sumedh

Nothing against except for no one seems to follow this, just like the commandment of not to kill. The vaishnavas are asked to love everyone without distinction, including animals and plants. Since the christians (and many others) are carrying on wholesale slaughter of animals for eating their love is only hypocracy. Your logic is well applied: Since you worship a mental conception or feeling of God you will vaporize into the mental realm after death. It is a natural consequence ... Precisely, the Lord knows not those who ridicule His devotees who are dearer to Him than His Own Self; and the Lord will declare such to all those persons. Satan is a myth. A "rationalist" will turn the tables and say that the christian God is also a myth. You are clueless indeed, and persons like yourself are responsible for maligning the teachings of a pure devotee like Jesus.

Surely, the genocide was from muslim invaders and later the british. I don't think that they made any distinctions, however, in killing people. The british could not find any such "skeletons in their closet" you are talking about which they could have taken advantage of; maybe you need to educate everyone of this. For your information all the five jagad-guru acharyas shankaracharya, madhvacharya, ramanujacharya, nimbarka and vishnu swami were from the "dark-skinned peoples" of south. South india was (and probably still is) a greater centre of Vedic religion all throughout the recent history (past thousand years) of india. The head pujaaris for the great tirthas like Badrinath come from "dark-skinned" south india who maintain the highest Vedic standards. The dravidian theory (dark-skin/fair-skin) was planted by the british raj to divide but mostly failed in this respect. Devotees here will only pity you for your current situation.

So without knowing the tattva some persons use such quotes to mislead everyone. A Guru is a direct manifestation of the svayam-prakash of the Lord (i.e. empowered by Sri Baladeva) and so is non-different from the Lord; he is a fully surrendered soul and so his desires and actions are actually Krishna's but this does not mean that suddenly one becomes vishnu-tattva from jiva-tattva. Srila Prabhupada has described this rascaldom of so many gurus all over. To understand this you may require much more time and a proper attitude, still i provide one of the (many) quotes of Srila Prabhupada on this: If you are serious then read this http://www.harekrsna.com/philosophy/gss/guru/what_is_guru.htm to get started with the nature of guru-tattva. Hare Krsna

Dear guest The colour of the Original Personality of Godhead viz. Krishna/Shyamasundara is described as follows: Sri Brahma-Samhita 5.30 Sri Brahma-Samhita 5.38 Sometimes Krishna is shown blackish and at other time bluish which more resembles the transcendental colour of His Narayana form; in His Original Form of Krishna (Shyamasundara) the color is compared to that of a cloud and is thus bluish-black; these colors appear to us as material "approximations" of the originals in neophyte stages.

Dear guest please accept my dandavats This is the view of the new breed who are something of Advaita, something of bhakti from vaishnava etc. even though philosophically and rationally the different principles contradict each other. For example Advaita siddhanta says that everyone is God or Brahman, Ishvara is "lesser" than Brahman for He is subject to Mahamaya, everything is a transformation of Brahman and mukti is merging in Brahman and becoming one with Brahman (and thus higher than Ishvara who is still subject to Maya); their conception of God as Brahman has no special features like Supreme Controller, Supreme opulences, achintya shakti etc. The vaishnava siddhanta holds that Lord Vishnu is the ParaBrahman from whom Brahman emanates (as i said before, sometimes the shruti shastras use the term Brahman just like we use the general term God, and other times refer to His formless aspect Brahmajyoti) who can never be possibly subject to Maya, has achintya shakti (inconceivable energy), the jivas are His infinitesemal portions and can never become the Whole, everything is a transformation of Lord's shakti who Himself ever remains unchanged, pure bhakti is the true eternal position of the jiva (or his sanatana-dharma), mukti is not possible without devotional service and is a natural consequence of bhakti, the jivas participate in the eternally blissful pastimes of the Lord after attaining their pure nature (of bhakti) etc. Most shaivas say that Lord Shiva is Supreme who is ParaBrahman, who is with material shakti Durga, and the aim is becoming one with Shiva (so this is similar to Advaita after that). Similarly Shaktas say that Shakti is the source of everything including Shiva/Vishnu, give a higher position to Shiva than Vishnu and that the aim is again becoming one with shiva-shakti. However the shaivas and shaktas are not considered by serious students of Vedas as they have never established their siddhanta on the basis of Vedic scriptures and have never engaged in philosophical debates to come under any kind of scrutiny. Now some persons mix and match these contradictory principles and say that all gods are different aspects of Brahman, that merging into Brahman is the position attained by both bhakti (???) or jnana or any-other-path-one-can-speculate-in-his-wildest-dreams-which-remotely-resembles-some-form-of-sadhana; some praise bhakti but consider it temporary (or preliminary stage), praise jnana, or kundalini, ... but most of such persons agree that their end results are the same. In other words they contradict both principles (vaishnava and advaita) in the name of trying to super-reconcile everything; such persons are properly termed as Neo-Vedantists or Neo-Advaitins. The simple point is that the demigods are described in the Vedic literatures like Vedas, Puraanas and these never say that the demigods are Supreme Lord, or that demigods are equal. Anyone who refers to a Being who is the Greatest of all, who has created everything, etc. is actually referring to Krishna/God albeit in vague terms. On the other hand the demigods like Ganesha, Shiva, Surya etc. described in the Vedas are personalities distinct from God. If one thinks that Ganesha is the Supreme Lord and worships him as such then it is only his ignorance since Ganesha is not the Supreme Lord. Hare Krsna

Hare Krishna and dandavats The dreaming state that Srila Prabhupada mentions is that of mistaking the body for the self and forgetting the eternal nature of the soul. As Srila BhaktiSiddhanta says, when the self is in a state comparable to that of slumber then the non-self (body,mind,intellect,ego) start working to their own whims. When the self is in the pure state then there is absolutely no possibility of dreaming. What Srila Prabhupada is saying is that the "fall" of soul does not mean any change in the nature of the soul (and so the soul has actually not fallen and is the same for its nature is eternal), only that it has been covered. Because the desire to be the enjoyer arises from avidya or ignorance of one's true position. For one who is a pure devotee there is no question of not knowing; pure devotee means having attained svarupa-siddhi and the desire to be the enjoyer cannot arise in the pure state otherwise there will be no meaning to svarupa-siddhi. As Srila Bhaktivinode says anything that happens in the Spiritual realm is eternal Truth; so whatever you call it whether a dream or any other term it will be eternally True. The eternal Time is that of eternal present not infinite past,present,future; if in the eternal present the soul dreams something then it will be eternally True not zero time. There is no possibility of any event (whether one calls it a fall or a dream) in the eternal time to be anything but of eternal nature; all this means is simply that there cannot be any illusion in the spiritual realm where there is only Truth and everything (including dreams etc) is eternally True there. Most of all this concept runs contrary to all shastra; there is no mention anywhere of such an event. The pure devotees cannot become illusioned into mistaking material body for self, otherwise there will be no meaning to pure devotee. In addition such a theory will mean that all souls are actually nitya-mukta which again contradicts the scriptures.

Hare Krishna please accept my dandavat pranam In fact if we say that souls have "fallen" from the spiritual realm then it will imply that they are eternally fallen! The event of bondage of soul cannot take place in the realm of eternal Time else it will be an eternally accomplished Truth. So Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur says that the bondage of the soul in material realm is not in material time, nor in the spiritual realm but in the tatastha region where the soul simultaneously sees both the realms. One cannot even imagine the nature of eternal Time, what then to speak of the tatastha region; so Srila Bhaktivinode tells us to realize these truths and the scriptures can only give an indication in such matters. The fall can be said with respect to the soul's pure nature. To take a crude example: suppose a person born in very cultured family comes under the influence of bad habits since a small kid ever since he came to the platform of being able to understand good/bad, then we would say that he has fallen but that does not mean that he was (necessarily) cultured before having fallen because there is no "before" at all. Thus we can say that the soul has fallen to this material world from the tatastha region instead of going to its proper position in the spiritual world.

Hare Krishna please accept my dandavat pranam The cardinal rule is that we can attain only atmost what we desire. If we desire the material things we can only attain those. If we sincerely desire our true spiritual position of surrender to God and dedicate ourselves to it then the Lord will aid us in every way; He will remove our (really really) huge past karmic debts which are the fruits of our past actions since time immemorial; He will gradually remove the material contamination so that our pure love for Him becomes manifest; He will even protect us from falling away from our sadhana-bhakti due to temporary distractions/attractions etc. The Lord says in Bhagavad-Gita 8.6 And it is inevitable that our state of mind at our death will be what we develop over our lifetime. So the Lord says Bhagavad-Gita 8.7-8 The scriptures and our Spiritual Masters give us the procedures (the primary being chanting the Holy Names of the Lord) to enable us to execute this order of the Lord perfectly.

Hare Krishna and dandavats Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur answers this question as follows in Jaiva-Dharma Chapter 15 (jiva-tattva): The example provided (elsewhere in a thread by vijay prabhu) is that of sun and sunlight, with the particles of sunlight likened to jivas and Krishna & His svamsa expansions likened to sun and its surface. If we imagine the sun to be eternal, then the jivas are also eternal but still are born from the sun. In other words since in the Eternal Time everything is eternally accomplished the souls are born means the brahmajyoti of Mahavishnu is the source of conditioned souls and not created at some point of time (because the question "at some point of time" only arises in the material realm where time is forked into three, as theist prabhu has answered before).

Actually it is impossible that any of the sadhana-siddha or nitya-siddha pure devotees become subject to mahamaya. We come from tatastha region and not Goloka.

Dear guest Hare Krishna and dandavat pranam Yes, it is confusing if one just makes a scholastic study of scriptures and so becoming connected to a bona-fide disciplic succession through a Spiritual Master is the only way. Brahman is the formless aspect of Krishna and non-different from Him (and still different at the same time). In summary the Brahman of shruti shastras is Krishna/Vishnu and this is the opinion of all the vaishnava acharyas who have established this conclusion using the shastras (aside: if you research the philosophical debates of vaishnavas and advaitins you will find that in almost all the debates since Madhvacharya the bhagavata-siddhanta has been established as the correct one); but just being victorious in debates does not amount to much and the real proof is in seeing the results for oneself by following it. Our acharyas explain the Brahman realization as the first level, the Paramatma realization as the second and realizing the Primal Purusha as the final stage. In the same way we can find the scriptures also say in some places that the Guru is directly Parabrahman. If we accept such statements without understanding the tattva or metaphysical truth and the full context we will ever be confused. If we just take to scholarly knowledge we will find many contradictions, because of the nature of the Transcendental realm. The Guru is non-different from Krishna because he is a transparent via-medium of God, but at the same time he is not God and so is different. A fully surrendered soul is considered included in vishnu-tattva or God (or part of God) but not God; this is because being a fully surrendered soul all his desires/actions are actually Krishna's or in other words he is as good as God but that does not mean he becomes vishnu-tattva from jiva-tattva. The gaudiya vaishnava position on this issue has been summarized here: http://www.gosai.com/dvaita/madhvacarya/srimad-bhagavatam.html Please read it and if you have any questions i would be happy to help to my capacity. Actually it was for this reason (of the grand confusion in the age of kali) that Lord Krishna delivered Srimad Bhagavad Gita and is accepted as the final Vedic conclusions by all acharyas include Acharya Shankara.

Hare Krishna That is all right; we completely believe the authenticity of the scriptures which describe in great details the kings, their lineages, their periods of reign, etc. Due to partial devastation (such as the great flood) most of the things get lost and are resurrected by the Divine Spiritual Masters. New evidences are being found time and again of the ancient nature of Vedic period, and no one has yet dug the sea-beds yet. Since you think that this does not matter in any case, we can leave it at that. As already stated the precise astronomical occurences described in the scriptures cannot be back-calculated unless you believe that people of that time or anytime later knew how to solve differential equations. Of course, the traditional way to preserve the texts of the scriptures has been through bona-fide disciplic successions. Actually the same argument can be made against all the scriptures of other religions, so what can this possibly prove. If you want to speculate then everything is possible; maybe Hazrat Mohammad never saw or heard from Allah; maybe Jesus was just lying about all that he said etc etc. The real proof is in eating; the sanatana dharma does not depend on one Master rather the chain of God-realized Masters in the disciplic successions who transmit the Transcendental knowledge; anyone who is completely dedicated can realize God in this very lifetime as have many souls done.

Dear pankaja dasa prabhu Hare Krishna and dandavats Actually the conditioned jivas are produced from Brahmajyoti emanating from the transcendental body of Lord Mahavishnu.From Srila Prabhupada's purport to Sri Ishopanishad Mantra Sixteen Purport to mantra seventeen From Brahma-Samhita purport 5.10 From Brahma-Samhita purport 5.16 The conclusion is that when Maha-vishnu glances at the material energy then the innumerable conditioned jivas enter the material world from His effulgence (or brahmajyoti/brahman); the jivas are atomic particles of His brahmajyoti. hope this explains this.

Dear guest Hare Krishna please accept my dandavat pranam I apologize for this quite long post. In fact a jiva has no job other than to render loving devotional service by participation in His pastimes in the true constitutional position. Lord Krishna says in Bhagavad-Gita Bhagavad-Gita 18.54-55 Bhagavad-Gita 6.47 Please also read the purport here: http://asitis.com/6/47.html The Srimad-Bhagavatam is even more explicit Srimad-Bhagavatam 11.12.8-9 Srimad-Bhagavatam 10.2.32-33 Srimad-Bhagavatam 10.14.4 Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.29.13 Vedanta-Sutra 4.4.13-14 Liberation is just a by-product of prema-bhakti, and a desire for liberation does get in the way of cultivating prema-bhakti or pure unadulterated love for God.

Deat guest You confuse the false ego or ahamkara as it is called with the real ego or knowing oneself as the anu-chit (infinitesemal consciousness) of the infinite-consciousness God. The false ego is in fact a distorted reflection of the real individuality; nothing in this world comes out of thin air and everything is a distorted form of the real spiritual realm. The Lord has been fulfilling all our desires since time immemorial and if we desire to nihilate ourselves He will create a situation appropriate for that too. Also remember that without devotional service even sayujya mukti is not attainable for we cannot approach the spiritual realm without a "push" from the Supreme Spirit. Additionally the statement "Everything will be God -- it will all be one" is only fooling oneself. The illusory material potency (mahamaya) is not God, we are not God etc. Maybe a zero bank balance is a kind of spiritual fulfilment compared to previous situation of debt, but it can really mean to remain deprived of attainment of true spiritual position for eternity and so the devotees consider it to be worse than hell.

... in the books section of this site here: http://www.hare-krishna.org/srila-prabhupada-books.htm, for offline reading. haribol

Hare Krishna and dandavat pranam The greater problem is the theory of the advaita impersonalists of today who confuse everyone by saying that everybody is God. They accept Bhagavad-Gita yet interpret and twist it in accordance with their philosophy, or in other words use the Vedic scriptures as tools to propagate their theories. Other devotees have given nice answers; i will add one more from Bhagavad-Gita which is universally accepted as the cream of all upanishads (and thus of Vedic philosophy): Bhagavad-Gita 14.27 You said: This is not true at all. Hinduism is a loose term for various religious-philosophical systems including Vaishnavas, Shaivas, Shaktas, Advaitins and other hodge-podge ones. Vaishnavas (which includes Hare Krishnas) do not say that all gods are equal, nor do most of Shaivas/Shaktas. Advaitins are a different breed who say that all are equal or that everybody is God. There are five accepted jagad-guru acharyas in (relatively recent) india, four (Acharya Madhva, Ramanujacharya, Nimbarkacharya, Vishnuswami) of whom are vaishnava acharyas and Shankaracharya is proponent of advaita. His bodily effulgence is not parabrahm rather brahm. Parabrahm refers to the Supreme Brahm or the source of Brahm who is Krishna. As for wrong and right the only thing that i would say is that the procedure of panchopasana is not to be found in Vedic texts anywhere and demigod worship does not lead to the ultimate benefit. Firstly by meditation on the formless aspect one can reach atmost to a certain point, and even merging into the Brahm is possible only by devotional service (i.e. mercy of God since all our own efforts properly fall in the material realm only and transcending that requires one who belongs to the spiritual realm). Moreover, Krishna says that those who worship demigods worship Him indirectly and improperly; improper because the worshipper does not gain anything substantial of eternal value.

Hare Krishna Please get your facts straight before shouting in capitals about something you do not know about. The result will only be that you will cut a sorry figure of yourself, and the devotees will ignore you due to your arrogance rooted in ignorance. To just give an example see this:http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/129602326.cms which tells of a 7000 year old temple. That alone shows your hypothesis to be wrong. If you want to know more then you may be interested in seeing this Besides the most reliable sources for such information are the Vedic scriptures which describe the various events in great detail, and using various astronomical positions of stars etc. This alone dates Mahabharata to around 3129BC, as also many other events described in scriptures; the modern astronomical calculations match the traditionally accepted dates and back-calculation is not possible except without sophisticated instruments/computers as are available today. Again an assertion without any logic/evidence. You will have to show using logic why caste system is barbaric; actually on the other hand the varnashrama is most rational and natural division based on qualities designed to lead everyone to the ultimate destination without which there will be only chaos as has been going on in all parts of the world. Note that i am not talking about the misuse of a system rather the philosophy and logic behind a system. You misunderstood him. The term "Hindu" does not refer to a particular religious-philosophy system, rather a group of related beliefs. It is just like the case when it would be incorrect to say that Sufis are muslims because they are born among them, because their philosophy of "I am Khoda" is highly blasphemous in the muslim theology. So the correct term to use for almost all devotees on this site would be "vaishnava". Paying reverences to someone/something is not different from worshipping it; that is precisely the point. Worshipping the Supreme Lord as the Supreme Lord, and worshipping demigods as highly elevated associates of the Supreme Lord is different. That you cannot pay reverences to anyone except God is only dogmatism and egotism. First off vaishnavas do not claim that they are just representations of Deities, but that they are Deities themselves. This subtle point is quite difficult for persons steeped in anti-myreligion ideology. I will just give some hints to try and understand it, and if you are interested in knowing more you may inquire sincerely. Let us start from simple definitions. The reason idolatory is unauthorized worship is that we should not worship something that is not God. Muslims and christians worship God in their respective conceptions; hence rationally we can conclude that what muslims and christians worship is only a vague mental conception, a feeling, and not God Himself. This will be the case for all the conditioned souls because they do not have the transcendental senses to see God and even though Allah is everywhere and closer to us than the jugular vein we cannot perceive Him; consequently all they will worship will be actually material in nature for they are bound in the material realm and have no direct access to the spiritual realm. The philosophy of muslims/christians itself does not allow for worship of God, as "access" to God is only available probably after death (actually not even after death for they do not associate personally with God rather only land up in heaven etc.). Contrast this with the vaishnava philosophy of avataarvaada. This lets us know that out of His mercy God descends Himself to this material world in various Forms; of course in the conditioned state we cannot see those Forms directly as God but the idea is to gradually advance to liberated state. Thus vaishnavas worship the Sri-Murtis of God (called the archa-avataar or archa-vigraha), the Holy Names of God etc. who are God Himself. When the Deities are installed in the proper authorized way then the Lord assures us that He accepts our devotional service directly in the Form of Sri Murti. Additionally vaishnavas pray to highly elevated vaishnavas (like Tulasi Maharani, Spiritual Masters, demigods) to help in their spiritual progress and attain loving devotional service to God. Thus the conclusion is that without the knowledge of the perfect philosophy of avataarvaada there is no way to worship God and all forms of worship will only be idolatary. The reason why muslims/christians have been forbidden from worshipping Deities is also given in Vedic texts, which is that the pujaari conducting the worship has to have some very austere standards which were not possible for persons of those regions at that time who were deeply engrossed in irreligious acts.

Dear Student Please also keep in mind that to really go in-depth you will need to read the books starting from Sri Ishopanishad/Bhagavad-Gita as it is to Brahma-Samhita/Teachings of Lord Chaitanya/Srimad-Bhagavatam (these are available in the books section of this site). There is no way that one will able to understand it reading a few articles. If you do not have that much of time i would suggest reading small booklets like Sri Ishopanishad/Perfect Questions Perfect Answers/Science of Self-Realization and asking other specific questions. good luck Hare Krishna

Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur Jaiva-Dharma Chapter 16: Other part of question is: In a sense, yes. However properly speaking jivas are part of the intrinsic nature of God (and not in the sense of specifically created for some purpose etc.); to participate in Krishna lila or abstain from it by coming to this material world is jiva's own choice.

the proper pronounciation is like raam or rAm, but this is also not completely correct since without an `a' at end means a half-m in most transliteration schemes; it is a full `m' sound. Going by most transliteration schemes the correct way to write it (languages based on devanagari script like hindi/sanskrit are pronounced as they are written) would be as rAma. These problems mainly arise because in Hindi/Sanskrit there are half sounds as well as full sounds for consonants (and correspondingly alphabets) as also big A, big I etc.

I have heard of jain monks giving up their lives by this process of starvation, and that is probably what the original poster is talking about. A google search confirms this e.g. http://www.jainworld.com/education/seniors/senles15.htm It is important to remember: Bhagavad-Gita 17.5-6 and so such a procedure must be a) authorized by God as given in scriptures, and b) must be free from pride, ego, lust and attachment

Hare Krishna If you want to use brains it is easy to prove it. Therefore worshipping a mental feeling or some vague conception is also idolatory for that mental feeling/conception is also not God and has exactly the same attributes as given above (cannot hear, cannot walk etc.) On the other hand the Sri Murtis are the worshippable descents of the Lord and is not an idol though to mundane eyes it appears to be so. When the Deity is installed in the authoritative way the Lord accepts devotional service descending as the Deity. The point is that your theory itself does not allow for worship of Lord, while the vaishnavas directly worship the Lord either as Sri Murtis, or as His Holy Names (who are non-different from the Lord) etc.

Theistji: In the scenario of the nations theory, an acceptable policy in persuance of national interest would be one which does not infringe on the interests of other nations. The other countries can see the plain truth that the policy of US is to establish control over the world directly and indirectly. This has been the consistent and unchanging policy of the US. The terrorists are seen as short term miscreants, and (nearly) everyone supported the US action in Afghanistan; but the actions in Iraq are again seen as a part of its policy. The fact is that most countries see the US as the biggest bully and long term danger; you may call this a mistaken perception or whatever but there are unmistakable reasons for this. And the indians know this only too well; the muslims in their 800 year long occupation could only convert forcibly and through taxes about 10-15%, desecrated many temples, and some vedic texts were lost. However in less than 150yrs the British destroyed the culture to an unimaginable extent, a huge economic devastation, such a huge manipulation of the vedic texts and most of all the long breed of indians who hate the vedic culture or so called spiritualists who mock puranic texts. So they know what kind of damages the control of US can bring about. As for being able to influence the policy, it seems very unlikely and the other countries would only like to see one who does not aggressively pursue the long term policy of establishing control over all others. Haribol

Hare Krishna and dandavats I forgot to add that this verse is spoken by Yamaraja to Yamadutas. So the I here: refers to Yamaraja.