Only Krsna Consciousness Can Enhance KC - Part 1 of 2

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More on Christianity - Part 1 of 2Only Krsna Consciousness Can Enhance Krsna Consciousness.bySwami B.G. NarasinghaEditors

Note: Krsna Talk #61 " Real Religion is Not Man Made " received more

responses than usual from our readers. Since the topic has stimulated

such interest, we have decided to answer some of the comments in this

Krsna Talk.Due to an error on the part of our distribution

server you received a blank email. We apologize for the inconvenience.

This Krsna Talk will be received in two parts.View online with graphics:http://www.gosai.com/krishna-talk/62-more-on-christianity.html

Question:

Wasn't there perhaps sincerity in some of these religions at the time

when they emerged? God is omnipresent and, after all, a man

in the desert who had some desire to know truth would experience an

aspect of God's beauty, power, love etc. He could feel that to be God

and not yet know about Sri Krsna, due to his unfortunate karma of not

being near a pure devotee. Does it mean that he has no realization just

because he doesn't yet know about Krsna?Answer: Yes, he may

have 'realization' about Krsna's external energy and he may even

develop a vague understanding of the impersonal aspect of God, but who

God is, what is His personality and what are His characteristics will

remain unknown to such a soul until he comes in contact with a

bona-fide religious process - one given by God Himself and not created

from the flickering mind of men.Question: Can't God

manifest, at least incompletely, to some sincere souls, leading them

ever closer to the most complete realization and comprehension of Him?Answer:

The external energy of God sometimes works in that way and as a result

one may adopt a more pious way of life. This in turn may lead to better

association and a better quality of life. Then, after many such

lifetimes, one may come in contact with real religion. In this way it

is said in the Caitanya-caritamrta that after wondering throughout the

universe for millions of lifetimes one, by the grace of Krsna, meets a

bona-fide guru. And from the bona-fide guru one gets the seed of

devotion.brahmanda bhramite kona bhagyavan jivaguru-krsna-prasade paya bhakti-lata-bijaAfter

being born and reborn again and again throughout the entire material

creation, some fortunate soul may, by the grace of Krsna and the guru,

be given the seed of the creeper of devotional service.

(Caitanya-caritamrita, 2.19.151)Question: I used to be a

practitioner of the Yogananda path (Self Realization Fellowship). In

those days I sometimes meditated 2-4 hours daily, praying with all my

heart at times to know God, to love God. Sometimes I felt great bliss.

I felt it was God answering my prayers. When I met devotees

and heard about Krsna, I felt God had answered my prayers to know Him

more completely.Answer: Yes, I was a follower of Yogananda also

and I prayed to God to please guide me. The Supersoul [Paramatma]

guides the wanderings of all living beings - some are guided to the

night-club and some are guided to the lotus feet of a pure devotee. It

deeply depends on one's desire. I know many followers of Yogananda in

California and they haven't even adopted a purely vegetarian diet - so

how much they have gained from their meditations is certainly a

question, at least as far as I am concerned.Question: I saw

God in the sunset, the nature, rocks, etc. I knew nothing more, but I

knew there was more, but I did feel an aspect of God's presence. I

believe that led me further on. I did not know Krsna, but I was praying

to Him and He answered even when I knew Him not. Is this not the

position of some origins of religions too, at least some practitioners

in them?Answer: Some people say they saw God in LSD or in

sacred mushrooms but all that is vague and incomplete. Krsna also says

that He is the shark [jhasanam makaras casmi] but no amount of

association with a shark will make you Krsna conscious. In fact the

shark will, sooner or later, kill and eat you! God is everywhere but to

know Him we have to serve the pure devotees.The so-called

realizations of God in the environment are usually a product of the

mind and are not actually realizations of God. The mind is one of the

senses and one of the eight material elements. The mind actually has no

power to realize God. God is realized in consciousness and not in the

mind. Mind and even intelligence are material. Consciousness however is

not material and can therefore perceive God when He chooses to reveal

Himself. Self-realization is a subjective experience and all that you

have referred to above falls into the category of objective endeavors

to know the truth. From objective endeavors a vague understanding of

impersonal Brahman and a hazy understanding of the Paramatma may be

reached, but not Krsna.It is a hard lump to swallow for many of

us with Judeo-Christian backgrounds - but the fact is that Christianity

is not a transcendental religion. As I mentioned in my previous

article, for all the 2,000 years of Christianity, the Christians still

do not know what the soul is. Understanding the soul is the first step

in God realization. Christians haven't even made the first step in

2,000 years. They still think they are the body. Why? Because

Christianity is a man-made religion. It is not bona-fide or

transcendental.Question: I think it is possible to

appreciate good aspects of other faiths without watering ones own

philosophy down or creating some kind of rasabhasa, although this

danger is always there of course.Answer: The principle to see

the best in everything is indeed laudable and this is certainly true of

the 'romanticized ideal' of Jesus. But herein lies the problem - what

was the ideal of Jesus? Who was Jesus and what did he actually teach?

As it turns out, there is no reliable source to answer these questions

other than the Bible, which was created after the Council of Nicea in

325 CE. This council, convened by the Roman emperor Constantine and

attended by 318 Church Fathers of the then loose-knit cult of

Christianity, was motivated by political and despotic ambitions. At the

council the divinity of Jesus [as good as God] was fabricated and any

reasonable understanding or Gospel of who Jesus might have been [such

as the views of Arian and the Gnostics] was henceforth driven into

extinction.When the Church fathers assembled at Nicea the

council began with a punch out. The commonly accepted story amongst

scholars is that Bishop Nicholas of Myra rushed across the hall and

hardily punched Arian in the nose. Thus the stage was set - there was a

preconceived doctrine to be put in place regarding the divinity of

Jesus Christ and anyone who didn't heed this doctrine would be dealt

with in the strictest physical terms! For the past 1681 years the Bible

has been delivered as 'The Infallible Word of God' on the end of a

sword and now its being delivered on the end of a bayonet [cloaked in

democracy].Christianity began as a Jewish heresy, born from

dissatisfaction with the status quo of Judaism and a need for change.

Unfortunately, men and not God inspired those changes and for the past

2,000 years the same thing has continued - men are dissatisfied with

the status quo of the Church and so they set about creating new

reforms, new doctrines, new political alliances, new dogmas and New Age

concepts. The plot thickens and the distance between superstitions

about God and the Absolute Truth increases.Many contemporary

Vaisnavas like to pick and choose what they want to believe about

Jesus. In doing so they neglect the example of Jesus himself. For

example: Jesus was a student of the Torah [the Old Testament] and Jesus

says he came to uphold/fulfill the 'Laws of Moses. But which Christian

or proponent of Christ these days bothers to follow the laws of Moses?

It was good enough for Jesus but they don't take the trouble to follow

it themselves.The Laws of Moses, were given to Moses by the God

of Abraham, Jehovah. Some may argue that the God of the Old Testament

is actually Krsna but this cannot be established from the texts itself.In

the Old Testament the two sons of Adam, Cain and Abel, make an offering

to God. Cain offers grains and the fruits of the land because he was a

tiller of the fields. Abel offered slaughtered lambs to God because he

was the herder of sheep. It is said that God ignored the offerings of

Cain and only accepted the 'blood' offering of Abel! So how can any

sane person say that this is the same God as Krsna?The Old

Testament God is the God that causes famine to fall upon the Earth and

among other atrocities causes his so-called chosen people [the Jews] to

eat their own children. Here we find God speaking in the Bible, but how

could anyone possibly compare this to the words of Krsna in the

Bhagavad-gita? " Because of the suffering that your enemy will

inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb,

the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you.

Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no

compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving

children, and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his

children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the

suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your

cities. The most gentle and sensitive woman among you - so sensitive

and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole

of her foot - will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or

daughter the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For

she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in the distress

that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities. " [God spoke:

Deuteronomy 28:53-57 (also Lev 26:29)]And why does God bring this wrath upon his people? " Because

thou serve not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of

heart, for the abundance of all things. " [Deuteronomy 28:47]The

question arises, how can we love such a God, a God which Jesus himself

revered in the Torah? The God of Jesus could not have been Krsna.And

let us not forget the poor little witches of all ages [young and old]

that perished under the tyranny of the Church. How did the Church get

into such a morbid mind-set in the first place? Because it says in the

Bible that witches exist and witches should be killed [ " Thou shalt not

suffer a witch to live! " - Exodus 22.18].Here is a quote in that regard that was sent to me by a friend. " During

many ages there were witches. The Bible said so [Exodus 22:18]. The

Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the

Church, after eight hundred years, gathered up its halters,

thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest.

She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and

imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of

witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood.

Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and

never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. " [Mark

Twain, Poet/Author]The simple fact is that although seemingly

firm in their convictions about Jesus, most contemporary Vaisnavas have

not made a thorough study of the Bible or of Christian history. Their

knowledge is mostly derived from romanticized hearsay, the propaganda

of the Church or the propaganda of Church dissidents [New Age gurus in

favor of Jesus being something different from the Church]. That is to

say that even the 'ideal' of Jesus is something that has been

exaggerated and romanticized, but has no actual basis, other than

having been borrowed from pagan and other much wiser traditions than

Christianity.If one studies the Bible objectively like many

intelligent people have done, then an obvious conclusion is that

today's 'Fundamentalist Christians' are actually following the Bible!

This means that the Bible was created with a fundamentalist mentality,

whereby anyone who does not accept Jesus goes to Hell and witches and

heretics should be put to death. In the past Christians performed many

atrocities based on Biblical authority and the same ideal continues

among the Christian right wing today. On the other hand, the liberal

Christians have no authority for what they think the teachings of Jesus

are, other than their speculations. They have no scripture to support

their views.Question: There are certain things that I

have appreciation for in Christianity such as that Christians in

general have a very clear understanding that they are not God. This

gives them a much better position than the great amount of atheists,

Buddhists and Mayavadi's out there dominating the 'spiritual' scene in

the West. Devotion to a personal God remains a central theme, and I

think it is for this reason our acaryas have spoken of Vaisnavism as

extended Christianity. I have yet to meet the first Buddhist who

changed his outlook to Vaisnavism, whereas Christians have done so in

larger number. So, I do feel your statement, about it being

misfortunate if one appreciates Christianity, to be rather strong.Answer:

I mostly disagree with your statement. In the first place Christianity

is admittedly one of the main causes of atheism in the modern world.

Christian dogma and Christians have done more to turn intelligent

people away from God than Darwin and the host of scientists in his

wake. In fact, some atheists are more God conscious with their

'humanistic views' than Christians with their Bible-banging rhetoric

and lack of knowledge.Furthermore, the Christians are Mayavadis

in that they say that the guru [Jesus] is God. As for Christians like

the Mormons, their belief is that they themselves will become 'gods'

and rule their own universe. And as for the early Christians, they are

the one's that took the divinity out of nature and declared themselves

'Lords' of the material world. Thus they are largely to blame for the

environmental holocaust.Christians may have an idea that God is

a person but what type of person is their God? In their opinion, God

has given them the right to exploit the material energy for their

fullest enjoyment. " And God blessed them, and God said unto

them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue

it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of

the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. "

(Genesis 1:28)Ultimately every Christian believes in Heaven,

but it is clear in the Bible that Heaven is on this Earth after the Day

of Judgment and that the saved will inherit and enjoy the Earth. The

idea that Heaven is somewhere in the sky is an idea that came into

Christianity much later, after the time of Jesus. Early Christians were

an apocalyptic cult that was awaiting the final battle between good and

evil in which evil would be destroyed and they would inherit the earth

after the Day of Judgment. Christians are still waiting for the

apocalypse and the Day of Judgment - one has but to read The Book of

Revelations to understand this fact or just tune into any Sunday

morning televangelist program.It is also a fact that since the

alleged time of Jesus, every Christian generation has preached that

they are living in the 'End of Times', that Jesus was coming within

their generation to judge the living and the dead and to bring God's

kingdom to Earth. This is still the Christian worldview in 2006.And what does Jesus say he will do on 'Judgment Day'? Check this out: " The

son of man will dispatch his angels to collection from his kingdom all

who draw others to apostasy [to reject Jesus], and all evildoers. The

angels will hurl them into the fiery furnace where they will wail and

grind their teeth. " [Matthew 13-41]The success in preaching

Krsna consciousness in the west has not been due to people having a

favorable Christian background, but rather the success has been due to

certain political doctrines [constitutions] in the west granting

freedom of religion. Particularly there is the constitution of the

United States [where Krsna Consciousness got a foot hold in the west]

that guarantees freedom of religion, but this doctrine was not the work

of Christians - it was the work of Deists who made up most of the

founding fathers of America. In fact, it was the fear of a Christian

theocracy taking control in America that prompted the founding fathers

to separate church and state.You say that devotion to a

personal God remains a central theme in Christianity and that because

of this Christians have converted to Vaisnavism in larger numbers, but

I do not find this to be entirely true. Many of the devotees who first

joined Krsna consciousness in the 1960's and 1970's had practiced some

sort of impersonalism, Zen, etc. Very few were practicing Christians,

if any. The greater number of devotees from the west, who have

converted to Krsna Consciousness did so after rejecting Christianity

and the materialistic culture that Christianity fostered. They rejected

Christianity because of Christianity's lack of knowledge of even the

most basic spiritual points, because of Christian hypocrisy and because

of Christianity lacking compassion for other living beings. The fact is

that hardcore Christians rarely, if ever, convert to Vaisnavism.-- http://kanaiyyadesh.wordpress.com/