jeffster

"American and Israeli 'war on terrorism' just breeds more terrorism because it is based on hate and injustice." It is quite easy to make lofty moral pronouncements when the rockets fired from Gaza are not falling on your house. Then Hamas, which has publicly sworn as its goal the destruction of Israel, acts surprised when the Israelis finally get fed up and retaliate, as any country would finally do in self-defense. Try saying this when the terrorists are at your door to pick you up for trial and execution for practicing an infidel religion. In the meantime, please chant extra rounds, because it looks like our lives will be cut short because apparently no one on this forum is willing to stand up to terrorism. jeffster/AMd

"In contrast, the Koran seems to have a zero tolerance stance against anything it deems Adharmic." Doesn't it seem quite obvious by now that they are intolerant ? They call theirs the straight path, whereas we have learned that to find Krishna we must be flexible, as the path takes many twists and turns, and Krishna is not so easily or cheaply purchased. I would add that the destination must also be different. The name "Allah" is from the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, "Aleph." Aleph is to the Hebrews what the Om is to the Hindus. If you meditate on the letter Aleph, you may see that Brahman is there behind it. But that is the extent to which both Islam and the Hebrew religion take their seekers, and 99.999% of them don't even know about Aleph as a meditation symbol. jeffster/AMd

Pakistan terrorist to Pakistan terrorist: They're not going to do anything !! Send the next 10 boats in, this time to Gujarat !! Allahu akbar !! Terrorism can be prevented, or at least stopped, through war. jeffster/AMd

"It's probably best to grant one and all the freedom to speak whatever one and all wants to speak." Apparently the Dutch government doesn't see it that way, as they are attempting to censure Mr. Wilders. They are already afraid of their Islamic minority and are kow-towing to them to keep a (temporary) peace. Your Dutch PM is a coward for not standing up for Mr. Wilders' right to make his movie. Amlesh, should you just let them invade India in their little boats and kill the innocents ? India will become a laughing stock. 10 men in little boats invade India and have their way with the populace. No one can stop these supermen in little boats !! Does no one on this panel see the need for action ? Krishna urged Arjuna to action !! Where are the kshatriyas ? Alas, there are none left. And this isn't real either; its just a polite discussion somewhere in cyberspace. jeffster/AMd

I've already stated that the issue is ideological, not one of economics or health care. You have not refuted my statement. The legal case against Mr. Geert Wilders is not a joke; it is a real case. In fact it demonstrates that there is an ideological battle going on here. If there were not an ideological battle, there would not be a case against Mr. Wilders. Does Mr. Wilders have freedom of speech, or do only Islamic radicals have freedom of speech ? jeffster/AMd

Primate, you're sitting comfortably in front of your computer in a relatively safe country with no terrorism going on, at least not currently, feeling no particular threat... Maybe you're even chanting, feeling peaceful and enlivened. The idealogical war continues, however. Read this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7842344.stm Incidentally, you mention preventing terrorism. How do you propose to do that ? jeffster/AMd

Primate, If you don't control, or at least resist terrorists, they will control you. jeffster/AMd

Narasingh, that movie was very disturbing. Every Vaishnava should see it. Then, "armed with knowledge, stand and fight." If you read the Koran verses quoted in the movie you can see that there is no such thing as moderate Islam. It is a radical "religion" through and through, and has as its only purpose world domination, per Muslim's own statements and the Koran verses shown in the movie. That will answer your question ""When will the "true muslims" ... take control over their religion?"" True muslims are all hoping that their "religion" will take over the world, that is why they don't resist the fundamentalists. The entire religion is only a narrow, fundamentalist approach to religion. That should be seen very clearly, without doubt. Vaishnavas should be alarmed at this, because it could affect us directly by limiting our right to freedom of religion in countries in which Islam ascends to power. Therefore, we must resist this onslaught on all fronts. Hare Krishna. jeffster/AMd

Sorry, learning to use the "quote" function. See my post # 32, below. jeffster/AMd

When the slaughter of innocents by Muslim separatists started a few years ago in the southernmost 3 provinces of Thailand, the Queen of Thailand went to visit, and I believe she offered some kind of economic stimulus to the region. The slaughter has continued unabated to this day because it is NOT an economic issue, it really is an idealogical issue. Also, after thinking about Narasinghs post # 21, I gave it some more thought. When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, we let them keep their religion. But should they ever succeed in conquering us, do you think they would let us keep our religion ? Don't count on it. We would simply be given a choice, die or submit and convert. So please understand that this is very much an idealogical issue. I honestly think that many of the posters here are a bit naive in perceiving the actual threat of Islamic fundamentalism. Ask yourself this: In every country in which Islam is now the predominating religion, is there freedom to practice other religions ? To a small degree, in some countries, yes. But, in Malaysia alone, over 10,000 Buddhist and Hindu temples have been destroyed in recent years. The fundamentalists are now attempting to gain nuclear weapons and they have every intention of using them. What is even worse is that the so-called moderate Muslims do nothing to stop the fundamentalists, which leads to the next question - Is there even such a thing as moderate Islam ? jeffster/AMd

But is the Dalai Lama considered an infallible authority ? What do some of the Vaishnava gurus have to say about terrorism ? Also, Narasingh, the second paragraph of your post # 21 is an astute observation. That is why I suggested that if sanatana-dharma could be established, the conflicts based on imperfect idealogies could end. jeffster/AMd

Most governments are certainly misguided, but not all governments are openly evil. But the premise of Islamic fundamentalists is openly evil because they don't care how much pain and suffering they inflict to prove their point. And they don't care how long it takes, also. They are in it for the long haul. The powers-that-be would just like to end it so they can go back to their economic advancement to fund unrestricted sense gratification. So there is a lesson here, and that lesson is that sense gratification brings with it troubles, and therefore must be given up. In the greater scheme of things, both sides are getting this harsh lesson ultimately for their spiritual advancement. As far as the witch-hunt goes, it is the fundamentalists who want to burn the infidels at the stake. Infidels would certainly include those who chant Hare Krishna. You do chant Hare Krishna, don't you ? Then it should be a no-brainer as to which side is (relatively) more in the right, or at least less at the evil end of the spectrum. Let us establish sanatana-dharma as the world standard, and encourage all to rise to that standard, so that the mundane and sectarian conflicts can end. jeffster/AMd

AM, good point. As Bhaktivinode Thakur says - "there are no bad thoughts." Steppenwolf, also, although mostly bestial, brought up some good points about immortality. It was a step on the journey. I was only suggesting that now we can move forward into more subtle forms of music. jeffster/AMd

AM, you would probably say that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. I agree that both the "ruler" and the "ruled" are corrupted. As I have stated, all parties to this are in ignorance, and no real good can come from ignorance. Yet there are still some distinctions. There is evil, and there is EVIL. Can you distinguish between them ? jeffster/AMd

Yes, Amlesh, you hit the nail on the head when you suggest that the root of the problem is our own ignorance. Prabhupad put it nicely in Krishna Book, in Prayers to the Personified Vedas - "Because of ignorance, these living entities are misidentifying themselves in different species of life, and especially when they are elevated to the human form of life, they identify with a particular class of men, or a particular nation or race or so-called religion, forgetting their real identity as eternal servants of Your Lordship." Yes, all parties to this conflict are corrupted. No one serves dharma. There are only gradations of demonism, shades of black and gray, no white knights. From my own prior post it is clear that America has done horrible things: the firebombing of Tokyo in WW2, which killed 150,000 in one night, the bombing of Dresden, and the ghastly annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - none of this was justifiable. The USA could have blockaded the Japanese archipilego while targetting military installations, but Truman wanted a quick way out to save the countless lives of U.S. soldiers that would have been lost had we been forced to invade Japan. If any single country should be prevented from having nuclear weapons, it should be the USA. However, in WW2, the US was not the aggressor, but was responding to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Blitzkrieg of London. So the reason for that war was not trivial, it was self-defense, which was justifiable. Now the aggressors are fanatical fundamentalists hiding behind the skirts and burkhas of civilians. Truthfully, there is no easy way to deal with this. It is truly a Kali-yuga conflict. Yet we can readily see that the fundamentalists are more evil than those they hate. Even some of their positions I can understand and appreciate; for example, they are aghast at the open sexual promiscuity demonstrated in the western lands. But if they truly have the moral high ground as they claim, why don't they preach by example with compassion and tolerance ? That they do not do. They only want to kill those with whom they disagree. And it is for this reason that they must be opposed. jeffster/AMD

Yes, Amlesh, you are right. The codes of war are nearly lost. All that is left is the Geneva convention of the late 40s, the current code of conduct of war. For the most part, modern warfare is mostly mechanized, impersonal slaughter due to the machine age ushered in by ugra-karma, industrialization, which began in the 1820s or 1830s with the advent of steam-driven locomotives. Now wars are fought at night as well as in the daylight hours. In attempts to demoralize the enemy, whole cities filled with civilians are bombed rather than purely military targets. Atomic warfare, wrought by America, has already happened and the reaction will be on the head of America. Terrorists hide among civilians and complain that their enemies are targetting civilians when the civilians get killed. Then they expect the world to see them as innocent victims. When will people wake up to the incessant duplicity of terrorists ? jeffster/AMd

Thanks Jashmin, This is the west, we prefer maya. Try www.vollenweider.net. jeffster/AMd

Are you having a beer right now ? I'd have to pretend I was 40 years younger and toss back a brew to listen to that. I was a hard rocker back then - Steppenwolf. Thank God those days are gone, except, heh heh, when Born to Be Wild comes on the radio... "Like a true nature's child, We were born to be wild, Wanna fly so high, I never wanna die." Try www.davidarkenstone.com. Regards, jeffster/AMd

Also, if you are agitated for sex, it is not necessarily a bad thing to get married. Krishna says in Gita that He is sex life that is not contrary to religious principles. Many of Lord Chaitanya's highest apostles were householders jeffster/AMd

My only point about music is that we can continue to pollute our minds listening to the same old hackneyed pop crap that we grew up with, or we can attempt to rise up the modes a bit by listening to something more subtle. New Age music is not directly spiritual, so some would condemn it and insist that we only hear japa and kirtan tapes, and that is likely good advice, but for those of us who don't always listen to japa and kirtan tapes, New Age music is a step up from pop music, definitely more sattvic than pop, which is almost wholly rajasic and tamasic. jeffster/AMd

Antivirus, you seem to be suggesting that the terrorists are just poor, mistreated individuals. You also seem to be suggesting appeasement as a manner of dealing with the issue. Appeasement was tried by Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in dealing with Hitler. We know the result. Appeasement was also offered to the weasel, Yasser Arafat, in 1992 or 1993 at the Camp David meetings. Nothing could satisfy Yasser Arafat. And frankly, nothing can satisfy these people because they are demons. My definition of a demon is that a demon, in order to further their own aims, do not care how much pain and suffering they inflict on others. This definition fits Islamic extremists, who constitute 97 % of terrorists, perfectly. By their very nature, that of demons, terrorists cannot be appeased. They want nothing less than total world control through the establishment of a world-wide Islamic caliphate. Do you think that you would be able to practice a sanatana-dharma religion under such rule ? Look what happened in Afghanistan. Centuries ago, many Hindu families lived there. They were all killed by these demons. They were chased down to the very last person and exterminated. They have a mountain range there called the "Hindu Kush." Have you heard of it ? Sounds romantic, doesn't it ? But "Kush" in their language is from "kushtar," meaning to kill. It is the place where the Hindus were killed. Then it is no wonder, is it, that Afghanistan was bombed to smithereens by the Americans in 2001. This was a reaction to their mass killing of brahmana families. Countries have karma just as individuals do. I agree with Sephiroth that we should take up martial arts. We must also stop sense gratification and build our punya so that we can withstand the onslaught of these demons. We should also stock rice, beans and water to last at least 6-8 weeks. And don't forget to offer it and share with others who may need it. Furthermore, these demons can be killed on the spot without incurring sin. If you see a demon in your city killing innocent civilians, please attempt to kill him immediately. It is beneficial to do so because it will prevent the deaths of innocents. It is also for the benefit of the souls of the demons to be sent to the netherworlds or into the bodies of animals for the rectification of their character, since by their activities they are no better than a pack of rabid wolves. They are so vile that they will even kill others of their own religion over even a slight ontological difference. They are uncompassionate, unkind, untruthful, vicious; frankly their characteristics are the opposite of those 26 characteristics of a Vaishnava devotee. And if we don't stand firm, eventually they will overrun the world, establish their narrow standard, and then we will truly be hiding in the hills to be able to chant Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. jeffster/AMd

Nitya siddha + maya = nitya baddha. Nitya baddha + purification = nitya siddha. Just my U.S. $.02. jeffster/AMd

Everyone has the right, actually the duty, to defend themselves and others from the onslaught of terrorists, who are simply modern-day Kali yuga demons. They are not going to go away, so better prepare now for the coming battles. Grow some of your own food, learn to handle a firearm, etc. jeffster/AMd

Cannot delete the post, never mind. jeffster

...And so the soldier summons up his courage and marches on. He may even lose a few skirmishes, or perhaps even a battle or two and is forced temporarily to retreat, but because he has confidence in his general, he soldiers on, knowing that the war will eventually be won... Yes, Puri Maharaj is the real deal, I got a chance to hear from him on USA tour a few years ago. jeffster/AMd