Bhaktavasya

Leeann Womack I Hope You Dance I hope you never lose your sense of wonder You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger May you never take a single breath for granted God forbid love ever leave you empty handed I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance I hope you dance, I hope you dance I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance Never settlefor the path of least resistance Livin' might mean takin' chances but they're woth takin' Lovin' might be a mistake but it's worth makin' Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter When you come close to sellin' out reconsider Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance I hope you dance, I hope you dance (Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along) I hope you dance, I hope you dance

Sorry, it's chapter 8.

Puru, I just want to say here that when you post really long posts aimed at (what seems to be) trying to pick a fight with Jagat, right off the bat, it's irritating and exactly what Jagat is trying to objecting to. It's like creating smokescreens, because the long-winded 'arguments' distract from the original question worth pondering; 'Does Krishna marry the Gopis in the end?' and misses the point; 'can we have different conclusions and realizations about such matters without 'going to war' over it?' (the answer is supposed to be a resounding YES!) Also, I imagined you've been told this before, but you run off at the mouth (keyboard) way too much; most people have busy lives with only so much time for the pleasure pastime of hearing the nectar and expanding our knowledge and understanding of Radha-Krishna theology. Even if you have something to say that is worth merit, the 'shove everyone else aside' method is plain rude and distasteful.

Puru, I just want to say here that when you post really long posts aimed at (what seems to be) trying to pick a fight with Jagat, right off the bat, it's irritating and exactly what Jagat is trying to objecting to. It's like creating smokescreens, because the long-winded 'arguments' distract from the original question worth pondering; 'Does Krishna marry the Gopis in the end?' and misses the point; 'can we have different conclusions and realizations about such matters without 'going to war' over it?' (the answer is supposed to be a resounding YES!)

Compassion is an illusion of the mind? The Pancha Tattva must therefore be in deep Maya!

Yes, it is Francis Xavier's body that is still intact after 500 years(good embalming or miraculous occurence?) in Goa, which I saw when I was there in 1983. Legend has it that Francis Xavier and Lord Chaitanya met and had friendly discussions about Chrisitianity and Vaisnavism.

During the Rasa Dance, Krishna expanded Himself into as many forms as they were/are gopis, so that each gopi was thinking, 'Krishna is dancing with me alone'. At the same time, the original form of Krishna never left Radharani's side (except of course to create Their vipralamba mood and in the case of Her disappearing from the Dance to create the similar situation). Each gopi is an expansion of the body of Sri Radha, yet possessing individual characteristics and personality. ***** Any comments on the gopis' love for Radha and Krishna being so pristine and pure that there is no (apparent) desire for personal union with Krishna, with more affection and empathy leaning towards Radha, and joy at the reuniting of the 2 Lovers, yet by Their Desire each gopi seemed to (at some point during the Rasa Dance) experience dancing alone with Krishna?

What is more powerful than God, more evil than the Devil; the poor have it, the rich lack it, and if you eat it you die? Answer: nothing (lifted from a minor character in Margaret Atwood's novel 'The Blind Assassin')

Wow! Samadhi in a nutshell.

Srimad Bhagwatam Canto 4 verse 52 'The Lord is always smiling, and the devotee should constantly see the Lord in this form, as He looks very mercifully towards the devotee. In this way the mediator should look towards the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the bestower of all benedictions.'

Here's a couple of verses from the Bhagavad Gita that are relevant to the topic of Liberation; B.G. chapter 5 verse 18 'When one's intelligence, mind, faith and refuge are all fixed in the Supreme, one becomes cleansed of misgivings through complete knowledge and thus proceeds straight on the path of liberation.' B.G. chapter 5 verse 25 'One who is beyond duality and doubt, whose mind is engaged within, who is always working for the welfare of all sentient beings, and who is freed from sins, achieves liberation in the Supreme'. ********

Here's a couple of verses from the Bhagavad Gita that are relevant to the topic of Liberation; B.G. chapter 5 verse 18 'When one's intelligence, mind, faith and refuge are all fixed in the Supreme, one becomes cleansed of misgivings through complete knowledge and thus proceeds straight on the path of liberation.' B.G. chapter 5 verse 25 'One who is beyond duality and doubt, whose mind is engaged within, who is always working for the welfare of all sentient beings, and who is freed from sins, achieves liberation in the Supreme'. ********

After reading this thread over, I'm left wondering what is meant by the expression 'devotonal service begins at liberation'. My understanding is that until we are liberated from false ego, and the desires that keep us from surrendering to Their will, we are still not able to enter into the vast ocean of devotional service.

After reading this thread over, I'm left wondering what is meant by the expression 'devotonal service begins at liberation'. My understanding is that until we are liberated from false ego, and the desires that keep us from surrendering to Their will, we are still not able to enter into the vast ocean of devotional service.

Maitreya, this in response to your post of 6.17.2000 10:52

Luke 14.26 is a lie, one of those inserted 'Jesus said'. Christ is an avatar of Love, agreed? He would and could not 'instruct' his disciples to hate anyone, and if one must hate at all, to hate the sin and not the sinner. Teaching disciples to hate their mothers, brothers, friends and 'the world' is the equivalent of the false teachings that one can and should reject family life 'as easily as one passes stool'. Christ is more likely to have said the quote attributed to him; "He who says he loves the Father in heaven, who he cannot see but cannot love his brother, who he can see, is a liar." By his own definition, that would make Christ a liar, so as Sridhar Maharaj would say, the higher concept has to be embraced and the lower one rejected.

As for me 'thinking he was an expansion of Krishna', you are dead wrong on that one. Ditto me thinking, at any time, that I was Radharani. In fact, him being Krishna and Lord Chaitanya was one of the things we used to fight about, from a month after we first got together, in Cornwall, England, to Goa, in Nepal, all the way to California. That was his illusion, and after a while I figured that's why Krishna brought us together, so I could give him a reality check on that. The idea that Krishna expands himself into innumerable forms to be with each gopi (hearted person)seemed to be worthy of exploration. What a wonderful world it would be if 2 people could love each other by allowing Radha and Krishna to manifest in their hearts was the Big Dream Experiment, in the beginning. The more he thought he was Krishna, the more the experiment went off the tracks. The flight to Hawaii was his way of pushing the envelop to see if he really was; Krishna in Dwarka with thousands of wives, just like Prabhupad's astrologers predicted when they said he would be the most famous spiritual master on the planet by the year 2000 and 'thousands of women' would come to take shelter of him. He was set up by Krishna, to show that only Krishna Himself is capable of loving fully and spiritually satisfying His devotees. Anyone fool enough to believe that he/she can take the place of Him can only come to ruin. After playing that role for Krishna, and sufferring such an inglorious end because of it, I have no doubt that he is somewhere where he is serving the Divine Couple in a more natural, blissful way.

Oh, gee, I wonder who this could be. None other than BB. You've called me a slut more than a few times, and you must be 'itching' for a response. What goes on between 2 married adults, or any adults for that matter, in the privacy of their bedrooms is nobody's business but their own. You might as well say that any woman who has sex with her husband or lover is a slut...not a very spiritually evolved vision. The sex act generally never lasts more than a few minutes; when 2 people are in a relationship as intensely as we were, 99.9% of the time was spent going through a whole lot of other things together, not all necessarily as benign as cuddling up and doing 'the thing', (that you seem to detest so much). Attraction and repulsion, 2 sides of the same coin. Give it up, for Christ's sake.

You are definetly a liar. While Jayatirtha was in Iskcon, as temple president of Los Angeles he was engaged in service 24-7, worshipping the Deity (SP said he was the achary a Deity worship) along with Manjuali, working at Spritual Sky, he never had the time to go anywhere to find lsd and Manjuali would certainly have known if he did. The same thing when he went to England, he was always in the company of other devotees, from mangal arotike, after the morning program he used to council devotees for hours, and whenever he travelled anywhere as GBC he was always accompanied by at least one other devotee. I lived with him for 5 years (1982-87) and was certainly more intimate and taken into his confidence than anyone else at that time. He told me, and there was no reason to doubt him, that the first time he took lsd was after the 'experience' at Radha Kund in India, 5 years after he was appointed as guru. Anybody can make up a name like XYZ and say 'Jayatirtha (or anyone else) told me (fill in the blanks). Hardly convincing.

Excuse me, RA, but you are bearing false witness. Someday the authentic version will be told by all the witnesses who were there. In Jayatirtha's case, his wife of 10 years in Iskcon, Manjuali and those who knew him on an intimate friendship basis will testify that it was 5 years after his 'appointment' as a guru and 13 years after receiving initiation from SP that he took lsd, His time with Tim Leary was previous to that initiation. If we haven't learned to tell the truth, the last remaining leg left of Dharma, eternal Dharma that is, then our testimonials and realizations will be just so much spittle in the wind.

As usual, MC, you give your arm-chair simplistic conclusion; 'all 11 men that SP put on the list just before his death were all, in fact, Judases and followers in diguise only.' Which actually makes SP appear to be completely ignorant of his 'hand-picked' leaders actual inner nature and character, something the guru is supposed to be intimately aware of. If they were all Judases, they surely SP would not have given them positions, even before his death, of authority and the power to not only make decisions in the lives of the general population of devotees, but to recieve honour and respect as SP's representatives. I have written extensively about this very topic, on VNN and Chakra forums and elsewhere. I see no other cause that Krishna, Who can and has (as evidenced in the Srimad Bhagwatam) put his surrendered devotees under the spell of Daivi Maya in order to teach a very important lesson to the world. I can't speak for the other 'fallen gurus' and sannyasis, but I do know that Jayatirtha was faultless in his service to his guru and the devotees from the time he joined the movement in the late 60's and became the temple president of Los Angeles as well as president of Spiritual Sky Scented Products by the time he was 24 (with a big write up in the Wall Street Journal for rescuing the floundering business and transforming it within a year into a multi-million dollar enterprise). Any devotee in the movement at that time can testify that he was a kind person, inspired many, many devotees in their service and praised on many occasions by SP. Then what happened? He 'made the list' (on of the 11 appointed gurus) at the young age of 29 and there was a gradual decline into madness from that point one. The guru is non-different from God, shakshad hari, over and over and over again, chanted every day, 3 times a day by hundreds of diciples around the world. So when he heard a voice tell him to 'take up the path of lsd', while meditating at Radha Kund no less, he naturally accepted it as the voice of Sri Radha, and agreed to what he believed was part of Krishna's plan for delivering the world. As time went on he struggled with the 'mandate', trying to believe himself to be 'non-different' until he truly believed it. When one is shak-shad hari, all one's desires, thoughts, impulses are 'completely spiritual', there is no room for improvement because one is already perfect. When his disciple of 10 years questioned him about his 'latest impulses' and was told that if he couldn't "accept every activity of the spiritual master as completely spiritual" then he had "no place in the spiritual world". Booted out after a decade of unquestioning service and devotion. The old Jayatirtha would never have been so mean, so cruel, so arrogant. He became corrupted with power and position. He was not a Judas, but he was sacrificed, in that sense, by Krishna to teach a very important lesson. Lower than the straw in the street, devoid of all sense of false prestige, ready to offer respects to everyone and expect none for himself. Amen

An important point to remember here is that with the advent of Chaitanya and His eternal assosiates, there was the beginning of a Satya Yuga within the Kali Yuga, and I believe it is supposed to go on for another 100,000 years. We're just beginning to get our collective feet wet, dipping toes into the prophesized ocean of Love of God.

An important point to remember here is that with the advent of Chaitanya and His eternal assosiates, there was the beginning of a Satya Yuga within the Kali Yuga, and I believe it is supposed to go on for another 100,000 years. We're just beginning to get our collective feet wet, dipping toes into the prophesized ocean of Love of God.