Jahnava Nitai Das

You can read it online here: www.bhagavad-gita.us

"Uttar Kanda - Canto II" That's about as specific as saying somewhere in the second half of the book. If no verse numbers are available, then it is likely this verse isn't accurate. I have read Ramayana and never came across a similar verse. If neither the sanskrit can be provided, nor the verse number, then the discussion is meaningless. Odd how quickly you were able to come to this conclusion without having actually read the book, nor verified the translation, nor the verse location, nor the chapter context: In otherwords, be more thorough in your study before pointing out defects in people's teachings.

This isn't true. For thousands of years great saints such as Ramanuja, Madhva, Shankara, etc. have held fierce debates on such topics to establish the supremacy of their school of philosophy and their deity. They are the foundation of sanatana dharma, not this neo-vedanta hodgepodge that is popular today. To say everything is fine in Hinduism EXCEPT those people who are the very foundation of Hinduism is ridiculous. Hinduism is broad and excompasing. That includes the ability to encompass those views that are dualistic and contrary. In otherwords, it is hypocritical to say all views are fine except for those that disagree with us. And that is exactly what neo-vedanta tends to do. They make a false show of universalism, but then always come forward to attack views that are strictly dualistic, or views that establish the supremacy of one deity, such as Ramanuja, Madhva, etc.

First you ask if anyone has seen such a thing [i.e. evidence], then in the next sentence you say all such stories are false. So you really didn't need to ask the first question since your mind is already fixed in a particular answer. Thus it isn't necessarily logic or realty that your fixed in, but just your opinion. There is nothing wrong with that, but don't expect everyone will be exactly like you, or that no one has seen such things. The two have no relation. How do you equate siddhis existing with anything to do with India? Are you implying everyone in India would automatically be possessing all of these siddhis if they existed? Certainly this is solid logic, because I know from past experience that if there was actually such a thing as diamonds in the world, then surely everyone in India would have a few tons of them. But that isn't the case, so we can know that there are no diamonds in the world.

Actually we get a lot better representation from the visitors as opposed to the registered users. Maybe I will post the visitors maps latter.

The majority of schools accept it as equal to shruti and refer to it as Gitopanishad. From what I have seen only a very tiny minority group of tantrics and those shaivites who worship Shiva as the Supreme Personality of Godhead (hard to find such a person) avoid the Gita. Those who worship Shiva, 99% of the time consider him "one of the many Gods" or "one face of the one impersonal divine", and as such have no problem with the Gita provided they interpret it in their own way. The number of people who actually consider Shiva to be the one supreme personal God (something like Vaishnavas, but with shiva) is really so rare that it almost doesnt need to be mentioned.

I had a look at wikipedia recently and was surprised that anyone can post anything and it is immediately live online with the edit. I am surprised it is as orderly as it is.

Worship of Lord Krishna requires no initiation, only bhakti. Nowhere in the Gita do you see Him say you must be initiated to worship me. These are two different subjects altogether.

Again you have been misled by propoganda from muslims and christians. The alleged quote from Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad has been dealt with in the thread "Did Rama Eat Meat?". It is unfortunate that these people from other religions can make claims that such and such is in our scriptures and Hindus blindly believe them. You could never do this to a Christian and Muslim, because they know what is in their scriptures. But Hindus generally have no clue what their scriptures teach. For example, probably only 5% or less of Hindus have read the Bhagavad Gita fully in their entire life. A very sorry situation for Hinduism.

Another form of addiction is the internet. There have been some articles on it. Some people go mad if they can't check their email for a day or two.

Chanting the mantra is really what's important. If you only have a rudraksha mala, then go ahead and use it untill you can get a tulasi mala. Rudraksha is also sacred.

It is mentioned in the Bhagavatam, but that is in relation to Rudra, who is an expansion of Shiva. Narayana's entire body is considered pure, so much so that worshipping his lotus feet purifies our hearts of all contamination. The idea that his right hand somehow indicates something "clean and pure" is ridiculous. Narayana blessed bali by placing His foot on Bali's head. In the common world the foot is considered unclean. As far as Brahma being "fed" through the lotus stem: Within the lotus stem is the 14 bhuvanas, all the planets within our perception. The lotus is the Satya loka, the topmost planetary system where Lord Brahma resides. Lord Brahma dwells within that abode, he is not linked to a feeding tube like a baby in the womb. You should refer to scripture and not to fertile imaginations.

Hare Krishna. Don't rush into anything. Tolerance is a great quality that helps nurture bhakti. Krishna has blessed you with an opportunity to cultivate these divine qualities.

You seem to miss the point. The poster made absurd claims that our Hindu scriptures do not condemn eating meat and that eating meat is 100% sinless. When it has been shown beyond doubt that our scriptures condemn killing of animals for meat, and that eating meat is repeatedly stated to be sinful, rather than acknowledge this or try to refute this the reply given is, "No, actually it isn't sinful." So despite providing scriptural evidence, it is ignored and one continues to misrepresent our scriptures by stating that the scriptures support eating meat and it is sinless. The key point is that this person claims our scriptures state this. If that is the case then he needs to deal with the scriptural evidence provided. If he said it is my personal opinion that eating meat is fine but this has nothing to do with the Hindu scriptures, then he can post it. But if he misrepresents Hinduism by saying "all our scriptures say eating meat is sinless", but then fails to provide any scriptural evidence backing this up and instead copies and pastes an article from Islamic anti-Hindu websites, then his posts will not be entertained. Therefore I have provided the following ground rules for this discussion: 1) All above verses that unequivacally state eating meat to be sinful must be dealt with directly verse by verse. 2) Counter scriptural evidence must be provided with original sanskrit stating eating meat to be sinless. Verses without sanskrit provided will not be entertained, as someone's english copy and paste from anti-hindu websites carry no weight in these forums. Is that really so much to ask? I have seen this same discussion occur on another forum that went on for over 100 pages of posts without a single scriptural reference being given. This forum is for spiritual discussions based on scriptures, not for people to make absurd claims that will misguide innocent readers.

Most of what we believe is accepted based on the instructions of the scriptures. For example how can you prove that it is sinful to kill a man? There really is no way to prove it, as we cannot see the afterlife and what will happen. But we have faith in the scriptures (for various reasons) and in the scriptures these things are stated. The reasons why people have faith in the scriptures are many, and that would be the topic of another discussion, but it shouldnt be assumed that all faith is blind without evidence.

The same way baby Krishna appears to pass stool when in fact he has no inner digestive system (being sat-chit-ananda rupa).

No, it isn't generally true. They just give different interpretations to it.

Here is some information on this: Isn't the killing of plants also violence? http://www.bvashram.org/articles/24/...so-violence%3F and another relevant topic here: Sanctified Food; The Process of Sadhana http://www.bvashram.org/articles/56/...ess-of-Sadhana In summary (from the Hindu perspective): 1) God has ordained a specific diet for each type of living entity. 2) Humans must first offer everything to God, otherwise their eating is sinful. 3) God has specified which types of offerings he will accept (which do not include meat). Other aspects of this are that pain is experienced in proportion to the developed consciousness of the living entity. Humans and animals have a very developed consciousness and therefore experience more pain, whereas plants have a less developed consciousness and experience less pain. Thus it is more sinful to kill an animal than a plant as it will cause more pain to the animal. Both are still sinful, but plants (fruits, vegetables, etc.) may be offered to God and in this way the sinful reactions can be mitigated.

You seem to have missed the point, which Avinash has nicely clarified. In the future if science finds a way to produce meat economically, and it proves to be good for your health, and it some how helps the environment, then will you suddenly start eating meat? No. The answer is simple, none of these "reasons for not eating meat" were real, they were just useful catch phrases. The real reason why we who follow the Vedic teachings don't eat meat is because of the violence and pain inflicted on other living entities. If someones really accepts the health, economic, and environmental arguements, then he must support the eating of meat as soon as it proves to be healthy, economical and environmentally favourable. That is something against the Vedic teachings, therefore I will not promote diet based on these things. People could eventually easily prove meat to be economical. For example, if cows were left to graze wild grass from land not fit for growing crops. Since the land could not support crops for humans, it would be more economical to have cows graze the land and then eat their meat. So would anyone who argues in favor of economic reasons for being vegetarian now change their stance and support eating meat? If not, then these arguments were false, and only offered because they supported one's stance. As soon as the same logic doesn't support one's position it is abandoned. Just for information, beef in India costs less per kilo than rice, from what I have heard it is perhaps 15 rs. a kilo (compared to 20 rs. for good quality rice). This low price is obviously due to lack of demand, as other meats cost much more. My point is not that we should eat meat because it could be economical. If that's what you understood by reading this, then there is a comprehension problem. My real point is that such arguments are shallow and ignore the real reason why we should not eat meat, and that is because it causes pain and suffering to other living entities.

One problem with health arguments, economic arguments, environmental arguments, etc., is that if tomorrow they invent the most economic, healthy and environmentally friendly meat in the world we will suddenly stop respecting these things as valid reasons. In other words we use them only because they agree with us, and if for some reason they didn't agree with us we would stop citing them. Take for example slavery, the real reason it needed to be stoped was because it was evil, not because it wasn't economic or environmentally friendly. The same is the case with genocide, it needs to be stopped because it is evil. How would it sound if we said the extermination of jews should have been decided based on economic, environmental and health reasons of the killers?

It's already past, so a little late to bring this up, but for some reason the Mayapur calendar says fasting till noon and the online ISKCON calendar says fasting till sunset. I believe Prabhupada had said both at different times.

After seeing the websites its clear, it's the same Islamic people trying to misrepresent Hinduism. Usually when you see a website named "The True Call - Islam", that in itself should tell you that you don't need to defend your Hindu beliefs there. And when they claim that all the Hindu Swamijis were defeated in debate, only a fool will believe them, and only those same fools will try to learn Hinduism from them. If our Hindus have not studied their own scriptures, and instead need to be taught by outsiders, then who is to blame? It is pointless trying to debate these complete misrepresentations of Hinduism. If a madman accuses you of being a thief, will you waste your time trying to establish to everyone that you aren't a thief? If there were a tiny shred of truth to anything they say, then you could debate and defend your beliefs. But when there isn't even the smallest truth to anything they say, and when all the verses they cite don't exist, and when the language they claim is sanskrit isn't sanskrit, then the only thing left for you to do is stop wasting your time and read the Gita.

Please cite the verse and chapter numbers for further discussion to take place. Generally unsubstantiated "quotations" will be removed.

Please see this following thread, as the statements of Manu Samhita were already dealt with: http://www.audarya-fellowship.com/forums/hinduism/43014-eating-meat.html The other statements about eating beef have been dealt with in the thread "Did Rama eat meat?". If you search you should be able to find it (there are probably multiple threads with that title). In summary these are all misrepresentations by people of other religions trying to convert Hindus. Just look at their sanskrit quote: Bramhnaanam irjkottnshcha hhojyamas netyasha. Pan chgawam mansat spukwaidhrtl sanskritai: chavatshchoshot When was the last time you saw sanskrit with those words and letters? These people aren't even from India and have never read any sanskrit literature in their life, so don't waste your time on it.

Next question: Who is the person in Syberia, and the other one in northern Canada? Amazing there are people visiting from those places.