Guruvani

For some reason it just got to the point for me where I didn't enjoy being stoned anymore. I hated it actually, but I kept doing it out of habit. Eventually, I just got tired of being stoned and stopped. It just got to be so depressing and miserable that I couldn't take it anymore. I had to quit. I wasn't pleasurable anymore. I was taking some good vitamins at that time which is what I attribute to the fact that the weed starting seeming like poison instead of sweet herb. Smoking weed is a burden. I eventually just got very tired and exhuasted with being stoned. It was miserable and a prison I wanted out of.

Murali, I found some good vitamins on a regular basis helps to curb the addiction. After you take good vitamins the poison just makes you feel bad not good or high. At least, for me it helped. Toxins are only pleasurable when our body is toxic. When your body is flushed of toxins by a powerful vitamin influx the WEED starts feeling like poison instead of nectar. When the stuff starts making you sick instead of HIGH, then you feel like avoiding it. A good cleansing and a vitamin regimen might help your body detect the WEED as a poison and NOT a sweet herb.

The dog is named "Tiger". Are we sure that it is a dog and not a tiger? Back in the old ISKCON days somebody told me that there was no dog species in the spiritual world. But, I just read an article on sampradayasun.com where it says that Krishna has two pet dogs. Transcendental Associates in Santa-rasa, Part 2 BY: HAREKRSNA.COM So, that was news to me. But, I think it is really sweet if it is true. I think the idea of having dogs in Vraja is really sweet.

That message about the flute strikes me very profoundly. When I first joined the temple in L.A. I got very sick within a few days of living in the ashram. I have never felt so close to death. I was running a very high fever and I could not even get up out of my sleeping bag. I thought I might die there in the brahmachary ashram. During that period I was sleeping one night and while I was sleeping I heard the most wonderful and marvelous flute music. The flute music came to me it seemed like the whole night while I slept. There was never a refrain or a repeat musical verse. It was an endless flow of ever new notes flowing without repetition or pattern. Then, as I lay there on the verge of death, Danavir Maharaja returned from the Mayapura festival after having a personal meeting with Srila Prabhupada. As I lay their so weak I could not even get up, Danavir prabhu gave me a few drops of Ganga water that he had brought back in a bottle. The next morning when I woke up I was over my illness and was feeling much better. But, I can never forget the flute music I heard during the night I almost died from high fever. I didn't realize till years later that the flute music was from the flute of Lord Krishna who was just a few yards away in the temple room.

Musta been flashbacks from THC withdrawal?

They must have some good weed in New York? (just joking)

But preachers, reverends, pastors and bishops are not the same as "guru" in the Gaudiya culture. Gurus are "as good as God". Church leaders in Christian sects are just seen as teachers NOT "as good as God" as the Vaishnava system of gurus. There can never be any good comparison between a Vaishnava sect and a Christian sect because leaders in the Christian sect are never "as good as Christ" as we find in the Vaishnava guru system where the guru becomes a transparent via-media of God.

Obviously, you are not that familiar with the Gaudiya siddhanta. Many mantras of the Gaudiyas start with OM. Om namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. OM is found many times throughout the Gaudiya shastra and pranam mantras.

But, in those sects there was only ONE spiritual master - Christ. So, in ISKCON with it's multitude of gurus, what hope is there for solidarity? (You Polish know about Solidarity) (i.e. Lec Walesa)

Could that be because they never created a sub-culture ashram community unto itself that created the opportunity for corruption and abuse by the leadership? ISKCON was a sub-culture. Most devotees lived within the organizational ashram. This created the opportunity for disruption as internal corruption spoiled the atmosphere.

Are there any good examples of longstanding successful spiritual organizations and if so what is their organizational structure like? Any organizations that have faired well over the long-haul after the passing of the founder-leader? Anything we can learn from them if so? (I didn't know that Yogananda ever had a really dynamic grass-roots movement like ISKCON was - used to be)

Does Krishna have a pet dog in Vraja?

In order for the KC movement to be taken seriously, there will need to be a break from ISKCON and a new start with a new oganization that has learned from the mistakes and misconceptions of ISKCON. Myself, I have lost faith in the GBC concept. I guess it was always meant to be the logical alternative to what becomes of a large spiritual organization after the acharya leaves, but nonetheless the GBC system has shown to have many defects that can never take the place of the acharya. Personally, I think that Srila Prabhupada should have made it clear that the GBC was ONLY a managing authority and NOT a spiritual authority and that any future acharyas would have to branch-off from ISKCON and become a seperate organization. I think if Srila Prabhupada would have banned any other guru than himself in ISKCON and kept the GBC as a managing authority that at least ISKCON could have maintained some stability instead of going through the melt-down that occured after his departure. There really is no viable alternative to the leadership of a single acharya in an organization. Once you get more than ONE leader the whole thing breaks down. I am one of the few who actually believe that Srila Prabhupada actually wanted to break-up ISKCON after his passing and so put in place a guaranteed formula for disaster which included the input of Narayana Maharaja. Like the Yadava army after the passing of Lord Krishna, ISKCON had to be dismantled or at least reduced down to a whimpering vestige after the passing of Srila Prabhupada. Otherwise, Tamal would have been King of the world by now!

Could be. But, hopefully the great spiritual movement of Mahaprabhu is much bigger than ISKCON and it's petty bureaucracy. I am sure it is. The great spiritual movement of Mahaprabhu extends well beyond the range and limitations of ISKCON. Mahaprabhu is not so dull that he would invest his whole movement in a petty corperate bureaucracy like ISKCON. I am sure he has some ACE in the hole and probably a multitude of options for taking forth his great spiritual movement. I don't think the movement can make much headway anymore as long as devotees depend too much on ISKCON and it's defunct bureaucracy. The KC movement has to move ahead and let ISKCON become the proprietor of a few temples while the spiritual current flows unobstructed by the idiotic bureaucracy of ego maniacs we know as the GBC.

ISKCON has completely discredited itself for ever being any sort of leading world organization. Srila Prabhupada's dreams of the great ISKCON society have been shattered by the ambitions of small minds with personal ambitions. ISKCON is finished. The KC movement will need to re-incarnate in another form now because ISKCON is polluted.

Well, as Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita "kalo smi" (I am Time) So, even if there is force of time, it is Krishna forcing himself and not anything else! Krishna is the controller of time. So, time serves the will of Krishna and there is no question of time forcing Krishna to do anything. Time works according to his sweet arrangement.

Here is an interesting verse from SB that describes that there are apparently even seasons in Vaikuntha.

But, even if we say that Krishna's lilas are all happening simultaneously and eternally, within each pastime there is a sequence of one moment passing to the next right? Doesn't Krishna bring the cows in at a certain point in the lila?

Nope. You are wrong on all counts. Totally wrong. You don't have any shastra praman to support your theory and as such it is simply produced out of your mental speculation. Your opinion has no authority without shastra praman to support your claim. It is just the grumblings of a finite mind.

hmmmmm....... I would say off the top of my head is that time is the passing of one moment to the next.

Is there Time in the spiritual world or only here in the material world?

Mortals can never know the mind of the Supreme Lord. There are theories and thoughts, but nobody can really understand why the Lord does what he does. Lord Rama himself said that he stalked Vali like a deer. Why? Maybe he treated Vali like an animal because Vali enjoyed the wife of his younger brother? Maybe he didn't see Vali as worthy of treatment as a royal Ksatriya in a face to face battle? For some reason Lord Rama did not afford Vali the dignity of a face-to-face battle under the ksatriya code. It must have had something to do with the behaviour and the mindset of Vali that he was not afforded such dignity.

So, here we have shown that Krishna is the original and transcendental surfer. Even Krishna likes to catch a good wave and shoot the pipeline!

Here is another very interesting thing I discovered in Srimad Bhagavatam. Lord Anantadeva is actually the SURFBOARD with which Lord Garbhodakashayi Vishnu enjoys surfing on the great waters of devastation. I have taken a little poetic license here, but to me it appears that Lord Vishnu is actually surfing the the Garbha ocean on the surfboard of Lord Ananta. So here, Srila Prabhupada says that Lord Vishnu is enjoying himself on the violent waves of the garbha ocean on what I refer to as "the surfboard of Lord Anantadeva":D:D:D

I also discovered in the Bhagavatam that Lord Ananta, whose many thousands of hoods hold up the planets in the universe also has Sun-like gems on his hoods. These gems are said to be even brighter than the Sun. Modern astronomers say that they have discoved other suns in the universe that are actually thousands of times more powerful than our Sun. This corresponds to the jewels on the heads of Anantadeva which are actually brighter than our Sun. These hoods of Ananta, though not visible to our eyes, uphold all the planets in the universe. Throughout the universe the jewels on the heads of Ananta appear like different suns, some of which are thousands or millions of times brighter than our Sun. As such, I have solved the mystery of why there appear to be many Suns in the universe. There actually are thousands of "suns" but other than the Sun of our solar system, these other suns are jewels on the head of the unilimted and mysterious Lord Ananantadeva. As such they are different than our Sun and not really classified as a "Sun" in Vedic astronomy which has only one Sun in the universe. Other than the Sun planet though, there are many different luminaries such as the planets of the fire gods and the mystical jewels on the heads of the unlimited Lord Anantadeva who sustains the planetary systems of the universe. I have been setting on this tidbit of information looking for the proper topic to post it. This topic appears to be a likely subject to discuss the glories of Lord Anantadeva - The God of the Nagas.