Kulapavana

Actually, siddha-pranali was not practiced by his diksha-guru.

So, there is no such thing as BST "discontinuing" something that in fact his diksha-guru was against.

 

Gaura-kishora das Babaji in fact remarked (about siddha-pranali):

"The imitator is like a woman who enters the maternity ward and simply by producing the sounds of labor thinks that she can produce a child. Many things are required before that."

GKDB was a disciple of Bhagavata dasa babaji, one of the foremost disciples of Jagannatha dasa babaji and siddha pranali was definitely practiced in that line.

Read about it here: http://www.vnn.org/editorials/980412-1741/index.html

GKDB was not against siddha pranali. He was against siddha pranali practiced by unqualified devotees. Just because someone can fake pregnancy, does not mean that all pregnancies are fake.

Our mind is constantly bombarding us with what it deems desirable and when we alter lila to suit the mind we are not close to lila at all. It becomes our imagination. Nama, however, can bestow glipse of lila out of audarya.

 

Sannyasa is an ashram not a bhajan

 

It has nothing to do with what is sahajiya.

If uttering of the holy name cannot be corrupted by the conditioning of the mind why is chanting of the nondevotees to be avoided? Why can it be 'poisoned milk touched by the lips of a serpent'?

Sahaja means taking the easy road. Giving sannyasa to unqualified bhaktas is taking the easy road - which mostly led to their fall down and damage to our reputation. You can be a dasya rasa sahajiya as well - this designation is not limited to madhurya rasa.

 

3) If today, I can read the work of a 2000 year old author, then obviously it means there is an unbroken chain between him and me or else I would not have access to his work. That is all there is to it.

 

Books often need explanation, and the guru is not merely a source of knowledge. His much more important function is inspiration and direct guidance given to a disciple.

Anyone who can understand Bhagavad-gita can become a direct disciple of Lord Krishna just as Arjuna did.

That is why Srila Prabhupada gave us Bhagavad-gita As It Is, so that anyone who reads the book can become a direct disciple of Krishna and a disciple of Srila Prabhupada both by reading the verses and the purports.

 

If I can be a direct disciple of Lord Krsna, what do I need Prabhupada for?

Krishna revived the Parampara with Arjuna.

He did so without giving Arjuna any mantra diksha.

In this case Krsna revived a very specific knowledge meant for the kings, and a very specific parampara (disciplic line) of saintly kings. This line actually was hereditary to a large extent, as it was given from father to son. There was no diksa involved in that line as diksa was always received from brahmanas only. So it was strictly a siksa line.

Arjuna received diksa (upanayana) from Dhaumya, the family guru of Pandavas. Another disciplic line Arjuna was a part of was the line coming from Dronacharya.

BTW. Arjuna's line of parampara became extinct as well.

I will tell you a story closely related to siddha pranali.

One ex-Iskcon devotee came to an ashram of a Radha-kund baba famous for his high quality internal bhajana in the mood of the gopis. This devotee asked baba to give him siddha pranali and teach him asta-kaliya-bhajana. Baba engaged this devotee in every day chores, like getting water from the well, taking care of the cows, cooking on open fire, etc. After about a year this devotee started getting impatient and approached baba for 'more confidential instructions'. Baba got quite angry. He yelled at him: "You rascal! I got you engaged in all the daily activities of a gopi, and you want higher instructions?!" and chased him out of his ashram. Only then this devotee started to get a glimpse of what siddha pranali is about.

Anyway. I did not join this discussion to suggest that we should all get siddha pranali in a near future. I joined this discussion to show how myth-making hurts our spiritual life, and how we should first take a critical look at our own activities before we embark on a fault-finding mission to our very close relatives.

 

Actually I had stolen the Bhagavad-Gita, if I hadn't I probably wouldn't be sitting here today in such a forum.

 

It was lobha, trancendental greed for spirituality

Interesting idea, where is this from?

The Puranas clearly speak of separate worlds. They are also clearly not separate planetary systems, as for example one enters the Naga-loka by entrances in the ground or under water, not by traveling on a space ship. The same with some of the higher worlds, which you enter by going up in the Himalayas. See Arjuna's journey North in Mahabharata. Eventually he got to the gates of the higher world even he was not allowed to enter.

For a large part of the gaudiya vaisnava society at that time the caste goswamis were predominant. Diksa guru had become a family caste based business; those families claimed hereditary rights (they still do today) as diksa gurus for the gaudiya sampradaya. Bhaktisiddhanta preached against the conception of hereditary gurus, so he didn't want to take diksa from his father because he would have been accused of hypocrisy.

That is one possible explanation. However, brahmanas always were the diksa gurus for society, and of course it was a hereditary 'business', as varnashrama tends to be.

It also needs to be mentioned that Bipin Bihari was not in one of those 'dreaded' hereditary parivars. He stepped outside his own family line to take diksa from a line going back to Lord Nityananda's wife.

No, I don't think this has anything to do with Bipin Bihari. Didn't Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura himself direct Bhimal Prasad to Srila Gaurakisora dasa Babaji? That's the story I have always heard. Why he did so, I don't know.

IMO the story has a lot to do with Bipin Bihari, but I do not doubt that it was Bhaktivinoda who directed his son to Gaurakishora Babaji (Bhaktivinoda himself took babaji vesha from Gaurakisora three years later, in 1908). Perhaps it was meant to be a lesson.

The following essay about the hellish planets...

Translating the sanskrit word 'loka' as a 'planet' is misleading at best. Loka simply means 'place'. The planets of our solar system like Saturn, Uranus, or Pluto, are not the hellish worlds described by the Puranas. Neither is our Moon the Candraloka. These lokas exist beyond our earthly dimension and you can not see them from our world. They exist in different time/space continuum, forming different dimensions of our Universe.

So father rejected to give diksha to his son? What kind of mood could make a loving father to reject to give the most important thing to his own son?

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta accomplished many wonderful things in his life. Lord Krsna uses all of us in His plan according to our way of surrender.

We can only speculate as to why Bhaktivinoda did not give diksa to his older son, but ultimately it can be seen as part of Lord Krsna's plan. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta disliked his father's guru from the very beginning. Thus taking diksa from his father would have perhaps been awkward for him, as it would make Bipin Bihari his parama guru. Who knows...

We have a good example of how siddha-pranali is a dead-end street.

Just ask Madhavananda das if there is any magic in siddha-pranali and I am sure he will tell you quite definitively that there is NOT.

Just ask all the fallen disciples of Srila Prabhupada (including dozens of his ex-sannyasa disciples) if there was any magic in what they got from their guru.

It is not magic that sustains your devotional life. Diksa, sannyasa, siddha-pranali are all tools which can be used in spiritual life, but ultimately it is up to us to make them useful.

Giving sannyasa to completely unqualified young men is every bit as 'sahajiya' as giving siddha-pranali to unprepared and unqualified disciples.

Pankaja, take it easy. The road of life is filled with many sharp turns. Do what your heart tells you to do, but keep your eyes open and do not get sentimental.

Lots of luck to you, old buddy...

There is no shortage of proselytizing religious groups in this world where adherents are told to "spread the message" and convert the entire world to their way of thinking.

Yes, that is true. Quite often atheism is a reaction to bad behavior of the so called 'religious folks'. When people are faced with religious violence, religious hatred and discrimination, forcible conversions, immoral conduct of religious readers, etc. they often conclude that atheism is the solution (see John Lennon's song Imagine).

I'll chose a sane and principled atheist over a religious kook any day.

Why does an atheist bother to ask about something he believes does not exist? He should worry about himself being good or bad.

And you first need to define what is good, and what is bad.

Do not waste your time trying to convince an atheist that God exists. Rather tell him about the soul - once he truly understands he is not the body he will start developing a more spiritual outlook on life.

Stars don’t emit light. That is, in reality separate stars don’t exist and individual photons (light) do not exist. These are just our (discontinuous) conscious perception of (continuous) reality (or God). However, in terms of the physical models we have that accurately describe some observed regularities in material nature, I would say that stars emit their own light.

What we see with our human senses is a mere simulation of the Universe, broadcasted on Channel 7 of the Universal Reality TV for us humans. Thus you can travel at the speed of light (or mind) in this simulated reality for billions of years and never leave the material Universe. There are no Langoliers in our simulation, just a vast dead space desert.

Sages of old used the soma juice to transcend the boundaries set by their senses and explore higher worlds in their subtle bodies. Yogis mastered the kosmic energies to do the same.

Atmavan manyat jagat - you think the entire world is just like the one you create in your own mind.

You are surrounded by evil miscreants: sahajiyas, mayavadis, aparadhis, sunyavadis but they can all be saved if they only adopt your patented method of salvation, which nobody but your sect posesses, of course.

At the same time you pride yourself in being non-sectarian and a universalist... and all those who point out contradictions in your message are envious snakes or fools... especially so if they come from a closely related sect.

curmudgeon:

A curmudgeon is a miser or an ill-tempered (and frequently old) person full of stubborn ideas or opinions; An ill-tempered (and frequently old) person full of stubborn ideas or opinions.

hypocrite

<DL><DT class=hwrd>Main Entry: <DD class=hwrd>hyp·o·crite </DD><DT class=pron>Pronunciation: <DD class=pron>\ˈhi-pə-ˌkrit\ </DD><DT class=func>Function: <DD class=func>noun </DD><DT class=ety>Etymology: <DD class=ety>Middle English ypocrite, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin hypocrita, from Greek hypokritēs actor, hypocrite, from hypokrinesthai </DD><DT class=date><DD class=date>13th century </DD></DL>1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion

2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

Get off your computer Bhaktajan, leave your modern house, kick away your shoes and clothes, and go forage in the woods for some edible roots and acorns... or start farming on some vacant piece of land using a pointed stick and available beast of burden (see if your wife is available)

Good for you!

Ready for siddha pranali?

Personally? No, not yet, but I sincerely hope i will be before I die.

yam yam vapi smaran bhavan tyajantyante kalevaram tam tam evaiti kaunteya sada tad bhava bhavitah (Gita 8.6)

That is what the siddha pranali imitators won't admit is that Bhaktivinoda was a siddha before he ever knew Vipina Bihari Goswami.

Another bogus saraswata myth. Read the autobiograpy of Bhaktivinoda Thakura to find out for yourself.

The documented historical truth is that Bipina Bihari rejected Bhaktivinoda Thakura several years after Thakura's death for fabricating evidence to support his claims of the exact place of Mahaprabhu's birth. Bipina Bihari felt cheated by his favourite disciple because it was that fabricated evidence that made BB support BVT cause. He was hurt by such deception.

Yeah, Science will make a better future for humanity ... at least till your dead and gone and your grandchildren can play video games while drinking highfructose corn syrups.

You can use the internet to engage in Krsna katha or to look at porn - the choice is yours.

Do not blame science for the stupidity, greed and laziness of modern people. If you do not like science why don't you go back to the stone-age ways?

Vedic civilization included material science - great cities like Dvaraka or Ayodhya could not have existed without advanced science - just read their descriptions in the Puranas.

Prabhupada travelelled the globe on a modern jet plane - not on a flowery vimana conjured by the vedic mantras. Unless you can do better, you should give credit where credit is due. Vedic science of cosmology is just as dead as the Vedic science of building flying vimanas, and there are no experts on these subject matters among contemporary Vaishnavas, Prabhupada included.

Bhaktivinoda rejected the guru who gave him siddha pranali, so that is a poor argument.

That is a total lie. Nowhere in his writings does Bhaktivinoda indicate that he considered anyone but Bipin Bihari as his guru and he continues to praise his guru as a nitya-siddha manjari untill his last days.

Unfortunately Saraswatas produced many false stories to prove that their 'innovations' had the backing of Bhaktivinoda.

The bottom line though Kulapavana is that in line of Srila Prabhupada - the Saraswata Gaudiyas, the siddha-pranali process is rejected because it is not required and in fact became mostly associated with the sahajiya sects in India.

Many Vaishnavas in our movement who practiced sincerely for the last 30-40 years are quite ready for siddha pranali. Demonizing this process is not the way to go. Some of the innovations of Saraswata sampradaya gurus have proven themselves to be failures in the long run. IMO Iskcon has swung too much in the direction of external practices - when great sadhus like Narayana Maharaja are routinely viewed as sahajiyas by the Iskconites - that is a horrible, horrible attitude.

I would rather deal with sahajiyas than Vaishnava aparadhis, gay sannyasis, and leaders with gigantic egos incapable of managing even a simple project.