Reverential Attitude

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna,

 

Generally the Lord is worshiped by the devotees in a reverential attitude, but the Lord is meticulously pleased when the devotee, out of pure affection and love, considers the Lord to be less important than himself.

(Shrimad Bhagvatam Canto 1 Chapter 8 Text 31)

 

Have difficulty in understanding this/ Could some devotee please explain how not to have the reverential attitude ?

[imported_subuddhi]

Srimad Bhagavatam talks of the highest level of devotion - conjugal love or Krishna Prema. At that level there is a strong relationship between the lord and His devotee and hence the reverential aspect takes a back seat - like the love of Srimati Radharani for Krishna.

 

The path to that starts with reverential prayers and sadhna which slowly develops into love for Krishna.

[sumedh]

Hare Krishna and dandavat pranam

 

As subuddhi prabhu writes that in the neophyte stages of vaidhi bhakti there is reverential attitude, which is necessary also. But when the love comes from the real platform of soul then the love is causeless without any reverence. Srila BhaktiSiddhanta explains:

 

 

Though there is no connection between the attributes of Nature and the Names of God like "Narayana', 'Vasudeva', 'Hrishikesa', etc., as prevalent in the Vaishnava Philosophy, yet they are indicative of His Majesty. There is a spirit of regard and reverence behind these. But where there is no such restriction of reverence, rather where, in spite of some reference to His Supreme Majesty, there is a want of the rise of such reverential spirit, the innate loving spirit remains steady and does not become slackened. The conception of Son-ship of God has its basis on the feeling of such sweetness of the highest Love.

...

When the cow-herd boys, His friends, reported to mother Yasoda, that He had put some earth into His Mouth, she rebuked Him. She could not do so, if she had the idea that Krishna, the Supreme Father, was the object of her reprimand. She was able to regard the Highest Entity as her own object of so close and affectionate love that due to the depth of that love she could chide or even beat Him and think of the Sole Maintainer of all maintainers as worth maintenance and nourishment at her hands. This is not intelligible to the mere theorists of gratefulness who are foreigners to affectionate love towards God. When chidden [sic] by his mother, Krishna, afraid, as it were, of her, opened His Mouth to prove His innocence; and she saw the limitless universe within It. Yet her feeling towards Him as her son was not removed, such was the depth of her affectionate love for God.

 

Q: -- So far it has been the effusion of emotionality only. Please convince me rationally how the conception of God's Son-ship is superior to His Father-hood.

 

A: -- It appears as if you were either inattentive for a while, or unable to closely follow me. I was all this time giving you scientific reasonings. In the Vaishnava Philosophy there is no place for material emotion of any kind. The ephemeral emotionality relating to matter is no devotion; it is only the property of the mind. Our conception is that of the property of the soul. I was so long adducing reasons and examples to convince you how the natural love of the soul for God reached its climax in the conception of His Son-ship as the Son of Shri Nanda. You will not be able to easily get that idea with the help of reasoning only. You should not think of material emotionality when the actual example is given. With innumerable reasonings I shall show you that the conception of the Father-hood of God emanates only from a sense of gratefulness. Father-hood has been attributed to God more or less in accordance with such conceptions as God has created us, He has been sustaining us with the various gifts of nature, and for these He is Father and we should be paying Him reverential homage on that account.

...

In our Gaudiya Philosophy there is no sense of gratitude or any other cause at the root of the love or attachment towards God. Where there is some cause, the Gaudiya Philosophy does not call such love as causeless or motiveless. The attribution of Parenthood to God must have some cause behind it. Him or her whom we call father or mother and who are adorable, we cannot worship, when, averse to God, we stay in the mother's womb; even after being born we cannot do so in our infancy or childhood. Rather we being their indulged pets treat them as our servants. There is no devotional piety during those periods when instead of worshipping them, we demand and accept service from them. It is no mean outrage on such adorable parents to convert them to servants. This is the effect of our desires. Thus we see that human or other beings do not acquire fitness for serving parents from the very beginning. Though with the growth of intelligence we show some efforts to serve them, generally this has its origin in a retributive sense of gratitude or dutifulness in return for the benefit received from them. Often we show such efforts in order to inherit the property earned by them with labour and left behind them. Under the circumstances it is in the sense of gratitude or obedience to established order originating from motives, that is at the root of the conception of parent-hood; there is absolute want in it of causeless or motiveless love.

 

 

 

[vishnu]

is that than not funny that Yashua ha masiach, jesus christ, vishnu's 9th incarnation, is called Son of Man?

 

But when worshipping remember this

 

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne,

32

and all the nations 15 will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

33

He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34

Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

35

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me,

36

naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.'

37

Then the righteous 16 will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?

38

When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?

39

When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?'

40

And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'

41

17 Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

42

For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,

43

a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.'

44

18 Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?'

45

He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.'

46

And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

 

[kcp1982]

Hare Krishna.

 

No one can face the reactions of our karma but ourselves. The foolish seem to think that one man took the sins of others.

 

There are millions who suffer, they do not suffer for our sins but theirs only. That is the law of karma. For every action YOU take, YOU will face the reaction. Not anyone else.

 

Working for Krishna. Well, first you should serve Krishna by donating money in his service. That's the best way for a rich person or anyone who works to serve Lord Krishna. Then you will naturally move onto other things like diety worshipping, chanting etc.. For a materialist person, first give up attachments like money to Krishna.

 

In chapter 18, Lord Krishna says one who explains this (Bhagavad-gita) to others is most dear to me, so if you want to prove that you are indeed interested in serving Krishna, then buy some BG CDs from me and distribute them, like I do. Now your're running away?

 

Very few actually want to truly serve Lord Krishna.

 

 

[vishnu]

You do not understand the love of God if you say that. How could god even forgive if he didnt feel our sins? but he did. and he chose to forgive for those that believed he was God. its his right. he can do what he wishes.

and he wishes us not to suffer but to be and receive good.

Yashua (jesus) means 'god saves'

i dont know why all those people suffer but when you suffer you dont necesarily have sinned! you are here to help people.

and let me ask you a question. when you meet an untouchable on the street, needing help, what do you do?

do you say, its your karma, or do you help?

what good works can you do anyway if anyone is supposed to suffer. but no wait, maybe God sent You AS His helping hand

to the poor man, because he is pleased with him because he has behaved well! ever thought about that?

and btw dont worry, even with forgiven sins, jesus will still put everyone in their appropriate place.

 

working for krishna? see my previous post, matthew 25. jesus krishna or anyone else, it works for everybody.

of course im not running away. but im first of all believing in his 9th incarnation and that is for now more important to be preached, for krishna didnt die on a cross.

i have a BG at home. and i love it alot.

 

and again, if you actually serve lord krishna, you also serve the least of his brethren.

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna,

 

Hello Vishnu, I have been seeing your active participation in here either posting new articles or responding. That's really good.

 

My opinion about you ....Vishnu you are a bit cofused - you have a BG at home and you will find in it that the gist of the things is to be in constant touch with the Supreme.

 

I see you trying to call Jesus NO.1 while you still accept the authority of Krishna. Man that cannot be two CHAIRMEN for the same company. Yes we never say you don't chant JESUS JESUS JESUS all the time... Fine if you are doing that you still are fixed on the Supreme. Cool Vishnu.

 

A true devotee whether a Christian, a Hindi, Muslim etc., etc., always respects others even the dumb because they too have a say.

 

Best wishes to you Vishnu for all the good things.

 

Hari Bol

 

Shekhar

[sumedh]

Dear friend

Hare Krishna and dandavat pranam

 

In my opinion the main problem with yourself and many other christians (also muslims/hindus etc.) is that you take love for God to be a very cheap thing. It is the most expensive item and we have to "pay" by surrendering ourselves completely to gain that. Mearly making a mental thought has no value. It would be instructive for you to look up in vaishnava texts for the symptoms of that love, when that true love actually arises from the soul. It is so powerful that the whole body itself changes its nature from material to spiritual due to its touch!! If you would like to read them then i can provide you with references to them but i believe we are still not qualified to read them (i can present the quotes pertinent to the discussion if you wish). This is necessary so that we may not be in any kind of illusion as to whether we actually love God or not, or whether our "love" is only a mental passion to save ourselves from going to "hell" or whatever.

 

Please try to take this in a positive sense, for i am only trying to convey to you the basics of what i have learnt and experienced to a very minute degree.

[sumedh]

Hare Krishna and dandavat pranam

 

 

You do not understand the love of God if you say that. How could god even forgive if he didnt feel our sins? but he did. and he chose to forgive for those that believed he was God. its his right. he can do what he wishes.

 

 

 

He forgives the sins when we surrender to Him; on this topic of surrender (saranagati) books and books have been written and it takes quite sometime to actually do it. Factually it means getting rid of our conception that we are body/mind/intellect/false-ego and letting go of our false ego, after which we gradually rise to the platform of vishuddha-sattva from the material modes.

 

 

and let me ask you a question. when you meet an untouchable on the street, needing help, what do you do?

do you say, its your karma, or do you help?

 

 

 

This is irrevelant to the discussion at point. Lord Krishna has already described any charity as being either in goodness or passion or ignorance, and when it directly relates to God it is above the modes of nature. So yes if you give charity to a poor man who misues it for drinking alcohol, then it is in ignorance and we are liable for doing him harm. We need to help, but we need to learn what actual help means otherwise we may end up doing more harm than good. Srila BhaktiSiddhanta Saraswati says:

 

 

Q: -- What do you mean by the term 'jiva-daya' or kindness to creatures? Is it not the offering of help with the supply of food, clothes, etc?

 

A: -- We shall offer such help to him who has got faith in God even after several births and has begun service of God. We should feed and clothe the needy and do them other benefits in order to make them serve Hari; otherwise, what is the need of nourishing a snake with milk and banana? That is no kindness, rather it would entrap men with maya or tempt them towards nihilism. The kindness that Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has shown to jivas, absolves them eternally from all wants, from all inconveniences and from all the distresses known as tritapa. That kindness does not produce any evil and the jivas who have got it will not be victims of the evils of the world; they will rather be swimming in the nectarous sea of Love, eternally enjoying its sweetness.

 

 

 

So the real kindness is only when we help the needy with a view to arousing their devotion to God and making them serve God to this end, and any other kindness with a view to serve their bodies has no real value for it is serving only the external energy of Hari.

 

You may be interested in reading these writings of Srila BhaktiSiddhanta Saraswati:

http://www.harekrsna.com/philosophy/bmgs/acaryas/bhaktisiddhanta/writings/sct1.htm

http://www.harekrsna.com/philosophy/bmgs/acaryas/bhaktisiddhanta/writings/colloquies7.htm

http://www.harekrsna.com/philosophy/bmgs/acaryas/bhaktisiddhanta/writings/colloquies8.htm

which touch upon the basics of vaishnava philosophy.

p.s.: these are quite difficult to understand in the beginning and the only way to actually understand them is to read them again and again with a submissive and humble attitude.

[vishnu]

he forgives whenever he wants, indeed you are right, that is one way. the cross is another way. please read the topic on the jewish male, if you haven't already.

you dont need much book knowledge at all to be good, unlike what many wish to believe, you dont have to study your brains out. Jesus made all laws simple:love and serve god with all you everything, and love your neighbor like thyself. children do this automatically!

everything that is spoken on this site (chanting gods names)

is fulfilling the first rrule, if you Love God.

 

of course, then do it in goodness. give freely, friendly to all, in goodness, always keeping in mind:im really giving to God in disguise.

actual help? be faithful and listen to his Voice speaking through your body and spirit and heart all the time.

if you only help those who have faith, those that dont, will never get to faith. show gods kindness and they will.

the external energy is still hari. God knows your heart, and dont you ever dare to use this excuse to be greedy.

 

ill read them later /images/graemlins/smile.gif thanks /images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

You may be interested in reading these writings of Srila BhaktiSiddhanta Saraswati:

http://www.harekrsna.com/philosophy/bmgs/acaryas/bhaktisiddhanta/writings/sct1.htm

http://www.harekrsna.com/philosophy/bmgs/acaryas/bhaktisiddhanta/writings/colloquies7.htm

http://www.harekrsna.com/philosophy/bmgs/acaryas/bhaktisiddhanta/writings/colloquies8.htm

which touch upon the basics of vaishnava philosophy.

p.s.: these are quite difficult to understand in the beginning and the only way to actually understand them is to read them again and again with a submissive and humble attitude.

[vishnu]

sumedh (or something like that) i fear that in this dark age, you may be very right. please read the topic on the jewish male, that is what God wants, and its what I try to achieve for Him.

but make no mistake. there are very good people.

i know of a vision of some christian guy. he found out, standing before the judgement throne of christ, that whom he thought of as great christian leaders, where the least of the people there because of cold proud hearts. at the very highest, there was a man who hardly got love in his life, was abused, kept in a dark attic, went from institution to institution, and landed on the streets.

he converted after ONE single paper. then, while he converted only one person (an alcoholic, dying) he spent more than half of his belongings to God just trying to bring a soul to him. while churches are without God often, he made a cardboard box a temple of Gods Spirit.

he died trying to keep warm a man who passed out in the cold. so really, you cant look in the hearts. dont judge. the man who had this vision judged the homeless man as worthless while in life, and the christian leader as great. the opposite was true. many 'devotees' of krishna, are that because its the way they were taught, and i wonder if they could have such devotion to spend in a life without love all to God while living on the streets, trying to scrape your own food together-having only a single folder as chance to believe.

 

 

 

 

 

[sumedh]

Dear vishnu

Hare Krishna and dandavat pranam

 

 

he forgives whenever he wants, indeed you are right, that is one way. the cross is another way.

 

 

 

No cross is not another way. Love for God can only be have had by surrender to Him, Jesus says the same things. As long as we cherish some other desires, we will stay in the material worlds to accomplish them -- this is the infallible law. We can only get atmost what we desire; this is true even in these material worlds what then to speak of the spiritual realm. Since the spiritual realm is eternal, to be able to attain it for eternity there cannot be any desire separate from serving and loving God which is steady and coming from the transcendental plane of soul, otherwise we will need to fulfil our temporary desires coming from the mind which are not related to God in these material worlds. Just believing in Jesus, cross and diregarding the commandments and other instructions would be really just fooling ourselves.

 

The other thing

 

Factually it means getting rid of our conception that we are body/mind/intellect/false-ego and letting go of our false ego, after which we gradually rise to the platform of vishuddha-sattva from the material modes.

 

 

 

was not regards the methodology (abhideya) rather of the nature of a devotee who has actually reached the transcendental platform.

 

He wants us to act according to our true nature, viz. of pure love for Him which has been clouded by our ephemeral desires coming from the mental plane. We have a free will of our own, and on account of incorrect use of that we landed up in these material worlds and God in His Supreme kindness has been fulfilling all our legitimate/illegitimate desires since time immemorial.

 

 

you dont need much book knowledge at all to be good, unlike what many wish to believe, you dont have to study your brains out. Jesus made all laws simple:love and serve god with all you everything, and love your neighbor like thyself. children do this automatically!

 

 

 

Yes we need neither book knowledge nor intelligence of the worldly kind; but we need true knowledge that we are His eternal infinitesemal parts, that everything belongs to Him including my own self, and that service in pure love for Him is my only eternal function. The thing is indeed simple but the most important point is how to develop love for God. Srimad Bhagavatam says "that religion is first-class which makes one a lover of God", and this is the whole deal as to how to develop the love for God. When even a droplet of rasabhasa (reflection of attraction of Godhead) appears by His mercy then we automatically love all the sentinent beings and all the good qualities appear in us for that is our true nature. But we have to follow all the commandments and other instructions of our Spiritual Master to be successful. If we engage in meat-eating (disobeying "Thou shall not kill") or engage in illicit sex or violating any of the other instructions then it is impossible to develop love for God whatever we may think/feel otherwise. The test for our own love for God is simple -- whether we acutely solely desire God and never ever anything else, and every sincere person should be aware of his/her own position in this regard. We cannot accept only the parts which appeal to us and ignore other parts.

 

 

of course, then do it in goodness. give freely, friendly to all, in goodness, always keeping in mind:im really giving to God in disguise.

 

 

 

No, this has been described dispassionately by the Lord in Bhagavad-Gita already that we should give in goodness i.e. we should be really and completely aware if we are doing the good of that person or his/her harm. Do you think that wasting the money on someone who will squander the money is a good proposition? The basic problem is that we think it is my money; think of the money as belonging to God which is the true fact. Can one waste something belonging to the dearest one in that manner which is helpful to neither the person who receives nor to one who gives. The correct conception is not that we are giving to God, for He requires nothing, rather what we consider as belonging to ourselves is actually His and should be used in His service alone (whether by serving other sentinent beings or otherwise).

 

 

actual help? be faithful and listen to his Voice speaking through your body and spirit and heart all the time.

 

 

 

That's right, but we must be careful else in neophyte stages we can easily mistake our feelings for the voice of the SuperSoul. Additionally, the Lord as our SuperSoul instructs us to fulfil our own desire (good or bad) so we must purify our desires first. For this reason all the scriptures lay down rules and regulations and disregarding them would only show our arrogance. In the words of Srila Prabhupada "if you do not follow all the instructions of God as in scriptures then your love is not true". We need to follow these instructions to the core before they manifest themselves as the unadulterated function of the soul.

 

 

if you only help those who have faith, those that dont, will never get to faith. show gods kindness and they will.

 

 

 

I agree and therefore we shall not show only the usual wordly kindness rather strive to bring them to the platform of devotional service so that they somehow taste even a faint reflection of that ultimate attraction, God; if giving them physical comforts is conducive to that end then we do it else we do not for otherwise we will only be aiding their entrapment in the material worlds. The difference is due to the differences in outlook; in the vaishnava philosophy we look at the fact that the jivas have been in the material worlds since time immemorial trying to search happiness separate from God which is factually impossible and so only giving material boons will be only further detrimental.

 

 

the external energy is still hari.

 

 

 

but the donar and receiver do not gain anything out of serving the external material worlds.

 

You have a point in that sometimes even those who we think as not worthy of receiving charity may be highly elevated, and so we must unbiasedly determine the true case; to this end the foremost is that we must develop purity of desires so that we may listen to the voice of the Eternal Companion. In any case the situation is simple -- the money belongs to God and we must not let it go waste if we actually claim to love God; additionally we must not give charity for any personal benefits (direct or indirect) of any kind or if it leads to bolstering of our ego etc.

[vishnu]

Of course we should surrender to Him. Still the cross is real. and as the NDE says:be selfish, and you can call yourself christian all you want, you wont be it in Gods eyes which is all that counts.

I agree with you that trying to achieve total love/devotiontogod, is the ultimate Goal for a man, and i also agree, and the bible (christ) does too, that you should follow His commandments.

 

 

True knowledge... True knowledge is the wisdom that was in my heart as a child when i got a candy which was impossible to break and refused to eat it until it was broken and shared with my sister. The love and freegiving of God in my heart.

i dont have scripture saying thou shalt not eat meat;apart from the fact that God prophecised in church a 40day fasting. animals were made also for eating. as if plants feel less than animals. theyre alive too.

I agree. Follow Gods commandments. however they are different for every person-everyone has a different calling. jews have laws which christians do not have to fulfill.

mostly, act in faith and love.

 

my only point is:do good, and dont dare to use that 'maybe he squanders it on alcohol' as an excuse for your own greed. God knows.

 

The instructions of God... yes of course if you love God you do as he says. some need scripture. some can talk with him.

 

Material Givings and devotion are very close. if you take a wanderer in your house who does not believe and give him material comfort for a day and night, with Gods love in your heart, i assure you it will be a spiritual experience for him, for he will not just enjoy all the matter, but more so the love and caring of God in your heart with which you give it. show its God in you doing it, and he will learn to know God.

For if you want someone to know God, be like God and act like God, even in miniature, and he will learn.

 

godbless /images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[sumedh]

Hare Krishna and dandavat pranam

 

You have placed a good deal of faith in the NDE which is good but which most likely tells a small part of the whole story. Even the persons who directly saw Krishna or even those who attained enlightenment by seeing the transcendental form of the Lord as their SuperSoul know only a part of the story. Without attaining svarupa-siddhi (attainment of true nature) and attaining the strength of the internal potency of the Lord we are subject to illusions and errors; so we only take the words of the bona-fide acharyas as the Truth.

 

 

Still the cross is real.

 

 

 

What exactly do you mean by this? Yes, the crucification of Jesus was a most dastardly act committed by some ignorant persons. But what relation has it got to religion or laws of God. This attitude of "believe in the cross, believe in the cross" as if it constitutes some kind of religion in itself is what i fail to understand at all. Yes He will forgive our sins when we turn towards Him completely away from the material desires, so as to aid us in our desire to serve Him in pure love and come to Him (remember free-will); and no He will not forgive if we are not sincere in coming to Him rather cherish a desire to enjoy in these material universes whatever we may believe in, for that is not our true desire -- in fact we came to this place due to this very reason of wanting to enjoy independently of Him and no kind of such "beliefs" in themselves will change this fundamental fact.

Elsewhere you said that the sacrifice of Jesus was the greatest act of love, and this only highlights an unneccessary emotionality. Jesus was crucified and in his compassion he forgave all those who did this; in fact he prayed to God to forgive them for God can easily forgive offences at His feet but not those at the feet of His devotees. It is as simple as that; there is no question of "belief in cross" as any sin reliever mechanism. If you read the history of India there have been many acharyas and saints who were subjected to grave tortures and some were killed by some Muslim rulers -- one of the Gurus of Sikhs was tortured and hanged, another Guru of a lesser known sect was tortured to break every bone in his body and still he kept on smiling and giving blessings to them, Kabir, Srila Haridasa Thakura, etc. I can go on and on about this but your conclusion along the lines that "Jesus' sacrifice was the greatest and so his teachings are too" is only ignorance of the history of mankind and the fact that this act itself is of little spiritual value (other than the grave offence by those people). It is this fixation with the crucification (similiar case with Muslims who "celebrate" the killing of grandson of Muhammad, if i am not mistaken, showing deep sorrow) which shifts the focus from the teachings of Jesus to unneccessary things; you will not find this attitude in vaishnavas/hindus -- on the contrary the passing away of great acharyas is considered to be a great transcendental event.

 

 

Follow Gods commandments. however they are different for every person-everyone has a different calling.

 

 

 

They are different only superficially and with regards the current nature of the person. In truth they are one and the same, for the true nature of every soul is similiar.

 

 

my only point is:do good, and dont dare to use that 'maybe he squanders it on alcohol' as an excuse for your own greed. God knows.

 

 

 

Sigh... either you do not want to understand or i have failed to convey this simple point. There is no question of "maybe"; no i must find out how the money will be spent or else if it is engaged in any wrong doing i will be a partner in that for it is the God's money in Truth. The vaishnava standard is that we must try and ensure that the person in question uses the money in God-consciousness. Similarly, if i find that my country is engaging in some wrong-doing on the expense of tax-money then it is my duty to protest to the best of my ability else i will be held a willing partner in that -- such are the laws of nature. Mere thoughts of God are not enough, we need to act in God-consciousness -- Hari-seva means in speech, thoughts and action i.e. we must try and let him hear the Holy Name, thinking of God and giving him things such as Prasadam or others to aid (directly or indirectly) in God-realization.

 

 

i dont have scripture saying thou shalt not eat meat;apart from the fact that God prophecised in church a 40day fasting. animals were made also for eating. as if plants feel less than animals. theyre alive too.

 

 

 

This clears up a lot of issues. I will try to explain this from ethical, scientific and spiritual points of view but the important thing is that you must try to understand and not argue just for the sake of it. Rememeber that even a cannible can argue his guts out taking the stance that eating humans is not different from eating animals, and then you will have no logical position except for contradicting yourself.

The Bible does say in places that meat is not the food for humans e.g. Genesis 2.19 "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food". You should see this link for more.

http://www.hknet.org.nz/Veg-christ-nomeat-page.htm

If you still want to argue that meat-eating is allowed in Bible then all i can say is that it has been changed in places to fit the whims of Emperor (Constantine) etc. and so it has errors; same goes for liquour.

 

Ethics point of view: Since we claim to be civilized beings with rational thought, we must stop this practise of eating of animals to fill our belly. Of course, as you said plants are also killed but their consciousness being limited, they have little pain or suffering (no nervous system bears testimony to this fact). Then again our own existence leads to killing of so many germs in our body but that does not mean that we can cut the throats of our parents, for example. In fact it is quite amusing to explain to a person who talks of love of God about trying to show some love and compassion to our fellow carnal beings. Imagine cutting off you hand and what immense pain it brings; now imagine the pain and suffering when the whole self (with the subtle body) is "torn" apart from this material body. Fact is that death is the most painful experience for normal conditioned beings and the pain of animals is only somewhat less than humans, and if we eat meat we are responsible for inflicting this to them. Then again the fact that everyone dies does not mean we can kill and eat a human. The point is that killing an animal is not much different from killing a human.

Special status of cows -- we drink the milk of cow and consequently she is our mother. Thus from an unbiased point of view eating beef is akin to killing our mother. The cow is such a gentle animal which produces the miracle food milk from fodder, and to think of killing and eating it!! The vedic texts have given that every human has seven mothers viz. birth-giving mother, mother earth, wife of the spiritual master, wife of the king/ruler, nurse, wife of brahmana (knowers of brahman) and mother cow.

 

Scientific point of view: I will not be talking about the health benefits of vegetarian diet, or how one pound of flesh requires 5-30 times grain to produce and upto 50 times water, which you can find aplenty elsewhere. Instead i will just be talking of the nature of foods, nature of consciousness and transmigration of soul. The consciousness of plants has been compared to "deep-sleep" and so they have little suffering if they are killed. This nature is voilent by design and as civilized beings we must strive to minimize this voilence in our lives. The consciousness of animals is much further developed e.g. they move, feel etc like ourselves, and the main difference in human consciousness and the animals' is capacity of rational thought. If we do not use our power of rational thought then by the kindness of God it shall be taken away and we shall attain the bodies of tigers/wolves so as to be able to eat flesh more freely. Additionally, if you see the jaws of human beings they resemble the herbivorous animals much more. However, true to the nature of human life we have been given a choice of being able to eat both meat and plants (both kinds of gastric juices are produced in our bodies) so we must make the correct choice. The soul in the lower stages of life gradually transmigrates up to higher stages automatically by the perfect arrangement of nature till the human (or higher) stage after which we attain to the stage as we develop our consciousness. Thus if we disrupt the natural development of consciousness then we must pay for the damages; of course the damages are in proportion e.g. compare germs to a human.

Lord Krishna has grouped the foods as belonging to sattva, rajas and tamas categories. Milk, fruits, honey, vegetables etc are in the mode of goodness; excess spice, onion, garlic etc are in the mode of passion; food stored for long time which has been somewhat spoilt, mushroom (because it is a parasite and grows in the absence of sun) etc are in the mode of ignorance. Notably meat is not included because it is not considered an eatable at all; so it is to be considered in the mode of ignorance and worse. Whatever kind of food we partake of, it gradually affects to develop that kind of material mode in ourselves.

 

Spiritual point of view: Ultimately, even killing the plants for eating is sinful however small it may be. Consequently in many disciplines of yoga at one stage the prescribed food is only fruits/milk, and even further only fallen leaves etc. However, nothing of this can actually prevent the "massacre" of germs that occurs in our bodies or when we prepare/eat food (the Vedic texts recommend specific procedures/prayers to beg forgiveness for those germs also). The correct conception is to offer our mind/body/soul completely to God. In the vaishnava disciplines, therefore, the food is prepared for the pleasure of God and God alone. Lord Krishna says that those who prepare food for their sense enjoyment verily eat only sin, and further says that when one offers a leaf, fruit, flower or water with devotion He accepts it. So we strive to eat only Prasadam which is remnants of food prepared for God and offered to Him. Just as eating remnants of food of someone with a contagious disease leads us to contract the disease, similarly eating Prasadam gradually leads to contracting Krishna-Consciousness. And we would normally only offer Prasadam to the needy and hungry so that they too can come to the devotional platform (ajnata-sukriti). Of course one can argue that why cannot one offer meat, but that is not what can be offered to the Lord for He asks only for vegetarian food. Everywhere animal sacrifices in the name of God have been heavily opposed by the Spiritual Masters; that is not even civilized human standard what to speak of "love" etc. In fact the strict vaishnava standard is that foods only in the mode of goodness can be offered to God and so even garlic/onion is normally not used in preparing the food.

[Nrsinghadev]

Hare Krishna Sumedh,

 

I don't agree with your comment that Jesus dying on the cross was of little spiritual value. I mean 2000+ years on people are still discussing it so that fact alone makes it of significant spiritual value. This dying on the cross scheme was an enactment, much in the sense of Krishna's departure of this material world. He appears to have died a mundane death but it was all carefully arranged by Him to complete the pastime. Conditioned souls could only see Krishna as a regular human being and therefore stated that He died, but those who understood that Krishna is Godhead Himself obviously knew better.

 

I do agree with your points on vegetarianism, nicely put. And I definitely like your statement that meat isn't mentioned because it isn't considered food, I think so too /images/graemlins/wink.gif. However if you would follow my view for a sec, I do think meat is described in verses 8-10 chapter 17 of the Gita and this is why. The verse says:

 

"food cooked more than three hours before eaten, which is tasteless, stale, putrid decomposed and unclean, is food liked by people in the mode of ignorance."

Bear in mind the time and place when the Gita was sung by our dear Lord. In that time there were no means of artificially sustaining freshness of meat by injecting it with all sorts of chemicals to make it look fresh and it is a fact that it doesn't take long before flesh starts decomposing at all, especially in a hot climate(the recent event of the tsunami provided ample evidence for that). Meat is obviously unclean, I really don't need to convince anyone of this, just picture a random image of your average 'blood 'n guts-all-over-the-place slaughterhouse'(disgusting enough,and you know it to be true(and if image doesn't do anything for you, try the smell). Never mind the compulsory need to clean the place up all the time to prevent infections. So that is even in our time of antibiotics injections and anti-bacterial cleaning substances,so what to say of the time when the Gita was written whithout all these modern facilities for keeping meat fresh? At max they could dry the meat, in which case it would fall in the category of stale. At the time of composing the Gita there were no refrigerators so the bare meat must have been laying in the open (just like you can witness today on asian/arabic markets for example) and attracted countless flies who were happy to fly from stool to the meat to lay their eggs on it or suck fluids and so spread bacteria. And on top of that the taste of meat unprepared with any kind of spices must be considered to be tasteless. So since meat as food shows conformity with at least three of the food types described as being in the mode of ignorance, we can safely conclude that meat falls incontrovertibly into tama-guna or the mode of ignorance.

 

Haribol!

[sumedh]

Hare Krishna and dandavat pranam

 

Maybe i was not clear: of course, it was a transcendental event and a tremendous source of inspiration for all particularly the christians and shows the great magnanimous character of Jesus; i meant that it does not "add" to philosophy or spiritual practise. Just like Srila Haridasa Thakur's public flogging in twenty-one market places and his apparent death, then his coming back but that does not mean that only believing in Srila Haridasa Thakura as Guru yields the greatest benefit for us or viewing his apparent death is sufficient means to attain our true nature. Srila Prabhupada said that the christians should highlight his teachings more than the crucification aspect.