Jahnava Nitai Das

There is a new section of the forums for sharing videos. It makes it very easy to post videos from youtube and other video hosting sites. You just need to paste the video url, and it will automatically add the description, title, thumbnail, etc. Please post your favorite spiritual videos there for other members to see: Audarya Fellowship - Videos To add videos, you need to click on the specific video category first. Then there will be an add video link. At present there is just one category. We will add others when it becomes necessary.

Its a one line remembrance by someone of a conversation that took place 30 years ago. Don't give it more emphasis than it deserves. First find the original letter or conversation and see the context. There is no point in imagining what the statement means or was referring to.

A lot of them are cheating. But there are real cases as well, where a person becomes possessed by a Yaksha, Raksha, Bhuta, etc. You have to judge each case individually.

Chant either Narasimha kavacham or Hanumat Kavacham for divine protection.

Generally in North they follow the branch of Ramanuja sampradaya known as Ramanandi sampradaya, which Tulasidas came in.

As far as I know Shilajit isn't used for weight loss, it is used to increase energy and strength. It is a natural black tar like liquid that oozes out of the earth in the Himalayas. It is full of minerals, including things like gold in small quantities. It is supposed to give you a lot of energy.

Please refrain from proclaiming who's scriptures are flawed and who's are "perfect". Likes and dislikes are just a person's opinion, whether yours or the previous poster's. Everyone wants to pretend their view is somehow objective and beyond personal opinion, but the fact is it is just your opinion, nothing connected with the objective reality of the book. The last thing we need here are 1,000 different people posting "my guru's book is a lot better than your guru's book". Just say you like Yogananda and move on. Any poster can come and say the same thing you just said, changing the name to their own guru. This is nothing but sectarian opinion, nothing transcendental. Here is an example: Wow, now I am as smart as you. Let's do another sectarian statement: We can go ahead and do this for every single guru out there, and all it shows is that we have a sectarian view. It really isn't necessary to publicize your sectarian view beyond saying "I like XYZ". You don't need to state "I hate this guy and that guy and the other guy". Seeing as you waited 5 years before posting this post, and your only two previous posts were on Gaudiya Vaishnava topics, I suspect you have existed here under a different name in the past and probably got banned or something. You probably are more interested in putting down Prabhupada than in glorifying Yogananda. But that is all conjecture based on other similar posters. I hope I am wrong.

This needs to be tested scientifically (though I don't think it will ever be done). Some acharyas have said the smoke from agni hotra yajna (fire sacrifice using ghee) does not harm the body, but in fact purifies the body and entire environment. I know one saint who has sat for the last 50 years in a small room with a smokey fire (sacred dhuni) burning constantly (using semi wet wood from tree trunks). Even though the room is covered in black soot, he shows no signs of sickness, lung problems, or breathing problems. He is also healthy, can climb up trees, walk up mountains, etc., even though he is over 70 years old. I would suspect an ordinary person sitting with an ordinary fire for 50 years would likely result in lung cancer or at least severe lung disease. This seems to indicate that spiritual fires (from homas) have different effects on the body than ordinary fires. I don't think incense would have the same beneficial effect, as nowadays it is a factory product with many chemicals being used in the manufacturing process. The key aspect in homa is the sacred fire along with ghee, being combined with mantras.

Another point is that if someone doesn't like to perform deity worship themselves, they can still go to a temple and witness the deity worship in the temple. The effect is almost same, though slightly different.

The poster named Tenali Ram is the same poster who was named Manmohan Singh previously (IP addresses are same). He is here to discredit the Hindu religion.

There are four states of consciousness, jagrat, swapna, sushupti and turiya. Jagrat is the wakeful state, where we exist on the physical plane of the body. Swapna is the dreaming state, where we exist on the mental plane of the sukshma sarira (subtle body). Sushupti is the deep sleep state, where we exist on the plane of intelligence through the karana sarira (causal body). And turiya is the spiritual state where we exist on the natural plane of the atma (spirit soul). Narayana reveals himself on the fourth plane of existence (the spiritual plane) during samadhi, but from time to time he chooses to reveal himself on the other three planes as well. Sometimes he will come and appear before a devotee on the physical plane while they are awake and conscious. Sometimes he will come and appear before them on the mental plane (in swapna). And sometimes he will appear before them in the state of sushupti as Paramatma. For him all four planes of existence are insignificant. He reveals Himself to his devotees in any circumstance as he chooses.

There are many versions of Ramayana, and though most people assume that when the word "ramayana" is used it automatically refers to Valmiki Ramayana, that may not be the case for some people. It's actually just a communication problem. The problem is that they do not specify which Ramayana they are speaking of, so we are left to assume they are speaking about Valmiki Ramayana, but their entire conversation will actually be about XYZ Ramayana. If they had specified clearly "in Valmiki Ramayana", "in Kamban Ramayana", "in Tulsidas Ramayana", etc., then no one can fault them for their claim. The next step would be whether the quoted text is an accepted evidence or not, and that again comes down to personal opinion. There are many who don't even accept Valmiki Ramayana as an evidence, and that's their right. Others may not accept Tulsidas Ramayana, or Kamban Ramayana. In cases like this, in my opinion it is better to not try to "prove" our belief as the supreme position, but just to present our position, "In Tulasidas Ramayana it is said... and I believe this." You may not get the universal debate victory crown, but then that isn't worth much. You have conveyed your position honestly and readers have already decided themselves how they view the source (Tulsidas Ramayana for example). Most respect Tulsidas as a saint and regard his words as truth, so you would have succeeded in convincing the majority of people in a way that does not anger others or cause argument. For those who do not respect Tulsidas Ramayana, you could either choose to find verses in Valmiki Ramayana, or just not worry about it. You will never convince everyone about your position (no matter what the position is), so we don't have to try to convince everyone.

All your question seem to be not questions at all, but simply posts to insult Hindu gods, goddesses and saints. As such I will have to assume you aren't a Hindu, but just someone from another religion here to insult Hinduism. Any further questions will be deleted. If you have real questions to which you are looking for answers, send them to me by email and I will answer them. Any further replies posted here will be deleted.

There will be different opinions on this. Some will tell you the deity should be completely changed, others will say it isn't so important, and devotion is more important. Ancient temples such as Lingaraj in Bhubaneswar worship a shivalinga that was shattered into many pieces by invading muslims. In Kantilal the ancient deity of Nila Madhava has his face disfigured (smashed) also by invading muslims. Still the worship continues, because the deity is not only based on the physical shape of the stone. It's the worship and spiritual potency that really matter. There are rituals for changing a deity if it is absolutely necessary, but it shouldn't be done with ancient deities, as the priests may not have the potency to transfer the built up spiritual power of thousands of years of worship. In your case, if it is a home deity, you can continue worshipping it as is. For Nila Madhava deity in Kantilal, they place a spot of chandana paste on the broken area.

There is no official position on this, as he has no official spokesman (his mathas are following him but can't claim to speak on behalf of him). So there is no way to know which of the following occured: 1) He is still sitting there in his physical body. 2) His physical body deteriorated hundreds of years ago and he is living in his sukshma sarira doing meditation on Hari. 3) He is already returned to Vaikuntha and keeps his spiritual presence in his samadhi to bless his devotees. Generally jiva samadhi indicates 2 or 3. No one has ever claimed the material body will stay forever without deterioration. Even when Hiranyakashipu did severe austerities to get his benediction of immortality, his entire body deteriorated and by his mystic potency he kept his soul and prana inside his bones, which were covered in an ant hill. The equation that we need a human body to maintain our life is not true. The soul is eternal, and those who have spiritual potency can live in their sukshma sarira or by keeping their prana in their bones, a stone, a tree, or anything else they choose. As to why regular people can't also continue living in their sukshma sarira after their bodies die, it is because they are not free from karma. One who has disolved his karma is able to exist without the pull of karma to a next birth. But those who have karmic debts will be forced to be reborn immediately after death.

So now you have clarified that what you meant was that Ramayana speaks about talking monkeys, and you feel South Indians look like talking monkeys. No offense meant, but I hope you realize how ridiculous your statement is. Can you clarify what features of the monkeys in Ramayana resemble the features of South Indians today? Is it the monkey noses or the monkey ears or the monkey tails or the monkey hair? Your statement is better referred to as ludicrous. And if the monkeys are the South Indians, as you seems to be suggesting, then the monkeys (dravidians according to you) fought along side Rama (the aryans according to you), so there was no war between aryans and dravidians. As far as the features of the asuras (rakshasas), Kubera, Vibhishana, Indrajit, etc., all are described as effulgent and beautiful, including Ravana. Your thesis that asuras = black = dravidians is not supported in the Ramayana at all. In fact, let me ask you a question that you don't need to tell us the answer to. This is for yourself, to contemplate on. Have you ever read Valmiki Ramayana directly or are you basing all of this on things you heard here and there? If you have never read the Ramayana, then there is no point trying to argue what Ramayana speaks about. General logic would suggest first read it, then most of your questions will be answered automatically.

Jiva samadhi is defined as being buried alive. So it seems you have known the wrong jiva samadhi all these years. To look at it literally, jiva=living, samadhi=burial, so to be buried while living. Of course it has so many spiritual connotations as well. Jiva samadhi is rare, but it has been practiced a lot by those following the siddha tradition in Tamil Nadu. In fact, I know of one fairly young saint who entered jiva samadhi just a few years ago in a small village by Villupuram. In order to stop his family from being charged with a crime for burrying him alive, he left the top of his tomb open (without being covered in dirt) until he had left the body, and then it was closed. In the west we may consider this as suicide, but that is because we don't understand their spiritual power. They are leaving their bodies every single day in their meditation. Through their sukshma sarira, they are actually existing on higher planes of existence while their body is physically present here. Their body is actually a block to their higher existence. When they choose to not return to their body, and to seperate their consciousness from that body completely, then the body dies. Hindus generally understand the concepts of sukshma sarira (subtle body), sthula sarira (physical body), etc. Unlike in Christian religions, in the Vedic scriptures it is described that there are several layers of the physical body. Thus one may be seperate from the sthula sarira (the physical body we see in the mirror), yet still be able to exist and move around in the sukshma sarira (mental body). The sukshma sarira can be manifested into a visible physical form by those with spiritual power.

Raghavendra is a saint in the Madhva lineage, not Gaudiya lineage. He entered jiva samadhi, where the saint is burried while living. This was a common practice in the past, and in Tamil Nadu you will find many such jiva samadhis of saints and siddhas. The idea that his physical body is still living is a misconception. When saints enter jiva samadhi, they leave their body by yogic processes and continue to exist in their subtle body (sukshma sareera), or in the case of mukti, they keep their spiritual presence in their shrine to bless their devotees. Raghavendra Swami has manifested physically before people even in recent times, including to one British government officer who wanted to seize the temple lands. This was recorded in the government gazette at the time.

You need to cite specific sanskrit shlokas for us to comment on. Simply saying "people in south were described like this" is meaningless. Unfortunately you may be basing you beliefs more on cartoons you watched as a kid than anything in the scriptures. The view that demons and asuras like Ravana were always dark black is just something shown in comic books and cartoons. It is in fact a racist undertone present within India.

According to believers, Ramayana is a historical work that describes the avatar of Lord Ramachandra that occurred in the 24th divya yuga of the present manvantara period (vaivasvata manu). Today we are in the 28th divya yuga of the present manvantara period, which means 4 divya yugas (also called chatur yugas) have passed since the Ramayana was recorded. A divya yuga lasts 4,320,000 years, being made up of four smaller yugas: satya-yuga (1,728,000 years), treta-yuga (1,296,000 years), dvapara-yuga (864,000 years) and kali-yuga (432,000 years). Thus, roughly speaking, the Ramayana occurred around 17,280,000 years ago (4,320,000 x 4). If we take these time frames, it does not correspond to an Aryan invasion. In fact an Aryan invasion has not even been proven to have occurred at all. The Ramayana never mentions anything about Ravana being a dravidian. Over the last 100 years politicians in Tamil Nadu have made this claim for the sake of gaining votes by claiming to represent the "dravidians" who have been mistreated by the "aryans" since the time of Ramayana. There is no truth to such claims. Kumbhakarna was not a very fat south indian, and Ravana was not a south indian with 10 heads. They were semi divine personalities who ruled the world millions of years ago, at a time when the devas interacted freely with the human race. Further, the Ramayana mentions the distance between Lanka and India as having been 100 yojanas (roughly 800 miles), where as the present Ceylon is only 32 kilometers away from India. We see that both in terms of time and space, the present Sri Lanka and the Aryan invasion theory do not match with the ancient historical narrations of Ramayana.

In the west it seems to be more related than in India, because in the west particular groups open the temples. Like a Ramakrishna temple will naturally be leaning towards their philosophy and an Iskcon temple will lean to their philosophy. In such situations you will only meet their followers there, so the experience will be a package deal of temple + philosophy, making it uncomfortable if you dont follow their belief system. In India temples are sort of neutral zones, or free for all zones.

No, that is a lie. Your exact statement was, "The forms of Uma and Mahesvara are many times horrendous...even revolting..." English may not be your first language, but then you should have the humility and decency to admit your mistake. What you said was "The forms", which means the two forms mentioned, Uma and Mahesvara. You have not mentioned "some" anywhere. Your intention may have been to say "Some of the forms taken by the beautiful Uma and Maheswara are occasionally ferocious", but what you wrote is nothing related to that. Talking about God is not like talking about a comic book, to be done carelessly and cheaply. I am sure you are frightened when you think of Kali, but there is no reason to be scared of Kali, as she is everyone's mother in this material world. Those who are her devotees aren't the least bit afraid of her, in fact there is nothing fearful in her at all. For that we have to go beyond seeing the external picture and understanding who she is and why she does what she does. There is no difference between Kali and Uma, just as there is no difference between Krishna and Narasimha. There is no reason to be scared of Narasimha, as he is there to protect his devotees, and in the same way, there is no reason to be scared of Kali. Every deity has their ugra (ferocious) rupa, including shiva, vishnu, shakti and hanuman. The devotees are not scared by such forms. It is also a cold hard fact that most (99.95%) devotees of Kali and Bhairava are not tantriks nor aghoris, but ordinary pious hindus. Don't base your understanding of religion from television serials and movies. Ravana worshiped Shiva, Hiranyakashipu worshiped Brahma, so what? They were after material benedictions and Narayana does not give such benedictions to people. Shiva is pleased quickly (his name is Ashutosha, "who is quickly satisfied"), so people have historically worshipped him because it is the quickest and easiest method to attain material benediction. The list of Shiva devotees includes thousands of saints, rishis, devas, and nayanmars, but the only person you can think of is Ravana and some aghoris? It just shows if you want to find a fault you can overlook a thousand good qualities. You speak as though you are a 10 year old child. Spiritual discussions need a higher level of discipline and control.

Since you mentioned you are a devotee of Durga, and there is no temple nearby, please visit this live video feed. They have daily classes, puja and sometimes bhajans: http://www.shreemaa.org/broadcasts It is a nice Kali temple located near San Francisco. The Swamiji there, who is American, is a very nice person. You will need to have Quicktime installed on your computer for the video and audio stream to work. It is available for free.

This is the most ridiculous statement I've ever seen in these forums in 10 years. These are the forms that the devas, siddhas and rishis worship. You are exactly like Daksha Prajapati, who offended Shiva with the same words.

Even if we were to assume the text is not authentic, the more likely scenario would be that some pundit in Bengal had a copy of this text and wanted to show it to Bhaktivinode Thakur, after which he thought it relevant to publish it. There are tens of thousands of unknown manuscripts throughout Bengal and Orissa, some ancient, some less ancient. I have seen ancient palm leaf manuscripts on all sorts of topics that have no record of existing anywhere else. Does it mean all of them are made up to cheat the public? Not really. Over the last 5,000 years, many millions of texts have been authored by Vedic scholars, and most have been lost. To immediately assume a saintly person, who has no record of being dishonest and cheating people, suddenly broke from character and personally wrote a fake scripture with the intent of cheating people, really tells more about ourselves than him. Any decent person would give a saintly person the benefit of the doubt, especially when it is the more logical conclusion judging from their life record. As far as the Chaitanya Upanishad is concerned, it's not really an important basis of Chaitanya's achintya bhedabheda tattva vada, i.e. it has no relevance to his teachings. Just as Madhva's own claim of being a divine wind god, or Ramanuja's disciples claiming he is a divine snake god, or Raghavendra's disciples claiming he is an incarnation of Bhakta Prahlada, or Sai Baba claiming he is the everything, have no bearings on their teachings, so in the same way Chaitanya Upanishad is irrelevant in the context of Sri Chaitanya's teachings. Basically every single teacher in ancient times did some of the following: 1) quote unheard of scriptural texts 2) themselves or their disciples proclaimed them as a divine incarnation of something This does not mean that they were cheaters, their claims may have been true. That's up to individuals to decide, because factually no one knows beyond any trace of doubt how the universe functions and who incarnated as who. When we read the same stories in Puranas we accept them all with faith without questioning how Vidura could have been Yama. But when we hear such stories in later times we doubt the claims because today we don't perceive such incarnations around us. There is nothing wrong with doubt, but we also cannot claim to be perfect in our judgement. This is a weak argument. Even today I have seen many greatly celebrated living saints in villages that are completely unknown outside of their district. 500 years ago when there was no proper communication system I would expect there to be thousands of "well known" saints who would be completely unheard of outside of their own circle of living. Sri Chaitanya's divinity isn't required to believe his teachings of achintya bhedabheda tattva vada. Later on his followers in Bengal put a lot of stress on his divinity, but his teachings can be followed without believing him to be God. Regardless, it is no more believable to accept someone was a snake god or a wind god as compared to God Himself. All such beliefs require one to have faith. It is irrelevant that the teachings do not require one to have faith. The actual belief in that particular statement requires faith, and all sampradayas are "guilty" of accepting such faith based beliefs. There is nothing wrong with having faith in something that cannot be proven. Other than for the purpose of debate, such universal acceptance is not really relevant. There are hundreds of texts that bear the name Upanishad. These include various versions (of texts that are supposed to be eternal and unauthored), regional "upanishads" that only exist in a particular state, and even upanishads that are confined to a particular subsect of Hinduism. The "universally accepted for debate Upanishad list" is much smaller, and is not as universal as you are portraying. The same is the case with the Puranas or any category of Vedic literature.