yasodanandana

after a shower.... you can have a complete spiritual program (like in an iskcon/harekrishna temple) performed by you alone or with others (guruvastakam, harekrishna kirtan, narasimha prayers, tulasi puja, prayer to six goswamis, 16 japa rounds, govindam prayers, guru puja, harekrishna kirtan, listening/giving a srimad bhagavatam class) (.... more details from me or others if required) or you can simply rise in an hour to be able to chant 16 japa rounds of harekrishna mahamantra before starting with your activities (job, study etc,)

even jiva's are krsna's energy.. i do not think that durga is vishnu tattva (a personality of godhead)... but i wait also for other answers

"Skeptic natured people who doubt will never be happy in this world or the other" and I think it's 100% true in my case as I'm very unhappy. " •••this is the world of ignorance, doubts will never abandone us.. so we are all very unhappy. So having the same problems of all the humanity, please have faith in the devotee association.. let us speak together of krishna (in this forum for example) and chant the mahamantra more as you can. These twon activities (chanting and association) will save me, you, us.. etc

thanks... very good

"I think it is more pleasurable to be a devotee of Krishna than it is to be Krishna even though Krishna is the Greatist In All Respects. -the subject is not stupid neither "speculative(in its negative meaning)" the fun is exactly the same.. krsna is the loved, the soul is the lover... both the subject are in their constitutional position.. but we know also that at the higher stages of consciousness, the roles are often changing: damodara who's god, is "dominated" by yasoda with a tiny rope.. that krsna in the rasa dance serves the gopis.. that krsna acts as chaitanya mahaprabhu to understand how radha loves him so krishna, often, leaves the role of"supreme" to his devotees

some thoughts: 1st of all your message and the sad article shows that you have not read from start to end even one book of srila prabhupada the assumption that all practitioners of hinduism are all advaita, and that the sanatana dharma is advaita is of course imaginary. Mainstream? what mainstream? go to the true and authentically religious simple people of villages in india and say that that krsna, vishnu, venkatesvara and even shiva, durga that they love with all their heart, are simply idols manifested from an impersonal, formless, undefinited (but very gratifying for a pseudo intellectual) brahman.... but bring with you some body guards.. go to tirupati and say that they are worshiping merely a shape coming kindly from brahman for the unintelligent people, and say it even at ayodya if you do not fear to be given some kicks in the ass.. hinduism is the only important religion who is calling himself with the name of a nation, christianism is not called "palestinism", islamism ... not "arabism", buddhism .. not "tibetanism". But you insist to be proud to keep your religion in materialistics and political boundaries, with a false name.. india is not india, india is bharata varsa.. even if this name was originally used to define all the world, the saint king bharata was the emperor of the world, not simply the president of "india". i would also to say to you that before srila prabhupada in the west we were believing that the indian religion was merely a mix of tribal, awesome and strange (but funny, from a touristic point of view) beliefs.. and even erotic or pornographic. The average imagine of indian religion was like the indiana jones movies, or the jungle book of kipling or some sort of indian "playboy" magazine (and instruction manual) that some one was relating to the kamasutra... even now, sometimes, india in the west is kamasutra acrobatic sex, and smoking mariuana listening to ravi shankar... and this was the average before prabhupada came in usa but now in 2003 the majority of westerners think that sanatana dharma, or the "indian" religions are a serious thing, not the beliefs of australian abhorigins (even if in a sense they also are serious)... i am italian, practicing gaudya vaishnavism(or "harekrishnism" if you prefere) from 20 years, and i had with great joy to have seen recently a school book used widely in italy by boys from 8 years of age, with the photo of krishna and a nice chapter on "hare krishna mantra" and "hinduism" the other thing is that the beliefs of prabhupada are not iskconian or somewhat new, but also from the famous gaudya vaishnava sampradaya school, traditional, coming from sri chaitanya mahaprabhu (an indian!!) that have exactly the same idea of an "hinduism" as i have explained, and who work somewhat conjointly with iskcon (that is a gaudya math too!!!) making thousands of practising disciples in all india and in the west so the equation "sanatana dharma"="hinduism"="advaita impersonalism".. is not so right who represent well the so called hinduism in the west? sai baba? osho? ananda marga? sri mataji? the new age? so india is famous for the importance given to the elders and to the recognized masters.. so learn to listen attentively to the exact teaching of prabhupada, not a sentimental/superficial/materialistic/politic examine of it, even if you have to change a long time belief learn to recognise, who, even if with different views on some subjects, is bringing and widespreading the culture of your wonderful nation and people (whom i offer my deep respect) all over the world try to understand when a gaudya vaishnava (=hare krishna) says (even if too often and maybe often out of context.. i must say it honestly) "we're not hindu" and let the nice hindunet site to engage them selves in speaking of cheap astrology and matrimonial ads, things they do very well... not spirituality

an uttama adhikari sees everyone as a servant of krsna, he does not make distinctions.. but we are not uttama, we are kanista, madyam or somewhere between these two positions so, you cannot be artificial to stop thinking that krsna consciousness is better than islamism, allah is the same god as krsna, but we love more the "krsna" personality because he's more delineated, complete, various and he shows all the rasas especially the bhakti, love... not only aisvarya (reverence and respect) that is the main aspect of allah, and surely love is superior to all the relationships and contains all other rasas in it and, the main thing is that you are initiated in gaudya vaishnava sampradaya, you have to follow your spiritual master, you gave promises to do some practices, to chant hare krsna without offences, and one offence is to equate hare krsna chanting to other religious methods....... but krsna consciousness (making distictions), is not sectarian, if you recognize a spiritual person, this person is in some way a devotee and you have to respect him, and to be able to take spiritual advices by him... so listen, do not offend and avoid as much as possible to make wars with him think that prabhupada, krishna, radharani are the best, not that you are the best because you are following them regarding the prayers of you and your friend, krishna, as ever, will listen to both, and he will choose the pure part of these prayers rejecting the material, fanatical, conditionated, illusioned percent .. for example: sufi muslim: "please, god, make haridam a real and advanced spiritualist making him leave this strange and wrong hare krishna and accept prophet mohamed"... krishna will take out the fanatical part and he will keep the "... make haridam a real and advanced spiritualist...".. and everyone will make advancement so pray, be tolerant, be a friend, share as much as you can, do not be sectarian, but keep your preference for nitai gauranga and do not expect to be artificially an uttama adhikari /images/graemlins/smile.gif

"With keeping your statements in mind, can we say if a jiva is having a terrible life it is because of the supreme lord? " - no it is a service that god offer to us, this suffering makes more easy for us to listen to "messengers" from the spiritual world offering to us a system (the religion) to go back in a home of eternity(sat) consciousness(cit) ananda (bliss) .. vaikunta if we were happy in this world no one would want to escape these sufferings, and the death of course, do not affect our real self.. only the body (a dress) is affected

"I just meant I don't think he laid it out as something that (christmas) must be offically celebrated in the temples." -right...

"if a soul is reborn, will the soul be reborn in this time, or in the far future or in the far past?" -the soul does not die, so there's not moments when soul take birth or rebirth... when the body dies we take another body, it could happen in a very short time or extremely long. And the length this "bodyless" period depends from our karma. It is extremely painful, being not spiritually realized we have many desires in our mind (eating, mating, communicating, drinking etc.) but we have not the body to satisfy them "Does lord Krishna get bugged if we chant to much?" - No , krsna is extremely satisfied when we chant.. if we chant without offences we see krishna, the associates, goloka vrindavan, prabhupada and so on.. actually we go back in the spiritual world, and krsna is very happy if a soul come back to him after millions of lives of suffering "Does lord krishna encourage material science? evne trough it might not be perfect knowledge, it be still fascisnating to find out how krishna is manifest in this dimsion..." -every activity is performed because krsna gives us the energy ... there's 3 assistants of krsna for this purpose: shiva gives the energy for acting in ignorance, brahma for acting in passion and excitement, vishnu for acting in goodness. Up to you to understand wich scientific study or discovering is done with ignorance, passion or goodness. They are both biological science, but to make penicillin is surely different than to make anthrax. "which dimsion does the jiva live? Which dimision does krishna live?" -both are ATMA.. soul.. existence.. krsna and his parts and parcels live in the spiritual world, that is basically a state of consciousness, not a place with the current meaning that we give to the word "place" "What is the next age after the age of Kalie?" - like the four season after winter comes spring... so after kali yuga we'll have satya yuga

"I don't think Prabhupada told them they must" - no prabhupada did'nt but reading some biographies, like the hauri sauri diary, it seems that in prabhupada's early times there was New Year's feasts for example.. (of course prabhupada's disciples will give more clarifications) but i think there's no problem... if there's kirtan and prasadam everything turns good, one can celebrate everything... especially if religious "What's with x-mas?" -sorry, i am not english/american, i was thinking that this X is read Christ... i accept the correction,, dandavats

"yasodanandana- "i can call myself an aspiring vaishnava, not a vaishnava, and one of the realizations that keeps me in this idea is the strict logic that god has to be a person" This seems more honest. You are a vaishnava because of logic, not realization. Thank you for sharing." -i am very happy that there's a kind of sharing between us, and that's what we are looking for!! two possible answers: 1)to have acquired a vaishnava logic is surely a realization 2)i can say to you that sometimes i have felt a little bit of a "kind of joy" in bhajans, in japa, bathing in radhakunda near the chaitanya mahaprabhu's bhajan kutir, fanning sri banke bihari in vrindaban and a tremendous sorrow watching the prabhupada's disappearance movie.... but i am a conditioned soul, how can i say if these "realizations" are real or merely a product of an illusion? so my main (not the only one) reason to practice is surely intellectual "I see some logic there, but if you tell me of your realizations, it might make me feel more inclinded to "walk with you", or more willing to accept that Krsna is real." -the problem is that REAL-izing Krsna is the higher stage.. you (and me) have to be convinced to practise, by some basic things.. intellectual (philosophy) and somewhat "sentimental".. like the behaviour, charachter, kindness, charisma, culture (=vaishnava association) of the practitioneers and of a spiritual master..... then, practising very strictly, me and you, we will see after little or much time.. krsna .. or, sadly, if it is all a fake but there's no way to understand the feeling of an expert guitarist playing guitar, if we do not study and play for years...... it's possible that when we will be at that stage we will think: "mmmmh.. playing guitar is not such a beautiful thing.."

" it's very disappointing to see the continuous split/changes of his teachings" -you have (me too) to study the complete picture and practice to understand the personality of a vaishnava (imho.. these two above positions of srila prabhupada's siddhanta are very coherent and compatible) " It's been obvious that more and more Krishna followers through Sri Prabhupada ( I mean they understand more Krishna through Prabhupada) became more bodily conscious than spiritually aspiring" -his divine grace does not teach to be bodily conscious (read any complete book and it will be easily clear), so who becames like that is obviously not following correctly.... on the other hands we have to examine all the tradition, prabhupada is considered, by every gaudya math autority , absolutely in line with chaitanya mahaprabhu and his followers.. and in all these centuries we have seen that who follows seriously this path becomes a perfectly realized soul so some fanatic neophytes that maybe you have met or spoken with, do not demonstrate the effect of a life of serious following of an acharya vaishnava like srila prabhupada

we do not know exactly the year when jesus is born, and honestly,in my opinion, we respect and worship jesus only because the vaishnava acharyas, srila prabhupada included, have said that he really exist, he's an avatara and an enlightened spiritual master... otherwise the "legend" surely would prevail so the year is not sure and the date 25december is surely wrong, because He was born while there was a census by the roman occupants, and they made things like that in march or april the reason of this date is because the christians wanted to merge in jesus other previous pagan legends and popular pagan deities (like mitra??) we devotees celebrate anything (licit!!!) if we can have sankirtan and prasadam distribution.. and in some temples i have seen special "sunday-like" feasts with guests (bhajan, class, kirtan, prasadam) in x-mas and it is surely nice

no real spiritualist will say "yes, i have realizations".. we expect from humility from a devotee... one answer is that it is more logical if you do demonstrate to the vaishnavas that god is impersonal there's a logic, and the logic is that one cannot give to others things that he does not have.. so how god can be impersonal (= NOT personal) and simultaneously create persons? exactly like i'd say to you "Frank has ten dollars in the pocket and he gives 5 dollars to me" no problem but if i say "Frank has nothing , he has given to me 5 dollars" the first thing is that you ask "how is that possible?" so we are persons our existence does not depends from us surely we are created by some one different from us we have personality the creator must have the personality that he is giving to us personal contains not-personal.. not the opposite the personal aspect of god, is the origin of the impersonal aspect of god spiritual realizations come often as understanding basic and easy things with our intelligence, not as miracles and mystics vision, and if one has mystic visions he does not tell it to you or me.. because one cannot communicate them to people at an inferior levels of spiritual understanding the only way is not to show god, but to teach to me and you how is it possible to see god... (chanting hare krishna) i can call myself an aspiring vaishnava, not a vaishnava, and one of the realizations that keeps me in this idea is the strict logic that god has to be a person of course mine is "an answer" not "all answer".. we can say also, as prabhupada says in the prefaction of Bhagavad Gita.."if you want to study bhagavad gita, accept , at least as an hypothesis, that krsna is the supreme personality of godhead"... exactly like if you study 2D geometry you have to accept that trough two point pass only a straight line not 2 or 593 so, realizations cannot be really shared if we do not share the consciousness, if you want to know my realizations, you have to walk with me at least for some time

" These Avataras do not possess corporal bodies. When GOD(Lord Visnu) came to Earth as Lord Krishna, HE did not loose anything. HE was STILL SAT-CHIT-ANANDA. " yes .. krsna do not loose anyting... even THE BODY god has body, otherwise how can you have a body? the difference, as you have rightly said, is that also his body is saccitananda the famous song Damodarastakam recites: "Namam isvaram saccitananda rupam..", i offer my obeisances to the supreme, conscious, eternal, blissful form of Damodara (krsna)

"There is no need of reading other books, but I agree with you that if one reads prabhupada's books one will also understand the works of other Vaishnavas of the past." being the prabhupada books unavoidable, especially for people who is not born in a vaishnava environment, i think that it is somewhat easy to understand when one reads other books for posing as a great scholar, to gratify his senses, or to badly speculate about our great acharya... or when he does it with genuine interest for his spiritual advancement. So "read only prabhupada", "read only bhagavad gita", "read also narayana maharaja", "buy kali shantarana upanishad or rig veda" are advices to be given carefully on personal basis...... one could be fit only to chant hare krishna and wash the pots.. bas (when i lived in the iskcon temple, in the 80s, the general advice was to not read back to godhead... "it's for general public, not too advanced") _________________ "However, when one gets the message it is time to stop dwelling in thoughts and start fighting in the battlefield" -to write, read and study is also a battlefield.. there's an intellectual battlefield, see this forum and see how it is easy to be defeated by people, especially hinduists, who easily put in discussion, with ample citing of the scriptures, things that we surely experience as real everyday of our life but often we cannot sustain if not with the religious faith, not vedic culture and i'd be very happy to see, for example, other books on philosophy from iskcon devotees.. and also, from them, other commentaries and translations, also on books already translated and commented by prabhupada.. especially in the case when they feel that there's the need to edit them.. and there's nothing strange.... when one gives a class having read the verse and the comment of prabhupada, he's "recommenting" and "actualizing" it applying the prabhupada's siddhanta to our time, place and circumstance... so let them write(if they are qualified) and make new nice vaishnava books with their commentaries another thought?... for me a krishna conscious man is a member of krishna conscious international society (iskcon)... and , in a sense, any real vaishnava book is a prabhupada's book

http://www.vina.cc/stories/GENERAL/2003/1/bvp_vyasapuja.html http://www.audarya-fellowship.com/showflat/cat/marketplace/38927/0/collapsed/5/o/1 go in this site http://www.iskcon.it/prabhupadadesh/ scroll the page .. in the bottom you'll find SETTEMBRE(september) click on it scroll and find 17 settembre 2003 click on "S.S. Puri Maharaja racconta le sue memorie di Srila Prabhupada, windows media player ( 42.94MB, 65min ) qui: ( Audio-video ) " you will find something also in the byography of Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada "Lilamrita".. there's a famous exchange between guru maharaja and prabhupada close to his glorious disappearance in this way you will have a little idea bhakti vallabha tirtha maharaja and gaura govinda maharaja are very easy to find in the web.. please use a research engine . . . of course i am not speaking of my guru to say that only him is pure, only his organization is good, only his follower are devotees and so on.. i eagerly wait for other people enlighting me, speaking about other vaishnavas that (for my big disgrace) i do not know

M_Mehdi: "<<< yasodanandana writes- the attibutes reveal the presence of a personality (only a person can be Allah,, the greatest, the highest.. not a void or a mere concept), and personality is expressed through a form, a shape, beauty, voice, mouth, gesture, body, behaviour, charme etc...>>> the word you use 'person' to me reffers to humanity. the dictionary's first definition is "A living human. " .. if so.. i'd have to disagree with you respectfully... we are created by God... we need God... God does not need us... " __________ yes... the human concept of personality does not fit at all for god and his expansion.... but if we have personality in this world, there could be personality also in the spiritual world and god has to be a person if he wants to create (or better.. emanate) human persons person, in technical religious terms (let the dictionary to other subjects) = form, attributes, activities, name, companions the next step is that we give limited meanings to these terms if we speak of humans, plants, animals etc.... but we give eternal(sat), completely conscious(cit), absolutely joyful(ananda) flavor if we are speaking of god.. in islamism and christianism is not so difficult to see that god has (divine.. not human) personality.. you are not a buddhist!! "we are created by God... we need God... God does not need us.." yes.. it is right... god has personality, otherwise how can he create personalities? and he obviously does not need us because he's not at all inferior to us... neither in the personality!! hari(the name of god)bolo(chant!!)

i know for sure one pure devotee.. friend and associate of Srila Prabhupada.. he's my guru maharaja Srila Bhakti Vaibhava Puri Goswami.. and i know other pure devotees at the higher stage also because my Guru Maharaja says that they are pure... also: I have seen and listened to Srila Bhakti Vallabha Tirtha Maharaja and Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja.. i had also the great fortune to be friend to some western devotees disappeared in Sri Vrindavan Dham . . i have nothing in common with these persons, if not the dhoti, kurta and tilaka.. a very sad thread...

one who says to be god, having said the biggest lie, can do any bad thing... one who falls in the hands of a pederast, a molester, has mental and phisical damages that end, after years of suffering, doctors, psychologists, at the moment of the death but..... being the disciple of one who says that he's god and everyone is god, is a problem that maybe one has to resolve in millions of lifes!!!

they are not appointing or electing.. there's someone who choose a devotee as spiritual master, he asks the opinion of GBC assembly, they say "for us he/she is good, he can come in our temples, sleep and eat, giving classes and initiations"... then one who's already a master for someone, is recognized also by GBC assembly as an official IskCon guru the system has nothing wrong, it is a more "official" version of "sadhus"(the spiritual consciousness comes from guru, shastra, sadhus) who give an advice, a suggestion, to one who's searching for a spiritual master imho the system is good and traditional, if one has doubts, these have to be resolved examining if iskcon gbc members are, one by one, real sadhus or not, the system is ..... a "system", the good and bad does not lie in it and speaking of the mechanism, the procedure, and not of the people who are in it, is a total waste of time... in my opinion of course

om shanti.. peace!! "in Islam there is a saying that Allah (God) has many attribuits... would one call these attribuits forms? " the attibutes reveal the presence of a personality (only a person can be Allah,, the greatest, the highest.. not a void or a mere concept), and personality is expressed through a form, a shape, beauty, voice, mouth, gesture, body, behaviour, charme etc... "plus... the quesion still stands... what is the form of love?" every personality of god described in the vedas (and in other bona fide scriptures) express love for the creatures... vishnu, narasimha, vamana, matsya etc... but krsna, the personality of godhead who is the source of all the others aspects of god, is, for his choice, also beyond the duty to show himself as almighty, omnipotent and fearful.. so he espress mostly bhakti.. pure love.. krsna means "the all attractive" so krsna is the supreme loved and with his energy "hare" he gives to everyone the power to love him hare is the mercy given to us to love god, krsna with all these names ( vishnu, narasimha, vamana, matsya etc) i mean various manifestations of the personality of god, krishna, not that there's polytheism i do not understand the "circle, square" stuff all the forms i am speaking are spiritual, not material

we are spirit souls, we do not have connection with the matter.. so the body is given by god to interact with it when we want to fall in the world of maya so the body is not ours.. if we destroy it we have to pay the karma

I)guru (living and present... diksa and siksa.. better if the direct dialogue is possible) II)shastra(vedas, itihasas, puranas etc. and books of the acharyas) III)sadhus (the tradition, the masters of the parampara', autoritative devotees and gurus) this is, imho, the source of knowledge and what gives, if one is a serious follower, legitimation to speak of course there's freedom to speak for everyone, because more or less, maya is the companion of everyone, and the above following has to be not only formal... but this is the standard