The Villagers and the train - Different realizations of the absolute truth

[Svarupa]

 

Here is pure shastra:

 

BG 15.16

There are two classes of beings, the fallible and the infallible. In the material world every living entity is fallible (kshara), and in the spiritual world every living entity is called infallible (akshara).

 

In the purport to this verse Prabhupada says: "According to the statement of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Krishna, there are two classes of living entities. The Vedas give evidence of this, so there is no doubt about it."

 

This is confirmed by Lord Caitanya (CC Madhya 22.10-12)

 

"The living entities [jīvas] are divided into two categories. Some are eternally liberated, and others are eternally conditioned.

 

"Those who are eternally liberated are always awake to Krsna consciousness, and they render transcendental loving service at the feet of Lord Krsna. They are to be considered eternal associates of Krsna, and they are eternally enjoying the transcendental bliss of serving Krsna.

 

"Apart from the ever-liberated devotees, there are the conditioned souls, who always turn away from the service of the Lord. They are perpetually conditioned in this material world and are subjected to the material tribulations brought about by different bodily forms in hellish conditions."

 

 

Thank you for the information I appreciate all the quotes and research you have mentioned and agree with these quotes however, what does all this mean, you quote -

 

There are two classes of beings, the fallible and the infallible. In the material world every living entity is fallible (kshara), and in the spiritual world every living entity is called infallible (akshara).

 

In the purport to this verse Prabhupada says: "According to the statement of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Krishna, there are two classes of living entities. The Vedas give evidence of this, so there is no doubt about it."

 

This is confirmed by Lord Caitanya (CC Madhya 22.10-12)

 

"The living entities [jīvas] are divided into two categories. Some are eternally liberated, and others are eternally conditioned.

 

"Those who are eternally liberated are always awake to Krsna consciousness, and they render transcendental loving service at the feet of Lord Krsna. They are to be considered eternal associates of Krsna, and they are eternally enjoying the transcendental bliss of serving Krsna.

 

A - Yes Srila Prabhupada explains there are nitya-siddha and nitya-baddha, but what does this mean? Srila Prabhupada explains – “You are NOT eternally conditioned (NITYA-BADDHA). You are eternally liberated (NITYA-SIDDHA) but since we have become conditioned on account of our desire to enjoy materialistic way of life, from time immemorial, therefore it appears that we are eternally conditioned (NITYA-BADDHA)’ Letter to Aniruddha, dated November 14, 1968.

Srila Prabhupada is saying that nitya siddha MEANS never fall down, he issaying that nitya siddha’s can be covered over only and their memory of being nitya-siddha forgotten, like one forgets their material body while dreaming. What he means by saying nitya siddha's never fall down, is they are always nitya-siddhas just like the sun is always the sun even though it might be covered by the clouds. Nitya siddha means eternally liberated or established, so when a nitya siddha becomes covered, like the cloud covers the sun, he becomes eternally conditioned or nitya baddha (due to the cloud covering)

B - Jiva-tatastha - Tatastha s’akti is not a place; it refers to the jiva soul’s sovereignty as an individual living being. Jiva tatastha therefore is us or ‘our’ perpetual identity, personality, individuality. Jiva-tatastha is also known as the marginal living entity or jiva-tattva that can established in a loving relationship with Krishna in Goloka, or a loving servitor relationship with His Vishnu-tattva expansions in Vaikuntha. Nitya-siddha’s have different names in different pastimes due to the fact that they never fall down.

 

YOU QUOTE

"Those who are eternally liberated are always awake to Krsna consciousness, and they render transcendental loving service at the feet of Lord Krsna. They are to be considered eternal associates of Krsna, and they are eternally enjoying the transcendental bliss of serving Krsna.

 

"Apart from the ever-liberated devotees, there are the conditioned souls, who always turn away from the service of the Lord. They are perpetually conditioned in this material world and are subjected to the material tribulations brought about by different bodily forms in hellish conditions."

 

[Kulapavana]

 

B - Jiva-tatastha - Tatastha s’akti is not a place; it refers to the jiva soul’s sovereignty as an individual living being.

 

Is material world a real place?

Is spiritual world a real place?

 

If you answer yes, then the boundary between the two is real as well. That place is called the tatastha region.

 

The Viraja River of Brahman flows between the two worlds and is a home to tatastha-shakti, or living entities like you and me.

[krsnaraj1]

 

Is material world a real place?

Is spiritual world a real place?

 

If you answer yes, then the boundary between the two is real as well. That place is called the tatastha region.

 

The Viraja River of Brahman flows between the two worlds and is a home to tatastha-shakti, or living entities like you and me.

 

Have you watched the movie the Golden Compass starred by Nicole Kidman and this wonderful girl named Lyra? It`s about a parallel world out there similar to ours. The only difference is that they have companions throughout their lives called demons whom they could talk with. These demons are in the form of tigers, rats, racoons, canine, etc. In our world, these demons are within us not without.

[Kulapavana]

Who knows what other universes are like? This one is permeated by envy and competition. Perhaps in other universes there is more symbiosis and cooperation? There is an interesting sci-fi book EVOLUTION'S SHORE by Ian McDonald which explores this possibility.

[krsnaraj1]

 

Who knows what other universes are like? This one is permeated by envy and competition. Perhaps in other universes there is more symbiosis and cooperation? There is an interesting sci-fi book EVOLUTION'S SHORE by Ian McDonald which explores this possibility.

 

Even if this world is filled with envy and competition still there`s no place like home. Just be careful...

[HerServant]

 

Have you watched the movie the Golden Compass starred by Nicole Kidman and this wonderful girl named Lyra? It`s about a parallel world out there similar to ours. The only difference is that they have companions throughout their lives called demons whom they could talk with. These demons are in the form of tigers, rats, racoons, canine, etc. In our world, these demons are within us not without.

 

You'd best study this movie and author further before you promote it. I don't know you but if you are advocating preaching of this mayavadi book and its author who is a professed and militant atheist, I respectfully ask that you take "your" demonic message elsewhere. The Golden Compass is part of a trilogy book called:

 

His Dark Materials

 

The premise of the book is that God is not the Authority, and this "wonderful girl" you talk of above "kills God" in the last part of the trilogy.

 

See:

 

http://www.amywelborn.com/reviews/pullman.html

 

 

For this month’s look at books, let’s begin by playing a game.

Try, if you can, to guess from which genre of literature the following quotations were taken:

 

The Authority, god, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father the Almighty – those were all names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves – the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are, and Dust is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself….The first angels condensed out of Dust, and the Authority was the first of all. He told those who came after him that he had created them, but it was a lie.

 

…I met an angel: a female angel….She said that all the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity. She and the rebel angels, the followers of wisdom, have always tried to open minds; the Authority and his churches have always tried to keep them closed.

 

The Authority considers that conscious beings of every kind have become dangerously independent….

 

There are two great powers….and they’ve been fighting since time began….Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.

 

Let’s hear your guesses on the source of these snippets of wisdom. The latest manifesto from a fortress in the Montana backwoods? One of any volumes plucked at random from the “New Age” shelf in your local bookstore?

 

Final answer?

 

Wrong. Those rather tendentious flailings at someone’s image of traditional Judeo-Christianity are taken from one the more popular fiction series for older children and teens: His Dark Materials by British writer and former schoolteacher Philip Pullman, books which have received almost universal accolades from education and librarian’s organizations, including awards from the American Library Association, Horn Books, and Publishers Weekly. The last book of the trilogy, The Amber Spyglass, was published in October of 2000, and at this writing (late January) stands at #49 on the Amazon.com bestseller list, with hundreds of mostly glowing reader reviews.

 

Forget Harry Potter. Although some readers continue to disagree, it’s clear to an objective observer that J.K. Rowling doesn’t have any agenda on her mind but that of penning entertaining fantasy that’s about as dangerous as an episode of Bewitched.

 

Philip Pullman is different. He’s a gifted, imaginative writer, but with a twist. He does indeed have an agenda, he doesn’t hide it, and it’s all about religion.

 

The complex plot of the His Dark Materials trilogy resists simple summary. The books, resting somewhere between the fantasy and science fiction genres, revolve around a pair of pre-adolescents, Lyra and Will, children from different worlds (literally) who share two common bonds: the loss of parents and the possession of objects which give them unique access to knowledge. Lyra holds the Golden Compass of the first book, an object which communicates truth about any situation to any person wise enough to be able to read it, which Lyra is. Will’s gift is the Subtle Knife (the title of the second volume), an instrument which can cut open windows to other worlds.

 

Through their adventures in various worlds, it becomes clear that Lyra and Will are objects of interest to both sides in another heavenly war, this one, like the first, between God (the Authority) and Satan (called Lord Asriel here). Why? Because, it seems, these two children will be essential actors in a re-enacting of the Fall and Temptation of humanity, a second chance to claim the true fruit of the Fall, which was never really sin, it seems, but knowledge and wisdom, replacing the old, authoritarian “Kingdom of Heaven” with the “Republic of Heaven.”

 

From the quotations above, it’s clear where Pullman’s wartime sympathies lie. In Lyra’s world, one which is similar to but not exactly like ours (which is Will’s), the “Church,” a combination of the worst of Inquisitorial Catholicism and Calvinism, (the central “Magisterium” is located in Geneva) attempts to controls thought and stamps out heresy with glee and even murderous intent – one character, a “Father Gomez,” is given absolution in advance before he’s sent out by the Magisterium to kill Dr. Mary Malone, an ex-nun, now physicist, who’s posed to play the part of Lyra’s tempting serpent.

 

Philip Pullman is, indeed, a gifted writer. It’s clear that young readers have been captivated by these books, not because of his agenda, but because of interesting characters, skillfully built suspense and an array of fantastical creations, ranging from the basic premise of other worlds co-existing almost within each other, to specific features like huge, sentient, warrior polar bears, tiny spur-bearing spies called Gallevespians, and, most brilliantly of all, what those in Lyra’s world call daemons – material manifestations of one’s soul that are in the form of animals, creatures that accompany a person for the whole of one’s life, but don’t settle down into a permanent shape until adolescence. Pullman’s use of this last element is really a fascinating way to provoke thought about character and personality.

 

But, as one reviewer has observed, the best word to describe the cumulative effect of these novels is “a tragedy,” and not because of the events within them, but because of Pullman’s anti-religious agenda. The agenda is clear in interviews, as Pullman calls the God of the Old Testament a “hideous old brute” – but sneaks only into the last few pages of the first book. By the last, however, the agenda is the central focus, even involving a death-of-God scene in which Lyra kills the Authority, revealed to be a decrepit, runny-eyed old creature, whose dissipation into the atoms is accompanied by his own sigh of relief.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

To be fair, HerServant, I've heard a few different takes on the film/books, though I've seen/read neither.

 

Some say the author is an agnostic more than he is an atheist, and that he is attacking dogmatic religion more than he is attacking God.

 

Some say the "God" that is killed is actually a "demiurge" and not God at all.

 

I'm trying to keep an open mind, though it's not likely I'll see the film (at least not in the theaters).

 

 

You'd best study this movie and author further before you promote it. I don't know you but if you are advocating preaching of this mayavadi book and its author who is a professed and militant atheist, I respectfully ask that you take "your" demonic message elsewhere. The Golden Compass is part of a trilogy book called:

 

His Dark Materials

 

The premise of the book is that God is not the Authority, and this "wonderful girl" you talk of above "kills God" in the last part of the trilogy.

 

See:

 

http://www.amywelborn.com/reviews/pullman.html

[HerServant]

 

To be fair, HerServant, I've heard a few different takes on the film/books, though I've seen/read neither.

 

Some say the author is an agnostic more than he is an atheist, and that he is attacking dogmatic religion more than he is attacking God.

 

Some say the "God" that is killed is actually a "demiurge" and not God at all.

 

I'm trying to keep an open mind, though it's not likely I'll see the film (at least not in the theaters).

 

 

I know it is important to be open and fair. I suggest reading this with an open mind (i.e., don't reject it only because it's written by a Christian)

 

http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=1065

 

I know you've mentioned that you have children (as do I). You have given your kids a foundation of spirituality by loving example and philosophy.

 

But there are many kids that don't have that blessing.

 

One of scariest warnings Jesus gave was:

 

"but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." - Matt. 18:6

 

I recommend you don't mess wit it bro ..

[Sarva gattah]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BALARAMA AND KRISHNA

 

 

The highest realizing is Personalism. The above painting is of Krishna and His brother Balarama whose abode Goloka-Vrindavan is beyond the impersonal light or impersonal Brahman destination of impersonalist yogis and Buddhists.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

 

I recommend you don't mess wit it bro ..

 

I'll certainly proceed with all caution. Thanks for your kind concern.