yasodanandana

i completely agree, it is a great disgrace ... but if you are doing a job that is not fit for you, for example you are a musician but you are strict to work as a sweeper, or you are a doctor only because your father was a famous doctor with a big studio.... what the devotees organization has to do with it ? who from the temple and how can he remedy to mismatches?

as long as the majority of devotees do not see a need to work on this varna issue certainly nothing will change. x I simply do not see what is there to work on... i have already a job, a place in the society, one day i meet devotees, start to chant hare krishna, then i take shelter in the guru, then i go on chanting hare krishna without changing my life... varna is natural, everyone is born in a varna without making anything, our duty is to add the "ashrama" practising spiritual consciousness the talk about offering your activities to Krishna has been around for decades. x I do not think so... for years we did believe that our natural varna's activities had to be forgotten and we had to go to the temple and turn ourselves in brahmins I think the main thing we need now is open declaration by all devotees as to what their varna is, and subsequent action according to the principles of that varna. x. the varna is very easy to discover, if i know that you earn your life as a taxi driver i know also that you belong to the taxi driver's varna and you offer this activity to krsna to me, this is all very, very relevant - both inside and outside the temples. in my "outside" life I'm a manager of a 30+ employee commercial laboratory. I use this knowledge every day. x. so being you a devotee you offer your belonging to the manager's varna to krsna, and your employee, if he's a devotee, offer his employee's life to krsna. I do not understand what there's more to do. The temple or the iskcon has not much to do with our private lifes in that matter, they live in temples that they manage, we live in houses that we manage.. we are connected in the purpose of chanting hare krishna, remembering krsna, spreading krsna consciousness. What temple presidents or GBCs have to do with the private life of devotees? or i simply have not understood your point

the effort has to be put on explaining, like Krsna does in the Gita, that surrendering has nothing to do with changing activities and refusing the duties that the karma (that ultimately is krsna) has given to us if i understand that i can, or better, i must find pure devotion being a doctor, a soldier, a musician, a sweeper, a taxi driver and offering myself and my activities to krsna, chanting hare krsna and following a bona fide spiritual master... if i understand this there's not much more to say as very often happens we have simply complicated the things thinking that the standard of devotional life is the temple, the ascetism (exactly as arjuna believes before listening to krsna, and krsna has to speak the gita to explain the simplest way) what do you think?

Post deleted by yasodanandana

i do not think that special efforts are required, simply there's to follow the gita. Devotional service is to dedicate our life, as it is, to sri krsna and not to change our occupation or escape our duties to became devotees everyone has naturally his varna, we take birth with a karma and gunas. So varna is already there, we have simply to turn it in a "daivi" varna offering our activities to krsna, living for krsna ashrama is more easy... who can avoid sex is brahmachary/vanaprasta/sannyasi.. who cannot is grihasta

Only the concilatory approach of advaita like "all worship the same nirguna bhramman by different names" is the solution.Advaia is acceptable to all in world including athiesists. •••advaita is not more conciliatory than the other approaches, it is simply a different approach. A personalist will not agree at all that the supreme he adore in a loving relationship is simply an image created by a formless energy, subjected to be destroyed when the illusion vanishes. So your claim risks to be another form of fanaticism and imposition over other's ideas. The first imposition is on god who, having the right to be respected like all the living beings, will see his personality annihilated by this approach... so this is the conciliation? at the expence of god and his worshippers? i don't think so. And all religions make a fundamental mistake of thinking that religions were carved out by god exclusively for man •••religion is made for all living beings, but the one who can fully benefit of them is without doubt.. the man He is a species who evolved some 10,000 years ago.To think that he is the center of world in such a short span of life history is ridiculous. •••the evolutionist theory is no more the one accepted exclusively by scientist, and all the great religious cultures are creationist. So the appearance of man only 10.000 years ago is not so universally accepted. And this has nothing to do with peace or war, if we think that human race is somewhat privileged our duty is to avoid to be a disturb for any other man and for other living beings who populate the world where the human lives.. and this brings peace we can also say that many god centered religions are, in the real belief of their practitioners, advaita-like. Many christians, even big scholars and theologists, for example, ultimately, seeing that the informations about god's personality in the bible are fragmentary and relatively vague, think that it is all mythlology and that god is only a pervading energy. The fact that they believe that god needs to take human flesh, as jesus christ, to be really aware of the human problems and really present in human life, demonstrates the the personalism of their belief is very vague. Many ancient church's authorities, like st thomas or st augustine had what is easily recognizable a pseudo advaita approach, with the supreme reality as impersonal and consisting in an energy behind all existences so advaita does not guarantee peace, and advaita is not at all a conciliation of all approaches, it is simply another approach who can be accepted by fanatics and who can be under the religions "followed" by fanatics to twist religion and to kill god to find peace is undoubtely a wrong step who believes that we are all god, he has to respect the other living beings because they're god who believes that there's god and all living beings are brothers, sons of the same father, has simply to respect and love them... there's plenty of reasons to be peaceful in any religious approach annihilating the differences does not bring peace, debates and opinion's differences does not generate wars... wars start with silence

I am saying the void or Nothing both exists and does not exist. ..the void has to be exclusive, absolute.. if something interrupt this void the void does not exist if there is something then where did it come from ...simply you are assuming that the origin of everything has to be the void associating the condition of absolute to the void and not to the existence. Simply i do not accept it as a postulate unless you demonstrate it. My opinion is that if the existence is in the relative world, it is also in the absolute.. And that existence can have the characteristic of eternity. It is much more logic. Moksa is freedom from the illusion that we exist. ..it is illogic, because the conditioned state cannot have something more of the liberated state. If now i have the existence, i cannot miss it when i get realization. Again this is based on your undemonstrated assumption that only the void can be transcendental. I am not trying to be atheist, I am attempting to personify the concept of nothing as the absolute ...a-theism means no god... if you negate the existence, you negate also the existence of god Yes we do both have our own views and although you may not believe me ...i do not know you and i have no reason to trust you if you do not express theories that i find logic and rational. Maybe there's a way to explain your theories in a more convincing way, but at the moment i find them very easily confutable, You have assumed that absolute cannot be dynamic and you have argued that the only thing that is not dynamic that you know is the void... but the first assumption is undemonstrated. I do respect your faith. ..i have difficulties to respect yours because you are constantly negating the existence of sri krsna bhagavan without sustaining it with any decent demonstration. I do not want to make a show of a great devotee, but i find it a problem. Religion is not a hobby or some discussion subject, neither, in my opinion, a faith...religion is life, and the personalities we discover practising religion, the masters, the godly personalities and so on are not exactly some symbolic characters that we are happy to see easily wiped out by some new undemonstrated theory Our debate is helping me understand many things better and for that I respect you. ..eternity is dynamic

Yes, matter is eternal in that it never ceases but merely changes form, the tapas and sattva rearrange themselves with the catalyst of rajas. However, this is not what I mean by eternal, what I mean is that nothing stands still, everything is constantly changing. ...you can have your idea, mine is that everything is spiritual, connected to god and that us, being conditioned by maya, we are forced to see it as separated, mortal, material, imperfect and so on. Said this, existence is dynamic and eternity is not static. So Dynamism is not a symptom of matter and to be motionless is not a symptom of spirituality. Maybe the opposite. When something says, ‘I am eternal’, it automatically ceases to be eternal because it is now ‘I am eternal’ different from what was before the utterance. ...our perception can have nothing to do with our real condition... i have eaten spaghetti one hour ago and only now i realize that i have a big tomato stain in the t-shirt. It does not means that my condition of "stained" is changed Arjuna’s word is as good as Krsna’s??? Then why is it that Krsna feels the need to teach Arjuna? ...arjuna is a perfectly realized soul, he's cousin of the supreme personality of godhead sri krsna and he has a very close relationship with him. No one can have the darshan of sri krsna and a close relationship like that if he's not fully realized. Or, the closeness wih krsna brings automatically the krsna consciousness the spiritual realization. So arjuna acts and asks for our benefit. Where did brahman, param brahman, krsna… come from??? ...brahman means spirit.. a feature of the spirit is that it is the highest reality. Param Brahman is the highest reality in the spirit, he has personal, individual characteristics and features. Krsna is the all attractive because he has all features and all the features of the world and universe come from him, hes spiritual, because he's not subjected to birth and death and he's supreme spirit (param brahman) because supremacy is among the infinite features that meke him the all attractive .So there's no question of their origin, they (or HE) are their (or HIS) own origin and source. By associating brahman with nothing and showing how nothing is both existence and non-existence simultaneously ...non existence cannot live with existence.. one negates another. When the vedas speak of non existence they speak of non existence from the materialis, karmic point of view. Krsna does not exist in the matter in the sense that he does not generate a karma that entangles him in the samsara. It is a technical use of the concept of non existence, not that non existence is an absolute concept. I have kept to scripture and provided a logical explanation to it that would stand up in the modern world. ...i am of the modern world, even if with some white hair, but i think that the old one is more modern and true. We cannot create an annihilated version of religion because atheist society will like it. According to your argument Krsna and Arjuna do not exist because you have no experience of it. ...experience can be indirect... i have never been in china, but china exists, and i am sure, because i know chinese people and i have experienced some medicine come from this land. So knowing someone who competently and logically speaks, by direct experience, of the religious themes and, having experienced directly that something said by scriptures is true, and that some remedies recommended by me from the religion are effective.. i have an experience of what is said in scriptures, So i have learned nothing from the non existent, from what is not.. i have learned from the reality Try meditation my friend, begin by realising that everything is illusion conditioned by our senses. ...done... it is not true There is more void in an atom than matter. Without void not even ether could move. ...again, this void is not void If Krsna is brahman and not maya, and brahman knows everything, then why is it that Krsna appears to restore Dharma in order to maintain the universe?? ...because, in this material world, we are free to go against dharma. Krsna wants only loving relationships, he does not force us.. so he fulfills our desires when we want to forget him and he comes sometimes to give us the information, the culture and the necessary freedom to desire to go back to him ... I am not saying we exist, I am saying we are part of maya, illusion .....decide... being a part of illusion is existence Krsna is maya. ---until you have not demonstrated it i invite you to not blaspheming As Ramakrishna suggested, knowing we too are maya, is it not better to simply let go and be, because nothing we do will ever change the fact that we are maya. ---my mother too, who's not ramakrsna, knows that realizing that we have problems is not too much if we do not act to fix them.. but it is a good start By realising all is maya including ourselves then samsara ceases to be anything other than maya also, and moksa is achieved… jnana yoga. --you are proposing nichilism, the all kinds of existence are maya.. so if you achieve it there's no moksa, because there's no freedom from anything.. there's no jnana, because if there's nothing what remains to know?... and there's no yoga.. because yoga means union, relationship, so wich whom we unite if we do not exist and there's no one else? Who am I? I am Krsna, but then so are you. ---i am very glad for you, i am not krsna, krsna controls everything and he has not any single moment when he's not conscious to be god and master of his powers. And i am not conscious and i have no powers hare krishna (i have not a good english... sorry)

All matter changes and is therefore not eternal ...matter is eternal... simply it is subjected to various manifestation The existence of non-existence has already been demonstrated logically to you... ..i knew i am a big philosopher.. but where i did it? Nothing must be there because if it was not there then there would have to be something ..please.. what... when and where? And if there was something, where did it come from? ..brahman, param brahman, krsna.. Yet because nothing is there, nothing exists. ..i see many things and i experience many things... so this nothing does not exist, because at least my vision and experience, even if conditionated, exists Think of the nature of brahman and compare to that of the nature of nothing. ...the relative world is full of variety, feelings, subjects, objects and relationships.. so if i think about the nature of the spirit i cannot avoid to imagine it more complete and full of features than this mortal world. So Spirit, Brahman, Transcendence is sat (eternal), cit (full of knowledge), cit (full of bliss)... not exactly a void If I was to ask you how big Krsna is, and you were to reply that Krsna was infinite, then it would be correct to say that nothing was bigger than Krsna. ...not exact.. krsna is much bigger of that nothing There is more space inside an atom than there is matter, without space no one thing could move. ..space is something, ether, a matter... not a void It is when brahman thought that time began. ...how can the "nothing" think? how an existence (a thought) come out from nothing? the reason we desire life is to obtain material wealth and pleasures. ...this is because in the world when we came from, vaikunta, we are full of wealth and pleasure... desire does not come from nothing . By realising that all is maya and that all is merely the 'body' of nothing so that brahman can experience in order to analyse itself then we lose desire and are free ...brahman is the whole, he does not miss anything.. so there's no need for him to learn something new.. because everything is inside brahman, every experience, every analisys.. Brahman and Param Brahman is CIT.. consciousness personified.. nothing is missing Krsna is nothing special, he is merely a personnification of brahman ...brahman is impersonal as definition.. so he cannot contain personality. The opposite is possible, beyond the energy there's the energetic.. so god (krsna=the all attractive because he possess everything(=bhagavan)). The energy (=impersonal brahman), as we know from our experience and logic, comes from the energetic (=the person param brahman, krsna) Krsna never once says he is brahman, it is left to Arjuna to make that claim. ....Arjuna is not a stupid, he's fully authoritative .. so he's to be believed: Chapter 10. The Opulence of the Absolute TEXT 12-13 arjuna uvaca param brahma param dhama pavitram paramam bhavan purusam sasvatam divyam adi-devam ajam vibhum ahus tvam rsayah sarve devarsir naradas tatha asito devalo vyasah svayam caiva bravisi me TRANSLATION Arjuna said: You are the Supreme Brahman, the ultimate, the supreme abode and purifier, the Absolute Truth and the eternal divine person. You are the primal God, transcendental and original, and You are the unborn and all-pervading beauty. All the great sages such as Narada, Asita, Devala, and Vyasa proclaim this of You, and now You Yourself are declaring it to me. ----- ------ he is merely a personnification of brahman, but then are we not all such? ...krsna is not a personification because person is higher that energy.. brahman is the effulgence of krishna we are eternally persons, our personal and individual existence does not start and does not end. So there's not a moment when we are created by brahman or something else. Then we are like Krishna in quality, but not in quantity, he's infinite , we are infinitesimal.. he's supreme, we are subordinate to him directly or indirectly by maya Why am I existing if everything is nothing? because I am merely part of the maya created from nothing --in nothing there's no part and no whole, no reality and no illusion, no creation, no source of creation, no creative intelligence. So if you exist, the nothing is a fantasy Our thoughts are not our own, it is a delusion that such thoughts exist independently of each other, in reality 'your' thoughts are being manipulated by my writings ...so where's the void? you are speaking of we, our, illusion, delusion, thoughts, existence, independence, reality, your, manipulation and writings. This is a great display of existence. we are independent in being complete individual personalities and dependent and linked because we share the same environment. A portion of mutual independence is there.. otherwise there would not be desires and actions... so relationships if they were truly 'your' conscience then why is it that you think thoughts that are occasionally unpleasant to you? ...mind is a tool not my reality.. in this tool are acquisition of informations and the powers and the skills to handle them. We are not pefect, mind is not perfect, the computer something crashes or he do not work properly.. or we are not expert and we have not complete control. We search for word and we open photoshop.. where's the problem? If you truly could control your thoughts then you would only ever have pleasant thought. ...yes.. so if pleasant thoughts exist, there's no space for the void, th empty ness In reality such a thing does not exist because all is maya, and only nothing truly exists. ..if all is maya.. maya exist.. maya is krsna's energy.. so krsna exist and controls everything directly or through maya

In the beginning there was nothing, because if there was something, where did it come from?? ...nothing does not exist, and there's no beginning and no end.. everything is eternal and eternally emanated by bhagavan sri krsna. So everything comes eternally without any interruction in this eternal linking .. from sri krsna bhagavan And because nothing was there, it existed as nothing ..the existence of the non existence is contraddictory and cannot be demonstrated But because it existed it was also something, and something came into being, brahman. ...the whole cannot be generated by the nothing... and also the time is a product, an emanation of the whole. So Eternal Brahman is not conditionated and subjected to the time and does not follows his rules.. so there's not a moment of start in the existence of Brahman and Param Brahman and samsara became because no thing truly dies ...that's not an explanation, it is simply to put two definition together... i come to paris because i wear a t-shirt.. samsara comes because we voluntarily experience the absence of god and transcendence. So maya has to illude us that we are material bodies with limited life and death. It is Krsna who graciously and kindly gives us the freedom and the power to forget him hence knowledge of 'who am I?' (atman) leads to moksa. ..yes, rediscovering or remembering that we are eternal servants of krishna and acting accordingly, we get liberation from material sufferings and go back to vaikunta, back to godhead but in the beginning there was only nothing and atman was brahman and brahman was nothing. ...brahman is eternal, if nothing is the source of brahman it is eternal too..... why are you existing if everything is nothing?

because his guru told him to. whye he told him to? because the indians under british got a bad habit of praising and following the westernerd. so when the west folows krishna bhakti, the indias then would follow it easily. --your reasoning is not right, the fascination of india in the west was and is very big. If prabhupada has decided to call his movement "international movement of hindu consciousness" the followers were the same and the job to awake india would were the same... the reasoning on "why hare krishna do not call themselves hindu" is more deep. So, please, do not agree... but do not be irrespectiful making it cheap why not HK's make the hindus follow sanatana dharma nicely india? --because we consider that sanatana dharma is vaishnavism.... if india becames vaishnava, we call it vaishnavism and problems are at end they cannot succeed preaching them by telling HK's are not hindus and look down upon the hindus. --the fact is thaw we preach that also hindus are not hindus.. for a hindu any person who worships krishna is a vedic person, is a hindu or sanatana dharmi. --the gaudya vaishnava concept of sanatana dharma is theism, personalism.. so we consider that advaitism or mayavadism is not sanatana dharma, so we do not want to be under the same denomination. Another problem is that hindu is a name of a land, india, and krishna, siva, vishnu, lakshmi, durga and so on, and even sri shankara acharya are not indians or hindu.. they're universal the names and dress and manners of HK's are that of the hindus --they're from sanatana dharma and the so called hindus derive them from it... we do not think that hinduism and sanatana dharma are coincident, because in hinduism are too many opposite ideas.. and dharmic and adharmic cannot be reunited under the same dharma the parampara of the HK's has started in india. gita is the book of hinduism and also the book of the Hk's. so then why tell hindus that Hk's are not hindus? --because we think that also indians are not hindus yes, prabhupada told it, but it was a lie for diplomatic reason --if being an hindu i have to bear these insults to my spiritual master... of course my willing to feel myself hindu is not very much if a follower of jesus is not a xian then a follower of krishna is not a hindu. --a follower of jesus is not a palestinian, he take his name by his master or his devata... christ, christian... so vishnu, vaishnava.. krishna, krishnaist and so on... why hindu, hinduist, indian? but the hindus will not tolerate any ideology in india that is anti vedic that is out there to wipe out hinduism. --it is not a religious problem, it is a police problem.. you can be of the same my religion and be a criminal and to be of another religion and be a very good man... so stop the criminals without bothering of religion. A criminal have no religion, a saint have no religion. Hk's need to respect the hindus more than others. --i have deep respect of everyone.. but i have to examine very well to say thet i belong to the same religion... but it has nothing to do with respect the mother culture for Hk's and hindu is same. ---mother culture, but the sons have taken different roads also remember that no hindu will ever think of wiping out the HK's from the face of earth. --neither the opposite the islam and the xians will not tolerate HK's --harekrishnas (=gaudya vaishnavas) are developing mostly in christian nations, in 1965 there was no gaudya vaishnava temple outside india, now there's hundreds if you are of pure brahmama qualites, you may not understnd the reason for unity --personally i consider myself a dog in the street... but a pure brahmana (=one who has purely understood the spiritual reality) understands everything, and if you are a religious person you have to surrender to pure brahmanas, not suggest solutions or sayng that they do not understand. This is materialism, who understand spirit, understands everything, because everything ultimately is spirit an army of Hk's with mridangans and cymbals with dhotis and tilak --read better holy scritpures, especially bhagavd gita and you will discover that no one teachs that a spiritualist cannot be of a varna different from brahmins.. and brahmins, in gaudya vaishnava, are only a little precentage. So there's no shortage of policemen and soldiers in vaishnavas hari bol

the important thing is to pray krsna to send us an uttama adhikari spiritual master to connect us to parampara and to start real devotional service.. organizations are popolated by humans and humans make mistakes spirituality is not politic or a social phenomenon it is personal, if you(me, we, they, he, she) are well situated in the guru-disciple relationship (iskcon-non iskcon is less important) you make spiritual advancement in krsna consciousness and you develope the skills to see all the happenings in the right way and not to get attacked by maya if you (we, me, they, he, she) are not well situated personally, even if the organizations go without any problem and grow esponentially, we do not go back to krsna in my opinion these difficulties in organizations are also to teach us that we have to develope devotion, not simply join a group and to expect to be brought in the spiritual world by the bureaucracy hare krishna prabhu, you are a nice devotee

http://www.prabhupada.org/prabhupadadesh/modules.php?name=NukeView&file=index&query=http://www.harekrsna.it/libri_on_line/libri_on_line.htm http://www.radiokrishna.com/books_online.php non e' molto...... hare krishna!! se ottieni qualche altra informazione riportala anche qui' per favore! (for the non-italians: if you obtain other informations please post them here...)

Observe nature and see how it works. Animals hunt. That is a fact of nature. If the balance of nature were to be upset, for example, if rats were not preyed upon, their overpopulation would cause them to starve and perhaps to over eat certain foods that would hurt other animals __the fact that we can have sometimes emergences does not authorize us to have a not human behaviour when it is possible. So now it is very possible that almost all the world avoid to eat animals and avoid to hurt them if not in cases of personal defence. And also in these cases we take reactions, everything that happens to use, even animals giving problems to us, is our fault. Even the vegetarian must kill plants, eat bacteria, and have an effect on the natural cycle shared by all life on the planet __as i have said.. "less damage possible" The sad fact is that in order to live, one must kill in some form or another, that is the natural law. __everyone can understand the difference in kiling a child or a calf, in killing a calf or a tomato.. everyone sees these killings as completely different(notice that i put milk under non violent foods..) The results of my vegetarianism were that my hair fell out. I suffered for years from suicidal depression, panic attacks, irritable bowel and constipation. ___and this is a very unfortunate situation, but honestly not the average, belonging to hare krsna movement from more than twenty years i have seen hundreds of people becoming vegetarian with no particular efforts and problems, and i have seen maybe ten people coming back eating animals and never for health problems. I am not a doctor and i will not suggest easy remedies, but please do not stop to search a cure to solve your problems and to avoid useless violence. In the between feel yourself free to cultivate spiritual consciousness. God is in control of everything. It is interesting to note what I read, that most Indians, a predominatly Hindu country, are not vegetarians. __i think that "most" is a little too much, but it does not change things, we have to judge using principles not following the majority It is like self torture to suffer the malnutrition and associated depression associated with vegetarian malnutrition. __that it is false, no one at any level, scientific, biologic, medical level links vegetarianism or veg+milk (that it is the classic hindu diet) with malnutrition.. i am sorry that you have some problems, but it is not necessary to search justifications, you have a problem, i can have other problems and so on.. this is a world of problems, let us not change reality to feel ourselves in the right side (i have seen malnutrition in india, the problem is not that they have a good and healty vegetarian meal but they need also a little hamburger or some fish.. the problem is that who is in malnutrition eat something like one or two chapati in a day without fruit and milk, an hamburger or a sausage would not solve problems, but it would increase them) So don't forget to be kind to yourself and the soul within your own body! ___yes, vegetarianism is a way to be respectiful of our soul, especially of our soul. Our body and the animal's bodies have to die one day or another, but soul lives, and the problems will follow her in the next lifes But that's just me. If you can happily thrive on a vegetarian diet, then more power to you. I wish I could, but I can't. ___let us hope for the future

ask krsna will not give it if it is not good for your spiritual advancement if you learn to ask and pray to krsna you will gradually learn to ask only proper things, than you will learn to not ask anything and to serve only

we know that we are souls in different kind of bodies and that if we see bodies moving and acting it is surely there a soul inside otherwise that body would be died so when we kill an animal to eat him we are disturbing the life and destiny of a soul, and the soul is not animal, vegetal, mineral or human the soul is a soul, so every living being is our brother.. the body does not matter, if we are brothers the dress is not so important so a religious person is concerned to make less damage possible to the nature and living beings to not take the karma and have to suffer in the future the bad things that he is doing now to others the next thing is that a religious person.. hindu, vaishnava, shaivite, advaitin and so on.. considers eating as another way to reach liberation. So he offers his food to the deity, or mentally to god, with prayers, before eating himself. this food turns in prasadam, as we were eating the remnants of god.. but we know from many scriptures (for example the bhagavad gita) that god (in any manifestation) and his servants do not accept violence as an offering (as the bodies of poor animals) and dirty things like eggs or alcohol milk is not violence and it is very liked by god, devotees and devatas, but many persons abstain also from this because it is part of the process of cow killing in slaughterhouses i personally think that if one does not eat meat, eggs, fish and alcohol and other intoxicating foods and he offers vegetables, legumes, grains, honey, milk and milk products to god before eating (with plenty of recipes from the great indian vegetarian tradition.. but not only.. there's many vegetarian way of eating all over the world), this is a good thing and not only it does not give karma... but it washes all our sins i hope to have helped

"I respect SP for his untiring work he had done during his life time to spread the teaching of the holy Gita but he fail to teach his followers to be respectful to followers of other dieties. " if respect is your way of life please do not say things without having studied them properly. Prabhupada did not teach anything like that, Prabhupada said that we have more respect if we give them the right role of assistant and servants of Godhead Sri Krsna. And we are taught from the beginning that it is not possible to do any spiritual practice, even chanting he mahamantra, if we do not respect god and his servants. So there's obviously followers who do not follow properly and tthere's difference of opinions, but to take this difference as the GaudyaVaishnavas have not respect to devatas it is a gross misunderstanding. personally i am for stopping this quarrel between prabhupada's followers and gandhi's followers, but please be more careful in your judgement "I am a devotee of all Hindu Gods as I see them as one and the same. The Supreme Brahman is he menefestation of all forms and name does not matter for me." and you are free to think like that, but you have to respect who think that brahman is not the supreme, but krsna is the supreme and source of brahman and avataras and devas, because it is not done with the intention to blaspheme any spiritual person who has a role in our universe. So, again, you can have a different idea, but it is wrong to think that who think the opposite does it for blasphemy. If i make the same game of you, i can say that saying that mother durga is nothing but brahman is a dissrespect for mother durga because she's an eternal person with spiritual and divine personality, satcitananda rupa and she's not annihilated by any experience of oneness. So be careful... i believe that my opinion is more praising sri durga than yours, but i do not say that you have a blaspheming intention in your opinion. "Do not say I hate Vaisnavas coz as far as I am concern they are Hindus too. But I find that they do not want to be in the fold and like Pakistan they wish to be seperated from the main body" the fact is that if you represent the average hindu idea, vaishnavas, right or wrong it may be, are very different.. but you cannot express so great appreciaion for the tolerance of hinduism and heavily criticize who does not feel himself hindu. I do not feel myself in line with hindu conception, but i do deeply appreciate hindus, where's the problem? In lands and nation when there's dictators, talibans, fanaticism the first thing that goes away is opinion difference. So be happy that in india and in religions related to india there's opinion difference even on belonging to the same group. I see here many critics on the monolithic, exclusive and proud character of semitic religions... but we want to do the same thing with a superindian religion to rule the world? why? "Once again I am sorry if I have offended you in any way" the firts person to be offended is yourself, because the karma does not forget " The truth is more important " now i attempted (sorry for my bad english) to give you explanation why vaishnavas consider krsna as supreme and do not feel themselves hindus, and that it is not for blaspheme and offence. So you can put these points in discussion, but it is not right to find bad intentions in this opinion difference. So let us discuss... but peacefully as brothers jaya srila prabupada, hare krishna, jaya sri durga mataji (read bhagavat purana and you will find that she appears in mathura as sister of sri krsna bhagavan, and gopis worship Her to have krsna as husband and if you will go in vrindaban i recommendo to you to go to the super excellent durga temple there.. so a vaishnava cannot blaspheme Sri Durga in any way)!!

in my opinion everything starts from personal change, not from programs or strategies if we go at the government without being real devotees (=followers of krsna in the varnshrama system) it will be a great disgrace and if we follow varnashrama system it is not that devotees have to change their varna becaming politicians... but who is already politician (=ksatrya) has to accept krsna consciousness and apply the "ashrama(=spiritual consciousness, chanting, initiation and so on)" to his "varna (nature, destiny, guna, karma)"

of course... we are envious of god and we come in this world to forget him, then we are angry with vaishnavas who try to send us back to godhead taking away our sense gratification so krsna: "ok little rascal.. you cannot blaspheme my devotees.. stay away from me and them for some billions years... "

"But prabhupada, the greatest saint" Only the ego thinks in terms of great and small. Give up your ego, surrender to Krishna. Nobody can claim to be great, not even sp. " i am sorry if my message seems sectarian .. it is not so... all the pure devotees of the lord, being manifestations of the greatest, they're also the greatest there's no competition between the vaishnavas , my intention was not to use prabhupada as an intrument to promote my ego i am sorry, i hope to have explained better

my false ego is very grateful, maya devi has done his good job, thanks to have put some billions of lifes between me and goloka vrindaban jaya vaishnava sanga jaya gurudeva jaya prabhupada /images/graemlins/smile.gif /images/graemlins/smile.gif /images/graemlins/smile.gif /images/graemlins/smile.gif /images/graemlins/smile.gif /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

what would bring Krishna to more people? prabhupada in his last days in our planet says that "varnashrama is essential" (you can see it in the disappearance video) most of times saints at the end of their lifes speak of esotheric things, angels, mystics, paradises, universe and so on. But prabhupada, the greatest saint, speaks of varnashrama or: "the way to reach god turning our place in the society.... to devotional service" so we can do many things, expansion plans, festivals, open temples and so on.. and it is good, wonderful.. but the main way to spread krsna consciousness is: 1)to remain in our place in society (as krsna instruct arjuna in the bhagavad gita) 2)to chant hare krsna mahamantra constantly (as a concession at least 16japa rounds a day) 3)to take shelter of a pure uttama adhikari vaishnava acharya 4)to avoid as more as possible dirty, violent and intoxicating activities who can disturb our concentration in hare krishna chanting 5)to associate as more as possible with the vaishnavas in this way, without having to make separate efforts to control our mind or to change our personality, we will gradually purify ourselves and we will reach the transcendental plane : SAT (real life, eternity), CIT (consciousness, knowledge) and ANANDA (happiness, bliss) the other people will see our happiness, our steady, constant happines because we are following both dharma and sanatana dharma, nature and soul. No illusions, no delusions, no repression and no frustrations. And happiness is a virus, everyone wants to be happy, so they gradually will want to follow us and become happy like us. . . . (personally i do not agree on the fact that krsna consciousness now is not strong or it is not spreading, and i do not think that, apart the presence of srila prabhupada in the 70', the "old times" were in all the aspects better than now. First of all the illusion that everyone has to live at the temple, to became forcefully a brahmin, brahmachari, sannyasa, to renunciate of his place in the society to follow krsna consciousness, is ended or almost ended. People accept krsna consciousness procedure and almost all remain happily in the society preaching to others with the example. This, in my opinion, is slowly implementing the sanatana dharma, from this everything starts, also temples, brahmacharis, sanniasis, brahmanas, harinamas, gurukulas, book distribution and so on) in my opinion of course (i am sorry, but my english is not so good and i have to use a simple, redundant and rude style to explain my thoughts, surely appearing fanatic and apparently acting as a teacher, it is not my purpose, i appreciate all the vaishnavas in the forum and i feel myself very ignorant when i read all the competent aswers that you are able to give.... vancha kalpa tarubyas cha)

i read your posts and i too do not agree with your idea of ksatrya and all your nationalism pride stuff (even if i love deeply india).. it does not means that i am against ksatrya and that if one (like arjuna) does this job he has to change it because he gets vaishnava diksa (brahmana means one who realize to be a spiritual (brahman) soul, not only the one who makes puja to the deities (who can be an absolute outcaste if he do not make it with consciousness))

http://www.asitis.com/ of course there's also the book not only the online version

dear madhaav it seems that you have not so much information on hare krishna (gaudya vaishnava sampradaya) initiation is given to anyone that the spiritual master judges fit to receive this mercy... so initiated devotees are from any social class and they have no problem to continue with their role in the society (like arjuna did in the gita) so a little minority of devotees with priest's or monk's guna and karma go to the temple as brahmanas, but the vast majority keep his previous activity so if one is a policeman, politician or a soldier (ksatrya) he goes on with his job and no one says the opposite only in few years when prabhupada was starting the movement in the west there was some emphasis (not wanted by srila prabhupada) on joining the temple, but now it is not absolutely in this way all harekrishna, if they are fit, take diksa, but in he practical life only a very little percentage (near to zero) changes his job to join the temple spiritual initiation has nothing to do with the job, profession, predisposition.. so spiritual master does not create brahmana, vaishas, sudras, ksatryas... he helps people to became vaishnavas... it is good if you have better information before to speak vaishnavism is based on gita, in gita krsna does not make arjuna brahmana, nor sudra, nor ksatrya, nor vaisha.. he simply says to arjuna to offer his karma to him turning it in bhakti so there's nothing to "produce" please be careful with judgements (not only with gaudya vaishnavas of course) and get better informations