transient

Dear Guest, Here is a response to your post. The example of the sunrays as jivas to the sun globe as God (or sunshine molecules to the sunshine) and a drop of water to the ocean as analogies to the relationship between jivas and God are not perfect examples as these are material objects. A drop of water merges into the ocean as the sunshine particles to the sun globe AND THEY LOSES THEIR INDIVIDUALITY. On the other hand, the jivas and God are all enternally individuals and DOES NOT LOSE THEIR INDIVIDUALITY AT ANY TIME. When the jiva attains perfection and goes back to Vaikuntha, he retains his own individuality and continues his loving relationship with God. This is the Vaishnava perspective. Therefore the individual jiva will not ever become God (the Supreme Soul). However because the jiva has the same quality (spiritual) as with God, he can be considered as god in that sense only -- same quality with God. But not the all powerful Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Supreme Soul, Krishna. We have all the tendencies as God's but these are all infinitesimal compared with God's. This our problem, realising our godly tendencies, we aim for the ultimate. This is an illusion; thinking that we can become God. Successful impersonalists who had achieved merging into the brahmajoyti, the white light coming from the spiritual world, thinks that what they had achieved is the highest reality and they think they had become God by merging into this great ocean of light. But why is it that they cannot remain there forever? Why is it that they come down again into this material world and spread the "good news" that we too can become God? It is because the eternally individual jiva cannot remain inactive forever. He needs activities, he needs relationships. This is a very strong evidence that we're all unique individuals. Impersonalists may think that these individualities are all dreams and illusions and they may be correct. Because surely, they are only dreaming... and they are all in illusion...

The problem here is the way to supposedly recognize her as guru, is flawed; since to vote someone to become a guru has never been supported by shastra. She isn't voted yet isn't it? What if the GBC will vote against her becoming a guru? Notwithstanding all the recommendations? Does it mean she isn't a guru after all? She is or she isn't a guru (a pure devotee). But the selection / voting process will have nothing to do with it. Let the Lord Paramatma confirm or deny this. Let us hear from shastra whether she has symptoms of a person who is a pure devotee. Let us listen to the words of the recognized sadhus whether her position is being supported. It will be an individual challenge, an individual responsibility to find out -- to those who really want to find out anyway. But the problem with many of us is we are too lazy to dig deeper and only need an imprimatur by someone or group to do the job for us. But this is a very risky business because we are supposed to give our life to a person who we accept as our guru. What if in the future we realized we made a mistake as what happened to many people within Iskcon the past many number of years? I greatly symphatized to many of them and hope their devotional lives were not totally destroyed. However, in the end, we only have ourselves to blame because spiritual life is always a life of individual responsibility.

The problem here is the way to supposedly recognize her as guru, is flawed; since to vote someone to become a guru has never been supported by shastra. She isn't voted yet isn't it? What if the GBC will vote against her becoming a guru? Notwithstanding all the recommendations? Does it mean she isn't a guru after all? She is or she isn't a guru (a pure devotee). But the selection / voting process will have nothing to do with it. Let the Lord Paramatma confirm or deny this. Let us hear from shastra whether she has symptoms of a person who is a pure devotee. Let us listen to the words of the recognized sadhus whether her position is being supported. It will be an individual challenge, an individual responsibility to find out -- to those who really want to find out anyway. But the problem with many of us is we are too lazy to dig deeper and only need an imprimatur by someone or group to do the job for us. But this is a very risky business because we are supposed to give our life to a person who we accept as our guru. What if in the future we realized we made a mistake as what happened to many people within Iskcon the past many number of years? I greatly symphatized to many of them and hope their devotional lives were not totally destroyed. However, in the end, we only have ourselves to blame because spiritual life is always a life of individual responsibility.

Audarya-lila das said: My own personal view is that until women are seen as men's equals with the same rights and privledges and the same ability to advance their own Krsna consciousness and help others in their march toward divinity, Krsna consciousness will be viewed not for what it is or can be, but for what it is not - a sexually bigoted religion that views women not only as subordinate but as inferior and incapable of fully representing God on earth. Of course, presently there is a lot of company in that particlar fold - for example the Catholic Church seems to hold dearly to similar views in terms of keeping the heirachy firmly in the hands of the 'good old boys'. I think you're missing entirely the goal of life here. The goal of life is to love Krishna and by Krishna's grace, stop the cycle of birth and death and return back home back to Godhead. There is no need for women to attain equality with men to achieve this. In fact there is NO material qualification whatsover that is required to achieve this. Anyone can achieve love of God regardless of his or her material position. Having said that, there is no neccessity whatsover to re-arrange the material situation to achieve this spiritual goal. Women doesn't need equality with men -- which by the way, is just not possible. They don't need to have "the same ability to advance their own Krsna consciousness and help others in their march toward divinity". As a housewife and mother, they can cultivate their love towards Krishna and they can bring up their children to love Krishna. It's quite simple. With all the noise and advances the women's lib movement had created, it ended up with women suffering more because of the so-called "freedom" they had achieved. Generations of unwanted children are now populating the world because of this "women's lib" influence and which largely contributed to the world's degradation. As enjoined in the Bhagavad-Gita (1.40), I believe the protection of women is still the solution for the betterment of society. I can see that you want to give this up in the name of your so-called "progressive" philosophy. If you are too worried about what other people will say against the Krishna consciousness movement, that is only you prabhu and others with the same mentality as you have. But in the context of the absolute, it doesn't matter very much. Because God always arranges for the sincere souls to come to Him no matter what the situation is. In other words, it is always God's ballgame, not ours.

There is no contradiction because the first: The Lord can similarly initiate everyone who is inclined to have it. speaks of the inherent power of God to do anything. and the second: One should not, however, think himself on the level of Brahmä to be initiated directly by the Lord from inside because in the present age no one can be accepted to be as pure as Brahmä. refers to the proper attitude of the devotee. So a bona fide disciple, who is most humble, would never be inclined to be initiated directly by the Lord. Lord Chaitanya's statement: "I am the servant of the servant of the servant of Krishna" teaches all of us how we should behave. When a person is sincere and desires to know or serve God, Lord Paramatma arranges it so that that person will be able to meet His confidential servant, His external manifestation, who then gives that person an opportunity to be linked up to God by becoming his disciple. This is called Parampara.

Nice one their theist. Many people have erroneously think or blindly accept that Jesus is the only son of God. However there is nothing in the Bible that says that. It says (5 times in the New Testament) that Jesus is the only BEGOTTEN son of God. I've read from my old Glorier Dictionary the meaning of the word begotten as "an offspring coming from one's own body" which is of course exactly the position of Brahmaji coming out from the lotus the sprang from the navel of Lord Vishnu. Here are a couple more verses that confirm that Lord Jesus is Lord Brahma: Collosians 1:15-17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. John 17:4-5 "I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was." Haribol.

The "religion" referred to above is the religion of the Catholics. Protestants do not adhere to the doctrine of the "original sin". Both Catholics and Protestants doesn't have a clear concept of what the soul is and sometimes debate among themselves as to its reality. But Christianity as taught by Lord Jesus Christ is different than what is being taught by the Catholics and Protestants. Jesus is teaching bhakti, love for God. Jesus is also teaching the eternality of the soul and that we are not the material body.

"... To permanently build manned lunar base to provide a springboard for the stars... "Our Universe contains over a billion galaxies; star cities each with a hundred billion inhabitants. Around these stars must exist planets and perhaps life. The temptation to explore these new realms is too great." -- Damon Wright, Science.com

The question on whether American ever went to the Moon have been passionately debated all over the Internet in different forums. As far as I can see the pro have never been able to convincingly refute the evidences and arguments presented by the anti-Moon landing evangelists like Bill Kaysing, author of "We Never Went to the Moon", Ralph Rene, author of "NASA Mooned America", James Collier, who produced a video documentary entitled "Was It Only a Paper Moon?" and David Percy, award winning film and TV producer who zeroed in on the questionable "Moon landing" photographs. To me the strongest argument that we never went to the Moon is, as ethos pointed out, common sense. With the tremendous progress in technology, it is unbelievable that America or Japan or any other country did not pursue going back to the moon. It is said the computer that controlled the lunar module that supposedly landed on the moon had a staggering memory of 64k!!! (Remember this was 1969; Bill Gates was quoted later saying that 64k memory was enough for everyone). So why? Why not go back to the moon? The answer is quite simple: Not possible. You do your own research. Here is an interesting article written by Ameyatma das on the subject: Moon Shadows

Haribol, this is Narada Muni speaking on Krishna's enemies: SB 7.1.26: Therefore by enmity or by devotional service, by fear, by affection or by lusty desire--by all of these or any one of them--if a conditioned soul somehow or other concentrates his mind upon the Lord, the result is the same, for the Lord, because of His blissful position, is never affected by enmity or friendship. 27: Narada Muni continued: By devotional service one cannot achieve such intense absorption in thought of the Supreme Personality of Godhead as one can through enmity toward Him. That is my opinion. So in these verses, we learned that yes it is possible to achieve the goal of life, achieve Krishna's association by means other than devotional service. Narada Muni even opined that enmity is better than devotional service because this results in a more intense absorption in thought on Krishna. However in the present situation, even in India, I could not imagine how one can develop such high level of enmity or lust towards Krishna. I think it is doubly more difficult to achieve that than by developing love towards Him! The bottom line however is this: developing an attitude of enmity or lust or by any other means other than bhakti to gain the favor of or purportedly as a form of service towards Krishna has not been encouraged by our sampradaya. The scriptures are awash with long discourses of the glories of devotional service and how we should look upon pure love of God as the ultimate goal of life. My spiritual master has instructed me to chant a certain number of rounds Krishna's names everyday with the hope that I would eventually develop loving affection towards Krishna. I should have faith in his words and that should all I want to hear.

Haribol. By the grace of Krishna one gets Guru and by the grace of Guru one gets Krishna. "... Out of many millions of wandering living entities, one who is very fortunate gets an opportunity to associate with a bona fide spiritual master by the grace of Krsna." -- Caitanya Caritamrta Madya-lila 19.151 The impetus of spiritual life happens when one sincerely desires to know or to take shelter on God then God arranges it so this person comes in contact with His bona fide representative. By all intent and purposes, this is the beginning of this person's spiritual life. His advancing or not advancing (or his quest to know or love God) depends on how he is pleasing or not pleasing to God's representative.

thiest: The order IS to love Krsna."Just love Krsna." This is correct. Unfortunately, I cannot just love Krishna out of the blue nor I am attracted to His holy name. In the beginning I don't even have faith that He actually exist. However, carrying out my spiritual master's desire, who is the embodiment of pure love of Krishna, on a very regular basis, either by serving him personally if this is possible, or by helping in his mission to give Krishna to people, makes it possible for me to actually experience the reality of this love. First by having faith that God actually exist and then by actually tasting this nectar of love of God myself which pacifies my heart and mind. All this is only made possible by the grace of my spiritual master. Real spiritual life then is to enter into that realm of love that exist between my spiritual master and Krishna.

leyh said: "Spiritual life is to love and serve God." Yes, but how? Spiritual life is to follow the order of your spiritual master. ... is more specific.

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Dear maran11, In your initial post you said that you have been wandering aimlessly and floating in a state of confusion and loss by trying to figure out the realm of the spiritual world and scientific facts. Judging from your response to the people who have tried to help you, I'm afraid you will remain in that condition for some time more. Your problem is your philosophy is "I don't accept any philosophy" and in effect you're very much confused. Even if faced with very convincing evidence and argument (empirical evidence of reincarnation), you still treat it as a mystery. You promoted some Biblical ideas, are you a follower of the Bible? You brought up some Islamic and Bhuddhist beliefs, are you a Muslim or Bhuddist believer? Of course you're not any one of these but you just try to bang ideas against each other. If it's the Bible guy who will bring the Adam and Eve beginning of the world idea to you, in all likelihood, you will respond, "Well, according the the Vedas..." (LOL). Sorry, I'm not going to answer anymore any of your questions as I think you are hit hard by the disease of dry mental speculation. Maybe other people on the board can still help you. Good luck. However for other people's benefit, I will respond to just one. You said: "According to biblical literature, Adam and Eve were the first two humans created by God and they multiplied to produce others." Let's see. Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden. Later they begot two sons, Abel and Cain to make it 4 humans. Cain killed Abel so 4 minus 1 should only have 3 humans at that point. In Genesis 4:14, after Cain was cursed by God, Cain said: "And it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me." Who will find him that will slay him? Animals? Genesis 4:15: And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. 4:16: And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwell in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. READ THIS: 4:17: AND CAIN KNEW HIS WIFE, and she conceived and bare Enoch, and builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch. How in the world could Cain marry someone if there were no other humans that existed at that point? How can he built a city if there were no large population that existed at that point? People who promote and who accept the idea that Adam and Eve were the parent of all humans are all in ignorance and didn't read carefully or didn't read at all the book of Genesis.