Is Siva worship indispensible?

[Guest guest]

These ISKCON people remind me of a passage in the Gospel of the Holy 12. The people at that time were acting in much the same way as them and Jesus told them:

 

"This people draweth nigh unto Me, with their mouths, and honour me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, for in vain do they worship Me teaching and believing, and teaching for divine doctrines, the commandments of men in my name but to satisfy their own lusts."

 

- Gospel of the Holy Twelve Book 6 Lection 1 v14

 

 

and when they want to kick people in the face as I have read in some of the posts or when they call them rascals and cant stand for them they should do well to remember

 

“Friendly and compassionate to all and without any touch of hatred; devoid of possessiveness and arrogance; ever content and contemplative; alike in happiness and misery; self-controlled and firm in conviction; dedicated to Me with all his heart and all his soul - dear to Me is a man who is thus devoted"

 

 

[Guest guest]

Well Nitesh, you have made a lengthy post in which your disrespectful attitude is sadly most prominent. Just as you critize the people on this board, you speak as if you are the authority when it comes to knowledge, claiming this whole movement to be some charade, whilst gravely commiting vaisnava aparadha. If you really did know most of our bonafide guru's closely you would not speak with such an offensive tone about them. It appears it is merely your intention to belittle this movement and it's members,calling it "neo-Krishnaism", as if it were invented just recently. This arrogance will check your spiritual progress. Your abusive attitude is most likely due to your poor fund of knowledge of this movement. Basically it's roots can be traced back to God, so if you want to call that "neo" that's just fine with me. You speak of pre-Vedic, well I'd like to know what you mean by that as it's clearly stated by God that the Vedic knowledge is as old as the creation itself. So what on earth is pre-Vedic supposed to be? That would be like saying something is pre-God. This movement is not changing the Vedic culture as you claim, rather it is bringing it back to it's essence. You say, speak with realization, but since a self-realized soul would never speak with such disrespect I guess you are unfit to make this claim as if you were on the platform. So why do we quote from books? Because they were written by self-realized souls, men of intelligence. Do you really think our spiritual masters are unaware of the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the original Vedas and Purana's? This is a very foolish and offensive thought. Shall we not forget to mention the Srimad Bhagavatam, considered by all all Gods and men of knowledge to be the spotless purana, the ripe fruit of the Vedic tree of knowledge? This purana is the essence of all Vedic knowledge, with the conclusion that Krishna is the One Supreme Lord, the Original Source of all. It hurts my heart to see you are gravely disrespecting a truly great saint like Srila Prabhupada. One of His many excellent qualities was that He could present highly elevated and complicated matters into a clear,understandable and simple format. Furthermore, it is not an invention of Prabhupada that Hinduism is an invented term,it really was non-existant until the time of the muslim rule. At present it's popularized and accepted, but we still say Santana Dharma, because that's simply what it is called originally.

nowhere in this movement is Shiva disrespected by our bonafide acarya's, so if you want to cast criticism than do so on the account of those acarya's messages and not on account of some people posting on messageboards.

 

I quote an example here from a conversation with Srila Prabhupada which clearly shows that He had no disrespect for Shiva whatsoever:

 

"Devotee: Srila Prabhupäda, in Winnipeg there is one very pious east Indian man who for many years has been worshiping somewhat, worshiping Lord Siva. And his wife is also a very quite chaste woman and sincere follower—and so were her parents—of Lord Siva. And he is reading your Bhagavad-gétä. He visits our temple. And I have given him the first volume of Canto Four which discusses Lord Siva a great deal. And he has read in one of your purports that Krsna is more pleased when you worship His devotee than when you worship Him directly. And Lord Siva is a very great devotee of Krsna. So he has now interpreted that to mean that if he worships Lord Siva so nicely, then actually he is pleasing Krsna more. So he is experiencing some difficulty because of this and I’m not quite sure how to instruct him that actually...

 

Prabhupäda: Difficulty?

 

rahmänanda: That... Our Godbrother has difficulty in replying to this interpretation that Krsna says, “You can please Me by worshiping My devotee,” and Lord Siva is the devotee of Krsna. So therefore this man says, “Then I shall worship Lord Siva. In that way I shall please Krsna.”

 

Prabhupäda: But if he accepts Lord Siva is devotee of Krsna, then by worshiping Lord Siva he will be benefited. If he thinks Lord Siva is independent, then he will not be benefited.

 

Devotee (3): I’ve got him to accept that Lord Siva is devotee of Krsna, but there’s no practical instruction in his worldly activities coming.

 

Prabhupäda: No, vaiñëavänäm yathä çambhuù: “Amongst the Vaiñëavas, Çaàbhu, Lord Siva, is the greatest Vaiñëava.” So we worship Lord Siva as Vaisnava. We gives respect to Vaisnavas. So why not Lord Siva? Lord Siva is a big Vaisnava. But generally, the devotees of Lord Siva, they take Lord Siva is independent God. That is offensive. If you know that Lord Siva is also a devotee, you can give more respect to Lord Siva. Krsna will be pleased.

 

Devotee (3): Srila Prabhupäda, he does not chant Hare Krsna, he chants om siväya namah.

 

Prabhupäda: That’s all right.

 

Devotee (3): It’s all right?

 

Prabhupäda: He will gradually become devotee. When God, Lord Siva, will be pleased upon him, he will advise to worship."

 

Situated in proper understanding of the position of Lord Shiva, I pay my humble obeisances unto Him. You say, Attachment comes from ego, so let my ego be attached to Lord Krishna, I am confident everything will be alright.

 

Haribol!

[Guest guest]

Just as you have your parampara others have theirs which declare Siva to be absolute and there are scriptures to back it up. The problem is with a lot of the posters as one person said wanting to KICK people in the face or calling the rascals fools etc. Where has the bhakti gone now??

 

13-14. O brilliant Uddhava, one who thus views all living entities with the idea that I am present within each of them, and who by taking shelter of this divine knowledge offers due respect to everyone, is considered actually wise. Such a man sees equally the brahmana and the outcaste, the thief and the charitable promoter of brahminical culture, the sun and the tiny sparks of fire, the gentle and the cruel.

 

15. For him who constantly meditates upon My presence within all persons, the bad tendencies of rivalry, envy and abusiveness, along with false ego, are very quickly destroyed.

 

16. Disregarding the ridicule of one’s companions, one should give up the bodily conception and its accompanying embarrassment. One should offer obeisances before all—even the dogs, outcastes, cows and asses—falling flat upon the ground like a rod.

 

 

[Guest guest]

Which paramparas are u talking about Shaivaites?So what if the supreme personality of god prayed to Shiva.If he can wash the feet of sudama vipra a poor brahmin why can he not pray to shiva.Lord krishna or God is Impartial to every living entity yet he can assume the role of dasa or servant for his devotees and Shiva was his closest devotee.

Lord krisha has indicated himself that men of lesser intelligence or mudhas like you cannot understand his lilas

You are best at smoking pot like those shiv babas who refer it to shiva prasada.

Therefore simply chant the maha mantra of Hare krishna because there is no other way for this age of Kali Yuga

[Guest guest]

Which paramparas are u talking about Shaivaites?So what if the supreme personality of god prayed to Shiva.If he can wash the feet of sudama vipra a poor brahmin why can he not pray to shiva.Lord krishna or God is Impartial to every living entity yet he can assume the role of dasa or servant for his devotees and Shiva was his closest devotee.

Lord krisha has indicated himself that men of lesser intelligence or mudhas like you cannot understand his lilas

You are best at smoking pot like those shiv babas who refer it to shiva prasada.

Therefore simply chant the maha mantra of Hare krishna because there is no other way for this age of Kali Yuga

[Guest guest]

Apparently you only read the first paragraph of my post. Please read the rest. It is from the Uddhava Geeta, spoken by Lord Krsna. Before calling people fools please think about what you are doing. Unless you are actually not a devotee and your aim is to discredit the movement by portraying devotees as short tempered and intolerant. In that case you are doing pretty well

[Guest guest]

There are two threads that have strangely been not commented upon. One regards the abscence of Suka in the Iskcon parampara as stated in the Geeta as it is and the other is about issues in the Srimad Bhagavatam. When you can't even account for these then why are you decrying others?

 

[Guest guest]

Not-nice vs. nice arguments.

Trishul is violent & Geetha is peace.

Shiavaites as pot smokers for appearing rennounced & the vaishnavites is all about males taking a female qaulity with termeric bath and hairless body dancing in streets half naked in the streets (as though gopikas).

 

Let's not worry about nice & not nice. Let's trust the british and 200 years in India for seperating nice from not nice. They curbed several of these half naked street dancing movements that some of the temple's progress were curbed & the organization had to florish abroad.

 

The british also stopped the ghastly sacrifices in several of the tribal evolved customs, which all of us know. Trust the british for cleansing india of whatever was not-nice & allow a good philosphy to thrive.

 

The british allowed a theosophical society to do reasearch on advaithic & spiritual thinking, which has been considered nice. I am not saying the british are great or not. I am only saying that the west is obcessed with things to look nice and Let's give due credit that india went through a conditioning for 200 years, which might be good enough.

[Guest guest]

The english were also responsible for a lot of the evils. The indian societal structure was successful for many years because of the lack of outside influence. It was not made to hold dogmas and sectarian attitudes. It was broad and encompassing.

 

“India has been a wounded civilization because of Islamic violence: Pakistanis know this; indeed they revel in it. It is only Indian Nehruvians like Romila Thapar who pretend that Islamic rule was benevolent. We should face facts: Islamic rule in India was at least as catastrophic as the later Christian rule. The Christians created massive poverty in what was a most prosperous country; the Muslims created a terrorized civilization out of what was the most creative culture that ever existed.”

 

- Sir V.S. Naipaul (Nobel Laureate)

 

"Bear in mind that the Commerce of India is the Commerce of the World, and he who can exclusively stock of precious metals then owned in Europe.

 

- Article VIII of the Will, of Peter the Great.

 

"The fathers of the Church forbade the Hindus under terrible penalties the use of their own sacred books, and prevented them from all exercise of their religion. They destroyed their temples, and so harassed and interfered with the people that they abandoned the city in large numbers, refusing to remain any longer in a place where they had no liberty, and were liable to imprisonment, torture and death if they worshipped after their own fashion the gods of their fathers." wrote Sasetti, who was in India from 1578 to 1588.

 

(source: Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar) - By Robert Sewell p. 211).

The Portuguese reign was devoid of scruples, honor and morality. Nazi brutality looks like picnic here

 

St. Francis Xavier whom the Catholic Church hails as the Patron Saint of the East, participated in this meritorious work, wrote back home:

 

"As soon as I arrived in any heathen village, when all are baptized, I order all the temples of their false gods to be destroyed and all the idols to be broken to pieces. I can give you no idea of the joy I feel in seeing this done."

 

 

According to Guy Sorman: "It was here (India) that the West started to colonize what was to become the Third World, a shameless process of systematic exploitation without any moral or religious justifications. And it was here that was raised for the first time the demand for decolonization: this revolution of the mind shook the supremacy of Europe, and the arrogance of the Europeans

 

 

Read more

http://www.atributetohinduism.com/European_Imperialism.htm

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

I found this one to be very true:

 

"Most European and American authors of books about religion and metaphysics write as though nobody had ever thought about these subjects except Jews, the Greeks Christians of Mediterranean Basin and Western Europe.------Like any other form of imperialism, theological imperialism is the threat to world peace".

[Guest guest]

I read your article and it was not aimed at u but for all those believers of Shiva who are comparing Krishna and him to be one and the same

[Guest guest]

So what if they believe that. What they call as Siva you call as Krsna same thing. as Krsna reveals his identity as

 

THE SELF SEATED IN THE HEARTS OF ALL BEINGS

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna!

 

All glories to Srila Prabhupada! I offer my humble obeisances unto him!

 

Iam saddened by the malice you have shown towards my beloved spiritual master whom i adore more than my life. I reviewed my post and i did not disdain Lord Siva or any of his followers and I just presented Lord Siva as the devotee of the Lord and that we should serve him. If you looked at a couple of posts above, thats exaclty what i wrote. I am devotee of Lord Siva as well simply because i was born and raised a Saivite. My father is a strong Saivite and he still is. I never did or will talk bad about Lord Siva.

 

You simply have blown my post out of proportion and used my post to insult ISKCON and my Guru. You have committed the gravest Karma by doing so. In that process, I have been used as a via medium for your insult. Iam deeply saddened.

 

To this day, i pray Lord Siva and go to His temple to offer my obeisances and my prayers unto Him. I have been worshipping Lord Siva for 25 years and Lord Siva has been merciful enough to show me the path to Krishna. This is very unfortunate that you have written this post.

 

I have asked some legitimate questions regarding Lord Siva's postion in the cosmic truth and if you think i was wrong, you could simply correct me, instead you have no business to bring ISKCON and my Guru into the picture. Just because you belittle ISKCON and my Guru doesnt make you a devotee of Lord Siva. A devotee of God should follow patience and humblness and seek the Lord's mercy during the gravest danger. It is unfortunate to see your emotions running wild and letting your words speak bad about something you obviously do not know.

 

Yes, it is stated in the "Teachings of Lord Chaitanya" that comparing Lord Siva and Lord Krishna on the equal platform is blasphemy and we should not do that. But, you have done more than that by saying that Lord Siva is greater than Lord Krishna which obviosuly to me does not make sense.

 

Unlike you, i did not insult you or any sampradaya or anybody for that matter. All i did was asked some questions that were relevant to me and made sense to me. In a debate, one might be wrong and one might be right or both might be right and arguing from different perspectives. But, the person debating should never cross the line and talk about subject matter unecessary to the topic.

 

That is exactly what you did. The topic is not about the legitimacy of ISKCON or my Guru. It is about discussing about Lord Krishna and Siva. If you want to prove a point, you explain with vedic injunctions and slokas. If you want to criticze me, you can do so but by explaining the entire context of the post and then you explain my mistake in the post. You just do not extrapolate one word or phrase and mislead others and in that process yourself.

 

If you are a correct person, you explain everything i said in the post, summarize it and be rational in your replies. WHy arent you commenting on the aspect of Shambu feature of Lord Siva and how He was emanated from the forehead of Visnu. If you are a true person then you should negate my point of view by stating where i was wrong in the shambu feature and in my entire post, what i did wrong so on and so forth. Instead, like a 5 year old baby, you behaved childish talking with only one intent, that is to insult ISKCON and my Guru.

 

Having said all this, I want to apologize to all the Vaishnavas for Mr. Nitish using my post to belittle ISKCON and Srila Prabhupada. Also, i want to ask my aplogies to Mr. Nitish as well for offending him. Mr.Nitish, if you cannot take constructive criticism which is common any debate, please refrain yourself from future posts. I never intended to insult Lord Siva or his followers. That is not my intention. I wrote things which i felt was correct to me.

 

Iam not the torch bearer of ISKCON or the Gita or Srimad Bhagavatam or the Vedic scriptures or the Vaishnava Community. If you feel my post is wrong, you can criticize me and only me and not the entire Sampradaya.

 

Haribol!

 

anand

 

[Guest guest]

Lord Siva

 

Lord Siva is usually not a living entity like us (which other demigods are). Lord Siva is a qualitative incarnation of Lord Krsna for the purpose of impregnating the living entities into material nature and for the destruction of the universe. Lord Siva is known as the father of the universe.

 

In this connection it is important to consider the following purport by Srila Prabhupada for a complete summary description of the position of Lord Siva: http://vedabase.net/cc/madhya/20/273/en and the following description of Lord Siva's position in relation to Lord Vishnu given by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura (Srila Prabhupada's spiritual master) http://vedabase.net/bs/5/45/en

 

It is very difficult to understand Lord Siva from our very insignificant position and this is the case even for great learned scholars. However, it is possible for us to hear from the disciplic succession and try to understand to a limited degree.

 

Everything and everyone in existence comes from Lord Krsna (Srimad Bhagavatam 1.1.1 (http://www.vedabase.net/sb/1/1/1/en), and Brahma Samhita 5.1 (http://www.vedabase.net/bs/5/1/en)) and has delegated power from Lord Krsna. The group of persons deriving their power from Lord Krsna includes everyone, yet some persons are given greater power based on their higher qualification.

 

Digest 43 http://iskcondc.org/cgi-bin/renderphilo.pl?digestname=digest43

Q1: In Bhagavad Gita, Krishna claims Himself to be the only supreme Lord. But in Siva Gita (which is in Padmapurana) Siva claims that He is the only supreme Lord. Various puranas praise various Lords to be the supreme absolute truth. This is very much confusing and this suggests the possibility of scriptures being man made. It is obvious that Bhagavad Gita or Srimad Bhagavatam are not special since Siva Gita and other puranas can sufficiently counter the claims made by the above said scriptures. So how to know who the Almighty is?

 

Digest 91 http://iskcondc.org/cgi-bin/renderphilo.pl?digestname=digest91

Q1: In addressing persons who are worshipers of Lord Siva, we find them sometimes quoting Ramayana as one proof that Siva is supreme. They refer to the lila of Ram's worshiping Siva before going to Lanka. How to best respond to this line of reasoning?

 

Digest 12 http://iskcondc.org/cgi-bin/renderphilo.pl?digestname=digest12

Q6: My question is related to Lord Shiva. He is considered to be the topmost Vaishnava. When a devotee or Vaishnava sannyasi comes, we are eager to take their association but we don't go to Shiva temples to take his association. Similarly we observe fasting till noon on appearance and disappearance days of acharyas. But we don't do such a thing on Shivaratri (the festival marking Lord Shiva drinking poison). Why is this so?

[Guest guest]

Nilesh's explaination is based on a school of thought or an institutions understanding/guidance. There is a clarity & explanation on the positioning of Shiva and the suggestions from the institution in considering Shiva viz vishnu.

 

In the current discussion, the subject is seperating Shiva from the all-in-all controller.

 

Trust me, it is no sweat to find within individual vaishnava doctrines similar arguments which seperate Narayana from Krishna, Vishnu from Krishna, Govinda from Krishna, Sita from Lakshmi, radha from gopikas & so on & forth.

 

To construe this as education or evolution from deep thinking from innumerable scriptures is left to ones own self. Such wool in front of the eyes will only delay the spiritual realization for a sadhaka who would have began the pursuit with an open mind given by god.

 

All said & done, my respects to the institutions given the clarity & positioning of different names to god. The names of god sure will live longer thus, even in a satsang which might have limited focus on the expereience of spirituality.

[Guest guest]

"Trust me, it is no sweat to find within individual vaishnava doctrines similar arguments which seperate Narayana from Krishna, Vishnu from Krishna, Govinda from Krishna, Sita from Lakshmi, radha from gopikas & so on & forth."

 

Ok let's hear those arguments.

[Guest guest]

"Since siva is the greatest vaishnava, is siva worship absolutely necessary prior to approaching krishna?"

 

It is necessary to surrender to the lotusfeet of the bonafide guru in order to approach Krishna.

[Guest guest]

I have seen the Narayana vs. Krishna in passing when I was looking for something else on the net. I read the silly article partially which spoke up krishna & downed Narayana, appealing to people to move to krishna from Narayana. It also said that Chaitanya mahaprabhu came to south and was considered successful in coverting many a ramanujacharya vaishnava and Madhavacharya vaishnava doctrine devotees, who failed in the intellectual arguments from Chaitanya. Well,, here is my confession, I didn't note who was the writer and therefore we won't be able to figure out if his views could be attached to any specific vaisnavic doctrine or institution.

 

I have in my hard disk a pdf document which has a compilation of articles on OM. BVK Iyengar speaks in a spiritual sense, and nice to see an iyengar write on Om with spiritual wisdom. The same pdf document also has another contribution from Karuppaih Chockalingam & the title of his article is 'OM or Hare Krishna'. And Guess what, in his article it's up up hare krishna & down down Om.

 

Depending upon the school of vaishnavite doctrine, it's easy to find this differentiation of positioning of the specific name given to god. Maybe, it's not easy to find, and may be it's a sweat to find. I admit the correction.

[Guest guest]

I must agree with the above post. I have also come across this type of thing numerous times. I have also seen here on this forum that chanting Hare rama hare rama before hare krsna hare krsna and not the other way around makes a difference with. Of course the purport was that chanting it with Krsna first instead of Rama was better.

 

 

[Guest guest]

then again the net isn't of course the most trustworthy of sources

[Guest guest]

that is what people say but it is actually a very good source. As long as you have some idea about what you are searching for.

[Guest guest]

if not a demigod,he mus be a god.yea.

[Guest guest]

ummn i was jus goin thru the thread n felt like puttin in few things too.hehe.

with regards to shiva n krishna.

personally i feel god everytime i think of or utter mahadev.n yea i know chantin krishna cud/wud/does that to others. i don have problems with that..infact i love the govinda hare hare song.

 

someone said..."Lord Siva is a demigod but not an ordinary entity. Lord Brahma is a living entity who has birth and death and also are all other demigods who are living entities who have birth and death.shiva does not die"..

n i hearof someone who dwells usually in the himalayas..(shangrila..utopia..)still does.. since 500-1000 yrs.babaji.what about him?.who is he?ideas??.

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

mahadev.org/shiva.jpg /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Guest guest]

Let's just keep all the Shiva debates in one topic alright? There are now roughly 6 topics handling the same subject matter about whether or not Shiva is Supreme Lord.