atbas

How to Avoid Committing Offenses on the Internet In the modern world of Internet communication, misunderstanding, exaggeration and faulty presentations are frequently encountered and easily perpetuated. The following precautions are offered as a humble attempt to protect the innocent Vaishnavas and their friends who read Internet articles, pages and forums. These points may also be useful for those who are writing on the internet. What they write may either encourage or discourage their readership By becoming aware of these points, they will naturally desire to be a source of inspiration rather thanto cause any disturbance to the faith of others. 1.)The Internet should never be used to condemn others without them giving themthe opportunity to clarify their position. 2.)Nobody should be accused of any wrongdoing or spoken ill about, until their guilt is proven through very thorough investigation. And in the case that someone is proven to be deviant, the topic should be handled with utmost care. Actually to speak or write about someone’s shortcomings should only serve the purpose of helping the deviant person recognize his faults while helping othersavoid making the same mistakes 3.)Writing about other people’s defects in a public forum is very dangerous. Any offense expressed on the Internet is multiplied by the number of people who read it. A glaring example involves My own spiritual master. Srila Prabhupada has sometimes been accused of offenses that others in his mission committed, and he is often quoted out of context in order to portray him as someone who is against women, or a racist or whatever they may regard him to be. Such comments are extremely detrimental to those who write or read them, since Prabhupada is really an excellent provider of devotional inspiration, uniting male and female and all races in the joint effort of spreading the message of love around the world. 4.)It is easy for people sitting and writing in front of a computer screen to lose sensitivity towards others. They use uncultured words, are full of prejudicesand frequently create or promote lies. Then there are others, who in order to serve their sectarian ends, decry the sincere efforts other Vaishnavas or express such a fanatic presentation of their own endeavors that it is offensive to others without even mentioning them by name And then there are the readers, who are looking for faults and scandals, and who are not so interested in the cultured philosophical debates, which definitely have a place amongst Vaishnavas. 5.)Before you start reading a page or a forum, check to see if the creators observe such precautions. Otherwise your devotional creeper may be severely curtailed in its growth. 6.)Individuals and missions who propagate false information about others, publicly dwellon other people’s faults, minimize or offend other Vaishnavas, usually disappear after some time or become blatantly deviant 7.)The Internet is full of inherent dangers. It can be used to promote various sinful activities and even worse, to create negative feelings and politics against Vaishnavas. At the same time, it is an indispensible tool for sharing nectar and communicating with Vaishnavas. All Vaishnavas, or those who aspire to become Vaishnavas, have received so much causeless grace. We should try to do all we can so that others may receive this same grace. Using the Internet is a very effective way to do this. At the same time we should also try to protect others from unnecessary disturbances. All the gossip, politics and negative comments, even if they seem to be pleasing to the intellect of some, have no effect other than disturbing one’s faith. There are definitely many wonderful services provided by the Vaishnavas for the general public and for the Vaishnava community. On the Harekrishnaworldnews Blog you can find a list of services offered by all the different Vaishnava missions. And if you feel that an important mission or project is missing there or that there is some important news to share, please write to the webmaster to include it. We have to keep in mind that a great amount of generosity is required to spread the message of love of Lord Chaitanya in this present age of Kali-yuga. Undoubtedly there will be different approaches, levels of realizations and diverse opinions, but as we observe the various activities expanding on the Internet and elsewhere, we should remember that Mahaprabhu predicted that every town and village in the world would be touched. According to my humble opinion, this requires many thousands of spiritual masters and countless Vaishnava temples and missions. If we can support each other in this purpose on the Internet, that will very beneficial. But if anyone thinks he owns the copyright for the maha-mantra, or any other Holy Name, process or book, he is simply wrong. We all depend on grace, and that grace is dispatched and controlled directly through the heart, where the caitya guru, the spiritual master within ourselves, who is Lord Vishnu himself, is situated. My dandavats, and I hope I am able to do a little service by providing you with these observations and recommendations for your Internet use. Swami BA Paramadvaiti

Analyse it with the help of this questionnaire. Use your common sense. If this questionnaire helps you to be less sectarian it will serve a good purpose. If you feel offended please excuse us, that was not the purpose :-) Take it with humour; broad-mindedness is required to cope with the worldwide expanding mission of the Vaisnavas. "There is nothing more contradictory then preaching about divine love while still maintaining a sectarian attitude." Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura 1. Do you believe or teach that only members of your Vaisnava mission have a chance to reach secret esoteric areas of the divine reality? 2. Are the members of your mission allowed to read books of other contemporary Vaisnava authors, even though they may not be from the mission you belong to? 3. Are the students of your mission being taught to show the same respect to renunciants of other missions as they are taught to show to the renunciants in your mission? 4. Do you feel non-sectarian and do you act accordingly? 5. Do you believe that the Supersoul guides and protects people with other religious beliefs? 6. Are the members of your mission taught hypocrisy by being told to be polite with those you talk badly about in private? 7. Do you eat together with those who are not of your caste or clan? 8. Do you allow others to explain their opinion even if it may be different from yours? 9. Do they teach in your mission that access to divinity depends on membership in a particular institution and are they limiting grace for those who follow the exact or similar teaching or rituals as you do? 10. What is the real difference between blind fanatic belief and enlightened faith? Pick your answer: A. The real versus the apparent. B: not much difference. C: dramatically different. D: different levels on the path to saintliness. 11. Do they discriminate the donations they receive according to their origin? ( Would they accept a donation coming from sinful activities conducted specially to make money for the donation ) 12. Do you believe that holy tirthas can be managed like private properties? 13. Do you believe that the holy dhama should be protected from sinful activities and unrestricted business interests? 14. Do you believe that the dhama should only be open to practising Vaisnavas? 15. Do you believe that financial power should be allowed to interfere with the interest and the needs of other missions present in the dhama? 16. Is is acceptable that brahmacaris collect money for the mission with pretexts which are below suddha bhakti? 17. Would you allow devotees to keep a commission of the donations they collect? 18. Do you believe that devotees can chant the glory of God in their local language and derive the same benefit from it as when chanting in Sanskrit or Bengali ? 19. Do you teach people to respect all others and to not disturb their faith? 20. Can you think of Krishna when you see buildings erected by another religious group for their worship? 21. Would you eat vegetarian food offered to you by a friendly person that was not offered? Pick your answer. A. I would first offer it. B: I consider it send by the mercy of my guru and accept it. C :I would not eat it at all. 22. Do you believe that a person has to take a certain birth to become a Brahmana? 23. Do you restrict people from certain services due to their birth? 24. Do you make efforts that other people may find out about your sacred faith? 25. Do you believe that Guru and Krishna are more partial towards you then to others? 26. Do you believe that the same God inspires different people in different faith traditions to talk about him? 27. Do you accept the principle of Guru-tattva and want to qualify yourself and many other to be able to act as sat Gurus- those who keep the disciplic chain intact? 28. Do you teach that spiritual advancement depends on initiation by a specific Guru? 29. Do you treat people more friendly because they put on the same tilak as you? 30. Do you show some respect to a guru of another Vaisnava to encourage his guru bhakti? 31. Are you taught or do you teach others about the universal principle of Guru Tattva, the plurality of teachers in our sampradaya, the nature of representing Srila Vyasadeva etc. ? 32. Do you know or would you allow others to know about the history and diversity of vaisnavism? ( How vaisnavism has spread by the input of many Vaisnava-missions, which were started by great pioneers ... ) 33. Do you actively participate in meetings which are meant to develop and promote the common goals of Vaisnavas? 34. Would you like to participate and present your faith on a inter-religious platform? 35. Should the new discoveries of science and the social developments be explained in the light of Vaisnava teachings, to help the Vaisnava community cope with the changing world? 36. Are the brahmins in your mission to be informed about the basic news of the mundane world? 37. Do you care about the environmental situation? Would you like to do something about dumping of plastic in the holy dhamas and holy rivers such as Ganga or Yamuna? 38. Are you trying to clean the road in front of your temples or ashrams? 39. Do you think that littering is an offence against mother earth? 40. Do you think it is important that the products used for offerings to your thakurji come from an organic farm, which does not use chemical pesticides or poisonous fertilizers? 41. Do you feel happy when you hear about the success of other vaisnava missions? 42. Do you promote reading journals or websites which are presenting all vaisnava missions as equally important? 43. To which Vaisnava institution do Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu or his pure devotees belong? 44. Do you teach or have you learned that there are big and small Gurus whose messages have thus big or small importance? 45. Do you allow your mind to see other vaisnavas according to their birth? 46. Are you allowed and do you generalize, minimize or treat with prejudice, members of other vaisnava missions? 47. Would you accept a devotee who has committed an offence and asked to be forgiven? 48. Do you believe that the Holy Name can purify a person of all mistakes he may have committed in the past? 49. Do you find it feasible that members of one mission help in the service of other Vaisnava-missions? 50. Would you eat the food offered to Krishna by an initiated person who was born in the "non hindu" world? 51. Have you ever heard of claims that only one mission has the right to publish and distribute the teachings of a Guru? 52. Do you think the truth (sastras, photos or instructions of spiritual masters) can be restricted for the use of others through a "copyright" claim? Please look deep into your feelings and meditate on your behaviour. Is there some sectarianism which could disturb the spiritual advancement of both, yourself and others who are learning from you? This questionnaire is only for self evaluation. It is not for pointing fingers at anyone or to make anyone feel bad. We need to appreciate all those who sincerely search for God. What to speak of those who belong to our same parivara, chant the same mantras, read the same books and worship the same holy deities, holy places and holy sages. Praying to be of service Swami B.A. Paramadvaiti</pre>

I have just come upon the following article and I think that every sincere reader will have all his doubts on this topic cleared by reading this article of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati. Eulogy of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura It is not empiric wisdom that is the object of quest of the devotee. Those who read the scriptures for gathering empiric wisdom will be pursuing the wild goose chase... The mutual admiration society of dupes does not escape, by the mere weight of their number, the misfortunes due to the deliberate pursuit of the wrong course in accordance with the suggestions of our lower selves... Thakura Bhaktivinoda is acknowledged by all his sincere followers as possessing the powers of the pure devotee of Godhead. His words have to be received from the lips of a pure devotee. If his words are listened from the lips of a non-devotee they will certainly deceive. If his works are studied in the light of one's own worldly experience their meaning will refuse to disclose itself to such readers. His works belong to the class of the eternal revealed literature of the world and must be approached for their right understanding through their exposition by the pure devotee. If no help from the pure devotee is sought, the works of Thakura Bhaktivinoda will be grossly misunderstood by their readers. The attentive reader of those works will find that he is always directed to throw himself upon the mercy of the pure devotee if he is not to remain unwarrantably self-satisfied by the deluding results of his wrong method of study. The writings of Thakura Bhaktivinoda are valuable because they demolish all empiric objections against accepting the only method of approaching the Absolute in the right way. They cannot and were never intended to give access to the Absolute without help from the pure devotee of Krishna. They direct the sincere enquirer of the truth, as all the revealed scriptures do, to the pure devotee of Krishna to learn about Him by submitting to listen with an open mind to the transcendental sound appearing on his lips. Before we open any of the books penned by Thakura Bhaktivinoda, we should do well to reflect a little on the attitude which serves as the indispensable prerequisite to approach its study. It is by neglecting to remember this fundamental principle that the empiric pedants find themselves so hopelessly puzzled in their vain endeavor to reconcile the statements of the different texts of the scriptures. The same difficulty is already in process of overtaking many of the so-called followers of Thakura Bhaktivinoda and for the same reason... Those who want to understand the contents of the volumes penned by the piecemeal acquisitive method applicable to deluding knowledge available to the mind on the mundane plane, are bound to be self- deceived. Those who are sincere seekers of the truth are alone eligible to find Him, in and through the proper method of His quest. In order to be put on the track of the Absolute, listening to the words of the pure devotee is absolutely necessary. The spoken word of the Absolute is the Absolute. It is only the Absolute Who can give Himself away to the constituents of His power. The Absolute appears to the listening ear of the conditioned soul in the form of the name on the lips of the sadhu. This is the key to the whole position. The words of Thakura Bhaktivinode direct the empiric pedant to discard his wrong method and inclination on the threshold of the real quest of the Absolute. If the pedant still chooses to carry his errors into the realm of the Absolute Truth he only marches by the deceptive by- path into the regions of darker ignorance by his arrogant study of the scriptures. The method offered by Thakura Bhaktivinoda is identical with the object of the quest. The method is not really grasped except by the grace of the pure devotee. The arguments, indeed, are these. But they can only corroborate, but can never be a substitute for, the word from the living source of the Truth who is no other than the pure devotee of Krishna, the concrete Personal Absolute. Source: The Harmonist, Dec. 1931, vol. XXIX No. 6

Dear Devotees, We would like to share with you a new publication by Swami BA Paramadvaiti The book is called "Sato Vrtteh - Following in the Footsteps of Previous Acaryas" It is a collection of memories, anectodes and teachings of three prominent Gurus of the author: Srila AC Bhaktivedanta Svami Prabhupada, Srila BR Sridhara Deva Gosvami and Srila BP Puri Gosvami. You can download the book from http://sato-vrtteh.de/ (i hope the administator will forgive me) From the Prologue: For my own purification, I am recalling the ambrosial teachings of my spiritual masters. I consider myself very fortunate to have come in contact with them, and I believe that the dear and respected recipients of this book will also be fortunate to read about them. The purpose of meeting a great person is to encourage us to follow them. They have come to set an example for us, so that we can find a way to free ourselves from the cycle of repeated birth and death and reach the lotus feet of our beloved Lord and his eternal associates. I bow my head again and again to my divine guardians and to all who have granted me their protective association. Vaisnavas are by nature very kind-hearted. If they show any sign of anger, it is only to prevent others from going astray. It is definitely beyond my capacity to adequately serve these great souls. I can only pray to them to forgive my imperfections, always granting me the company of those who are seriously searching for the highest goal of life and enabling me to be somewhat useful to their divine purpose of existence. I am not a writer, much less a poet, but I dare to compile these memories because I feel that I owe this to my guardians and to those who could not meet them personally. I pray that those who read these words may benefit from increased enthusiasm to always follow in the footsteps of the great devotees. And of course, you are all wholeheartedly welcome to visit our Vrinda centers, which have been opened in the attempt to serve the message of my guardians.