Sonic Yogi

I found the quote from Srila Prabhupada about lila-smaranam. Saraswata Gaudiyas most certainly practice lila-smaranam, but it is Krishna's lila that is remembered as opposed to the sahajiya concept of remembering one's own supposed lila with Krishna as described by the sahajiya guru.

Here is the standard way of raganuga bhakti as taught by Mahaprabhu: This is it. This is what Lord Chaitanya taught as the standard process of raganuga bhakti. Somewhere along the way somebody manufactured the siddha-pranali term and practice based upon something mentioned by Gopal Guru Goswami in his writings. However, there is a big difference between the case of a liberated, self-realized siddha bhakta who can understand the siddha-deha of a disciple and revealing it to the disciple and the case of some sahajiya making his living at Radha-kunda passing out siddha-deha to neophyte sahajiyas who make a nice donation to their meal ticket. Sure, a siddha bhakta can understand through his spiritual powers the svarupa of a disciple and reveal that to him. However, that should not be equated with the dimestore siddha-dehas that sahajiyas at Radha-kunda are passing out to completly unfit people who a few months later leave Vaishnavism and the siddha-deha he bought from his sahajiya guru.

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."

Not really. Saraswata Gaudiyas do not at all neglect lila-smaranam. Whoever says they do is wrong. The problem is that some foolish devotees have equated siddha-pranali process with lila-smaranam. It is patently wrong to say that Saraswata Gaudiyas do not practice "lila smaranam". Lila-smaranam means "remembering the pastimes of Krishna". In Krsna Book, Srila Prabhupada states that reading Krsna Book is "lila-smaranam".

Obviously, you don't know enough about the Saraswata Gaudiya Sampradaya. Do you think that some lay devotees on this forum represent properly the Saraswata Gaudiya Sampradaya? Why don't you research the history of the Gaudiyas a little before you go judging the whole sampradaya on something you read by strangers on an internet forum. The Gaudiya history and tradition are very complicated and well documented. If you want to know something about the actual Gaudiya tradition you need to consult the proper authorities instead of just accepting everything you read on the internet forum.

The Gaudiyas don't have Vaidika Brahmans. The Gaudiyas have Pancaratrika Brahmans specifically trained in worship of Krishna. So, a Vaidika Brahmana who is not a devotee of Vishnu or Krishna is not accepted by the Gaudiyas as "guru". Vaidika Brahmans worship an assortment of gods and godesses. Pancaratrika Brahmans only worship Vishnu or Krishna. So, the Gaudiyas do not consider Vaidika Brahmans as Gaudiya gurus because the Gaudiya rule is that one must be a devotee of Krishna in order to be a guru in the Gaudiya sampradaya. There are Shakta Brahmans as well, but Gaudiyas do not accept them as gurus in the Gaudiya sampradaya. There were some Shakta Brahmans who became Krishna devotees in the Gaudiya sampradaya and in so doing they received the Gaudiya mantra-diksha and abandoned the mantra diksha of their heriditary tradition. That is the Gaudiya tradition. If a Shakta Brahman becomes a Krishna bhakta, then he takes again mantra diksha from the Gaudiya acharya and then become as Gaudiya Brahman of the Pancaratrika system that was instructed by the great sage Narada Muni.

Prabhupada gave you that direct connection to Krishna by the translation and purports. It sure wasn't your official ISKCON guru who did that with some mantra-diksha. Can you read Sanskrit? Are you self-realized. Can you understand Bhagavad-gita without help from the self-realized devotee who does know the language and the meaning of Bhagavad-gita? After all, Prabhupada did name his organization the "Krishna" consciousness movement didn't he? He did not style it as the "Prabhupada" consciousness movement. Prabhupada teaches how to connect to Krishna. He did not want anything for himself. He just wanted to connect you to Krishna. If you were a self-realized soul who could read Sanskrit then maybe you would not need Prabhupada.

"Neo-Hinduism" is a concocted term that is not found in any teachings of the acharyas or the shastras. It is a newly manufactured term that someone invented to garner personal prestige and attention. There is no such thing as "neo-Hinduism". In fact, there is no such thing as Hinduism since the term was manufactured by the Persians in their attempts to lump all the Bharatiyas of India, who follow different scriptures of India, into one nice group of those that must be killed and exterminated.

Not really. Sadhana is like when Vaishnava parents raise a child in religious practices. In the beginning the child does it because the parents make him. Then, if the child actually gets to the point where he does it willingly out of attraction and interest in Krishna, then that become raga bhakti.

You keep missing the point. 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. BG intro - BG intro - B.G. 4.16 purport -

Well, where do you find your claim of "diksha parampara"? Tell me where Srila Rupa Goswami has defined parampara as being defined by diksha? Parampara has always been based on the transmission of spiritual knowledge. Paramapara has wrongly been labeled as "diksha parampara" by caste gurus who make their living as professional gurus. Parampara is about the continued line of knowledge. It has always been about the transmission of knowledge from guru to disciple. Lord Krishna speaks of Parampara as an unbroken chain of knowledge. I doubt seriously that Srila Rupa Goswami has any different idea about Parampara and went against what his Lord Krishna considered as Parampara. In fact the term Parampara is not found at all in Srimad Bhagavatam or Sri Caitanya Caritamrita. A Vedabase seach only shows ONE incidence of the word Parampara and it is in the Bhagavad-gita of Lord Krishna. In this most authoritative reference to Parampara we find that Parampara is in fact about the passing down of knowledge of spiritual science. Krishna revived the Parampara with Arjuna. He did so without giving Arjuna any mantra diksha.

Well at least we know where you stand now. You say that Srila Prabhupada is a sahajiya because he tried to create some preachers and gave sannyasa to some men that let him down. I would have to disagree, because Srila Prabhuapda's tactics did get Krishna consciousness spread all over the world and most of the sannyasis that fell down did a lot of good work before they jumped ship. Siddha-pranali as a term or a process is not found in any of the teachings of Srila Rupa Goswami. Wherever it came from, one thing we know is that it cannot claim to be Rupanuga. Maybe we could call it Gopal Guru Goswaminuga? Gopal Guru Swami was a sakhi not a manjari. In the Rupanuga sampradaya the the leader of the group is a Manjari.

So, basically what you are saying is that we should jump over the head of our Guru Maharaja and his Guru Maharaja and follow the father of the spiritual master's spiritual master. Never mind what our immediate Guru has given for us, let us all jump back about three gurus and try to follow instructions that were never meant for us. That makes a lot of sense. Well, actually, it does not and is quite ridiculous. The Gaudiya parampara has always been a siksha based parampara. Mahaprabhu spread his Sankirtan movement all over South India and in fact had more success there than anywhere in India. He didn't go around giving everyone formal diksha. He conducted his Sankirtan and gave instructions as in the example of Kurma the brahmana who in turn went back to his village and spread the movement through Sankirtan and siksha. It is said in Caitanya Caritamrita that the Sankirtan movement overflooded South India and many thousands of people took to the movement of Mahaprabhu. All these people were liberated and attained eternal life. There is no descriptions of Mahaprabhu holding large initiation ceremonies. There is no description of him giving formal diksha to anyone there. Yet it is said that Mahaprabhu had the greatest success with his Sankirtan movement in South India. The claim that the Sankirtan movement of Mahaprabhu is based on formal initiations as opposed to Harinama Sankirtan is just wrong. If formal diksha is the measure of success or the platform for Mahaprabhu's Sankirtan movement, then Krishnadas Kaviraja Goswami was certainly wrong to say that Mahaprabhu was most successful in his movement in South India. Krishna told Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gita that he was starting a new parampara with Arjuna as the previous parampara coming down through the Sun god had been broken. Did he give Arjuna formal diksha or Gayatri mantra on the battlefield of Kurukshetra? No, because Lord Krishna's idea of parampara is siksha based and that is why he gave Arjuna siksha on the battlefield of Kurukshetra instead of initiating him into some mantra. If you accept Lord Krishna's instructions in Bhagavad-gita, then you must accept that his idea of parampara is siksha based. Being a rejecter is not the problem. The problem is when neophytes try to jump over the head of their immediate spiritual master and disobey him on the pretext of following some predecessor acharya.

Look again. Srila Prabhupada says: He doesn't say "so-called" in this sentence. He says "the siddha-pranali process". There is no so-called in this statement. It is clear that he is referring to siddha-pranali. There is no so-called process of siddha-pranali and any authentic process of siddha-pranali. The siddha-pranali process is wholesale from it's inception an unauthorized process that cannot be traced to any instructions of Srila Rupa Goswami. Siddha-pranali is a perversion of some very intimate and exclusive dealings between Gopal Guru Goswami and some of his most intimate disciples. Since then it has been transformed into a cheap dimestore imitation of something that a few rare discples of a nitya-siddha parshada of Mahaprabhu had with their siddha guru. A few rare occurences of Gopal Guru Goswami revealing to some of his disciples their svarupa with Krishna has become a cheap, merchantile exchange between professional babajis and their foolsih followers. What they call siddha-pranali today is a perverted and cheap imitation of something that a parshada of Mahaprabhu gave to a few rare disciples. Now, it has become something you can purchase with a substantial monetary contribution to some babaji at Radha-kunda who needs chapatti and dahl money. Madhavananda das bought himself a siddha-deha from Ananta das Babaji with a nice donation to the cause, but after a couple of years of lila-smaranam he was still miserable and clueless. Now, he has rejected Gaudiya Vaishnavism and is living in Europe with a female companion doing his Krishna imitation. 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.

In the above quote from NOD, Srila Prabhupada says clearly that the siddha-pranali process was "manufactured" by unauthorized men. He also says that the siddha-pranali process is followed by "prakrita-sahajiyas". He doesn't say that any authorized sect of Gaudiya Vaishnavas practice it. He finishes his comment on siddha-pranali by saying that Srila Rupa Goswami considered such practice as a disturbance to the standard way of devotional service. It appears from this that the siddha-pranali process was extant during the time Srilla Rupa Goswami wrote the Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, as Srila Prabhupada states that Srila Rupa Goswami considered such practices as a disturbance to the standard ways of devotional service. We see as well, that in the Saraswata Gaudiya sect the siddha-pranali process has distracted several ISKCON type devotees who have more or less created a disturbance on the internet especially with their preaching of the need for siddha-pranali for aspiring devotees. Srila Prabhupada's position is clear. He considered siddha-pranali a practice of the sahajiyas, he considered it to be something manufactured by unauthorized men and he considered it a disturbance to the standard way of devotional service. Srila Sridhar Maharaja maintained the same opinion. Narayan Maharaja seems to have some tendency towards siddha-pranali. It must be something he picked-up during his stint with the babajis at Radha-kunda at which time some of the senior devotees in the Matha of Kesava Maharaja came to Radha-kunda and insisted that Narayana Maharaja return to the Matha of his Guru Maharaja. Apparently, you can take the Swami away from the babajis but you can't take the babajis away from the Swami.

Sadhana is a Sanskrit word that means "common property". Sadhana is the form of bhakti that everyone is entitled to practice. Raga bhakti is a higher form of bhakti that is practiced by those who have developed a spontaneous attraction to Krishna - the Supreme Lord. Sadhana is routine religious practices of the Vaishnava sect. If and when that routine religious practice leads to a true love and attraction for Krishna then it becomes Raga Bhakti.

Bhakti has two basic aspects; sadhana bhakti and raga bhakti. They both have the same goal to attain prema or love of God. Sadhana bhakti is obligatory practices such as archana, japa, and following of the moral principles of spiritual life. Raga bhakti is the spontaneous devotion done out of love rather than duty. Sadhana is part of bhakti. It is not a separate practice.

I am always amazed how a mundane criticism of something that millions of seekers hold as sacred is allowed to be passed off as a spiritual topic on the forum. Isn't there a little corner of this forum somewhere for atheists and blasphemers to vent their negative energy instead of allowing them to intrude into "spiritual discussions"? Why don't these atheists go find a forum for skeptics and atheists and leave the faithful alone to their own space?

The mind and the intelligence are separated energies created by Lord Krishna. So, the mind is a material covering of the soul as is the intelligence. The soul in illusion identifies with these coverings as if these coverings are the self. So, the mind covers the soul but is not the soul proper. Intelligence is a covering of the soul but is not the soul proper. As far as what is "ours" not even our own soul is really ours as the soul is a separated energy of Krishna and is therefore technically his. http://vedabase.net/bg/en

Srila Prabhupada makes it simple without a lot of complicated references to this and to that. This is the long and the short of it. We hear about Krishna lila from the proper shastric sources and find a parshada that becomes our role model. We always think about that role model and the role model's service in the lila of Krishna. The siddha pranali process teaches one to think of himself as a particular eternal associate of Krishna rather than thinking of the parshada role model one has chosen out of his own inclination. That is the difference. In siddha pranali you are imaging yourself to be an associate of Krishna. In the actual Rupanuga sampradaya one thinks of the parshada that one has the most affinity for and cherishes a desire to serve in that way. Then, at the time of death the devotee is transferred to a universe where the pastimes of Krishna are being manifested and takes a birth that enables one to follow in the footsteps of the parshada that he always remembered and thought about.

Then they are not ready for higher knowledge and are therefore very unfortunate and cannot have higher knowledge and learn how to attain salvation from material suffering. Maybe after many more lifetimes of suffering they will accept the truth of reincarnation. Ignorant people cannot be helped if they are not willing to accept the teaching of Lord Krishna in Bhagavad-gita.

who cares...... Siddha pranali is not allowed in the Saraswata Gaudiya sect. I am quite fine with that. I don't need or want any bogus siddha pranali from some bogus neophyte who hasn't even perfected his own "siddha deha". I don't care what Bhaktivinoda did. It is none of my concern. I know that siddha pranali is not practiced or allowed in the Saraswata Gaudiya sampradaya and that is quite fine with me. I am happy without this cheap siddha pranali siddha deha. I don't need it and I don't want it and that is the way that the majority of devotees in the KC movement feel. The devotees who follow the siddha pranali process are just a small sect of the KC movement. Most followers of Srila Prabhupada know well that Srila Prabhupada was against the practice of siddha pranali. That is good enough for me.

Ready for siddha pranali? No Saraswata Gaudiya will ever be ready for siddha pranali because it is outlawed in the Saraswata Gaudiya sampradaya. Siddha deha is an internal realization. It is not something that your guru has to tell you about. One's siddha deha will be realized upon perfection of Nama bhajan and cannot be artificially assigned to an unfit neophyte. Siddha-deha is an attainment of spiritual trance. It is not something that can be given to a neophyte through some cheap siddha pranali process. The perfect soul takes birth in Vraja-lila where Krishna is performing his pastimes in some universe. He doesn't need prior information about it. Krishna knows his inner heart and will give him the right birth in Vraja lila according to the inner necessity of the devotee. The process of receiving siddha pranali has just become a cheap imitiation of some sort. It is not at all necessary in order to take birth in Krishna lila and naturally develop through a gradual sequence one's rasa with Krishna. That is what Vraja lila provides; a chance for souls coming up to take birth in Vrindavan and realize fully their own love for Krishna. Siddha pranali is mostly just an excuse for not following the instructions of Lord Chaitanya and preaching Harinama all over the world. Siddha pranali is a business for many sahajiyas and therefore the process has been discredited and disgraced. Who needs it? Nobody.

What you think you know about Bhaktivinoda is not approved by Srila Saraswati Goswami. It is well known fact that Srila Bhaktivinoda rejected Vipina Bihari Goswami. It is well documented that a rift caused Bhaktivinoda to reject Vipina Bihari Goswami. Insiders of the time have documented it and it is no secret except to outsiders from the siddha pranali section who like to try and validate their bogus siddha pranali by citing Bhaktivinoda as evidence. Bhaktivinoda also wrote Sri Krishna Samhita before he ever met Vipina Bihari Goswami, so he was obviously a realized siddha before he ever met Vipina Bihari Goswami. That is what the siddha pranali imitators won't admit is that Bhaktivinoda was a siddha before he ever knew Vipina Bihari Goswami.

Bhaktivinoda rejected the guru who gave him siddha pranali, so that is a poor argument. What Bhaktivinoda might have done and his reasons for doing it are really a mystery. What we do know is that Srila Saraswati Thakur rejected the process and the process is not accepted or even respected by the Saraswata Gaudiyas. Bhaktivinoda was not a Saraswata Gaudiya. The Saraswata Gaudiyas are the followers of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur whom did not approve of the siddha pranali process. ISKCON in all it's faults has at least managed to prevent this siddha pranali influence from taking hold in ISKCON. None of the disciples of Srila Saraswati Thakur accepted or practiced the siddha pranali process. Siddha pranali is only practiced by some non-Saraswata Gaudiyas. The Saraswata acharyas all were strongly opposed to the practice. If someone chooses to go against their wishes that siddha pranali be purged from the sampradaya they can certainly do that, but such a person should certainly not consider himself a follower of Srila Prabhupada if he does so.