Jahnava Nitai Das

It has been seen in the past that many "gaudiya vaishnava only" forums have opened on the internet, and the fighting there was even worse than here. As far as I know, all of them later closed down because they were just a mess of insults. The equation seems to point to ISKCON or Gaudiya Vaishnava followers being unable to converse with others without trying to convert/smash/defeat/kick in the face of the other side, or even doing all of those simultaneously. Honestly, if iskcon devotees are completely unable to control their anger and dislike of other's beliefs (and the same goes for the Hindus) I would prefer they don't come. They just end up giving a bad name to ISKCON and Prabhupada. I can't imagine anyone trying what goes on here in real life, say on a bus with someone sitting next to them.

I have been through Koyambedu bus stand so many times, but was never aware of this ancient temple. We need to publicize these ancient temples that are sitting right next to us, but out of sight. Every city in India has such temples.

It is a fact that both Ayurveda and Siddha medicine use heavy metals in their some of their medicines. It is the ayurvedic belief that poison acts as an antidote to some diseases (just like western medicine may use chemotherapy or radiation to kill harmful tumors). Rather than reject this belief, it needs to be scientifically studied and determined. This practice has existed for thousands of years, and you cannot remove it without rejecting the entire system of ayurveda.

I would suggest you don't rush into it. Wait for 5 or 10 years. Focus on your own sadhana and Krishna will guide you.

It is unfortunate that someone asks a sincere question about shiva purana, and some members want to immediately come out with their sectarian attacks. It is for this reason that I feel a religious forum is pointless. Is it justified to attack someone because they like Lord Shiva? Suppose we replace Shiva with some other religion. Would the same attack be appropriate? For example, would it be appropriate to mock other religious people as follows: Oh great, we have two Christ Afficinados on board here! Oh great, we have two Buddha Afficinados on board here! Oh great, we have two Islam Afficinados on board here! Oh great, we have two Yahwey Afficinados on board here! It is sad to see some people's hatred for Hinduism while they themselves follow a subset of it. Sectarian hatred is what makes religion useless. Whether it is Christian sectarianism, Islamic sectarianism, or Hindu sectarianism (under the brand Vaishnava). If a thread doesn't interest you or tally with your belief system, then please don't read it. If there is someone asking about Shiva, Shakti or Ganesh, and if you hate those devas, then please don't read the thread. Try to control your speech. Only speak on those topics which you hold dear. As has been mentioned many times, this is not a vaishnava forum. Have the courtesy to respect all vedic religions here even if you disagree with them. It is a fact that basically all Vaishnavas here have never even read Shiva Purana, so they should just keep quiet. If you don't know a topic, please resist the uncontrollable urge to speak. I used to participate regularly in these forums, but because of so many meaningless posts I lost interest in even reading the forums. Now I don't even have much interest to keep the forums open, as 50% of what is posted here is basically rubbish, with the other 50% being actually valuable information. If we count the number of innocent posters like the starter of this thread who have visited and posted sincere questions on Hinduism, only to be smashed with the vaishnava know it all hammer, it will be thousands and thousands of people. Is it worth it, offending thousands of sincere seekers, just to have a place for religious people to argue? The mistake was that I thought Vaishnavas and Hindus could co-exist and discuss religion and philosophy in close proximity. This has obviously proven to be a false assumption.

In fact I believe the poster is editing the wikipedia entries himself, and then posting them here as though they are evidence, when in fact it is just him quoting himself.

Unfortunately it is likely the cows were killed for the leather. From what I heard they kill calves as the leather is more suitable for making drums. There was a letter going around a couple years ago explaining where the mridanga leather comes from.

I believe Theist has been here from the very beginning, but at that time he was using a different user name.

Nice website: http://www.srivaishnavasrichennai.com/

Surrender also means to accept that Krishna's idea of maintaining us may not be our idea of being maintained. He may leave us eating scraps from a garbage, or he may send us into a jail cell in Mathura for not possessing a proper visa, or he may let us leave our bodies with a painful disease while living in the streets in Radha Kunda. In other words don't expect comfort just because we surrender to Him. If someone is not ready to accept whatever difficulties may come (which includes all of the difficulties in this world), then they are not ready for surrendering in the external form. That's why better to practice sadhana first in a natural environment we are accustomed to.

That is pretty good advice. Over the last 30 years, almost everyone who left everything to do sadhana in Radhakunda found it wasn't what they expected. Radhakunda is a place for highly advanced devotees to continue their spiritual sadhana. Those of us who still have likings and dislikings (probably all of us) should practice more in our own natural environments at first. Sadhana won't be easier by going to Radhakunda, it will in fact be harder unless our minds are conquered. Make a radhakunda around you instead.

An attacking army is not going to take head to your sign board saying non hindus not allowed. We should just admit it is based on caste discrimination, as untouchables and tribals were also included in the banned list for thousands of years. Discrimination based on caste is an evil practice within Hinduism that needs to be weeded out.

What is described here is the Pitru Yajna, or oblations to the forefathers. Ramachandra performed this sacrifice for an animal (Jatayu), accepting Jatayu as his own family member despite him being in an animal body. This sacrifice is done to appease the forefathers, not for the purpose of eating meat. This sacrifice was subsequently forbidden to be performed in the age of Kali (the present time period): asvamedham gavalambham sannyasam palapaitrkam devarena sutopattim kalau panca vivarjayet "Five things are forbidden in the age of Kali - horse-sacrifice, cow-sacrifice, acceptance of sannyasa, offering flesh to the forefathers (pitru yajna) and begetting a child in the womb of the wife of one’s elder brother." - Brahma Vaivarta Purana (Krsna-jnama Khanda 185.180)

I dont know how accurate it is about people offering bounties on priests. It is just the statement of a Christian organization, so we cant be sure that its true. But basically both sides and all sides who engage in violence are terrible.

Since you are a Gaudiya Vaishnava, you should follow Rupa Goswami's advice in Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu regarding what to do when a Vaishnava is offended. He gives several options based on our qualifications and abilities, none of which are "tolerate the offense to a Vaishnava and consider it a lesson in humility from Lord Krishna." Your memory of the story of Jagai and Madhai seems to be a little faulty. The story is specifically about an offense to a Vaishnava, and Lord Caitanya's response was not to "tolerate that offense and consider it a lesson in humilty fom Lord Krishna". Rather Lord Caitanya wanted to punish the offenders severely. Only the person who is offended has the right to forgive the offender. None of us have the right to forgive the offenders who have offended Srila Prabhupada. It is not within our rights to tolerate it, forgive them for it, or remain humble about it. Why? Because it wasnt an offense to us. We can only tolerate our own sufferings, hardships and offenses. We have no right to tolerate someone else's sufferings, hardships or offenses.

I don't see burning the image of a saint as a lesson from Krishna to make us tolerate that offense. In fact I really dont consider humility to be the tolerance of a saints image being burnt. Humilty is defined differently in the scriptures I read, and duty is likewise defined differently. Tolerating offenses to others is really the opposite of humilty, it is more like cowardice, and by remaining silent we become guilty of that offense. If someone comes and beats your neighbhor with a stick, its pretty easy to "tolerate" that and hide, the hard thing is to stand up and help that person. The Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu never states that we should become humble by tolerating offenses to our saints. In fact in the history of India, this is the first time the image of a saint has ever been burnt. It has never happened in the history. What this shows is that Kali Yuga has managed to increase its influence on the world.

Today their complaint is ISKCON holds ratha yatra on the wrong day. Next their complaint will be that there should only be Panda priests serving Jagannatha in ISKCON temples, and untouchables shouldnt be allowed to have His darshan, as is "Jagannatha culture". The fact is they are simply irrelevant people. They are best simply ignored. Further, it should be noted that even India does not have a universal calendar. Different states celebrate festivals on different days, based on different calendars. The Kartik month of North India is one month before the Kartik month of south India. There are even differences in the calendars of Vaishnavas and Shaivites, and Sri Vaishnavas and north Indian vaishnavas. So this illusion that there is an exact perfect date for all of India (what to speak of the world) is false. ISKCON does not follow "panda culture" and ISKCON has no interest in following their culture in the future. ISKCON is the organization that has spread the worship of Lord Jagannatha throughout the world. They really don't need advice and guidance from ritualistic priests who have abused their powers for hundreds of years and have destroyed Hinduism (through untouchability, sati, devadasi, etc.) In summary, anyone who thinks there is something called a "Hindu calendar" needs to educate themselves about the various calendars of India and their histories.

Today their complaint is ISKCON holds ratha yatra on the wrong day. Next their complaint will be that there should only be Panda priests serving Jagannatha in ISKCON temples, and untouchables shouldnt be allowed to have His darshan, as is "Jagannatha culture". The fact is they are simply irrelevant people. They are best simply ignored. Further, it should be noted that even India does not have a universal calendar. Different states celebrate festivals on different days, based on different calendars. The Kartik month of North India is one month before the Kartik month of south India. There are even differences in the calendars of Vaishnavas and Shaivites, and Sri Vaishnavas and north Indian vaishnavas. So this illusion that there is an exact perfect date for all of India (what to speak of the world) is false. ISKCON does not follow "panda culture" and ISKCON has no interest in following their culture in the future. ISKCON is the organization that has spread the worship of Lord Jagannatha throughout the world. They really don't need advice and guidance from ritualistic priests who have abused their powers for hundreds of years and have destroyed Hinduism (through untouchability, sati, devadasi, etc.) In summary, anyone who thinks there is something called a "Hindu calendar" needs to educate themselves about the various calendars of India and their histories.

It should also be noted that the teachings of the madhva sampradaya and gaudiya sampradaya are very different. So in fact the teachings have changed (as well as the tilak). One example is considering Krishna as the source of all incarnations. The followers of madhva see no difference between Vishnu and Krishna (or any other avatar), but the followers of Caitanya Mahaprabhu consider Krishna to be the source of all incarnations and expansions. Thus logically the Madhvas will not make the distinction between the levels of consorts of different expansions of Vishnu, where as Gaudiyas will make that distinction.

It's actually exactly the opposite. The entire western world more or less sees vegetarianism as a healthier lifestyle. Only in India do people hold on to uneducated beliefs that we need to eat meat to be healthy. And these are the same people who still use DDT in their kitchens to kill insects, something the rest of the world banned decades ago. In fact most of the people who take to vegetarianism in the west do it BECAUSE it is healthier than eating meat.

What is the point in posting a thread attacking someone else's system of belief? Rather than making the thread about MAYAVADIS and how they are so bad and incorrect, why not just speak about what VAISHNAVAS believe about Vaikuntha. There really is no need to bring in mayavadis at all, especially not as the main title of the thread. It would be similar to a shaivite starting a thread called "Hare Krishna's are idiots. They think Vishnu is God." Just present your belief system, and don't get into the evils of everyone else's belief system. When the title of your thread is about another belief system you are inviting them to come and criticize you here. If the thread was named something more appropriate like "The Glories of Vaikuntha" then the mayavadis wouldn't bother reading your thread and you could peacefully discuss what ever it is you wanted to discuss. But when you title things like this you are just provoking others to come and argue with you. If any "mayavadi" made a thread about Hare Krishna beliefs, all the hare krishna followers would complain to ban the "offensive" person. So please be considerate of other's feelings and beliefs. If you are really trying to convince or convert people to your belief system, then speak in a way that is attractive to all people.

Who is in need, a vegetarian who wants a new restaurant to try new tastes, or the millions of animals being mercilessly killed every day for food? What is time well spent? Is another restaurant really the need of the world? The saint Vallalar felt the pains of dried wheat in an arid field and cried to God to help them.

You will get a better quality deity in Chennai at Giri Traders, opposite Kapaliswar Shiva Temple.

Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya would be ideal if you require a mantra with Om. It is the invocation to Srimad Bhagavatam given by Vyasa Muni, and is both chanted as japa and sung in bhajan by sadhus.

Not all shalagramas have chakra symbols on them. There is a small book published by Radha Raman temple (Vrindavan) that provides scriptural quotations describing different types of shalagramas. There is also a book called Shalagrama Kosha published in Bangalore that provides many quotations from shastra. The conclusion of that book is that worship of a shalagrama without proper marks and with sakama bhakti (material desires) will result in negative results. But with Nishkama bhakti one can worship even a broken shalagrama with no negative result. All shalagramas are Vishnu, but different classes of people are advised to worship different shalagramas.