Jahnava Nitai Das

The only way to get real sandalwood paste or powder is to make it your self.

See Garuda Purana. All Vaishnava sects accept onion and garlic as unofferable, as do smarta sects. In fact practically no temple anywhere would even consider offering these things, regardless of what the deity is. The only exception would be small village temples that arent very strict, temples to bhutas, yakshas, etc. I would mention tantrik temples (such as guruvayur), but all the tantrik temples I can think of do not offer these things either. Generally there are three systems of temple worship, vaidika, pancaratra and tantra. None of these systems accept onion and garlic as offerable.

Do a search on trataka. It can help you improve your eyesight.

The people Srila Prabhupada stayed with when he first came to America: http://pg.photos./ph/hollywoodvisit/detail?.dir=/2acare2&.dnm=b5bfre2.jpg&.src=ph&.tok=ph33l5EBiltzY6LC

"There are many jealous people in the dress of Vaisnavas in this Krsna consciousness movement, and they should be completely neglected. There is no need to serve a jealous person who is in the dress of a Vaisnava." CC Madhya 1.218 purport

Someone with a changing IP address voted 100 times for the "ISKCON Guru's liberated" option, so the results are meaningless now. Next time we will only allow registered members to vote.

This is the danger of changing Prabhupada's books to fit what we think is right. There are those who aren't aware that Krishna lila in the Mahabharata and Srimad Bhagavatam are narrations from different kalpas, and as such there are many major differences between the two texts in this regards. Those who want to correct Prabhupada based on what they think the Mahabharata says are really just foolish people. First spend a few years in traditional study of shastra, before thinking to correct the guru's "mistakes".

This is what they are fed from when they join ISKCON. It is an institutional system where new recruits are trained in the belief that the GBC approved gurus are as good as God. When you are new and you go to a temple, and you see all the temple devotees worshipping Guru X every single day with the same things that they worship God, then it is only natural to conclude that Guru X is a liberated person. In South India this is a fact of ISKCON. Everyone is taught that the GURU is as good as God. Another example, in Mumbai, everyone is systematically taught that Radhanath Maharaja is a pure devotee and as good as God. These are just facts of ISKCON today. There is absolutely no room or allowance for anyone to believe anything else while still being allowed to participate within ISKCON. The real fault lies in these people who know they are not liberated, but allow people to project them as liberated souls. And from what I have seen, the sincere souls are guided to reject these useless initiations by conditioned souls posing as liberated, and instead put prominence on following Prabhupada's teachings. But the problem is many, many people feel there is someone in ISKCON capable of guiding them, and that person is Srila Prabhupada. But if they believe this, they are banned, beaten and thrown out. This is again historical fact.

Their fervor for Srila Prabhupada is likely one of the contributing factors. In addition to that, it is the best managed temple in ISKCON. Everything is very intelligently laid out and managed perfectly. And they have come up with very innovative ways of distributing books, such as a children's Krishna book course, where 30,000-50,000 school children at a time sign up for a course on Lord Krishna's pastimes, in which the text book is Prabhupada's Krishna book. These children actually pay to join this course, and the payment covers the cost of the text book, which they seriously study and then attend an exam. Like this they have come up with many very intelligent methods of preaching and distributing books. In the past, blind people called anyone who disagreed with the zonal acharya system as offenders. Perhaps if the zonal acharya system had been exposed at that time a lot of the damage would not have been done. Everyone should have their freedom of belief, and if some people don't consider Swami X as a pure devotee, that is their God given right. Call them offenders or whatever makes you happy, but time has so far proven a lot of the critics correct.

This is dealt with in Shat Sandarbhas, but I don't have time to look it up right now. Perhaps after a couple days.

As has been pointed out previously in this thread, the Bangalore ISKCON temple (Ritvik) distributes 1/3 of all ISKCON books in the world. That means if you take all the 200 or so temples together and total all of their book distribution scores, the ISKCON Bangalore temple accounts for 1/3 of the entire worldwide book distribution (these figures were from 2001-2002, as I haven't seen a recent report, but it is likely the same). Again this shows that these accusations are just sentimental, not based on any research or fact.

Dear friends and devotees, Jaya Sita Rama. Please accept my humble pranams. The installation of Sri Jagannatha, Subhadra and Balabhadra will begin today at the Bhaktivedanta Ashram in Bhadrak, Orissa. Deities of Varaha, Narasimha, Vamana and Garuda will also be installed on the four sides of the temple as is the custom for Jagannatha temples in Orissa. The below link provides some photos showing these four deities, sculpted in granite by shilpis from Konaraka. The pictures show various stages of the sculpting process, so you can see how the making of the deities progressed. There are a total of 20 photos, so it may take some time for all of them to load. http://www.bvashram.org/articles/123/1/ The pranapratishta ceremony will begin today with the collection of sacred waters from the Salandi river for use in the kalashas. Akhanda Nama Kirtana will also begin today and continue throughout the three days. Yours in service, Jahnava Nitai Das, Bhaktivedanta Ashram

Actually none of what Mahakala has posted says anything about who is the origin of the other. No one is denying that Vishnu is Bhagavan, so verses glorifying Vishnu are pointless here. Simply because the name Vishnu or Narayana shows up in a verse in the Bhagavatam means nothing. Gaudiya acharyas accept Krishna as the source of all incarnations, and that is what Sri Caitanya taught, based on verses such as krishnas tu bhagavan svayam. If Malakala doesn't like it, that is his choice. He can believe that blue cheese is the source of all incarnations if he likes. As far as Mahakala's "evidence" that Narayana is the origin of Krishna, he has written: How he draws the conclusion that this verse states Narayana to be Supreme and the origin of Krishna is really beyond me. There is no point debating someone who can't put a proper evidential equation together.

A person doesn't show that he is superior to himself.

Regarding the claim by Radha Govinda Maharaja, we can look at it from a statistical view to see what are the probabilities it occured (though this won't really prove it one way or another). First lets analyse these points: 1) At what year did Radha Govinda Maharaja become a leader in ISKCON (pre Prabhupada samadhi or post-samadhi) 2) At what year did Radha Govinda Maharaja become a sannyasi (pre Prabhupada samadhi or post-samadhi) 3) How many letters did Prabhupada write to him (i.e. establishing that there was regular communication between Prabhupada and him) 4) How many times is he talking with Prabhupada in conversations in the Vedabase (same as point 3). I really don't know him so can't answer, but my quick look shows that the answers appear to be (I may be wrong here) 1) post, 2) post, 3) 0 4) 0. Again I could be wrong, as I don't know who he is in detail. But if the answers are as I think, then I would say there is little chance at all that such a secret undocumented conversation took place. Add to this the fact that Prabhupada oddly didn't include his name in any of the discussions about the Ritviks who would represent him while he was sick. Thus I would get the impression that he only came to priominence post-samadhi and had little contact with Prabhupada while he was present. Again I may be wrong, but these are just my views based on common statistics, which could always be inaccurate (but likely aren't). The most compelling evidence against this is Prabhupada's own words, where he writes in a letter "So many people are saying Prabhupada said, but unless you see it in writing from Me do not believe these." So when in doubt of an undocumented secret conversation, do not believe it as evidence.

You will not find a real tantric who will be willing to initiate you. After 13 years in India I have rarely come across a real tantric, and the few who I have seen are in remote villages. Furthermore, they have absolutely no interest in making disciples or even letting people know they are tantrics. In addition to this, not a single one will speak English, and the majority of them are actually muslims.

http://www.tirthainprison.com/

Someone's own statement that they were told something isn't a valid evidence in their own defense, especially when it isn't documented anywhere. I have heard this same claim from multiple gurus. It may or may not be true, but it isn't a valid evidence for obvious reasons.

Though that verse could be interpreted to refer to Vishnu, I believe a more direct interpretation is that his navel looks like a lotus, as she is describing different parts of his body. If one interprets pankaja naabha as refering to padmanabha swami, then one will have to find an incarnation with a lotus coming our of his eye for pankaja-netra. I believe Bhaktirasamrita sindhu describes Krishna as having seven parts that look like a lotus, including his eyes, palms, feet, navel, etc.

The poll is "what system of initiations for ISKCON", it has nothing to do with other sampradayas or Gaudiya Math. Not that they are any less, but that isn't the question.

The presence manifests according to the worship and devotion of the viewer.

I changed my reply to you above because I thought it may have been too harsh. You have not made any other posts other than what's in this thread above. If you have written something, perhaps you did not hit submit, or perhaps your internet connection timed out. But the fact is you have not posted anything else here in this thread. If you doubt this, and think you are being targeted for censorship, then I would seriously suggest you don't post here. I am not interested in being blamed for imaginary things, and you can be certain all your texts will be much safer on your home computer rather than here. Never in the history of these forums has someone's post been removed to make it appear they are losing a debate. Your claim that such a thing happened is ludicrous. Posts get removed by the moderators (not me), when they are deemed offensive and when they are spam. Otherwise posts do not get removed. Up to now, in this thread, no one's post has been removed.

No posts have been removed. You can find your posts here: http://www.audarya-fellowship.com/forums/895643-post11.html http://www.audarya-fellowship.com/forums/895718-post42.html http://www.audarya-fellowship.com/forums/895742-post45.html In the future if you login you can search for your posts by username.

The poll was meant to focus on the system Prabhupada wanted for ISKCON, though it wasn't worded exactly in that manner.

Now you are trying to change your argument after having already established it, which again illustrates why such debates are pointless. When your argument has beend defeated, you change your argument and say "wait, this is my real argument." Let me remind you what you had said. These are your exact words in the first page of this thread: You argued that: 1) an order against tradition, even by Prabhupada, creates an apasampradaya and should be rejected. 2) Prabhupada would not do something that didn't have a precedent in our tradition. 3) That prabhupada doing something non-traditional in our sampradaya would be ludicrous and absurd. 4) That Prabhupada's actions must all be exactly according to guru, sadhu and shastra (i.e. he cannot innovate himself). In response I gave six quick examples where Prabhupada did things unheard of in any tradition. There are many other examples if someone sits and thinks it through, but here are the first six that came to my mind: 1) As a sannyasi he crossed the ocean, which is forbidden in scripture 2) As a sannyasi he performed marriage ceremonies for his disciples, something never done in the history. 3) He gave gayatri initiation to women, something never done by any acharya in any sampradaya 4) gave initiation by letter, something never done before 5) gave gayatri initiation by tape recording, again something never done before 6) appointed ritvik priests to initiate on his behalf while living, something no acharya has done Thus all four arguments are clearly defeated. In response, rather than say you were wrong, you changed your argument midway by adding two new subjective conditions: "all these things were 1) UNAVOIDABLE under the circumstances of SP's mission in the West" and "None of the above mentioned breaks from the tradition go 2) so completely against the vedic principles..." So now your argument is Prabhupada would absolutely never, ever go against tradition... unless it was unavoidable. And what is unavoidable is of course necessarily your opinion of what is unavoidable. Thus to you it is unavoidable for Prabhupada to not perform disciple's marriages, but it is not unavoidable for him to institute a ritvik system. This of course is a completely subjective opinion of what is "unavoidable", something that wasn't part of your initial argument. And the second subjective condition you added was that Prabhupada would absolutely never, ever go against tradition... unless it wasn't so completely against the vedic principles. Thus now you accept Prabhupada may go against tradition, the shastra, the sadhus and guru, provided it was just a little against the vedic principles. Again, it is a sliding goal post. Of course, what constitutes a little and a lot is again your subjective opinion, something that wasn't part of your initial argument. But even despite this midway change, I decided to address your new argument that these changes were "unavoidable" and therefore alright for Prabhupada to do without, according to you, becoming an "apasampradaya". In response I pointed out that no acharya in the history has given gayatri diksha to women, including Prabhupada's own guru, Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati. Thus Prabhupada greatly altered the system of initiation, greatly diverged from all Vedic tradition, and changed the system of his own guru maharaja. This clearly wasn't "unavoidable", as it could have been avoided by simply following tradition, following shastra, and following his guru. But prabhupada went against these and instead started his own tradition which is still being followed in ISKCON. Thus your second argument, which itself was a moving goal post, had been clearly defeated. In response, what should we expect? Of course, you chose to move the goal post yet again. This time you changed your argument to: So now your argument is that Prabhupada would never go against Vedic tradition unless it was "unavoidable", or "not so much against the Vedic tradition", but even if it is avoidable, still if it "encourages people to participate" then he would go against the Vedic tradition. Exactly what constitutes "encouraging" is of course your subjective opinion. So to you, being the first acharya to give gayatri diksha to women is "encouraging people", but being the first acharya to start ritvik initiations would not be "encouraging people". Exactly why one is and one is not "encouraging people" is of course based on your personal opinion. Again I will point out, you have changed your argument three times in this short discussion. Everytime your argument is proven wrong, you alter it to something else. Thus there is no point for me to continue in this. In these recent ritvik threads I have seen the following: 1) Vijay tries to defeat the Ritvik philosophy by requiring everyone to accept his three presumptions. Those same three ludicrous presumptions were shown to also validate anything including the eating of meat. 2) Audarya Lila misrepresents the Ritvik view and then defeats the strawman argument, thinking he has defeated them. 3) Pankaja argued in favour of numbers, and provided a list of Swami's who supported his view. Of course he didn't even know the difference between Ritviks and Rochan Das, so he obviously wasn't in a position to comment on their philosophical validity. Again acceptance of his list of Swami's requires one's subjective belief that these people are infallible. 4) Kulapavana argued that Prabhupada would never, ever go against tradition, then subsequently slided his goal post to the side three times to make adjustments when he was proven wrong. From what I have seen this is how these ritvik/anti ritvik debates always go, and that is one of the reasons we have never allowed posts on ritvik philosophy on these forums. The ritvik supporters insult everyone without following any manners, and the anti-ritviks resort to sentimental arguments and sliding goals. Everyone is free to continue this discussion, but I will withdraw and not participate in these ritvik threads further. You can have the last words. I have only participated in this thread to show that statements like "the ritviks are completely defeated" are ludicrous. Also the idea that they are doing no devotional service is false. The Bangalore temple has distributed more books than any other temple in the world, and this can be confirmed with the ISKCON sankirtan newsletter (I believe the exact figure is 1/3 of ISKCON's worldwide total book distribution, but am not positive on that figure.)