gHari
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Posts posted by gHari
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Let me ask you this, Anonymous. Since you respect the great Hindu scriptures so much, and now knowing that Mohammed is actually Krishna incarnated as His Kalki Avatara, do you now accept Lord Krsna as Allah, as God?
Or do you not believe these silly claims either? One or the other must be true, otherwise it is hypocrisy.
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As pointed out there is no credible evidence offered to 'prove the claim' so we are not about to waste time finding verse and reference to 'disprove' the nonsense. You should be able to understand that we can see too many reasons to reject the hypothesis.
I have no idea what you are trying to say in the last post; and you obviously have no idea what we have said. Perhaps English is not the best medium for this discussion. But put as simply as possible: no one here finds any reason to consider the idea that Mohammed is described as the Kalki Avatara; we find too many conclusive reasons that it is not possible.
Mohammed does not consider himself to be Allah. Why should you?
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To welcome you back with a big bang, we have a simply wonderful Sir Sriman George Hari Son video from Rolling Stone:
VIDEO - Long sequence including My Sweet Lord and Chant in the Names of Lord and You'll be Free
And this is nice: The only God we need is within ourselves
And a few George quotes: <A HREF="http://members.tripod.com/~peace_chic/indexgeorge3.html" TARGET=_blank> 11) What about drugs? Are you straight now?
Oh, yeah.
12) You were always the mystical Beatle. Are you still very religious?
Yeah, but now I just keep it to myself. It's still what I believe in, though, that we're looking for inner peace & knowledge.</A>
And George got his picture on the cover, on the cover of the Rolling Stone.
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The evidence is that Mohammed was over 400,000 years too early. The author's disrespect for the Vedas is repulsive. He obviously doesn't realize that compared to the Vedas, the Koran and other scriptures are but simple primers to religion, designed for ignorant backwards very sinful peoples for whom the subject of religion is all but beyond their filthy grasp.
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I "have major disrespect towards other" ignorant people who deride the Vedas. Thusly they betray their lack of spiritual advancement and their ignorance of the will of Allah. They are cheap pretenders, and Allah only too well knows this. They try to use Him to augment their puny egos, but He knows them and their shame as they truly are.
For such cheaters act not by the will of the living God, Allah, who would live in their hearts, but rather they act on their own mind's juggling of scripture in order to satisfy their own attachments and to glorify their own selves. Their empty hearts listen not. They miss the message of Mohammed (may Allah bless him) entirely. Allah is not so cheap. He is great; give Him His greatness. Stop trying to steal it for yourself.
There is only one God. Find Allah first, and save yourself all this wasted strife and embarrassment to Him and yourself.<font color="#f7f7f7">
[This message has been edited by gHari (edited 01-02-2002).]
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The case was remanded until January 15th. I guess the story won't hit the fan until then.
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Afroz names 30 others in suicide jet attack plot in his confession. Flight delay in London saved House of Commons:
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Do you bite your thumb at me, Sir? Here is an encounter in which Srila Prabhupada hugs Sir George:
http://chakra.org/articles/2001/12/30/g.harrison.by.nanda.kumar/index.htm
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Funny, today I was just thinking how Harry Potter had done so much for the literacy of kids all over the world. They will be able to read Prabhupada's books when they get older and develop real powers like Hari's.
This Footloose screwloose church guy is so proud of preaching the gospel all over the world, when in fact he is only painting a ridiculous image of his religion. It's almost as bad as the muslims trying to force Islam on the infidels with the threat of death. Talk about alienating the world. Duh.
Hippy New Year, folks - happy no new terror
Hey, where is everybody?<font color="#f7f7f7">
[This message has been edited by gHari (edited 12-31-2001).]
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Tomorrow, expect world-shattering news. This story ia about to hit America at last. They've been keeping it secret, perhaps hoping to find a link between the Australian jihadist and Bingo.
In the in camera testimony, Afrroz was given ample opportunity to reveal whether his confession was being forced out of him or not. Since it is proceeding to trial on News Years Day, it appears that the court decided that there has been no coersion.
The UK's BBC website has carried this story a few times, but still no whisper of it in the US media.
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My perception of atheists or agnostics or even sectarians invariably leads to the same conclusion every time: when attachment is not satisfied, we become angry.
Since vice is vanquished by the remembrance of God or His pure devotees, the asuras become increasingly ferocious at even the thought. To keep the party rolling, they purposely address a fictitious God or Jesus or Prabhupada.
If it was the real Holiness they consider, how can they possibly not conclude immediately that their lives have changed? How can their attachment to peer approval through cleverness, continue to spawn all sorts of faulty speculation about the holiness of God or Jesus? Simply attachment. They discount God, because they want to enjoy.
God awards remembrance and forgetfulness; but how can these asuras possibly climb out of that hole they're in to stumble onto some good karma?
Perhaps the only solution is to give them the real God. Perhaps the only solution is the special all-encompassing compassion of Lord Caitanya and His Hare Krsna sankirtana, neither of which considers qualification.
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This is from an early essay by Srila Prabhupada, the rest of which is in the 'World' section under the article titled 'Krsna Arranges for Planet to Protect Bharata'. I didn't see this joke coming, and laughed so loud the silence became deafening:
It seems that God answered their prayers even before they said them, only using the demons as delivery boys.The present day civilization is trying to avoid this God-consciousness of human life by artificial method of material science and forcible atheism. It is learnt from reliable sources that in an atheistic state, the village people were called in a meeting and were asked to pray in the church for daily bread. The innocent villagers prayed in the church for daily bread, and when the prayer was over the state officers asked them whether breads were supplied. The village men replied that there was no bread. The atheist politicians asked them again to pray for bread from them (the statesmen) and bread was at once supplied. And by this method the innocent villagers were made victims of propaganda by atheistic politicians with the result that all the villagers became gradually faithless in God, because wrongly they accepted that the bread was supplied by the politicians and not by God.
The poor victims of such propaganda did not understand that the breads supplied by the politicians were not made by the father of the politicians but actually they were sent by God. No politician can manufacture bread without wheat. No wheat is produced without sun rays or rains from the sky. No rains are possible without obedience to God. No atheist can live and decry God without eating bread. And therefore whoever eats bread without acknowledging in gratitude of his indebtedness to God is certainly a demon and for such demons the stringent natural laws are meant for punishment. A time is nearing when there will be no wheat paddy in the field and no politician will be able to make a quick supply of bread. The food problem is already acute.
The atheistic civilization is to be troubled more and more with the progress of materialism. We have such foretellings in the pages of SrImad-BhAgavatam. The more the people are turning to the atheistic, the more things of disturbing elements do appear before us. And that is the thing which matters at present. This is a wrong type of civilization.
[This message has been edited by gHari (edited 12-30-2001).]
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I prayed that you do too, atma.
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Excerpt from Back to Godhead 1956:
[This message has been edited by gHari (edited 12-30-2001).]Conquering Vice
The anchor of sense gratification, which is a stumbling block on the path of progress, is manifested in five different symptoms. They are as follows:
<blockquote>(1) Attachment to the material body due to ignorance of spiritual facts.
(2) Attachment to our kinsmen on account of bodily relations.
(3) Attachment to the land of birth as also to all sorts of material possessions such as house, furniture, estates, property, business papers and all such relative things.
(4) Attachment to the holy water without knowing the persons who make it holy.
(5) Attachment to material science which always remains a mystery for want of consultation with liberated soul.
</blockquote>
..............
If we therefore want to diminish the forces of vices such as murdering, pilfering, kidnapping, stealing, cheating, adulteration and so many other minor things, then we must have to become a devotee of the Lord and thereby try to revive our divine forces dormant in every one of us for the purpose of going Back to Godhead. The Sreemad Bhagwat therefore advises us like this:
Jasya, Asti, Bhakti, Bhagwati, Akinchana,
Sarboi, Gunai, Tatra, Samasate, Sura,
Harou, Abhaktasya, Kuta, Mahat, Guna,
Mana, Rathena, Asath, Dhabato, Baio.
"One who has unflinching devotion in the service of Godhead is certainly qualified with all the good qualities of Gods. But one who is faithless in that matter has no value of his mundane decorations because that would not save him from the path of mental plane where all conditioned soul hover on vicious acts."
In the Bhagwat Geeta it is said also like [bg. 9.30]:
Api, Chet, Suderachana, Bhajate, Mam, Ananyabiak,
Sadhu, Eba, Sa, Mantbya, Samyak, Vyabasita, Hi, Sa.
"Even if a man who is primarily a vicious man, but is a staunchly devotee of Godhead constantly engaged in His service, he must be considered as Sadhu because he is well settled there."
A well settled devotee of Godhead cannot continue to be a vicious man because his cent percent engagement in the service of the Lord will make him automatically a saintly person by the Grace of the Supreme. The Supreme Lord, who is living with every individual living being, will act as his Chaitya Guru or the Spiritual Master from within and give him (the devotee) direction so that he may go Back to Godhead. There are thousands and thousands of instructive stories of the nature in the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas which are all supplementary to the Vedas. To be cent percent engaged in the transcendental service of the Lord is the real process of sense-control. Vices are seated on the senses. The different senses of a man are different strategic positions of the enemy Vice which takes us to the miseries of life. The Karmis or the fruitive workers who have been described as the Mudhas or the foolish ignorant, is cent percent engaged in the matter of sense-gratification. Because the citadel of Vices, with its soldiers of the name desire, anger and avarice, is the sense-gratification means to follow the dictation of Mr. Vice. The Jnanis or the mental speculative philosophers are thousand times better than the Karmis because they can understand the real position of sense gratification and try to employ senses in a subtle form restraining the gross activities of the senses. By this action of Mr. Vice becomes surrounded and he is stopped for the time being. The Yogins want to control the senses or make direct attack on Mr. Vice and therefore the Yogins are thousand times better than the Jnanis; the Muktas or the liberated souls are still thousand times better than the Jnanis and Yogins for the Muktas are completely free from the attack of Mr. Vice. And above the Muktas are situated pure Bhaktas who not only drive away Mr. Vice from the citadels of senses but also engage the seat for occupation of the Supreme Lord. The king of the senses is the master Mind. Senses are like the horses while the mind is the coachman who directs the senses. The Bhaktas therefore first of all depose Mr. Vice the Coachman from the seat of Mind and place the lotus feet of Shri Krishna on that coach. When Shri Krishna becomes the coachman of the chariot of Arjuna, there is no more fear of the attack of Mr. Vice called by the name Dhuryodhana. The Bhagwat Geeta is therefore concluded like this [bg. 18.78]:
Jatra, Jogeswara, Krishna,
Jatra, Partha, Dhanurdhara,
Tatra, Sree, Vijoya, Bhuti,
Dhurban, Niti, Mati, Mama.
Sree Sanjaya concluded relaying Bhagwat Geeta in the above words. He said "Where there is the master of all energies, Shri Krishna and where there is a Master Devotee like Partha (Sri Arjuna), undoubtedly there are blessings, victories, influences and morality and that is my conclusion."
So in order to be victorious completely over the dictates of Mr. Vice and to save ourselves from the sufferings of miseries and ignorance, we have to place the lotus feet of Shri Krishna constantly upon our mind. And doing so we shall be able to speak and write always the transcendental news of the kingdom of God. And in that way we shall be able to engage our hands, legs, eyes, nose, tongue, head etc. all cent percent engaged in the service of the Lord. When these places will be occupied by the Master, there will be no place vacant for accommodating Mr. Vice and that is the easiest process of conquering Vice and replace them with all blessings, victory, influence, and morality.
Vice is compared with Mist and the living entity is compared with the Sun. Mist is in fact a creation of the Sun and Sun itself can drive away the Mist. The Sun has to increase the temperature of its heat a little more in order to drive away the Mist and in the similar way the living entity has to increase its spiritual heat in order to drive away the mist of Vice.
When the mist is cleared off the Sun is seen in its full fledged flowing beams and in the same way when the Vices are removed the living being is seen in his full fledged purity.
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Stevason confessed to forcing Lord Ganesha to steal milk in temples
Acquitted, and still at large somewhere in Tora Bora.
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The most wondrous church is right here in my heart. Wish I could attend more often.<font color="#dedfdf">
[This message has been edited by gHari (edited 12-29-2001).]
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I am pleased that you were here to hear that very wonderful poem, old friend. The two parampara pieces were from a 1944 BTG, and your Srila Prabhupada was the editor who translated them. No information was provided about a poem or Vyasa-puja offering translator; possibly they were written in English.
All the 'EARLY PRABHUPADA' nectar came from the Folio Vedabase History section. These kind devotees somehow have gotten me attached to reading the Vedabase day and night. I thank Krsna for their sincerity in this empty world.
<font color=blue>Sea-foam bubble gHari </font><font color="#dedfdf">
[This message has been edited by gHari (edited 12-29-2001).]
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She must have been very dear to Krsna. I never knew her, but I had tears in my eyes when I read the VNN article announcing her departure.
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Early Prabhupada on Kashmir:
"WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THE WORLD?"
On the 16th of February 1957 a meeting was held at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan to discuss the above subject matter. Distinguished gentlemen from different categories spoke on the subject, but practically nobody could give us a definite direction as to what actually the matter was that was troubling the whole situation.
This feeling of pinching in the existence of our life is a good sign for progress. It is an urge for enquiry what is the wrong in the world that gives us trouble? This trouble is not a new thing but it is a matter of permanent settlement in all the days of life, but it may be felt at different times in different colour. The troubles are in varieties in relation with our mind and body, in relation with our dealings with other living beings and in relation with natural phenomenons.
The present pinching trouble of our political leaders in the matter of Kashmir affairs is a trouble in relation with our other friendly nations. Kashmir is a part of India, not only at present but it is so from a time immemorial but the Kashmir problem has arisen as a matter of course because the world is so created that must there exist some sort of trouble, may be it is in relation with the body or other living beings or the natural phenomenon.
These troubles are like the forest fire. Fire takes place in the dense forest without any attempt by any living being. Nobody in the forest do want such fire, but it takes place without any demand. When there is fire, the living beings in the forest are put into trouble and sometimes it so happens that most of the forest creatures die in that havoc. There is no fire brigade in the forest or on the top of a forest mountain and there is no hope for of extinguishing the fire by any human attempt. It takes by the natural laws, and it is extinguished by natural laws also, that is, when there is torrent of rains in the forest. That is the natural law and these laws are so rigid and stern that no human brain, however it may be powerful, can solve these problems of natural laws.
An intelligent person, who has actually developed some finer qualities of human consciousness, can understand that every law is made by an intelligent brain and behind every law there is the lawmaker who makes the law. So for all these natural laws, there is the Supreme Lawmaker, who is the Absolute Personality of Godhead. In the Bhagavad-gItA we have, therefore, information that natural laws are so stringent that they cannot be overcome by anybody. But whoever surrenders unto the Supreme Lord can overcome them.
The king is the lawmaker and if he likes he can forgive a law-breaker by special prerogative of the king - by the 'king's mercy,' but the king can do no wrong even if he sometimes breaks the law. That is, an experience of a common man in the phenomenal world and the same thing is applicable in the matter of Supreme laws also.
The natural laws are like police actions by the agents of Godhead. Men, who are too much captivated by the glamour of material beauty and tries to enjoy it falsely without acknowledgement of its Creator, are called demons. The stringent natural laws are meant for the criminals but not for the law-abiders. Therefore, the perfect answer to the question "What is the matter with the world?" is that men have become demons by breaking laws of God, and therefore they are being punished by the police action of material nature. That is the verdict of all scriptures and that is our day-to-day life's experience.
In the Bhagavad-gItA a vivid description of the law-breaker demoniac men are given in the 16th chapter and such men are punished by the laws of God - are also maintained.
Human civilizations are conducted in two ways. One type of civilization can make every human being as much qualified as God is. And the other type of civilization can make every man no less than a jungle beast and thereby making this world unfit for human habitation.
A human being is called a rational animal. When rationality is destroyed, the human being is left an ordinary animal. The difference between a human being and an animal is based on the strength of human being's being above the animal propensities. The animal part of a human being necessarily require food to eat, shelter to live in, protection from fear and gratification of senses. These four principles of life are common both to the man and the animals. But there is another thing which is specially meant for the human being. This is God-consciousness. This God-consciousness is conspicuous by absence in the animal life, while in the human life this God-consciousness is in dormant stage even in the society of the aborigines. This God-consciousness develops in different grades of human civilization in terms of particular place, time and persons. This God-consciousness is called Religion or Culture of Life without which no civilization can stand.
The present day civilization is trying to avoid this God-consciousness of human life by artificial method of material science and forcible atheism. It is learnt from reliable sources that in an atheistic state, the village people were called in a meeting and were asked to pray in the church for daily bread. The innocent villagers prayed in the church for daily bread, and when the prayer was over the state officers asked them whether breads were supplied. The village men replied that there was no bread. The atheist politicians asked them again to pray for bread from them (the statesmen) and bread was at once supplied. And by this method the innocent villagers were made victims of propaganda by atheistic politicians with the result that all the villagers became gradually faithless in God, because wrongly they accepted that the bread was supplied by the politicians and not by God.
The poor victims of such propaganda did not understand that the breads supplied by the politicians were not made by the father of the politicians but actually they were sent by God. No politician can manufacture bread without wheat. No wheat is produced without sun rays or rains from the sky. No rains are possible without obedience to God. No atheist can live and decry God without eating bread. And therefore whoever eats bread without acknowledging in gratitude of his indebtedness to God is certainly a demon and for such demons the stringent natural laws are meant for punishment. A time is nearing when there will be no wheat paddy in the field and no politician will be able to make a quick supply of bread. The food problem is already acute.
The atheistic civilization is to be troubled more and more with the progress of materialism. We have such foretellings in the pages of SrImad-BhAgavatam. The more the people are turning to the atheistic, the more things of disturbing elements do appear before us. And that is the thing which matters at present. This is a wrong type of civilization.
A. C. Bhaktivedanta
Foretelling of Ghandi's Departure
Cawnpore
12 July, 1947
Mahatma Gandhijee
Bhangi Colony
New Delhi.
Dear Friend Mahatmajee,
Please accept my respectful Namaskar. I am your unknown friend but I had to write to you at times and again although you never cared to reply them. I sent you my papers "Back to Godhead" but your secretaries told me that you have very little time to read the letters and much less for reading the magazines. I asked for an interview with you but your busy secretaries never cared to reply this. Anyway as I am your very old friend although unknown to you I am again writing to you in order to bring you to the rightful position deserved by you. As a sincere friend I must not deviate from my duty towards a friend like your good self.
I tell you as a sincere friend that you must immediately retire from active politics if you do not desire to die an inglorious death. You have 125 years to live as you have desired to live but you if you die an inglorious death it is no worth. The honour and prestige that you have obtained during the course of you present life time, were not possible to be obtained by any one else within the living memory. But you must know that all these honours and prestiges were false in as much as they were created by the Illusory Energy of Godhead called the maya. By this falsity I do not mean to say that your so many friends were false to you nor you were false to them. By this falsity I mean illusion or in other words the false friendship and honours obtained thereby were but creation of maya and therefore they are always temporary or false as you may call it. But none of you neither your friends nor yourself knew this truth.
Now by the Grace of God that illusion is going to be cleared and thus your faithful friends like Acarya Kripalini and others are accusing you for your inability at the present moment to give them any practical programme of work as you happened to give them during your glorious days of non-co-operation movement. So you are also in a plight to find out a proper solution for the present political tangle created by your opponents. You should therefore take a note of warning from your insignificant friend like me, that unless you retire timely from politics and engage yourself cent per cent in the preaching work of Bhagavad-gita, which is the real function of the Mahatmas, you shall have to meet with such inglorious deaths as Mussolini, Hitlers, Tojos, Churchills or Lloyd Georges met with.
You can very easily understand as to how some of your political enemies in the garb of friends (both Indian and English) have deliberately cheated you and have broken your heart by doing the same mischief for which you have struggled so hard for so many years. You wanted chiefly Hindu-Moslem unity in India and they have tactfully managed to undo your work, by creation of the Pakistan and India separately. You wanted freedom for India but they have given permanent dependence of India. You wanted to do something for the upliftment of the position of the bhangis but they are still rotting as bhangis even though you are living in the bhangi colony. They are all therefore illusions and when these things will be presented to you as they are, you must consider them as God-sent. God has favored you by dissipating the illusion you were hovering in, and by the same illusion you were, nursing those ideas as Truth(?).
You must know that you are in the relative world which is called by the sages as Dvaita i.e. dual- and nothing is absolute here. Your Ahimsa is always followed by Himsa as the light is followed by darkness or the father is followed by the son. Nothing is absolute truth in this dual world. You did not know this neither you ever cared to know this from the right sources and therefore all your attempts to create unity were followed by disunity and Ahimsa. Ahimsa was followed by Himsa.
But it is better late than never. You must know now something about the Absolute Truth. The Truth with which you have been experimenting so long is relative. The relative truths are creations of the daivi maya qualified by the three modes of Nature. They are all insurmountable as is explained in the Bhagavad-gita (7/14). The Absolute Truth is the Absolute Godhead.
In the Katha Upanisad it is ordered that one must approach the bona fide Guru who is not only well versed in all the scriptures of the world but is also the realized soul in Brahman the Absolute--in order to learn the science of Absolute Truth. So also it is instructed in the Bhagavad-gita as follows:--
tad viddhi pranipatena
pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti tad jnanam
jnaninas tattvadarsinah
(4.34)
But I know that you never underwent such transcendental training except some severe penances which you invented for your purpose as you have invented so many things in the course of experimenting with the relative truths. You might have easily avoided them if you had approached the Guru as abovementioned. But your sincere efforts to attain some Godly qualities by austerities etc surely have raised you to some higher position which you can better utilize for the purpose of the Absolute Truth. If you, however, remain satisfied with such temporary position only and do not try to know the Absolute Truth, then surely you are to fall down from the artificially exalted position under the laws of Nature. But if you really want to approach the Absolute Truth and want to do some real good to the people in general all over the world, which shall include your ideas of unity, peace and non-violence, then you must give up the rotten politics immediately and rise up for the preaching work of the philosophy and religion of ``Bhagavad-gita'' without offering unnecessary and dogmatic interpretations on them. I had occasionally discussed this subject in my paper ``Back to Godhead'' and a leaf from the same is enclosed herewith for your reference.
I would only request you to retire from politics at least for a month only and let us have discussion on the Bhagavad-gita. I am sure, thereby, that you shall get a new light from the result of such discussions not only for your benefit but for the benefit of the world at large--as I know that you are sincere, honest and moralist.
Awaiting your early reply with interest.
Yours sincerely,
Abhay Charan De.
Enclosure--one leaf from Back to Godhead
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PRELUDE TO THE BATTLE
From 1968 Collier Bhagavad-gita As It Is
"Setting the Scene" preamble by Rayarama das
THE BHAGAVAD GITA IS a battlefield dialogue between Sri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and Arjuna, His friend, devotee, and disciple. The dialogue consists of seven hundred verses, in which the Lord brings Arjuna from the dark bewilderment of material consciousness to the stage of serene and joyful enlightenment regarding everything--literally.
Krishna's purpose in coming into this world is nicely described in the Fourth Chapter, and there is no need to go over that here. But a note regarding the activities of Krishna and Arjuna, explaining how They came to be on that battlefield, ought to be quite helpful to the reader whose knowledge of Vedic literature is scant or nil. That literature is the most extensive, comprehensive, scientifically precise and ancient scriptural material now existing in the world. It presents the paths of knowledge of the Absolute Truth in all aspects and from all angles of vision, clearly and elaborately.
Srila Vyasadeva is an incarnation of God Who appeared on earth at about the same time as Krishna, the Original Person. Vyasadeva's purpose was to reconstruct and compile the Vedic wisdom so that it could be understood by the people of the coming age--the Kali Yuga, or Age of Quarrel. It is to Vyasadeva that we can attribute all the Vedic knowledge now in existence, for it was He Who put it into writing. The people of previous times having the capacity for perfect memory of such topics, writing was until then unnecessary.
Part of Vyasadeva's work includes The Mahabharata, a chronicle of events leading up to the initiation of the Age of Kali. "Mahabharata" means, literally, "Great Bharata," Bharata being a ruler of the world during a now forgotten past epoch. The Mahabharata traces not only the doings of Bharata the Great, but of his descendants as well, coming ultimately down to the story of Dhritarashtra and Pandu, the sons of King Vichitravirya. Now, Dhritarashtra was the elder son, but he was born blind, and so the throne that otherwise would have been his devolved upon his younger brother, Pandu. Pandu had five sons--Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva; and Dhritarashtra had a hundred, chief amongst whom was Duryodhana, a great politician and administrator.
Dhritarashtra never came to accept his brother's pre-eminence over him, and he raised his sons with the determination that they--and not Pandu's offspring--should someday reign over the world. Duryodhana and his many brothers thus grew to manhood in possession of their father's ambitions, his pride, and his greed. What's more, Pandu died at an early age, and his five boys came under the guardianship of Dhritarashtra, his other brother Vidura, and the venerated "grandfather" of the clan, Bhisma. Dhritarashtra plotted against the lives of the Pandavas (the sons of Pandu) and their mother Pritha, also called Kunti. But the blind conspirator's plans were foiled by a variety of people and circumstances: chiefly the saintly intervention of Vidura, and the loving protection of Krishna, Kunti's Nephew, thus also a Relative.
Now, the warrior-politicians of that time were called Kshatriyas, and they lived by a code of chivalry, much as the warrior class of Europe did only recently. Part of the Kshatriya code forbade them to turn away from a challenge to a fight--or to a gambling match. In this way, ultimately, the brilliant Duryodhana was able to cheat the five brothers of their kingdom, their wife Droupadi--and even their freedom, forcing them to spend twelve years hiding. When this time was up, the Pandavas returned to the court of Duryodhana and asked him to grant them some kind of administrative post--for it was also part of the Kshatriya code that a warrior might not enter into service or business, but must make his living as a ruler of some kind. The Pandavas were willing to accept a village each from their now magnificent cousin, but Duryodhana had no mercy or regard for them. He informed them that he couldn't spare so much as enough land in which to drive a needle.
Thus rebuked, Arjuna and his brothers resorted to arms, and a global war of tremendous scope was initiated. Yudhisthira was the eldest of the Pandavas, and it was to place him upon the throne--or to oppose him--that great warriors from all the corners of the earth assembled. According to Vedic sources, the Battle of Kurukshetra lasted for eighteen days, and took the unimaginable toll of 640 million lives! This becomes somewhat more comprehensible when we recognize that the Vedic civilization was a highly advanced society, possessed not only of nuclear weapons more subtle than ours today, but also of air, water, and psychic weapons of devastating power.
As the armies were gathering, Sri Krishna, Cousin to both sides in the fight, attempted to mediate on behalf of the Pandavas, but He found Duryodhana determined to rule the world in his own way, and anxious to be done forever with these bothersome men, whose very existence challenged his right to the crown.
Whereas the Pandavas, pure devotees of the Lord and men of the highest moral stature, recognized Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Dhritarashtra's sons had no such qualifications, and no such powers of recognition. Yet Krishna offered to participate in the war according to the desire of the antagonists. As God, He would not Personally take a hand; but whoever so desired might avail himself of Krishna's army--and the other side could have Krishna Himself, as an advisor and helper. Duryodhana, the genius politician, snatched at the armed forces of his Cousin, while Yudhisthira was equally anxious to have Krishna Himself.
In this way, Krishna became the Charioteer of Arjuna, taking it upon Himself to drive the fabled bowman's chariot. This brings us up to the point at which The Bhagavad Gita begins, with the armies arrayed and ready for combat, and Dhritarashtra anxiously inquiring of his secretary Samjaya, "What did they do?"
The scene is set, with only the need for a brief note regarding this translation and the accompanying commentary:
The general pattern in translating The Bhagavad Gita into English--followed by so many writers of so many such works--is to brush aside the Personality of Krishna in order to make room for the translator's own concepts and philosophies. The history of The Mahabharata is taken as quaint mythology, and Krishna becomes a poetic device, an instrument for the presentation of some anonymous genius' concepts, or at best a historical minor personage. But the Person Krishna is both the goal and the substance of The Gita, so far as The Gita speaks of Itself. This translation, then, and the commentary which accompanies it, has as its purpose the determination to direct the reader to Krishna, rather than away from Him. In this, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami's work is unique among all the translations and commentaries available in this language. Unique also is the fact that The Bhagavad Gita is thus made wholly consistent and comprehensible. Krishna being the Speaker of The Gita, and Its ultimate goal as well, this is necessarily the only translation that can present this great scripture in Its true terms.
My special thanks are due to my God-brothers Sri Hayagriva Das Brahmachary (Howard Wheeler, M.A.) for his assistance in polishing the manuscript and to Sri Brahmananda Das Brahmachary (Bruce Scharf) for arranging publication, and my thanks are due to Mr. James O. Wade of The Macmillan Company, New York, for his willing co-operation in presenting this great contribution of our beloved Spiritual Master.
RAYARAMA DAS BRAHMACHARY
(Raymond Marais)
Editor
16 August 1968
Janmastami
(Appearance Day of Lord Krishna)
Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple
26 Second Avenue
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<font color="#dedfdf">CONSTITUTION OF ASSOCIATION
1. The name of the society is The International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
2. The headquarters of the Society are located at Radhakrishna Temple, 26 Second Avenue, New York City, 10003, USA.
3. The objectives for which the Society is being established are:<BLOCKQUOTE>(A) To educate the greater human society in the techniques of spiritual life as the basis for a balanced psychic and biological development, and thereby achieve for the first time in human society a real peace and unity among the contending forces in the world today.
(B) To propagate the Sense of Godhead, the all attractive Personality of primal and eternal Form, as He Himself revealed in His own words in the Bhagavad Gita, the Holy Scripture of the Lord Sri Krishna, the Godhead.
© To bring together individuals in a Society, regardless of nationality and irrespective of creed or caste, in order to develop a nearness to the Godhead and thereby the idea that within the members and humanity-at-large there is an infinitesimal soul-spirit that is part and parcel in quality with the Godhead, and that all life is meant for the satisfaction of said Godhead, the Supreme Soul.
(D) To encourage the teachings of Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who demonstrated practically the transcendental process of approaching the absolute Personality of Godhead by His acts of congregational chanting of the holy name of God, a process known as Samkirtan.
(E) To prove by active work and preaching that Lord Sri Krishna is the only enjoyer of all the outcomes of individual and collective sacrifice, penance, meditation, arts, culture, science, because He is the Supreme Proprietor of the whole universe, eternally apart of Him everyone knows Him as a friend. Real peace can be attained when this is realized, in fact.
(F) To assist whenever and wherever possible in the building of a social structure on the real foundation of spiritual progress and establishment of peace and unity between men throughout the world.
(G) To attempt to save men individually from the chain of victimization the ongoing trend in modern civilization operates by, in the name of ideologies of false sentiment, so that Man may again be a free soul, to act and live freely with spiritual vision. This is possible by individual spiritual initiation, Diksha, when a man can see everything in Godhead and Godhead in everything.
(H) To further toward realization this highest truth as revealed by Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and the six Goswamins headed by Srila Rupa and Sanatana Goswamins.
(I) To have for its objectives amongst the others four principles which the Goswamins had in view. They are the following:<BLOCKQUOTE>1. To erect a holy place of transcendental pastimes as well as a place where members of the Lord Sri Krishna can flourish.
2. To propagate all over the world in the form of missionaries the process of devotion, the transcendental service to the Godhead, and to make known that this devotional service is the main function of the human being.
3. In order to accomplish this, to adopt proselytizing methods of peaceful means and to establish a broader society of association for all members, including scholars and admirers, to engage in this service as put forth in the Srimad Bhagwatam.
4. To install, wherever it is possible, the worship and temple of Radhakrishna and that of Sri Chaitanya, and to give facility to everyone to become trained in the modes of Archan or preparatory principles of devotional service.</BLOCKQUOTE> (J) To introduce to the members of the Society and humanity-at-large a simpler and more natural purpose in life by means suitable to the particular place and time, and as enjoined in the Bhagavad Gita.
(K) To organize educational programs, such as classes and lecture tours, and to institute services, such as mailing, for the benefit of the members of the Society and humanity-at-large.
(L) To publish periodicals, books and/or pamphlets in all important languages in order to reach human society and give an opportunity to same to communicate with the Society.
(M) To invoke the quality of goodness particularly in every member of the Society, individually by the process of Diksha and by establishing one in the status of a Brahmin (good and intelligent man) on the basis of truthfulness, knowledge and faith in the transcendental service of the Lord.
(N) Among the secondary objectives of the Society, it shall undertake the following activities:<BLOCKQUOTE>1. To revive the scientific system of social orders of classification based on intelligence, martial spirit, productivity and common assistance, generally known as the four castes with reference to quality and worth for the common cause of world society.
2. To discharge as a matter of course the vitiated system of supremacy of one man over another by false prestige of birthright or vested interests.
3. To popularize the vegetable-grain diet under approved methods in order that full value of protein, carbohydrate, fat and vitamin benefit may be derived therefrom.
4. To discourage intoxicating or addicting habits of all descriptions and dimensions and to expose such persons thus afflicted to approved methods of spiritual realization.</BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE>
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, Acharya
Raymond Marais
Michael A. Grant
Robert Lefkowitz
James S. Greene
[This message has been edited by gHari (edited 12-28-2001).]
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EARLY PRABHUPADA
WORLD PACIFIST AND THE BHAGWAT GITA
Meeting with the Governor of Bihar
Sri Abhay Charanarvindo Bhaktivedanta who is now at Patna on a cultural and peace mission, met His Excellency the Governor of Bihar on the 18th January and discussed with him on the prime necessity of starting a spiritualising movement without infringing the principles of a secular state. He said that the world pacifists who are now trying to bring in an eternal peace in the world by spiritualism, will do well to understand the difference between spirit and matter. We have heard so many times the pacifists speaking of spiritualism as the basis of world peace and we think it is our duty to say something of spiritualism as we find it in the Bhagwat Gita and as it is practically demonstrated by Lord Chaitanya.
Sri Krishna, the author of the great Indian Philosophy Bhagwat Geeta, has elaborately discerned materialism from spiritualism. From Him we can learn that the material nature of which we are now made of, is different from the spiritual nature of which we are(?) actually the parts and parcels. He has stressed most vehemently in the beginning of the Bhagwat Gita that the living entity is eternal and does not annihilate on the annihilation of the outward coverings of the gross body and subtle mind.
To understand this we must know it well that the material nature is conducted under three modes namely material goodness, material passion and material ignorance. Matter being completely different from spirit, it will be a mistake on our part to accept material goodness as substitute for spiritualism. The three modes of nature (material) work sometimes jointly and sometimes separately.
Prevalence of material goodness is congenial to temporary peaceful atmosphere but we must know it for certain that this sort of material goodness is sure to be disturbed by the other two baser modes. The example of the playing children may be given here. The children while playing together sometimes quarrel with one another and fight. But after fighting for some time when they become tired of such fighting mode, they declare some sort of peace with one another and promise emphatically that thenceforward they shall play with peace and amity and shall cease to hurt one another.
We may tell the pacifists of the world that the peaceful atmosphere for which they are now so much anxious, cannot be achieved by the dual process of fighting and peace-making attempt of the children.
The goodness of Mahatma Gandhi should not be misunderstood as spiritualism. Gandhi's goodness exhibited as love for all, goodwill for all, tolerance for all and all such good and moral codes are not new to the world. There were institutions all over the world to preach all these pious qualities. Gandhi's success was not therefore due to all these pious wishes only but behind these good qualities was his spiritual strength. If we ignore his spiritual strength exhibited by his actions, mind and intelligence and simply take up outward activities, it will not be possible for us to adopt his means. We cannot accept one half of a thing without spoiling it.
Spiritualism, real and scientific can bestow on us eternal peace and happiness but that is not material goodness. The world is tired of fighting tendency as by the actual experience of the two great world wars. The people out of fear of the havocs of the war are now trying to take shelter of Gandhiji's material goodness of nonviolence but that is just like the fighting children's peacemaking attempt. Real spiritualism is transcendental. This transcendental process depends more on realization than on resolution. The other day Dr. P. C. Ghose in the pacifist's meeting said that unless they changed the whole outlook transcended the geographical boundaries and considered all people of the world as one there is very little hope for mankind.
This consciousness of oneness is possible by spiritual realization. In the Bhagwat Gita it is said that only the genuine learned person can see equally on a learned Brahmin, a cow, a dog or a Candala as one. We should not only change our outlook on all human being as one but we shall have to change our outlook on all living entities irrespective of the material coverings. The clear conception of changing such outlook is inculcated in the Bhagwat Gita. It is said that the Personality of Godhead Sri Krishna is the life-giving force and thus the Universal Father of all living entities and the material nature is the body and mind giving Universal Mother. If we want to change our outlook, therefore, for transcending the geographical as well as corporal boundaries then we have to do that by spiritual process and not by any amount material goodness. This spiritual process only saved India so long from the poison of provincialism and in the absence of that spiritual process India have now began to think in terms of provinces. This cannot be counteracted by any amount of goodness without spiritual activities.
Nonviolence is therefore a process of material goodness against the (?) violence. Violence is a product of the modes of passion and ignorance whereas nonviolence is a product of material goodness. Nonviolence and violence are therefore co-relative terms under the modes of the same material nature. Spiritualism is the process of invoking(?) the lost relation with the Universal Father. If we stick to materialism and its different modes of goodness passion and ignorance, it is not possible to attain spiritualism.
Lord Chaitanya practically taught all people of this process of spiritualism by His novel and yet original method of chanting the Holy Name of the Lord as is AUM in the Vedas. His philosophy is a combination of monism and dualism simultaneously i.e. He gave the finishing touch to the philosophies of all other previous Acaryas by the exposition of His philosophy of acintya bheda-bheda tattva or inconceivable one and different simultaneously. By this philosophy He actually confirmed the direct teachings of Bhagwat Gita and made it easy and practical for even by the common man without any mundane education. He represented Himself for the mass of uneducated people particularly of the present age although He was personally the most erudite scholar of His time.
Spiritual realization through the studies of Vedanta and allied scriptures, is very difficult nowadays. But yet the supreme realization is possible by the transcendental chanting process in this age. That is the recommendations of Lord Chaitanya in accordance with the Vedic principles.
Gandhiji in the latter part of his life began this transcendental chanting of the Name of the Lord and his famous chorus singing of RAGHUPATI RAGHAVA RAJA RAMA is quite well known to us. Lord Chaitanya did not put any barrier to any caste, creed or color for joining this transcendental chorus of chanting the Lord's name and he blesses all men to achieve the highest spiritual realization by this simple method. By this method of chanting every one will attain to the plane of pure consciousness. They shall be relieved of the pangs of a mechanical life of repeated birth, death, old age and disease. By this method of realization the supreme life of perfection by realizing God as He is, will usher in.
Mahatma Gandhi's preliminary attempt in the following four ways namely:-
1) Daily prayer and Sankirtana meetings followed by the recitation of Bhagwat Gita,
2) Reorganization fo the temple worship movements,
3) Upliftment of the falled people by the 'Harijan' movement.
4) Reorganization of the Caste-system movement,
may be taken up immediately by the leaders of India. These movements if systematically carried on will help very much in the spiritualizing process. They can be given a real spiritual shape in accordance with the principles of Bhagwat Gita and other authentic scriptures. And by doing so India's original culture will not only be revived and re-established but also will foster India's indigenous culture in other parts of the world. That will be a sort of cultural conquest of all world by India. By such conquest the people of the world will get relieved of the so-called material prosperity terrorized by atomic bombs.
Fragment of an essay explaining the Yoga System.
Krishna Consciousness movement is the highest yoga performance by trained devotional yogis. The yoga system, as stated in the standard yoga practice formulas given by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita or what is recommended in the Patanjali yoga practice, is different from the nowadays practice of hatha-yoga as generally understood in the Western countries.
Real yoga practice means to control the senses and after such control concentrate the mind on the Narayana Form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Krishna. Lord Krishna is the original Absolute Personality of Godhead and all other Vishnu Forms with four hands decorated with conch, lotus, disk and wheel are plenary expansions of Krishna. In the Bhagavad-gita it is recommended that one should meditate upon the form of the Lord. For pracitsing the concentration of the mind one has to sit down in a secluded place sanctified by sacred atmosphere and yogi should observe the rules and regulation of becoming a Brahmacari who lives strictly a life of self-restraint and celibacy. Nobody can practice yuoga in a congested city and living a life of extravagancy including unrestricted sex indulgence and adultry of the tongue. As we have already stated that yoga practice means controlling the senses, so the beginning of controlling the sense is to control the tongue. You cannot allow the tongue to taste all kins of forbidden food and drink and at the same time improve in the practice of yoga. It is very regretable a fact that many unauthorized and stray so-called yogis came in this country to exploit the leaning of the people for yoga practice. Such unauthorized yogis even dare to say publicly that one can indulge in drinking habit and at the same practice meditation.
Five thousand years before Lord Krishna recommended yoga practice to Arjuna but Arjuna flatly expressed his inability to follow the stringent rules and regulation of yoga practice. One should be very practical in every field of activity. One should not waste one's valuable time in practising some gymnastic feats in the name of yoga. Real yoga practice is to search out the four-handed Supersoul within one's heart and see Him perpetually.
RELIGION IS GODLY LIFE
No religion of the world is without any connection with God. The principal religions of the world are 1. Hinduism, 2. Islam, 3. Buddhism and 4. Christianity. And all of them have some sort of direct or indirect connection with God. Such religions are made and propagated by God Himself or by His authorised agents. So far Hinduism is concerned and the Bhagavad-gîtR is accepted, all sects and subsects of the Hindu population take up the cause of the Bhagavad-gîtR and it is directly preached by God Himself in the Form of Lord ¸rî K®ß_a. So far Islam is concerned and the Koran is accepted, all Islamic population accept Hazrat Mohammad as the authorised agent of God and the faith is propagated by Him. So far Buddhism is concerned, all the people of the world professing faith in Buddhism obey Lord Buddha as God or the greatest authority. Lord Buddha advented Himself in India and He took up the cause of the poor animals who were being slaughtered unhesitatingly on the plea of Vaidic yajSa and therefore Lord Buddha was compelled to disregard the principles of Vedic sacrifice just to establish the principles of nonviolence. The Hindu scriptures especially the Vaiß_avite literatures of the Vedas accept Lord Buddha as the incarnation of God. It is said that He preached His philosophy amongst those who had practically no faith in the existence of God but by His propaganda such men become faithful to Him and therefore indirectly they accepted God. So far Christianity is concerned, there is open acceptance of God because Lord Jesus declared Himself as the son of God. So all the religions of the world have direct or indirect connection with God and therefore we can take it for acceptance that religion means to learn obedience to the Laws of God as it may be compared with Nationalism means obedience to the laws of the state.
Obedience is the first law of discipline. Even in your national life, you may be a member of a great independant nation but that does not mean you have absolute independence and you are able to do anything and everything at your will without the sanction of the state. Similarly in terms of our wider and universal relation we may be all independant individual living beings but our independence is not absolute and we have to depend mostly on the laws of God and in every step of our life we cannot do anything without the sanction of God. There are five causes to effect a definite thing may be good or bad. The first cause is the place where the action has to take place, the second cause is actor or the man who will do the act, the third cause is the instrument by which the action has to be executed, the fourth cause is the endeavor which pushes the actor to do it and above all there is the fifth cause namely God's will and that is the ultimate sanction. However may the other four causes be efficient, if the fifth cause is not favourable the effect cannot take place and therefore in every action the hand of God is there we may or may not appreciate it.
The conception of God in every religion is either personal or impersonal. But those who are expert in the science of God have said that God is both personal and impersonal and not He is personal and impersonal but also He is localised. At the ultimate issue God is personal. Impersonal feature of God is the manifestation of His all-pervasiveness and localized function of God is His representation. The king of a state or nowadays the president of a state is always a personal affair. The supreme executive head of a state cannot be impersonal and there is no such example anywhere. The impersonal feature of the king or the president is His all pervasive power in the form of government and the localized representation of the king are executive officers who carry on the orders of the king for maintenance of the state law and order. Similarly, the ultimate authority is God in person and the form of His government through various agencies are His impersonal form and the different representatives for executing the function of God's government are different demigods. According to Hindu conception the actual head of a state, be he the president or the King in person is the representative of God. Therefore the conception of God in all religion is to accept one Ultimate Truth from where everything emanates nevermind personal or impersonal.
Cawnpore
13 July, 1947
Raja Mohendra Pratap
World Federation
Prem MohaVidyalaya
P.O. Vrindaban.
Dear Raja Sahib,
In continuation of my last post card, I beg to inform you that I have finished the reading of your book Religion of Love. In my opinion the whole thesis is based on the philosophy of pantheism and the approach is made by the services of mankind. Religion of love is the true religious idea but if the approach is made through the service of mankind only, then the process is made imperfect, partial and unscientific.
As you say the waves of the creations are the different aspects, why a particular type of waves namely the mankind should be partially selected and offered services and why other types of waves such as the beasts or birds, the plants and the stone shall not be offered a similar type of services? In that case how can you say that the worship of a stone is sinful while a man who is more than a stone shall be considered as the object of love? These are some of the questions that arise out of a critical study of your book.
If you so desire I can enter into discussions about it and my opinion is that your approach is partial and unscientific. There is no hesitation to accept the principle of the Religion of Love because the Absolute Truth is, as we have known, Godhead Who is sat, cit and ananda. Without ananda there cannot be any love that is an accepted fact. Your delineation of society, friendship and love among the human beings is based on this ananda portion only but you have avoided the other portions of eternity and cognition of God the Whole Soul. Thus the approach is partial and unscientific. The true religion of love is perfectly inculcated in the Bhagavad-gita. When we speak of love there must be the object of love and the lover too. Here in this world we find that the object of love and the lover both are the cheater and the cheated in their reciprocal dealings. That is our experience. But the ultimate end being one Whole Soul, the dual existence of the object of lover and the loved loses identity. In that case the eternity and cognizibility of the loved and lover vanish at once. In this way there arises many questions which may be put forward to you for further discussions to adjust your ideas of religion.
Besides you have not quoted any authority for all your statements. So it is more or less dogmatic. If different men put different dogmatic views about religion and its essentials who is to be accepted and who is not be? Therefore the approach shall be and must be authoritative, scientific and universal. Your delineations do not conform to all these necessary things. That is my main contention. If you have time to discuss on it, I shall be glad to substantiate my contentions as far as possible. My basis of arguments will be Bhagavad-gita which is the most authoritative, scientific and universal. To summarise the conclusions of Bhagavad-gita it may be said that,
1) God is one and everything is in Him and He is in everything.
2) To render transcendental service unto God is to serve everything that be, just like to water the root of the tree is to water the different branches and numerous leaves of the tree or to supply food to the stomach is to vitalize all the senses and the sense organs of the body.
3) The parts are automatically served when the Whole is served but when the parts are served the whole may not be served or not served at all.
4) The parts and the Whole being eternally related, it is the eternal duty of the parts to render service unto the Whole.
5) A recipient of the services of the parts, God's sat-cit-ananda vigraha i.e. the all-attractive Cognizant and all-blissful Personality eternal. He can reveal Himself by His own potency without any help of the external potency called maya in order to be cognizable by the limited potency of the parts and as such He is not only the greatest of all but he is the smallest of all. That is His prerogative.
6) He is better realized when He by His causeless mercy agrees to descend in this mortal world but he He is never realized by the partial speculations of the empiric philosophers however systematic and long-termed it may be.
7) Sri Krishna is the Personality of Godhead and is the Summum Bonum Cause of all Causes proved by fact and figures in the statement of Bhagavad-gita, but He reserves the right of not being exposed to the sensual speculations of the empiric philosophers.
8) One should therefore surrender unto Him if one wants to know Him as He is and that is the real process to approach the Infinite by the infinitesimals.
9) Sri Krishna is easily available by the religion of love i.e. by love and service as conceived by the damsels of Vraja who had practically no education whatsoever and much less any claim for high class birth right.
10) The highest service that can be rendered to the mankind is, therefore, to preach the philosophy and religion of Bhagavad-gita for all the times, all the places and all the people.
I hope you may agree with me and thus make a combined effort in this direction for the benefit of the mankind.
Yours sincerely,
Abhay Charan De
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You hope this; you hope that. You hope nothing. It's a little late for hoping for anything anyway. I just want to forget. Grant me that.
Is it true?
in Spiritual Discussions
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Lila-Avataras from Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.3.25
Srimad-Bhagavatam 12.2.12-24:
Srimad-Bhagavatam 10.40.22
From the Appendix of Srimad-Bhagavatam Canto 11:
<font color="#dedfdf">[This message has been edited by gHari (edited 01-06-2002).]