Interreligious Dialogue (was Spirit/soul)

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hari bol

 

i simply do not understand why this problem is so big for you..... i am

(attempting) to preach krishna cosciousness from 20 years in nama hatta,

sunday feast and internet.... following the instructions of Prabhupada to

not use as "shastra" biblic scriptures, because we are not sure about their

authenticity and because we, in vedas, have all the instruments to answer

any question, i have rarely found big and fanatical oppositions to my

attempt to describe the basis (we are not this body....etc.) of krishna

Cosciousness. I have heard that SrilaPrabhupada accepts Christ statement

"who sees me, sees the Father" in a recorded class of Indradyumna Swami and

i find it wery useful to say and to keep "peace" with christians because

their idea of God is very vague. We develop, reading Srimad Bhagavatam and

other SrilaPrabhupada's books a very subtle idea of what is God : Krishna of

Vrindavan, Krishna in Dwaraka, Radha, Jagannath, Vishnu, the Brahman, Sri

Murti, Salagram etc and the idea that the spiritual master is, in a way, an

expansion of Paramatma.

 

My job is musician, i am an expert of guitars from 1950 or so......... i can

identify by seeing a guitar for a second, in a music video, the exact model,

production year, customizings and to cite some famous users.

Obviously you will not satisfy my if you will tell me "hey yasodanandana, i

have bought a guitar, what do you think?"

 

there are novices

 

so "who sees me sees the father" and "in some places in India they chant

Krista instead of Krishna" are, for me, enough to satisfy people clearing

ideas of HareKrishnas as fanatics, put away useless controversies, go on

with class or the question time and, if chaitanya mahaprabhu, krishna,

prabhupada and jesus christ give us mercy, to give a little "push" to some

brother to start practising harekrsna mantra and to give up bad habits.

Next, no problem to explain the more "elaborated" understanding of God oin

the Vedas.

 

of course i accept your long and elaborated letter if not a direct answer to

mine, i think to have not said anything against Prabhupada's siddhanta, a

necessary explanation to neophites to avoid useless mixes and "hodge-podge".

But finding some """""not vedic"""""" behaviour of Lord Jesus does not make

me forget Srila Prabhupada who says that Jesus is His spiritual master .

 

(but i also am a neophitee!! and i have obviously infinite things to learn

from you!!!)

 

my english is terrific... please search to interprete my intentions instead

of my language. My understanding of this topic, believe me, is not really

far from your

 

hare krishna....YasodaNandanaDasa BhaktiVrksa Florence Italy

 

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Hare Krishna.

 

Before I begin, let me state that as per Achintya rules for posting,

replies to messages really should include responses to *specific*

points brought up. It is not appropriate to respond to a message only

to ignore most or all of the arguments brought up therein, and put

forward other arguments that are at best tangential to the line of

discussion. Hence, I am trying to steer this discussion back into the

points I made in the original message.

 

achintya, "Mario Leonelli" <marioefranca@h...> wrote:

> hari bol

>

> i simply do not understand why this problem is so big for you.....

 

Please reread my earlier message. For starters, it is not *my*

problem, but a problem for all of Srila Prabhupada's disciplic

descendents, whether or not they wish to acknowledge it.

 

Bona fide Vedic religion is based on the principle that Vedas

(including Itihaasas and Puraanas) are the topmost standard of

evidence, against which anything must be judged for correctness. If

we repeat what is taught in the shaastras, the orthodox will accept

us as kindred. If we preach doctrines that are contradictory to

shaastra, then we will be seen as merely just another Hindu cult.

 

> any question, i have rarely found big and fanatical oppositions to

my

> attempt to describe the basis (we are not this body....etc.) of

krishna

> Cosciousness.

 

As I indicated before, rightness and wrongness of a doctrine have

nothing to do with how many people accept or reject it. Only shaastra

is the standard of correctness, and the guru's authority depends on

shaastra.

 

> i find it wery useful to say and to keep "peace" with christians

 

The issue is not one of keeping "peace" with anyone. Why should

anyone be in conflict due to religious differences? We should keep

peace with everyone even when we disagree with their philosophies.

 

The issue is one of being faithful to shaastra, and being able to

correctly understand and backup what Srila Prabhupada has taught. One

should never, never compromise with scriptural truth just to appease

members of other religions.

 

> so "who sees me sees the father" and "in some places in India they

chant

> Krista instead of Krishna" are, for me, enough to satisfy people

clearing

> ideas of HareKrishnas as fanatics, put away useless controversies,

go on

> with class or the question time and, if chaitanya mahaprabhu,

krishna,

> prabhupada and jesus christ give us mercy, to give a little "push"

to some

> brother to start practising harekrsna mantra and to give up bad

habits.

 

In other words, politics. You can appease Christians by looking for

some common ground. All fine and good when it is useful for beginner

preaching, but here we are talking not about relative truth but of

*absolute* truth. What is actually correct? Is Jesus Christ a pure

devotee (on the level of prema bhakti) of Krishna? If you say yes,

then how do you know? If a Vaishnava from another sampradaaya asks

you this, you can not defend the remark by saying it is true merely

because Srila Prabhupada says so. Nor can you allude to his

accomplishments (great though they are), the number of temples he

created, the number of disciples he has, the number of miscreants he

reformed, etc. as evidence. These things may be very wonderful and

worthy of glorification, but they are not used to determine truth in

Vedic religion. You must have objective evidence, and that evidence

is shaastra.

 

You need not even find a shaastric statement that "Jesus is a pure

devotee." You can simply consult shaastric definitions of pure

devotion, and then see if the person in question (Jesus in this case)

lives up to those definitions. As I have previously indicated in my

last message, there are some activites of Jesus that are definitely

contradictory to the Vaishnava/Vedic concept of pure devotion. I have

given those examples in my previous message, but I noticed that you

have not responded to any of them. If you wish to continue this

discussion, you must respond to the evidence cited. For now, we must

remember that one cannot attain the supreme goal without following

shaastric injunctions:

 

yaH shaastra-vidhim utsR^ijya vartate kaama-kaarataH |

na sa siddhim avaapnoti na sukha.m na paraa.m gatim || giitaa 16.23 ||

 

yaH - anyone who; shaastra-vidhim - the regulations of the

scriptures; utsR^ijya - giving up; vartate - remains; kaama-kaarataH -

acting whimsically in lust; na - never; saH - he; siddhim -

perfection; avaapnoti - achieves; na - never; sukham - happiness; na -

never; paraam - the supreme; gatim - perfectional stage.

 

He who discards scriptural injunctions and acts according to his own

whims attains neither perfection, nor happiness, nor the supreme

destination. (bhagavad-giitaa 16.23)

 

....hence the doubt about the character of Jesus.

 

> But finding some """""not vedic"""""" behaviour of Lord Jesus does

not make

> me forget Srila Prabhupada who says that Jesus is His spiritual

master .

 

How do you think it makes Srila Prabhupada look, if a skeptic asks

you why Srila Prabhupada says Jesus is pure devotee, and your only

response is that he is pure devotee because Prabhupada says so?

 

Let us just say for the moment, hypothetically speaking, that I am

not a follower of Srila Prabhupada. I am just a Hindu, perhaps born

into a different bhakti tradition, who is meeting for the first time

representatives of Srila Prabhupada. I note with some distaste, your

claims that this prophet whose religion is highly intolerant of my

own, is being claimed by you to be a pure Vaishnava. If I say that

your guru made up this claim (which is actually untrue) simply for

the sake of preaching, what is your response going to be? If you are

a Vaishnava, you cannot attack my character or fault me my lack of

unconditional acceptance of your guru. You must give a proper answer

with reference to evidence which we both accept (Vedic literature).

 

The Swaminarayana movement is another Vaishnava group who considers

their founder to be an avatar of Krishna. They also have many

thousands of followers and hundreds of temples all over the world

(they even have temples in places where Gaudiiya Vaishnavas do not).

Similarly, there are many Godmen from India, some of whom are quite

successful in terms of building temples and making followers, who are

regarded as pure devotees or as God Himself, etc.

 

If we object (rightfully) to the claims of divinity which these

followers make about their respective gurus, then we must apply those

standards of discrimination uniformly, including the unsubstantiated

claims of Jesus' exalted position.

 

yours,

 

- K