Суд над Бхагавад-гитой / Attempt to ban Bhagavad-gita
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#32012011-12-19 05:21First Heartfelt Effusion My dear Lordships Shri Shri Radha-Shyamasundara! Crying at the lotus feet of Shri Guru, one very fallen and destitute soul humbly offers to You the following unrestrained stream of prayerful outpourings for Your kind and considerate audience. My dear beloved Lordships! Let me have not only this one body with only one head upon which are placed only two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and one mouth in which I find only this one pathetic tongue. Let me have not only this one dead body upon which I find only one clumsy cranium wherein we may assume there be at least one exiguous lump of dull brain stuff. Let me have not only this one frail figure from which extend only two sluggish legs and two feeble arms with no more than one leisurely hand on the end of each. Let me be not only this single insignificant someone with but this one heart, one life, and one sub-atomic soul to dedicate most inadequately to Your urgently required large-scale distribution of transcendental literatures. If You wish to offer me any benediction, then please let me have hundreds and thousands, nay, even millions and billions of stout and strong bodies, either all at once or one after another or both. On each body let me have hundreds, thousands, even millions of heads, each with hundreds of eyes and noses, thousands of ears, and millions of mouths, each endowed with billions of fabulously fortunate tongues. Moreover, let me have trillions of most capable brains and innumerable hale, hardy, and enthusiastic legs, arms, hands, hearts, and happy selves to fully dedicate to the earnest service of Your ministrative task of worldwide transcendental book distribution. What is the use of a soul who cannot expand into thousands of beings, each having millions of bodies? What is the use of having million of bodies if each body doesn’t have billions of heads? What is the use of each body having billions of heads if each head doesn’t have trillions of brains and trillions of mouths with trillions of gracious tongues in each? What is the use of having trillions of brains if each brain doesn’t command quadrillions of intelligences with which to find the novel ways and means to drop zillions of transcendental time-bomb books into the laps of the fallen conditioned souls? What is the use of having innumerable legs, arms, hands, hearts, lives, and geniuses if everyone and everything is not solely dedicated to the service of Your mission to inundate the whole planet with zillions upon zillions of transcendental literatures eulogizing Your unlimited names, forms, qualities, and pastimes in Your limitlessly divine supramundane realm of eternity, knowledge, and bliss – Shri Vrindavana-dhama? My dear Shri Shri Radhe-Shyama! What is the use of having innumerable hands, each distributing transcendental literatures by the billions and trillions, if as an outcome of it all, not even one soul becomes Your fully self-realized, pure, unalloyed kevala-madhurya-premika devotee? What is the use of billions of brains scheming to optimize the printing and proliferative dissemination of billions upon trillions of transcendental literatures if even one soul with even only one body with merely one head with but a single mouth with just the one tongue could not even come to the position of, at least even just only but once, relishing the immortal nectar of Your pure Holy Name (shuddha-nama) which is fully inclusive of Your sublime, internal spiritual potencies? What would be the use of distributing millions upon billions upon trillions of sublime rasa-saturated scriptures if, as a result of all the hustle and bustle, not even one soul attains the fruit of vraja-prema, vastu-siddhi, the ultimate perfection of gaining Krishna’s direct shelter in the bhauma-lilas as a follower of the damsels of Vrindavana, beyond the hope against hope suppositional domain of wishful thinking? If as a consequence of distributing countless billions of Your transcendental literatures one could not ultimately realize the perfection of one’s sthayi-bhava in one of the five primary rasas befitting Your loving service in the beautiful land of Vraja, what would be the actual accomplishment? What a folly if, while incessantly promulgating hundreds of thousands upon billions, trillions, or even innumerable quadrillions of small, medium, big, and maha big books to boot for billions of lifetimes, one does not bother to advance one’s internal devotional eligibility (adhikara) in Krishna consciousness to triumphantly deserve entree into Your bhauma-lilas for the real attainment of one’s sac-cid-ananda- siddha-deha as a vraja-gopa or gopi! What a perfidy if, by broadcasting countless volumes and volumes of transcendental scriptures, not even one thoughtful book distributor could fortunately gain the essential penetrating insight to deeply discover the esoteric truths behind the black (Krishna) letters on all those white (Radha) pages! To what avail are millions of bodies with millions upon billions upon trillions of heads, eyes, ears, noses, mouths, tongues, brains, feet, legs, arms, and hands – all simultaneously serving to distribute millions upon billions upon trillions upon quadrillions of unlimited transcendental literatures all over the world, nay, all over the universe, anywhere and everywhere, immediately and incessantly forevermore – if even one pure- hearted book distributor could not verily gain, by mature, intensified hari-nama-bhajana-ruci, the momentous realization that, in truth, our only real business is to sit in Your holy lands of Mayapura and Vrindavana and constantly chant Your self- same prema-nama? What is the use of it all, if we don’t recognize that the purpose of our book distribution is to encourage as many others as possible to become pure-hearted, fully self-realized niskincana bhajananandis who are the fittest to propagate the Holy Name by their ecstatic performances of prema-nama- sankirtana which forever stands as the only true jaiva-dharma of every jiva soul without exception? What would be the use of it all, if we could not become factually freed from the insanity of not clearly knowing who we really are in terms of the intricacies of our ultimate, intrinsic, eternal spiritual identity (vraja-svarupa)? What would be the use, if no one could become enlightened beyond the very vague notion of being a transmigrating, ten-thousandth-of-a-hair-tip, subatomic brahman particle floating around on the life airs of a temporary, therapeutically engaged, superficially designated, rotting corpselike defecating bag of bones masquerading as a so-called man, woman, brahmacari, grihastha, sannyasi, vantashi, brahmana, ksatriya, pot washer, pujari, temple president, G.B.C., guru, devotee, or even (hold my tongue) eminently exalted book distributor? My dear Lordships! What is the use of constructing hundreds and thousands of pompously opulent temples, worshiping thousands and millions of grandiosely ornamented Deities, distributing umteenzillions of books, (mis)managing millions and billions of bucks, filling billions and trillions of bellies, and congregating a society of hundreds of thousands of semi-conscious squabbling neophytes, if even one soul amidst the menagerie could not ultimately achieve the supremely privileged maid-service of the treasures of Your lotus feet as You endlessly enjoy Your transcendental nikunja-lilas in Your eternally resplendent realm of Vraja-dhama? My dearmost beloved Lordships Shri Shri Radhe-Shyama! If, however, as a result of all such laborious efforts even just one fortunate soul could somehow or other by Your unbounded special causeless mercy finally, even if after billions and trillions of lifetimes of devotional struggle, attain that most cherished goal of life, then by all means, please let there be thousands and millions of “brihat-mridanga” printing presses, each producing millions and billions of transcendental literatures describing Your unlimited names, forms, qualities, and madhurya-lilas in the sweetest of all sweetest lands, Shri Vrindavana-dhama. If in the last, even just a single person consequently becomes Your consummately pure unalloyed vraja-gopa or gopi, serving to further exhilarate Your already limitlessly expanding ocean of transcendental bliss, then let thousands and millions of transcendental book distributors each with billions of intelligences find trillions of newer and newer innovative methods of inducing quadrillions of conditioned souls to take to the process of hearing pure, nectarean Krishna-katha. My dear beloved Shyamasundara! You are the ultimate impetus behind all events in the three worlds. Please let hundreds of thousands of book distributors each distribute by the millions and billions while tolerating all types of tribulations if in due course even one of them can come to clearly realize by practical experience the integral correlation between the external activity of propagating Krishna consciousness in the world and the internal culture of the selfless bhavas of the vraja- gopis, who relish ten million times the happiness of their own meetings with You by making the arrangements for others to get the happy chance to have Your delightful company. Let thousands and millions of externally oriented prakrita- bhaktas fill the atmosphere with endless streams of prajalpa, faultfinding, backbiting, and fratricidal bickering, on top of all the petty institutional and interinstitutional wrangling and war – what do we care for it? Let the over-intelligent, doggedly resorting to materially contrived managerial stratagems, injudiciously undermine the essential principle of keeping single-minded confidence in the lucid instructions of the institutional Founder-acarya; they’ll have to learn the hard way – as will the attendantly implicated! Let hundreds of heedless sannyasis and guru-figureheads plunge from their pompous pedestals owing to their often sentimentally justified, inappropriately frequent, and overextended proximity in dealings with their female disciples and so on. Why should we lament or bother ourselves to in any way condemn or condone; these things are going on – and on – and will continue to go on and on and on . . . Trust no future however pleasant. Let the upper-organizational oligarchy essay to save face by repeatedly rehashing their clandestine attempts to cloak the pitiable transgressions of the institutionally rubberstamped guru-figureheads. Let them, on the plea of “protecting” the “faith” of their unwary disciples, in the name of service to the Absolute Truth, perpetuate the farcical facade of Guruji’s infallibility while groping for patchwork reformatory measures, lest there be appurtenant embarrassment for all concerned. Oh well, anyway . . . All glories to Kali-yuga! What could we expect? Hari bol! God helps those who help themselves. Man is the architect of his own misfortune. Let destiny prevail. We can fool some of the people – some of the time, right? It all comes out in the wash. Let the rather foppish, high-flying svamis, intent on compelling the purses of the prosperous prakrita-bhaktas, sublimate their zeal for lordly grandeur, affluence, and fanfare on the plea of yukta-vairagya – ostensibly in the interest of Lord Gauranga’s sankirtana movement. Hmm . . . Let the weak-hearted, ill-advised, or reckless religio- institutional administrators, beguiled by the prospects of amplified economic might, sightlessly prostitute or inelegantly abandon all managerial scruples in deference to the non- devotional demands of spiritually indigent neophytes of monetary magnetism. So much for the brahminical culture of candor and simplicity; it shall faze us not. Let multitudes of deceitful dharma-dhvajis, to conceal their actual reprehensible intents, masquerade as awesome mentors of the Bhagavata in order to furtively milk the petty gross and subtle material assets of the acarya’s institution under the pretext of acquiring “spiritual opulences” by the grace of God! Let them all “enjoy” and suffer according to the sweet will of providence. We shall be thrilled to pieces – at the same time much aggrieved. Let the determinately shallow superficialists cosmetically manage to farcically project a prodigiously meretricious institutional semblance of forthright Krishna consciousness while duplicitously concealing the relentless tenacity of their own steel-framed hearts. Let them obsequiously buff the “golden cage” institutional body as they insensibly disregard the vital nourishment of the “songbird” institutional soul. Let the respectability and trustworthiness of the institutional “leadership” go to hell. Our eternal constitutional personal loving relationship shall never be contingent upon nor thwarted by any of this. He Radhe-Shyama! The plastic, put-on felicitous social niceties of polished cultural urbanity hardly constitute nor necessarily evince internally developed pure devotional excellence. Godless meat-eating demons also effectively train their utterly materialistic corporate personnel to politely or hospitably interrelate with forged, highly refined deferential suavity. Are they too to be lauded as being spiritually advanced? Animals are also seen to cordially welcome their friends and relatives – and ward off their adversaries. Let the Grand High Exalted Mystic Institutional Control Monsters allege their high-handed, spuriously assumed, cliquish inheritance of the sampradaya’s material and spiritual legacy to patronizingly toss a scrap or two to the most servile of their pathetically ambitious bootlicking sycophants. Smiling mildly, we shall look on with casual indifference. What does it really matter that hundreds and thousands of exploitative neophyte religio-organizational opportunists jockey for positions, more or less fraudulently establishing themselves as “illustrious” “leaders” of the Hare Krishna movement on various levels to pursue their sundry ulterior motives while having not even the slightest genuine greed for the inestimable treasure of vraja-bhakti-rasa. I say, “Bravo!” if, as a result of having distributed millions of transcendental literatures all over the world, we can even hope to find just one unpretentious, truly elevated, fully enlightened rasika Vaishnava amidst the veritable mess we’ve made of everything. He Radhe-Shyama! Let the brutish nama-aparadhis, goaded by a lingering appetite for the foul fruits of bhukti and mukti, even after so much graceful guidance, remain ever attached to whatever little labha, puja, and pratistha they can manage to eke out from their ostentatious show of allegiance to the cause of transcendental book distribution. We shall not be impressed. Let the benighted, pushy, audaciously puffed-up, mischief- mongering egoistic vixens, wishing to spitefully dance on the heads of the brahmacaris and sannyasis to gratify their inflated personal and extended sense of self-importance, improvidently misconceive, abort, abandon, nay, even ever so much as |
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#32022011-12-19 05:22vociferously revile the all-round salutary shelter of Vedic cultural ethics on the pretext of Vaisnavi social equality. Ugh! Let thousands of unrelenting, materially anchored semi- bhaktas pursue their overwhelming concern for wholesale systematic institutional social development. The birds, beasts, and insects also cry for food, shelter, and sex satisfaction. Are they not provided for? Let the sanctimonious religio-institutional organizationists treacherously robbed of their resolute faith in the all- attractiveness of Krishna-nama-sankirtana blunderingly adulterate the precepts of the Acaryas, on the plea of enhanced public appeal, by insisting on a watered-down outward display of sophistication in lieu of widespread ecstatic chanting and dancing. We doubt they will ever be very successful. Let the mundane, kali-cela pseudo kirtana-karis most irresponsibly exploit the sankirtana performances to purposefully augment their own name, fame, and sex appeal, like yowling cats bewailing the want of their mates. Ha! The joke’s on them. Let thousands and thousands of cripple-minded griha- medhis and grihasthas with their womenfolk have license for the sordid sex life. Let them beget tens of thousands of grossly misled, druggy, sense-gratifying “ex-gurukuli” ingrates and the likes of them. It is of no earth-shaking consequence. We shall applaud their grand success if even one soul amidst all of these somehow or other finds the supreme shelter declared in all the bhakti-shastras – the succulently nectarous, ambrosial mellow sweetness of Your prema-nama-sankirtana- rasa. Let thousands of novice – and also seasoned – book distributors priggishly presume themselves to be glorious gosthy-anandi evangelic angels. Let thousands of imitative, half- baked quasi-devotional sentimentalists conceitedly pose to impersonate highly elevated paramahamsa-nirjana- bhajananandis, while having neither depth of unalloyed devotional insight nor accomplished worldly disinterest. All would do well to understand that the best gosthy-anandi, and also the best bhajananandi, is the niskincana-bhajananandi who comes out from the depths of his profound rasika absorption in Krishna consciousness to share his realizations for the benefit of others, both by precept and by personal example. Who cares whether or not anybody really went to the moon? What damn bit of difference does it make? Who cares whether or not I said that he said that she said that they said that . . . who the hell knows what anyone actually said anyway? Human life is much too short for any of this. Who cares for the skepticism of the skeptics? Who cares whether or not any stool-passing creature of this world would be bothered to seriously understand or appreciate our heartfelt feelings about anything? Did we come to this world to win a popularity contest? Who cares who puts whose stick in whose hole? Ultimately, we must all fly our own airplane. Why waste our invaluable time on the absurdities of the materially engrossed? Who the hell cares who becomes the next Ravana of institutional mismanagement? God will have to sort that out. The only perfect management is in Vaikuntha anyway. Who the hell cares what designer color the bathroom tiles in our ritzy little “bhajana-kutiras” shall be? Is there anyone amongst us who is not on the verge of death? Better to sell off all the marble and classy bathroom tiles, and print books. He Radhe-Shyama! What the hell do we care if the incorrigibly infantile, bigotedly authoritarian, ego-warring power mongers crassly arrogate to themselves, on the plea of autocratic disciplic prerogative, “indubitable” theocratic predominance? Let them, under the banner of Krishna consciousness, with their presumptuous, often unduly oppressive, superciliously inconsiderate unilateral sense of communication and cooperation, rather coercively, nay, even menacingly demand absolute, fear-based genuflection. They would really prefer to suffocate any atmosphere conducive to more genial, free flowing spontaneous devotional inspiration, than, on the basis of perceivable degrees of genuine spiritual illumination, reasonably evoke the actual love and trust required for advanced reciprocal interpersonal devotional dealings. Let them, scarcely conceding to the broader tenet of unity in diversity, at least hope to gradually, at long last, purify, in due course of the dovetailing process, their long-lingering ardor for imperial eminence and the intoxication of totalitarian controllership. This must eventuate, of course, at the expense of the subjected underdog’s salubrious exercise of self-confidence, self-reliance, self-fulfillment, self-expression, and individual initiative pertaining to the personally responsible prosecution of unconstrained preferential pure devotional service. All glories to the small-minded, hollow, politically absorbed, false-ego- gratifying, unjustifiably arrogant, boorishly cut-throat Machiavellian “Hare Krishna” overlords! Come what may, they are, no doubt, serious and “well intended” in their own persuasion that the iron-fisted “might” of skin-deep religio- institutional managerial “empowerment” in and of its own makes right. Anyway, Shri Shri Radhe-Shyama, no one is all bad. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Be that as it may, all is well that ends well. Isn’t that nice! In truth, I have no intention to fault or flatter anyone. Where quasi-Krishna-conscious sophistry supplants genuine pure devotional siddhanta, where the condescending disempowerment syndrome or roguish despotism masquerades as “authorized” Krishna conscious leadership, any array of personal calamity or socio-religious anomaly would anything but dissuade an earnest aspirant from the progressive current of internal devotional amelioration. We could hardly think to turn back the tide of Kali’s influence anymore than we could stop a thunderhead from storming during the rainy season. Simply hold up your umbrella, depend on Krishna, and sally forth. It is natural to notice so many oppressive evils and perversities; after all, we’re in the material world. Moreover, Kali-yuga is an ocean of faults. What else could be expected? The threefold miseries are there. We will always be harassed in so many ways by so many problems. Even if we notice the problems and even if others deny their various idiosyncrasies or decline to address their problems realistically due to a lack of Krishna consciousness or whatever, what real difference does it make from the absolute perspective? Everyone and everything either directly or indirectly serves the absolute purpose of the Supreme. At some point in the course of eternity everyone will have his or her better day. Meanwhile, we hope for the best, expect the worst, and learn to transcendentally adjust our mind- set. We could hardly expect to reform all the ignoramuses of the world. Reformists who think there is scope for such should try to recognize the need to reform their very outlook which prompts them to think in such terms. At least we ourselves should not be ignoramuses and lose our own focus on the unalloyed devotional objective. Then we may hope to be of some substantial value, sadhu-sanga-wise. We must certainly acknowledge any measure of spiritual progress achieved by individuals under the circumstances impressed upon them in the course of the current lifetime. That anyone is making any spiritual advancement at all in this Age of Kali is a miracle. Ultimately that is in the hands of Providence. How purely one responds to life’s situations will depend on one’s level of paramarthika-shraddha based on previously accumulated nitya-sukriti. Every conditioned soul under the influence of the modes of material nature is fallible, prone to fall- down and offense. Those who come forward on any level to help the Acaryas fight the war against maya are glorious. Even if they are lost in battle, temporarily falling away in various ways and for various reasons, they are nevertheless glorious, at least to some extent. Still, in all soberness, if we ourselves actually want to permanently solve the problems of life, if we seriously want to attain the goal of our bhajana, if we want to ascend to the terrace of prema and go back to Godhead by the end of this very lifetime, then we really have to focus, focus, and refocus. No one else is going to focus for us. If we’re not part of the solution, we’re part of the problem. If others are not willing to understand the great necessity of concentrating their energy on the aim of life, if they are not willing to recognize and follow the examples seen in the lives of those who do so, then what can be done? That is their problem. They will have to eventually muster up enough sincerity to realistically deal with it. It’s not enough that we, as spiritual probationers, turn a blind eye toward our various individual and collective ungodly misconceptions, attachments, and lapses along the devotional path. Such apathy, though apparently convenient or accommodating in some ways, never really facilitates an enhanced internal devotional culture. Unless we are willing to admit that we have a disease, and are able to properly diagnose the degree of its infection, we could hardly hope to ascertain or apply the precise scientific therapy required for its proper treatment. In other words, unless we’re willing to admit that there are problems, something we can do only if we allow ourselves to notice them, we could hardly expect any viable solution to come to light. Recognizing or frankly voicing that there are problems (calling a spade a spade) does not necessarily constitute an antagonistic “faultfinding” tone or tendency. Moreover, such may provide the impetus to our seriously adopting the means by which the problems can actually be solved. For instance, a doctor may “hate” the disease without at all hating the patient. “Hating” the disease essentially recognizes and, in effect, alludes to the existence of a natural healthy or liberated state. No doubt, “problems” refers to two categorical effects, namely the observable “disobliging” phenomena before us and, far more notably, the cynical mind- set with which we see the phenomena, the cataracts on our own eyes, or in other words, our own lack of Krishna consciousness. No conditioned infinitesimal jiva can offer any solution to any of life’s maladies. Only Krishna can alleviate the living entity’s problematic state of conditional consciousness, the root cause of all egocentricity, when the latter is somehow induced by Divine Grace to take shelter of His merciful instructions. The idea of always seeing the “good” in something or someone doesn’t necessarily have to mean seeing the relative good as opposed to seeing the relative bad. The principle can and in certain respects must take on higher-dimensional features. When we happen to see adversities, discrepancies, or non-devotional elements, which are conventionally considered to be “bad,” we should always endeavor to see good in the bad by bearing in mind the “unseen” all-good hand of Krishna. Any agent that in any way reminds us of Krishna, prompts us to take shelter of Krishna, catalyzes our deeper sense of devotional responsibility, or teaches us important and valuable lessons concerning the culture of self-effacement in full surrender to the will of Krishna should be seen as a manifestation of the all- merciful guru principle. Shri Guru is never bad. An elevated devotee always gratefully acknowledges the presence of Shri Guru and Krishna in everything. At least for us, the all-goodness of the guru principle seen in our own mistakes as well as in the faults of others may well mercifully teach us how not to be, how not to behave, and the like. Seeing in this way, we, feeling ourselves blessed by the grace of Shri Guru, should profusely praise all such indirect manifestations of guru-tattva as our ever well-wishers, in spite of their negative exterior. The environment is ever propitious even if fraught with apparent adversity or hostility. Yet, we would certainly have to notice and rightly respond to the blatantly abounding environmental improprieties to realize the beauty in Krishna’s having placed the nonsense before the purview of our eyes. Right response does not necessitate retaliation against the environment. Adversity and various observable transgressions and imperfections, in fact, afford us an excellent opportunity to exercise our culture of sadhu-bhusana – tolerance, mercy, friendliness toward all living entities, humility, forgiveness, patience, determination, et al. We should understand that the sight of others’ misdemeanors and various other calamities are shown to us by Krishna for the purpose of dynamically educing our own pure devotional qualities, to enhance our devotional adhikara. The degree to which we are able to perfect this understanding is the degree to which we are actually sadhus and sadhvis. To the extent that we are able to recognize this all-good background purpose behind all events of the world, to that extent we are seeing things in proper perspective, and to that extent we may be endowed with first-class Krishna consciousness and remain undisturbed in all circumstances, recognizing Krishna as the cause of all causes, the ultimate doer. Relative environmental negativities simply serve to indirectly indicate, laud, and help us appreciate the all- beauteous positivity of the Absolute. The all-merciful hand of God is always behind every major and minor happening of the world. Sometimes Krishna gives trouble to the youthful gopis by pinching them or harassing them along the way, toppling their head- or hip-held pots of milk, yogurt, and ghee. At other times He sends them gunja-malas or love messages tremulously inscribed with the juice of red roses by His own hand. Whatever He does, He simply wants to increase their affection for Him, to somehow draw their attention toward Him. Similarly, all tribulation as well as all jubilation experienced in the course of life’s sojourn is but Krishna’s attempt to get our attention, to elicit our reciprocation in various ways. In His childhood, Krishna would often break the motherly gopis’ carefully kept pots of yogurt, butter, and ghee, pinch their babies to make them cry, or mischievously urinate on their freshly cleansed floors before escaping; and the gopis, though not catching Him in the act, would easily surmise that it was all His handiwork. Yet, when they, perturbed and frustrated, would gang up on Mother Yashoda to angrily lodge complaints against Him, they would become charmed and pleased to see Him hiding behind His mother’s dress, pretending to be innocent, His face looking so sweet and adorable. At that time their hearts would melt and they would immediately become overwhelmed with motherly affection, dispossessed of their affected anger and annoyance toward Him and happy to have a good excuse to come to His home to see Him in such a state. |
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#32032011-12-19 05:22Kindly allow distribution of Indian bedic literatures in your country |
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#32042011-12-19 05:22A contemporary example: A prankish young school-boy, sitting behind a sweet young girl in his class, secretly dips the ends of her braids in the ink-pot on his desk. Unknown to the girl, the backside of her nice new dress becomes totally blotched with ink and spoiled when she stands up to go home. Only at home, when she changes dress, does she come to know, and she at once ascertains the culprit and complains about him to her mother. The next day, following her mother’s advice, she sits across the classroom from him in order to escape his further mischief. But do you think that stops him? Hell no! Desiring her crooked glance, he hurls spitballs across the classroom, bouncing them off the back of her head. At first she pretends not to notice. But after two or three incidents, she becomes annoyed and turns to see from whence the spit-balls came. And who does she see – the prankish boy, hiding his smile while pretending to know nothing of it. At this point she begins to gather that he must have an interest in her, and she becomes inwardly enchanted and pleased at heart. At recess, when all the boys are playing ball, she, standing on the side, searches and searches among them to find him out in order to witness her prankster’s sportsmanship, but she doesn’t see him anywhere. Does that mean he’s not around? Hell no! Deftly sneaking up from behind, our prankish boy quietly catches a single strand of loose hair from the base of her braid and . . . ping! . . . “Oww! That hurt!” as she whirls around and spontaneously slaps his face screaming, “Oh, you nonsense!” Sprightly sprinting away, feeling very satisfied with himself, and considering all his endeavors a success, having caught her notice and achieved her reciprocation, he elatedly muses again and again, “She loves me! She touched me! She actually touched me!” Later, he sends her a box of sweets; still later, he personally hands her a beautiful bouquet of fantastically fragrant flowers . . . and the rest is history. Whether the boy pesters her in this way or that, or gives her a flower or blows her a kiss, in any case, his intention is to somehow get her attention and occupy her thoughts. In the same way, Krishna just wants to have a relationship with us. So He disturbs us in this way or that, or from time to time sends us some special maha-prasadam or a nice garland of lotus flowers just to in some way or other remind us that He still exists, waiting patiently behind the whole cosmic affair. He has His hand everywhere, and behind that hand is the rest of His person, who is so sweet and adorable and enchanting and full of rasa. So though we may feel mistreated in some way or disturbed or dismayed by various situations, when we see within our heart of hearts the all-attractiveness of His beautiful face, we will no longer feel inclined to bear any grudges. Why? Because we know He always has our best interest at heart and that, ultimately, He loves us, even if by His prankish behavior He makes us shed a stream of tears for the rest of eternity. Another fitting illustration is seen in the contrast between the mentality of a dog and that of a lion. If one throws a dog a bone, the dog will always run after the bone. If one throws a bone to a lion, however, the lion, lifting his head and licking his lips, will turn to check out who it was that threw the bone, considering the thrower to be a tastier prospect, a tastier entity than the thrown! It is better to have the consciousness of a lion than to have the consciousness of a dog. In other words, instead of becoming primarily concerned with or entangled by the external phenomenon itself, it is better to pursue the tastier entity, the higher taste, by looking to see who has placed the external phenomenon before us. And who will we see? We will see that supremely prankish cowherd boy, Vrajendranandana Shyama, who, by His inscrutable desire, has expanded innumerable cosmic arenas in which He may directly and indirectly enact His various sportive lilas. That is Krishna consciousness. The world-view of the uttama-adhikari maha-bhagavata is achieved by conscientious cultivation of the same, by practicing to perceive the underlying absolute reality behind the illusory relative manifestations. The means and the end are identical. When one becomes habituated to that practice, then such habit becomes second nature. Only on the uttama-adhikari platform of advanced internal absorption in Krishna consciousness does one perfectly envisage the world in proper perspective, in terms of the highest understanding. The ultimate understanding is that everything is under Krishna’s control, and that because Krishna is the supremely lovable absolute well-wisher of all living entities and because He is all good, His control always has its all- good, ultimately beneficial objective and outcome. The uttama- Vaishnava always sees the ultimate-good cause behind all the manifested events of this world. He never loses sight of that vision by adopting an illusory or semi-illusory mode of understanding, even when “coming down” to the position of an acarya for preaching. The kanistha-bhakta’s angle of vision, though approaching the threshold of spirituality, is still rather mundane or erroneous on account of extensive egocentricity. The madhyama-adhikari Vaishnava’s perception, though considerably advanced toward the spiritual platform by way of determined sharanagati, has yet to transcend all tinges of mundanity. Hence it is semi-illusory and thus only partially valid. However, the perfectly liberated non-illusory acuity of reality, which is the absolute transcendental visionary platform, is the prerogative of the uttama-adhikari alone and no one else. Attaining the perfection of Krishna consciousness most certainly demands one’s evolvement to no less than the uttama-Vaishnava platform of perception. Anything short of that would be considered unnatural or artificial. It is highly unlikely that a sadhaka will advance to the uttama-adhikari platform without an attentive endeavor to purposefully culture the internal and external consciousness of an uttama-adhikari. The culture of internal consciousness means to be absorbed in the pursuit of one’s aspired-to position in the nitya-lilas of the Lord by cultivating the appropriate aprakrita-bhava, and the culture of external consciousness means to pursue the rasika perception of the phenomenal world as per the principles presently under discussion. A case in perfection is the instance of Srila Gaura Kishora Dasa Babaji Maharaja being harassed by boys jestingly throwing stones at him as he was riding down the road on a bullock cart. Turning to them, he spontaneously chastised, “I know who You are [Krishna], and if You don’t stop teasing me, I’m going to tell Mother Yashoda about Your nonsense misbehavior!” He Radhe-Shyama! In the last, anything seemingly unjust, unreasonable, or wrong from the relative standpoint may well directly or indirectly serve as a venerable eye-opener, constituting a formative impetus to one’s pitiably crying out for Your special causeless mercy in complete self-surrender. Such could not but be seen as integral to Your absolute, perfectly synthesized, all good, complete whole arrangement for the ultimate deliverance of even such as Your single, most insignificant, all but forsaken, inconspicuous, long-lost aspiring maidservant. For me, any other outlook would be illusory. I gratefully offer You my humble obeisances again and again. It is certainly a fact that all events of the past, present, and future on the relative material time continuum transpire on account of the all-perfect sanction of the absolute, ever-present Supreme Will. Further, it should be well ascertained that in all circumstances every living entity involved is in some way or other effectively moved toward the ultimate surrender of the soul, or at least indirectly engaged by superior arrangement to instrumentally catalyze such surrender in someone. Undoubtedly, everything is perfectly arranged by providence to interactively elicit whatever various responses are circumstantially required to progressively effect every interrelated individual’s ultimate reform. For instance, when cows and other animals (or people) are mercilessly slaughtered (physically or psychologically), perceptive individuals will at least wince upon sympathetically imagining the victims’ painful plight. The more insightful will cry or at least shudder when considering the butcher’s hellish future. Such observable Kali- yuga phenomena may actually serve to awaken or augment, to some extent, a pious soul’s natural, inborn quality of compassion. If that much is accomplished, then it may certainly be concluded that Maya’s distressful manifestations have successfully promoted a gradual progress to someone’s ultimate good. Persons with shastric vision will soberly understand that both the tortured animals (or people) and the consequently tortured slaughterers are progressively reaping their karmic destinies under the influence of the three material qualities. Both the tortured and the torturer will in due course realize the sufferings of material existence and eventually turn inward toward Godhead. They will thus progressively attain complete perfection at some future point in time. No conditioned soul is an island. All living relativities in this world are always, knowingly or unknowingly, directly or indirectly, positively or negatively, at least remotely in some way or other interactively instrumental in fulfilling the reformatory purposes of the cosmic manifestation. The apparently endless sojourn of the jivatma through the relative time warp of this ephemeral cosmic dimension will anyway be experienced as a mere dreamlike flash in eternity when one has, at long last, accessed the real- time eternal realm of the Absolute. At that point, the cumulative sufferings that were subconsciously retained from experiences over innumerable lifetimes will, no doubt, positively serve to dynamically enhance the wakened soul’s appreciation of the bliss of ultimate enlightenment. Therefore, the wise with the vision of eternity lament neither for the living nor for the dead. Yet, powerful Krishna conscious preachers remain ever perturbed to see “sanctioned” ignorance or forgetfulness of Krishna, which constitutes the very basis of all “sanctioned” sufferings of the conditioned living entities. They thereby feel compelled or “sanctioned” to show mercy by helping to elevate the fallen to Krishna consciousness whenever plausible (“sanctioned”), to expedite everyone’s progress to final beatitude. Was the Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb’s desecration of numerous Visnu temples not “sanctioned”? Was his breaking to pieces hundreds of deities not “sanctioned”? Was his paving the walkways up to the Islamic mosques with the pieces of the broken deities not “sanctioned”? Was his terrorizing innumerable brahmanas and Vaishnavas not “sanctioned”? Was the envious Kazi’s order to cane Haridasa Thakura in twenty- two market places not “sanctioned”? Would any soft-hearted Vaishnava condone, appreciate, or laud these “God-sanctioned” atrocities? The offended advance by their “sanctioned” praying or crying out to Krishna, their exercised tolerance, and their mercifully applied forgiveness. The sympathetic onlookers, deploring and remonstrating against the demonic mentality of the atheist, advance by their “sanctioned” sorrowful lacrimation and their “sanctioned” endeavors to either practically protect or at least verbally or mentally honor and support the Lord and His devotees. And the offenders advance by inevitably meeting their “sanctioned” total destruction, reducing their “sanctioned” false pride to “sanctioned” ashes! If fortune favors them, they may then hope to enjoy a “sanctioned” humbled fresh start. In Kali-yuga, we may consider ourselves theistically enriched to the extent that we actually help to promote the cause of congregational kirtana of Krishna’s Holy Name. Conversely, we may be considered as atheistical to the extent that we minimize or obstruct (by committing various offenses) the propagation of shuddha-nama-sankirtana. We would do well to remember that in this age both the godly and the demoniac |
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#32052011-12-19 05:23dwell in the same body, the extent of the latter proportionate to the measure of anarthas yet to be eradicated. It really depends on an individual’s purity of purpose. Was the litigious disunity within Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada’s Gaudiya Matha, whereby his illustrious preaching mission became markedly dysfunctional, not “sanctioned”? Would not the ability or inability to learn important and perhaps rather costly lessons from all such reprehensible ungodly stagecraft be absolutely “sanctioned” in view of some far-reaching ultimate design or purpose? Would history’s horrific recurrence be anything but utterly “sanctioned”? Would not our continued ignorance of the consequences of our own unthinkable self-aggrandizing affronts to the dignity and integrity of our acarya’s mission be well “sanctioned”? How long will we, claiming to be Vaishnavas, opt to slight, disrespect, belittle, or mistreat others out of a risky, false, condescending sense of ascendancy? If we won’t learn anything from the “sanctioned” instant or eventual outcome of our own “sanctioned” blatantly whitewashed folly, perhaps at least someone will somewhere along the line. That alone would make the whole “sanctioned” charade worth a little something. In the final analysis, it may be admitted that any pervertedly reflected illusory manifestation within this cosmos may purposefully pose to prospectively either entangle, liberate, or transcendentally enrapture one, consonant with the degree of spiritual eligibility governing the way one sees and responds to Maya’s multi-functional demeanor. For example, with all due respect to Maya Devi’s empowered most- recognizable expansion in the shape of a psychophysical woman, a so-called man, bewildered by material absorption, misidentifying himself as purusa or enjoyer and succumbing to an entangling labyrinth of lusty obsessions, foolishly identifies the womanly form as a most desirable and inspirational object of gross or subtle selfish sense delectation. To a lusty man the world appears as if filled with lusty women. He thus, by harboring intensified attachments to vain, romanticized objectives, degrades himself, running the risk of rebirth into an illusory prison-suit body bearing the shapeliness of a mayic psychophysical woman. Thus the materially conceived “he” ironically gets “himself” reborn as a materially conceived “she.” Such is Maya’s joke! The somewhat knowledgeable, however, who has become wary of Maya’s allurements, will wisely see the same womanly form as “mother,” an expansion of the supreme form of material motherhood, goddess Durga. In this material world, “mother” means one who gives corporeal birth, and for one who is born, death is certain. So, she who will give birth and concomitant death within this material world shall be deftly esteemed by a vigilant aspiring transcendentalist as “mother,” the personification of repeated birth and death. Steering clear by cautiously maintaining a respectful distance, the aspirant will traverse the path of liberation, intelligently circumventing the shackles of sex attraction, the binding force of this material world. Yet, an elevated Vaishnava acquainted with higher truths concerning the spiritually substantial reality of which this material world is merely a shadow will ably see everything in a different light. He transcends the relatively mundane principles of both pravritti (inclination) and nivritti (disinclination) that refer to material connections. Clearly, he realizes that the temporary, shadowy manifestations of this world, stemming originally from the substantial spiritual names, forms, qualities, and activities of the eternal realm of Goloka, can absolutely serve in various ways to remind a pure devotee of the supreme eternal reality of Radha-Krishna lila. He will therefore allow the sight of the illusory womanly form within this world, which faintly resembles the radiance of spiritual muliebrity, to prompt within himself an internal recollection of the supreme root of all minor expanded varieties of femininity. This original feature of all transcendental womanhood is none other than Shri Radha, who mothers not the material existence of repeated birth and death but rather spiritual birth into eternal loving devotion. A subordinate king’s attitude toward the emperor’s envoy conspicuously reflects his general attitude toward the emperor. As a well-wishing emissary coming on behalf of the emperor’s government to examine the condition of a subordinate is to be properly honored, so similarly any expanded form of femininity should be honored as a representative of Radha. This entire material world, Devi Dhama, is comprised of prakriti, the expanded feminine energy of Radha. Such energy in any form is meant primarily to remind one of Radha and is ultimately meant to be engaged so as to serve Her purposes in the matter of assisting to satisfy Her beloved Shyama. Herein lies the essence of the yukta-vairagya principle. A thoughtful Vaishnava, therefore, will recognize in any manifested feminine figure the symbolic ambassadress, or messenger maidservant, of Shri Radha, the supreme empress of irresistible supra-mundane feminine attraction for the enchantment of Shri Krishna. Externally maintaining a respectful distance from Radha’s messenger (duti) so as not to commit offense, while humbly considering himself to be unqualified to directly associate with her as long as he remains in the sadhaka-deha, he will simply pray from within that she mercifully inform her svamini (Radha) about his pure devotional intents. Internally offering eternal allegiance to Radha’s lotus feet, he will beg to remain ever supportive and covetous of Her loving service. Then Maya Devi, being very much satisfied, will mercifully serve in Her primary feature as Yoga Maya to transcendentally connect the devotee to the lilas of the Lord. Such externally prompted reflective remembrance of Shri Radha and Her gopi friends and maidservants thus elevates the devotee far beyond the mundane influences of the physical field, unlocking a treasure chest of blissful internal absorption in Krishna consciousness. Similarly, the tertiary purpose of all varieties of mundane political wrangling within or without the confines of any religious institution would be to endlessly embroil and entangle those who are externally oriented. The secondary purpose of the trite, gracelessly perpetrated power-politics, diplomacy, espionage, sabotage, back-stabbing, subterfuge, intrigue, and managerial baboonery abounding amongst the neophytes would naturally serve to dismay or disgust the disinterested intermediate devotees. These apolitical madhyama-adhikari Vaishnavas scrupulously avoid all such social vulgarities, valuing each fleeting moment as if it were their last. Dissociating themselves as far as possible from the prakrita-bhaktas, they concertedly focus on their devotional services of hearing and chanting, etc. and remain relatively freed from the time and energy squandering perplexities of institutional strife. No doubt the actual primary purpose of everything within this cosmos, including all the petty little interpersonal, interdepartmental, interinstitutional, international, and interplanetary conflicts inevitable at practically every Kali-yuga turn in life, is to someway or other remind the progressive antaranga-bhaktas of Krishna and His various pastimes. Political intrigue in its original supramundane feature certainly exists in the highest spiritual realm, Goloka Vrindavana. As in this world, only in a pure way, it dramatically serves to thicken the plot! So, when circumstantially noticing the bogus claptrap, caballing, and sheer tomfoolery of this plane, the resolute pure-hearted sadhakas and rasika Vaishnavas may solace themselves to some extent by reflectively remembering the likes of dina-keli- or mukta-carita-kathamrita by recalling the alarming antics of Jatila and Kutila or by musing upon the original, absolute, contentious rivalry between the followers of Radharani and the followers of Candravali. As they turn disadvantage into advantage, seeing substance within shadow, they are transported to the plane of transcendental bliss. Thus, they remain self-satisfied in all circumstances. Let the calamities come again and again – and again and again and again – te dvandva-moha-nirmukta bhajante mam dridha-vratah! Still, my heartfelt feelings are that we could hardly expect to legislate or despotically enforce real love and trust by injudiciously compelling the stringent orthodox letter of the law, let alone wrongheaded, illiteral, or fictive fanatical contortions thereof. It just ain’t polite. Rather, I would prefer to suggest that by constant unbiased recourse to the law’s dynamics, essential purpose, or inner spirit, in a facilitative temper we might hope to more or less naturally engender the desirable fruit in proportion to the purity of our perception of cogitable reality, as relevant to individual time, space, heart, and circumstance. That one would barbarously blunder to grandiloquently exhibit, time and again ad nauseam, one’s unseemly, spiritually perverted ishvara-bhava or inordinate appetite for peremptorily governing everyone and everything (well . . . everything except, of course, one’s own materially anchored domineering manner of manipulatively controlling and controlling everyone and everything and everything else) hardly says much for one’s measure of devotional sobriety, theocratic fitness, or accomplishment in Krishna consciousness. Leadership or managerial positions dare not be exploited as incumbencies from which to intimidate or brutishly lord it over the Lord’s devotees on the pretext of “getting the job done.” The pure devotional service attitude and that which is vitiated by the hostile, egoistically grounded lording propensity smack not of the same tenor. Guru is commander-in-chief – not demander-in-chief. Guru-parampara is chain of command – not chain of demand. Guru and subsequent representatives are not to demand services on behalf of the Lord. Rather, on the basis of visibly ideal character, they are to command or elicit such by openly demonstrating the unalloyed selfless service attitude toward the Lord and the world about. It is not the institution that makes the man; it is the man that makes the institution. To be real, earnestly shared sincerity of approach, regardless of expressional form, is at the very wellspring of trustworthiness, far above and beyond the indecorous, stereotypical tactlessness of frequently resorted to blunt, oft- times duplicitous managerial expediencies. Not all knavish administrative prevarication or diplomatic cajolery constitutes pious fraud. Moreover, love in the real sense, though certainly subsuming the substantive principle of service to actual eternal self-interest, in fact never seeks to interfere with, subvert, or squelch the individual’s freely volitional application of personal integrity in deciding one’s own suitable mode of devotional reciprocation. Hence, mature mutual give-and-take on the spiritual platform had better soberly respect a broader- mindedness, accommodating the significance of unique individual perspective or taste, perhaps even considerably beyond one’s own prejudice or preset dogmatic viewpoint – so help us God! He Radhe-Shyama! The pursuit of lofty mundane academic degrees very rarely if ever really lends itself to an expedited |
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#32062011-12-19 05:23Hi, Please don't block Study of Bhagavat Gita. It is very secret Knowledge by Supreme Lord. It is good & betterment for society. |
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#32072011-12-19 05:23pure devotional progress. Rather, it tends to render one more ass-like in that one often trends to unduly bear, even long after initiation into the bhakti cult, a cumbrous, almost unshakeable, inflated sense of self-importance. Furthermore, one may unfortunately entertain an immodest impression of one’s “superiority” over others who are less materially qualified, thus gobbling up heaps and piles of temporary hog-stool-like false prestige on the basis of accumulated collegial upadhis. One must sagaciously avoid the snobbish, over-intelligent, grossly idiotic notion that such slaughterhouse academia is in any way a prerequisite for high-grade devotional eligibility, competency, or potential, or to any degree indicative of such. When has such a conceited, specious idea ever been taught by an acarya or upheld by shastra? How highly educated was Valmiki? Were Hanuman, Sugriva, Jambavan, or Jatayu college graduates? How doctorately decorated were Mrigari, the hunter; Dhruva; Prahlada; or even their guru, Narada, in his previous life as the son of a maidservant? How sophisticated or cultured was the prostitute who, by the grace of Haridasa Thakura, converted to Vaisnavism and chanted no less than three lakhs of hari-nama daily? What about Haridasa Thakura himself? How literate was the celebrated South Indian brahmana whom Lord Gauranga embraced, eulogizing him as having truly understood the essence of the Gita? How boastfully bookish was Srila Gaura Kishora Dasa Babaji Maharaja? How many pointed examples are required to illustrate the principle? Besides, we should simply ask – Is the world over not teeming with college graduates and professionals who profess avowed atheism or agnosticism? One may argue that collegians have a better chance of viewing the gamut of worldly affairs, thereby increasing their natural drift toward a spirit of renunciation, but I dare challenge this idea. Realistically, how many graduates conclude from all their studies that they should just abandon the path of material amelioration to join the Hare Krishna movement? Out of many thousands of such supposedly educated people, hardly one has any idea of spiritual perfection, what to speak of endeavoring for it. And of the relatively few who do gain some understanding of or interest in sampradayic devotion, what percentage of those practicing the process on any level opts for a life of practical, devotion-based renunciation stemming from genuine material exhaustion? Sophistical, materially conceived strategic religio- administrative contrivances may appear to bluster their professed expediency in determining the devotional eligibility of a candidate, albeit, only as long as a dearth of genuinely mature spiritual insight debilitates one’s power to perceive otherwise obvious degrees of sharanagati or spiritual surrender, indicative of an individual’s actual level of pure devotional shraddha. My observation is that elevated paramarthika-shraddha manifests on the strength of the gradual accumulation of stockpiles of bhakty-unmukhi sukriti, or piety connected to and giving rise to shuddha-bhakti. Such accrues on account of service-related association with agents of pure devotion in this and previous existences. This alone is the true measure of anyone’s fitness to pursue the path of bhakti at the spiritual master’s ashrama. Such pure devotional shraddha and subsequent spiritual evolvement may be had by anyone – regardless of materially pious or impious background in terms of species, race, caste, creed, academic qualification, or pecuniary status – via the potent influence of authentically empowered, munificent representatives of Divine Grace. There is no use in eristically contending this point, drawing on any amount of sciolistic rhetoric. All things of this cosmos, though real in the sense that they consist of the energies of the Absolute Reality, in fact appear as valueless as so many zeroes by time’s dynamics, which reduce everything to oblivion. Zeroes alone are valueless. Only when the “One” of Krishna consciousness stands before the “zeroes” of this world do the zeroes gain spiritual value, proportionate to the degree that they actually contribute to the favorable cultivation of Krishna consciousness. Still, in truth, it is the “One” of pure, forceful Krishna consciousness, with or without any subsequent number of “zeroes,” that is ultimately noteworthy, important, precious, and efficacious. Magnanimous first-class preachers, in the course of spreading the message of Krishna consciousness, may go all out in various ways to extend Lord Gauranga’s sankirtana movement even to persons puffed-up or smug with aristocracy, mundane scholarship, and material affluence. They tenderheartedly consider those so materially obsessed to be the most terribly entrenched victims of Kali’s influences, the least likely to otherwise recognize and feelingly honor the mercy of the Holy Name. The complete conversion of such spiritually debased, vainglorious Kali-yuga reprobates to Vaisnavism would serve primarily to proclaim a most prodigious spiritual triumph, further acclaiming the glorious beatitude of bhakti’s benignity. Such conversion is not at all intended to “up-grade” the material status quo, prestige, or popularity of any missionary institution. To grant or deny facilities for advancing in Krishna consciousness merely on the consideration of material qualification certainly constitutes an outrageous spiritual iniquity. Real knowledge is engendered by and subservient to bhakti and is always evinced by genuine pure devotional humility. If it is observed that a “scholarly” individual has virtuously embraced standard pure devotional ethics, we should clearly conclude such to be attributable not to the individual’s mundane erudition or cerebral dexterity, whatever the level, but, undeniably, to the mercy of pure-hearted sadhus. Unvitiated, truly elevated, scientifically conversant devotees of the Lord easily see through the fraudulent front of feigned self-effacement so often accompanying the copiously concocted “foolosophical” distortions of Gaudiya-Vaishnava siddhanta, rasa-vicara, and so on rampant in the rather absurd dissertations of surprisingly well-placed, somewhat lavishly lettered institutional evangelists. Guileless pure devotees decline to recognize or support such gratuitous, bombastic, quasi-theosophical craftsmanship masqueraded as abstruse Krishna conscious esotericism. Hence, anything more than a semblance of bhakti most certainly eludes such show-bottle expositors of so-called transcendental knowledge, despite their sacerdotal echelon or externally impressive scholastic pre- eminence. Realization of the science of pure devotion is a matter of revelation from within the heart based on an individual’s degree of surrender to Krishna, not degrees of irrelevant mundane academic so-called qualifications. Bhakti, independent as she is, always causelessly appears to gradually influence the heart of anyone of her own choosing and accord. Flagrantly propagated or slyly insinuated, deviously hatched fallacies or misconceptions concerning the autonomous nature of Bhakti’s benevolence would certainly be seen as symptomatic of this present age of nescience, quarrel, and hypocrisy. My dear Praneshvari, Shrimati Radhasundari! Do You remember the instance of Your extreme compassion upon that useless little flower? I become immensely solaced and hopeful thinking of Your special mercy upon her. During Your vana- vihara-lila, one evening in the month of Jyestha, as You and Your Beloved were strolling along the forest path with Your sakhis, playful Shyama, to give happiness to the trees and creepers, was admiring them by touching their fruits and leaves and smelling their fragrant flowers. As the two of You gradually approached a thicket along the way, one unassuming, useless little flower began to anxiously cry in great anxiety, lamenting, “Oh, why did I have to be a useless flower? Why? Why did I have to be so useless? Why did I have to be without any fragrance for the pleasure of His senses? Oh! He never accepts us useless flowers. I am the embodiment of the offense of offering useless flowers! I’m so unfortunate! What is the use of having taken such a useless birth in this land of Vraja? Why did I have to be so useless?” Crying and crying again and again, she deeply despaired: “Anyway, there is no hope of ever being enjoyed by Him in this birth. I will give up my life by being trampled under His lotus feet!” With this determination, she, weeping and weeping, forcibly threw herself down off the bush, falling unconscious on the forest path. O dear Shrimati Radharani! You, overhearing the distress of her heart, pointed her out to Your loving Shyama, who, mercifully reaching down and picking her up from the ground, happily placed her as a beautiful flower ornament atop His crown, giving her limitless beaming bliss and glorifying the intensity of her bhava above the sentiments of all other flowers! |
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#32082011-12-19 05:23Scriptures like Bhagavad gita are meant to guide people to live like humans.If this book is banned the society is sure to become animalistic. |
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#32092011-12-19 05:23He Radhe-Shyama! Offering unto You my one and only scentless soul is no better than the offense of offering a useless flower. This lila, however, demonstrates to me that the little flower’s external deficiency really had no direct bearing on the actual status of her internal loving sentiments, but rather indirectly served to enhance them. He Radhe-Shyama! Please in the same way, despite everything, see something good in my lowly self; pick me up and save me from the perilous forest path of my own unbounded uselessness. Many devoted souls were placed in lower-class, materially degraded or uneducated, less sophisticated families by the will of the Supreme Authority, just to give them a better chance to more feelingly approach Your Lordship’s lotus feet with the requisite humility and natural modesty which was most lucklessly lacking in their previous life of liberal loftiness. Moreover, it is clearly explained in Gaudiya Vaishnava literature that great devotees of Lord Gauranga purposely appeared in such degraded families or in impious lands specifically to demonstrate that the evolvement of bhakti is in no way dependent upon material conditions. Everything considered, the culmination and conclusion of all learning and education is the congregational chanting of the Holy Name. I don’t think every college graduate is an ass. Some of my best friends are college graduates. As for myself, I graduated from the ISKCON School of Hard Knocks where I am presently doing my postgraduate studies. Hare Krishna! He Radhe-Shyama! Let those callous to the call for discipular self-improvement complacently attach themselves to retarded, self-centered, substandard, third-class sentimental modes of spiritual progress; we can be persuaded to spiritually advance only if we possess at least a preliminary aspiration for self-realization. He Radhe-Shyama! Let the holier-than-thou religio- institutional corporate bureaucrats, endlessly clinging to their conspicuously crude, consistently illiberal kanistha disposition, sanctimoniously integrate their as-yet-unsubdued, ignoble fault- finding proclivities on the plea of loyal managerial vigilance. Shall not we overlook their own fault of resolute self- aggrandizing censoriousness, as do they? Shall not we stoop so low as to criticize the criticizers who opportunistically magnify the foibles of others? Shall we at all dare to see any fault in faulting the faultfinding of the faultfinders? Are the pots not calling the kettles black? atma-van manyate jagat – a thief thinks everyone to be desirous of stealing his ill-gotten gains; a cheat sees the world to be full of cheaters. Krishna often allows us to see others’ faults just to remind us of the need to fine-tune our own approach to devotional life. We would always do well to remember in this connection that when we point our finger at the faults of others, three fingers conversely indicate our own. This incontrovertibly implies that even (if not especially) religiously ordained administrators who see fit to occasionally employ corrective measures with a view to bring about an individual’s or a faction’s Krishna-conscious cultural conformity should crucially consider it to be thrice their responsibility to address their own shortcomings, their own misconceptions, and their own reform, rather than be obsessed with the reformation of anyone else. Any field of management certainly demands the responsible assessment of the individuals involved – seeing any situation, individual, or faction with one bad eye and one good eye. Care ought to be exercized, however, so as to avoid any offense. After all, bees always delight in finding honey-like good qualities with a view to bring out the best in others. Let the pugnacious, double-dealing congenital equivocators openly paying lip service to a dramatically elegant, generously accommodating “Krishna conscious” paradigm, underhandedly militate against any other than their own doctrinaire politically correct prejudications. We shall no longer waste our days and nights dwelling on the wonderful workings of the three modes of material nature. There is much more important business at hand. Dear Shri Shri Radhe-Shyama! Let the inadequately edified thousands of those doggedly attached to their mere eligibility for the rudimentary practices of vaidhi sadhana-bhakti with their underdeveloped third-rate spiritual acumen and their unfortunate want of adequate scriptural penetration pertinatiously err to misrepresent the actual thrust of the Gaudiya creed in their rather pontifical preachings. Let them attempt in every way to systematically disparage or quell any upsurge of expressed aspirations for raga-bhajana. Looking askance, we shall politely ignore them. If as a result of limitless transcendental book distribution, even one obscure undeterred soul perfectly ascertains, appreciates, and imbibes the superlative aspect of rupanuga Vaisnavism, following the immaculate, spontaneous selfless loving service moods (bhavollasa-rati) of Your most intimate eternal associates in the supremely enchanting land of Vraja, then, my dear Shri Shri Radhe-Shyama, please let us consider the Hare Krishna movement to be somewhat forward. My dear most loveworthy and merciful Radha- Shyamasundara! May the broad-minded, forward-thinking souls evermore respect these deliberations, which are replete with profound concerns for advancing a more progressive culture of antaranga-bhakti in the lives of Your seriously dedicated sankirtana devotees. Please let those essence-seeking, deeply introspective softhearted individuals who patiently and sincerely read or hear these verbose utterances very soon attain the highest transcendental happiness (paramananda) in the spontaneous loving service of Your lotus feet according to their innermost heart’s aspirations. |
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#32112011-12-19 05:24Second Heartfelt Effusion My dear Shri Shri Radha-Shyamasundara! Crying at the lotus feet of Shri Guru, one very fallen and destitute soul humbly offers to You the following unrestrained stream of prayerful outpourings for Your kind and considerate audience. Some brazenly declare that the Hare Krishna movement is dead – a lifeless corpse spasmodically flapping for a few residual moments before total collapse. Others rashly conclude that transcendental book distribution is for the neophytes. Still others insist that the members of the Hare Krishna movement could never attain vraja-prema or vraja-lila due to all the offenses a few of its leading members have done to great souls; they could attain Vaikuntha at best. Even worse, much high- flung absurdity spews forth, inanely declaring the Bhaktivedanta purports to be detrimental to one’s faith in Krishna consciousness. I ask, Are these blessings, promises, challenges, curses, insults, or threats? I dare doubt not only the legitimacy but also the very rectitude of such statements. If there were but one sincere, unsullied soul living among the members of the Krishna consciousness movement, could we not construe the establishment, notwithstanding all its trials and tribulations, to still be alive in spite of itself? Aside from that, did not great devotees of the Rupanuga-sampradaya, like Shrinivasa acarya, Bhaktivinode Thakura, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada, and more recently, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, humbly embrace the task of transcendental book distribution to uplift the fallen? Should we deem them neophytes? Moreover, are we to say that the above-suggested immature, superstitious bigotry of a few adherents becomes automatically imputed to yet the broader-minded more progressive students simply by dint of institutional membership? Must an entire army stand trial for the inter- institutional war crimes of a handful of its soldiers? Is attainment of the vraja-lilas not contingent upon the Lord’s response to an individual’s sincerity of purpose? Can we not see even one worthy soul among the followers of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada intently pursuing the progressive living spirit of self-discovery culminating in the realization of vraja-prema? Is there no one “in” the Hare Krishna movement desperately crying out for the mercy of Shri Lalita, Rupa, and their attendants? Can their decision to bestow or not bestow special causeless mercy upon anyone be countermanded merely by the miserly dictums of minute jivas who wish to be distinguished as the foremost rasa-Acaryas of all the little raganuga wannabes? Is there any consideration at all beyond the transcendental preponderance of Shri Rupa Manjari’s mercy? O dear queen of my life, most gracious Shrimati Radharani! O cherished treasure of my heart, honey-moon-faced Shyama! Please let us have recourse to higher authorities to whom we may confidently appeal our individual cases! Have we not read many scriptures? Have we not served many gurus? Is Shri Vrindavana Dhama not the greatest of all gurus, the crowning splendor of all the scriptures? Is the dust of Vraja not ultimate authority? Is hari-dasa-varya, Giri Govardhana, not highest authority? May we not earnestly resort to the life-saving waters of Radha-kunda and Shyama-kunda, optimistically anticipating the fruition of our heart’s enshrined aspirations? Is His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja Srila Prabhupada himself not, in truth, higher authority? One may, to muster some sort of esteem amongst a rather credulous following, vaunt otherwise in violation of due Vaishnava decorum, but honestly speaking, one would do very well to remember that ultimately the decision as to who is nearer and dearer to Lord Gauranga is not in our hands. Are Shri Shri Jahnava-Nitai not our ultimate well-wishers? Does not the very name “Radha,” when fervently chanted, forgive all Vaishnava aparadhas? Does not even a single recitation of the name “Shri Krishna Caitanya” forgive all offenses? Do the statements of the Acaryas regarding all these things now betray us? Hridaya Caitanya, considering his disciple Duhkhi Krishnadasa to be a wayward offender, wanted to punish him for changing his tilaka and also for changing his name to Shyamananda. My dear Shyamasundara! Did Shyamananda not appeal to Lalita, Radha, and subsequently Subala (Gauri dasa Pandita, the spiritual master of Hridaya Caitanya himself)? Was Shyamananda not able to achieve the blessings of Radharani by the grace of Jiva Gosvami in spite of the displeasure and considerable consternation of his guru, Hridaya Caitanya? Anyway, so be it! Even if it were true that the Hare Krishna movement is dead and so forth, still, I would never give up my deepest gratitude toward His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and his many sincere servitors who, though bearing diverse levels of spiritual qualification and empowerment, benevolently went out of their way to help extend all those life-line literatures to the lives of fallen conditioned souls like me. If the words of our acarya diminish one’s faith in Krishna consciousness, then pray tell how, by reading his Bhaktivedanta purports, thousands of people like myself continue to come forward to join the Krishna consciousness movement and become attached to the pursuit of Krishna-prema? My dear Shri Shri Radhe-Shyama! I know I’m not qualified. I know I’m an offender. On that account, I may rightly be ever deprived of the wish-fulfilling service of Your lotus feet in Your most charming land of Vraja. Still, I declare and declare emphatically that I shall never relinquish my enthusiasm for hearing the incomparably brilliant exaltations of Your glorious names, forms, qualities, and pastimes from the pages of all those beautiful books of the followers of Lord Gauranga! Ha Radhe-Shyama! Are You kindhearted or what? If You want to stick me this way and that with all the apparently dogmatic, arbitrary, unintelligible, virtually impracticable rules and regulations of the smriti-shastras, then surely there is no hope for my redemption. Yet even if in Your view I should have to be born and reborn in hell for the rest of eternity, I shall never ever give up hoping against hope that one day some unlimitedly compassionate person will take pity on me and, though I be not at all deserving or fit, benignantly fulfill my impossible dream to attain but a dust particle of direct engagement in the service of Your eternal associates. My dear Radhe-Shyama! Even though I am certainly a reprehensible reprobate, devoid of any trace of good qualities and deserving to be punished in every way, please hear the earnest plea of my heart’s deepest desperation. Please don’t laugh at me, scorn me, or doubt me in any way. Even if I will never be allowed to relish a single drop of the ocean of nectarean mellows of pure unalloyed prema for Your lotus feet, please let me perpetually or even just in some lifetime or another live and die in the dust of Vraja-bhumi, hoping against hope to some day in the course of eternity attain You. My dear most fortunate and beneficent Shrimati Radharani! Please allow me to take my birth millions and billions of times in Vraja-bhumi in any species of life, even as a worm in the stool of a pig, rather than banishing me to become a queen of Dvaraka or an associate of Laksmi in Vaikuntha. Even if I will not be permitted to eternally reside at Shri Vrindavana-dhama, please let my heart live here always. He Radhe-Shyama! Please do not forsake me! Please forgive me for my many obvious faults and shortcomings and somehow or other compassionately find the ways and means to take my withering soul to Your lotus feet. Otherwise, what hope is there for such a helplessly fallen and blameworthy creature as myself? To hell with trying to secure a comfortable situation within this temporary world of shadowy afflictions! To hell with hoping for heavenly delights on earth, elevation to svarga-loka, or residence on any of the highest planets within this cosmos! To hell with the achievement of mystic perfections! To hell with all our exuberant eating, sleeping, mating, and defending on the plea of keeping body and soul together for the performance of sacrifice! To hell with the attempt to curtail our generally excessive eating, sleeping, mating, and defending, with the aim of practicing the principles of practical renunciation! To hell with undergoing severe penances and austerities for the sake of self-realization and God consciousness! To hell with the achievement of the five kinds of liberation! To hell with the attainment of Vaikuntha-loka in the eternal kingdom of God! To hell with having been born on Earth as some kind of dull-headed humanoid in this most glorious Age of Kali in which Lord Caitanya has appeared to make self-realization easy by inaugurating the sankirtana movement of the Holy Name! To hell with conceitedly boasting of our descent from a most venerable disciplic succession of eternally perfect Gaudiya Vaishnava Acaryas! |
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#32122011-12-19 05:24To hell with our enjoying the prestige of sitting at the feet of such a topmost rasika Vaishnava as His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, or any other for that matter! To hell with strictly following the principles of varnashrama-dharma! That is for the kanistha-adhikaris having meager pure devotional shraddha. To hell with playing “Mommy” and “Daddy” in the material world! To hell with our having opened hundreds of temples, restaurants, and farm communities with the aim of delivering all the fallen conditioned souls in the universe from the cycle of repeated birth and death! To hell with animal husbandry! To hell with following from A to Z all the damn rules and regulations of the International Society for Rules and Regulations! To hell with trying to become a Hare Krishna clone! To hell with our having “advanced” through the fires of years upon years of ordeal in the almost intolerable association of blundering neophytes! To hell with attempting to express our love for guru and Krishna in terms of endlessly bearing the brunt of relentless institutional strife! To hell with toeing the party line! To hell with the institutionalism of the institutionalists! To hell with religio-institutional corporatocracy! To hell with trying to reconcile ourselves to the neoteric drift of a movement’s henpecked leadership! To hell with being a Hare Krishna yes-man! To hell with all the superficial role-modeling! To hell with our profiling as advanced devotees when we know damn well we’re not! To hell with grappling for socio-religious eminence! To hell with the institutional rubberstamping of sampradayic supermen! To hell with the “necessary evil” of (poorly) organized religion! To hell with all the meetings, resolutions, revolutions, dissolutions, and no solutions ad-infinitum! To hell with the ever-abounding, all-entangling crisis (mis)management syndrome! What could be expected of an institution that currently runs rather like a decapitated donkey? To hell with our having supposedly heard and regurgitated hundreds and thousands of Bhagavatam classes, dutifully attended thousands and millions of mangala-aratrika and guru- puja kirtanas, and perfunctorily chanted millions and billions of rounds of maha-mantra-japa! Shnick, Shnick, Raam, Raam! To hell with all our vehemently preaching about preaching about preaching about how we’re supposed to preach about preaching about preaching about how we’re supposed to preach! What are we “preachers” supposed to be preach- preachidy-preaching about? To what extent have we actually understood? To hell with the profiteering of the cash-covetous, business-brained mongers of transcendental knowledge! To hell with the Hindu-bindu Society for Currency (oops! I mean Krishna) Consciousness! I say to hell with milking the Hindu cash cow! To hell with the cost-effective, vogue-wise Hare Krishna phobia! To hell with the painfully put-on sankirtana smile! To hell with it! Like infatuated children, avidly engrossed in the perpetual pastime of competitively collecting rare and unusual coinage, we accumulate the hundreds and thousands of unqualified neophyte disciples under the pretext of perpetuating the sampradaya. I say, to hell with it! To hell with, on the plea of concern for others, becoming so blunderingly bogged down with all the petty little problems of the hundreds and thousands of corporeally attached shisya- praya “disciples” that one fails to oneself find the time and space required to complete even the minimum nama-bhajana expected of a new bhakta; what then of achieving the advanced internal devotional realizations needed to become, for the benefit of one’s disciples, anything better than a half-baked cookie! To hell with the undignified, artfully employed, hard- nosed, cunningly politic, cold-shouldering, dog-eat-dog bureaucratic religio-administrative spin control! Has anyone ever achieved prema by this approach? To hell with being a pawn on the chessboard of any mortal being’s religio-institutional managerialism! To hell with coyly compromising the truth to kowtow to the cacophonous misconclusions of dull-headed under- enlightened ecclesiastics of religio-executive clout! |
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#32132011-12-19 05:24To hell with all the rubbish, time-wasting, power- politicking religio-institutional / inter-institutional hostilities! Are there not yet innumerable grumblers, intent on being inexorably encumbered by such endless, trivial affairs? To hell with the materially concocted hallucination of having so-called friends and enemies amongst the Vaishnavas! To hell with the perfidiously inflicted, heartlessly top- heavy centralized manipulation of manpower and money! On the threadbare plea of “spreading love of Godhead,” do such scheming preoccupations now indispensably supersede our life’s mission of becoming mad after Krishna? To hell with scrambling to savor varieties of mundane rasa on the pretext of fostering socially feasible spiritual enrichment! To hell with the fools who conscientiously avoid hearing, chanting, and remembering the Lord’s rasa-lila and other madhuurya pastimes with the gopis. They will never attain perfection. If I chance to encounter the likes of such imposter Vaishnavas, I will close my ears to their philosophical absurdities, refuse to see their faces, and scorn the dismal air about their corpse-like material bodies. To hell with fashionably passing off sub-religious quasi- Krishna-conscious eclecticism as harmonious devotional practice! To hell with the deliberate dumbing down of the Krishna consciousness movement! To hell with pandering to the psycho-physical indulgences of the movement’s lowest common denominator! To hell with the deaf ears of the conceited, self- complacent, ivory-towered religio-administrative elitists! To hell with spineless, self-serving ecclesiastico-political correctitude! To hell with our having distributed billions and trillions of transcendental literatures all over the world in scores of languages to give everyone else a chance to become fully Krishna conscious! I say to hell with it all! Much of the afore-denounced may be wonderful, meritorious or (de)pressingly important on one level or another, but if in the end, after all is said and done, we ourselves, as individuals could not effectively grasp, take to heart, factually realize, and blissfully relish the deepest essential living import of the Gaudiya Vaishnava siddhanta (learning to love Vrajendra- nandana Shyama by carefully pursuing the bhavas of the supra- exemplary damsels of Vraja), what would we have really gained from the whole affair? Truly speaking, what would be the sense or significance of any other allegedly laudable undertaking or feat? Are we merely amassing sukriti (or duskriti) for another valiant try in some future birth, or what? – an inconversant step in hopefully the right direction? Do we really know what we are doing? Do we want Krishna-prema or not? Kindly do not hastily suspect these questions to be in any way inconsequential. Okay, Krishna consciousness is a gradual process – as gradual as we make it. It really doesn’t have to be that gradual, though. Candidly speaking, charity really begins at home. It’s true that the highest realization is to take all risk, to go out of one’s way to save the world. That is our mission, for sure. Even so, still higher than that, ultimately, the very highest realization, the profoundest mission, is to save oneself. First make yourself spiritually fit. Doctor, heal thyself! First chant and dance in ecstasy like a madman, then worry about saving the rest of the world. Higher than becoming guru is to become an accomplished, fully self-realized disciple, and that hardly implies that one should pompously pose as a king with no clothes to passionately impress the little neophytes with how much one might have superficially garnered from the lines of letters on the pages of piles of books. A mesmerizing, ostentatious cerebral miscellany indeed! Nowhere is it mentioned in any shastra that neophytes and intermediate devotees achieve prema by initiating hundreds and thousands of disciples. It is really best not to accept any disciples at all. Better by far we humbly endeavor to chant shuddha-nama via the intent prosecution of yuga-dharma nama- sankirtana with a view to achieve ultimate raga-maya perfection at the feet of Shri Guru. Then we may hope to become truly empowered instruments in the hands of the predecessor Acaryas. He Radhe-Shyama! Please allow me at this point to elaborate on this proposition for the careful deliberation of the revered readers, to whom I offer my koti koti dandavat- pranamas. We should bear in mind that Shri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, in personally demonstrating the exemplary course of pure devotional conduct to edify the people of this dismal domain, adopted two programs of vital concern, which are in fact, to a large extent, intrinsically inter-supportive of each other. The three internal purposes of His advent, primarily corresponding to the tripad-vibhuuti-cid-jagat (internal, spiritual, all-sentient world comprising three fourths the kingdom of God), were essentially a matter of His pursuing the internal rasika relishment of pure devotional bhavas. The one external purpose of inaugurating the movement of mass sankirtana for the deliverance of materially conditioned jivas should be seen as relevant, or consequential, to His appearance in this ekapad- vibhuti-acit-jagat (dull material world covering only one fourth of God’s kingdom). It is a fact that His propagation of the Holy Name enhanced, in certain respects, His direct relishment of Radha’s intensified happiness in the form of Her overflowing benevolence toward others in view of Krishna’s expanded bliss. Nevertheless, it should be noted with profit that the internal absorption was primarily effective whereas the external parallel was a subsequent effect rooted in His aspiration to taste the ever-expanding sweetness of Krishna-prema. Radha is the complete whole personification of Krishna’s compassionate nature expanded into innumerable personified counterpart aspects of the same intrinsic supra-mundane potency. As the experiential value of ten-million fold must necessarily be established on the basis of the experiential value of one, so without the premise of Radha’s actual experience of personally meeting with Krishna, the assertion of Her ten- million-fold happiness in making arrangements for the other expanded aspects of Herself to meet with Him remains only so much meaningless verbiage. Similarly, it is said that anyone can have the experience of ten-million-fold the happiness of personally meeting and embracing Krishna by preaching the sankirtana movement to convince other conditioned souls to take steps toward Him. Even so, it would behoove a thoughtful devotee to initially come to the position of personally experiencing Krishna, embracing Krishna in unalloyed prema – face to face, eye to eye, cheek to cheek, hand to hand, chest to chest, etc., etc. Obviously, without gaining the actual direct experience, one could hardly realize in a practical sense whether one would be in fact subjectively sustaining ten-million- fold ananda or not. One might question whether one is being “transcendentally” conned by an inducting missionary hype or what! If most neophyte book distributors and “preachers” were to consider the idea on the basis of the relatively paltry slight rapture they experience on the preaching field, they might conclude that if the experience of meeting Krishna would be one ten-millionth of the experience they undergo in the course |
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#32152011-12-19 05:24Humanity of the world could be saved ony by BHAGVAD GEETA. So to save this holy scripture to be banned is necessary.---- A.S.Pathak |
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#32162011-12-19 05:25pls dont ban this.. The followers of Bhagvad Gita are always peaceful and respect every other religion and paths. Then why ban it ? |
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#32172011-12-19 05:25of their preaching struggle, meeting Krishna could hardly be a very happy affair! So why bother to advance one’s purva-raga, anxiously hoping against hope to some day actually meet Him face to face and eye to eye? Moreover, if they were factually tasting the ten-million-fold happiness they were purported to be able to taste, then why do so many of them fall away to re-chew the pre-chewed gross and subtle sense gratification for want of achieving a higher taste? We see, but we don’t see. If one actually saw Krishna, one would faint! If one actually saw Radharani, one would die! One might pause for a moment and question to what extent a practitioner could have actually seen, experienced, tasted, “realized,” or even basically understood for that matter what is Krishna, what is Krishna consciousness. For the most part, a sadhaka cannot do any more than conjecture or imagine what it means to be fully Krishna conscious. We should doubtlessly acknowledge that the Lord quickly recognizes anyone who teaches the secrets of the science of Krishna consciousness for the benefit of the fallen conditioned souls. Still, to be sure, it would not be inappropriate at this point to aver that only a topmost devotee can really preach with the requisite purity, potency, and background of full-fledged shuddha-sattvika realization to effectually revolutionize or spiritually enkindle the heart of anyone. Only a maha-bhagavata invested with the (hladini) potency to do so is fit to bestow shuddha-nama, which alone can be said to be, in the real sense, identical with nami, Krishna Himself, subsumptive of all His internal spiritual potencies. Others, occupied with missionary movements (antics), may by hook or by crook generate a curiosity, persuade via various inveigling modus operandi, or sympathetically encourage by pointing the way; something is better than nothing, for sure. Still, merely going through the motions (Hare Krishna movements), as it were, and actually getting the whole job done may prove to be conspicuously dissimilar at the upshot. In other words, the degree of a devotee’s genuine experience of Krishna’s sweetness, as proportionately revealed by Krishna Himself in response to one’s evolving premika sweetheartedness toward Him, assumes the fundamental measure of one’s adhikara to perform empowered sankirtana. Those who think themselves to be Vaishnavas, as well as individuals who regard themselves as guru of Vaishnavas, looking forward to receiving honor and respect; vying for fame, recognition, and reputation; equating the rapacious, quantitative accumulation of disciples with sampradayic worth; uppishly considering themselves to be superior to others though incapable of genuinely crying for the Lord’s special causeless mercy, all the while forgetful of or oblivious to, nay, totally apathetic toward their internal sac-cid-ananda spiritual identity (vraja-svarupa), yet anxious to satisfy their greed for prestige and material gain by accessing religio-institutional power and position for securing diverse gross and subtle personal and extended sense indulgences or ego-inflations; remaining enslaved by mental concoction while keeping Krishna in the front, can never chant the actual Holy Name of the Lord. Nor can they qualify their fawning followers to hear the Holy Name, which alone can award the highest happiness. Though the syllables of the Holy Name be ostensibly articulated, the aparadha-nama or abhasa-nama kirtana of the egotistical can never directly help any jiva attain the final beatific prayojana, i.e., pure unalloyed vraja-prema. Krishna, as a person, can on the basis of His own personal feelings like someone or not like someone according to His own sweet will. No one, even adhering to or outwardly espousing strict regulative devotional proprieties, can compel Him to selectively use one’s fleshy tongue as an instrument in the service of His divine sound avatara merely by paying lip-service to the vulgar similitude of Hari-nama or ingeniously mouthing off sampradayic rhetorical jargon to the extent that one prides oneself to ably parrot something of the Krishna consciousness philosophy. First deserve, then desire! How can we expect to fully enlighten others about the secrets of high-level Krishna consciousness, to, when required, lead or instruct them to their supreme perfection, if we ourselves have not deeply penetrated the esoteric truths and devotional conclusions via our own personal introspective application of the tenets of antaranga-bhakti- bhajana, humbly following in the footsteps of the previous Acaryas? If one, being uninformed, inexperienced, or disinclined, is incapable of even theoretically discussing the constituent principles of raga-margabhidheya, or if one fancifully fabricates dubious, superstitious, or presumptive aberrations thereof, then how far could the disciples expect to advance under such unsatisfactory neophyte guidance fraught with utter spiritual ineptitude? Compassion is defined as “pity inclining one to help or be merciful,” implying that one should presumably possess the capacity to do so. Obviously, one can only effectively help to the limits of one’s spiritual wherewithal. We vibhinnamsha souls, as minute parts and parcels of the pleasure potency of Krishna, are compassionate by nature; it is our intrinsic constitutional dharma. Arousal of one’s spontaneous, constitutional quality of benevolence toward others is therefore integral to the very substance of self-realization. There is, however, essentially no qualitative distinction between the pure devotional compassion displayed in terms of one’s participation in the internal supramundane pleasure dalliances of the spiritual realms of Gokula and Goloka and the pure devotional compassion expressed extensibly to the fallen souls of this world by a constituent of the acarya’s preaching mission. Both varieties of ministrative concern, whether existentially manifest (in practice or in perfection) as seva toward those who are ontologically superior or as daya toward subordinates, are really aspects of the same substance – the selfless service disposition, far beyond the bestial self-gratifying nescience of mundane egoism. The intangible inverted reflection of a tree seen on the surface of a pool of water can have no existence without the original substantial prototype at the water’s edge. Similarly, miserable, selfish, and spiritually corrupt personal and extended sense gratification on the material platform, antithetical to its divine counter, exists only on the basis of the original ananda- maya tree of concentrated and extended selfless prema for Krishna and His devotees on the terrace of spiritual perfection. Censurable desire for gross and subtle personal sense gratification is at the root of the tree of material existence, whereas the varieties of lustfully extended sensory or emotional indulgences expand the tree’s downward spread of distressful material entanglement in terms of increased ephemeral bodily identification with mundane family, society, nationality, race, humanity, and so on. Correspondingly, with regard to Krishna’s nitya-lilas it should be clearly decided that personal concentrated premika appreciation and enthralling worship of Krishna’s supremely enchanting loveliness and lovableness is at the very root of the ever-expanding, all-entangling labyrinth of extended para-upakara premika fascinations, which are notably marked by a concerned ministering to others’ love-laden, deepest desires for the Lord’s loving association (a‰ga- sa‰ga). Without a doubt, these two tendencies – the trend toward solitary bhakti-bhajana-kriya and the predilection for the more gregarious devotional service characterized by outreaching sanga-kirtana – are natural and actually essential to every soul. This is quite so because both proclivities have originated from the absolute personalities of Radha-Krishna and Shri Gauranga as seen in Their madhurya and audarya-lilas respectively. As infinitesimal, eternally separated fragments of the Supreme, the vibhinnamsha-jivas are in their own minute way inherently ever possessed of both these relevant juxtapositional divisions of purely supra-mundane madhurya and audarya expression. It stands to reason, therefore, that one may without much difficulty justifiably deduce that if preaching to induce wayward souls to reunite with Krishna be akin to a gopi’s selfless service of gracefully canvassing to effectuate another gopi’s enhanced rapture of samprayoga (conjugal union with the Lord) in the context of the vraja-lilas, then the execution of solitary bhajana in this sphere should also sensibly correspond to its self-same essential substance seen in the Lord’s nitya-lilas in all purity. No one would blame Radharani for consenting to sport with Krishna in solitude for some interlude in the course of Her showering mercy upon the whole of Vraja. Similarly, solitary bhajana for any relative period in the progress of the eternal life of any elevated Vaishnava should not be misconstrued to be abhorrent to the high-grade pure devotional demeanor in that such may well prove to be integral to the complete whole, long-term, ongoing eternal maturation of the individual’s multi-aspected Krishna conscious experience. We must acknowledge that although solitary bhajana and sankirtana appear to be divergently constituted, the objective of both ways of worship is one – to please Krishna. It is nowhere indicated that progress in Krishna consciousness demands a unidimensional, one-sided approach to the Lord’s loving service. The sincere adoption of one mode of service or another is simply a question of pertinence with regard to personal requirements in consonance with the extent of the Lord’s mercy manifested in all variegatedness. In fact, today’s consummately introverted bhajananandi may very well be tomorrow’s empowered gosthy-anandi preacher, or vice versa. In the long run, practically tasting the sweetness of vraja- prema-bhakti-rasa itself becomes the true impetus for earnestly endeavoring to share the experience with others. It is not enough to merely distribute, distribute, distribute – superficially going through the motions on the basis of bare theoretical understanding without sufficiently developed internal devotional proficiency. With considerable preparatory foresight, one must also conscientiously endeavor to ascertain the truth of one’s ultimate nitya-dharma in terms of one’s eternal inner spiritual identity. It is imperative that one progressively come to the point of actually relishing transcendental rasa, self- manifested through the precise systematic culture of sthayi- bhava, which fosters the tangible increments of prema from sneha up to the stage of maha-bhava. Please bear in mind that these upper levels of prema are possible only upon the attainment of sampatti-dasha, otherwise known as vastu-siddhi, the ultimate perfection of gaining Krishna’s direct shelter upon achieving the actuation of one’s supra-substantial sac-cid- ananda siddha-deha (perfect spiritual body) in the bhauma-lilas of the Lord. Nothing happens automatically or blindly by chance. Everything must be cultivated scientifically and consciously for the absolute pleasure of guru and Krishna with a clear conception of deliberate cause and due consequence. One could hardly expect to achieve the supreme spiritual perfection by unapprisedly harboring anomalous devotional (what to speak of non-devotional) idiosyncrasies, which are not accommodated by the purest realm of Vraja. To be sure, what one sees in the make-up of one’s sadhana is basically what one could prospectively see in one’s sadhya (outcome of spiritual practices). Vaidhi bhakti (fear-based, reverential devotion) alone can never in a million lifetimes lead to the stage of raga-bhakti (attraction-based, spontaneous loving devotion), which is essential for the attainment of Radha’s realm of sweetest intimacy. Sakala jagate more kare vidhi-bhakti / vidhi-bhaktye vraja-bhava paite nahi shakti. “Everywhere in the world people worship Me according to scriptural injunctions. But simply by following such regulative principles one cannot attain the loving sentiments of the devotees in Vraja-bhumi.” (Cc. adi 3.15) Only by the merciful arrangement of a rasika Vaishnava, wherein the regulative principles of vaidhi sadhana- bhakti are therapeutically directed toward the diverse madhurya elements of Vraja, is it at all possible for vidhi (rule) to attendantly promote the attraction and lobha (greed) essentially required to gain the adhikara (eligibility) for raga- marga-bhajana. Even still, one would have to possess sufficient faith, fortune, and spiritual acumen to actually recognize the need to progressively transition by stepping up onto the platform of raganuga sadhana-bhakti in order for the rule to be said to have effectively served its real purpose. Undoubtedly, the unqualified, irresolute anisthita-bhajana-kari novices on the plane of rudimentary devotion, due to insufficiently evolved greed for the Vrajavasis’ sweetest moods of selfless loving service, factually have no recourse but to rely heavily upon the force of pancaratrika rules and regulations in their attempt to rise above the material quagmire. However, simply sticking to the reverential process alone does not produce the superlative result, the highest satisfaction of the self. The bhava eventually attained with great effort through exclusive fear-based, reverential adherence to the regulative principles of vaidhi sadhana-bhakti and the bhava naturally awakened as an outcome of avidly following the course of raga-bhajana are not qualitatively one and the same. Bhagavata-dharma, or the cult of Shrimad-Bhagavatam, is specifically and purposely, if not |
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#32182011-12-19 05:25The Bhagavad-Gita As it is, is authentic Literature which is the same Bnagavad Gita that Lord Sri Krishna imparted Spiritual Knowledge to Arjuna on the Battle Field of Kurukshetra it was imparted to a warrior who had his Kingdom Usurped by his Cousins by illegal means, Krishna imparted the spiritual knowledge to Arjuna through who the entire world could be impartedd knowledge of the realities of Life and the Ultomate Goal of life for all Human kind. Hence it should allowed to be Published and allowed to be read by all the human beings who need to know how to lead life (with dignity and spiritual consciousness), do is prescribed duty in this life and respect other human beings and other living beings, it teaches that a Humble sage by virtue if knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and Gentle brahamana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog eater (ch. 5 verse 18), which means that all the Human beings who read this Bhagavad-gita will learn how to treat every living being with equanimity and respect and make the best use of their present life to go back home back to God head. Thanks for considering this favourable petetion. |
Guest |
#32192011-12-19 05:26http://www.24hourkirtan.com/media/ WHO NEEDS TO PERFORM HARI-NAMA-SANKIRTAN? (Sanskrit diacritics omitted for broader internet accessibility. Inconvenience deeply regretted.) In Kali-yuga no other devotional activity supersedes the currently prescribed yuga-dharma, hari-nama-sankirtana. Indeed, all other dharmas and all the various adjunct angas of bhakti must subordinate themselves to the service of the yuga-dharma to be deemed at all conducive, so far as the proper progress of the Krishna consciousness movement is concerned. All doings connected with Lord Caitanya’s sankirtana movement may be accepted as sankirtana, or facets of the sankirtana principle, to the extent that they factually inspire, promote, and facilitate or at least positively compliment direct performances of yuga-dharma hari-nama-sankirtana. Kali-yuga-dharma hari-nama-sankirtana is the yuga-dharma for this entire yuga, please. Kali-yuga lasts a total of 432,000 years, of which only a mere 5,000 years have passed. The understanding should be that the process of nama-sankirtana is applicable to all souls appearing on Earth, particularly in the human form of life, during this entire 432,000-year period. The yuga cycles functioning on this planet are not effective on other higher or lower planetary systems. Hence, it is we who have presently appeared on Earth who are expected to take full advantage of the golden nama-sankirtana opportunity for easily going back home, back to Godhead. It is not that hardly any more than 500 years after the Lord and His associates descended to inaugurate the system of sacrifice for this entire age some other scheme should take precedence. If we don’t have complete faith in the congregational chanting of the Holy Name, if we have very little taste and attraction for chanting and dancing and are thereby relatively disinterested or diverted to other engagements, leaving ourselves little if any time to seriously take up the religion of the age, if we don’t recognize the beauty and value of hari-nama-sankirtana, and if we are not intent upon practically helping to push forward that most sublime dharma emphatically prescribed by Lord Caitanya, then we should simply understand that we are cursed by Yamaraja, that we have not realized the purpose of the Krishna consciousness movement, and that we have not truly comprehended the highest mercy aspect of the Lord’s ongoing audarya-lila of preaching the sankirtana movement all over the world. The highest mercy aspect of the Lord’s ongoing audarya-lila is to elevate fallen conditioned souls to the topmost perfection of relishing eternal spontaneous loving madhurya service to Radha and Krishna on the platform of vraja-prema. There is no doubt about this. Golokera prema-dhana, hari-nama-sankirtana. Any goloka-rasa may be awakened by the performance of vipralambha-rasa-maya hare-krishna-maha-mantra-sankirtana. However, as rasaraja-mahabhava Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu mainly descended to this world to freely distribute the supremely nectarean mellow of radha-dasya, it should not astonish anyone that sankirtana of the ultimate, matchless maha-mantra – Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare – would primarily appear to distinguishedly stimulate and nourish that unnatojjvala-vraja-rasa Na mam duskrtino mudhah prapadyante . . . But who are the mudhas? The term mudha does not exclusively portray the other guy. As much as we ourselves, like beasts of burden, continue to blunderingly bear the encumbering heaps and piles of corporeal egoism, material attachments, and misconceived notions about the recommended processes by which the ultimate philosophical conclusions of the Gaudiya sampradaya’s teachings may be practically implemented and realized, that much we ourselves can be considered mudhas. naham prakasah sarvasya yoga-maya-samavrtah mudho ‘yam nabhijanati loko mam ajam avyayam “I am not manifest to everyone. Because I am concealed and guarded by My internal deluding potency (yoga-maya), dull-headed ass-like individuals cannot recognize Me as the unborn and inexhaustible Supreme Personality of Godhead.” (Bg. 7.25) Kaviraja Gosvami has stated in his Caitanya-caritamrita (Adi 17.22), kali-kale nama-rupe krishna avatara: in this Age of Kali, Krishna descends from His eternal abode in the form of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. Paritranaya sadhunam – it is Sri Hari-nama Prabhu who descends to deliver the sadhus by augmenting their faith in the process of sankirtana-yajna while granting a profound taste for its performance, thus mitigating their pangs of separation. Vinasaya ca duskrtam – it is Sri Hari-nama who anihilates the demonic anartha-congested mentality that generates the unfortunate reluctance, disregard, and sheer disinterest concerning the performance of sankirtana. In Kali-yuga, not to engage one’s energies in the performance of yuga-dharma-nama-sankirtana can be considered the primary form of irreligion. Whenever and wherever there is a decline in its performance – yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati – and a predominant rise in the negligence of such – abhyutthanam adharmasya – then, tada, at that time – dharma-samsthapanartaya – it is only Sri Hari-nama, appearing through the lips of the Lord’s pure devotee, who can forcefully reestablish the jivas’ eternal occupational duty, nama-sankirtana. So also, it is Sri Hari-nama who descends to graciously bestow unalloyed love for Himself through the culture of nama-sankirtana-yajna. Even so, Krishna-nama reserves the right to either expose or conceal Himself in response to an individual’s quality of faith. Regrettably, disoriented neophytes possessed of persistent mudha-like tendencies do not recognize the true nature of the Holy Name, who, though unborn, inconceivably takes birth from His mother, who takes the form of a pure devotee’s tongue. The beginning, middle, and culmination of saranagati (surrender to the Lord’s shelter) as a practical expression of one’s level of sraddha are actualized in this age by surrendering to the service of the Holy Name. And the prime methodology for such surrender is the propagation of the current yuga-dharma, the congregational chanting of the Holy Name. This truth was profusely demonstrated by Sri Gauranga throughout His manifest earthly pastimes. Only prema-ruruksu devotees, who are considerably advanced on the path of pure devotion, can truly understand the power of the Holy Name and the need to wholeheartedly take shelter of the process of nama-sankirtana. bhaktya tv ananyaya sakya aham evam-vidho ‘rjuna jnatum drastum ca tattvena pravestum ca parantapa “My dear Arjuna, only by undivided devotional service can I [as nama-rupa avatara] be understood as I am, standing [dancing] before you [on your tongue], and can thus be seen directly [in the proper light]. Only in this way can you enter into the mysteries of My understanding.” (Bg. 11.54) atah sri-krishna-namadi na bhaved grahyam indriyaih sevonmukhe hi jihvadau svayam eva sphuraty adah No one can understand the transcendental nature of the name, form, quality, and pastimes of Sri Krishna through his materially contaminated senses. Only when one becomes spiritually saturated by transcendental service to the Lord are the transcendental names, forms, qualities, and pastimes of the Lord revealed to him.” (Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu 1.2.234) Here again, in Kali-yuga, “transcendental service to the Lord” connotes primarily the congregational chanting of His Holy Name. Unfortunately, ass-like (bhara-vahi) externally absorbed kanistha-bhaktas of meager spiritual standing, though socially established through Gaudiya-religio-institutional affiliation, have very little if any true cognition of the eternality, infallibility, and omnipotence of Krisha’s self-same names, forms, qualities, and pastimes. Owing to residual sinful reactions, insufficient accumulation of piety in this and previous lifetimes, and a tendency to commit nama-aparadha, they are unable to worship the Holy Name with the determination required to gain much tangible experience of the efficacy of nama-sankirtana. On that account, their faith in and concomitant surrender to the direct prosecution of the yuga-dharma largely lacks firmness. For want of spiritual insight, they do not clearly ascertain what is and what is not to be done. Their pursuit of Krishna consciousness lacks proper prioritization. They disregard scriptural injunctions even while giving lip-service to the importance of following scriptural injunctions. They thus fail to submit to the prescribed process recommended in the scriptures for this age and so give little importance to the practice of congregational chanting and dancing. Hence, their degrees of faithlessness in the matter of congregationally chanting the Holy Name relegate their way of thinking to the domain of assorted mudha-isms. Srimad Bhagavad-gita has it that four kinds of faithful neophyte devotees begin the process of devotional surrender with the hope of gaining the Lord’s favor – the distressed (artah), who are to some extent mukti-kami, hoping to get peace of mind by chanting the semblance of nama; the inquisitive (jijnasuh), who are curious about the effects of chanting the Holy Name; the fortune seekers (artha-arthi), who are to some extent bhukti-kami, hoping to fulfill desires for material gain by performing sankirtana; and the wise (jnani), who actually know things as they are and dutifully perform sankirtana of the Holy Name with an aspiration to pure devotional progress. All these people are considered to be more or less pious (sukrtinah), eligible for elevation to the madhyama-adhikara through the association of pure devotees. Conversely, there are those of us who, even though posing as devotees, relentlessly decline to acknowledge the need to intently adhere to the process of nama-sankirtana. On the pretext of various other devotional engagements and institutional “responsibilities,” they platitudinously declare themselves to be exempt from the need to seriously prosecute the yuga-dharma. Due to miserly weakness under the influence of the Lord’s deluding potency, they are hard put to see the connection between the sankirtana performances and the fulfillment of all material and spiritual exigencies. To the extent that we fail to appreciate and earnestly actualize the propagation of nama-sankirtana, residues of the demonic tendencies persist in our hearts. Correspondingly, the terms duskrtinah, mudhah, naradhamah, and mayayapahrta-jnanah found in the Gita also indicate our own individual and collective devotional shortcomings. So, who are the mudhas? We are the mudhas! Why? Because even though the truth of the importance of prosecuting the yuga-dharma as the only viable method by which the goal of life can be practically achieved is staring us in the face, we continue to ignore the obvious and attach ourselves to so many superfluous strategies. On the plea of various Krishna conscious pursuits, we are primed to die losers, without ever having truly understood or appropriately applied the science of self realization. Yo va etad aksaram gargy aviditvasmal lokat praiti sa krpanah. “He is a miserly man who does not solve the problems of life as a human and who thus quits this world like the cats and dogs, without understanding the science of self-realization.” (Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad 3.8.10) This very brief human form of life is a most valuable asset for allaying the tribulations of conditional existence, which revolve around the quest for ultimate happiness. Therefore, one who does not utilize this golden opportunity properly for the achievement of vraja-prema via the process of nama-sankirtana is a miser. All other spiritual practices may be considered legitimate to the extent that they actually enhance the performance of hari-nama-sankirtana. As much as we engage our time in activities other than hari-nama-sankirtana or activities other than those that support, inspire, or facilitate the direct performance of hari-nama-sankirtana, that much our human form of life may be considered a devotional wasteland. The Krishna consciousness movement is not Lord Caitanya’s arcana movement. It is not Lord Caitanya’s “kitchen-religion” prasada-distribution movement. Neither is it Lord Caitanya’s management-meetings movement, nor is it Lord Caitanya’s varnasrama movement, nor is it a cow-protection movement. It is not Lord Caitanya’s money-scamming movement; nor Lord Caitanya’s computer-junkie; social-development; community-service; international-matchmaking; child-protection; or eating, sleeping, baby-buggying, and mutual back-scratching or backbiting movement. We would do very well to clearly mark that the Krishna consciousness movement happens to be Lord Caitanya’s sankirtana movement, please. A movement that does not primarily inspire, promote, and facilitate its members’ concerted absorption in kali-yuga-dharma hari-nama-sankirtana is hardly a sankirtana movement. Moreover, a sankirtana movement that neglects to purposely encourage the pursuit of raga-bhajana for the attainment of vraja-prema is not the sankirtana movement of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. In this Kali-yuga, there’s no question of pleasing Lord Krishna without pleasing Lord Caitanya. Human beings with good brain substance (su-medhasah) intelligently recognize that Lord Caitanya is immensely pleased by the lobha-maya performance of sneha-samyukta-nama-sankirtana (complete engagement in congregational chanting with deep affection). There is no universally viable dharma in this age save the congregational chanting of the Holy Name. In this Age of Kali the success of any other limb of devotional service – not excluding the execution of bhagavata-sravana-kirtana, of which transcendental book distribution (brhat-kirtana) is an extension – largely depends upon one’s isochronous absorption in the direct practice of nama-sankirtana. It is seen, with reference to acarya-vani, that the most highly elevated, self-surrendering devotees doubtlessly prefer to exclusively embrace the congregational singing of the Holy Name rather than rely on other devotional processes for the evolvement of prema. In the bhakti-sastras the efficacy of nama-sankirtana is well established above all other angas of bhakti. In fact, nama-sankirtana stands alone as the greatest devotional practice (maha-sadhana) and therefore reigns supreme as the only infallible means of attaining love of Godhead (vraja-prema). It is not that other forms of devotional service are as good as nama-sankirtana, but somehow or other nama-sankirtana is not really good enough (financially viable or whatever), obliging us not to highlight its performance in any way. If we are to propose that nama-sankirtana is not good enough to merit our concern, then any engagement allegedly “as good as” nama-sankirtana should also be equally ignored. Beyond that, the proposition that any devotional activity is in any way better than prosecuting the yuga-dharma should be deemed sheer madness. Any other anga of sadhana-bhakti deserves to be lauded as sadhana only if it in some way facilitates one’s active absorption in nama-sankirtana-rasa. Further, any sadhana that fails to promote but rather tends to detract from one’s progressive attachment to the process of nama-sankirtana is simply an anartha, an impediment on the path of ultimate perfection – even if in the broader sense it is computed to be some sort of sankirtana. It is not that just because we have joined Lord Caitanya’s hari-nama-sankirtana movement we therefore don’t need to bother ourselves to go out on hari-nama-sankirtana. How can we expect to get ruci for something we scarcely do? Suddha-nama-kirtana-ruci is not so cheap that merely by official, institutionally regimented token gesture or lame lip-service we should expect to achieve the thing. We have to go deeper, beyond the call of duty, beyond the ceremonious filing in and filing out of the stipulated “temple programs.” When Mother Yasoda was trying to bind Bala Krishna to the grinding mortar, she was mystified to find that she was again and again two fingers short of success. One finger represents a devotee’s steadfast extra endeavor, the other Krishna’s divine dispensation, His special mercy. Alongside whatever other services we may be doing on any level, all of us, irrespective of organizational echelon, would do well to assiduously find or make the time to both privately and publicly do more hari-nama-sankirtana and see the long-lasting internal (personal/communal) and external (outreaching/para-upakara) results. If our authorities disallow, discourage, disparage, or in any way hamper our focus on the performance of yuga-dharma-hari-nama-sankirtana, then they are not our authorities. If our gurus instruct us not to concentrate our energies and resources on the performance of yuga-dharma-hari-nama-sankirtana, then, with all due respect, they are not our gurus. As Bali Maharaja rejected the order of his guru, Sukracarya, we should be prepared to similarly disobey the instructions of millions of “gurus” who in any way dissuade us from surrendering to the yuga-dharma. Trnad api su-nicena . . . kirtaniyah sada harih. What does it mean to have the genuine humility required to constantly and uncompromisingly adhere to the practice of nama-sankirtana? To unwittingly allow ourselves to be regressed to a state of infancy by the institutional manipulators of men and money, that they might conveniently maneuver us to advance their managerial agenda according to their whims via their artful appliance of the principles of child psychology, is not what is truly meant by “trnad api su-nicena.” The correct understanding is very simple; simple for the simple. Contextually implied by the proposed adoption of an attitude of humbleness is simply the seemliness in honestly admitting oneself to be a fallen Kali-yuga creature, having no qualification to achieve the goal of life by any means other than the process foreordained by the sastras and propagated by Lord Gaura as the only viable dharma for the deliverance of the fallen souls of this age, namely hari-nama-sankirtana. Equally connoted is the spiritual integrity required to boldly stand up against all odds (taror iva sahisnuna) and simply do what is right according to time (Kali-yuga) and circumstance (our fallen condition). In doing so, one should not unrealistically expect to be regarded as being fit for any other practice (amanina), and one should respect (mana-dena) the true self-interest of other similarly fallen Kali-yuga creatures, in the matter of their attaining the fruit of krsna-prema, by encouraging them to also take up the dharma of the age. Kirtaniyah sada harih is not achieved by not doing nama-sankirtana. Hari-nama-sankirtana is the best and most powerful process for awakening one’s taste and attachment for the Holy Name. One who fortunately gains authentic suddha-nama-ruci and intelligently amasses stockpiles of solid background experience in the matter of relishing the nectar of nama-sankirtana-rasa will most likely never depart from the path of unalloyed devotional bhajana. Without having the impulse to enthusiastically practice the religion of this age, hari-nama-sankirtana, what Vaisnava or Vaisnavi can claim to be having suddha-nama-ruci? Without having extensively engaged in vigorous, daily protracted performances of the yuga-dharma, hari-nama-sankirtana, what Vaisnava or Vaisnavi can honestly claim to have ascended to the terrace of prema? Without purposely promoting the daily promulgation of the yuga-dharma, hari-nama-sankirtana, what devotional community can viably proclaim its intent to elevate its members to life’s ultimate perfection? Without deliberately stimulating and fostering the worldwide daily promulgation of the yuga-dharma, hari-nama-sankirtana, what institution can claim to be truly representing the sankirtana movement of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu? Without having sensibly dedicated a substantial portion of life’s time and energy to the direct performance of yuga-dharma hari-nama-sankirtana, which individual or group of individuals can claim to have rightly understood and applied the essential message of the scriptures proliferated by the Gaudiya Vaisnava acaryas through disciplic succession? If we sincerely desire to deepen and redouble our taste for chanting the Holy Name, then we would do very well to take shelter of Gaura-Nitai and do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we recognize the enormous need to practically expand the ocean of transcendental fortune and bliss to touch the lives of other pious souls, in the matter of increasing and maintaining Krishna’s family of devotees, then we would surely do well to take shelter of Gaura-Nitai and do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we at all acknowledge the intermutual need to expedite the purification of our Vaisnava relationships then we would all do very well to concertedly take shelter of Gaura-Nitai and do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we seriously want to go well beyond the bodily concept of life, to realize the highest constitutional spiritual identity of the self (vraja-svarupa), then we would do very well to set all worldly considerations aside, take shelter of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we truly desire the perfection of the vraja-bhavas, by which we could ever hope to attain the pleasure pastimes of the Lord in the topmost realm of Vraja, then we would do very well to do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we at all see the need to expedite our progress to the terrace of vipralambha-bhava-maya-vraja-prema for the pleasure of guru and Gauranga, in consonance with the very purpose of Their mission, then we would do very well to do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we, honestly confessing any delinquency in the matter of its performance, sense a deficiency in the evolvement of our individual and collective pure devotional experience as per insight, revelation, and realization, then we would, by all means, do very well to abandon all apprehensions about the thing and simply do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we want the life-long inspiration to carry on with our transcendental book distribution in a most viable way, then we would certainly do very, very well to do more hari-nama-sankirtana in order to deeply appreciate and enthusiastically share the very essence of what the books are, in so many words, purposely promoting! Given that we might, with a view to accomplish the as-yet-to-be-realized final half of Srila Prabhupada’s mission, deem the reestablishment of varnasrama-dharma in present-day human society to be of paramount importance, even still, we would do very, very well to intelligently put the horse before the cart and concertedly, all the world over, do more mass hari-nama-sankirtana – to practically increase the piety and spiritual consciousness of the masses in order to even hope to make possible that which is virtually impossible under the present so-called “for the people, by the people” heinously roguish, demonic, world-domineering corporatist governmental misleadership. Godless religio-racist multi-national corporate elitists and other hard-core, ruthless, raksasa-like terror-breathing global tyrants are not going to politely wait for us, the members of the Krishna consciousness movement, to finally, all over the world, wake up to our inalienable right and responsibility to do more and more mass hari-nama-sankirtana! Institutional management has neither the authority to sanction nor the right to interdict or in any way inhibit the performance of the yuga-dharma. The will of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu ultimately pulls rank on institutional authority. Please remember that in Kali-yuga the Supreme Personality of Godhead descends from Goloka-dhama to protect the sadhus and annihilate the demons by resoundingly manifesting as His Holy Name on the tongues of His pure devotees. The divine descent of kali-yuga-krishna-avatara sri-hari-nama-rupa alone can effect the downfall of such insidiously scheming, media-manipulating latter-day murderous war-money-mongering demons and carcass-devouring pseudo religionists of Kamsa’s and Putana’s class! Even if we prefer to pursue variant paths of spiritual perfection, or even if our all-devouring exigencies cannot go beyond the transitory urgency to “put food on the table” and “give peace a chance,” all the same, we would definitely do very, very well to have faith in the yajna for this age and simply do more and more hari-nama-sankirtana! Let us not wait until the fag end of life, when varieties of physical and mental decrepitude will render our bodies inoperative, to wisely recognize this principle. The urgency is enormous. Jiva jago! Jiva jago! The time is now. Now is the time for revolution – a revolution of consciousness, a revolution of priorities. It’s time for a reality check. All individual, communal, institutional, and inter-institutional devotional inadequacies, anomalies, and inequities – as well as all domestic, public, socio-political, governmental, and inter-governmental irregularities of this age – can be positively surmounted simply by intelligently administering “heavier,” more frequent medicinal doses of life-giving yuga-dharma sri-hari-nama-sankirtana. Once again, if we’re not part of the solution, we’re part of the problem. We have busied ourselves over the years, trying so many other ideas. Why not sincerely concede to this one and be pleasantly surprised? (Excerpts from Aindra Dasa’s soon to be published composition, The Heart of Transcendental Book Distribution.) |
Jay |
#3220 Please treat this in favor of the Bhagavad Gita As it is2011-12-19 05:26The Bhagavad-Gita As it is, is authentic Literature which is the same Bnagavad Gita that Lord Sri Krishna imparted Spiritual Knowledge to Arjuna on the Battle Field of Kurukshetra it was imparted to a warrior who had his Kingdom Usurped by his Cousins by illegal means, Krishna imparted the spiritual knowledge to Arjuna through who the entire world could be impartedd knowledge of the realities of Life and the Ultomate Goal of life for all Human kind. Hence it should allowed to be Published and allowed to be read by all the human beings who need to know how to lead life (with dignity and spiritual consciousness), do is prescribed duty in this life and respect other human beings and other living beings, it teaches that a Humble sage by virtue if knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and Gentle brahamana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog eater (ch. 5 verse 18), which means that all the Human beings who read this Bhagavad-gita will learn how to treat every living being with equanimity and respect and make the best use of their present life to go back home back to God head. Thanks for considering this favourable petetion. |
Guest |
#32212011-12-19 05:26Please read BHAGVAD GITA first and all the other holy books before comparing it with others or banning it anywhere in the world. |
Guest |
#32222011-12-19 05:27exclusively, aimed at the progressive cultivation of raganuga- bhava. That is the opinion of Srila Vishvanatha Cakravartipada, whose judgment should not be overlooked in the slightest. It is enjoined in the shastras that the guru, upon giving panca-samskara initiation, bestow a spiritual name upon the disciple to help instrumentally dismantle or at least distance the disciple’s previous falsely designated mundane bodily identity based on material relativities (sarva-upadhi-vinirmuktam) and establish a very basic, non-specific concept of being a servant of the Absolute Godhead (krisnera ’nitya-dasa). The spiritual name conferred at the time of diksa may not directly correspond to the disciple’s eternal spiritual identity and so would not, therefore, necessarily be considered the disciple’s name eternally. Nevertheless, it is spiritually useful in so far as it functions to push the novice disciple’s mind-set in the right direction. So similarly, it is indeed very useful, from the stage of purified hearing (krama-shuddha-shravana-dasha) after achieving a considerable degree of anartha-nivritti, to culture via artha-pravritti the internally conceived siddha-deha in terms of the ekadasha-bhava under the guidance of Shri Guru or rasika Vaishnavas. Such internal contemplation effectively enables the eligible intermediate devotee to easily overcome various latent false egoisms, by positively fostering a conceptually graspable, unambiguous, cogently personal, spiritual identity, well beyond the external bodily notion of what it supposedly means to be a devotee. Particularly for the madhurya devotee cherishing the mood of being Radha’s dasy-anudasi, even the conception of being dasanudasa would be a false egoism, an upadhi, a matter of external appellation only. It is well established that those aspects of vaidhi sadhana- bhakti which prove to be antagonistic to the culture of a sadhaka’s desired vraja-bhava must certainly be rejected when pursuing the path of raga. Similarly, certain features of the internal raganuga-sadhana may naturally and necessarily have to be discarded if ascertained to be no longer relevant at the stage of spontaneous realization (svarupa-siddhi). Even so, the sincerely embraced “close enough for starters” ekadasha-bhava conceptualization dynamically serves to further dissolve the material bodily conception of the self and swiftly move the guileless aspirant toward perfection (bhava-siddhi) by generating a very powerful and inspirational spiritually congruent virtual vraja-svarupa image within the heart of the disciple. It is insufficient simply to know by negation that “I am not ‘this’ [illusory material] body.” At a certain point, a seriously inquisitive individual must inevitably ask, “If I am not ‘this’ body, then what body am I?” The rather nondescript “eternal servant of Krishna” idea of being a spiritual entity beyond the presently acquired psycho-physical tabernacle may be quite theoretically ingrained upon the brain, yet merely understanding “I am not ‘this’ body” without cultivating a superior internal spiritual bodily concept of life tends to render the self an internally unsatisfying formless (nirakara) spiritual no-body vulnerable to nostalgic “something is better than nothing” emotional or corporeal egoisms and the return to gross or subtle mundane rasas. Two areas of knowledge and realization need be clearly established in the matter of a sadhaka’s resolve to solidly implement the practice and perfection of vraja-bhakti-bhajana. One must precisely comprehend the principles of rasa-tattva as well as the object of rasa and worship (upasya-pariskriti), Shri Krishna, and one must also be aware of the intrinsic constitutional role and nature of the worshiper (upasaka-pariskriti), pertinent to which is the understanding of the individual’s ekadasha-bhava. Incompetent neophytes who lack pure devotional lobha-maya-shraddha characterized by the appurtenant sharanagati or disposition of selfless surrender and who have yet to surpass the stage of krama-hina-shravana-dasha (unqualified hearing) should never be directly instructed about the esoteric intricacies of the internal culture of raganuga-bhajana, lest they misconstrue everything and make a mockery of the whole affair. If, on the other hand, a worthy and spiritually eligible disciple, for whatever reason, does not get the facility of receiving essential and relevant instructions regarding the positive configuration of the appropriate internal vraja-svarupa when actually required for further progress, then there is every danger that the inexperienced, unguided, or spiritually obstructed practitioner will unfortunately relapse into a life of anarthas, as has been regrettably evidenced time and again in contemporary Vaishnava society. It is true that at a point in time after the disappearance of Lord Gauranga a number of sampradayic charlatans posing as heirs to the legacies of their siddha-rasika-Vaishnava Acaryas’ successions trended to indiscriminately bestow what came to be termed as “siddha-pranali-diksa” upon ineligible, materially engrossed, imitative disciples without caring to notice their so- called disciples’ obviously inadequate degrees of lobha-maya- shraddha. It should not surprise anyone that stalwart maha- bhagavata devotees of the Lord like Srila Gaura Kishora Dasa Babaji Maharaja, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada would take objection to such malpractice. Among other adjustments, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati saw fit to de-emphasize the revelation of ekadasha- bhava for the general mass of his followers, in deference to the all-purifying process of nama-sankirtana and is in fact known to have bestowed the ekadasha-bhava system of internal vraja- svarupa conceptualization upon only a very deserving few. Contemporary disciplic successors, however, appear to be hard- pressed to muster up the empowerment required to feasibly implement the imparting of ekadasha-bhava to anyone at all, almost as if to suggest a heretofore future probability of an all- around internal devotional incompetence among the ensuing generations of gurus and disciples alike. Although the absolute dependency upon siddha-pranali-diksa as such for the evolvement of raganuga-sadhana is denied in the Sarasvata doctrine, timely instruction (shiksa) concerning the internally conceived siddha-deha is nevertheless essential. If members of the Krishna consciousness movement could not come to the position of having sufficient qualification, sincerity, and determination to merit receiving such esoteric instruction, then what might be suspected of the purificatory power and efficacy of the devotional process we follow? Just because untrained, ineligible, cheap, or hypocritical monkey-like individuals devoid of regulative devotional proprieties should not be esoterically instructed beyond their actual level of spiritual competence, as is currently being done by certain overly lenient gurus, it doesn’t mean that all the disciples of highly qualified gurus should be deemed lifetime devotional bambinos, altogether denying them access to such an invaluable internal devotional facility. Would we not be conveniently throwing poor little baby out with the bath water on the plea of ensured institutional sanctity? The king wears clothes. The king is a fool. Therefore, everyone who wears clothes is a fool! Not very logical. That money tends to get misspent by irresponsible people doesn’t mean money should never be spent by those who are truly accountable. It is certainly admissible that realization of one’s siddha- svarupa while still corporeally embodied and the ultimate attainment of one’s siddha-deha upon achieving the Lord’s vraja- lilas can be had by the mercy of the fully blossomed Holy Name who in due course gives everything to the sincere devotee. More siddha-deha diya . . . (Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s Sharanagati – Shri Nama Mahatmya). Also, as stated in Shri Caitanya-caritamrita (adi-lila 1.96), tattva-vastu – Krishna, Krishna-bhakti, prema-rupa / nama-sankirtana – saba ananda-svarupa. “The Absolute Truth is Shri Krishna, and loving devotion to Shri Krishna in the form of [vraja-]prema is achieved through congregational chanting of the Holy Name, which is the essence of all bliss.” |
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#32232011-12-19 05:27This is a time in the history of mankind's development of historical perspective when we desperately require expanded God consciousness, not any less. Our problems as an intelligent species on this beautiful planet are larger than most of us are aware. We need gifted guidience and a method beyond ordinary mental speculations to acquire insightful solutions for civilization's expanding quagmire. The ancient Vedic Puranas and spiritual texts presented through the worldwide publications of A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada are the authentic efforts of a gifted, scholarly Hindu saint to shed spiritual light in these darkening modern times. My request is that the spiritual light of Krishnas guidience in the form of the Bhagavad Gita remain unhindered in the lands of the Soviet Union. |
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#32242011-12-19 05:27This is literature for mankind, very good literature for all humanbeing, irrespective of their religion. |
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#32252011-12-19 05:28Again in the Caitanya Bhagavata (Madh. 23.76-79): hare Krishna hare Krishna Krishna Krishna hare hare hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare prabhu kahe kahilam ei mahamantra iha japa giya sabe kariya nirbandha iha haite sarva-siddhi haibe sabara sarva-ksana bala’ithe vidhi nahi ara “The Lord said, ‘Regularly chant japa of this maha-mantra. In this way you will attain all perfections. Chant at any time and in any circumstance. There are no other rules for chanting. Gather together, five or ten, in your own homes, clap hands or play cymbals and sing kirtana of these holy names.’” Shastric evidence such as this, however, in no way poses to preclude the sadhaka’s need to be esoterically instructed. Sambandha-abhidheya-prayojana-tattva-vicara demands the consideration of each individual’s specific internal devotional requirements. It is not meant to remain a general discussion devoid of any concern for the individual disciple’s personal spiritual objective. After all, the ascent to prema is a personal affair involving the delicate unfolding of personal sentiments based on personal desires to personally please the particular Personality of Godhead whom one considers to be one’s personal ista-deva. We must always remember that we are persons. Krishna is a person, the Holy Name is a person, and we are all unique individual persons who need to personally conceptualize the unique personal goal of our chanting before we can expect our chanting of the Holy Name to yield the superlative personalized fruit of love for Krishna we personally require to be all we can personally be to be personally satisfied that Krishna is personally satisfied with our personal attempts to please Him in all personified personal sweetness. Chanting with specific wrong conceptions bears specific wrong results, chanting with no specific conception bears no specific result, chanting with specific inferior conceptions yields specific inferior results, and, unsurprisingly, as one might reasonably gather, chanting the Holy Name with specific superexcellent conceptions yields specific superexcellent results. Ye yatha mam prapadyante tams tathaiva bhajamy aham... It’s not all one. The obvious implication of the above Caitanya-caritamrita verse is as follows: Srila Rupa Gosvami in his Bhakti-rasamrita- sindhu clearly delineates two basic levels of devotion – sadhana- bhakti (bhakti in practice done by ajata-rati sadhaka-bhaktas) and sadhya-bhakti (bhakti in perfection done by jata-rati bhavukas and siddha-bhaktas). Sadhana-bhakti includes two distinct paths – vaidhi-marga and raga-marga – correspondingly leading to two distinct types of perfection – maryada-prema (reverential love) and kevala-madhurya-prema (unadulterated sweetest intimate love). Raga-marga-sadhana is not to be equated with spontaneous devotional service; rather, it is deemed spontaneous devotional service in practice wherein a sadhaka covetously endeavors to internally emulate the perfect spontaneous mood of one of Krishna’s intimate eternal ragatmika associates. Only fortunate practitioners adequately endowed with lobha-maya-shraddha may legitimately take up this path. To the extent that one has not gained steadfastness in the pursuit of raga-bhajana, to that extent one is obliged to allow shastra-vidhi to prompt one’s adherence to the external practices of devotional service. As one’s affinity for bhajana prevails, lobha itself becomes the driving force, and the need to rely on shastra-vidhi becomes relatively superfluous. Likewise, sadhya-bhakti is divided into two progressive levels – bhava (preliminary love of Godhead) and prema (advanced love of Godhead). The stage of relishing prema-rasa, realized at the highest level of purity, comes only after the arousal of sthayii- bhava by the influence of vibhava, anubhava, sattvika, and vyabhicari, generated from the fragrance of the flower of rati or bhava. Prema never appears before svarupa-siddhi, which is realized at the stage of bhava. The stage of bhava and apana- dasha are basically synonomous. Bhavapana-dasha is the sadhya, or outcome of intensified sadhana, which progresses through the stages of shravana-dasha, varana-dasha, and smarana-dasha culminating in bhakti-samadhi. As previously indicated, shravana-dasha appears in two phases – krama-hina- shravana-dasha (haphazardous or unqualified hearing without aspiration to a particular rasa) and krama-shuddha-shravana- dasha (systematic, offenseless hearing with the ultimate aim of pleasing Krishna). If as a kanistha-adhikari shraddhavan jana one hears Krishna-lila in an unfocused way without having undergone sufficient purification via advanced devotional association, clouds of anarthas will obstruct the discernment of one’s natural inclination toward a particular rasa. Such hearing designated as krama-hina-shravana may in fact retard the arousal of one’s latent proclivity for raganuga-bhakti if one does not scientifically endeavor to improve one’s approach to the hearing process. However, when faithful upper class neophytes who are antarmukha (looking inward in the spirit of self- discovery) attentively and methodically hear (nityam bhagavata-sevaya) about Krishna’s nitya-lilas and naimittika-lilas under the wholesome guidance of experienced raganuga- sadhakas and rasika Vaishnavas, they, by such krama-shuddha- shravana, swiftly and without difficulty dissipate the clouds of anarthas (nasta-prayesu abhadresu) and come to the nistha platform (bhaktir bhavati naisthiki). Purposeful krama-shuddha- shravana appreciably manifests the enchanting sweetness of the Lord’s pastimes, spontaneously arousing the hearer’s latent predilection for raganuga-bhakti. As anarthas (material lust and greed) decrease in the course of extensive hearing (ceta etair anaviddham), one gradually recognizes within oneself a special natural appreciation for particular pastimes of the Lord enacted with a particular ragatmika associate endowed with a specific rasa. This indicates one’s natural constitutional inclination toward a particular rasa. The awakening of a basic yet firm eagerness to attain a kind of relationship with the Lord similar to that of one’s esteemed ragatmika archetype constitutes one’s specific innate lobha. It should be emphasized here that the details of a disciple’s ekadasha-bhava are generally to be sussed out between the disciple and the guru during the krama-shuddha- shravana-dasha stage in light of the disciple’s specific lobha. acarya-vani has it that these constituents of raga-marga-sadhana may be inculcated to the disciple quite early in the course of events if the guru sees that the disciple’s association is pure, elevated, and siddhantically solid. When, satisfied that the guru has correctly ascertained one’s inner greed for achieving a specific devotional perfection, one vows to heartily accept the compatible bhava for continuous cultivation, only then does one come to the stage of varana-dasha, which is the very basis of raganuga-bhajana-nistha. Having become “fixed-up” and satisfied on the brahminical platform of goodness (sthitam sattve prasidati), one becomes freed from the major lot of gross material distractions. At this point one may gradually focus and absorb one’s mind and heart (from smarana, dharana, dhyana, anusmriti, to samadhi) in the remembrance of one’s given vraja- svarupa while cultivating the mental service of Radha-Krishna’s eightfold daily pastimes (asta-kaliya-lila-manasa-seva). apana- dasha, as a sequel to all this, comes quite later in the chain. Hence, it would be erroneous to conclude that raganuga- sadhana and the prerequisite greed (lobha) to pursue the path of raga would commence from the stage of bhava. Moreover, it would be terribly clumsy to suggest that sadhakas must first attain vaidhika bhava-siddhi on the path of reverential devotion before gaining the credibility and the go-ahead to even dare to consider the prospect of pursuing the principles of raganuga- sadhana. It is preposterous to in any way deduce that sadhana would begin after sadhya (apana-dasha [rati]) has been achieved. Jata-rati Vaishnavas are bhava-bhaktas, not sadhana- bhaktas. After the attainment of svarupa-siddhi, a siddha-bhakta anxiously cries to be reinstated in his or her original constitutional relationship (vastu-siddhi) with the Lord. This state of intense eagerness is technically termed lalasamayi. It is incorrect to equate lalasamayi, which is manifested in the perfectional stage, with lobha, the basic element needed for embarking on the path of raganuga-sadhana while in the state of bondage, the position of imperfection. It is not that one must be perfect (jata-rati) before one can practice to become perfect. If sankirtana of the Holy Name can bring the sadhaka to the highest perfectional platform of unalloyed Krishna-prema, why should we not expect the Holy Name to grace the sadhaka with the relatively lesser adhikara required to merit hearing esoteric ekadasha-bhava instructions from the lips of Shri Guru – instructions that are actually required for the tangible practice of proper asta-kaliya-lila-smarana and manasa-seva in pursuit of the internal achievement of raganuga bhava-siddhi, svarupa- siddhi. Whether or not the present generation of gurus have the adhikara to adequately deliver the goods is a question in and of its own. God knows; it’s a question that the guru-figureheads themselves will ultimately have to honestly acknowledge and answer. But in principle it should not be presumed that just because the general mass of people tends to be prone to degradation and hypocrisy, genuine people don’t exist, and that such genuine people should not be instructed and encouraged |
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