Avinash

You are talking about true color image. False color image depends on brightness and not the real color itself.

<QUOTE>Perhaps I have misunderstood the cause of your desire to only worship a feminine Deity?</QUOTE>

She is not saying that she wants to worship only female deity. Rather, she is saying that she wants to worship only Krsna.

I am not saying that I do not like the idea of worshipping Goddess. Sirona mentioned some verses from Gita in which Krsna says that He is the greatest in everything. She was thinking that since the verses did not mention any female goddess, this means that only male gods will be happy on worshipping Krsna and she has to worship some female goddess so that the female goddesses become happy. I just wanted to say that this was not what these verses mean.

Then why do the scriptures abound in the stories that mention people doing very hard askesis? It is mentioned that they got blessings.

It is not that all images released by NASA are false color images. Some are and some are not. NASA quite clearly mentions which are false color and which are true color.

I have a telescope. I get quite fascinated by looking at the stars. Everyday I look at rising Sun. In the night I go to the roof top and watch stars. I have been studying about stars since I was a child. I can recognize many stars. By recognizing I mean, I know their names, categories, distance from Earth. I can also recognize all constellations that have been named. It was my ardent desire to be an astronomer since I was a child. But, somehow I came into software.

Just by looking at a false color image, we can not know the original color. For that we need another image known as true color image. True color image is used if we want to know the original colors. False color image is used to bring out the contrast.

Let me give an example. Suppose that satellite image is taken of a forest which is, of course, full of trees. It is known that the true color will be almost full of green. But suppose that we are interested in the contrast i.e. we want to know where it is more green and where it is less green. A color can be chosen. For example, I can choose red. Where it is bright green, I will show bright red and so on. It has been found that human eye is more sensitive to the contrast in red colors than in green colors. For creating false color images, satellite records brightness as numbers and then these numbers are colors coded.

The colors shows are not real. The colors are changed to bring out the contrast. Such an image is known as false color image. Please do not think that NASA is trying ti cheat anybody by changing colors. It has not been made secret. Rather, if you read journals, you will find that they accept that colors are changed. This is done not only by NASA but in any photograph that is taken by man made satellite or space telescope.

What do the members of this forum think about this? Does torturing one's body so much bring world peace?

As per Gita, the worship of Krsna is sufficient and recommended. Please note: I am saying "as per Gita".

I know that my answer was not complete. It was deliberate. I had not found any posts from you in the last many days. I liked it when I found a post from you. So, I did not complete my answer so that you make another post. /ubbthreads/images/icons/wink.gif Anyway, let me complete my answer.

Whatever I am going to write here is based only on Gita and not any other scripture.

In Chapter 10, when Krsna says that He is Kubera among yakshas, He is not trying to say that if somebody wants to worship the greatest yaksha then he should worship Krsna. He is just saying that He is the greatest in everything. Now you may ask as to why Krsna did not mention female goddesses. This is because if He had to mention each and everything, then the no. of verses would have become very huge. He gave a few examples just to give Arjuna a feel of His greatness.

One important thing. When Krsna says that He is Kubera among yakshas, it does not mean that Kubera is as great as Krsna. Then why did He say so? To understand this, let us assume that I go to Afica. I see an animal there the kind of which I have not seen anywhere in India. I want to write a letter to my friend in India describing how the animal looks like. Unfortunately I do not have any picture of the animal. So, I have to rely on words. What will I do? I will use analogies. I might say that its skin looks like that of a panther. It does not mean that its skin looks exactly like that of a panther. It is just that out of all the animals that I and my friend have seen, panther's skin comes closest to the skin of the animal that I want to describe. Likewise, in the verses of Gita, Krsna is giving analogies. According to Gita, the only one who is equal to Krsna is Krsna Himself. There is no yaksha who is equal to Krsna. So, He chose the greatest among them, just as I would choose panther to describe how the skin of the animal looks like even though their skins are not exactly alike.

Humans "hundred years" is how many solar years?

If it is true that "100 years" means complete life duration, then everybody lives for 100 years. Then, what is the need of blessing somebody with the life of 100 years?

There are stories in Puranas according to which a woman gave birth to her child 100 years after being pregnant rather than 9 months.

In Veda, a part of a verse is "shatam jivet". Here somebody is blessed with a life of 100 years. This shows that 100 years was considered to be long life duration. But, according to Puranas, living for thousands of ears was no exception. If people could live for thousands of ears, then there was no need for a blessing of 100 years unless somebody wanted to be blessed with a short life. But the Vedic verse seems to be for blessing someone with a long life.

If you read the verse 10.34, you will find that females are mentioned. But, perhaps you are looking for well known female goddesses like Durga, Laxmi, Sarasvati etc.

Please note that Krsna is saying that He is the greatest in everything. He calls Himself as Kubera among yakshas. It does not mean that Krsna and Kubera are one and the same. It is just that Kubera is the greatest among yakshas, so Krsna calls Himself as Kubera among yakshas.

So, Krsna makes various categories. He compares Himself with the greatest in each category.

First of all, let me say that I agree that "glass is greener" is the main reason why some Indians feel that life will be better in West and some westerners feel that life will be better in India.

You have mentioned that diversity is not good in the long run. I agree with this. But, if different people follow different ideals, then there has to be diversity. Who will decide which ideal is the correct one. Let us take an example. The disciples of Sri Prabhupada think that they should do what Sri Prabhupada has asked them to do. The disciples of some other guru prefer to follow the teachings of their guru. So, here itself there is diversity. So, it is true that diversity gives diminishing returns in the long run. But, what is the solution?

I think that Vishnu here refers to Vaman incarnation.

The westerners have many bad habits externally, but internally they are very good people in a general humanity sense. Whereas most Indians seem to be exactly the opposite.

The problem is that people give too much importance on what others will think about them. People do something wrong and try to hide it from others because they do not want to be criticised. There is nothing surprising in this. But, there are also instances where people do something good and try their best to hide it from their family and relatives. I will give the reason through an example: -

Suppose that a person is spending money in order to help poor. If his relatives come to know of this, there will be some who will praise him. But, there will also be some who will make fun of him. Some people will even say,

"I need some money. I am known to you. The people whom you are helping are in no way related to you. So, rather than giving them money, give the money to me."

It is not that these people really have money problem. Most of the times, they are earning quite good amount but still they want more and more of money. Not only that, some of them also ask for the money in order to spend on something which is highly unethical.

Whatever I have written above is not just imaginary. I have myself faced such problems. This is why, when I spend money to help others, I always try my best to hide it from those known to me. So, I am also the kind of person who gives undue importance to what others think. But, the society of India is such that you can not make anybody in your relation angry.

I don't think poverty is the only reason. I don't even think that it is prime reason. This is because there are many in India who are earning good salary and can take care of their families easily in that salary. Still, they like to get a job in US.

From newspaper articles, I am finding that many westerners are coming to India. On interviewing they say that they have come here for spirituality because, according to them, it will give them peace and thus a better life.

But, there are many Indians who like taking up jobs in western countries because they feel that it would help them lead a better life.

Why is it that Indians think that there is better life in West and westerners think that there is better life in India?

Why can't it be said that if Hindus don't believe that Buddha was an avatar of Visnu, then they have to accept the subjection of Hinduism to Buddhism?

Why can't it be said that if Hindus don't believe that Buddha was an avatar of Visnu, then they have to accept the subjection of Hinduism to Buddhism?

According to the web site you have mentioned, there were more than 14 billion warriors.

Could so many people together with chariots be accomodated in Kurukshetra!!!

I think that he would have lived because I don't know of instances where Duryodhana survived because Karna saved him.

Archaeologists are really very brave. I got frightened just looking at the picture that you have posted.

Archaeologists are really very brave. I got frightened just looking at the picture that you have posted.