thehat

"Supreme God is not a supreme enjoyer coz the formless is just a devine energy." If God has no form how does he hear your prayers without ears? Also, how does He see you without any eyes? I don't accept God is formless or impersonal. Even we can learn from Bhagavad-gita that the formless energy conception is confused as just the brahmajyoti effulgence of the Lord. Why can God not be the supreme enjoyer? I assert that the Lord is free to enjoy, and is the Greatest enjoyer of all. Where we fail in trying to enjoy, he succeeds without fail. Best wishes,

Yeah I think you're right. But then Krishna married 16108 wives, gave them their own palaces and expanded Himself in to each of those palaces and lived with His wives simulatenously.. or at least something like that. He must be a really powerful angel or human to do that?! I can't think of any angels or humans with more wives than Him. Hmm, I would think that only God could marry such a large number of women like that and expand Himself into each of the palaces of his different wives. Also is Lord Indra the King of Heaven an angel too? He's married and has had children right? Also Lord Shiva has a wife and child too? Why can't God have wives or children again? Can't God do anything he wants? What kind of God can't get married or have children, that's silly. God should be able to do anything a typical person can do, and do it more perfectly. Whether God has use for wives or children noone can really say, but we can see in different scriptures accounts of Gods marrying and having children. Even in the case of Lord Krishna who is accepted as the Supreme Personality of Godhead through purview of Gaudiya Vaishnava lense (I refer to this school as this is the only one I'm aware of who worships Lord Krishna as supreme), there are accounts of Supreme God marrying and having children. Why can the Supreme God not do this? Supreme God is supreme enjoyer?

Alright, I can accept and appreciate what you're saying Suchandra. I still think there are some really good indian preachers out there who excell western white body preachers.. But I can accept that maybe where you're living the Indian preachers are quite bad and are not good at preaching. One thing I'd like to add though, whether it be Indians or white people preaching or indoctrinating - most people are not picking up the chanting of the holy name. At least I have observed where I live. When wonderful devotees go out on the street for harinam they mostly get harassed by the public. This to I have observed. One person had said to me last weekend in fact "You know why people hate those Hare Krishnas, because they walk up to people on the street and just start telling them they're wrong, everyone gets so pissed off". The majority of these book distributors where I live are white bodied ISKCON people, so surely it's not just the Indians who are lacking knowledge in how to preach if the white bodied book distributors are causing such problems to the public. Perhaps both the ISKCON indians and white bodied westerners need training in how to preach in order to get people adopting the chanting of the holy names. I don't know?

Some of the best preachers I've heard from ISKCON are indian and some of the worst have been white bodied or european bodied - whatever the correct term is.. In saying that, outside of ISKCON temples in India hearing an Indian preach within an ISKCON temple is a rarity I've found- but when they do speak I've found their lectures to be quite good. Most of the preachers in ISCKON centres I've heard have been white inexperienced male brahmacaris. But there have been some really good speakers too. Seeing as how the majority of the speakers are white as opposed to Indian, couldn't you say that the white bodied preachers are more inexperienced as they're greater in number.. at least in ISKCON? I guess that is my own personal reasoning as the few ISKCON Indians i've heard have been quite good. But out of a large number of white ISKCON males who preach that i've heard, many of them have been quite bad. Anyhow, seems like a silly article to me - very controversial though. I've heard heaps of amazing indian preachers, but they weren't part of ISKCON movement. Maybe it's just the indians within ISKCON that are actually bad? On a final note though - I quite like the Indian preachers from ISKCON mumbai.

Hi I share your belief in that I can not accept the possible notion that Krishna or Rama ate flesh. And can these claims of the Lord eating flesh be backed up by any shastric evidence? If not than I will continue to hold the very idea of the Lord eating flesh as bullshit. So far, we find many evidence throughout Shastra that supports the notion that flesh foods are prohibited and plain wrong, but however - flesh foods can be eaten under exceptional circumstances - nevertheless much emphasis is placed on the very act of eating flesh as a negative thing. I once had asked a pandit this very same question. He didn't have much time to fully deliberate on the question, but he had simply said "No, that would be quite contradictory to many ideals He set in place for mankind to observe. I have never even heard such a thing that Bhagavan ate flesh". So yeah, maybe the idea that the Lord ate flesh was just concocted by people who wanted to eat flesh. Like for example, when you point out to Christians how Lord Jesus said "Thou shall not kill" and how this law includes all living beings, which essentially means you cannot eat meat. They say "Oh no, but Jesus ate fish, so we can eat meat". People have rationalized this very act of meat eating just to support their desire to eat flesh without having a guilty conscience afterwards. Nevermind, they may be completely cheating on the pretext of their religious code - they don't care. They just go on rationalizing their activities - completely evading scriptual injunctions + regulations, and more so consistent with their own personal wishes of what they'd like to do, eat etc. However, I agree with the others here in saying that yes, the Lord can certainly eat flesh if he wishes to. But I don't believe Krishna has eaten flesh as there is no shastric evidence I have personally seen to support this claim.

haha, that was quite amusing.

Hello my friend, sorry for my late response. I wasn't meaning any offense to you, you had just misinterpreted the meaning of my message. I'll break it down for you in an easy to comprehed message. I think go ahead and build a Lord Shiva temple if you wish to. Better to open a Lord Shiva temple in a given place rather than a cinema house, liqour store, strip club, butcher store etc In this phrase I am giving you encouragement. What I was meaning by the statement of "better to open a Lord Shiva temple.." was that it is indeed a nice idea to open a Lord Shiva temple and it would be a lot better than a opening a cinema house or liqour store etc as those things tend to take up a lot of land in western countries. So basically, I don't know how to explain this - I thought my original message was clear to understand. Basically a Lord Shiva temple would make better use of land than a Cinema house or liqour store. Also, I'm not from ISKCON, though I appreciate greatly the work they have done and continue to do - It's a tough job they're doing and so very important. And I'm not a Vaishnava. Becoming a Vasihnava however, is something I aspire to become. Look really I was just supporting your idea. I'm sorry if I had offended you, or even Lord Shiva. I actually like Lord Shiva a lot. I didn't mean any offense by it. Don't stress.

I just want to say again, in response to the initial question of the poster: I think go ahead and build a Lord Shiva temple if you wish to. Better to open a Lord Shiva temple in a given place rather than a cinema house, liqour store, strip club, butcher store etc Though it would be nicer if you built a Lord Krishna or Lord Rama temple as Lord Shiva did request of the people that they worshipped only Lord Govinda. Good luck with your endeavour. You must be quite a rich 24 year old to be able to build temples all over the world

Hey I think go ahead and build a Lord Shiva temple if you wish to. Better a Lord Shiva temple than a cinema house or liqour store or something like that. Though it would be nicer if you built a Lord Krishna or Lord Rama temple as Lord Shiva did request of the people that they worshipped only Lord Govinda. Good luck with your endeavour. You must be quite a rich 24 year old to be able to build temples all over the world

What is your name? What do you look like? So the Supreme god father is sitting at a computer posting on this forum?

hehe, yes I'm sure you can make it warm in the microwave. Warm for it say 20 seconds, that might make it luke warm. I drink warm milk before bed as it relaxes my body and makes me sleep easy. I didn't know about any health benefits.

Hey, I'll try my best to answer your question to the best of my ability - but you'd be better of talking to an ISKCON devotee about it or something. They'd be likely to know more about the issue. These things like intoxication and sex are detrimental to ones own spiritual progress. So the regulations are pretty much in place just for your own benefit and well being. It will be hard to accept at first but it is very much true. What is your situation, do you feel you won't be able to give those things up or do you not want to give them up? Some of my own personal experience is as follows; When I had first started practising I was hesitant to stop the intoxication and sex (although I wasn't even having sex ). The meat eating I was able to stop very quickly within a week or two, Krishna just took the taste away. Similarly Krishna took away the taste from intoxication and sex life. And it's not like I miss those things, actually the fact I could give up those things and not care for them in the end is a great display of Krishna's mercy. He makes it so easy for us to come to him, and speaking for myself - Intoxication and sex would have certainly been detrimental to my approaching Krishna. Hope that helps.

What was this religious magazine? This art work is far out psychedelic. Hmm it seems they forgot to put God in the pictures though.

I found myself getting quite upset after having read the comments made in that book. To say that I didn't care in the slightest about those comments made would be a blatant lie. I felt quite sad. ..But I just chanted 4 rounds and am feeling better. I can understand that when followers of a particular religion become more confident in their faith they'd like to expand their religion, but can it not be done more honestly, calmly, and peacefully? The whole competitive nature that is driving certain religions to expand as largely and as quickly as possible to the extent that they must convert everyone to their side and do anything to promote that end even if it means distributing polluted literature or killing people in the name of that task is totally lame.

thanks heaps!

Ohh!! This cleared things up for me, thank you very much bija! There was in fact a line above the a letter. So I guess that is to be taken as incarnation of Krishna, son of vasudeva. Thanks a lot! It's hard to figure out sometimes what the sanskrit terminology or marks above letters means. Shivadut, thanks for your contribution. I am even more confused by what you've just said though haha. "vasus were 8 children of aditi the 8 forms of energy like water, fire wind earth, moon ... they are gods and known as vasu-deva krishna's father was named vasudev" Which form of energy was Krishna's father vasudev? I can't even begin to understand what you've said in the second paragraph? It sounds very complicated. Hare Krishna

Hi can someone please clear up my confusion in the Srimad Bhagavatam second canto. In the second canto of bhagavatam, chapter 4 text 24 it is said that Vyasadeva in the incarnation of Vasudeva, but I thought Vyasadeva is the incarnation of Krishna? It even says later on in the purport that Vyasadeva is indeed the incarnation of Krishna. How does this work? I'm quite confused, I understand Vasudeva to be Krishna's father but now I can't understand that if Vyasadeva is the incarnation of Krishna how can he be the incarnation of Vasudeva too? Was Vasudeva a plenary expansion of Krishna? Please can someone clear my confusion up?! Thanks very much

Download audio lectures, kirtans etc. http://harekrishna.org.au/

Hey Milly Try chanting: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama, Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. By chanting this mantra you will come to the stage of transcendental realization. And this particular stage encompasses states of peacefulness within the mind, happiness etc. Give it a go!

The God Gene - An old but interesting article from Times Magazine: link: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101041025-725072,00.html

Popular because it's fashionable. But the general mass whom Buddhism is popular with seem to have no understanding of what Buddhism is about or entails, at least i've observed. It's the fashionable religion. Interesting article taken from Stuff White People Like: Source: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/18/2-religions-that-their-parents-dont-belong-to/ White people will often say they are “spiritual” but not religious. Which usually means that they will believe any religion that doesn’t involve Jesus. Popular choices include Buddhism, Hinduism, Kabbalah and, to a lesser extent, Scientology. A few even dip into Islam, but it’s much more rare since you have to give stuff up and actually go to Mosque. Mostly they are into religion that fits really well into their homes or wardrobe and doesn’t require them to do very much.

The auckland janmasthami was very similar. The only europeans were the brahmacari's and brahmacarinis. The crowd were all indian save and except one or two who weren't. I was really suprised. The temple was packed with a crowd of i'd say approx 1000

That was a very beautiful article suchandra, thank you for posting it. Thanks very much.

thanks heaps. have a nice day celebrating Janmasthami

Hey suchandra by any chance do you have a date for then that article by Stèphane Foucart was published?