KRSNA and Jesus Christ:If one loves KRSNA, he must love Lord Jesus also

[rand0M aXiS]

"I offer my respectful obeisances unto all the Vaishnava devotees of the Lord. They are just like desire trees who can fulfill the desires of everyone, and they are full of compassion for the conditioned souls.' He takes responsibility for all the conditioned souls. That is the idea is also in the Bible. Jesus Christ took all the reactions of the people and sacrifice his life. That is the responsibility of the spiritual master."

Perfect Answers, Perfect Questions, Ch. 6

 

 

"A Vaishnava should follow the example of such Vaishnava's as Haridas Thakura, Nityananda Prabhu and also Lord Jesus Christ."

SB 4:6:47

 

"The Sanskrit word avatara literally means "he who descends." One who descends from the spiritual universe into the material universe through his own will is called an avatara. Sometimes Sri Krsna descends Himself, and sometimes He sends His representative. The major religions of the world--Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Moslem -- believe in some supreme authority or personality coming down from the kingdom of God. In the Christian religion, Jesus Christ claimed to be the son of God and to be coming from the kingdom of God to reclaim conditioned souls. As followers of Bhagavad-gita, we admit this claim to be true."

Raja Vidya, Ch. 6, Knowledge of Krishna's Appearance and Activities

 

 

"Lord Jesus Christ, for instance, was God Conscious, Krishna Conscious but he was not satisfied in keeping his knowledge within himself."

Path Of Perfection, Ch. 5

 

 

"Lord Jesus Christ, he is saktyavesa-avatara, God's son. And he tolerated so much. These are the examples of mahatma. Don't misunderstand that we are preaching mahatma's are only in India. No."

S.B. 5.5.3, Vrindavana India, October 25, 1976

 

 

"Jesus Christ was such a great personality-the son of God, the representative of God. He had no fault. Still, he was crucified. He wanted to deliver God consciousness, but in return they crucified him-they were so thankless. They could not appreciate his preaching. But we appreciate him and give him all honor as the representative of God.

 

"Of course, the message that Christ preached was just according to his particular time, place, and country, and just suited for a particular group of people. But certainly he is the representative of God. Therefore we adore Lord Jesus Christ and offer our obeisances to him.

 

"Once, in Melbourne, a group of Christian ministers came to visit me. They asked, "What is your idea of Jesus Christ?" I told them, "He is our guru. He is preaching God consciousness, so he is our spiritual master." The ministers very much appreciated that.

 

"Actually, anyone who is preaching God's glories must be accepted as a guru. Jesus Christ is one such great personality. We should not think of him as an ordinary human being. The scriptures say that anyone who considers the spiritual master to be an ordinary man has a hellish mentality. If Jesus Christ were an ordinary man, then he could not have delivered God consciousness."

~ SSR/Science of Self Realization

 

 

 

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Srimati Prtha devi dasi has written an excellent three-part essay called Christ & Krishna . The above quotes were copied from that essay. Interested readers should check out the entire three parts, a long read, but worth it IMHO.

[Guruvani]

According to many learned scholars, the Jesus figure is a myth or at least an overblown historical figure who has been deified and exaggerated.

 

Personally, I think that the Jesus story is a fabricated myth that has no basis in any historical fact.

 

Prabhupada said many things about Jesus because he was preaching in the western world and he didn't personally want to start a religious war with Christians in their own land.

 

Other than that, he probably had very little actual belief in Jesus.

 

Jesus was an inconoclast.

Most all iconoclasts I have ever heard of are imprseronalists.

 

If we look at Jesus theologically from an objective comparison like we find in Brhat Bhagavatamritam, Jesus wouldn't even be on the chart.

 

 

"Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur gives the following commentary on this verse. In the Western countries, Christians believe that Lord Jesus Christ, their spiritual master, appeared in order to eradicate all the sins of his disciples. To this end, Lord Jesus Christ appeared and disappeared. Here, however, we find Shree Vasudeva Datta Thakur and Shree Haridas Thakur to be many millions of times more advanced even when compared with Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ relieved only his followers from all sinful reactions, but Vasudeva Datta is here prepared to accept the sins of everyone in the universe. So the comparative position of Vasudeva Datta is millions of times better than that of Lord Jesus Christ. A Vaishnava is so liberal that he is prepared to risk everything to rescue the conditioned souls from material existence.

ShreeVasudeva Datta Thakur is universal love itself, for he was willing to sacrifice everything and fully engage in the service of the Supreme Lord.

"Srila Vasudeva Datta knew very well that Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu was the original Personality of Godhead, Transcendence itself, above the material conception of illusion and maya. Lord Jesus Christ certainly finished the sinful reactions of his followers by his mercy, but that does not mean he completely delivered them from the pangs of material existence. A person may be relieved from sins once, but it is a practice among Christians to confess sins and yet commit them again. By getting freed from sins and again engaging in them, one cannot attain freedom from the pangs of material existence. A diseased person may go to a physician for relief, but after he leaves the hospital he may again be infected due to his unclean habits.

Thus material existence continues. Srila Vasudeva Datta wanted to completely relieve the conditioned souls from material existence so that they would no longer have an opportunity to commit sinful acts. This is the significant difference between Srila Vasudeva Datta and Lord Jesus Christ. It is a great offense to receive pardon for sins and then commit the same sins again. Such an offense is more dangerous than the sinful activity itself. Vasudeva Datta was so liberal that he requested Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to transfer all offensive activity upon him so the conditioned souls would be purified and go back home, back to Godhead. This prayer was certainly without duplicity." (Cc, Madya 15.163 purport)

[Guruvani]

 

Prabhupada writes, "Regarding your questions on Christianity, we are not very much keen to engage them in argument because for the most part they are sentimentalists and have no philosophy, therefore they become fanatics or dogmatists, and this type of person we cannot change. (Letter to Dasarha 1977 March 4 Bombay)

[Guruvani]

 

Candanacarya: "Yesterday I made the acquaintance of a theologist, a professor from the University of Montreal. He said that the Roman Catholic presentation of Christianity is that God came to share the suffering of man."

Prabhupada: "That is another rascaldom. Why God should share the sufferings of man?"

Candanacarya: "I asked him this, and he said, 'So that man would accept more as reality, suffering.'"

Prabhupada: Very good theologian - a rascal number one." (Los Angeles, Dec. 15, 1973)

[Guruvani]

Lord Buddha is mentioned specifically in Srimad-Bhagavatam as incarnation of Godhead, and yet Vaishnavas do not accept his philosophy, which is classified as atheism. Similarly, even if we accept Lord Jesus Christ as saktyavesa avatara, it doesn't mean that we have to accept his philosophy. But we have all respects for him without fail. Regarding books like Aquarian Gospel or even the Testaments, we cannot accept them as authorities because sometimes it is learnt that the words are not actually spoken by Christ, but they are so set up by the devotees." (Letter to Hamsaduta, Nov.2, 1969)

[Guruvani]

 

"The sastras of the yavanas, or meat-eaters, are not eternal scriptures. They have been fashioned recently, and sometimes they contradict one another. The scriptures of the yavanas are three: the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Koran.

Their compilation has a history; they are not eternal like the Vedic knowledge. Therefore, although they have their arguments and reasoning, they are not very sound and transcendental. As such, modern people advanced in science and philosophy, deem these scriptures unacceptable. (Cc Adi. 17,169 purport)

[Guest guest]

You clearly have an axe to grind with Christians. Your earlier comments betrayed your prejudices on Christianity, and now you're attacking Jesus as well. You ruined a perfectly good thread with an inspirational quote from Prabhupada with your hateful ranting against Christianity.

 

A Vaishnava is non-sectarian and non-fanatical. You are being sectarian and fanatical. You use Prabhupada as a weapon to bash your own grievances and you're hurting a lot of people as you go along. Are you just trying to artificially increase your post count or something? I wish this forum had an ignore function, so that I could ignore your posts. There may be hope for you if you go and take those classes on Vaishnava humility, and you may get a cookie afterwards.

[Guest guest]

 

Well, if you want to quote Srila Prabhupada on Jesus, we can also recall his writing in Chaitanya Caritamrita that devotees like Vasudeva Datta and Haridas Thakur are MILLIONS of times GREATER than Jesus Christ.

 

So, why would anyone bother with Jesus when we can worship great devotees of the Lord who are MILLIONS of times greater than Jesus.

 

If somebody offers you a nickel and somebody else offers you a million dollars, which one would you take?

 

I'll take the millions dollars and you can have the nickel.

 

 

I think that unless one can truly appreciate a nickel, Krsna will not let him have the millions of dollars.

 

That seems to be the problem with our movement: we chase the million dollar bills and treat all nickels with utter contempt. As a lesson to us, Krsna takes away even our nickels and we are left with nothing. Lets forget about the stars and just chase the moon. Forget all regular devotees, lets worship this great sannyasi with a golden Rollex watch.

[Guest guest]

 

I think that unless one can truly appreciate a nickel, Krsna will not let him have the millions of dollars.

 

That seems to be the problem with our movement: we chase the million dollar bills and treat all nickels with utter contempt. As a lesson to us, Krsna takes away even our nickels and we are left with nothing. Lets forget about the stars and just chase the moon. Forget all regular devotees, lets worship this great sannyasi with a golden Rollex watch.

Ironic but, <b>AMEN</b> to that!

[Guruvani]

http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET0401/ET08-8512.html

[theist]

Ignore function would be good. In practical terms that is called banning one from posting. He was banned here once before as he has been banned from most forums he enters. I am loath to ask for this generally as most disruptive trolls burn out when ignored but this character is an exception. His rantings are creeper killers.

 

But his offence behavior towards Christ is eally just a tactic to turn the disscussion onto himself. The poor little attention starved kid in classroom that disrupts the class preventing others from learning just to get noticed.

[Guruvani]

Srila Prabhupada:

 

 

"MAN-MADE RELIGION HAS NO VALUE. So man-made religions, there are so many religious system, the Hindu religion, Christian religion, Mohammedan religion or this religion, that religion. That is a kind of faith. But religion means the order or the laws given by God. Therefore here it is said, dharmah projjhita-kaitavah atra. Kaitavah means cheating type of religious system. Real religion means "God is there. I am there. God is great. I am subordinate. I must abide by the laws of God." This is religion. At the present moment, under the spell of illusion in this material condition, we have forgotten our real religion. Real religion means to revive our consciousness -- we say, "Krsna consciousness" -- or God consciousness, by which we agree to abide by the laws of God. So Krsna says in the Bhagavad-gita at the end, sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja [bg. 18.66]. He says that "You have manufactured so many religious system. So you give up all these. You simply surrender unto Me."

[Guest guest]

 

Forget all regular devotees, lets worship this great sannyasi with a golden Rollex watch.

Hell yeah that's what I'm talkin about!

[Guruvani]

Krishna:

 

"Give up Jesus and surrender unto me!"

 

(abandon all varieties of religion and surrender unto me)

[Yofu]

I think the Christian Vaisnavas are really loosing the plot with their "your being offensive to Christ" statements. I often find this "you're-being-offensive prabhu" tatic being used by devotees when they are loosing a argument, or don't like what is being said.

 

The other tatic used by devotees is to use the "Srila Prabhupada says..." tatic. The problem with this tatic is that Srila Prabhupada said many things on many topics. Sometimes it appears he contradicts himself. So when you say "Srila Prabhpada says..." please mention the context in which he said what he said. There's a "Srila Prabhupada says..." for nearly everything. I looked at the VNN article mention by Guruvani, and Srila Prabhuopada is less than complamentary towards Christians.

 

One last thought: How many Jesus threads have there being on here since this forum started?

 

Wasn't it only last month when someone said Jesus is Kalki?

[Yofu]

[Gaurasundara]

 

Ignore function would be good. In practical terms that is called banning one from posting.

Perhaps he can post, but a filter of sorts can be created so that the posts of certain people are no longer visible to the reader who is filtering.

 

 

He was banned here once before as he has been banned from most forums he enters. I am loath to ask for this generally as most disruptive trolls burn out when ignored but this character is an exception. His rantings are creeper killers.

 

But his offence behavior towards Christ is eally just a tactic to turn the disscussion onto himself. The poor little attention starved kid in classroom that disrupts the class preventing others from learning just to get noticed.

Oh, I never noticed him before except in the fall/no-fall discussion recently. So this is regular behaviour? Hmm..

 

I understand and completely emphatise with what you say about creeper-killers though.

[Guruvani]

 

Regarding books like Aquarian Gospel or even the Testaments, we cannot accept them as authorities because sometimes it is learnt that the words are not actually spoken by Christ, but they are so set up by the devotees." (Letter to Hamsaduta, Nov.2, 1969)

 

So, the only place we get information about Jesus is in the Bible.

Srila Prabhupada said we cannot accept the Bible as authoritative, so how then can we accept Jesus if in fact Srila Prabhupada rejected the Bible as being authoritative?

 

Srila Prabhupada rejected the New Testaments of the Bible which are the source of information about the teachings of Jesus.

So, if he rejected the Bible, then by proxy he is covertly rejecting Jesus.

 

If he didn't accept the Bible and rejected it as not being authoritative, then really what grounds are there for all this sentimental whining about Jesus?

[Gaurasundara]

 

I think the Christian Vaisnavas are really loosing the plot with their "your being offensive to Christ" statements. I often find this "you're-being-offensive prabhu" tatic being used by devotees when they are loosing a argument.

 

The other tatic used by devotees is to use the "Srila Prabhupada says..." tatic. The problem with this tatic is that Srila Prabhupada said many things on many topics. Sometimes it appears he contradicts himself. So when you say "Srila Prabhpada says..." please mention the context in which he said what he said. There's a "Srila Prabhupada says..." for nearly everything. I looked at the VNN article mention by Guruvani, and Srila Prabhuopada is less than complamentary towards Christians.

 

One last thought: How many Jesus threads have there being on here since this forum started?

 

Wasn't it only last month when someone said Jesus is Kalki?

I think people are mixing up concepts here, but from my point of view I also disagree with the "Christian Vaishnava" concept because I don't think syncretism is possible. But I have no problem with offering my obeisances to the feet of Jesus, he was a great soul. Prabhupada is also referring to how we should respect Jesus as a preacher of God and I have no problem with that.

 

This "Krishna is better than Christ" stuff is juvenile and pure fanaticism. It's the type of stuff that newbie overenthusiastic idealists say.

[Gaurasundara]

 

So, the only place we get information about Jesus is in the Bible.

Srila Prabhupada said we cannot accept the Bible as authoritative, so how then can we accept Jesus if in fact Srila Prabhupada rejected the Bible as being authoritative?

 

Srila Prabhupada rejected the New Testaments of the Bible which are the source of information about the teachings of Jesus.

So, if he rejected the Bible, then by proxy he is covertly rejecting Jesus.

 

If he didn't accept the Bible and rejected it as not being authoritative, then really what grounds are there for all this sentimental whining about Jesus?

Well the first quote in this thread is by Prabhupada. I guess he was just sentimentally whining according to you..

[Guruvani]

Srila Prabhupada says we love jesus, but then he rejects the Holy books that contain his teachings and his so-called history.

If we try to sort out the mess, the logical conclusion is that the Jesus trip is not worth anyone's serious faith.

[Guest guest]

It does not take an Einstein to figure out that Christianity has borrowed from Hinduism . Noahs Ark(Hinduism) , Moses crossing the sea(Hindusim) Jesus a cowherd(Hinduism)

 

So where is the proof that Christianity is a true religion??????? I have read the bible and found nothing even REMOTELY spiritual in it .

[Guruvani]

 

Well the first quote in this thread is by Prabhupada. I guess he was just sentimentally whining according to you..

Vasudeva Datta would pick up the maggots that had fallen off the sores in his body and put them back there so that they wouldn't be deprived of their food source.

 

So, the Vaishnava loves even the maggots devouring his own flesh, so there is nothing special about Prabhupada saying that if we love Krishna we must love Jesus too.

If you love Krishna, then you love all his parts and parcels including maggots and Jesus.

 

So, Jesus didn't get any special treatment.

He got the same consideration that a Vaishnava gives to Mohammed, Buddha, Cintamani the prostitute and the dog of Sivananda Sena.

 

To say the we love Jesus is not any special endorsement of Jesus.

 

All Srila Prabhupada was saying was that the Vaishnava loves all the parts of parcels of Krishna, if indeed he loves Krishna.

 

But, if Jesus was just a myth, then there is no requirement that we have to love the mythological person they call Jesus.

 

Sure we love Jesus, we love dogs, we love maggots and we love prostitutes who have been dealt a sad fate.

 

Jesus is not to be excluded from the list of those we love, if in fact he is real, which is very much up for debate.

 

Prabhupada loved all the suffering souls of the world, including Jesus.

 

Jesus didn't get preferential treatment.

 

He got the same consideration that a pure devotee gives all the parts and parcels of Krishna - including maggots and dogs.

[Guest guest]

Theist and Guruvani,

 

Srila Prabhupada on some occasions praised Jesus and called him divine.

 

Srila Prabhupada on some other occasions condemned Christianity and invalidated the bible as an authority. Since the bible is the only source for information on Jesus, some see this as invalidating Jesus himself.

 

The root problem of the disagreement on this thread is due to the contradictory statements issued by Srila Prabhupada. Each side is selectively quoting Srila Prabhupada in its favor and is not responding to the quotes offered by the other side in its defense. Failure to address contradictory evidence by pretending it does not exist and simply repeating the same thing over and over is a waste of time.

[Guruvani]

 

Theist and Guruvani,

 

Srila Prabhupada on some occasions praised Jesus and called him divine.

 

Srila Prabhupada on some other occasions condemned Christianity and invalidated the bible as an authority. Since the bible is the only source for information on Jesus, some see this as invalidating Jesus himself.

 

The root problem of the disagreement on this thread is due to the contradictory statements issued by Srila Prabhupada. Each side is selectively quoting Srila Prabhupada in its favor and is not responding to the quotes offered by the other side in its defense. Failure to address contradictory evidence by pretending it does not exist and simply repeating the same thing over and over is a waste of time.

 

That was my point.

If Prabhupada rejects the Bible, but loves Jesus, then it can't be interpreted that he approves of the Jesus cult or Christianity.

 

If Prabhupada said we should love Jesus, but rejected the Bible, then he was just offering Jesus the same kind of compassion that the Vaishnava feels for all souls including maggots, dogs and prostitutes.

 

So, we don't hate Jesus. He deserves the same respect we would give any person on the street.

 

But, if Prabhupada rejected the books that contain the only information we have about Jesus, then we really have nothing to go on as far as accepting Jesus as a great spiritual personality and saviour of the world.

 

So, Prabhupada loved Jesus, rejected the Bible and rejected Christianity.

 

It's quite obvious he didn't want the devotees to get involved in the Jesus cult or let the Jesus issue distract them from devotional service to Krishna.