cbrahma

What kind of response??????

Gour Hari I know someone who may want to buy your house In Govardhana. I am still in India. I will return to braja from delhi on the 28th. I will be in Govardhana on purnima January 3rd. Can you arrange for me to look at it and let me know how much you want for it?

My email is purudas@gmail.com

One can argue from this then that a hard-harted person cannot be a bhakta. Wow, I guess I've rarely met a bhakta.

If you favor initiation, that's the only way to go. I for one do not need a human master.

Well I guess you can't be initiated by Prabhupada anymore so I guess I am going to have to wait for the next self effulgent acarya to come along.

I've experienced worse karma when following a process of chanting and devotion. Some devotees use the fan metaphor. The electricity is turned off and the fan continues...but slows down..my fan sped up.

Not saying that I have a disability.

 

But, lets say a person has a disability, it does not have to be physical or mental disability. It could just be something that he cannot do as easily as other people.

Lets say you are not as smart as the next guy. You try and try but you fail at something but the next guy does it in a second. He is inherently more capable than you at the same task that you both have to do. Why do we have this distinction?

 

Lets establish that it is a karmic output, then why doesn't the disabled man lose his disability once he surrenders to God? Your past karma leaves when you surrender, yes?

Nobody has ever tried to push their guru on me. They just look down their noses at my not being initiated. A condition they are quite content with and I am content not to change.

I can say with absolute certainty I've never seen cows eating meat.

From what I have read about pigeons, it seems they are vegetarian. But I do not know anough about them to be sure. However, I can say that cows are vegetarian.

You may abandon the idea of hasty initiation,

I abandon the idea of initiation altogether. I am initiated by baptism. I don't need to be enslaved by a human being. The Papacy tried it and failed miserably.

Association of 'devotees' those who have realized what's in the books. Association is a completely different issue from initiation. It doesn't argue for living guru no more than Prabhupada did. (I don't want to have to copy those quotes again.

Whether he ate sausages at one time, it is documented that he was vegetarian at another. Let's face it, the history of vegetarian cultures is quite bellicose riddled with wars. It's no guarantee of spiritual anthing. Prabhupada admitted 'pigeons are vegetarian'.

So are you saying that Jesus doesn't love me?

If he doesn't, than obviously Christianity is not universal and not the great religion you suppose it is.

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You said Jesus didn't love you. Not I. I said just the opposite in a prior post.

Only a fool would say that the Bible is not one book, because it is.

I am not a neither a Gaudiya Vaishnava nor a Vaishnava in general, so my spiritual advancement does not come only from the Bhagavatam Purana or the Bhagavad Gita. Hindu texts range from the Vedas, to Upanishads, to poetry about the sublime. Also, surprising as it may seem to all of you, there is spirituality in Western literature besides religious texts

 

It was not written as a single book. It was compiled over a long period of time from very different texts and different sources. Calling it 'one book' is deliberately misleading. It's like saying the Mahabharata, or the Srimad Bhagavatam is just one book.

 

Forget Christianity for a second and examine yourself. When did I ever state that I accepted the statue itself as God? When? The answer: never. Being as naive as you are, you are putting words in my mouth to prove the superiority of one religion over another. The statue is a representation of God, not God Himself

 

Then you are bowing down to something which is not God. Same difference. What does that have to do with me?

You're barking up a very slim tree.

If historical documentation were that inadequate, scholars would have refuted Christianity as pure myth a long time ago. Most Gospels were written within the lifetime of the evangelists. They compiled oral tradition. An understanding of this kind of tradition is essential in that it carries eye witness accounts through the community over time. The same can be said of the Srimad Bhagavatam. Whether the writers were the original apostles is not critical to their authenticity. Paul never saw Jesus but associated with many who had (Peter) I'm afraid you're grasping at straws here.

There exists no evidence that the New Testament came from the purported original apostles or anyone else that had seen the alleged Jesus. Although the oldest surviving Christian texts came from Paul, he had never seen the earthly Jesus. There occurs nothing in Paul's letters that either hints at the existence of the Gospels or even of a need for such memoirs of Jesus Christ. The oldest copy of the New Testament yet found consists of a tiny fragment from the Gospel of John. Scholars dated the little flake of papyrus from the period style of its handwriting to around the first half of the 2nd century C.E. The language of most of the new testament consists of old Greek.

It's all a matter of chronology as with most vegetarians.

"If I offer a child the choice between a pear and a piece of meat, he'll quickly choose the pear. That's his atavistic instinct speaking."

- Adolf Hitler. December 28, 1941. Section 81, HITLER'S TABLE TALK

"The only thing of which I shall be incapable is to share the sheiks' mutton with them. I'm a vegetarian, and they must spare me from their meat."

- Adolf Hitler. January 12, 1942. Section 105, HITLER'S TABLE TALK

"At the time when I ate meat, I used to sweat a lot. I used to drink four pots of beer and six bottles of water during a meeting. … When I became a vegetarian, a mouthful of water was enough."

- Adolf Hitler. January 22, 1942. Section 117, HITLER'S TABLE TALK

"When you offer a child the choice of a piece of meat, an apple, or a cake, it's never the meat that he chooses. There's an ancestral instinct there."

- Adolf Hitler. January 22, 1942. Section 117, HITLER'S TABLE TALK

Hitler was not a vegetarian, that is an urban legend, a bogus conception probably propagated by meateaters. Jesus was(is) an eternally liberated soul who descended to earth to bring the ignorant meateaters to a path of God consciousness. Such souls can eat anything and not have their consciousness contaminated by it.

You are wrong here. Caitanya Mahaprabhu taught simultaneous oneness and difference between the jiva and God. Jesus said "I and my Father are one." He also said "The Father is greater than I" in a verse that follows that in the next chapter of John. That is exactly what Gaudiya Vaisnavas teach. Not all vaisnavas but GV.

I was expecting that inconceivable rabbit out of the theological hat.

acintya beda beda tattva means we are equal in quality but not quantity.

If we are God in the second sense, then we should all be worshipped. Nobody should be bowing to anybody else.

Diksa in the deepest sense of the word refers to being reborn of the spirit as in "You must be born again to enter the kingdom of God."

 

You may not get along with Iskcon's ways as many of us here do not but don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

The sense of diksa applied to human beings I reject, is a worshipable being to which we must surrender totally and bow down.

This is idolatry. Do not commit 'argumentum ad hominem' by constantly referring to my position on ISKCON. Do not obfuscate intelligent and justifiable rejection by repainting it as irrational hatred. That tactic is too easy. I can play it also.

Ayodhya:

Jesus does not love me, because I am a pagan.

I do not believe in the God of the Old Testament.

I do not believe that Jesus is my savior.

I do not believe Jesus to be the best person on the planet Earth (Gandhi definitely seems better)

I do not believe that Jesus died for my sins.

 

 

I bow to idols. I've broken the First Commandment a thousand times, thus as God, he would feel the need to punish me as Moses did when they created a statue of a cow (which by the way, I consider sacred).

 

 

That is your option. I choose not to. It is inconsistent with my faith.

Your hatred for ISKON blinds you cbrahma.

 

My 'hatred' for ISKCON is based on knowledge and experience, not blindness. I more moved, however, by my love of Jesus on which you are not an authority.

Simply because it states in the Bible that Jesus rose the dead does not mean he actually did it or actually even lived. You are discrediting an entire religion because of one book - and that is the mark of a fundamentalist (which is a bad thing, by the way).

 

Actually the Bible isn't just one book. It is a compilation of many many texts over several centuries. Bhagavad Gita is also one book.

Likewise, just because the SB says that MahaVisnu laid down in the ocean breathed out universes doesn't mean he did. If you believe it you are a fundamentalist, of course.

Can it also be said that simply because Frodo took the ring to Mt.Doom that it is also true?

 

You're acting on blind faith, not reason. This gets you nowhere, however comforting it may be to derail another's religion.

 

No blinder than you for accepting that a statue is God.

So, Jesus wants to save me too, a pagan, and idolater, who he specifically condemns to Hell?

 

No, he doesn't want to, because Jesus doesn't love me.

 

Where does Jesus say He doesn't love you? He said he came to save the world not to condemn it. He is incapable of anything but Love. He exhorts us even to love our enemies.

Who says these gurus are not God? You? And what makes Jesus different than Self-Realized souls? The fact that it says so in the Bible? That doesn't meaning anything.

 

 

all gurus are not krsna-tattva but jiva-tattva. I don't subsribe to the idea that Godlike = God.

There are many saints who are godlike but they do not equal God and will be the first to object to such an identification.

It violates the First Commandment - in the Judao-Christian tradition. "I am the Lord thy God. You will have no other gods before me".

To worship something/somebody is to consider that something/somebody a god. It is idolatry.

If the 'as good as God' is to be accepted then I want proof. Let the guru raise somebody from the dead. Then I will believe it. Otherwise it is vain boasting.

And why is idolatry bad?

I can't prostrate to a statue of Krishna?

 

You can do whatever your conscience dictates. I will not do it. The first commandment forbids idolatry.

Then obviously, Hitler reaches enlightenment and Jesus gets to be reborn.

Thus speaketh Ayodhya.

I was responding to the accusation that Jesus could not be guru.

Jesus is guru in role of teacher and savior. But he is not just a human being, he is also divine, in a way that is not in accord with the jiva-tattva philosophy of the vaisnavas. He does ask me to follow his commandments because He is one with the Father God. This is where it differs from the diksa concept. So many humans are being worshipped as god in the same way that Jesus is. But these self-appointed (or committee-appointed) 'gurus' are NOT GOD. It offends me to see people worship them and prostrate themselves to them. It is idolatry.

That's fine. He is my guru also, (that is to the degree that I actually follow his teachings).

 

 

 

Yes he is not interested our prostations, that is what makes him worthy to prostrate before. It is just a sign of respect.

 

In Christrian churches it is common for people to lift their hands and heads upward and cry out "I praise your Holy Name Jesus." That is also respectful and proper.

 

 

 

 

True there are no such rituals in Christianity. A guru has no real interest in your ritual purity. Jesus has only one interest and that is helping us love Krsna (God). Different disciplines are attractive to different people and in many rituals are important training devices for the disciples mind.

 

You say Jesus forbids you.... isn't being forbidden to do something your objection to the idea of guru? Do you thinks Jesus wants to control you for some egocentric reason?

 

 

 

That's fine. He is my Guru also, (that is to the degree that I actual follow his teachings). But shouln't a follow of Jesus have the attitude that, "Your very wish is my command Lord Jesus?"

 

Anyway you are way too angry to reason with right now. You are in a mood to fight it seems.

 

Chant Lord Jesus Christ and whatever name for the Father that you choose and you will come unto perfection.

Hitler was a vegetarian. Jesus ate fish.

It may seem like that now, but once you've taken to this Hare Krishna lifestyle & diet you will notice how wrong and ignorant you had been living, and how much unnecessary hurt and suffering you caused to countless innocent creatures. Only one in ignorance will equating the killing of plantlife with the killing of animals and will fail to see that animals obviously have a much more developed consciousness than plantlife. By meat eating one remains in ignorance and will be unable to realize any spiritual subject matter, that is not only stated in the Vedic scripture but by practical experience one can also establish this for fact by him/herself. A practical example has been given many times, as meat eaters commonly equate the killing of vegetables with the killing of animals.

 

Vegetarian vs. Vegan. This "battle" is a very recent phenomenon. Due to today's greedy exploitational attitude by money hungry people, vegetarianism has come under fire for supporting the meat industry by taking milkproducts. if it weren't for the phenomenon of industry (greed), this problem wouldn't have arisen. See the Vedic literature where countless numbers of cows were donated and herded without problems. Meat eating is a sinful and destructive diet, vegetarianism is the natural diet of man, while the vegan diet means taking things over the top.

Though it's better to take your diet seriously, if you were to keep in mind the processes of any mainstream product today you couldn't even buy a new set of clothes because you basically know it will come from India or anywhere else in Asia 90% of the time, where production methods pollute holy rivers which will kill aquatics and cause serious illness among humans, where workers are sure to be underpayed and laboring in inhumane circumstances, some underraged, while the importing party buys the clothing dirtcheap while selling it at extortional rates.

Also you shouldn't take electricity, just light candles because by taking electricity you attribute to airpollution, cancer inducing electricity poles and other toxic waste (Erin Brockovich).

What it means is that, this is Kali Yuga and there are always going to be processes you use which are going to harm other living beings, either directly or indirectly.

 

The point is to just be conscious of what you buy and consume. Don't buy commercial milk, it's not that hard to find biological milk. Milk and the Vedic culture are inseperable, Krishna accepts milkproducts as an offering, so any karmic reaction will be negated if offered to Him. Who knows, the cow who's milk is offered to Krishna may even receive a blessing.

Jesus is my Teacher my Master in the sense that guru is used. In fact His salvific power is very similar to that of the diksa taking the soul back to God, taking on the karma of the disciple.

As far as his historicity is concerned your opinion differs with scholarship.

Josephus, in the book Jewish Antiquities" wrote:

"At that time lived Jesus, a wise man, if he may be called a man; for he performed many wonderful works. He was a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. . . .And when Pilate, at the instigation of the chief men among us, had condemned him to the cross, they who before had conceived an affection for him did not cease to adhere to him. For on the third day he appeared to them alive again, the divine prophets having foretold these and many other wonderful things concerning him. And the sect of the Christians, so called from him, subsists at this time" (Antiquities, Book 18, Chapter 3, Section 1).

Tacitus, in writing about accusations that Nero burned the city of Rome and blamed it on Christians, said the following:

". . .Nero procured others to be accused, and inflicted exquisite punishment upon those people, who were in abhorrence for their crimes, and were commonly known by the name of Christians. They had their denomination from Christus (Christ, dm.), who in the reign of Tibertius was put to death as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate. . . .At first they were only apprehended who confessed themselves of that sect; afterwards a vast multitude discovered by them, all of which were condemned, not so much for the crime of burning the city, as for their enmity to mankind. . . ." (Tacitus, Annals, 15, 44).

There are many documents oral traditions etc...many of which were compiled as the canonic New Testament that speaks of Jesus.

There's as much proof of his existence as the existence of any other well known Jew of the period such as Saul of Tarsus of wrote copiously on the subject.

He was the Messiah of the Jews and of all of humanity. He was the Savior of all the world. I know because he sent his apostles to preach to all the nations.

In fact it was Paul's specific mission to evangalize the Gentiles (non-Jews).

the only "evidence" that Jesus ever existed is in the gospels of Jewish authors.

There is nothing in any objective historical record that substantiates that Jesus ever really existed.

 

The Romans who "crucified him" have no history or record of that and the Romans were very literate and good keepers of historical records.

 

Anyway, Jesus was supposed to be a messiah, not a guru.

To say that Jesus is guru is very mixed-up blend of conceptions.

 

The messiah was an anticipated saviour of the Jewish peoples.

Jesus himself was supposed to have said "I have come only for the tribes of Israel."

So, unless you are from one of the tribes of Israel, it is unlikely that Jesus can do anything for you.

Guru means someone who has NO desire to control others but only the desire to serve Krsna. This is what distinguishs someone as guru as opposed to the rest of us.

 

That quality is what makes surrendering to Guru the same as surrendering to Krsna. If he only has a desire to serve Krsna then he can guide others in that way. And if he accepts disciples that means he commits to pleasing Krsna by bringing those specific lost souls back to Krsna.

 

Unless one actually is enlightened by the Lord as to this quality being present in some teacher no one should surrender to him as his servant.

 

 

Well my Guru is Jesus. He doesn't ask for prostration. Doesn't watch for ritual offenses. Forbids me to 'surrender' to any human as 'teacher/father' (guru). If the guru is merely supposed to lead, to enlighten, what's up with the surrender. Why should I jump when he barks?

Misunderstanding? The fear is well founded. There is no misunderstanding. Having one human being in total control of another is diabolical. Anyone

who fears it has there head screwed on right.

'And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven' (see Matthew 23:8-10)."

Your statement is false, though it is a common misunderstanding among those who fear initiation..

I'm neither evangelical or Catholic. How many times am I going to have to make the point among the 'you too' finger pointing kiddies that Christianity has corruption. At least it doesn't outright demand complete subservience of one human by another. And the rites and rituals are nowhere near as complicated and fraught with possiblity of offenses. Catholic hegemony was the most corrupt and false Christianity. It was eventually overthrown. If one takes the Gospels, there is not this profusion of little rules and regulations and submissions and self-torturing rituals...

Ummm...

Did someone forget that hundreds of priests raped altar boys?

 

Christian theology may, on a more metaphorical level, come close to Eastern theology, but in, in no way surpasses it.

 

Krishna is Love incarnate, as are we all, if we choose to be. Follow whatever faith you wish, but I think it is important to keep the spirituality alive. Don't completely wipe out any fragments of Eastern theology that may have existed simply because of some silly organization.

 

Hindu thought goes far beyond Krishna Consciousness, man.

 

If you need a regular Hindu to talk to, I'm here.

The Gaudiya Math is pretty much history precisely because of the acarya debacle. The proliferation of gurus splintered the movement just like in ISKCON. The bottom line of course is that one doesn't get 'hired' by appointment to the post of guru like a CEO of a corporation. But it's great control mechanism, which is all this diska obsession is about.

Fairness is beside the point. It's based on observable facts excruciating and convicting as they are.

I conceded in my previous posts that there is also corruption in Christianity to head off what I knew would become a finger pointing 'you too' competition. That childish fault-finding is so common in ISKCON. So predictable. I'm not evangelical. No pastor has me on a leash , short or otherwise. I know many godbrothers and godsisters who are the same. I don't call anyone master other than the Lord Himself. I do that without fear because Christ is Love incarnate. The ISKCON Uriah Heeps always bowing and namaste-ing each other record every offense imagined or otherwise, hoping others will suffer consequences, waiting for them to fall.

Arrogant and unloving.

You don't have to surrender to anyone but God as an absolute power sure there has been abuse of this in ISKCON but - you're not being fair in that every faith has this aspect - including the christian faith - in fact - many evangelical 'leaders' keep their 'flock' on a very short leash.

 

You're generalizing and you're being unfair...

There have been reported incidents as late as 2005. Nothing really changes except for the pressures exerted by legal authorities. Otherwise these little ones would still be raped by these patholigical weirdos in robes and beads. And please stop copy-pasting all these verses. They don't make a very clear point. They are a long-winded puffing of no specific statement. I was wondering when the word bitter would show up. I was not personally attacked or mistreated because I would never be so 'surrendered' to allow such a thing. Iv'e witnessed and was privy to a lot of others abuses. That is bad enough. It doesn't make me bitter. Just much wiser and incapable of being duped. Furthermore what kind of mercy calls itself master and makes hundred and one demands. What kind of mercy catalogues offenses for the most minor actions. What kind of mercy has their 'loved ones' prostrating themselves in anxiety for committing the slighest infractions. Rubbish. Sell it to somebody with their head firmly lodged in their backside.

The abuses mostly took place after l977. after His Divine Grace entered maha samadhi.

 

You may have been bruised and thinks this way but your opinion is relative to your own mental quantum. Somany disciples, women and others were ...