Kripamoya

I don't think preaching should be targeted at Christians, Muslims or any other religious group. Preaching should be targeted to the hearts and souls of suffering souls who will feel the refreshing effects of hearing Krishna upadesh. Personally, I think that the new age yogi types and meditators make a lot more fertile field than the Christians who think that nobody comes to God except through Jesus. Maybe it's becuase I was a New Age yogi type meditator who immediatly tasted the nectar of bhakti-yoga and immediatly accepted Krishna consciousness as the highest of all spiritual systems. Despite being dragged to church every Sunday by my Mom as a child, I never became interested or attracted to the Christian religion. Christians and Muslims are the LAST target audience I would think about.

As far as that goes, you could also be accused of sectarianism. Why just acknowledge Christianity, Islam and Judaism? What about Buddhism? What about Native American beliefs? What about tribal African beliefs? What about New Age yoga spirituality? Why do we only acknowledge the Middle Eastern religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism as being true world religions? So, sectarianism is not the monopoly of Vaishnavism. We find absolute sectarianism coming from the Abrahamic religions, as they do not acknowledge the other religions and faiths of the world at all. So, the Abrahamic religions are in no position to make any sort of accusations against Hinduism as being sectarian. Abrahamic religions do not respect or acknowledge Hinduism, so why should Hinduism have any respect for the Abrahamic religions? What goes around comes around. Hindus call that karma.

But, if one doesn't stand for something, he will fall for anything. To say that Vaishnavas are in ignorance because they think Vaishnavism better than other religions is an attempt to deprive devotees of the responsibility to search for God and then surrender to God if they find him.

While Sukadeva Gosvami continued to speak on the transcendental pastimes and characteristics of Lord Krsna, King Pariksit, upon hearing him, became more and more enthusiastic and wanted to hear further. Sukadeva Gosvami next narrated the story of Dvivida, the gorilla who was killed by Lord Balarama. This gorilla was a great friend of Bhaumasura's, or Narakasura's, who was killed by Krsna in connection with his kidnapping sixteen thousand princesses from all over the world. Dvivida was the minister of King Sugriva. His brother, Mainda, was also a very powerful gorilla king. When Dvivida gorilla heard the story of his friend Bhaumasura's being killed by Lord Krsna, he planned to create mischief throughout the country in order to avenge the death of Bhaumasura. His first business was to set fires in villages, towns, and industrial and mining places, as well as in the residential quarters of the mercantile men who were busy dairy farming and protecting cows. Sometimes he would uproot a big mountain and tear it to pieces. In this way he created great disturbances all over the country, especially in the province of Kathwar. The city of Dvaraka was situated in this Kathwar province, and because Lord Krsna used to live in this city, Dvivida specifically made it his target of disturbance. Dvivida was as powerful as 10,000 elephants. Sometimes he would go to the seashore, and with his powerful hands he would create so much disturbance in the sea that he would overflood the neighboring cities and villages. Often he would go to the hermitages of great saintly persons and sages and cause a great disturbance by smashing their beautiful gardens and orchards. Not only did he create disturbances in that way, but sometimes he would pass urine and stool on their sacred sacrificial arena. He would thus pollute the whole atmosphere. He also kidnapped both men and women, taking them away from their residential places to the caves of the mountains. Putting them within the caves, he would close the entrances with large chunks of stone, like the bhrngi insect, which arrests and carries away many flies and other insects and puts them within the holes of the trees where he lives. He thus regularly defied the law and order of the country. Not only that, but he would sometimes pollute the female members of many aristocratic families by forcibly raping them. While creating such great disturbance all over the country, sometimes he heard very sweet musical sounds from the Raivataka Mountain, and so he entered that mountainous region. There he saw that Lord Balarama was present in the midst of many beautiful young girls, enjoying their company while engaged in singing and dancing. He became captivated by the beautiful features of Lord Balarama's body, each and every part of which was very beautiful, decorated as He was with a garland of lotus flowers. Similarly, all the young girls present, dressed and garlanded with flowers, exhibited much beauty. Lord Balarama seemed to be fully intoxicated from drinking the varuni beverage, and His eyes appeared to be rolling in a drunken state. Lord Balarama appeared just like the king of the elephants in the midst of many she-elephants. This gorilla by the name of Dvivida could climb up on the trees and jump from one branch to another. Sometimes he would jerk the branches, creating a particular type of sound, "Kila, kila," so that Lord Balarama was greatly distracted from the pleasing atmosphere. Sometimes Dvivida would come before the women and exhibit different types of caricatures. By nature young women are apt to enjoy everything with laughter and joking, and when the gorilla came before them they did not take him seriously, but simply laughed at him. However, the gorilla was so rude that even in the presence of Balarama he began to show the lower part of his body to the women, and sometimes he would come forward to show his teeth while moving his eyebrows. He disrespected the women, even in the presence of Balarama. Lord Balarama's name suggests that He is not only very powerful, but that He takes pleasure in exhibiting extraordinary strength. So He took a stone and threw it at Dvivida. The gorilla, however, artfully avoided being struck by the stone. In order to insult Balarama, the gorilla took away the earthen pot in which the varuni was kept. Dvivida, being thus intoxicated, with his limited strength began to tear off all the valuable clothes worn by Balarama and the accompanying young girls. He was so puffed up that he thought that Balarama could not do anything to chastise him, and he continued to offend Balaramaji and His companions. When Lord Balarama personally saw the disturbances created by the gorilla and heard that he had already performed many mischievous activities all over the country, He became very angry and decided to kill him. Immediately He took His club in His hands. The gorilla could understand that now Balarama was going to attack him. In order to counteract Balarama, he immediately uprooted a big oak tree, and with great force he came and struck at Lord Balarama's head. Lord Balarama, however, immediately caught hold of the big tree and remained undisturbed, just like a great mountain. To retaliate, He took His club by the name of Sunanda and began to hit the gorilla with it. The gorilla's head was severely injured. Currents of blood flowed from his head with great force, but the stream of blood enhanced his beauty like a stream of liquid manganese coming out of a great mountain. The striking of Balarama's club did not even slightly disturb him. On the contrary, he immediately uprooted another big oak tree, and after clipping off all its leaves, he began to strike Balarama's head with it. But Balarama, with the help of His club, tore the tree to pieces. Since the gorilla was very angry, he took another tree in his hands and began to strike Lord Balarama's body. Again Lord Balarama tore the tree to pieces, and the fighting continued. Each time the gorilla would bring out a big tree to strike Balarama, Lord Balarama would tear the tree to pieces by the striking of His club. The gorilla Dvivida would clutch another tree from another direction and again attack Balarama in the same way. As a result of this continuous fighting, the forest became treeless. When no more trees were available, Dvivida took help from the hills and threw large pieces of stone, like rainfall, upon the body of Balarama. Lord Balarama, also in a great sporting mood, began to smash those big pieces of stone into mere pebbles. The gorilla, being bereft of all trees and stone slabs, now stood before Him and waved his strong fists. Then, with great force, he began to beat the chest of Lord Balarama with his fists. This time Lord Balarama became most angry. Since the gorilla was striking Him with his hands, He would not strike him back with His own weapons, the club or the plow. Simply with His fists He began to strike the collarbone of the gorilla. This striking proved to be fatal to Dvivida, who immediately vomited blood and fell unconscious upon the ground. When the gorilla fell, it appeared that all the hills and forests tottered. After this horrible incident, all the Siddhas, great sages and saintly persons from the upper planetary system began to shower flowers on the person of Lord Balarama, and sounds glorifying the supremacy of Lord Balarama were vibrated. All of them began to chant, "All glories to Lord Balarama! Let us offer our respectful obeisances unto Your lotus feet. By Your killing this great demon, Dvivida, You have initiated an auspicious era for the world." All such jubilant sounds of victory were heard from outer space. After killing the great demon Dvivida and being worshiped by showers of flowers and glorious sounds of victory, Balarama returned to His capital city, Dvaraka.

I would introduce my self, but since I don't know who my self actually is, I'll just have to wait.

As a matter of a fact, there is no other way than by HIS DIVINE GRACE. Any knucklehead that thinks he can attain perfection through sadhana is intoxicated on false ego. The only way to perfection in this age is through grace. Without grace, all this sadhana is just robot-bhakti. Sadhana is good for attaining freedom from material miseries and becoming liberated, but sadhakas who think that they can attain perfection through their pathetic attempts at sadhana will NEVER attain perfection. The sooner we can realize that mercy and grace is EVERYTHING, the sooner we can start to make some actual progress beyond our little cages of false pride and false ego.

Then again, I am always very suspicious of any shastra, including the works of Bhaktivinoda Thakura, that have been translated by sadhakas who are depending on their knowledge of Bengali or Sanskrit as opposed to a fully realized soul who genuinely understands the full inner meaning and import of these revealed scriptures. Putting faith in literal translations that have been rendered by sadhakas is always risky. Genuine, self-realized acharyas know more than just language and grammar. They have realized knowledge that many times allows them to undertand the shastra from a spiritual platform as opposed to a linguistic approach. Literal translations do not take into consideration all the factors of time, place and audience. The whole process of parampara is that the successor acharya presents the shastra in the proper framework for the specific audience. This requires an empowered acharya. Linguistics cannot qualify one for presenting shastra properly according to the proper circumstances. Religion means proper adjustment. This is the teachings of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. Linguistics do not afford anyone the ability to make the proper adjustment according to the time, place and circumstance. Without proper adjustment, religions becomes irreligion

I think the greatest realization of my life was when it was revealed to me that the murti of Srila Prabhupada is functional - not just a plastic figurine. When I came to know of the murti of Srila Prabhupada actually talking to and guiding a deceased disciple, I was truly amazed and I will never see the murti of Srila Prabhupada as a figurative representation anymore. For me, I understand that the murti of Srila Prabhupada is functional and actually guides disciples even today. I feel I was granted a very special insight into how the murti of Srila Prabhupada is functional. I can never forget that. This experience, along with the experience of being initiated by the flute music of Lord Dwarakdisha, are probably the two most important experiences of my devotee life. Real initiation is by the flute music of Lord Krishna. If you haven't been initiated by the flute music of Lord Krishna, then you have something very wonderful to look forward to.

Don't forget that the person "bhagavat" must be as genuine and transcendental as the book Bhagavat. Sadhaka devotees are not really "bhagavat". They are simply aspiring to become Bhagavat. A real Bhagavat devotee is a siddha-bhakta who has graduated the sadhana and attained svarupa-siddhi. If we start referring to every sadhaka in the world as "bhagavat" then the mission of Mahaprabhu has fallen into an abyss. Let's expect and demand the highest standard from those that would be diksha gurus.

the problem with all this talk about traditional parampara for iskCON is that the Gaudiya TRADITION is that all of the genuine Gaudiya gurus in the parampara that Srila Prabhupada gave us were siddha-bhaktas. The "tradition" is a tradition of siddha gurus. The ISKCON GBC system of dozens and dozens of sadhaka gurus has nothing to do with the parampara that Srila Prabhupada represented. To call this system of sadhaka gurus as "traditional" is for the most part a deception. A genuine guru comes from the section of the infallible siddha-bhakta parampara. Techinically, sadhakas are actually bhakta-praya or candidates for becoming a bhakta. A genuine BHAKTA is a siddha-bhakta. Aspiring bhaktas are not really of the guru-tattva group. Guru-tattva, the self-realized acharyas, might be able to use sadhakas for their missions, but sadhakas are not guru-tattva.

Very good grasshopper....... Now, for your next test............ as quickly as you can............... take the pebble from my hand!

SB 3.10.28-39

Srimad Bhagavatam 2.10. 37-40

You are comparing apples and oranges. Srila Prabhupada had not established ISKCON either at that time. After establishing ISKCON and all that he had gone through to build his movement, his final instructions might have nothing to do with anything he did in India before ISKCON.

TEXT 6 TEXT kasisnuna kanaka-varna-vibhusanena bhrajat-kapola-vadano vilasat-kiritah astayudhair anucarair munibhih surendrair asevito garuda-kinnara-gita-kirtih SYNONYMS kasisnuna--shining; kanaka--gold; varna--colored; vibhusanena--with ornaments; bhrajat--shining; kapola--forehead; vadanah--His face; vilasat--dazzling; kiritah--His helmet; asta--eight; ayudhaih--with weapons; anucaraih--by followers; munibhih--by great sages; sura-indraih--by demigods; asevitah--served; garuda--by Garuda; kinnara--inhabitant of the Kinnara planet; gita--sung; kirtih--His glories. TRANSLATION The Lord's face was very beautiful, and His head was decorated with a shining helmet and golden ornaments. The helmet was dazzling and was very beautifully situated on His head. The Lord had eight arms, which each held a particular weapon. The Lord was surrounded by demigods, great sages and other associates. These were all engaged in His service. Garuda, the carrier of the Lord, glorified the Lord with Vedic hymns by flapping his wings. Garuda appeared to be an inhabitant of the planet known as Kinnaraloka. PURPORT Generally the Visnu form is manifested with four hands holding four objects (a conchshell, disc, club and lotus flower). However, here Lord Visnu is described as possessing eight arms with eight kinds of weapons. According to Viraraghava Acarya, the conchshell and lotus flower are also accepted as weapons. Since the Lord is the supreme controller, whatever is in His hand can be considered a weapon. Four hands hold four kinds of weapons, and the extra four hands hold an arrow, bow, trident and snake. Sri Viraraghava Acarya describes the eight weapons as sankha, cakra, gada, padma, sarnga, sara, etc. A king is always accompanied by his ministers, secretaries and commanders, and Lord Visnu is also accompanied by His followers--the demigods, great sages, saintly persons and so on. He is never alone. Consequently there is no question of the Lord's being impersonal. He is always Himself, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and His associates are also persons. From the description given in this verse, Garuda appears to belong to the Kinnara planet. The inhabitants of the Kinnara planet have the same features as Garuda. Their bodily features are like those of a human being, but they have wings. The word gita-kirtih indicates that the inhabitants of Kinnaraloka are very expert in singing the glories of the Lord. In Brahma-samhita it is said: jagad-anda-koti-kotisv asesa-vasudhadi-vibhuti-bhinnam. In each and every universe there are different types of planets, and each planet has distinctive features. On the strength of this verse, we can understand that in Kinnaraloka the inhabitants can fly with their wings. There is also a planet, known as Siddhaloka, where the inhabitants can fly even without wings. Thus each and every planet has some distinctive facility. That is the beauty of the varied creation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Well, since the Dutch stole south Africa from the Africans, maybe Srila Prabhupada is reflecting upon the situation there where whitey has come in and subjugated the Africans with capitalism and materialism. If the Dutch had not done that, then maybe South Africa would not have been as fertile a preaching ground as it was after they stole it from the Africans?

In reply to the statement: I would just like to say that I AM not and never HAVE BEEN a disciple or follower of Govinda Maharaja. He is NOT my guru. I already have my guru; diksha and siksha, and Govinda Maharaja is not one of them. So, "guru promotion" had nothing to do with my recommendation that new devotees should at least become acquainted with the fact that Govinda Maharaja is an acharya in the modern day Krishna consciousness movement and might benefit by finding out about him. I am NOT one of the people standing in line for a position at his Matha. Position and prestige is not on my agenda. I pass urine on position and prestige.

Why be sarcastic and disruptive.? That was a legitimate quote from Srila Prabhupada and follows the Vedic conclusions that shastra is the real father of one's second birth. The spiritual master guides one to and through shastra. Without shastra, there could be no guru. Without shastra, there is no guru. Like Sridhar Maharaja warned..... "don't think that the shastra is inanimate" The shastra is ALIVE!

There was no reference on that so-called quote from Srila Prabhupada. There is no way for anyone who is not familiar with it to view it themselves in the full context of the conversation. The so-called disciple in the quote has no name attached either. There is no date, location or any identifiable information attached to the quote. .

Yes, there are some Gandharvas who have wings. Winged Angels are known as Gandharvas. In the pastimes of Mahaprabhu, Chota Haridas committed suicide and became a Gandharva. Srila Prabhupada instruced the artist to portray the Gandharva with wings.

Is the Bible "shastra"? Do the devotee here have any opinions on whether or not the Bible is considered as shastra?

But please, let me clarify one thing on this topic. I am not connected with or representing Govinda Maharaja in any way shape fashion or form. I have been a loner for MANY years as far being a card-carrying member of any Matha or temple. A devotee asked someone on this thread what he might recommend in terms of finding a guru and I jumped in without sanction or authority and told this innocent person from the bottom of my heart who I thought was a Vaishnava that would satisfy their desire for a very high-grade Vaishnava that one could accept as a spiritual master who would be a lifelong inspiriation. I don't represent anybody or anything except my own views and my own heartfealt opinions. Pardon me for trying to help an innocent soul find a spiritual master that they can love and admire genuinely. Slugs aren't the only living creatures that need compassion.

I responded as best I could, but it didn't get past the censors. so, I don't have any other answer.