Katyayani-vrata, etc.

[Guest guest]

On Sun, 24 Nov 2002, krishna_susarla wrote:

> I advise against trying to destroy the faith of anyone engaged in

> worship of their ishta-devata; this will likely be counter

> productive.

 

Given the generally faithless atmosphere of the present day and age,

it seems that faith is something that should always only be encouraged

rather than destroyed. It seems far too precious a thing to destroy,

though it may be reevaluated and refined.

 

I know one ISKCON initiate who was previously a staunch worshipper of

Siva. He read the Siva Purana regularly, and one day, at a time when he

was seriously seeking his guru, found a reference there in which Siva

instructs that one's own guru may even appear in the form of one's

enemies. Being a lawyer, he was at the time also engaged in a lawsuit

against ISKCON. Nonetheless, at a friend's insistence, he went to the

ISKCON tremple to hear from H.H. Tamala Krsna Gosvami, mainly out of

curiosity. He was tremendously and favorably impressed, but kept his

reservations. Gradually, however, because he was attracted, he began to

associate with the devotees and follow the process; eventually, when he was

wholly convinced of ISKCON's authenticity, he became a devotee, accepting

Tamala Krsna Gosvami as his guru. So his story provides an example of

progressive demigod worship.

 

 

 

> It's always

> important when preaching, that your audience realize that you have

> their best interests at heart

 

It's always good for us to remain conscious of this necessity too. I think

Bhagavad-gita 6.32 indicates the genuine empathy which ideally accompanies

a devotee's preaching endeavors: "He is a perfect yogi who, by comparison

to his own self, sees the true equality of all beings, in both their happiness

and their distress, O Arjuna!" This vision is linked to the brahmabhuta

realization discussed in Chapter 18 (not to mention Isopanisad 6-7 and

other references), so it possibly even represents the mature culmination

of generic dharma and the substrate of Krsna consciousness (cf. Gita 7.28).

In this sense, one could even say it is real fruit of devata-puja, for

the development of such higher consciousness is the ultimate intent of any

and every Vedic path.

 

Moreover, if truly effective preaching is essentially a communication of

one's experience of rasa to another person, one's realized empathy is even

more important. Honestly, I don't have much realization of this myself,

but much of what I have experienced leads me to intuit that the presence of

genuine compassion in one person's heart is nonverbally perceptible to

others, and is appreciable in a most powerful way. Compassion is one of the

Lord's most attractive qualities. It is Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's rasa. At

least in this age, it seems indispensible for anyone interested in love of

Krsna.

 

MDd