Guest guest Posted December 15, 1999 Report Share Posted December 15, 1999 D.Gilson on 14th December wrote: And at the time he lived he had never to my >> > knowledge been a farmer. I think sometimes while Prabhupada is an >>elevated >> > enlightened being some time, he was talking about things he had heard >>about >> > but had no actual hands on knowledge. A liberated soul is above the 4 propensities of conditioned life:1. imperfect senses, 2. tendency to make mistakes, 3. tendency to be illusioned, 4. tendency to cheat. A pure devotee of the Lord is understood to have surpassed even the point of liberation. Using these criteria of sastra, judge for yourself the conclusion about Srila Prabhupada ..That does not mean that everything that came out of S.P.'s mouth is gospel: there are two types of instructions the spiritual master gives: general, and specific. General refers to instructions everyone can benefit from, such as chanting, and specific refer to those instructions especially meant for a particular person, particular time, place, circumstance. He may have for instance told one disciple he should leave his wife, but that's obviously not for all of us. Therefore one must learn to discriminate, and the basis of discrimination is sastra. I'm sorry, D.Gilson (is it Carol?), no offense, but your conclusion does not tally with sastra. Srila Prabhupada defines cheating in Perfect questions, Perfect Answers, as someone who pretends he knows but doesn't really know, and this is definitely not possible in the personality of a pure devotee, who has surpassed even liberation. Gopinatha Acarya has successfully burnt castor oil, he BOUGHT.If you can burn bought castor oil, then what are we doing wrong in the refinement that makes the home-made stuff unburnable? Where in India do they burn castor oil for lighting and how do they refine it there? What particular type of castor oil plant do they use- a local strain? I skipped the first part of this discussion, so excuse me if these questions are already answered. Even if we can't use castor oil for lighting, it was more like a specific instruction, we have to see the general instruction it applies to, which is for everyone- at least rural devotees- to live simply to save time for chanting. If we serve that better by burning candlenuts than by castor oil, then that is simply adjusting the specific instruction according to time, place circumstance, to serve the general instruction. Krsna consciousness is not dogmatic, it is dynamic. It means following with intelligence. Now how can we say that burning castor oil for lighting is specific, and living simply to save time for spiritual culture is general? The general is there in sastra, the Bhaktivedanta purports, the specific is not. ys, niscala ____ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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