Kulapavana

…I came to know that my disciple Candrasekhara from Delhi wrote you a letter. Candrasekhara sent me a copy of your reply to him. In that letter I came to know that foolish Candrasekhara had blasphemed you. Fools do not know how to honour Vaisnavas. By your greatness, please excuse him. I haven’t instructed him to do such a thing. I only told him to visit you.

Anyway, excuse his aparadha. Candrasekhara is a good man, but out of foolishness he used bad words to you. You please forgive him and me by your good qualities.

(NY, 15.12.66)

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very instructive!

maybe you should chose not to associate with this Vaishnava, but most definitely you should abstain from disrespecting him because such an activity of a disciple implicates his guru in the blasphemy as well:

"Anyway, excuse his aparadha. Candrasekhara is a good man, but out of foolishness he used bad words to you. You please forgive him and me by your good qualities."

Should One Accept Disciples?

by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada

Question 3: Should one accept disciples?

Answer: Without becoming a suddha-bhakta* or a mukta (liberated soul), a person should not accept disciples. First, he should become a disciple himself by taking shelter of a bona fide guru, and he should also hear hari-katha from his lips. Then in his own life he should practise all he has heard from Sri Guru. Thereafter, by humbly performing kirtana – that is, repeating to others what he has heard – gradually he may also become a guru himself.

It is self-deception to think “I will intentionally remain laghu (insignificant) forever.” One must become guru.** This means one has to become a true devotee of Krsna, fully engaging all one’s senses in service to Krsna, at every moment.

This does not necessarily mean that one must accept disciples. Still, by the desire of Bhagavan, some suddha-bhaktas impart instructions for the welfare of the people in general. They are devoid of any selfish motive in doing so. Their purpose is to make those who are laghu (insignificant) become guru (significant); to make those averse to Bhagavan inclined towards Him; and to make everyone a devotee of Krsna.

 

Very good find, Suchandra-ji. Thank you!

You have no clue how Lord Chaitanya is going to manifest.

 

Without guns and bombs, Moscow would still not allow Hare Krishnas to dance in the streets.

 

I'm glad you have all the clues.

Unlike you, I lived and preached KC in a communist country for years. We did very well in those years. In those years we had more full time devotees and more temples then now. Explain that if you can.

It was not guns and bombs that made the chnges in Russia. The change happened without any bloodshed. And there was plenty of preaching going on. I know it from a direct experience.

When devotees display arrogance and ignorance in their preaching, and when they are led by crooks, the local people can see that they are a fake and have no interest in what they preach.

Like I said: What is stopping the KC movement in US??? What would you bomb to change the sorry state our movement is in? Who would you shoot? Ah? Ask yourself that question, soldier.

Learn from Lord Caitanya, not from the Old Testament. Even Jesus of Nazareth rejected violence in his mission. Too bad people who claim to follow him did not.

and self-hating Americans are ignorant to the threat that Iranians and like-minded Jew haters are to the World at large.

 

Sure, first you start a fight and then you complain that your victim is hitting you back. How typical... You reap what you sow.

The only thing stopping Lord Caitanya's movement are crooks and liars using it for their own material benefit. Do you see chanting in EVERY town and village here in US? No. Are the 'bad Muslims' stopping you? No. So what is the basic malfunction here, soldier? The same crooks and liars in and outside our movement who tell you to support the war and murder of innocent people in the name of world peace and security for Israel. Our movement has been turned by them into a fraud.

Lord Caitanya's movement is not spread with guns and bombs. Lord Caitanya showed us how to deal with Muslims, using peaceful harinama and philosophy. We use His methods, not those imported from Old Testament.

Buh-bye IRAN, and payback for the hostage crisis FINALLY!

You should first read about America's involvement in Iran prior to the hostage crisis. If the criminals in US government did not topple the legitimate government of Iran to instal their puppet shah, there would have been no hostage crisis.

Only simpletons with no memory and no imagination can cheer the corrupt warmongering of the demonic leaders.

If we watch in this world so called injustice taking place and Krsna Himself or the material energy, Krsna's agent, let it all happen, there's only one conclusion/answer, it's karma. There was no injustice, otherwise it could not have taken place, would have been baffled, crossed, blighted from begin with.

If we say that there is never any injustice, it is all a reaction to past karma, than how is the NEW karma generated? Of course there are improper actions we witness in this world! and they will be punished in the future.

"Your logic", better we refer to what Krsna says, see below, "material energy is working under My direction."

Under His direction means that He sets the rules. The justice system sanctions punishments for activities we chose to preform. Just because something happened it does not mean that Krsna wanted it to happen. The state does not want to punish people, but when they commit a crime it has to punish them.

We should be careful when we say that something in this world happened because Krsna wanted it to happen that way. How in the world do we know such things?

The Allied forces came and exposed the murdering if innocent people as a crime and killed the aggressors. Next, there was a trial, Nuremberg trials, were all the leading rascals were convicted.

So in your logic the fact that other leading rascals, like Stalin, were never tried and convicted must mean that the killing done by them was sanctioned by Krsna?? Stalin and other communists killed far more people than the nazis.

This might be all true, but without Krishna's sanctioning nothing happens.

Since there was never any stopping and things developed for so many years, it must have been sanctioned by Krishna.

The same can be said about Holocaust

:outta: :outta:

 

sri visnu:pray:

the truth hurts sometimes

very often people don't take us seriously because we propose 'solutions' that don't work even for us, let alone the society in general, while we refuse to face the facts. Pradhupada was a pragmatic person - he would adjust things to make them work, even if it meant reversing himself on an issue. We should learn from our mistakes, not close our eyes to them.

for me the evil of two lessers leaves me with McCain. I may not agree with most of his Ideas but to me at least he seems humble.

Both are crooks, liars, and special interest stooges. McCain means more war, more money wasted on the stupid wars his bosses support, more deficit, more unbalanced trade. Pick your poison or vote third party.

 

"fools electing the biggest fools to lead them straight to hell."

 

 

I doubt that the management system Prabhupada introduced in Iskcon was any better in practice. Authocratic, top down management is far easier to manipulate and abuse by crafty and crooked individuals than democracy - and Iskcon's history is a proof of that. Those who can't properly manage their own affairs should not expect others to take seriously their advice on management of the state.

It is human nature to think and feel one's own religious belief is better than everyone else's. Some people here tend to get very vocal about that and post disparaging comments on other beliefs. It is only natural that other parties will react to that. Some Hare Krishnas who were fond of criticizing Mayavada, Shaivism, etc., thought they had special privileges which allowed them to say anything they wanted, and no one should object to their mockery. As that was not the case, they have mostly disappeared from here.

 

That is a pretty good asessment of the situation. While I consider myself to be an aspiring GV, I do not appreciate the often very simplistic and mean spirited criticism of other spiritual doctrins and philosophies common among the Gaudiyas of today. But what can be done? As the Gita says: everything material flows from false ego.

I am in the process of writing a monograph on 'The Greek synchronism and its pernicious effects on Indian History' and how it has effected the Indic mind I am willing to serialize the draft copy of this forthcoming book in this site , should there be an interest in doing so.

 

Sounds interesting. I would love to see a copy of your work.

Chief Geronimo:

We believed that there is a life after this one, but no one ever told me as to what part of man lived after death.

We are vanishing from the earth, yet I cannot think we are useless or Usen would not have created us.

There is one God looking down on us all. We are all the children of one God. The sun, the darkness, the winds are all listening to what we have to say.

Quotes from Chief Sitting Bull:

"If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, and in my heart he put other and different desires. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows."

"I am here by the will of the Great Spirit, and by his will I am chief. I know Great Spirit is looking down upon me from above, and will hear what I say..."

"The earth has received the embrace of the sun and we shall see the results of that love. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart, he put other different desires.

"In my early days, I was eager to learn and to do things, and therefore I learned quickly. Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit."

"Now that we are poor, we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights."

"What white man can say I ever stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief. What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian."

"What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? Who has seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken?"

"Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country? God made me an Indian."

The soul is situated in the heart because in the mechanical sense the bodily consciousness extends out with the flow of the blood, through the means of 'airs of life'.

For trees it is probably the flow of sap, with it's center in the root crown system (part just below the soil level) - I would see that as a location of the soul in a tree.

it simply means that it is infinitely small.

it is humbling to look at a tiny ant and think that it is powered up by a soul just like us.

And he says that the origin of the soul is a bright light!

 

So in-conceivable!

In case you forgot: That 'bright light' from which we come from is Krsna.

<CENTER>Chapter 14. The Yoga of the Supreme Person</CENTER>

brahmanah--of the impersonal brahmajyoti; hi--certainly; pratistha--the rest; aham--I am; amrtasya--of the immortal; avyayasya--of the imperishable; ca--also; sasvatasya--of the eternal; ca--and; dharmasya--of the constitutional position; sukhasya--happiness; aikantikasya--ultimate; ca--also.

And I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman, which is the constitutional position of ultimate happiness, and which is immortal, imperishable and eternal.

Paramahamsa - So we can come to the spiritual world and return?

Prabhupada - Yes.

Paramahamsa - Falldown?

Prabhupada - Yes…. He goes out of his free will; again comes out, again goes. Like that. (Cheviot Hills Golf Course-5-13-73, L.A.)

Krsna says in Bhagavad Gita (8.16): "From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kuntī, never takes birth again."

I believe Lord Krsna. Prabhupada must be talking about Brahmajyoti.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta - “The position of the jiva IS a part of the tatastha-sakti that can enjoy, cease to enjoy, and go back to his original position”. Sri Caitanya’s Teachings, p. 101

the original position is the Brahmajyoti. Many mystics do exactly that: go back to Brahmajyoti only to fall down from it again.

And long, long, long before all that, they were with Krsna in Goloka.

The teachings of Srila Prabhupada are the teachings of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta

 

Read again what BST says:

"Vishnu has three energies, one of them is meant for manifestation of His eternal Abode, another Potency is for creating all human souls who are emanations from His Tatastha-shakti found between the temporal and eternal worlds. By this potency He creates human souls."

To claim that there before they were created as described here, these souls existed as Krsna's servants in Goloka is a total fabrication, completely illogical, and baseless. You concoct such things to support your pet theory. There is nothing in the shastras or in the writings of previous acharyas that support such view.

Thus we must conclude that Prabhupada inserted the 'fall from Eden' references for the sake of preaching in the West.

Srila Prabhupada rejects the ideas of those who preach the 'impersonal Brahmajyoti origin that claims that the marginal living entity is originally in a dormant state (a plain sheet of consciousness) from where one can develop and then use their free will to choose either Vaikuntha or the mahat-tattva.

Many today in other Vaishnava sects may follow that misunderstanding however, it appears to me they have incorrectly used the word 'tatastha' to describe the jiva's impersonal dormant origin state after its so called creation from this 'plain sheet of consciousness'.

They claim the jiva’s originate from the brahmajyoti, which is living and growing claiming that within the brahmajyoti, their stability is somehow disturbed and progress begins. From no separation, separation begins. From a plain sheet of uniform consciousness, individual conscious units grow. And because the jiva is conscious, it is now capable of free will. So, from the marginal position they choose either the side of exploitation in the mahat-tattva or the side of dedication or service to Krsna in Goloka.

This is precisely what Srila Bhaktisiddhanta preached, as the quotes above clearly show. This is the standard understanding in all Vaishnava sampradayas, based on the Upanishadic (sruti) descriptions. If you say that Prabhupada rejected that, than it means he rejected the teachings of his own guru on that point.

"Vishnu has three energies, one of them is meant for manifestation of His eternal Abode, another Potency is for creating all human souls who are emanations from His Tatastha-shakti found between the temporal and eternal worlds. By this potency He creates human souls. The human soul has two different predilections. If he desires to serve God-head he is allowed into the Eternal Region. If he desires to lord it over this world he comes down for enjoying in different capacities the products of the Deluding Potency." (Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura: Sri Caitanya's Teachings, "Immanent and Transcendent")

My argument is that Prabhupada told a 'snake is a rope' story to his disciples.

The case of Jaya and Vijaya has absolutely nothing to do with living entities origin. They were cursed as part of Lord's lila. They did not develop a desire to leave the Lord.

As I said, there is zero shastric support for the Vaikuntha origin theory. Every time people point it out to the sleepervadis they start bringing the 'aparadha' argument. Those who criticize your absurd theories are actually doing you a favor. Prabhpada had the right to tell such snake-rope stories to his disciples, but they do not change the GV siddhanta.

At one point in Iskcon history GBC decided by a close vote that the origin of all jivas is in Krsna and Vishnu personal leela. Since that time Iskcon myth makers are busy concocting theories to prove this was the absolute truth. Good luck!

What nonsense.

There is no harm in believing what your guru told you (snake is a rope). But you should not concoct new theories and fantasies about being asleep in Vaikuntha or claim that other acharyas support such concoctions.

Worse yet is calling people who believe in the shastric (Upanishadic) definition of tatastha sakti 'impersonalists' and other silly names. The idea that parishads of Lord Krsna fall from Goloka Vrindavan to engage in this material world has no basis in shastra. Neither does it ever appear in the writings of the six Goswamis or subsequent acharyas. That is why it is safe to conclude that Prabhupada preached like that to his Christian and Jewish disciples because they were familiar with the 'fall from Eden' concept.