krishnadasa

I respect your position. Here is the "tricky" issue as I see it:

 

If a "Christian" seeker on the path to find God, but has some faith in Jesus already ... if this person encounters a holy Vaisnava or the Vaisnava scriptures, this person will be intitially confused.

 

This is because, what little faith this person already has in Jesus will be challenged. Should I worship Jesus? Is Jesus God? or Should I worship Krsna ?

 

It becomes confusing.

 

But this phenomenon should not frighten us, but rather challenge us to strive to be a better more sincere devotee.

 

 

Wasn't one of Sri Chaitanya's followers absorbed in the worship of Rama, so much so, that "he must have been Hanuman in a previous life"?

 

So someone in the presence of Sri Chaitanya exhibited the same tendency .. to run around Goa with the Nrsimhadeva idol so Jesus could catch him.

 

Think about it.

 

But to your point... we have to really work hard to cultivate our faith. For me, I am a servant of Jesus.

 

I pray I am never removed from His feet. Reading Srimad Bhagavatam only brings me closer to Him.

 

That is how it is for me.

I am with you , indeed i wrote similar point in one of my posts in this thread.

I remember in 1973 we first went to Tassi and Gopikantha was being harassed by Jesus fundamentalists, he just wanted to distributed Prabhupadas books remembering that if you talk to Christians nut cases, you will just become one. So he acted dumb saying he never heard of the bloke, asking them which team does he play for and what position does he play in. Eventually these nut cases gave up and he was able to distribute Prabhupada's books without any interuptions. I had one talking in tonges around me, that is until we got the Mrdunga drum and cartels and stated chanting Hare Krishna.

 

Footnote - I have the uttmost respect for Jesus, after all, it was him I prayed to in the Cathedral in Melbourne who I believe answered my prayers by sending me to Srila Prabhupada and Lord Caitanya, on Lord Caitanya's appearance day 1972, the day I 'shaved up'

 

The fact is Jesus has passed the batton on to a new generation, a new Religion to the West. There is no need to read the Bible anymore now that we have the Srimad Bhagavatam etc

Perfect, Haribol

But on this board when someone speaks of jesus some nutjob will always pop up and talk about the Crusades or some other atrocity as if Jesus was there leading the charge.It was to them that I directed my remarks.

One of my anscestors ran with a Nrsimhadeva idol from Goa, so he wouldnt become Baptised.. Indeed the book on which they were trying to do this was the same that u are referring to correlate Christianity with viashnawism..You see what I mean...I am not trying to offend here, but presenting a point , I mean SPB has in many instances given signal of how, a vaishnawa is against Islam eg: when he was talking about Nehru, who was more near to Mohamdeens than vaishnawas...

hari bol

A very good thread after a long time.. I should congratulate Raghu prabhu for this. I m not biased here w.r.t to western devotees, who have strived so hard to bring forth the real essence of what Sri krishna chaitanya and Srila prabhupada taught. A BIG DHANYAVAD FOR THAT. Neverthless, there are many times, kind of bond created between Abrahamic and vedic relgions, which is not healthy, however this is a very tricky issue as most of the white devotees when join ISKCON, bring also a big history of Karma which they performed being a christian/jew etc. And the reactions of these karma exist even after joining ISKCON and this always raises kinda confusion. This confusion turns out into making kinda a bond b/w sanatana and abrahamic religions.

I am pretty sure that eventually, when the truth is revealed, they shall know what raghu is trying to tell here.. until then there is absolutely no point in debating on this issse.. However one debates, one cant get rid of the reaction of past deeds,, on the other hand they might increase by offending each other.. think over it..

Hari bol

But jesus is without tilak!!!

Mind thinks that you are this body and it doesnt know that it gets energy (consciousness) through the spirit soul, only until a Guru teaches and makes you realsies via proper intelligence that you are a soul and not this body ,, in this state you shall realise that the Soul is the real source and Mind is just a media...

Hari bol

Is it true that the spirit soul, atma, is only desiring and nothing more?

 

And that it is the mind which is perceiving (pains and pleasures) the world we live in, and not the spirit soul?

 

 

If it is the mind which is conscious about the pains and pleasures, and not the soul, does it then mean that it is actually the mind which is conscious, or?

 

But then what about the mind which is part of the 8 separate material energies?

 

 

Somebody who could clear this up for me?

Lol

Thy shall not kill christianity??????? Guess Bible has been distorted to a level of nothing ... So, it doesnt really matter if Christ told something or not as long as he is not been portrayed genuinly in Bible...Had bible been so pure and reverable, we wouldnt have seen millions getting massacred in south america on the name of this book.. Its coz Krishna has a special grace on Bharath, spanish couldnt come inside India...

Who is degrading avatars? Read my posts once more.

 

The people here have no idea what an avatar means. I was illustrating the meaning of an avatar by explaining the concept of Vishnu in Vaikunta coming down to earth for a finite period of time as Rama or Krishna. Seeing the responses I doubt these people are capable of understanding anything.

 

Instead of acknowledging the simple truth of the avatar list found commonly everywhere people are avouding the issue and posting stupid responses. Someone came up with an avatar list which has some Baladeva in place of Krishna. If you have a counter argument for the standard avatar list then post a proper response with justification. If you do not have anything meaningful why are you wasting your time on this thread?

You get angry so fast ! thats not good for you,, and as a matter of fact, Baladeva is nothing but Lord Balarama who is also an incarnation of Lord Shesha,... there have been and there will be differences all across this world from the time immemorial and my experience says , jut debating on these issues , rathere sensitive ones, does not yield anything. At the end of the day both of the minds are confused ... THERE ARENT ANYONE AROUND HERE WHO POSSESS CAPACITY like SRIPADA MADHWA OR SRILA PRABHUPADA.to deal with confused mind.. They preached according to the time, place and the people... And you are asking me to put some sense here,, when I see you yourself dont mainitain it. Believe me there is absolutely no point in refuting/rejecting on such issues when, things can be seen in many perspectives...

Eg: Lord Krishna and visnu are same,,, Visnu is the lord in a court, who has to be respected and must be worshipped with utmost cleanliness of mind, whereas Krishna is the same lord of court now became the grandfather to a grandson, who sits over his back and bangs his head .. Now eg: if the grand son says, Visnu is nothing but Krishna orginally , then it will be same as a lawyer saying Krishna is Visnu orginally..... But the wise one knows the truth, coz wise one loves Krishna or Visnu and in all his forms, which are transcendental and purifying...

I dont want to bring any scriptural evidences to make the discussion more complicated for a Kaliyuga mind...

hari bol

Sometimes I think after reading many posts here, why on earth Krishna send many people to send his messages in many different ways.. even after knowing the people around here are just dumpasses and cant comprehend complicated stuff...Or perhaps, the life in a jail cant be similar to the one in heaven,, jail is to suffer and this is just another kind of it...Different theories and people troubled in thier minds with them...

I bow thee the one who despells the wildest of the doubts,, Krishna can be understood only by his grace...

Hari bol

Your list is wrong!

 

I do not know who Jayadeva is. I do not know who Baladeva is. But the name does not appear in the list of avatars in the Mahabharata or any of the Puranas. The eight avatar is Krishna.

 

It appears you have been misguided very badly by some unethical people. For your own good read authentic texts which have not been mistranslated. You will find out for yourself that Krishna is the eight avatar of Vishnu.

 

Parashurama, Rama and Krishna were born on this planet lived here and died here. Shriman Narayana or Vishnu was never born and never lived on this planet. His abode is Vaikunta and when he came to the earth he came as one of the avatars.

You seem to be right somewhere, but some of your beliefs such as " Parashurama, Rama and Krishna were born on this planet lived here and died here," clarifies your immaturity in the field of sprituality.. against to your claim here is a verse from yamakabharthja written by Sripada Madhwa

<CENTER>

reme gopIshhvarihA sa manmathAkrAntasundarIpIshhvarihA |

pUrNA.anandaikatanuH sa vishvarukpAvano.ayapyanandaikatanuH || 22||</CENTER>Lord Krishna is of fully blissful body.He incarnates in several forms only to give pleasure to others.He is the remover of all diseases.And He is the Destroyer of Sankhacudasura.Still He enjoyed without any attachment,the company of lovely cowherdesses who had been affected by passion and in whom Goddess Lakshmi was residing.

All of Lord's incranations are same and equal in thier potencies,, one should not degrade one incarnation against the other.. This was said by Sripada Madhwa...

Hari bol

Good info!

i am not sure how to post pictures, but if someone can advise I will give it a shot.

 

Last summer near Chennai and the soon to be opened Oneness Temple I went outside one night to see dozens of women dancing on the lawn, pointing at the sky, laughing and taking pictures. There were orbs everywhere. They were round flying objects and some appeared to have faces and mandalas in them.

 

I took some pictures. They are up on vedicshamanism.com/index16.html . Some say they are dust, however if that is the case everyone had the exact same dust specks in the same places on their cameras.

 

The following Oct. some Brazilian women at the same site took some pictures of what appear to be Angels flying with the orbs. A photo is also up at vedicshamanism.com/index16.html

 

I have received many more photos of these orbs from various places-mostly Egypt. The ones from Egypt are blue and white though not golden. I found out that there was an entire conference about the orbs and what they might be in Sedona in May.

 

I have not seen angel pictures before this-if that is what they are.

Eg: I say i do belive wat you say!! but whats the use afterall,, we all know it already, there are peopl from differnt worlds hanging out here,, we ourselves indeed from diffrent worlds, paying for the sins...Thats a comman sense isnt it?

Hari bol,

Apparently, a biggest similarity between Jews and Indians (sanatana dharma vaadis) is that both sustained the onslaught of Islam and christianity in a big way...

Hari bol

Fair point, I was only saying what the Jews believe. My post was started with some frivolousness and if I offended you or Jesus Christ I apologize.

 

These days I have no time for Judaism or Christianity. As far as I am concerned, fundamentalist Christians are just as fanatic as extremist Muslims. If you distributed books in the 70s, I’m sure you would have had your fair share of Christian fanatics trying to stop you as I did.

 

My experience of modern day Christianity is as follows.

 

In 1976 I was Srila Prabhupada’s Body guard and not only stayed out the front of his room, but slept there as well. At the time four well shaven suited men would always come by the Temple, they where part of a Catholic Church society that dealt with threats to the Church. One time Pushta Krishna Maharaj went down to speak to them and one of them threatened to kill Srila Prabhupada. Hari Sauri prabhu was so concerned we bought a shot gun, although I would have preferred a mini-14 with a thirty round mag. Anyway another time I was outside hiding in a car as these men walk past and when I opened the door, one pulled out a hand gun.

 

Amoga dasa was at the front gate and out of fear, I crawled the front wall of the Temple, about 7 feet high at the time, so quickly that Amoga was astonished. We told Prabhupada what had had happened and he said ‘Then our movement is having some success, these men feel threatened’ we called the police and they spoke with them and Ugrashava dasa.

 

The police did nothing, they new who he was, while Ugrashava just called them dogs of the Catholic Church among other things. The ring leader had been knighted by the Pope, a private detective and a rumoured hit man. At night I would stay out on the balcony of Prabhupada’s House with the shot gun, I stayed awake watching Srila Prabhupada translate late into the night, then he would go around to all the windows and doors to make sure they where locked.

 

A week after Srila Prabhupada had left, a drive by shooting occurred and gunshots went through one of the windows - Kurma dasa's room. He was there at the time and was fortunately unhurt. The next day it made page two of the paper. A few months after that someone through a small bomb over the back fence exploding in one of the cars, which made the first bulletin on the evening news. The out cry of the public seemed to stop any further attacks from these Catholic fanatics.

 

During all these attacks we remembered what Srila Prabhupada had said ‘Then our movement is having some success, these men feel threatened’

 

Hare Krishna

First of all I shud admit that u must have been a great devotee right since your last birth, or u must have done such a good thing (punya) in your last life that you got a wondeful opportunity to associate with a pure devotee like Srila Prabhupada.. And that makes you a pure devotee,, it does and will not matter what faith you followed, you fall in the category who get the utmost respect in the minds and hearts of the devotees...And may I thank you for all that you have done....

I bend and prostrate against you...

Hari bol

In the passages under discussion, Prabhupada doesn't seem to be referring to the differences you guys are stressing above. His tone was unambiguous - women have got brains half the size of those of men and are usually dumb, unreliable and untrustworthy. Likewise, if a sexual union results in a baby girl, that means that the woman was more dominant that the father, whereas the opposite holds true in the case of a male child.

 

THIS is the garbage that anyone in his right mind would and should not swallow. Or is it that your knowledge of eugenics and behavioural genetics chimes with the foregoing?

I understand your point of view in relation to whatever Srila Prabhupada says, but it does appear that you have engrossed yourself much into the material science that you are not in a position to appreciate the very essence of spirit. Everybody says and inteprets according what one sees, so does a telescope or a microscope, or perhaps a normal human being. To percieve what Srila Prabhupada said I guess first and the foremost thing , is humility.. You seem to completely miss it.. Spiritual knowledge cant be obtained by reading some books here and there , it should be guided thru a spiritual master, perhaps thats the differnce b/w material and spiritual. I have seen many people coming here on this forum with an effort to prove something against to Krishna or srila prabhupada for that matter by reading few paragraphs here and there in some of his books,,great lord ! they lack patience, they are not ready to read it completely.....and ultimately go off the thread without achieving anything.... Afterall you are trusting that science (I am very well aware of the contributon and respect that fully)which keeps on chanigng its theories every now and then more than the spiritual science the science of the sould which, is unchanging....

You ask someone to trust, that which was seen by a telescope millions of light years away and mistrusting the jewel in the hand?

Vikram, first read the stuff fully, follow the procedue then I am sure you will appreciate more Srila prabhupada than now,, and also your confusion about his saying just vanish....

Hari bol

You're correct with regards to the irrelevance of the heliocentrism versus geocentrism debate. It is as a matter of fact more a question of perspective and purpose in connection with one's objectives more than anything else, as you accurately stated. Just to elaborate on this point, I am hereby reproducing a few paragraphs from a previous post by myself on a related topic. Haribol

poti poti pade jag muha,,

Pnadith hua na koi

dhai achar prem ka pade so pandith hoi...

Disgrace to my country,, and now listen, " Vysasadeva has told me that he had written Bhagavatm "!!! Now do you think I should believe on fickle so called scientific thoery of bla bla bla....

Prabhupada stated many times which I'm paraphrasing as -- Either you believe the Scientists who change their theory constantly or you try to have constant faith in the Vedic scriptures which do not change.

 

So, it is upto the individuals to decide which path they want to take...

Thats the right path and way to debate:)

Simply, you see the way you are being shown,, now it does matter how the shower shows his stuff to you, isnt it?

Indian Ghee Contaminated with Animal Fat

<!-- end .post-top --><!-- the main section of the post goes here -->By Antony Brennan, originally posted at ISKCON News (www. news. iskon. com) on 19 Nov 2007

Laboratory tests reveal that many brands of ghee manufactured in India are adulterated with the body fat of animals. The lab report says the only way to guarantee the purity of your ghee is to make it yourself.

Using an Infrared Spectrum test, Anatech laboratory research center analyzed a variety of brands and confirmed that much of India’s ghee production is contaminated.

“We had samples tested and it has proved positive for animal fat beyond any doubt,” Bhakti Raghava Swami who organized the research said.

Anatech laboratory was chosen for the tests after approaching a variety of labs. “Anatech was the only lab which had facilities to accurately identify the contaminants,” Bhakti Raghava Maharaj said. “The others could tell if it was adulterated but not particularly by animal fats,” he said . The lab reported that some ghee contained up to 15% animal fat

India TV, amongst other channels, aired footage filmed at some of the ghee manufacturing plants. The footage revealed what vegetarians had feared. It confirmed that animals were being rendered and their fat added to ghee products.

“There were bodies of dead animals all around,” said Madhavendu Dasa after seeing the news reports. “There were scenes of animal fat boiling in big drums and some where slabs of fat were just hanging,” he said.

One factory allegedly adulterates ghee with a chemical named Styrai which is usually only used for detergent and soap. Excessive consumption of Styrai is said to cause liver diseases including cancer.

In India, milk and milk products attract only a 5% profit margin. In order to compete effectively in the market some manufacturers have taken the step of adulterating their products to reduce the base cost and increase the profit margin. The discovery and subsequent reporting of the ghee deception may prove to reduce the profits of many ghee producer.

Anatech laboratory research center has also tested milk and other milk products to reveal that some brands are adulterated with vegetable oil or are a mix between cow and buffalo milk.

 

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<!-- C O M M E N T S -->Hare krishna,

 

 

Can you please list the name the brands which perticullarly uses Animal fat, and also seprate list of companies which uses vegetable oil or buffalo milk to produce ghee…. I am ok with vegetarian mixtures with ghee as I dont have any time to cook ghee for my self so please give the details…

Thanks

My mother never used Ghee from outside, she always makes herself..

Remember the biblical Tower of Babel? The poeple wanted to reach God by building a tower that would reach heaven. What happened? God punished them when they spoke in different tongues instead of one before the tower they built could reach heaven. Because they couldn`t understand anymore each other they abandoned the project. That`s what we are now!

Paths are different for different people. Thats bound by past life deeds. Those folks try to build the same biblical buliding , perhaps cud have tried different ones, some small and yet some larger ones, Krishna wouldnt have punished them then...

The clashes comeforth due to the differnce of opinois on the same subject.. And also sometimes due to the ignorance of the debaters to bring the same meaning but in differnt ways.... As long as one is not harming, one should not be unncessarily challeng someone's view as that shall bring unncecessary cocoction in individual's mind. Krishna is in his heart and he knows perfectly how to take the person to the desired state...

Afterall what matters is how much Krishna loves you and how much you are honest. Krishna is simple he is Sarala , and the truth is always sarala, so krishna is the truth. He doesnt need to be defined by the boundless scriptures,, And then its my viewpoint which is fully based on my past life deeds,, I dont challenge anypne here..

Hari bol

I rather keep myself numb on such issues as there are many great sages giving many different intepretations.. Krishna is not understandable, otherwise why there is always different (slightly) schools of thoughts on the same subjects...

Hari bol

The question still remains? why does one think one will be happy without Krishna...

A being in Vaikunta-> fully knowledgable->why does he then ever think he will be happy withiut Lord?

This question bugs me always as a matter of fact...

Jaya jaya Govinda

I encountered a mystique few years back , who uised to say that he could see all demigod in his heart, he worships Lord Ganesha ardently though..Everyone is indidual soul and has a different relation with the supreme lord, one gets according to one's relation with the lord...