sanatan

There are 10 offenses to the Holy Name. A follower of Mahaprabhu is careful not to commit offenses against the Holy Name.

 

This one is usually listed as #4

Blaspheming the Vedic Literature

 

* To denounce the information in the revealed scriptures.

* To regard the Vedas as mundane literature

* To keep scriptures in a dirty place

 

Yes in the Veda the length and breadth of this universe is told as well as the age of this universe. The biblical version of the age of the planet is wrong and the Vedic scripture is right.

 

 

 

How to counter-act the offense of disrespecting the Veda: Offer flowers to the Srimad-Bhagavatam and Bhagavad-gita.

You're just pitting one tradition of scriptural literalism against the other, and falling back upon what can be used as a fear-based injuction to stop the discussion in its tracks...very similar to a fundie Christian telling someone that no one comes to the father but by Jesus, and anyone who doesn't accept this is going to hell.

Honest questioning does not equal denunciation...we can respect and venerate scripture and hold it as extra-ordinary in spite of our doubts. I do.

It may be hard for some people to come to grips with, but this is the 21st century, not the 13th, and several centuries of empirical science unobstructed by religious authority has added a new dimension to the common thought process of mankind. We can either choose to honestly acknowledge scientific findings and observations or outright deny them because they challenge a strictly literal interpretation of scripture.

Remember, science still can't do what scripture does...open the doors to the spiritual platform.

...Why are we so sentimentally inclined towards Christianity when in fact its teachings are far inferior to Lord Buddhas????? Why do we distance ourselves from Buddhism but not from Christianity?????

 

I say it is because of our western conditioning from birth and our affinity towards Christianity is based more on mundane sentiment than logic.

Regarding Christianity, IMO that is true for many westerners, and I'll cruise along with it...I still consider myself a Christian to certain degree, and happy to be so. So the Bible doesn't record Jesus Christ directly teaching transcendental practices or reading from the Vedic scriptures? That doesn't mean he wasn't a transcendental personality...there are plenty of clues even in this admittedly watered-down scripture.

I've never had any intuitive attraction or pull at all toward Buddhism, though it's much more similar in some aspects to Hinduism/Vaisnavism, which fascinated me from the start.

Conclusion: We're each where our past lives led us.

I am interested in essential truth. The kind of knowledge that will liberate me. As a liberation seeker I am not yet a Vaisnava. But even as a Vaisnava I would not be so much interested in what the academics say about the actual time line of which came first the Mahabharata or the Gospels. You do know among that group the debate is far from settled with many seeing the Mahabharata as being written less than 2,000 years ago. Most say 5,000 I agree, but what does indenpendent evidence show?

 

To enter into such a debate to me is something like stepping into quick sand. I am content to let others worry about such things. personally I could not care less if the Bhagavatam or the teaching of Christ both fell from the sky yesterday.

 

I have limited time and brain power. What little of each I have I must use to my greatest advantage which means I must be concerned with only the essential transcendental portion of of the devotional books of knowledge that are accessable to me. Fortunately through the SB and gospels of Christ I have more of that then I could hope to assimilate in this one lifetime or many others. My struggle is to stay focused.

 

You speak of Vaisnava diksa. I consider the transmission of transcendental knowledge to be Vaisnava diksa, and the ceremony of fire sacrifice or baptism to be rites applicable to time place and circumstance and as such of no real consequence to me.

 

I have nothing more than a small curiousity in the Dead Sea scrolls. Not because they may be authentic religious texts or not but as I mentioned there is so much transcendental knowledge in the SB and teaching of Christ that my search for source is over and now I must concentrate on substance.

 

The topic of the similarities between Homer, the Mahabharata the life accounts of Jesus are interesting to me but also not traceable by me so my participation in these discussions cannot go beyound these couple of posts. Although i would listen in and may have a question or two.

 

I thank you for the civil way you approach the subject. Even opposing views can be discussed without all the heated emotion as you have shown.

 

Hare Krsna

Your feelings about the whole subject are similar to mine...in fact, if I were as articulate, I could have written your post.

Where I am, it's a jungle of fundamentalist Christians. I haven't yet decided whether it's the false ego loving a fight or that I sincerely don't want to see what I perceive as truth trashed without being able to raise some strong counter-arguments. In either case, the more arguable points that I can have under my belt, the better.

For both Christianity and Vaisnavism, scripture and religious traditions make certain fixed claims, independent scholarship is a dynamic field and findings often dispute, deny, or modify these. It's good to have a working knowledge of both.

Tattvadasa: excellent post regarding the Borrowing Theory!!

Two thumbs up!

It's all about political correctness. No man in his right mind would believe SP respected JC. It was simply to appeal to fanatical christians. So forget about it and put your mind on Krishna.

I'm in my right mind, and I believe that SP respected JC.

There are as many fundie Vaisnavas coming out of the woodwork here as there are fundie Christians on their boards.

He is serious, alright.

There is no evidence for Krishna outside religious sources, no writings, paintings or sculptures - just like Jesus. Either dismiss both as false or accept both as real. You cannot pick one and reject the other.

That's right...good post. There is probably a bit more in the way of extra-religious evidence for Jesus, but it is not significant enough to "prove" his existence.

Producing animals in factory farms for slaughter wastes alot of grains that could be fed directly to people.

 

The runoff from manure wastes from factory farming [the breeding of thousands of animals in vast quantities indoors so that they can never move or go outside and they live 24/7/365 in their own stool as is done with cows, chickens nowadays] pollutes rivers.

 

So it is better to be vegetarian as it has less negative impact on the Earth.

Plus it is just sick to eat meat. At factory farms they grind up the leftover animal parts and feed it to the animals, so that animals that are normally not cannibals become cannibals. It's sickening. Read up on it.

The whole thing is unfathomably gross, agreed, and any argument about Jesus's alleged vegetarianism or non-vegetarianism should begin with the facts you've cited firmly in mind.

He lived 2000 years ago, in a very poor area of the known world, where the people were mostly Jewish peasants who subsisted in an agrarian economy. They ate a diet of grains and vegetables, with fish and poultry when available and affordable. The meat of higher animals was rarely taken by commoners because of its scarcity, cost, and Jewish dietary customs. The point: The environment of Jesus wasn't McDonald's-land, with cows, pigs, and chickens killed by the millions in slaughterhouses and processed in disgusting factories to be mass-marketed as a customary 3x/day food item.

There's precious little if anything in the Bible to indicate that Jesus was a pure vegetarian, or taught his followers to be...much in the same way that the Bible lacks any more than cryptic references to reincarnation. You can't pick up a Bible and make a good case for either.

I accept that Jesus was a pure representative of God and taught his audience according to time, place, and circumstance. Taking at face value Vaisnava claims that strict vegetarianism and deity worship were/are indeed requirements for the attainment of a higher spiritual life, we can see that Jesus didn't push unready followers into them.

Srila Prabhupada understood the realities of the ancient world and the lives of its people. His strong preaching against meat eating was concerned with the slaughterhouse mentality of the twentieth century, and intended to benefit people who had infinitely more freedom in lifestyle choices than the ancients.

99% of all Christians, Jews and Moslems are impersonalists. ...

Not true...at least from the Christian Trinitarian POV.

God the Father...the Supreme personal Godhead. This could be called very vague personalism, as there is no clear indication of his appearance in the Bible, other than the statement in Genesis that he created man in his own image.

The bearded patriarch is an artistic tradition, an attempt to put a face on God the Father, nothing more.

God the Son...Jesus Christ. Many Christians worship him as God. Perhaps the Gospel of John, Chapter 1, and particularly verse 14, are the most scripturally-influential in this regard. As well, the vast number of sources that provide the everyday familiarity of the human Jesus contribute to an ongoing and highly personal Christian veneration for him equal to that held for Krishna in the Hindu/Vaisnava traditions.

God the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit...obviously the impersonal, all-pervading aspect of the Trinity. The same as the Brahman aspect of Krishna.

....

 

You know what would be nice is if we could get a protected thread to really explore the Vaisnava teachings of Lord jesus Christ like the one you set up but without the dvivida gorilla types disrupting, blaspheming and pissing on the sacrifical fire.

 

Would that be too much to ask i wonder?

I hope not...it's a great idea.

Theist...your posts 7 and 8 are awesome.

sadly, I think many of them will end up in the livestock yard in the waiting line to the slaughterhouse.

No heaven for those who are cruel to animals.

Meat-eaters don't go to heaven.

They become the animals that they ate.

What, then, is the reason for the existence of mleccha-sastras (principally, the Bible and the Quran), if there is no hope for meat-eaters?

Being a vegetarian actually doesn't mean squat...Srila Prabhupada pointed out that monkeys are vegetarians.

Kirtanananda Swami was a Jesus freak too.

Look at the mess he made out of ISKCON in New Vrindavan.

Flawed logic. Kirtanananda as Jesus freak doesn't = mess in NV.

If you don't draw the line somewhere, you end up with a whole flock of these Christy Krishna's who turn Gaudiya Vaishnavism into another Hindu hodgepodge of homogenized conceptions.

And do you intend to be the drawer of this said line? Advice...if you don't like the way some folk synthesize and apply ideas, ignore them.

Prabhupada said the Bible is the scripture of the meat-eaters (mlecchas).

So? That's what he meant; in saying this he also affirmed that it was also bonafide and appropriate for many people.

Well, I am a strict vegetarian and I don't want to become a meat-eater by reading the Bible.

I guess you can also become gay by talking to a homosexual...it's catching, you know.

The ten commandments are religious principles for cavemen.

There are many so-called advanced transcendentalists who could use a refresher course in these...we're all cavemen, dude, with very few exceptions.

The great sages of India offered things that are millions and billions of times greater than the caveman religion of the Bible.

If you don't understand and thoroughly apply these "caveman" principles first, how can you hope to aspire to the greater ones?

Since I have been trying to maintain a sadhana of chanting + regulative principes, it seems my mind is giving me more problems than before. I thought it should become calmer and more focused, but no it sometimes jumps around like a crazy monkey. I hope Lord Caintanya can help me tame it.

I had a good yearlong sadhana period going until June '06, then fell off the wagon with the excuse that my mind was too unsteady...true, mind was/is unsteady, but I had some "philosophical issues" to come to terms with also...like for you, my Christian background is important.

Issues now put to rest. New Year's resolution...pick it up again. One thing for certain, and I'm talking to myself here....Lord Caitanya won't pay attention to one who isn't putting out any effort.

Hebrews 9:27 "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:"

This is the Biblical verse I've most often heard used to diss reincarnation. As-phrased, it is open to either a one-life or many-lives interpretation.

As far as I know the subject isn't directly addressed at any other place in the Bible, and I consider the often-quoted Biblical "references" to reincarnation to be cryptic at best.

so does anybody have an appropriate way to counter his argument, i dont want to back away from the discussion.

You can explore the fact that in regard to Hinduism or sanatana-dharma, advaita or absolute non-dualism is only one aspect of philosophical thought and spiritual practice. The theistic or dvaitin philosophies that were developed the post-Vedic period by Sri Ramanuja and Sri Madhvacharya and carried forward to the present day, most notably by Caitanya Mahaprabhu and successors, should provide plenty of material for discussion with a Christian, especially if he can understand the concept of the independent jiva and the free-will aspect that is so central to Vaisnava philosophy.

The disability doesn't leave the devotee, the devotee leaves the disability. He does this by identifying himself as he is, the eternal spiritual self, and he reclaims his eternal function as the Lord's loving servant.

 

It is like something like a prisioner in a caged jail cell. When he is released from the jail cell he no longer thinks of himself as a prisoner limited by the size and condition of his prision.

It's like a devotee with leprosy doesn't necessarily get cured in a physical sense...the consciousness is cured, but the devotee, being completely surrendered to Krishna, accepts Krishna's will in the matter of health...a completely God-conscious person with a horrible disease or disability is an inspiration to others of sufficient understanding.

I think it goes deeper than taste. There's no doubt that the Oriental invasion as left is indelible mark. But I don't read it any more as the 'thing to do'. The image of the Hindu swami, the Bhuddist priest (less so) is no longer exotic and glamorous. In fact it is tarnished by so many scandals. I see this as a good and wonderful thing that these unscrupulous pseudo-mystic snake-oil merchants have lost credibility.

For some it was the fashionable thing or thing-of-moment to do, for others was and is the real thing to do...I'm not defending the negative realities of the so-called "eastern invasion", but you're blanket generalizing. Use some discrimination.

Christian hypocrisy, at least on the Protestant side, has depended more on trickery than the religious demand for complete submission to a human authority. That one is harder for the Christian preacher/pastor to pull off.

When the price of admission is 'surrender' then exploitation is a no brainer from that point on.

Yeah, I agree...there are varying degrees of control that can be pulled off...In the case of Christian-based exploitation it does have to take a more subtle form. But the result is the same...people surrender, either consciously or subconsciously, to a charismatic leader and do what he/she tells them. You know as well as I do that the most spectacular cases of mass suicide in the last 30 years have been those in Christian cults.

Televangelists milking poor and desperate people, often elderly, for the last few bucks they can cough up ranks up there with the worst forms of exploitiation...the marks are "surrendering" their livelihood so some dick can live a millionaire's lifestyle.

I have a Bhagavad Gita. There is no need to copy-paste entire purports. Besides I've read it in its entirety. I still refuse to subjugate my soul and mind entirely to another human being. It is incompatible with Judao-Christian teaching and more importantly my own conscience , the still small voice within. It is easily the origin of all the corruption I have known in Eastern religions, especially the ones transplanted here. Luckily Eastern gurus are no longer fashionable like they were in the sixties and seventies. By now most of them have been exposed as charlatans. In the case of Bhaktivedant swami, his organization has been exposed time and time again as corrupt. Do not proselityze me with this kind of Hinduism. Except possibly with Buddhism I think we've come to a period of Western history when Orientalism is an idea whose time has come and gone.

 

 

 

 

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I disagree with your claim that orientalism has come and gone in the west...eastern philosophy and related influences are firmly entrenched in western culture now, as is western culture in the east...whether these facts are "good", "bad", or just neutral has to be an individual call or a matter of taste.

I would hopefully guess that the part of orientalism that is becoming very questionable is blind following of guru-figures. Without fingerpointing any particular person or organization, we can certainly observe that a trail of havoc and tragedy remains behind.

No real need to mention the televangelists and various other Christian hucksters...old news, but I do mention them because you can apply the same standards of discernment to them as to the phony gurus...my point is the baby-bathwater one. I'm not tossing Jesus Christ or Krishna or the great scriptures that they inspired because some of their followers misbehaved in the past and continue to do so. I'm my own spiritual man, capable of independent and critical thought; you are as well.

I guess you could call it a $100,000.00 shack.

It was previously officers quarters in Camp Blanding till they sold off a bunch of them in the 60's. There are a few of these old wooden houses around this area.

Property around this neck of the woods is not cheap.

 

Hey, I love this ol' shack and my lil' 1 1/2 acre of paradise.

 

Paid for...... that is the best part...

In a material sense, your glass is indeed more than half-full, prabhu.

A paid-for house and acreage...not many folks have that.

Be creative...fix up the house yourself. It's amazing how much in the way of new or perfectly useable building materials people just throw away...not hard to find stuff cheap or free if you look.

That's a very nice personal story!

I like this site better than the other Hare Krishna and Vaisnava message boards I've been on; the tone here is positive and intelligent and it's well moderated ...offensive, negative, and meaninglessly critical stuff gets deleted promptly and selectively, without disturbing posts that have some critical content of value.

My home temple is one of the major ISKCON centers in the USA, and in over 20 yrs no one has ever pressured me about getting initiated or following a particular guru, even though one of the biggest ZA's was headquartered there.

It's always been the policy here that a person can look at getting initiated after completing a probationary period of one year of 16 rounds and 4 regs strictly. If you come around and attend programs and chant, a few devotees may ask if you're interested in getting initiated, but no one looks down on those who aren't...lots of longterm fringies like me around.

I heard from a reliable source that Tamal Krishna Maharaja stated specifically in his written will and related instructions that no murtis of himself were to be offered for public sale or displayed in public after his passing.

Even though his death was sudden, he had survived a very serious operation for prostate cancer a couple of years before and had written his will and other final wishes at that time.

There's a difference in honestly recognizing the faults and shortcomings in others as part of moving through everyday life, and consciously and purposely faultfinding as a separate and elective activity.

The former is necessary for protection of oneself as an organism.

The latter is what contributes to difficulty with others in "regular" relationships and social interaction, as well being the cause of vaisnava-aparadha, sadhu-ninda, and the resulting spiritual difficulties.

....can you conceive of the sankirtan movement taking root in 17th century Europe? there is a proper time for everything. can you imagine Prabhupada starting the movement in 1950's? think a little before you start spouting your mud slinging.

Good observation.

Having lived through that time, IMO the 1960's were truly the window of opportunity for evangelical Gaudiya Vaisnavism in America and Europe...SP's timing was right on.

A family member who lived what could be called a non-exemplary life died suddenly one morning, at a tragically young age, of a heart attack brought on by long-term alcoholism and hard drug use. His girl friend was with him when he passed, and told us that he had the most horrible expression on his face as he died...beyond imagination...she said she would carry the memory till the day she died.

The person who passed away was cruel, sarcastic, and exploititave of others as a way of life.

Those are the circumstances...what they signify is up to individual opinion.

Hare krishna

 

All glories to srilaa prabhupad

 

Dear sanatan,

 

A karmi is he who is not able to be civilized .....

 

...thank you for giving me an opportunity to know and think of Lord Hari.

 

Vijayakrishnan

And thank you, Vijay Prabhu, for your insights and wonderfully humble manner...it's exemplary.

If there's anyone who fits the description of "karmi", it's me!

Would callng a karmi a "fruitive worker" be more politically correct nowadays?

There has to be some term to describe the non-devotees.

How about just "people who aren't Vaisnavas"?

However, I think Srila Prabhupada used the term "karmi" quite often, so I don't think that finding fault with the usage is very good, because in the final analysis we are then finding fault in the way Srila Prabhupada preached.

 

If Srila Prabhupada considerd the term "karmi" as acceptable, then I am not going to make a stink over it.

It's not a derogatory term.

It simply means fruitive worker - someone who enjoys the fruits of his own labors....................somebody like me....

SP's life was a life of instruction and he used certain traditional phrases and words in his speech...the difference is the way he used it and the spirit he used it in. I see its continued use as an unconscious and poor form of imitation of Srila Prabhupada.

IMO, it's now taken on a pejorative tone in everyday devotee-speak, and does nothing but subtly reinforce the us-and-them mentality...we're all spirit souls, remember?

I don' t give my money to ISKCON.

I just barely make enough to pay the bills and feed my kids.

I guess that makes me a karmi.

Oh well, God willing maybe someday I will get out of this mess and resort to a life of bhajan.

Please accept my sincere best wishes for better fortune for yourself and your family, Guruvani Prabhu.

And, both of you...please accept my sincere apologies if I've offended with my outspokenness on this.

I have to continually battle with my own conditioning ...occasionally karmi, ni**er, or other derogatory term or curse word will pop out of my mouth or into the mind...I just have to be aware of it, acknowledge that it happened, and give the result to Krishna.

Very good analysis. However, example # 2 needs some qualification.

2. We should be always seperate avoiding non vaishanva association because If you are associating with a karmi that gives the attitude of what they have and all the material desires. Ex. Lotus flower.

Very good if you are a renuciant in a loincloth with begging bowl, not so good if you are living in the "real" world, with a job, family, etc.

We can choose the quality of our non-Vaisnava association...there are plenty of good folks who aren't devotees.

I'm really tired of the term karmi...it's very sectarian and condescending in it's implications. It needs to be expunged from Vaisnava speech, the sooner the better, much as n***er is no longer in everyday use among higher-class people in America.

Money and material possessions aren't the problem, it's our attitude toward them. Sometimes they come of their own accord, as does the lack of them.