Can you join us?

[Guest guest]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2002, Raghunata (John) Anudasa wrote:

> > think). They could help organise any petition.

> That would be great. Madhu, Raghu and the otheres, what do you think?

> Probably a new conference should be created that we can just focus on

> this subject matter?

 

That might be a good idea; here are some perfect guidelines to

keep in mind and practice (Gita 5.11):

 

"The yogis, abandoning attachment, act with body, mind,

intelligence and even with the senses, only for the purpose of

purification."

 

Srila Prabhupada further suggests how the successful person takes action

in his purport:

 

"He has no false ego, for he does not believe that he is this material

body, or that he possesses the body. He knows that he is not this body and

that this body does not belong to him. He himself belongs to Krsna, and

the body too belongs to Krsna. When he applies everything produced of the

body, mind, intelligence, words, life, wealth, etc.--whatever he may have

within his possession--to Krsna's service, he is at once dovetailed with

Krsna. He is one with Krsna and is devoid of the false ego that leads

one to believe that he is the body, etc."

 

I hope this proves fruitful.

 

MDd

[Guest guest]

> > > think). They could help organise any petition.

> > That would be great. Madhu, Raghu and the otheres, what do you think?

> > Probably a new conference should be created that we can just focus on

> > this subject matter?

>

> That might be a good idea; here are some perfect guidelines to

> keep in mind and practice (Gita 5.11):

>

> "The yogis, abandoning attachment, act with body, mind,

> intelligence and even with the senses, only for the purpose of

> purification."

>

> Srila Prabhupada further suggests how the successful person takes action

> in his purport:

>

> "He has no false ego, for he does not believe that he is this material

> body, or that he possesses the body. He knows that he is not this body and

> that this body does not belong to him. He himself belongs to Krsna, and

> the body too belongs to Krsna. When he applies everything produced of the

> body, mind, intelligence, words, life, wealth, etc.--whatever he may have

> within his possession--to Krsna's service, he is at once dovetailed with

> Krsna. He is one with Krsna and is devoid of the false ego that leads

> one to believe that he is the body, etc."

>

> I hope this proves fruitful.

>

> MDd

 

Thank you very much for that wonderful verse, Mukunda Datta Prabhu. I will

keep this in mind. Actually, this verse fits to the ungoing discussions in

the "unmoderated" conference too.

 

Because you are very educated in quoting verses I would be very thankful if

you find one (or even more) where it is mentioned how devotees should treat

each other without insulting words and without being offensive.

 

I honestly hope that we are able to come back to a respectful level again.

 

Thank you.

 

Y.s. Hariballabha dd

[Guest guest]

>

> > Because you are very educated in quoting verses I would be very thankful

> > if you find one (or even more) where it is mentioned how devotees should

> > treat each other without insulting words and without being offensive.

>

> This is a subreligious matter;

 

 

Or even the matter of commonly understood principles of humane

and civilized way of acting. Or the matter of the psychology

of the human behavior, where a grown up person is understood

to be in the great deal under the impressions of very important

period of one's childhood upbringing. Thus a person who

has been brought in the loving and caring surrounding is

understood to most probably have no problem to reflect the same

behavior towards other people later on, and in the case of

growing in an abusive, insulting and harsh surrendering, such

experience will most probably strongly influence the patterns

of one's behavior through out one's life even.

 

 

 

 

- mnd

[Guest guest]

> I hope this is helpful.

 

Yes, it is. Thank you.

 

Y.s. Hariballabha dd

[Guest guest]

> Or even the matter of commonly understood principles of humane

> and civilized way of acting. Or the matter of the psychology

> of the human behavior, where a grown up person is understood

> to be in the great deal under the impressions of very important

> period of one's childhood upbringing. Thus a person who

> has been brought in the loving and caring surrounding is

> understood to most probably have no problem to reflect the same

> behavior towards other people later on, and in the case of

> growing in an abusive, insulting and harsh surrendering, such

> experience will most probably strongly influence the patterns

> of one's behavior through out one's life even.

 

That's a very good point. Many devotees with emotional and social problems

joined the movement and thought that by chanting and following there

problems will automatically disappear. As we all know it didn't work and it

will never work unless such persons understand that they need professional

help.

 

One example is my former spiritual master who very much suffers under a post

traumatic stress discorder he got from his childhood. He still thinks that

he is OK and that WE all need a therapy and even offers his help to treat

us. We still have lots of similar people in leading positions, but

fortunately Srila Prabhupada is always there and of course, Krsna, The

Supreme Controller.

 

Y.s. Hariballabha dd

[Guest guest]

> PS. One very nice sannyasi recently said that "ISKCON lacked heart

> and that until ISKCON developed heart it will never succeed"...

 

I don't think that was such a nice thing of the sannyasi to say. As my

good wife just pointed out to me, the heart of ISKCON is Srila

Prabhupada, so how can ISKCON have no heart? How are we to say that

ISKCON is not succeeding already now? We'd of course have to ask

ourselves, succeeding in what?

 

Has ISKCON succeeding in giving the holy name to countless fallen

souls? Yes. Has ISKCON succeeded in developing a social structure in

which everyone is protected? Maybe not, but isn't that what we are

working on? Rome wasn't built in a day. To say that ISKCON has failed

is such a short term vision. As far as I'm concerned ISKCON has just

started. It's far too early to say whether it has failed yet. Let's

see how ISKCON looks in a couple of hundred years from now, then we'll

have more basis to determine whether it failed.

 

Ys, Jahnu das

[Guest guest]

On Thu, 21 Feb 2002, Hariballabha (dd) (Berlin - D) wrote:

(re: Gita, 5.11)

> Thank you very much for that wonderful verse, Mukunda Datta Prabhu. I will

> keep this in mind. Actually, this verse fits to the ungoing discussions in

> the "unmoderated" conference too.

 

A one-eyed discussion is better than no discussion, I guess. I

just pulled that verse off another list, where it was posted yesterday.

I'm glad you liked it. I thought it seemed appropriate too.

 

 

 

> Because you are very educated in quoting verses I would be very thankful if

> you find one (or even more) where it is mentioned how devotees should treat

> each other without insulting words and without being offensive.

 

This is a subreligious matter; Niti-sastras and Dharmasastras

have plenty of good advice about it, and Srila Prabhupada often cited it.

We all know the twenty-six qualities hinted at in Bhagavata 5.18.12. It's

really just a matter of assimilating them. Essentially, the same thing

realized in normative terms as dharma, is in philosophical terms is called

brahma-bhuta. In this age I don't know if it's feasible to realize either

one without the Divine grace of the Vaisnavas; how could I?

However, I recently had some insight into Gita 6.32 which helped me.

Gita 17.15 provides a good policy, and 12.13-19 also tells us who Krsna

likes most; text 15 is especially relevent. Here is another illuminating

one (Bhagavata 11.28.1):

 

para-svabhava-karmani

na prasamsen na garhayet |

visvam ekatmakam pasyan

prakrtya purusena ca || 1 ||

 

"One should neither praise nor criticize the conditional nature of

others, seeing the whole universe as one spiritual being, characterized

by the interplay of Purusa and Prakrti."

 

It seems that what speaks to one person may not mean much to anyone

else, but it is always possible for Krsna to reveal the profundity of any

given verse to anyone, as per their personal situation, and as He pleases.

This is why I stress His Divine grace. Offenseless chanting breathes life

into all transcedental knowledge; that comes by the mercy of one's guru:

 

sakale samman, bala diya koro,

nija mane sprha-hina

tabe to gaibo hari-nama-sukhe

aparadha habe hata

 

"Give me the power to honor all, sans personal pride or ambition.

Then, in the bliss of Harinama, all my offenses will cease."

 

Inplicit here is the third verse of Siksastaka; but implicit in most

others is what you're asking me to supply explicitly. Sri Yasoda Ma, a

guru of the first part of the last century, said the purport of pure bhakti

can be summed up as, "give everything, ask nothing."

 

 

 

> I honestly hope that we are able to come back to a respectful level again.

 

Dharma is nothing if not symbiotic; I would stress personal

assimilation of our principles because that really is the best thing we

can do for everyone else. Madhvacarya, whose disappearance anniversary is

today,* said that Krsna-katha is the most potent poison meant to kill all

anarthas--our own, and even those in our proximity. The more undiluted

it is, the more powerful it's effect. A devotee's words should be like

arrows which pierce to the heart of the matter--in a positive way (cf.

Caitanya-caritamrta, Antya-lila 1.195). We don't always know just how

what we say affects others, but we do know it always does. This leaves

us with an awesome responsibility to all our brothers and sisters, one for

which we are answerable after death. We also never know who has been sent

to deal with us, nor what we're meant to learn from them. One who gives

sober thought to these realities usually tries to be respectful to everyone.

Abdurrahim Khankhana, who was Akbar's regent and one of the most powerful

figures in the Mughal court during the sixteenth century, reportedly wrote

this couplet (he was also a bhakta of sorts):

 

tulasi isa samsara men, saba son miliyai bhai |

na jane kisa rupa men, narayana mili jai ||

 

O Tulasi(dasa), whomever you meet in this world, do so with love;

one never knows in what form onw will encounter Narayana.

 

I hope this is helpful.

 

MDd

 

 

 

* It is said that Madhvacarya diappeared while expounding on the Aitareya

Upanisad, which was his favorite sruti. The exact spot where he was sitting

when he literally disappeared is still preserved even today in the Sri

Anantesvara Siva temple, at Udupi. The Aitareya Upanisad discusses creation,

birth, and self (atma).

[Guest guest]

> Yes, he is an ISKCON sannyasi in very good standing who recently

> mentioned this to my (ISKCON) siksa guru.

 

Well, I respectfully disagree then with this respected sannyasi.

 

> For sure there is some, but our society is still dominated by

> seniors who are more interested in power than in our devotees' well

> being.

 

I doubt it is as you say, but even if it were, I have faith that

Krishna will reveal and correct everything in due course. It is

obvious to me that all those devotees in the past whose main

motivation was power and prestige have been exposed and dealt with by

Krishna, and I find no reason to believe that in the future He'll not

purify His serious devotees to gradually get around to do the right

thing.

 

 

Ys, Jahnu das

[Guest guest]

On Fri, 22 Feb 2002, Braja wrote:

> Then again, no one has such a perfect upbringing, so it's a matter of rising

> above it, isn't it?

 

This is one reason I suggested that our assimilation of either

dharma (karma) or brahmabhuta liberation (jnana)--what to speak of pure

bhakti--depends largely on the grace of Krsna and His pure devotees. Even

someone of Sanatana Gosvami's stature prayed like this (Bhakti-rasamrta-

sindhu, 1.3.35):

 

"O my Lord, I do not have any love for You, nor am I qualified for

discharging devotional service by chanting and hearing. Nor do I possess

the mystic power of a Vaisnava, knowledge or pious activities. Nor do I

belong to a very high-caste family. On the whole, I do not possess

anything. Still, O beloved of the gopis, because You bestow Your mercy on

the most fallen, I have an unbreakable hope that is constantly in my

heart. That hope is always giving me pain."

 

Those with this attitude can rise above anything.

 

MDd

[Guest guest]

On Thu, 21 Feb 2002, Hariballabha (dd) (Berlin - D) wrote:

> PS. One very nice sannyasi recently said that "ISKCON lacked heart and that

> until ISKCON developed heart it will never succeed"...

 

There's truth in this, if it's true that Srila Prabhupada said

our mutual dealings must be based on love and trust. Where's love

without heart? Where's trust, without love? For some reason, we're

often afraid to be sentimental--even responsibly sentimental. That's

possibly one reason Krsna sent ISKCON Narayana Maharaja, though I suspect

he has his own limitations. Somehow or other, we need to eventually

embrace, and act on, the fact that it really is all about emotions (rasa).

As the Taittiriyopanisat (2.7) says, "raso vai sah" (He is indeed

rasa)--something Srila Rupa Gosvami really emphasized (i.e., Krsna is the

"akhila-rasamrta murti," the reservoir of all pleasure).

 

Klaus Klostermaier, now teaching Vaisnavism among ISKCON devotees

at Oxford, often speaks of what he calls "the universe of feelings," by which

I gather he means Rupa Gosvami's conceptual paradigm of rasa experience.

He was trained by Prabhupada's godbrother Bon Maharaja, who translated part

of the Bhaktirasamrtasindhu in the 1960s, so it's not surprising that that

work seems to have influenced Klostermaier's impression of Gaudiya

Vaisnavism the most. But he's on to something, I think. He met Srila

Prabhupada several times.

 

According to the late Alan Entwistle, who is widely regarded as

the foremost scholar of Braj studies, while ISKCON is well respected in

India, some Vrndavana residents have doubted that it's members have the

proper "bhava." It's hard to say what that means in context, but it also

sounds a bit like what your abovementioned sannyasi observed. There are

links between envy & impersonalism on one hand, and sentimentality & raga

bhakti on the other.

 

However, and ultimately, if the Absolute truth is really pure

sentimentalism, can we handle it?

 

On the other hand, it isn't at all accurate to say that ISKCON has

no heart, and perhaps not even to say that ISKCON has too little heart.

It's a fairly vague declaration to begin with, made all the more diffcult

by the fact that few (if any) of us can actually see into others' hearts.

There are certainly some genuine saints in ISKCON--and some outside of

ISKCON too. Better to be respectfully cautious always. We know that the

absolute truth is revealed only to those whom He chooses Himself.

 

MDd

[Guest guest]

> That's a very good point. Many devotees with emotional and social

> problems joined the movement and thought that by chanting and

> following there problems will automatically disappear.

 

Actually the problems _will_ automatically disappear. I have seen the

most crazy, scizophrenic persons join the movement and become normal

by chanting the Hare Krishna mantra (at least they improved

radically), but the problem is that when they stop chanting the

mantra, or when they begin to ease on their sadhana, the craziness

comes back. So it is really by not practicing Krishna consciousness

that one becomes crazy.

 

Ys, jahnu das