Toleration is the very breath of the Hindu creed

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Hare Krsna Hindus don't go around converting or saving souls like other religions but we have absolutely no problem in sharing knowledge of Sanatan Dharma. Go forth, take it, teach it, practise it, it's yours, free, no obligation. Toleration is the very breath of the Hindu creed. Intolerance is the creed of those who accept a single Prophet as God. The large-heartedness and endless love in the heart of Lord Krishna makes him declare even those who worship other gods, worship Me alone, but by the wrong method. Whatever a man may sacrifice to other gods, O son of Kunti, is really meant for Me alone, but it is offered without true understanding. GITA 9:23 "Persons who are engaged in the worship of demigods are not very intelligent, although such worship is done to Me indirectly," Krsna says. For example, when a man pours water on the leaves and branches of a tree without pouring water on the root, he does so without sufficient knowledge or without observing regulative principles. Similarly, the process of rendering service to the different parts of the body is to supply food to the stomach. The demigods are, so to speak, different officers and directors in the government of the Supreme Lord. One has to follow the laws made by the government, not by the officers or directors. Similarly, everyone is to offer his worship to the Supreme Lord only. That will automatically satisfy the different officers and directors of the Lord. The officers and directors are engaged as representatives of the government, and to offer some bribe to the officers and

directors is illegal. This is stated here as avidhi-purvakam. In other words, Krsna does not approve the unnecessary worship of the demigods. But, those who worship Bhagavan Krishna alone, as the One and Only Reality, are perfect in self-realization, and are promised the final experience of Beatitude (Kshema). But those who worship Me with devotion, meditating on My transcendental form--to them I carry what they lack and preserve what they have. GITA 9:22 One who is unable to live for a moment without Krsna consciousness cannot but think of Krsna twenty-four hours, being engaged in devotional service by hearing, chanting, remembering, offering prayers, worshiping, serving the lotus feet of the Lord, rendering other

services, cultivating friendship and surrendering fully to the Lord. Such activities are all auspicious and full of spiritual potencies; indeed, they make the devotee perfect in self-realization. Then his only desire is to achieve the association of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is called yoga. By the mercy of the Lord, such a devotee never comes back to this material condition of life. Ksema refers to the merciful protection of the Lord. The Lord helps the devotee to achieve Krsna consciousness by yoga, and when he becomes fully Krsna conscious the Lord protects him from falling down to a miserable conditioned life. Bhagavan promises that "to them ever self-controlled I bring Yoga and Kshema". In life, all conflicts and contests, all struggles and sorrows, whatever be the form in which they may appear, are always different from individual to individual, from place to place, from time to time, and all of them distinctly fall

into two groups - the struggles to gain, and the efforts to guard what might have been gained. These two tensions tear into bits the joy and tranquility of life. He who is without these two preoccupations is self-controlled. He is the luckiest, in the sense that he has gained all that is to be gained; and when these two factors are totally blotted out from one's life, then one is dead to the world of sorrows - and one awakens to the world of joy and imperishable. Jesus learnt Bhakti Yoga and Hinduism when he was in India. Let us hope that those he taught Bhakti Yoga and Hinduism were awakened to the world of joy and the imperishable.