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

[Guruvani]

I think there are some on this thread that interpret Srila Prabhupada words about loving Krishna and Jesus as some sort of way of putting the two on the same level and saying that we should love Jesus as in love of God.

 

I am sure some fools are thinking like that, but they are seriously wrong about that.

 

We love Jesus as a part and parcel of Krishna, not as we love Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

 

If any fool here thinks Srila Prabhupada was saying we love Krishna and Jesus as being the same, then I would say such fools are idiots.

 

Srila Prabhupada never intended to endorse or encourage worship of jesus with his comments about loving Jesus.

 

That is a very foolish interpretation of his words about loving jesus.

[theist]

 

Krishna:

 

"Give up Jesus and surrender unto me!"

 

(abandon all varieties of religion and surrender unto me)

 

Again and again you show you haven't a clue about this issue. Jesus is not a religion, he is a person and according Srila Prabhupada, the guru you pretend to accept, he person Jesus Christ is an incarnation of Krsna as a shatya-vesa avatar performing a particular mission under Krsna's direction.

 

So you advocate rejecting Krsna's incarnation in one form in the name of surrendering to Him. Brilliant logic there.

[Guest guest]

 

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.

 

Prabhupada was trying to encourage people who believed in Jesus and the Bible by respecting their beliefs and asking them to move to a higher level. But to his own disciples he often blasted them pretty hard.

 

Sort of like when your neigbours come for a visit. You dont tell them their daughter is ugly. You say that she is "different". But to your son you can say: "dont even think about dating her, she is hideous!"

 

Problem arises when the disciple takes the words of his guru to be always absolute and never relative, even when it is painfully obvious to everybody else that this is indeed a case of relative speech.

[theist]

 

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?

 

Again you repeat the same brain dead logic that infects guruvani. You can't make the distinction between a person and religion. Work on that one.

 

And BTW Prabhupada also called hinduism hodge podge. You think being a hindu will save you just like the christians and muslims think identifying with their chosen religions will save them.

 

You are all wrong of course. The atma's only salvation ( in the vaisnava understanding of the word) is to attain to our real identification as krsna's loving servant.

[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.

 

Haribol, but there is no contradicition. There is clear distinction between Lord Jesus Christ and those (christians) who claim to follow him. The negatives pointed out by Srila Prabhupada concerning the christian (never does he say anything even slightly negative toward Lord Jesus Christ, I defy anyone who would claim that Srila Prabhupada was antagonistic to Lord Jesus Christ), these negatives were ironically predicted by lord Jesus Christ himself. So we have complete concurrance between the vaisnavas concerning immature fanatics thinking along party lines. A so-called vaisnava who decries one who appreciates the Lord Jesus Christ is not a vaisnava, because a vaisnava is empathetic to all who are engaged in loving service to the Supreme Lord. The christians who decry the devotees of Lord Krsna are also as foolish and are actually rejected as well by Lord Jesus Christ, whose teachings include the directive that those who are not against development of love of the Supreme Lord are with Him, even though they may be hearing from the so-called competition.

 

So, there is no contradiction. Srila Prabhupada has the right and duty to slam sham religions like what we see as modern christianity. We see him slamming sham vaisnavism as well, where he warns his disciples of the poisonous effects of the kali cela, demons dressed in vaisnava garb.

 

What we dont see in any quote is Srila Prabhupada committing offenses to the supreme lord and those whose only purpose is to give love of God to others. Srila Prabhupada sees clearly the difference between Lord Jesus Christ and the misrepresentation that bears his name, and he teaches us all that science, the discernment of the paramahamsa, the ability to separate grain from shaff, nectar from garbage, etc.

 

As far as the notion that christianity is modeled after vaisnavism, some say exactly the opposite. Some say its all sumerian, some have stated that it all comes from what is today called Iraq (Akkadian), I have concluded that the whole world was once Africa (and plate techtonic science backs me up on this, not to mention the puranas stories of pre-Prthu world). But the fact is that spiritual science DESCENDS from the spiritual strata, to everyone, so the similarities between say the Tiki of the polynesian and Lord Jaganatha and the forms found on easter island, this is not wonderful, it is the common thread between us all. Pirates of the carribean and barbary coast, the cult of the templars, and descendents of St John the baptist are all the same family.

 

Maybe Ill start a pirate thread, but then Ill just get folks who side with the king or those in favor of brushing their teeth slamming the holy rebels who waged an honest war for 2,000 years and counting.

 

All glories to the Cathars, the goddess worshippers, the druids, and the glorious abyssinians who are keepers of the ark of the covenant.

 

Ys mahaksadasa

[theist]

 

Srila Prabhupada never intended to endorse or encourage worship of jesus with his comments about loving Jesus.

 

Please quit posing that you know the inner intention of Srila Prabhupada. It is embarrassing to even watch such a spectacle

[Guruvani]

 

Again and again you show you haven't a clue about this issue. Jesus is not a religion, he is a person and according Srila Prabhupada, the guru you pretend to accept, he person Jesus Christ is an incarnation of Krsna as a shatya-vesa avatar performing a particular mission under Krsna's direction.

 

So you advocate rejecting Krsna's incarnation in one form in the name of surrendering to Him. Brilliant logic there.

Well, thats your problem is that you think that shaktyavesa avatar is an incarnation of Krishna.

Well, shaktyavesha avatar is not an incarnation of Krishna, rather a jiva soul who has been given certain powers by God.

Even Edgar Cayce had special powers given by God, but he was not an authorized incarnation of Krishna.

 

There are many shaktyavesha avatars mentioned in the Puranas, but Jesus didn't make the list, so if he was a shaktyavesha avatar, he was one of lesser empowered incarnations.

 

Jesus was empowered with mystic powers i.e. he could walk on water and heal the sick etc., but he didn't have enough power to teach even one soul the Holy Name of Vishnu or Krishna.

 

As far as empowered incarnations go, any "guru" in the Vaishnava sampradaya must necessarily be an empowered incarnation.

 

Guru, in the true sense of the term has all the authority to represent Krishna and is said to be the sum total of all the demigods.

 

So, to be a shaktyavesha avatar does not mean he is an incarnation of Krishna - rather an empowered soul.

 

AVESA - means "indirect" incarnation.

So, shaktyAVESA incarnation is an empowered soul, not a SAKSHAT or direct incarnation of Godhead.

 

Jesus was not an incarnation of Krishna. That is a stupid idea.

 

He was an empowered soul who had some mystic powers, but the Holy Name of the Lord was not part of his vocabulary which makes him a lot less than many rikshawallas and prostitutes in India or a new bhakta in an ISKCON temple.

[theist]

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

Yes these has been ongoing for years. He changes his handle often as cover and as a way to reenter forums once banned. His formal initiated name is ksamabuddhi I believe.

[Guruvani]

What you people think you know about Jesus you learned from books that Srila Prabhupada did not recognize as authorized scripture, so you are all getting your information from an unauthorized source and claiming that what you know is legitimate when these books have all been rejected by the Vaishnava acharyas.

[theist]

 

Yes there are literlly hundreds of such instances where Srila Prabhupada referres to Lord Jesus Christ as a Shatya-vesa avatar of krsna. Other shakya-vesa avatars are Lord Buddha Narada Muni Prithu Maharaja.

 

Here is one such instance.

 

From coversations.

Martin: Can a true devotee come face-to-face with God through the teachings of Buddha, the teachings of Christ?

 

Prabhupäda: Yes. Teachings of Christ, teaching of Buddha, they are meant for a particular type of men. Generally it is meant for everyone, but specifically for a particular type of men. Just like Lord Buddha, he preached ahimsä. They were a particular type of men. Lord Jesus Christ also preached to a particular type of men. "Thou shall not kill.'' That means they were killing. Is it not? If I say, "Thou shall not steal,'' that means you are thief, you are stealing. So a kind of preaching among the thieves and a kind of teaching among the philosophers must be different. That is the difference. Lord Buddha is Krsna, Lord Jesus Christ was Krsna incarnation, but they were preaching to a different type of people. Therefore you'll find difference of Lord Jesus Christ teaching, Buddha's teaching, Krsna's teaching. Krsna's teaching also is there, which is also Buddha's teaching. But more than that, because the persons amongst whom He was teaching, they were far, far elevated than the thieves and the rogues. That is the difference.

 

 

Guruvani: Jesus was not an incarnation of Krishna. That is a stupid idea.

 

 

So here we see where guruvani is calling Srila Prabhupada stupid.

 

Ever hear of acintya-bhedabheda.

 

I must ask. Are you smoking ganja guruvani? Your posts contradict themselves and are so disjointed I am thinking you must be stoned. I know the symptoms well having been a heavy ganja smoker at one time myself.

[Guruvani]

Since chanting the Maha-mantra is the Yuga Dharma and Jesus did not teach the chanting of the Maha-mantra, then how can we accept him as an authorized guru?

 

Jesus had no knowledge of nor did he preach the proper process of the Yuga Dharma as described in the AUTHORIZED scriptures.

 

Therefore, we should not be concerned to accept Jesus and any kind of spiritual leader.

[Guest guest]

Theist prabhu ... to be honest, it's not just Guruvani prabhu but most people on this forum do exactly that.

 

 

Please quit posing that you know the inner intention of Srila Prabhupada. It is embarrassing to even watch such a spectacle

[Gaurasundara]

Yes these has been ongoing for years. He changes his handle often as cover and as a way to reenter forums once banned. His formal initiated name is ksamabuddhi I believe.

AHA! I should have known. Now it all becomes clear. Thank you.

[Guruvani]

ShaktyAVESA means indirect incarnation or empowered soul.

So, if Srila Prabhupada said that Jesus was an incarnation of Krishna, then he meant that he was an AVESA avatar or an jiva soul that was given a certain power by the Supersoul Paramatma.

 

Shaktyavesa is not a direct incarnation.

Shakytavesa has some delegated powers.

He is not a full incarnation of Krishna.

 

Whereas a guru like Srila Prabhupada is SAKSHAT HARI, or a direct incarnation of Krishna.

[Guest guest]

His initiation mantra to his disciples was "Pray as I do, Our father, who resides in spiritual essrence, hallowed be thy NAME."

 

Yuga dharma is completely satisfied by the teachings of Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble. Im waiting for your usual comments about how prabhupada was just condescending and patronizing the christian, about what he really meant.

 

mahak

[Gaurasundara]

I'd like to apologise for my impetuousness and respectfully withdraw from these tedious types of discussions, which I humbly feel can lead to a serious degradation of bhakti. I think Harikatha and discussions of Krishna's glories is a much more fruitful affair.

 

In the meantime, I came across this nice picture on the Net a few days ago. It has a good message.

[Guest guest]

 

ShaktyAVESA means indirect incarnation or empowered soul.

So, if Srila Prabhupada said that Jesus was an incarnation of Krishna, then he meant that he was an AVESA avatar or an jiva soul that was given a certain power by the Supersoul Paramatma.

 

Shaktyavesa is not a direct incarnation.

Shakytavesa has some delegated powers.

He is not a full incarnation of Krishna.

 

Whereas a guru like Srila Prabhupada is SAKSHAT HARI, or a direct incarnation of Krishna.

 

Completely bogus. Where do you get such garbage. I think your association is very bad, you probably hear from false prophets and revisionists who destroy Srila Prabhupadas teachings to a much greater degree than mere editorial license exhibited by BBT. Get away from the vanivads who are doing to Prabhupada the exact same thing Paul did to Lord Jesus.

 

Prabhupada is not God. Nor is Jesus. haribol, ys, mahaksadasa

[Guruvani]

 

His initiation mantra to his disciples was "Pray as I do, Our father, who resides in spiritual essrence, hallowed be thy NAME."

 

Yuga dharma is completely satisfied by the teachings of Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble. Im waiting for your usual comments about how prabhupada was just condescending and patronizing the christian, about what he really meant.

 

mahak

Hallowed does not mean "chanted" or "sung".

It means held up as Holy.

In the Jewish tradition that Jesus came from and claimed to fulfill, it was against the religion to speak the name of God or write the name of God, which is against the Yuga Dharma of the age.

 

We have no example of Jesus saying the name of God or chanting the names of God, so your claim that he fullfilled the Yuga Dharma is not true, but is false propaganda.

[Guruvani]

 

Completely bogus. Where do you get such garbage. I think your association is very bad, you probably hear from false prophets and revisionists who destroy Srila Prabhupadas teachings to a much greater degree than mere editorial license exhibited by BBT. Get away from the vanivads who are doing to Prabhupada the exact same thing Paul did to Lord Jesus.

 

Prabhupada is not God. Nor is Jesus. haribol, ys, mahaksadasa

 

no, you are bogus.

if you don't even know the meaning of shaktyavesa, then you have no business commenting on it.

Look it up in the books before you go making false claims and making a fool out of yourself.

[Guruvani]

 

 

Prabhupada is not God. Nor is Jesus. haribol, ys, mahaksadasa

 

Showing your ignorance again.

 

In the teachings of the Vaishnava acharyas like Vishvanatha Cakravarti we are told to see the genuine spiritual master as "sakshat hari venasamastra shastrair".

 

According to shastra, the acharya is "sakshat hari".

Sakshat Hari means "direct incarnation".

 

So, your argument is with shastra and the acharyas - not me.

 

Do your research and study before you come here and make an ass out of yourself and decry shastric conclusions.

[theist]

 

Theist prabhu ... to be honest, it's not just Guruvani prabhu but most people on this forum do exactly that.

Absolutely! We approach Krsna and His representatives with or own agenda's and then try to make their words fit our purposes. This is a big mistake. We must come to the point that Arjuna did when he humbled hmself before Krsna.

 

Now I am confused about my duty and have lost all composure because of miserly weakness. In this condition I am asking You to tell me for certain what is best for me. Now I am Your disciple, and a soul surrendered unto You. Please instruct me. BG 2.7

The gita tells us to lay aside our personal agendas and focus on Krsna's agenda and take it as our own. This is dovetailing our being to the Supreme being.

Or in the words of Christ before the crucifixtion, "Not my will but Thy will be done."

I am prone to this mistake as anyone and try to be on constant guard against it. "Stalking the mind" as Casteneda termed it. What is clear is clear and what we don't understand we keep chanting until Krsna clears up our thinking on the matter. We should not try to fill in the blanks. We must be willing to say "I don't know".

I don't know means we are in ignorance on the matter. We must acknowledge this and accept the embarrassment of our position as falen souls.

Prabhupada's instructions are really quite clear. On this issue he has said repeatedly Jesus was incarnation of Krsna as a shaktya-vesa avatar. That is clear enough. No interpretation necessary or any "Well what Prabhupada really meant was..." No real disciple engages in such deceit.

[gHari]

Guru is neither Krsna-tattva nor Vishnu-tattva. Guru is in the Jiva-tattva category, as Srila Prabhupada clarifies here:

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>Japan 1972:

Devotee: <b>On ekAdazI, we can offer the Deity grains</b>?

PrabhupAda: <b>Oh yes. But not guru. EkAdazI observed by jIva-tattva, not by ViSNu-tattva.</b> We are fasting for clearing our material disease, but RAdhA-KRSNa, Caitanya MahAprabhu... Caitanya MahAprabhu also may not be offered grains because He is playing the part of a devotee. Only RAdhA-KRSNa, JagannAtha can be offered grains. Otherwise, Guru-GaurAGga, no. And the prasAdam should not be taken by anyone. It should be kept for next day. What is that?

</BLOCKQUOTE>

[Guruvani]

Adi. 7.14 purport,

 

 

Although Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Śrī Nityānanda Prabhu and Śrī Advaita Prabhu all belong to the same Viṣṇu category, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is nevertheless accepted as the Supreme, and the other two prabhus engage in His transcendental loving service to teach ordinary living entities that every one of us is subordinate to Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. In another place in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi 5.142) it is said, ekale īśvara kṛṣṇa, āra saba bhṛtya: the only supreme master is Kṛṣṇa, and all others, both viṣṇu-tattva and jīva-tattva, engage in the service of the Lord. Both the viṣṇu-tattva (as Nityānanda Prabhu and Advaita) and the jīva-tattva (śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda) engage in the service of the Lord, but one must distinguish between the viṣṇu-tattva servitors and the jīva-tattva servitors. The jīva-tattva servitor, the spiritual master, is actually the servitor God. As explained in previous verses, in the absolute world there are no such differences, yet one must observe these differences in order to distinguish the Supreme from His subordinates.

In this purport Srila Prabhupada describes the spiritual master as "servitor God".

Because we cannot approach Krishna directly, but only through the spiritual master, the spiritual master is to be seen as God appearing through his servant.

 

The spiritual master is "sakshat hari", according to shastra and the Vaishnava acharyas. This means that Hari is appearing before us through the transparent via medium of the spiritual master.

 

We cannot approach God except through his authorized servants.

Therefore, the spiritual master is more important than God, because God is unaccessible to us except through his authorized servitor.

 

Because we cannot approach God directly, his representative is as good as God and in some ways more important than God, because without the spiritual master we cannot know God or find God by ourselves.

 

The authorized spiritual master is MORE THAN GOD, because we cannot approach God without the spiritual master to show us the way.

 

So, although the spiritual master might be a jiva, Krishna is appearing to us through the spiritual master, which makes the spiritual master non-different than Hari himself.

 

True guru tattva is not of the jiva class. Guru tattva is Krishna giving himself through the spiritual master who functionally is as good as God as far as that goes.

 

So, the spiritual master might not be Vishnu tattva, but even the Vishnu tattva are subordinate to Krishna.

 

Servitor God.

 

That is how we should see the spiritual master.

 

The true spiritual master should be God to the disciple - God appearing as the servitor.

 

Srila Prabhupada is God to his true disciples, because we cannot approach Krishna directly. We can only approach Krishna through the spiritual master.

So, the spiritual master for all practical purposes is God as far as approaching God is concerned.

[Guest guest]

It is a crucial mistake to be confused on this issue. Since this topic is supposed to be about Lord Jesus Christ and the analogous position to the vaisnava community, we have to understand why the christian theology (which is not really a theology to most) falls short on this very issue.

 

In Srila Prabhupadas science, he teaches acintya bheda bheda tattwa. Acintya means inconceivable, meaning our minds cannot do much with it. How can something be the same, yet different. However, it does help the vaisnava understand the position of Guru in relationship with the sUPREME lORD. Not with the mind, but with faith in the teachings of Krsnas representative, his empowered servant.

 

Christianity uses the mind, and by doing so, they ruin the teachings of Lord Jesus by destroyiong the teaching of relationship between the father and son. They see the empowerment, but the mind makes them thing the father and the son are the same person. If the father and the son are the same person, then there is no relationship between the two. Without the concept of acintya bheda bheda tattwa, christianity is useless as a religion. Lord Jesus did teach this acintya bheda bheda tattwa, but there is no value in going over these teachings where the faithless hang.

 

Srila Prabhupadas position is as good as Krsna, but his divinity is in his rasa of servitude, friendship, paternity and intimate love for the Supreme Lord. If he is mistaken as the object of his own worship, then all is useless, all his teachings have no value. Without acintya bheda bheda tattwa, there is no guru tattwa. Without understanding the difference in qualitative and quantitative oneness, there is no value in this science.

 

So, in christianity, a critical blunder was made, and this defied Lord Jesus Himself, who always insisted his position was servant of He who had sent Him. Later religionists made him out to be the father, despite clear indications that this was a bogus idea.

 

Srila Prabhupada came to destroy this idea that gurus were god. All the gurus in the guru supermarket were claiming to be krsna, jesus, buddha, now they are this ugly dude from india who can pull a marswhmellow out of a disciples ear, parlor tricks. Srila Prabhupada actually demanded they shop their universal form, or shut the hell up.

 

But now we have a large population of those who claim to follow Srila Prabhupada who claim him to be god as well, ignoring the acintya bheda bheda tattwa dfisclaimer because they favor the concoctions of their own minds. But Srila Prabhupada never claimed to be god, he claimed to be as good as god, authorized by god. His post office comparison is quite appropriate. The mail box has the authority of god, but the mail box is not the post office. Your letter is authorized by the post office for delivery if it is placed in the mail box. Srila Prabhupada did not show his universaL FORM, he is not a false god or a paundraka. We address him as His Divine Grace because he is the receptical and storehouse and distributor of Krsnas Grace, but the grace is Krsnas. Srila Prabhupada, throughout his teachings, including clear citations listed here on this very topic, emphasizes his position as servant, qualitatively one with the Supreme Lord, but not in quantity, not visnu tattwa.

 

I find it quite ironic that many who advertize themselves as dedicated to his vani are the same ones who miss this connection in their attempts to make Srila Prabhupada something that he is not, GOD. Srila Prabhupadas glory is such that God worships him, so why do these vanivadas insist on arttificially embellishing his position. Not just one dude, this deification is quite widespread in the reform ranks and out-of-context quote machines.

 

A bunch of saul of Tarsus folks, my how hgistory repeats itself.

 

mahaksadasa

[Guruvani]

Does anybody here know what the word "Gurudeva" means?

 

Duh..............................