ShegavichaRana

On taking into account last one thousand years history of India, it is seen that, India and Indians have suffered terribly due to the foreign rule. How can one account for the destruction of temples, mutts, killing of holy men, cows? Is there anything called a collective Karma of a country or a land?

Shri Ram asked all his devotees, including Hanuman to ascend to Vishuloka, but Hanuman declined the offer saying, he was so besotted with the holy name, Shri Ram, that, he wanted to listen it when people on earth chanted it. Hence he preferred to stay back on earth. I have also heard that, wherever, Ramayana is being read with total faith and dedication, Hanuman visits that house, disguised.

<Anyways, I have also heard that before the kill the goat they recite a mantra in the goats ear which says that in the goats next life it will lets just say return the favor.> But they do not believe in rebirth at all!!

Certainly, during the periods, body may be unclean, so one may not prefer going to a temple. But, one can always chant the holy name. Don't we brethe for our survival, holy name or mantra is as important as brething and Shastra and saints say that, the last thing that should leave the body, should be the holy name or mantra.

I had heard about the great pativrata lady, namely, Kantimati, who served her wayward (formerly a Vedic scholar) husband and the reached the abode of ShriHari. Does anyone know the complete story and where I can find it?

and not merely a guru. There are supposed to be 64 Vidyas and 64 Kalas on earth. For learning these, we need guru, who may/may not give the complete knowledge about these to the disciple lest his importance would be lost. Also, these gurus can help you only till their life times. On the other hand, Sadguru, when he accepts someone as his disciple, takes care of his/her spiritual progress from birth to birth and elevates the disciple to his level and allows him/her to enjoy the bliss of salvation. For a spiritual aspirant, a diksha guru, (Sadguru) is a must. To get a Sadguru and initiation lot of good merits are required. When the time is ripe, Sadguru automatically comes in the life of a spiritual aspirant and initiates him until, we can continue to chant the holy name ourselves. After getting initiated and getting a mantra from Sadguru, the power of Sadguru stands behind the mantra and makes it more potent. Here faith, perseverance are of paramount importance. The story of Namdev from Pandharpur is very famous. Though, Namdev was very close to Lord Vitthala and was always immersed in the deep devotion, but was not initiated by anyone. In one of the congregation of vaishnava saints, saint Gora Kumbhar tested Namdev by hitting on the latter's head by a wooden plank (which is used to test whether a earthen pot is fully baked or not) at the behest of saint Gnaneshwar. Namdev was annoyed and all other saints declared that "the pot was not fully baked". When Namdev complained to the Lord, Vitthala smiled and told him that, indeed he was immature and asked him to take initiation from Visoba Khechar, who was himself the disciple of Gnaneshwar. This shows the importance of Sadguru and initiation.

can as well construct hotels, gardens, mansions etc. forgetting Him easily. Afterall, lure of money is not that easy to abstain from. An individual has to solve his/her problem himself/herself.

Why should we study, why should we do research in labs, what are we going to get out of these? Very true. The knowledge, if it can be called so from the University Degrees, can be obtained by hard work, sincereity etc. But is this knowledge eternal? Is this knowledge useful for Self-realisation, certainly not. We should ponder over these questions. On the other hand, have we developed Vairagya (detachment from the material world and ephemeral human relationships)? A big no. Are we like saint-poetess Meerabai, to throw away riches and live in the company of Shyamsundara? A big no. We are very ordinary people, may be Sadhakas, in whose heart a seed of Moksha (salvation) remains to take the shape of a big tree. Until, we drop all the incorrect desires, this seed will not get proper nourishment and its growth will be retarded. But, yes, it will steadily grow from birth to birth and after several births we might achieve perfection. At that time, the desires, ambitions, money, wealth, name, fame would have no meaning for us. Until such time, we have to live (I had great difficulty in accepting this fact myself) like others, keep doing what others do, albeit not leave the holy name and Him. Conditioned souls think of happiness that can be derived from materials, which can be bought by money, OBviously, rich people are respected.

In the sense that, Hinduism (more accurately, Sanatana Dharma) is making its importance felt in the Western World, which held very rigid views on life after death, eternity of the soul and reincarnation. As if now they have found a proper direction. Most of the peope (unfortunately0 do not know that, the Lord Krishna has given all the details about, where a soul goes after death and how it transmigrates in BhagavadGita.

because I am purely vegetarian. I asked this question purely out of curiosity based on the information provided by my friend, who himself is very devoted Vaishnava and vegetarian.

These days I am going through some strange problem. Every sunday, I watch an episode of "Mahabharata Katha" aired on a private channel. But after watching the episodes, I become sad and introverted. I feel like meeting those characters, particularly, Arjuna, Vidura, Gandhari (and many others) and the Lord of course. I keep on talkig about these episodes, which my wife does not like a bit. She also does not like me to talk about these things to our children. What can this be called?

Your Karma is totally yours! It cannot be obiterated at all. It is due to your Karma, someone somewhere was affected either in a good or bad way. If surrender to Him, could obliterate all the Karma, then the famous and bona fide saints would never have suffered poverty, hunger, insults, humiliation, diseases. But they do, as ample records are available. Not that, all these earthly problmes (and bodily) problems deter them from immersing in Him. But that is besides the point. Karma must be paid for. I have read, that your spiritual master, does help you in the tough periods when you have bad Karma going on. Your spiritual master, helps you to get some help and offers you mental peace, so that you do not fall from the spiritual path. But your Karma is yours.

fantastic explanation about (no) difference in Vishnu and Shiva and the fights between poorly informed souls. I have witnessed these silly fights many times. They even critisize each other severely, do not visit each other, do not have marriages among each other (scenario is changing a little bit these days). How can Gods fight among themselves, as the God is One! But under the spell of Maya, all sorts of things are going on.

is running its due course as Theory of Karma is very rigid and there are no escape routes there. But, presently, due to some good merits (punya) done by you in your earlier birth (not necessarily the preceding), you have developed devotion to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, thus, now it is His responsibility to see to it that you do not indulge in unnecessary Karma. However, as usual, while running your karmic spool, it is still up to you, how to use the free will that is available to you. The latter part will decide your next birth.

Yes, Chess originated in India. I do not think that, playing chess was considered bad. But playing a game of dice (Known a Dyuta) was certainly considered bad as people used to gamble while playing. That is why Yuthishtira was given permission to play reluctantly by others.

Extending the same argument to plants, are we not harming/killing plants to satiate our hunger? In fact, one of my non-veg. addicted friends put this very argument to me, when I tried to speak against non-vegetarianism. I was speechless. To strengthen his argument, he said, vegetarians on the globe were getting plenty of grains as non-vegetarians were consuming meat, else former would have starved.

is not completed in a single birth for fallen souls like us. What is meat eating? It is a desire and a bad desire at that. Not only the meat eater has to share the Karma of killing the animal, but also increase his/her Tamasi mode further. All this will effectively add to his/her Karma and there are definite rebirths to pay for the same. Yes, the holy name or mahamantra can surely purify the mind, provided the chanting is done with faith, concentration and devotion. Since, our soul is so much conditioned over hundreds of such births, that, the purification process is not completed in one single birth. But once taken to chanting, it continues in his/her next birth and so on. Here the steadfastness and desire to get liberated would count.

should not tell such excuses while doing spiritual austerities. Use of Japamala is enforced, so that, our mind with one pointed concentration would be engaged in chanting and listening to the holy name. Apart from this too, we can chant while doing other chores, but that is additional. But chanting without mala might lead to wavering of our attention to whatever we are engaged in doing. The analogy between Krishna not counting His mercies shown to you and your counting His holy name is not appropriate. It is escapism. I sincerely think, you should continue using mala.

One of my friends told me that Guha, the tribal leader helped Shri Ramachandra cross the river Ganga. Thereafter, Guha offered Him dinner consisting of fish, as that was the staple food of tribals and Shri Ramachandra ate it to respect the devotional feelings of Guha. Is this story true and can it be authenticated by some reference?

like Kunti, Vidur, 4 Pandavas (as Arjun reached the lotus feet of the Lord), Duryodhana (without whom Mahabharata could not have become famous) his 99 brothers and their parents (Dhritarashtra and Gandhari) etc. later on? Did they achieve salvation as they had remained in the company of the Lord Krishna or some of them had to take rebirths to finish their Karma? Are there any references on this topic? Any comments?

in front of Lord Krishna is categorised as Adhyatmic Mrityu and cannot be avoided by anyone, including God. That is why Krishna did not interfere in Abhimanyu's death. The other two types of death are, 1) Adhibhautic Mrityu, which comes due to ailments associated with wrong diet or wrong living style and can be avoided by great saints or sages, 2) Adhidaivic Mrityu is due to anger of some demigod or not keeping some vow etc. and can be avoided by pleasing the demigods. Both types of deaths are in general known as Gandantar Mrityu, which is avoidable. But Adhibhautic Mrityu cannot be avoided by anybody.

for your present state of mind. As you seem to be deeply devoted to the Lord Krishna. But remember one thing, our mind is a trickster, it constantly wants something new to entertain itself. Unless you hold on to this condition, your mind might waiver again and fall back in the same old dirt of sense gratification. So do not be afraid of your present state. If it really continues this way, then, you would be a great Sadhaka (spiritual aspirant) and soon reach ShriHari.

in labs would not be equivalent to killing something for the pleasure of eating. Working with bacteria is done for the advanceement of science, so that human being would be helped in some way. The person who is doing this work is not going to get any sense gratification by doing so, so he would be saved from bad Karma. If so start thinking in this fashion, we will have to stop taking bath, as that would kill, innumerable biorganisms residing on our skin.

by all saints. I think, God has created cow and similar creatures, in order for the sustenace of infants, old and invalid people and people who cannot digest solid food. If drinking milk were really bad, Lord Krishna would not have stolen butter, a by-product of milk, from the cowheard maidens. Cetainly, in those days, slaughering of cows was unheard.

is to be repeated in order to cleanse ourselves from within. The holy name is purest in itself and will not be affected by your fingers at all. So to say, we should not utter the name of the God at all, because, we use the same mouth to hurt, abuse others, don't we? But God is all purity personified, Shuddha Chaitanya along with His namme, so external factors cannot make them dirty. Remember, first name came into existence, form came later on. And for people like us, who have not seen God face-to-face, holy name is the only solace to reach Him.