Thanking you for being my astrology teacher...

[Guest guest]

I am realizing today how much I have benefited from your teachings in the former

GJlist and the now VAlist. It has made me very detached and surrendering. I have

stopped Demi- God worship to worship Lord Jagannath only. If I worship Lord

Krishna without complete surrender in my life, very strange things happen to

make me surrender ultimately.

But I still can’t see into God’s ways when you say everything is

controlled. I understand that all our lives and incarnations and where we go

after death is also controlled. Then why would God make us go through this

life as if it were above normal and then later make ghosts out of us?

Hi- I will try to answer your questions, and I hope I don’t make you mad

because of the change I’ve undergone. I am no longer a

“personalist devotee of Krishna”, and this has been for some time.

Meaning, I don’t care or know or pretend to know, if there is truly a

person named Krishna, who is the Supreme Person, God, who is guiding our lives.

I don’t believe like a Hare Krishna devotee believes anymore. I have

changed. So it’s hard for me to answer your questions exactly as

you’ve asked them. I am, according to some Krishna devotees, no longer

qualified to speak on these matters as their sectarian dogma states that I am

an offender due to being a non-believer, etc. I now think of

“Divinity” instead of “God”, and thus I leave

“divinity” open to definition, because, my main realization is, we

really don’t know for sure what the situation is with the Divine. We

don’t know if there is a God-person, or what. We don’t know.

After all my study and travel, listening and reading, that is my conclusion. I

am OK with feeling that I don’t know, but I do see there is a divine, a

huge system, a great huge creation we are all parts of, and that all is

interrelated, and Jyotish works, these things are parts of the

“Divine” or “God”.

I believe that there must be a purpose for this creation, either an unknowing

purpose, that we ourselves as a huge group of souls are constructing through

our consciousness as we go along, or it’s predetermined in another way,

by a huge divine hand, that wants to raise a batch of souls in ignorance of

their real home, so they can be “good” or “finished” by

the time they are taken to that home, or.... There are various possibilities.

I go by what I can see- mainly Jyotish and the world around me. Science too of

course. And the Hindu teachings, which besides being about Krishna have all

kinds of other important bits of knowledge in there...like Ayurveda...amazing

system of medicinal understanding. I find ayurveda to be very important and

wonderful, for example. And what about the yoga system, pranayama, so many

things that are really amazing knowledge systems, all from ancient India, along

with Krishna etc.

Other cultures had other Gods, and I can no longer give India’s

God’s priority and belief, without the others, like those of my own

original native culture which is extinct more or less. So the “God

thing” is quite confusing and I avoid it, finding it to be a

personalization of impersonal universal realities that can be dealt with

directly, instead of through the metaphorical intermediary of a God image or

idea.

We do not know that we are put into Ghost bodies ever. I know this is so

commonly accepted in Hinduism and India, and I have to deal with it constantly

with White Hindus here in America, or in my city of Eugene. I understand. But

can you appreciate that most people, probably you too, have only heard of

ghosts, and never seen one, not really. NOT REALLY. If anyone is really

honest, they will admit that if they did “see a ghost”, which makes

no sense in the original idea anyway, that they were probably half asleep when

it happened, or something that could explain it away.

As a person who has taken hallucinogens and had severe mental problems too in

this life, I can guarantee you that the human mind is capable of amazingly

deceptive machinations of all sorts...and therefore I do not believe anything

fantastic that any person or book says. If I haven’t seen or heard of

something MATERIAL that backs up their statements, I don’t believe it.

Then too...according to Hinduism...there are other humans...of higher and lower

type, than us, on planets near us, who come here, and some of whom have higher

powers than us, including the power of maya....illusion....so, if there is a

miracle, such as the mass-witnessing of a spinning colorful sun by thousands of

people in Europe earlier in the 1900’s just when the little kids who were

“talking to Mary” said it would happen...in other words, a flat out

perfect miracle!....stilll, it could have just been “Gandharvas”

“messing with us”, or “tricking us”. It does n’t

HAVE TO HAVE BEEN GOD, the God, the one,...it could have been some stray rabble

rousing demigods playing with our minds.

So...anything is possible, and so, unless something is proveable, I don’t

believe it easily anymore.

Complete remembrance of Him is not possible in pain. Then why does He put devotees into pain?

In the West we say “Why do bad things happen to good people”.

Similar question. Well, if you ask the Krishna Bhaktas the above, you will get

an answer along the lines of “It’s a test of your faith” or

“you have to suffer the remnants of your past karma in this way but soon

Krishna will bring you back to himself”, etc. They have their ways of

explaining everything and anything, because after all, there is zero

accountability on them...they are speaking “for God” and therefore

are “above the law” even in their own minds. They are happy to

have logic to tell you, and don’t care if your problem is really solved

or not.

My answer to this is:

We all have pain. Firstly, know that. You are not alone. So what is pain and

why is it here? What it is, the kind you speak of, general emotional pain I

believe, is due to growth of your awareness of life. Change is uncomfortable,

yet inevitable! So as you get older, you will constantly experience the pain

of dealing with change and growth. I am now having to deal with being 45, a

grandfather, and so on. This means I can’t act like a child. I have to

set an example. Sometimes I want to be stupid, but I stop myself. I care

about my kids and grandchild, and being stupid would harm them. I suffer a bit

from this growth. That’s one little thing. Life is hard. Life is real.

The bodies we are in are fragile and so we are always in danger...car crash,

war, robbery, etc. So, the way to deal with this is to have appreciation for

what you have, each breath you take, each meal, each cup of tea, each moment,

everybody, life itself. Know that we reincarnate. That seems so wholly

possible and probable that I personally feel it is worthy of full belief by

everyone. That’s my empirical belief- that reincarnation is real, but

very difficult to prove if not impossible to prove. It does only make sense,

to me at least.

So I believe that our suffering matures our soul, and that we carry that

maturity forward, and that as a whole we are all moving forward thus, and

gradually we will graduate as a class or individually, to higher places, and

move on in the process of life. I think life does move forward towards greater

heights.

I believe therefore that the purpose of life is to live it, to learn, then die,

be reborn, and go on, learning more, forward to the future.

We don’t know MANY things, due to the limitations placed on us in this

existence of flesh bodies and material planet floating in cold dark space

somewhere, where? We don’t know.

So there’s a lot we don’t know. Like “where are we”.

We don’t know. Where is “our universe”. We don’t

know.

If Hindus tell me they know...that is repeating from the books, and I know and

have read the Bhagavat and other that speak of the creation, where it is, like

the idea that it is revolving around Mount Meru, and all of that....

But that is the belief, hallucination, or something, of ancinet Indians, and

maybe it was given to them by God himself, but I’m no longer going to

respond to that calling in that way. I have a general disdain now for one race

or one color of humans going to other places to “spread their culture and

religion” as was done by Prabhupada and others into America, and how

English did with the Middle East at one time, perhaps still today eh?

I’m not into culture bashing, cuture spreading, or changing, anymore.

My mother should have been a happy Celtic pagan, but instead, she had to pretend

to be a good disciple of Jesus, a Jewish martyr figure, spread to Ireland by

Roman and German monks, at the complete expense of the existing culture of

Ireland, Celtic. Then, I, her son, go off to India to learn it’s ways,

in response to the Catholic stuff I was taught. It’s all about

“other” in our lives, and never “our own”. I am now ok

with just being me, and I don’t accept impositions onto myself by other

cultures telling me “I have to” do something or “I will be a

ghost” or “I will go to hell”, etc. I don’t want it

from Jews, or Jesus, or Hindus, or Caitanya, or anybody. I personally think

the Muslims are wasting their time with all that praying to a God they’ve

never seen and who never protects them and never answers their prayers. Same

goes for everybody else. I’m just fed up with priests and religion,

basically, including Druids/Celts. Nobody escapes my lack of taste for

priestcraft.

Spreading knowledge that works is fine. Do it. But “knowledge” of

“God” is highly questionable as either- questionable as

“knowledge” and questionable that there is or that “it”

comes from “God”.

I’m a thorough agnostic. Intellectually founded in study of most big

religoins, and rooted in experience of two priesthoods- Catholic and Hindu, and

as a victim-child of an Irish Catholic upbringing, and as a victim-devotee of

the Hare Krishna movement in it’s worst times, the Guru-crashes of the

early 80’s.

I take direct responsibility for my life now, and realize that the things that

come that I can’t control, which is everything nearly, I accept as

“the flow”, or “the divine current”, but I don’t

personalize that, and I don’t pray to it. I accept, and move on. I get

my taste out of things in the now- like painting, or thinking, or looking at

trees on a walk, or petting a cat, or holding my grand daughter. I don’t

get my happiness from a doll of a Hindu God anymore. But that’s just me.

Do whatever you want. This is just honest sharing. It’s just a TV show

of my mind. Do NOT let it disturb you in any way. It is not meant to. I am

not trying to change anyone. I am sharing about what I have gone through. I

have come to “me” more so the LAST thing I want to do is make you

not “you”. Be you. Somebody’s got to do be you, so it might

as well be you. ;-)

I think everyone in my family and extended family has some connection with

Divinity in their lives. Then they range between the very sincere and somewhat

learned to the totally ignorant yet a devotee after all. Can a person be a

bhakta and not be learned? If so what is their place?

Ask the devotees for the kinds of answer it sounds like you want. In my

opinion, the answer to this question is: “They are what they are- what

you see is what you get- they are probably not devotees of that God, but do

some things due to conditioning and cultural norms, societal expectations. I

doubt they are actually “devotees” of Krishna at that point, but

just “getting by” with the people around them...as many Hindus do

these days...putting up with the old religion...while actually being totally

modern and materialistic, which I no longer try to put down as

“wrong”.”

When the Lord promises in Gita that my devotee shall never be vanquished, what does He mean?

 

I believe this applies to both the personalistic view and the absolute pagan

view which I harbor. Meaning, that if we take the transcendental way of

thinking, even at any moment, that view will give you eternality instantly,

because of it’s nature. You will be thinking in an eternal way instantly,

so even if you are shot down at that moment (vanquished), you are not vanquished

in your own mind, because you can no longer see that way, so you are not

vanquished, as that which is not felt by you, is not real to you, rather, you

think, “that person who shot me thinks they vanquished me, but they are

wrong by their vision, if that is the vision they have, I know the truth, which

is that I am not this body, and must now leave it, but that is not necessarily a

bad thing at all”...and so on.

What you think, is the reality you feel, so if you think transcendentally, which

Krishna requires, then you are free from being vanquished in all respects.

I want to mention something from history that I read that interests me greatly

and I hope you like it too.

Speaking of vanquishing, and transcendental vision- if you read, as I do, the

Roman histories, the work of Julius Caesar, Suetonius, Tacitus, and others,

circa 300BC up to 50 AD, the period of Roman intrusion and heaviest interaction

of early types with Celts in Central Europe and the British Isles, you often

read of how the ancient Celtic warriors were seen rushing to certain death on

the battlefield without fear. I have seen this quite a good number of times in

the writings. Exact examples are given, of exactly how some did it and general

references are made to it. These would be naked, wild haired, painted white

celtic warriors against dressed and organized Roman legions. Rushing onto

their spears and swords to cause their own death, when for example they might

see their brother killed in fighting, or some other motivation to leave to the

next life. So that same mood where an Indian woman ascended Patiji’s

funeral pire was seen elsewhere, where the thought of afterlife was thoroughly,

deeply, rooted in the psyche of the people’s.

The warrior who thus takes responsibility for his own death, is not vanquished.

He wasn’t fired, he quit. That mood. Always powerful. The devotee of

Krishna is “always powerful” and “always free”.

That’s the idea. However I truly believe anyone can have those same

qualities by power of thought alone, if that is their honest, sincere, real,

clear minded, knowing desire and singular focus. Liberation is a state of

mind, in other words. That’s my opinion. A state of “Grace”

is what religions teach, something descended, some blessing that came down,

that was earned by being good, which is a concept that flies in the face of

what I consider mystical-scientific pagan views, which include astrology, which

don’t go for grace as much as predeterminism. Need mysticism? Buy

predeterminism and astrology. It works. If you go for prayer and belief, I

believe you don’t receive a prayer. I mean, I believe you don’t get

much by that route. However, that is one way of creating the transcendental

mind- by giving it a divine deity to focus on and serve, and thus the person

enters into this state of transcendence sortof- not driven by the mundane any

longer- thus they are liberated in a different way, yes, by a different means,

they have achieved freedom from being misled by the constantly panging senses,

which is also achieved by the other type of “just mind” liberated

person.

Ahh, I don’t actually think about this stuff all the time. I think about

getting work done, or resting, or dealing with my relations, etc. The usual

stuff of life. I’m enjoying being in the material now for once, instead

of the heady land of constant philosophy and religion.

Both my sister, brother and father and myself have ketu in the eleventh. Is that

a very bad thing or good thing?

It’s a mixed thing like all things. I have Ketu in the 11th so I cannot

answer this question properly. Like a lawyer who excuses himself from a case

in which he has interest. It’s like that.

Can a Navagraha Puja help? My mother-in-law gifted me with Golden Dies. How can

she take decisions regarding someone’s birth and death when you say that

everybody has a right to suicide?

I do no understand this question.

Kindly advise in VAlist or through mail. Thanking you, Warm regards, (---------------------)

I hope I have not made anyone upset. I hope I have pleased many.

Thanks

Rick MacQuoid das (AT) goravani (DOT) com

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