theist

We will see what we want to see in that picture.

But I'm sure we are all amazed at how She cares for Her loving devotees, always desiring to shelter them.

Jai Radhe!

chameli, of course you can make jokes.More the merrier.

Maybe someone would also be kind enough to tell me what a grit is.

atma it's ok you don't know about football.It really is meant to be a man thing anyway.We can also tell when a woman is faking it just to please us.

Speeking of sports talk I saw Lagaan yesterday and finally have an idea on what Cricket is.The meaning of a wicket stills elludes me however.

On ladies,in the immortal words of Mike Tyson to a female reporter recently,"Yeah, you're a lady in the streets and a whore in the sheets, right?"

I just had to share.

atma soccer does not count when matched against American football.Sorry.But I respect you anyway.Why?Because you are so funny.

Originally posted by radhe:

Thanks sushil!!!!

One humble request : No controversies..please.. i beg of you..atleast not in this thread.. If you think your experiences are to be kept secret and only between the lord & yourself..please do so.. Would have loved to read that experience of yours, BVI..anyway!!!

thanks for the encouragement bhaktajoy..i am in my early 20s. One thing that i am sure of.. is that the lord listens to my prayers always.. Will give me his darsan one day..when i am pure enough...

A pretty simple and very reasonable request I would say.

I've been expecting a story from the Puranas about how garlic sprang up from the hairs of some demon when he died or something along that line.

Oh well.

Tarunji,

Did you not see the map a couple of posts up?The Jews are not to be feared man,its the Canadians!!!!

Hey raga, I'm very interested in this subject but can't keep with with the academic tone.

How about just taking a slow walk through the Bhagavatam, story by story?

Myself (and others I suspect)would gain something very practical from that.

Maybe though the idea is not practical itself, I don't know.

I had some "garlic" bread once made with hing.Tasted very close and was good and yummy.

I don't worry about garlic and onions myself.Actually I find they help my maintain my hermit status.

Originally posted by karthik_v:

Theist Prabhuji,

 

I am sorry for being offensive. Please come back. I will restrain. My attack was not on Jesus, but the church. But, I will tone it down.

karthik,

Thank you for the nice note and your attempt to put my mind at ease.

Rather if your jokes were aimed at Lord Jesus Christ or those that falsely claim to represent Him is for you to know and is between you and the Supreme Lord.

We must be cautious and avoid thinking that offenses directed toward those who may not be specifically mentioned in our Holy Books will not but injurious to our growing creepers of bhakti.These distinctions are ours and not Krsna's.

But this incident has been instrumental in showing me something about myself.I sometimes dare to act as though I have some genuine feeling for Christ and Krsna.This false posture is surely more offensive then the occasional joke offered in bad taste.

So I must apologize to all here for my self-righteous attitude.

The mind is really amazing.For one who knows that he should surrender to Krsna's devotee but who doesn't, so many pretntious states of consciousness will surely arise.This is my situation.

I like you will try to be more careful in the future.

I want there to be a very clear distinction drawn between these soul denying, cow and animal slaughtering materialists who call themselves Christians and the person of Christ.

We who are budding transcendentalists must be able to discriminate between thr two.

Jesus Christ belongs to pure Vaisnavas everywhere.Just as does Narada Muni, Prahlada Maharaja, Prthu Maharaja and all the innumerable incarnations that flow onto this dessert like bank of material nature, bringing with Them the living waters of Life.

On the second coming of Christ, I don't know,but the best position would be to be living in His presence here and now.

Christ and Krsna, the perfect union.

theist

Originally posted by MasterSingh:

What is the Vedic philosophy in relation to the posibility of Krsna and Jesus Christ being the same entity? If there is such an equation are they on the same level in the trinity or Godhead? Or is Christ merely an incarnation of the higher Godhead?

Master Singh,

Christ Himself said that He was one with God and yet he also said the Father is greater than I.

This is also what Lord Caitanya taught.Simultaneous combined oneness and difference.

So from this we can understand that Lord Jesus Christ is a Shaktyavesa-avatar.An empowered incarnation,or the Supreme Personality of Servitor Godhead.

Krsna is the Supreme Father,the One that Christ prayed to and loves without reservation.

What do you mean by trinity?

theist

[This message has been edited by theist (edited 05-28-2002).]

Salt of the Earth

By Jagger/Richards

Lets drink to the hard working people

Lets drink to the lowly of birth

Raise your glass to the good and the evil

Lets drink to the salt of the earth

Say a prayer for the common foot soldier

Spare a thought for his back breaking work

Say a prayer for his wife and his children

Who burn the fires and who still till the earth

And when I search a faceless crowd

A swirling mass of gray and

Black and white

They don't look real to me

In fact, they look so strange

Raise your glass to the hard working people

Lets drink to the uncounted heads

Lets think of the wavering millions

Who need leaders but get gamblers instead

Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter

His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows

And a parade of the gray suited grafters

A choice of cancer or polio

And when I search a faceless crowd

A swirling mass of gray and

Black and white

They don't look real to me

In fact, they look so strange

Lets drink to the hard working people

Lets think of the lowly of birth

Spare a thought for the rag taggy people

Lets drink to the salt of the earth

Lets drink to the hard working people

Lets drink to the salt of the earth

Lets think of the two thousand million

Lets think of the humble of birth

[This message has been edited by theist (edited 05-27-2002).]

I am also remembering with gratitude those that have sacrificed on the mundane level for the religious freedoms that are in the USA which allowed His Divine Grace to bring the message of those that Tarunji has mentioned.

What was that old Rolling Stones song?Title escapes me but there was a line..."Let's drink to the common foot soldier...the salt of the earth". Something like that anyway.

So today I raise my cup of nectar and toast them, the common foot soldiers that laid it all on the line.

[This message has been edited by theist (edited 05-27-2002).]

karthik said:. Sure, Mother earth must be quaking at the very thoughts of Jesus's re-entry. Does some know if we can create Trishanku swarka where Jesus can hang out instead of coming here?

I'm sure I can find another place to hang out.Aparadhi's can have this spot.

ciao

Great topic raga.I'll just pop in with a question or two from time to time and maybe an occasional observation,but I have much interest in hearing how others deal with this.

In the Bhagvatam Canto 1 16th chapter we hear the narration of how Parksit received the age of Kali.

Suta begins his telling of the personality of Dharma in the form of a bull meeting the personality of the earth in the form of a cow.Dharma in the form of a bull had been wandering the earth and was now only standing on one leg.The earth in the form of a cow was grieving like a mother who had lost her child.She was crying and her beauty was lost. See SB 1.16.18

This strikes me a beautiful literary device used to set up the valuable instructions on how society should be maintained,and not literal.I have been accused of speculating because I can't point to a verse that says its a literary device.I don't press the point, but would be interested as to how others read this.

theist

ram,

You may also want to read the last two verses in the book of Revelations.Perhaps even all of Revelations.

I can't decipher it myself but good luck.

Oh I am glad they have a web site abhi.I was nervous about a face to face interview.

Saturday, May 25, 2002

ROME — A healthy 3-month-old girl who came into the world weighing just 9.97 ounces spent her first full day home from the hospital Saturday, and her doctors said they believe she is the tiniest human being on record to live so long.

Doctors at Careggi hospital in Florence sent the "miracle" baby home Friday weighing 4.4 pounds, saying she has a nearly 100 percent chance of enjoying a normal life.

"She really had the will to live, she was strong and lively," Margarita Psaraki, the pediatrician on the baby's medical team, said Saturday. "She was immediately lively, active. This helped us to help her."

Doctors said that at the parents' wishes, they were identifying neither the baby nor the parents, who live near Florence. The medical team nicknamed the girl "Pearl."

The baby was delivered by Caesarean section in early February during the 27th week of pregnancy. At that stage of prematurity, some babies do survive, but they have weighed much more at birth.

"We were completely taken aback. The weight is usually double that" at the 27th week, said Psaraki, interviewed by phone at her home after finishing her shift at the hospital.

Psaraki said the baby's survival "is an absolute record."

The previous record was set in the 1990s by a baby in Japan who weighed 10.5 ounces at birth, doctors said Friday at a news conference in Florence. A low birth weight is considered to be 2.5 pounds and under.

Early in the pregnancy, "Pearl's" mother was diagnosed as having a problem with arteries, and at one point was at risk of needing a leg amputated, the doctors said. That persuaded them to deliver the baby early but at a stage when survival is possible.

Dr. Firmino Rubaltelli, in charge of the medical team that cared for her, told reporters that the baby's survival was a "true and proper miracle." He predicted that her chances for having a normal life are "nearly 100 percent."

When doctors saw how little the baby weighed, they asked themselves: "Do we go on? and how do we go on?" with her care, Psaraki said in another interview, on Canale 5, a private TV network.

Many of the premature babies who do survive birth at the 27th week or even later go on to have serious physical or mental handicaps, and there is intense debate in the world of medicine and ethics over how much extraordinary intervention should be used in such cases.

"I was afraid of holding her," Psaraki told Canale 5. At birth, "she was 10 inches long. But that's when she was stretched out. Normally babies curl up and then she would fit right into your hand."

After delivery, the baby's weight dropped to 8.92 ounces, but she rebounded. Her mother was allowed to nurse when the baby reached 1.53 pounds.

Before that, the mother was only allowed to caress her child after donning sterile gloves.

"Her skin was so thin," said Psaraki, adding that the baby "was struggling to breathe" and had to be intubated at the beginning.

Doctors said that they asked a company to design special instruments, such as tubing, to help care for the baby because she was so small.

The parents, while shying away from publicity, wanted their baby's story told to inspire hope in other parents, doctors said.

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An interesting story from several angles.

I wonder how a materialistic scientist would explain this 27 week old fetus displaying a a strong will to live.

We can trace it to the soul, but what is their explaination.How could it have accumulated enough positive life experience to choose to want to live?

theist

LOL!!Good question.

Hell fire and damnation preachers who are also a little bit pious maybe?Just a guess.

I don't really know, but would like to. Where do I send my resume?

The Wiccans believe in a Supreme Lord and a Supreme Lady?That is interesting.I have never read anything on them yet I have been carrying this image of them as some new age witch movement or something.

Good to get free of a prejudice.One down, a million to go.It does seem nature abhors a vacuum.If the truth does not reside there for sure a misconception will fill the void.

raga said:

Additionally, the existence of Goloka makes perfect sense. If you like, I can submit a sound logical presentation of why Goloka exists. The conception of Goloka is a theological masterpiece.

I would like to hear your logical explanation raga.

For myself, although I have no solid faith in whatever specific conception of the transcendental realm my mind may presently hold, still variety in transcendence makes perfect sense logically.

And as far as there being different dimensions or divisions there, that also makes sense.

Different realms for different rasa.

Awe and reverance are incompatable with just wanting to play with your Friend.

theist

BVI has kindly offered to be our guru.

If you agree not to challenge and to ask relevant spiritual questions, then I will try to clear your doubts. That is all. I can give you siksha if you want and ask for it, but not diksha. That is my rule.

 

The way to serve me is to help Srila Prabhupada save the world by rendering service to his movement in the best way you know how, utilizing everything you have and know to the best of your ability.

 

I am sure that Prabhupada's disciples and followers are pleased that you feel served by their service to their guru.I am also sure they hope Krsna feels served as well.

I a not ready to submit yet BVIji, so you may not want to answer my question.I would of course respect your decision on that.

My question is:What do you have to add to the given realizations by the previous Acarya's?Have you been sent with new revelations?

basic theist

Yes I agree.Vaisnavism is so far beyond the hodge podge of Hinduism.Leave the little gods behind.So much confusion comes in its name.

And what Vaisnava understanding can exceed Mahaprabhu's?

Very fortunate indeed.

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PURPORT to Adi-lila 10.11

Srila Narottama däsa Thäkura has said, anya-deväçraya näi, tomäre kahinu bhäi, ei bhakti parama-käraëa: if one wants to become a pure, staunch devotee, one should not take shelter of any of the demigods or -goddesses. Foolish Mäyävädis say that worshiping demigods is as good as worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but that is not a fact. This philosophy misleads people to atheism. One who has no idea what God actually is thinks that any form he imagines or any rascal he accepts can be God. This acceptance of cheap gods or incarnations of God is actually atheism. It is to be concluded, therefore, that those who worship demigods or self-proclaimed incarnations of God are all atheists. They have lost their knowledge, as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gétä (7.20): kämais tais tair håta-jïänäù prapadyante ’nya-devatäù. “Those whose minds are distorted by material desires surrender unto demigods.” Unfortunately, those who do not cultivate Krsna consciousness and do not properly understand the Vedic knowledge accept any rascal to be an incarnation of God, and they are of the opinion that one can become an incarnation simply by worshiping a demigod. This philosophical hodge-podge exists under the name of the Hindu religion, but the Krsna consciousness movement does not approve of it. Indeed, we strongly condemn it. Such worship of demigods and so-called incarnations of God should never be confused with the pure Krsna consciousness movement.

Hmmmm.....?

So who is going to harmonize this?

Originally posted by gHari:

We shall fix the devotional aspect of our existence. When it is perfected, there will be no more shimmering on the pond of our consciousness.

 

Somehow I have a feeling that there is a difference between the atma and the svarupa; almost as though the svarupa is the combination of the soul and the eternal devotional relationship.

Perhaps like the proverbial lotus on the still pond.The atma being the lotus as bud the svarupa the lotus in full bloom.

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

This excerpt is from a Bhaktisiddhanta's disappearance day lecture given by Srila Prabhupada.

------

So anyway, from 1922 to 1933 practically I was not initiated, but I got the impression of preaching Caitanya Mahäprabhu’s cult. That I was thinking. And that was the initiation by my Guru Mahäräja. Then officially I was initiated in 1933 because in 1923 I left Calcutta. I started my business at Allahabad. So I was always thinking of my Guru Mahäräja, that “I met a very nice sädhu.” Although I was doing business, I never forgot him. Then, in 1928, these Gauòéya Maöha people came to Allahabad during Kumbhamelä. As the Kumbhamelä is going to be held this year, a similar big Kumbhamelä was held in 1928. In those days they came to open their branch in Allahabad, and somebody recommended that “You go to...” At that time I was running on my big pharmacy and I was very well known man in Allahabad as the proprietor of the pharmacy. So somebody recommended them that “You go to Abhaya Babu. He is a very religious man. He’ll help you.” So when they entered my shop I was very much pleased that “These men I met in 1922, and now they have come.” In this way I became reconnected. And in 1933 I was officially initiated, and my only qualification was when I was introduced to my Guru Mahäräja for initiation, so Guru Mahäräja immediately said, “Yes, I shall initiate this boy. He is very nice. He hears me very patiently. He does not go away.” So that was my qualification. The high standard of philosophy which he was speaking at that time, practically I could not follow what was, he was speaking, but still, I liked to hear him. That was my hobby. Whenever... I was asking that “When Guru Mahäräja will speak?” So he took it very seriously.

-----------

So the impression to preach was Srila Prabhupada's initiation.Then something formal came later.How to describe an impression from that realm?Perhaps like trying to describe the movements of a certain breeze that just crossed your face.Where has it come from, what will be its future path.Hard to say.