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Come on! What Is Spiritual Life?

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ethos

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thiest: The order IS to love Krsna."Just love Krsna."

 

This is correct. Unfortunately, I cannot just love Krishna out of the blue nor I am attracted to His holy name. In the beginning I don't even have faith that He actually exist. However, carrying out my spiritual master's desire, who is the embodiment of pure love of Krishna, on a very regular basis, either by serving him personally if this is possible, or by helping in his mission to give Krishna to people, makes it possible for me to actually experience the reality of this love. First by having faith that God actually exist and then by actually tasting this nectar of love of God myself which pacifies my heart and mind. All this is only made possible by the grace of my spiritual master. Real spiritual life then is to enter into that realm of love that exist between my spiritual master and Krishna.

 

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Haribol.

 

By the grace of Krishna one gets Guru and by the grace of Guru one gets Krishna.

 

"... Out of many millions of wandering living entities, one who is very fortunate gets an opportunity to associate with a bona fide spiritual master by the grace of Krsna." -- Caitanya Caritamrta Madya-lila 19.151

 

The impetus of spiritual life happens when one sincerely desires to know or to take shelter on God then God arranges it so this person comes in contact with His bona fide representative. By all intent and purposes, this is the beginning of this person's spiritual life. His advancing or not advancing (or his quest to know or love God) depends on how he is pleasing or not pleasing to God's representative.

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There are so many angles of vision by which one might perceive spiritual life that it is quite difficult for one to come up with a sentence that summarizes spiritual life that every transcendentalist is satisfied with.

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There are some great answers here, almost what I was looking for. Actually leyh was most exacting.

 

"it is quite difficult for one to come up with a sentence that summarizes spiritual life that every transcendentalist is satisfied with"

 

For me, nothing can quite say it as well as this - I hope you are all satisfied.

 

Spiritual life summed up in 1 sentence:

I am a servant of God.

 

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Hare Bol Theist!

 

I agree with your "loving service" perspective. I think the world as a whole is not making it, including myself.

 

But that's also why I think this sentence is perfect.

 

It doesn't necessarily allude to a relationship like love. It doesn't envolve someone else like a spiritual master or the divine couple. These concepts and realities are certainly necessary, but they don't get to "the essence" as you like to say.

 

Short and sweet, "I am a servant of God" is simply the most fundamental existential reality for us as parts and parcels of the supreme. It is the basis for the soul or consciousness, duty or love. I think any other similar definition is just a more complicated way of saying the same thing.

 

Again, I agree with your observation and I dont think we do very well with understanding ourselves in a world of competing egos.

 

I am not talking about just me personally. And I am not alluding to my constitutional qualifications.

 

It is a simple thing, really.

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No we are not competing ethos.I'm just tracking along with the excercise.Which is a great one.Forcing the mind to condense into a few words the question"What is spiritual life" is not as easy as it sounds at first.

 

There is that verse from the CC,"Essential truth spoken concisely is true eloquence."I may have misquoted but that's the general idea.

 

Without the love is it spiritual life?

 

Haribol

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Spiritual Life is acting according to our real and eternal nature as the loving and intamate servant of Shree Shree Radha Krishna as revealed by Thier most intamate servant Srila Guru Maharaja who is busy serving and allways thinking about Them thus by His Divine Grace he picks us up and

engages us

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It is your nature Theist. You can't resist.

 

Actually, I have already given my reasons above and they suffice for me.

 

I really don't disagree with your point in the context it's presented. And I think any attempt to elucidate on my part is just symantics.

 

Still, in the spirit of rhetoric I will ramble on a little more.

 

Krsna is asked by Uddhava about the validity of different systems of knowlede and Krsna basically replied that many can be valid. They're just different ways of understanding or organization. There is also the perspective of duality and simultaneous oneness and difference to consider.

 

But besides these, aren't we spiritual souls in a material world that is material only by it's purpose of design? It is like a prison house. But even the prison is a part of a higher reality - it is of the nature of that reality. Just like the nature of our prisons in America reflect the industrial society we have. So people here, myself included, mostly opt to serve Maya. Service is still there with or without love. You "serve" directly or indirectly; willingly or by force. You choose to cooperate with society and that has it's field of activites. Or you are forced to still serve society in unfavorable ways based on your removal. You are obligated to serve the greater good, favorably or not. Service "is" the soul.

 

We are forced or choose to leave the spiritual world due to the inappropriateness of our attitude. But even in our attempt at selfishness here in the material world, we are ultimately serving Krsna because we are all destined to resolve our temperment and return home - and this world facilitates that. Therefore there is underlying spiritual purpose that certainly includes disposition and yet transcends it.

 

And then Krsna has time and again demonstrated his transcendental nature to our concepts of favoratism:

 

Look at Putana, the witch. A baby killer! Isn''t her pastimes with Krsna completely spiritual simply because Krsna reciprocated with her?

 

On the other hand, haven't the gopis become proud and Krsna left them?

 

These are just my opiniions as an armchair philosopher. "Without the love is it spiritual life?" I can't say there is spiritual life without love. Nor would I want to. that perspective doesn't interest me. I guess we'd have to have more experience of the spiritual world to say - or else remember it.

 

In a philosophical or existential sense, spiritual or material, I have understood that "service" is the basis, it is the process and the goal. Therefore "I am a servant of God."

 

To me this is more concise of spiritual life than even love. But I ultimately don't pretend it is anything more than my opinion. I am perhaps extrapolating authoritive statements and screwing up. I have no problem with your views.

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Haribol ethos,

 

Yes servant of God is what we are but that wasn't the question you posed.

 

Everyone is a servant of God,directly or indirectly,even the so-called atheist.

 

Directly through love is spiritual life.

 

Dharma and Greg,Hi, those names sound familiar somehow..Hmmm? /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif

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Thankyou theist for your clarification.

 

I don't know what I'm talking about now and I missed the "love" concept.

 

Being thoroughly defeated and ridiculed for my bad philosophy and cowboy attitude, I will now desist from this mesage board and waste my life with personal frivalties which I can do quite well.

 

It's been an experience.

 

Keep good thoughts! Hare Krsna!

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Theist, it's not so much you. Actually, I enjoy your insights. It's just the board experience in general.

 

To fall from the spiritual world is definitely an interuption in favorable service. But you could conceivably love Krsna, the person, and still mess up and fall. I have experienced simultaneous love and hate for the same object even on the mundance level. Who's to say we simply had no love for Krsna when we fell? I haven't heard that preached anywhere - only that we had an attitude problem.

 

There are innumerable examples of wonderful devotees like Mother Yasoda or Radharani who serve with love and indeed that's what we're taught. I can't imagine personally trying to serve another way as a process of advancement or realization.

 

Yet, the examples of devotes achieving perfection through service are also there. Jaya and Vijaya served by taking birth as demons three times. Putana served by trying to kill Krsna. Arjuna was a friend, but his service to Krsna at Kuruksetra was specifically through violence. There are cases of Kamsa and other demons who achieved perfection in the end simply through contact (service) with Krsna.

 

Therefore it is philosophically sound to say that the essence of love or spiritual life is service, since it is the basic principle for any relationship.

 

Theist wrote:

Without the love is it spiritual life?

 

I can also ask you: "Without the service is it spiritual life?"

 

Or perhaps "Without the service, is it love?"

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