sambya

Even i recognize srila prabhupad's contribution towards popularising hinduism.But what i dislike is this persistent derogation of other paths,advaitabad,other dieties etc. And in fact i have full reveration for tulsi devi and salagrams,lord has given me the oppurtunity to serve him as 12 salagrams in my home.I sincerely belive the usefulness of bhakti and that it is the easiest path to self realization. Im not against the westeners or something and appericiate bija's standpoint on beliving in ones own guru,and also respecting others. Its really good to see so many western idividuals striving so hard in spiritual path.In fact one of the highest devotees that i have seen is a westerner.I cant simply forget his premashru's(ecststic tears) while glorifying prabhupad. Offering bhoga etc are not inferior spirituality by any chance.but fault finding with others beliefs and ways surely is.before condemming other paths one should tread it and fail to reach the truth in attempt.otherwise without even venturing into that other path how can a person call it wrong.did he travel through it and find no result? My point in saying 'mislead' is not that their path is wrong.A way shown by mahaprabhu can naver be wrong.But as to moulding their veiws on Vivekananda,Sanracharya,Ramkrishna,Aurobindo,Gandhi etc,they surely are.

i feel that the idea of preaching is actually a idea of hatred.for you cannot 'preach' unless you hate all other paths and convince yourself that yours is the only path.one should sing praises of his lord or glorify him,but why 'preaching'?? isn't it very similar to those colonial christian missionaries who came to india to deliver the infidels?isnt it all about showing absolute disrespect about all other beliefs?one should expose his beliefs before everyone,so that anyone interested might follow,but why impose it??

haribol radha mukunda!!! its true that two cultures interact and evolve when in touch with each other for long.but in that matter its ovibous that there must be some humans who contributed to this change(just like chaitanya mahaprabhu did with bengal).it simply cannot start auomatically. also your comment that hindus and muslims have been living in peace shows your ignorance of indian history.to assume that desruction of sommnath temple,aurangazebs policy,forcefull conversions on non payment of taxes,jizya tax,etc as being signs of harmony is ridicoulous.the fact is that as the ruling goverment was islamic in nature no one dared to voice a protest.dont you know how powerfull even an ordinary qazi was in those days?the later clashes arose not due to the reformers but the fanatical attitude of jinnah-the muslim league president. and who gave you this idea that he derogated idol worship,worship of cows etc just to appease western minds.?why would he then worship the durga idol in belur?or even install a ramkrishna statue?why would belur math run a huge goshala??the slight alterations that he did bring in the fold of hinduism was to fit it with changing times.whenever he condemmed something it was a later period unothourised custom, not a originalvedic concept. one must read through the teachings before criticising him.how much and exactly what books have you read about vivekananda?? most indians accept his teachings,whereas most westeners adapted to vaishnav thought dont.why is that?obviously hindus themeselves cannot be so mislead about heir own faith that they can be brainwashed so easily?or is the western vishnavs being brainwashed and mislead if you dont follow someone its fine.all you need is to have unflinching faith in your path.but why 'hate' others?why can u be silent on such issues??

what you say is true ,religion,specially that of hinduism is about feeling and realizing, not mere reading and believing.but i guess an initial reading would strengthen one's convictions about his chosen path.after being convinced he should look no further and engage in following what he has read.

thaks for your information,i always disliked these iskconites derogating other deities.

i completely fail to understand why vaishnavs lay so much stress on puranas instead of vedas a nd upanishads.probably they would put forward the same old idea that puranas are the commentaries of the vedas or that veads do not work in kali era .in that case,whom am i to believe,for the tantriks also say tantras are commentaries of vedas,and tantra should be followed in kali era.does the vaishnavs know that its a proven historical fact that puranas were written over a period of more than 1000 years?it started in the hindu period and subsequent additions went on till17th century.also these puranas are so contradictory.for ex:when most purans glorifies vishnu for killing madhukaitav,markendaya puran glorifies shakti for doing the same job.that is because yogamaya is suppossed to overpower madhu and kaitav with her maya ,at the request of brahmaa,after which vishnu could kill them.no hindu sect can survive without vedas and upanishads,can they? so wats the point pondering over these misleading purans instead of following upanishads.

apart from initiating the worship of kali in deities,krishnananda also collected together the extracts of the main tantric texts and composed a masterpiece book called tantra-saar.it has nothing to do with the vaamaachar(worshipping kali with meat,fish,sex etc)part of tantras and deals with the clean spiritual part of the tantras.vaishnav acharya nityananda is said to have met this sadhak couple of times.tantrasaar is a broad scripture containing methods of worship etc to various deities including krishna and gopal.in todays bengal,in the area of shantipur(birth place of advaita acharya) there is a huge kali puja held every year in dipawali day bearing his name.the goddess is called agambagish kali and the puja is belived to have been started by him.

kali, the divine mother is the supreme goddess of the tantras.kali is the first of the dasamahavidyas(the 10 forms that devi showed to shiva)as she was considered to be very ugra(terrible) her form was not sculpted in olden days .it was a bengali sadhak,krishnananda aagambagish(contemporary of chaitanya) who first started her worship in images,which has spread all over ever since.bengal is the main seat of kali cult.but contrary to the western belief she is generally veiwed in bengal as the compassionate mother , not bloodthirsty demon.ther are numerous songs written in praise of kali in bengal which contain high spiritual theories explained in simplest of languages.they are called shyamaa sangeet. the form of vamaa kali is meant for aspiring renouncers and not householders.then there is the red raktachamunda and samshan kali with two hands worshipped in crematoriums.there is two aspects of kali sadhana-one group aims at magical powers,siddhis,voodoo,astrology and other occult practises.the other more clean group has nothing to do with occult and aims at pure spiritual progress.vaishnavs veiw her merely as mahamaya,the material energy responsible for illusion(maya),but tantras place her as the highest truth, as being the other name of brahman(who both casts maya and removes it).

nityananda's descendents actually exist.i have blood relation with one such branch of family and they have a old family chart begining with nityananda and ending in their grandfather written down about hundread years ago.if anyone wants to study the truth why not read some history books of medival bengal(preferably by indian author,for colonial britishers deformed indian history too much)instead of blindly following religious texts?? but its true that the later descendents lost their spiritual levels and started a monopoly business of guruship.thats why they are rejected by modern reformers of vaishnav thought.

advaita ,inspite of its intellectual appeal is indeed very hard to follow.but it is not true that majority people in india are not advaitins.being born and brought up in india wherever i went i saw the dominance of advaita thought.almost alll indians are bhakti vadi in practise and advaitins at heart. for example most hindu has one chosen loved deity,but at the same time would acknowledge other dieties.this is typically advaitist attitude.belief that all religions are equally true(which forms the belief of so many hindus) is also essentially advaitic.

One of the greatest misconceptions about mayavad is that brahman is impersonal.Brahman is not impersonal neither personal.This peculiar phenomenon of Brahman is described as that which is the ultimate and absolute unity.It is beyond earthly concepts like impersonality and personality.For if one believes in the idea of impersonality it automatically suggests the existence of personality.Brahman is described as something transcending such ordinary concepts.The word 'nirguna' does not suggest without guna(without characteristics),as put forward by these vaishnav leaders.Nirguna is an unexplainable state of reality that crosses over all mental concepts about god. These vaishnav scholars,who are adept in blasphemising other sects are lost in the web of puranic stories and scriptural quotations.Therefore they devise such stories like sankaracharya formulating mayavad for asuras etc.One question needs to be asked to them.If god is causelessly mercifull towards all ,irrespective of their position,then how can he devise a theory so dangerous for his own already mislead children(the asuras that is)???Such ridiculous stories were cooked up by the medieval orthodox pundits to protect it from the reigning mayabad beliefs.

many a times i have heard devotees from isckon refer to durga as demigod.how can krishna's shakti be termed as demigod???

till date i have not found any shastric reference to tiger being durga"s vahan.and the opinion that tiger gained popularity because of high availability of the animal in bengal(the principal area of durga worship) is also not correct. in fact if one analyzes the ancient durga pujas of bengal which are being continued without break for hundreads of years(in some cases even more than 450 years)then he can see that in all such places she is atop a mythical white coloured animal,having a horses head,lions body and human like clawed arms.it is also heavily ornamented.i have no clue how this animal came into being but i think it might have been influenced by ancient mythological temple sculptures and the 'gaja simha ' of orissan architecture.it was only in the colonial period that african lion came to be depicted in bengal's pujas.there is no ancient picture or sculpture of durga on tiger in bengal whatsoever.

its definitely a good sign.if you have real craving for her,you can pursue her as your ishtadevata.

pure advaitism does not belive in gods personal nature but the kind of advaitism we find today actually does.there can be no end to gods attributes.he is formless as well as with form.if you attempt to accept any one of this(say god with form) and reject the other then you are disreguarding one vital features of cosmos,i.e the idea of formlessness.surely god cannot lack in a feature that even his creation has? if he does lack in a characteristic that even his created things have then he cannot be absolute(absolute means in every possible way,whether we can think of it or not),which in turn would make him imperfect , and hence not god.secondly you iskcon guys speak a lot about falldown of mayavadis.but in practical field i see that advaitist organisations like ramakrishna mission hardly has any falldown or scandals,while you people with your "superior doctrines"are infested with such problems.why is that?

well.mayavad is another name of advaitabad or the philosophy of monism as preached by sankracharya.it would be incorrect to say that he formulated it.for history shows that it existed since the dawn of the vedas but got obscured in the prolonged buddhist age.it was shankaracharya who revitalised it in its present form.there are three concepts to be dealt with in any spiritual practice-god,nature,living beings or jivas.theory of dualism says that there is no link or relation between these three,qualified dualism(vishistadvaita or achintya bhedaabhed) says that they are same in quality but not in quantity.whereas monism says that they are one inseperable whole that we call god(brahman)now question arises that if everythng is god then why cant we percieve it.this is explained with the help of theory of maya or illusion . the most common example given is when we stamp on a rope in a dark room we might think it to be a snake.but the next moment we realise that it is a rope.but consider that fraction of second when you were actually thinking it to be a snake.it was a true snake in all reality for that few seconds,isnt it?similarly although the cosmos is essentially brahman we, under illusion take it as something material.according to this veiw,everything is brahman,there is no existence of anything else.so when a seeker manages to reach that perfected state of conciousness he loses his identity in the blissfull brahman,which is called moksh.actually it is a highly complex philosophy that cannot be explained in one day.modern particle physics n latest theories of cosmology has prooved advaita to be true(read tao of physics by fritjoff capra).but understanding it requires a very high intellectual capacity and practising it as a spiritual discipline should not be recomended.its practise is not for common masses who should stick to bhakti-the easiest way of attaining god.but never proceed to learn about it from iskcon or suchlike organisations for they will surely misguide you,because their doctrine dont support advaitism.

you all agree that god is the reservoir of unending love and compassion towards all, right?if you dont, then no point in worshiping such a heartless phenomenon. and in case you do then you also know that he is also our parent ,friend,lover etc all rolled in one,right?then how can he not respond if anyone calls out to him with full heart or desperately seeks him,be it mayavadi or whatever?does the father or mother get angry and kills the child if ,unable to pronounce 'papa' he says 'pa'? dose'nt the parents rush to love him more for his tender failure?even if a mayavadi is treading a wrong path wouldnt the almighty excuse him an embrace him with love?

advaita is essentially true.i advise to read the internationally bestselling wonderfull book named tao of physics by fritjof capra which deals with the striking similarities between particle physics,cosmology and advaita philosophy as practised in hinduism,buddhism,taoism etc.

haribol radha mukunda. before you comment on anyone as illustrious as vivekananda, ask how much u actually know of him? if you are a western national then u know nothing,for knowledge cannot be gathered second hand through someone else(say prabhupada).it was vivekananda who saved hinduism from extinction.at a time when entire west thought of hindus as a savage,idol worshipping,uncivilized heathen with all sorts of witchcraft, widow burning ,snake charming etc,it was he who dared to cross across the ocean(for it was a hindu sacrilegeous act)and spread the first words of hindu supremacy and its glorious culture.thus the western perspective changed for the first time about indian religion and thought.it was upon this solid foundation that all the later yogis and swamis founded their hindu empire in west.apart from anything else why cant you give him this much credit?do you know the list of the people who followed his teachings?max mueller(the scholar for who resurrected the vedas.its fpr him dat you can buy and read a veda today,which would have been otherwise lost)romain rolland, aldous huxley,rabindranath tagore,mahatma gandhi,indian freedom fighter subhas chandra bose,first indian president radhakrishnan,cristopher isherwood,scopenhuer,first indian prime minister nehru,tolstoy,indira gandhi etc to name a few. its so sad that your guru prabhupad failed to see anything in him.as to the eggplant thing i say that one must understand the context ,time and place in which it was spoken.obviously you would agree that isolating one comment from the rest of the speech would completely change its meaning .he said that at a time when religious but blind hypocritical indians used to feed the crows to gather merit instead of giving a tiny morsel to the fellow dying indians ,at a time when millions used to die in india due to famine when government slept and wealthy landlords squandered away the wealth in lavish durga pujas,at a time when a every indian was made to feel that they are professing wrong faith and jesus is their saviour.my father has personally seen the condition of these religious fanatics.a train passenger was dying for water and another co passenger having a bottlte of pure ganga water refused to give him one drop lest he finishes of the bottle.this is india of 1950's.imagine then the period of 1880.to liberate the masses from this slumber and to envigorate them with new life he said such weird things.when india's starving for one bowl of rice,thes religious hypogrites are busy offering bhoga to tulsi and on reminding them to do some charity they say"oh! its in their karma to suffer.thats why vivekananda said such things. evrything happens as per almighty's wishes,right?then ever wondered why vivekananda and his institution is so sturdy even after 110 years of foundation,whereas your iskcon is riddled with holes and cracks in just 40 years, if not for gods will?

actually god can never be known totally.even the vaishnavs agree dat the greatest of devotees like narada or arjuna could not know him totally,wat to speak of earthly seekers.he is boundless n infinite. now these orthodox vaishnavs like to put forward this theory dat vishnu is the god n rest are demigods[specially the iskcon idiots].if god can never be understood fully,even by best of devotees , then how is it possible to say dat such n such deity is the supreme or such and such path is the only path?one must tread all the referred paths and fail to reach the truth and only then can he say dat this path is false.moreover sankaracharya is a strong monist at heart n not a vishnu bhakta,as put forward by these vaishnavs.this can be understood if one studies the hymns and slokas composed by him.when he is praising one particular deity{say devi] he uses all of those exclusive terms used to denote the supreme truth , and at the next moment he again applies them while praising another deity[say vishnu].this is only possible if you accept brahman as the supreme truth ad rest all deities as its different manifestations.if the vaishnavs argue that vishnu is the supreme i can also show with innumerable scriptural quotes dat devi is the supreme.and so forth.the truth is that hindu doctrines(specially the purans and the tantras are misleadingly paradoxical)different gods have been raised to the supreme position in different purans.so accepting the brahman to be supreme and every one else to be its manifestations seems to be the most desirable solution.and indeed in the ancient vedic age it was brahman who ruled.that is why we find most of the hindu terms and words having that word with them. braahman(one who is situated on the level of brahman i.e god consciousness) aham brahmasmi(i am the brahman) athato brahma jignyasa(the question about self or brahman) if vishnu was the supreme wouldnt he be more specifically mentioned instead of brahman?my intention is obviously not to derogate vishnu but to challenge those dogmatic doctrines claiming his god to be only truth . these morons fail to understand that after 1000 years of subjugation when hindu's have lost their identity and unity its time to reshape and revitalise our old dharma. instead of that they go on fighting among themselves.also these guys generally lack a detailed study of history and sociology,having which , they would have understood that hinduism was never a monotheistic religion(different worships,tribal,tantrik,vedic,puranic existed side by side) which they claim it was, and also that monotheistic approach is a virtual impossibility.no two persons want or veiw god the same way.forcefull implementation of 'one god' concepts is bound to fail as with islam,christianityetc.for example:as soon as crist died christainity broke up into numerous sub groups.even isckon is facing the same problem internally today.why is that happening.because no two person have the same idea about god.this is where the concept of ishta devata or ones chosen diety comes into play.i would suggest dat one should always believe in one infinite brahman and then choose upon a diety according to his taste and worship him with all the supreme attributes.serve him the best with totall causeless love.pay respect to all,just like the lady of the house caters to everyones needs,but keep him(ishta dev) on a highrer pedestal than others,just as that lady keeps her own husband above the rest.radhe radhe.