abhi_the_great

Looks likes its all a British ploy. They have taken care to sow tension in most of the places which were their colonies. They never wanted the colonise to rise in power at any point of time and overtake them. This is exactly the reason in dividing India into 2 and bringing in Jews in a Arab area. The super-powers wanted the other countries to keep on fighting, wasting their resources and draining them. Its a longterm plan designed by men of vision.

After preaching Advaitha for so long, after converting so many people into Advaitha, why did Sri Sankara take to Vaishnavism?

As for Yadava Prakash's fanaticism, I was trying to project the point that there was/is/will be fanatics in all paramparas. It takes time and experience and many births to be really mature and understand everything in the right perspective. Who can claim to be completely mature in all aspects of life in this board? Everyone is a hypocrite to some degree or other, and takes a lot of pleasure in blasting others. Shiva Shiva!!!

Bhakti is understood as whatever activity that pleases Krishna most. The service rendered to the personal form of the God is also termed bhakti. 12.2 The Blessed Lord said: He whose mind is fixed on My personal form, always engaged in worshiping Me with great and transcendental faith, is considered by Me to be most perfect. In 12.3, it is stated that the worship is to the avyakta - impersonal aspect. And they also acheive Krishna in the end after some struggle. But they are not most perfect as indicated above. Now you have to atleast accept that there is most perfect and not most perfect. There are undeniably 2 categories. Vaishnava is not against mukti(except kaivalya mukti), but is insistent on continuing the bhakti (mukti or no mukti). brahma bhuta prasannatma.....mad bhaktim labhate paraam. Bhakti continuese beyond mukti, beyond the brahma bhuta stage. Vaishnava do not consider mukti an end in itself. Bhakti is the means and bhakti is the end and the middle. GAURANGAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Not me, not me!!! Krishna, pls reveal my exalted position to Avinash. KRISHNAAAAAA!!! I am the best, I am the best, no one can be greater than me!! No, I will not allow it. RAMAAAAAAAAA!!!

So How??

When I get bored reading, I pickup my li'l darling - 6 months old mithravinda, and bring her before the pics of Sri Sri Radha Madhava. She just looks at it and says gee...geee...and a soft smile suddenly decorates her cute li'l face. that spontaneous smile, those innocent glances, that playful dance, her simple offerings. Oh' darling of Krishna(oh Radhe) she is your parrot. life after life singing your glories. -a father's dream

Sidhdha pranali online!!

Gee...when the milk is churned butter is separated!! shvu Krishna has in his Geeta talked abt mukti and bhakti. And he has clearly said that bhakti pleases him more (12 chapter). There is no scope for further argument bcos this is the point where Arjuna asks Krishna to come out clearly in black and white. Krishna has given his clear verdict, on what pleases him most. Admitted that the others also reach their destiny after considerable stuggle. The purpose of preaching and style of preaching of Gaudiyas, is for bringing bhakti, Krishna's darling, to the forefront. For this purpose Gaudiyas have adopted different tactics. Ultimately, there is only one way (sarva dharman prityaja mam ekam saranam vraja), but inbetween there are many steps. In that spirit karma, dhyana, jnana, mukti are all respectful. All these lead to the complete surrender to the lotus feet of Krishna, ultimately. It is best to learn all shastras(shruti & smrti), but if one can only repeat the words of Mahaprabhu without false interpretation, he is also learned and he is dear to the Lord. Srila Prabhupad has followed this simple principle, so that his discples do not get too entangled by the details and miss the gist. Srila Prabhupad was not against learning the Sruthi. But since Srimad Bhagavatam was considered by Mahaprabhu as the natural commentary to Vedanta, he did not find it necessary to go thru all the Vedas and Upanishads. Even if we want to thoroughly learn them all, one life is not enough, and today many of the brahmanas which were originally present in Vedas are not present. Talking abt fanaticism, its better to see what Yadava Prakash, the fanatic Guru of Ramanuja tried to do to him. Instead of arguing and defeating, he simply tried to kill him. If Gaudiyas are talking heavily against Adhvaita, I do not see it as much offendable as murdering Ramanuja. Sri Caithanya never killed any Advaitha-vadis, he preached to them and convinced them abt the Acintya philosophy. Sri Chaitanya only said kaivalya is hellish, since there is no service to the Lord. If we check why there is such a rhetoric, we can understand that its bcos, there is lack of bhakti. In bhakti only the mood is important - its just the mood - that's it. Externally Sridhara Swami might be an advaithin, even Madhavendra and Isvara puri might be an advaithin, by their sampradaya, by their sannyasa dhanda, by there vibhuti, but internally who can understand??? ONLY VISHNU, ONLY MAHAPRABHU. How can we speculate what kind of relationship they actually shared? Certainly not a scholar like De. Only the Supreme loving father can understand the mood of each of his children. And he reciprocates accordingly. If they were not pure devotees completely immersed in the mood of loving servitude, the supreme wd have never been so merciful to them. The only reason why the Lord had accepted Puris and Bharathis and Saraswathis, is bcos of their special love for him and His special love for them. If the Lord has accepted them, the natural conclusion is they were devotees of the highest order. jijaji Open ended questions are good to bring doubt in the minds of the faithless or semi-faithful, but those who have closely studied the actions of the Lord know, that all his actions are for giving pleasure to his devotees."Paritranaya sadhunam".

How did the Jews get the idea of occupying Palestine, out of all other places on earth?

I got this reply from one of the senior disciples of Srila Prabhupad. Here is what Srila Prabhupada says: > The followers of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu never accepted the Mayavada > order of sannyasa, and for this they cannot be blamed. Sri Caitanya > Mahaprabhu accepted Sridhara Svami, who was a tridandi-sannyasi, but > the Mayavadi sannyasis, not understanding Sridhara Svami, sometimes > think that Sridhara Svami belonged to the Mayavada ekadanda-sannyasa > community. Actually this was not the case." --Caitanya-caritamrta Madya-lila 3.6, purport If I recall, I've seen someplace--maybe in the Sat Sandarbhas--that Sridhara Svami has in a few places given concessions to the Mayavadis, as something of a preaching tactic. But that is far different from "combining Advaita and Devotionalism."

leyh, I always thought you were an Indian from Mumbai???Walllahhhhhh! Confucianism and buddhism did influence the thinking of the aged generation here in Singapore. For todays generation its just the western crows - Michael Jackson and his parampara. They still sincerely follow some rituals like offering food to ghosts and also to pithras. Chinese are proud to claim that they do anything for their food. They can travel all the way to HK from Singapore just to taste some Cantonese food. One of my colleague told me that their parents fast on one day of the Lunar month. Another feedback I got from my colleague was that, by becoming too religious we lose out on the material front. My feeling abt the Chinese in Singapore is that, they are very nice people as far as general dealings are concerned. They are not very arrogant but mild. They are hard workers. The influence of the west has made ladies lose their shame, they prefer the shortest skirts and don't mind kissing and hugging in public, which wd be considered uncultured in India or Mainland China(i hope). Christianity is spreading faster than forest fire. Their are Churches which convert Chinese in large numbers every week on Sunday meetings. Still, there are a lot of Budhist, Taoists and "free thinkers", too. I am sure in mainland China there wd certainly be a lot of opposition from the communist govt. Mao Tse-Tung beleived that "religion is the opium of manking". Once HH Kavicandra Swami exclaimed that, "as long as we are not too public and don't try to demonstrate our strength in the open, there shd not be any problem, preaching in China". In HK the temple is trying to attract devotees by marketing yoga. They conduct a Yoga class in the temple premises. Whoever interested come-over they are preached to. In Singapore the overall number of Chinese devotees are very low. I have personally only seen a couple of them. So, I had a pleasant surprise to discover leyh was a Chinese. Some might connected to the Ritwik temple run by Sundar Gopal Prabhu. I have been always thinking if I cd influence atleast one Chinese person to chant, but am not succesful. Not so pure!! Anyway, will continue with whatever little faith I have on Krishna's name as long as I am here. Beg for the blessings of all Vaishnavas, RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE, Dandavats. pritivite ache nagaradi grame..... Hale Klishna (the chinese in Singapore pronounce 'la' for 'ra') Solly solly-la. Abhi [This message has been edited by abhi_the_great (edited 04-08-2002).]

As gHari said, its interesting to note that the Advaita Scholars are accepting both the nirguna and saguna features of the Supreme. I feel this synthesis might have come over time, by deeper interactions with the Vaishnava Schools. In gaudiya vaishanva line both the personal and impersonal eternal aspects were always accepted. Gaudiya Vaishnavism does not claim sole propreitory over liberation or an overtly feeling of "holier than thou" attitude. The overtly scathing attacks on Advaitha or any school, was/is to distract people from thinking *mukthi* and bring them into thinking *bhakti*. To shift the focus into selfless devotion,is the main idea, rather than actually negating the bonafideness of any other path. What to talk of other vedic paths, Srila Prabhupad was of the opinion that pious Christians and Muslims cd also attain liberation. How can a gaudiya really think that the bodnafide paths establilshed by great acaryas of the stature of Sankara, Madhva, Ramanuja be futile? These doubts are born out of misunderstanding the basic goal of Gaudiyas - bhakti as Vs mukti. I have always felt that all these paramparas are genuine and deliver what they promise. sha thanks for that wonderful posting of Shiva Ratri. abhi

This is the sloka I always am remembered of when I see my little baby suck her toe...

# Sign at a barber's saloon in Juhu, Bombay: We need your heads to run our business

1. Without indepth study of Advaitha, do not criticise it. A. I appreciate this statement and second it. Its not proper to openly blast any philosophy expecially the one coined by the greatest Sankara. They also follow the Vedik ways and are much much advanced spiritually than any other non-vedic people. Again I am not against the frank and innocent discussions with an idea of learning more abt Adhvaita. A strict advaitin will also eligible for mukti, this is the simple fact which makes him respectable. It wd be great if we in Gaudiya Sampradaya cd learn more upanishads and the vedas and the vedanta. I am all for learning more. 2. Gaudiya Acaryas misquoted Sri Chaithanya Mahaprabhu, who himself was not all that against Advaitha. A. Without understanding the gaudiya Sidhdhanta, somebody has tried to generalise it. No one can re-write a biography of Lord Chaithanya without the sanction of the existing Vaishnavas. None of the Vaishnavas of that time including Rupa, Sanatana, Jiva (the genius), Lokanatha, Bugharba, Mother Jahnava has questioned even a drop of the biographies written by Krishna Das or Vrindavan Das. Simultaneously, I wd acknowledge that there are people here who are happy to talk only anti-gaudiya and nothing else. 3. Why Chaitanya took diksha from a Mayavadin? A. jijaji, you tell us. And take the life and activities of Chaitanya into account, while giving the answer. Sincerely abhi

Raghu, So nice. So nice. If one has not really developed the taste, he cannot be a thorough devotee. He likes rumours and gossips and a little politics and all the masala. I am so uninterested in Krishna that, I don;t even have the patience to read gHari's huge postings. Some Mayavada bashing some Narayan Maharaj controversies are needed for an immature person like me to continue in bhakti. Abhi

There is one principal reason for all the activities of the sweet lord: "Give pleasure to his devotees". This is the underlying principle of all the activities. Killing demons is a secndary reason. abhi

Sri Caithanya talked abt Advaita as well as Dvaita, but concluded that the dvaita philosophers are more dearer to the Lord in the lines of Geeta Ch12(slokas 1-5). Why he took diksha from a Advaita sannyasi? The learned devotees opine: the Lord wanted to attract the Advaita sannyasis to bhakti, and the first step was to make them feel he is one of them. Then he cd mingle with them and share his philosophy. Another reason is to show mercy to his dear devotee Keshava Bharathi. It is said that first the Lord chanted the sannyasa mantra into the ears of Keshava and then Keshava bharti chanted it back to the Lord. Actually, Sri Chaithanya is Lord himself and never needs a diksha from a mortal. But he played this pastime to actually give association to Keshava Bharti and show mercy unto him!! [This message has been edited by abhi_the_great (edited 04-04-2002).]

Man, if I really do not like somebody, I keep a distance. If I try to understand him, he thinks I am trying to make him understand me. I just complain to Krishna that this person is not giving me e nough respect, pls convince him abt my superiority. Krishna KRISHNAAAAAAAAA!!

nachiketa, Welcome to this association of devotees. Just by being with devotees we gradually advance. Hare Krishna devotee is like any other person. They work in offices and go to schools, only they add Krishna to everything. so, you can talk to a deotee like any other friend of yours. Hare Krishna Abhilash

Does this mean there is no difference between the male and female? Men are naturally better in some activities and women are naturally better in some other activities. They are complimentary but not equal. According to Indian culture, ladies are respected and are strong willed. But, they voluntarily take a back seat to their husband. This still holds true in these changing times. I wd also note that there is not so much discrimination on ladies in ISKCON. Yes, its true that they might not dance in the front of the deities in some temples. But there are temples where both genders get equal space right in the front. But it is a very bad sign when ladies do not make space when sannyasis want to pay obeisances. Women's lib - its more of a western idea than a vedic idea. But if KC has to make it big in the western countries, do we have to make some amends, where ladies have equal everything? Will it guarantee a succesful religion?

Hi Prahlad, Sorry my reply is late. The best way you can do more R&D on this group is by searching for "Swami Narayan" on Google. There are a lot of sites. Your mood is very nice and I encourage you to cultivate more knowldge in all spheres of life. Hare Krishna Abhi

Stalin was the first person to give the basic doses and aid of nuclear technology to China. Krushchev also followed in his footsteps, till he discovered that Mao was a real fanatic. Ones Mao told him during a relaxed swimming pool conversation that Kruschev shd start a war against the Capitalist America and they shd both get together and blast all the other capitalist countries. This was after WW2. Mao's idea was to spread Communism thru out the world - by force(like Islam). Krushchev immediately concluded that transferring high end atomic & nuclear technology to this loafer wd be harmful for mankind. So he immediately pulled back all his trainers and instructors from China and there was a "no communication" period between the two countries. Mao went wild with Tashkent's decision and he befriended the then US President(Roosevelt??) to fight against Russia. This is the point when relationships warmed between these two hostile countries(US & China). Somewhat funny to think that all these people were contemporaries of Srila Prabhupad. Everyone was interested to spread their own philosophies. But, Srila Prabhupad wanted to spread a divine philosophy. Abhi [This message has been edited by abhi_the_great (edited 04-01-2002).]

http://www.swaminarayan.org/philosophy/index.htm They call their philosophy as Neo-Vishishtadvaita. Their major understanding is Vaishnavic with an Advaitha twist in the end. The Advaitha twist is that they consider their founder acarya, Sri Swaminarayan and the following Acaryas as avatar of Narayana himself. Hope this helps Happy Gaura Poornima. abhi