Real Action

[Guest guest]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2002, Braja wrote:

> > Karma-yogis are plentiful, but I'm not sure that role is for genuine

> > disciples.>

 

> No, perhaps not.

 

Certainly it isn't for advanced disciples, which is what we really

need to create most of all. However, this is also the hardest of all, it

seems. Demoniac people want to deny the saints, while ordinary people merely

ignore them; pious people readily venerate them, but alas, no one wants to

become one!

 

MDd

[Guest guest]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2002, Braja wrote:

> > On Wed, 20 Feb 2002, Braja wrote:

> > > > Karma-yogis are plentiful, but I'm not sure that role is for genuine

> > > > disciples.>

> > > No, perhaps not.

> > Certainly it isn't for advanced disciples, which is what we really

> > need to create most of all. However, this is also the hardest of all, it

> > seems. Demoniac people want to deny the saints, while ordinary people

> > merely ignore them; pious people readily venerate them, but alas, no one

> > wants to become one!

> People unfortunately think of 'sainthood' in relation to Gandhi and Mother

> Teresa (interestingly both tied up with India, though neither of them were

> from there ...)

 

Neither were their ideals, in large part; Gandhi was really more

influenced by Theosophy, and Jainism, than by Vaisnavism.

 

However, most of us aren't above learning something even from them,

in some way. At least on the economic platform--i.e., simple living and

high thinking--I don't see much difference between what Gandhi taught and

what Srila Prabhupada taught. Similarly, Mother Teresa once told a priest

who felt unworthy of the mission she had given him, "God is very humble.

He chooses those who are most unfit to do his work, so that it is clear

for all to see that it is HIS work they are doing instead of their own."

I can use that kind of lesson.

 

 

 

> Srila Prabhupada. Perhaps because what he was

> promoting belongs in the 'too hard basket' for most people, so the kind of

> 'sainthood' offered by the aforementioned is so much more appealing - it

> takes much less effort

 

Exactly. But even Gandhi found that his people rejected his

ideas, PRACTICALLY, because they wanted sense gratification more than the

austerities his path required. Almost everybody wants preyas (the

immediately appealing) more than sreyas (the ultimately beneficial). And

ultimately Gandhi was one of them too, which is why Srila Prabhupada later

rejected him.

 

Devotees seek that which is eminently worthwhile but enormously

difficult--the destruction of the false ego, and even beyond that, the

quintessence of spiritual attainment, Krsna-prema. Only the nonenvious can

really desire this, practically; this is the disclaimer found at the very

outset of the Bhagavatam (1.1.2).

 

At the same time, it's nothing that isn't already within us, and

swans like Srila Prabhupada are able to encourage anyone else to work at

bringing it out into one's actions. Drops of water wear away even stone.

And unlike nondevotees, only bhaktas have the Omnipotent Krsna, who is

the most merciful and who is more than ready to assist them in every way

(Bhagavata, 3.2.23):

 

"Alas, how shall I take shelter of one more merciful than He who

granted the position of mother to a she-demon [Putana] although she was

unfaithful and she prepared deadly poison to be sucked from her breast?"

 

There are many instances of this omnipotent mercy even now.

 

MDd