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Jai Swaminarayan! The least some of u can do before u post ur comments is read the ones posted previously. For us Lord Swaminarayan WAS, IS and WILL be sarvopari Sarva avtaari, whether u guys like it or not. We are not out there to be-little Lord Krishna. He is the most respected incarnation of God in the Swaminarayan Sampraday. And how many times will u ask what 'dharma' Lord Swaminarayan established? It is ver well known in India and the rest of the world including the British and Indian Governments...i am sure that says a lot about the ignorance of some! Oh sure, when u finally cannot deny the evidence in the Vasudev mahatmya and Skand Purana written by Bhagwan Vyasji, then it is INTERPOLATED!! ha ha ha. How convenient! And oh! that verse about Lord Swaminarayan meditating on Lord Krishna should be considered no different than when anyone starts off a scripture by meditating on God. Lord Swaminarayan meditates upon His own form of Krishna Parmatma. And even if He meditates on the avtara of Lord Krishna, well then it is well known that Lord Swaminarayan considered Lord Krishna's avtara to be the most superior avatar and was His ishtadev during His manushya leela and as such set an example to His devotees. And He very much clarifies in the Vachanamrut that the Krishna Parmatma that He meditates upon is He himself. and that for His followers it is He that is their Ishtadev. For those who get confused on the very 1st verse of the Shikshapatri, Lord Swaminarayan recommends that they should refer to the other scriptures of the Swaminarayan Sampraday for more references. Let's not misinterpret the verse becausew various avtaras such as Lord Krishna and Lord Rama have been known to pray and meditate on other forms of God, but only as part of their Leela, not as a sign of inferiority. Whether the truth be digested or not, Lord Swaminarayan for the Swaminarayan followers IS Purushottam Bhagwan, Sarvopari. I have nothing against Lord Krishna. Just like u guys would like to uphold ur ishtadev i will not stand ANY insults (curiosity is a different thing)to our Sampraday or ISHTADEV especially despite being given enough evidence, one continues to ask silly repeated questions that have already been answered. Finally i have no idea why the pics of our Acharya and the idols of God from one of our temples were posted on the forum but atleast one got some darshan! Jai Swaminarayan!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jai Swaminarayan all Thank you for your opinions dear 'leyh' and jndas and murlidhar. Please, JNDAS (administrator) the least u can do if u don't believe in Lord Swaminarayan is addres Him in the correct format..the name is Swaminarayan (as one word) not Swami narayana (as the BAPS propound). The word Swami in Swaminarayan doesn't refer to a saint, but Swami as in God. And the reason u might not have heard the word Swaminarayan is because that is a name given by Lord Swaminarayan by Himself to His devotees later on during His manifestation. U wanna hear His original names that i have already pointed out in the earlier post? they are: Hari, Krishna, and Hari Krishna....I BET U HAVE HEARD OF THOSE IN THE SCRIPTURES! Anyway everyone here can cite as many verses they want from Bhagwad to show that when Lord Krishna talks of himself as Purushottam He refers to Himself by using the word 'Me'. Of course this is true. who denies that? So does Ram in Ramayan, so does Vishnu (as he is refered to as narayan as well)etc!. And they are all correctly refered to. But there is a distinction. And the only distinction is that there is a common entity of these avtaras and that is the Avtaari! Are u trying to tell me they are all Purushottams? I know very well from the Hare krishna movement's teachings that they dont consider Ram and Vishnu as Purushottam, so where does that leave us with what i just said in the para above. What i am saying is after all the avtaras emanate from Purushottam Bhagwan Himself, through Vairaj Purush, so of course they are part and parcel of Purushottam, so whenever they talk of them being Purushottam, it is the Purushottam Bhagwan that is talking be it Ram or Krishna or Vishnu or Shiva or Narsinha or Vyasji, because these are the various forms of Purushottam Himself. If there wasn't a slight distinction between the two then there wouldn't be the concept of 'avtaar' and 'avtaari'. And i might have worded it incorrectly before but i don't necessarily mean that the 'Purushottam' is literally WITHIN the avtaar...i don't know how that works but i know that Purushottam Bhagwan acts through the Avtaar. I repeat again my aim in responding to the posts in this discussion was to point out amongst other points that the Swaminarayan sampraday is well founded in the Skand Puranas which it is and yet nobody seems to accept that! and continue like, JNDAS, to liken Lord Swaminarayan to Sai baba (which sai baba, even i don't know!), which is totally unacceptable, especially when i have given the reference to where Lord Swaminarayan's prediction of manifestation has been made in our authentic shastras. The sai baba which i think Jndas mentions, i dont think has any scriptural foundations! So like it or not, whether the truth be digested or not, Lord Swaminarayan's manifestation was never a fiction! The other point that i set out to address is that since having proved that Lord Swaminarayan is God (based on Vasudev Mahatmya written by Vyas Bhagwan), it only follows logically for us Swaminarayan followers whom we consider as our ISHTADEV to take Lord Swaminarayan's teachings as the ultimate, And accoring to Lord Swaminarayan's teachings He is Sarvopari Sarva-avtaari. So this is the same as the HAre Krishna followers and Lord Ram and Lord Shiva followers, who from their respective ishtadev scriptures, having established that their ishtadev's are obviously Gods, they then further conclude from the ishtadev's leelas and saints that their ishtadevs are Purushottam and believe and stick to that. This is what i as a Swaminarayan follower do! how is it different??????? U wanna talk about contradiction with Bhagwand Gita? well kindly read on... Just like u feel i contradict what Lord Krishna is saying in Gita, similarly if Lord Ram's dedicated followers (let's even take Hanumanji Himself!!! was to express His opinions, Hanumanji would not budge that Ram is not Purushottam bhagwan for Him, because in Lord Ram He sees the Purushottam Bhagwan, the Sarva avtaari. This would contradict the entire BHagwad Gita wehere Lord Krishna claims He is Purushottam, wouldn't it? But that is not to say that Bhagwand Gita is wrong...it can't be ! Because in all the cases where Purushottam Bhagwan is mentioned it IS the purushottam Bhagwan speaking otherwise it wouldn't make sense that there are so many Purushottams and it wouldn't make sense to have the concept of avtaar and avtaari And Murlidhar, u were very kind enough to wish me a good life for my belief in Lord Swaminarayan, u were spot on,,,i WILL and am having a very good life and so will u for ur belief in Lord Krishna who for u is above all! For me i look upon Lord Swaminarayan as that. Finally i would like to add that by stating the glory of Lord Swaminarayan if i have intentionally slandered mentally and through words any form of God or the devotees, then may Lord Swaminarayan instlill in me the intellect to retract my beliefs and pardon me.And i pray the same to the devotees involved/reading these posts,as i mentally touch Lord Swaminarayan's feet and of all the devotees here present ------------------ Jai Swaminarayan

Jai Swaminarayan Dear Murlidhar and other haribhaktos If u studied the authentic Swaminarayan Sampraday scriptures, u will realise from reading His Leelas that He had not four but Millions of what u call 'super-excellent qualities' which prove His Supreme Godliness with all the mercifulness u can imagine. Lord Swaminarayan has shown through His leelas and teachings that He is the Supreme Being. Since the prediction of the manifestation of Lord Swaminarayan is well founded in the Skand Puranas (Vasudev Mahatmya - a scripture written by Bhagwan Ved Vyasji), it is only logical for His devotees to understand that since Lord Swaminarayan IS God (as written in the above mentioned scripture), AND that Lord Swaminarayan Himself has taught His devotees that He is Purushottam, then for us devtees of Lord Swaminarayan that is final. And when you read His leelas one can only conclude the same! One thing u have to remember is that in the Swaminarayan Sampraday we do not encourage and it is a sin for us to be-little incarnations of Purushottam, because they are after all incarnations/forms of God. So we will not resort to that. However i will say this; There is Krishna, as in Krishna Parbrahm, and there is Krishna as in the divine avtaar of The Krishna Parbrahm. The Lord Krishna that was born to Devkiji was Prushottam Bhagwan's Avtaar and yes as even propunded by Lord Swaminarayan Himself, the avtaar of Lord Krishna is the most supreme of all incarnations....however the Cause of all incarnations is the ONE AND ONLY also refered to as Krishna,and this Krishna/Narayan/Vasudev Bhagwan is the Highest Supreme Sarvopari Bhagwan, the Sarva-Avtaari! And it is this Krishna that all the scriptures refer to as the Supreme Godhead, NOT the divine INCARNATION of Lord Krishna. Although it is very wrong to say on the other hand that the incarnation of Krishna is a completely separate entity...NO!, because it is from the energy of the Purushottam and through Vairaj Purush that an incarnation emanates. During the leelas of avtaars , when the respective Avtaar talks of Himself as Purushottam, it is the Purushottam Bhagwan within the avtaar that is talking, not the avtaar. And it is this common source Shree Krishna Purushottam that scriptures refer to even when talking about different avtaars. There can't be more than one purushottam. So it only makes sense that the Krishna Purushottam mentioned in scriptures is not the avtaar of Krishna bhagwan but the Avtaari Shree Krishna Bhagwan Lord Swaminarayan's preachings and Leelas point to the fact that this Kirshna Purshottam is He Himself, whether the truth be digested or not. And if we are going to argue on the NAME 'Krishna', well then by the same token Lord Swaminarayan's names given to Him by Markanday Muni during his name giving ceremony were : 1)HARI 2)KRISHNA and 3)HARIKRISHNA So in that respect too we could say that the 'Krishna' refered to in our Srimad bhagwat and Gita referes to Lord Swaminarayan (even though lord Swaminarayan manifested much later doesn't nullify the above because even Lord Krishna didn't incarnate whereas shastras describing Krishna Purushottam existed from the very beginning But it is not the above reason that Lord Swaminarayan is considered Purushottam. It is Lord Swaminarayan's own revelations and past times that afford Him the title. I apologise that from stating that Lord Swaminarayan is Sarvopari Purushottam, there seems to be some arrogance from my part and other devotees that would feel the same, however it is equally insulting and extremely arrogant of other people to repeatedly question even the mere AUTHENTICITY of the Swaminarayan Sampraday despite the references given! If it is too much to take that we consider Lord Swaminarayan as Purushottam then that is not to say that Lord Swaminarayan's faith is hypocritical/tailor-made...all it means is that we hold our ishtadev to be the highest based on His very teachings. In line with 'pvarsani's' comments afore mentioned, in ISKON i know that the avtaar of Lord Krishna is considered Highest and as Purushotam Himself and they worship Lord Ram too, but as an incarnation of Lord Krishna........But if u'd go to a Lord Ram's temple they will have the view that Lord Ram is on par with Lord Krishna as Purushottam and that Lord Krishna is just another exact form of Lord Ram. Therefore moving away from competitions with Gods, it is clear that what is important here is that one is married to an 'authentic' ishtadev based on scriptures, which Lord Swaminarayan IS, and for one to believe/follow the ishtadev's teachings to the last word..and that is what we as His followers are doing. And therefore let one forget the idea of ruling out Swaminarayan sampradaya as an authentic scripture based sampradaya simply because we regard Lord Swaminarayan as the Highest or simply because one hasn't heard much about the Swaminarayan faith.(that is not our fault...we have thousands of temples and activities) To be honest because in School i heard more about Jesus, until i first dug deep about Lord Swaminarayan, i would have assumed that Lord Swaminarayan's teachings were non-existent...but i read them and they made sense....similarly people should b reading up on Lord Swaminarayan's teachings before assuming it is a non authentic faith with no relation to the Vaishnav devotees/philosophy. And Murlidhar, definitely Govinda has a lot appealing about His beauty and leelas, but for me i will never find someone more beauteous and merciful than Lord Swaminarayan. In His leelas, He was so merciful that He sent even non-devotees in samadhi (trance) and sent them to Akshardhaam where they saw all the incarnations merging into Him. For me that says it all. And then there is a leela where Lord Swaminarayan transformed a well known dangerous dacoit named Joban Pagi (the indian government will vouch for this) by His mere darshan, to a dedicated saintly devotee. Lord Swaminarayan...Merciful,very merciful to ALL. 'sarvajeevahitavaha' ------------------ Jai Swaminarayan