AncientMariner

Prabhupada might not be interested in it at all, who knows but just because I found the Urantia Book to be an awesome book doesn't mean that I am buying into the concept that human beings are a genetic hybrid of the abominable snowman and aliens. Wo! ha-haaa. I don't know if the Urantia Book awakened my eternal identity as a confidential servant of Sri Sri Radha-Govinda or not but it did help restore my lost childhood faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Despite my love for Prabhupada (which I am sure many would criticize or question) I still feel a need to have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Theist, As usual your brutal honesty is refreshing to us all but if you think your devotional service is dull or half hearted you are not alone. I have to use multipliers to finish my 16 rounds a day anymore. With the right multipliers I can get done in no time at all. I also switch back and forth between spiritual masters (Prabhuada and Christ) on a regular basis to try and reduce the amount of restrictions on my behavior and looking for loopholes in the Vasnaiva code. In fairness to Prabhupada I only consider him my spiritual master not that he has accepted me as his student. So as you can see my propensity to cheat is off the charts.

Did Jesus have a spiritual master? I have no doubt that Jesus is a saktyavesa-avatara so does that mean that from birth he was empowered by Krishna and if so does that mean that Krishna was his guru from within or was John the Baptist his guru and if so what sampradaya was John the Baptist from? I wish there really were no hard and fast rules to chanting but one minute they say there is hard and fast rules to chanting and next minute they say there is no hard and fast rules to chanting. Hopefully this trying to figure out who is properly initiated and who is not properly initiated is an Earthly phenomena. On the Vaikuntha planets we will probably be so busy in our particular relationship with Krishna that all these squabbles will seem ridiculous in hindsight.

Teachings of Lord Kapila page 197 Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu teaches: "O almighty Lord, I have no desire to accumulate wealth, nor do I desire beautiful women, nor do I want any number of followers. I only want Your causless devotional service birth after birth."

In fairness to Bush accusing him of killing her son is ridiculous. Last time I checked military service is optional in the United States of America. If she is protesting against the war then organize a way to get Bush voted out of office but hurling personal insults at the President is hardly nonviolent dissent. Why doesn't she hurl insults at the house and senate as well? If you go into a public forum and hurl accusations at the President it is the duty of the secret service and law enforcement to insure the safety of the President. If you join the military there is a chance you are going to have to fight in a war. If you fight in a war there is a chance you are going to die. Everyone of these soldiers is aware of the risk and they chose to take on that risk. Blaming all of the evils of the world on Bush is cowardly. I know modern day spiritualists hate conservatives and anyone who isn't a liberal is evil but I just don't buy it. All I ask is that you kindly tolerate my difference of opinion and don't kill me just because I don't agree with you all.

I'm with you, I want to be Krsna's friend and hang out with him all the time. No offense to the rocks and trees etc... but I don't want to be a rock or a tree, I would like to be Krsna's friend and if they have golf courses in Vrndavana I would like to play golf with Him everyday. The main thing is that you are with Him all the time. No more of this eternal waiting game.

Go tell that to the university professors and they will have you committed to a mental hospital and acuse you of living in a fairy tale world. They are so busy trying to figure out if humans are causing global warming they don't have time to try and understand God. LOL. Just kidding to the college professors, you know I luv ya.

I have always kind of thought that last minute before death is almost like your consciousness getting ready to blast off on a rocket ship. That is the moment that makes all the conflicts etc. of material life seem utterly ridiculous in hindsight. From what I read in Gita if you are prepared for that moment and chant Hare Krishna you will surely reach Krishna's planet which has to be quite a rocket ship ride. I don't know if we ever actually fly it alone though. It is in material nature that we are trying to fly alone and constantly being defeated by our unwillingness to let Krishna be our pilot and true friend.

Based on reading the internet I would say definetly yes. I gave up on Christianity as a religion because they argue over the smallest things like wether you go to church on Saturday or Sunday determines wether you going to spend eternity in heaven or an eternity in hell. Now I see the same thing happening in Prabhupada's movement. My attitude is to avoid the whole thing and if anyone is interested I will tell people that I read these amazing books by Srila Prabhupada and if they are interested read them and chant the names of the Lord even if you want to use a different name of God than Krsna and have a good day. That is as far into the guru business I ever want to get.

Yep your absolutely right. Until we are situated to where we know beyond all doubt that we are eternal we are enslaved or even addicted to some form of religous ritualism.

I had a Buddhist friend who once told me that most people do not get spiritual until they are about to die. I am not even completely sure that is true because a lot of people are probably still dreaming of sense gratification when they die.

"corpses flapping for awhile" That reminds me of a music video I once saw where a fish is flapping around outside of its fishbowl and a piano is playing a sad but beautiful tune in the background.

Definetly thanks for posting that. Great piece of information. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada!!!

I don't think I will ever get that advanced in this life. I have had too many people tell me to take my philosophy and put it where the sun don't shine including my relatives. It makes me lose interest in trying to convince anyone. Oh well hopefully Krishna will still have mercy on me even though I am reluctant to preach on his behalf.

I have to admit that does leave a hole in the ritvik argument that I never even considered. Personally I can't understand why people would want to take on disciples but I can see how Prabhupada could still authorize a sincere devotee to accept their own disciples if he is still able to accept a disciple on his own behalf through a ritvik.

"What ritvik proponents concede that Srila Prabhupada can still order someone to accept initiation?" I am not sure I understand the question. Do you mean what ritvik proponents concede that Srila Prabhupada can still order people to become diksha gurus and accept their own disciples? If that is the question that is a good question that I am not sure what the ritvik response would be. I don't know what you mean by Prabhupada ordering someone to accept initiation. Did Prabhupada do that? Order people to accept initiation? Oh well I will drop the subject, I just didn't understand your question.

I have seen a celebrity mugshot of Axl Rose before. "Take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty, oh wont you please take me home."

No offense but it seems to me you just made the ritviks point for them. The devestation in Iskcon has been from gurus acting without proper authority. It seems in your case and your friends case you acted as instructing gurus and lead them to service of Srila Prabhupada and it sounds like it worked nicely. In fairness to the ritvik proponents that I have talked to none of them deny that Srila Prabhupada can't still guide his sincere disciples. In fact that seems to be one of their main problems with the current construction of Iskcon is that you can't go to a temple and try to take guidance from Prabhupada that you are pressured into being initiated by some other guru other than Prabhupada. I don't know where the truth lies on this subject but I have been trying to figure it out for some time. Sorry if I have offended you in anyway.

That's a great article, I really enjoyed it. "But one finds reasons to get up in the morning other than to attend mangala-arti and sell Bhagavad Gitas or bumper stickers to uninterested karmis." That's the part of Krishna Consciousness I have never been able to stomach, always trying to convince uninterested karmis in something they don't even want to be convinced of.

That's funny because I had the exact same kind of depression and spent 3 months in a mental hospital in the summer of 1991. I got tired of college so I quit college and just started reading a bunch of philosophy books including Bhagavad Gita and I got a job working at a golf course. . My friends and family members began to swarm on me in complete anxiety over me quitting college and all the pressure just triggered this horrible depression because I didn't feel like they understood what I was going through. I kept telling people I needed to find a spiritual master so I could understand Bhagavad Gita. I was even at the point where I thought the only way to save myself is if I go to India but I was too depressed to even do that. When I first read Bhagavad Gita I found it to be fascinating but I didn't completely understand it. I would tell the doctors I needed to find a spiritual master and they looked at me like I was into voodoo or something. Somehow I survived all the meds. I have been on nearly every psychiatric medication known to mankind. I gave up everything to do with spirituality for quite a few years but one day I was walking through the Seattle airport and some devotees gave me some books and I started reading Bhagavad Gita again and for some reason I have a much clearer understanding of it now. I wish I would have read all those quotes by Prabhupada that you can get the essence of his books simply by reading them over and over again then I wouldn't have had so much confusion over the whole finding a spritual master issue.

Does association with the book Bhagavata count as association with advanced devotees if the book Bhagavata was composed by a pure devotee?

My family are mostly 7th Day Adventists and they think anything to do with meditation, yoga, Krsna etc. is the work of the enemy (Satan). My uncle is a 7th day Adventist and his son married a Mormon and became a Mormon and now my uncle says things like "I have to enjoy my son while he is on Earth because he won't be in heaven with me." I have a Christian friend who is a hunter and he says things like "My neighbor is being controlled by the enemy (Satan)because she is an animal rights activist." After all that and I am the crazy one because I believe God is a blue boy. America is a strange place to live.

One time I had a nervous breakdown and my Dad burned all my books including a copy of Bhagavad Gita because he thought that the books were the causes of my mental problems. It never occured to him that him running out on my mother so he could sleep with another woman might have had something to do with all the negative emotions I was feeling. Now that I look back on it some of the books he burned probably were worthy of being burned but it really made me mad that he burned Bhagavad Gita. Luckily we haven't ended up killing each other and although he is still much more interested in Nascar than he will ever be in Krishna we have at least a functionable relationship and it certainly makes my life easier and my devotional life easier to not harbor so much resentment against my father.

I have always hoped I could keep waiting on the sidelines until the Kalki-avatar comes but I don't see how I can possibly manage to keep this physical body alive for another 427,000 years. I love the chanting and the books but I just can't stomach the preaching part of it. Isn't it an offense to preach to people that don't want to hear it? At least that is the excuse I always come up with in my brain to save me the trouble.

Yeah when Moses talked to Krishna in the form of the burning bush, Krishna decided that the primitive people living in the desert were probably not advanced enough to understand full blown Krishna Consciousness so instead of giving Moses a copy of Srimad Bhagavatam He gave Moses the 10 commandments.