual with a formal guru is ACTUAL SPIRITUAL DIKSHA is a cheater who is only cheating himself. It's a damn shame how cheapened the process of diksha has become nowadays and reduced down to some formal ritual instead of "expert in the study of revealed scriptures". That formal process is for those who want to be cheated.

but first you take shelter of a siksha guru. you don't get initiation first and then get siksha. That is not the way Vaishnavism works. first, you take shelter of siksha guru and then later diksha. nowhere does it say that one must first get diksha. First you take shelter and get instructions from siksha guru. No Gaudiya guru accepts a disciple that has not had proper siksha and proper training in purascharya-vidhi and sadhana. So, one must accept siksha guru first. You can accept Srila Prabhupada as siksha guru by hearing his instructions in his books. Then, when one is trained in sadhana and practised purascharya-vidhi, then he can take diksha. Siksha guru lives in his instructions. You don't need physical connection to siksha guru, because siksha guru lives in his teachings and instructions forever.

I think that is even more of a stretch than saying he gave all his disciples personal attention. I don't think Srila Prabhupada related with a bunch of ex-hippies, street people and other assorted western mlecchas. He came to deliver them, not to relate with them. I think it is absurd to say that Srila Prabhupada, coming from a sheltered life in a family of pure Vaishnavas, could relate with the hippies and other assorted western people that appreciated his teachings on Sanatan Dharma. I don't see that he related with them at all. He was the acharya and they were disciples. The acharya doesn't "relate with the masses" he instructs them and shows by example what it means to live a holy life in Krishna consciousness. I think it is an insult to Srila Prabhupada to say that he "related" with the derelicts and hoodlums that joined ISKCON. He was a stranger in a strange land of strange people. I don't think that Prabhupada "related" with his disciples any more than Donald Trump could can relate with a bum on the street. He enlightened them. It wasn't his mission to relate with them. Thats just dumb if you ask me.

My leadership did exactly what Srila Prabhupada wanted them to do which was take charge of new devotees and make sure they got good training in Krishna consciousness. I personally never begrudged my temple authorities from not pushing me into a personal meeting with Srila Prabhupada. I was quite pleased to set as his feet and hear him lecture and preach. I never felt worthy of personal contact and I never expected it or demanded it. I got the same treatment that hundreds of other devotees got and I didn't feel so special that I needed to be singled out for personal instruction from Srila Prabhupada. I revered and respected my authorities and I had many great godbrothers and devotees that were seeing to my welfare and training me and teaching me very nicely. I was too shy and in awe of Srila Prabhupada. I never felt that I deserved or needed some special attention from him. If Srila Prabhupada wanted to personally meet all his new disciples I am sure that the ISKCON authorities would have followed his direct orders back then. I got to see ISKCON at it's greatest glory and I can tell you it was magnificent.

According to the Vedic doctrine of the Hindus, the soul is actually a tiny spark of light that is endowed with consciousness and eternal existence. It is the Puranic doctrine the soul is a spark of life and light that is smaller than the atom. In Vaishnava doctrine the soul has emanated from the glow of the supreme being who is known by different names in different religions. This spark of life takes on forms and bodies according to it's karma and consciousness. Lord Krishna gives the description of the soul in the Bhagavad-gita. The soul has neither birth nore death and having once come into existence it can never die. The soul is an eternal spark of life. Just as a light bulb emanates sparks of light, the body of God emanates sparks of life. We the souls are those sparks of life.

Be that as it may, the Vaishnava acharyas and masters have explained that the technical aspects of Buddhism advocate self-annihilation into the realm called sunya which in Sanskrit means "the void" which in terms of Puranic doctrine is the plane of existence that actually falls short of ONENESS with God and stands as a marginal plane that is between ONENESS and seperateness of embodied existence on the material plane. The Hindu ONENESS is in merging into brahman. The Buddhist nirvana is in merging into the sunya. In Vedic ontology the brahman is beyond the sunya in comparitive analysis. The plane of sunya is the dimension of existence that is between the Mahat Tattva or the conglomerate total material energy and the brahman which is transcendental to the sunya sometimes referred to as viraja. As the soul transcends higher and higher planes of existence, the first plane beyond the material platform is the viraja also known as sunya, the great void between the material realms and the spiritual sky. Beyond the sunya is the brahmajyoti or the light of the absolute realm. The Hindu impersonalist is aiming as the light of the absolute realm. The Buddhist is destined for the realm of void between the material realms and the absolute existence of ONENESS with this clear white light of divine glory. So, that is the distinction as interpreted by the Vaishnava school of Hinduism. Probably most Buddhists have no acquaintence with this Hindu concept of ONENESS. They probably don't analyse their own concept in this way. Many modern western buddhists have a very shallow understanding of what the actual buddhist conception actually is. Many western "buddhists" give their own interpretations of buddhism without any proper training or education into the original Buddhist tenents. A deep study of Buddhism will reveal a doctrine that many western people would not actually appreciate coming from their Christian backgrounds and ideas of heavenly kingdoms awaiting the faithful. Buddhism doesn't advocate eternal salvation in heaven. It advocates the annihilation of individual existence altogether. In essence, Buddhism teaches you to become a non-entity, but in reality that is never possible because the individual soul is eternally an individual soul and the soul can never be killed or extinguished, though it's existence can lose cognizance of itself if it enters the great void of the sunya. Real buddhism is practically non existance in the western world. Buddhism in the western world has lost much of the original Buddhist conception and has become hippified and yuppified into something that suits the minds of western people.

He said: I said that was not true, because I was also in ISKCON for a couple of years before Srila Prabhupada passed and from what I saw I can honestly say that what Mahak is saying is false. Maybe it's because I joined in Los Angeles and got my experience at probably the largest temple in the western world at that time, but what myself and many new devotees of the time experienced was not what Mahaksha is saying about everybody getting personal attention from Srila Prabhupada.

false. Babhru was not the only devotee in ISKCON to testify to how Srila Prabhupada related with the rank and file devotees of ISKCON. Maybe my experience is different because I joined in Los Angeles which was the world headquarters for ISKCON at that time. There were hundreds and hundreds of disciples at the Los Angeles temple back then. So, my experience is the experience of Srila Prabhupada and how he related with a big, big international movement of disciples. That was how I saw it and that is how I report it. If Srila Prabhupada wanted ISKCON to expand more and more, then he surely could not have expected to give personal attention to every devotee who joined the society. I saw Srila Prabhupada in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego and he was very much aloof from the rank and file devotees and he had his senior men training up new devotees. That was how he wanted it and that is how it was since ISKCON started booming into an international movement. Srila Prabhupada had many well-trained disciples that could train up the newcomers. It was a system that worked well when it was applied properly. Danavir Maharaja started the "bhakta program" with the approval of Srila Prabhupada and I was the first new bhakta to enter that program. I never felt any lacking because I had great senior Godbrothers that were more advanced than me and could help me in the same way Srila Prabhupada could or even better because they gave me more personal attention than Srila Prabhupada gave most of his direct disciples. I know that there is one "living guru" that initiates disciples with no system in place for training them up and these are the people always whining about how important it is to get personal attention from the guru. Well, they aren't getting it and they aren't getting proper help from other senior men either and they are always whining about personal association with the guru because they have never been trained properly and don't have sadhana worth a donkey squirt.

very similar, except the Buddhists seek nirvana which is basically a form of moksha where the individual soul evaporates the individual existence of the soul and avoid any kind of reincarnation. the buddhists do not have any conception of transcendental worlds with planets and people and all forms of diversity. for Buddhists they only know of the material existence and the goal to give up reincarnation and embodied existence. Buddhist conception of heaven is to eliminate the individuality of the soul and cease individual existence. It's not quite the same as the the Hindu conception of impersonal moksha. The Hindu conception of impersonal moksha is the merging of the individual soul into the ONE absolute spirit. The buddhist conception is total annihilation of the soul into non-existence. Buddhism is something like spiritual suicide where the soul is killed and ceases to exist. Hindu jnani and yogi have the conception to merge into the glory of the spiritual light of God and enjoy bliss of ONENESS with God. The buddhist just thinks of ceaseing all existence completely and entering the eternal voidness of non-existence.

exactly.

the soul is eternally the same. only the mind and body change. when the soul leaves the body and reincarnates in heaven or hell then he will not remember his past lives. Everything in the memory and brain is lost when the soul leaves one body and takes another. the soul is what we are. we are not the body. the soul goes from one body to another based upon karma. we will still be the same soul but with a different body and maybe different planet of heaven or hell or maybe Earth again. but you will always be the same soul and you will forever be you.

Both concepts are there in Hinduism. You can reincarnate on Earth or you can reincarnate on a heavenly planet of the many devas, or you can reincarnate in lower planets where life is very hellish. So, karma determines if you reincarnate in heaven or if you reincarnate in hell. Moksha or mukti has two different aspects. There is the non-dual aspect of mukti where the soul merges into the oneness of the absolute and loses it's sense of individual existence. The jnani and yogis and the followers of Shankaracharya seek that kind of moksha. The bhaktas or bhakti-yogis seek after svarupya-mukti which means to get a spiritual body in the transcendental world where Lord Narayana and Lord Krishna live eternally with their devotees. Karma and reincarnation are connected. According to the karma one will reincarnate again according to level of consciousness that one has acquired through the human experience. The Vaishnavas follow the path of devotion to God. The yogis and jnanis follow the path of self-annihilation into the oneness of the absolute aspect of brahman.

Thats a false picture. Srila Prabhupada did travel around the world, but in the majority of situations the devotees in the temples were not getting personal access or personal instruction from Srila Prabhupada. It's just plain false to say that he was traveling around to tend to the personal needs of individual disciples. That was not the actual facts. Once he established the GBC and temple president structure most devotees had to go through the chain of command and did not get personal access to Srila Prabhupada. why he traveled? There are a number of reasons, but giving direct access to the rank and file devotees of ISKCON was not really going on and I think you are being either ignorant or deceptive when you say he did.

It doesn't say that the preceptor appears before the external senses in a body form. After all this "instructing spiritual master" is all about instructions. We all don't need specific instructions from the acharya directly. Srila Prabhupada gave a formula that anyone could accept and practice and get the benefit. It's the same process for everyone. We don't have to get specific directions because the Yuga Dharma is the same for everybody in this age. the Yuga Dharma doesn't change from person to person. There is ONE Yuga Dharma for everyone in this age. Srila Prabhupada came and broadcast the Yuga Dharma to the western world and appeared before the external senses of people in many forms that are not limited to his physical body. He has his form in his instructions also. His form in his instructions is the most important and usefull form of the instructing spiritual master. The body form can't do much for us really. It's the vani of the acharya that is most important beyond his physical form. the Gita, the Bhagavatam and all the relevant scriptures can educate anyone in the science of Krishna consciousness. Personally proximity to the physical form of the acharya amounts to very little in comparison to understanding his teachings and instructions. We have see enough of these intimate personal associates fall by the wayside while more distant devotees connected by vani have hung in there. so, there is plenty of proof that there is no magic in physical proximity of the guru. Huge fonts are the equivalent of yelling in the face of the other members, so I am not very fond of HUGE FONTS or having someone yelling fanatically in my face.

It depends on who you are asking the question too. Krishna generally refers to Syamasundar, Govinda, Gopal etc. etc. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is Krishna experiencing the ectasies of Sri Radha. Krishna assumed the emotional condition of Radharani and the dyuti or complexion of Radharani. Sometimes it is said that Krishna in the maha-mantra is Sri Caitanya and the Rama is Lord Nitayananda Rama. It depends on the bhava of the devotee what his conception is. There is no difference between Krsna and Krishna. Krsna is transliterative using a form of English script that has been developed by language scholars in the last 50 years and Krishna is translative. In the Sanskrit there is no i in Krishna. But, the r is pronounced like "ri" in Sanskrit. so, techincally the i in Krishna is very soft like half an i.

They say that the drought we have in Florida now is caused by the "la nina", the colder ocean temperature in the South Atlantic. So, I am curious which god we should worship to get some rain: Varuna, Surya, Indra or who? I got a message on my machine from the temple last week that they were having special Samkirtan programs at the temple to try and get some drought relief. So, the way they described it the Samkirtan was something like a rain dance.

There are basic concepts and there are specific directions concerning the matter of how and why to accept a spiritual master. The scriptures give us the basic concepts. Srila Prabhupada gave ISKCON a specific example and specific guidance including specific instructions on how ISKCON was to practice the parampara system. So, the instructions of one spiritual master might be different than the instructions of another spiritual master. What ISKCON should be concerned with is not "tradition" or the example of the disintegrated Gaudiya Matha, but in the specific guidance and example that Srila Prabhupada gave. ISKCON just can't write off the example and the structure that Srila Prabhupada put in place under the premise of "tradition". ISKCON was never a "traditional" Gaudiya institution, so there is no reason to try and make it one after the passing of Srila Prabhupada. ISKCON was a modern invention for the modern world. It is futile to try and ever make ISKCON a "traditional" Gaudiya institution, because it can never be that. It is a western society of Krishna consciousness devotees and doesn't need to fit into any stereotype that goes by name "tradition". ISKCON is a modern sect of an ancient religion. It cannot in the true sense ever be "traditional" and it is foolish to even propose that is can.

As far as the topic of this thread is concerned "is a physically present spiritual master required?", I don't see why anyone should have to ask that question because Srila Prabhupada showed by his example in hundreds of cases that he accepted disciples that didn't have a physical connection to him. So, other "gurus" and other "acharyas" might not agree and might not accept and might not practice that, but Srila Prabhupada did. So, for anyone who accepts Srila Prabhupada as a bona fide authorized representative of Krishna, there should be no question of whether or not one needs to have a physical connection to the spiritual master. Srila Prabhupada showed unquestionably that he did not advocate that one must have a physical connection to the spiritual master. Other "gurus" don't accept that and they preach against that, but Srila Prabhupada practiced the parampara in his own inspired way and if another guru wants to fault that, then that is his own choice and his own risk. The ritvik system didn't completely replace the traditional system for all times and all situations, but in ISKCON Srila Prabhupada authorized the GBC to conduct a ritvik system and he NEVER EVER recalled the gayatri tapes or instructed the GBC that the ritvik system had to stop after his death. Only Srila Prabhupada could establish a ritvik systen in ISKCON and only Srila Prabhupada could stop the ritvik system in ISKCON. It's quite obvious that a GBC is not compatible with the role of a traditional guru and that the ritvik system is the only system that a GBC has any authority over. The ISKCON system worked fine for years. Then, as soon as Srila Prabhupada left, senior men conspired to take over ISKCON and take their position on the Vyasasan of ISKCON. ISKCON has been a mess ever since.

As long as the new devotees being initiated in ISKCON are being told and thinking that they are disciples of these ISKCON gurus, then they are not practicing a ritvik system. There is no such thing as a covert ritvik system. Because these new initiates don't consider themselves as disciples of Srila Prabhupada. They think of themselves as the disciple of some so-called ISCKON guru. What the GBC has created is not a ritvik system, but a third species of guru that is neither traditional nor ritvik. In other words the GBC concocted a form of guru that neither Srila Prabhupada not the tradition acknowledges. If a guru can't be trusted to function on his own without the oversight of a bureaucracy, then he is not really guru anyway. Any true guru owes no allegiance to any bureaucracy such as the GBC. A guru is supposed to be the representative of Krishna. If he is representative of Krishna, then what business does the bureaucracy have in trying to keep him under their thumb with so many rules and regulations? The GBC has usurped the actual authority of Krishna to appoint anyone he chooses to represent him in whatever way he pleases. The GBC guru system is offensive to any and all Vaishnavas that could become self-effulgent acharyas after Srila Prabhupada. It's a man-made bureacracy, but we all know that only Krishna can manufacture religions. The GBC has invented a new religion that any guru must follow in order to get his rubber-stamp and his corperate badge.

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