What is salvation and why do we bother?

[Enlightened]

You see, in my point of view, every one is totally absorbed with getting saved, or getting salvation. I don't get that, i mean, why are we so bothered about what happens after death? why not try to live our lives now with out any concern about the life after death? we should enjoy the life and not put it through concerns about something that will happen after this lifespan, right?.

 

For me, serving krishna is one of the best things, honestly. I love to be happy with simple prayer in the morning and the rememberance of the lord always because i feel safe, comfortable and always happy and very equamnious when i think about krishna. If i get to serve krishna in every lifespan, i don't care how many bodies i go through.

Correct me if i am wrong about this plz... I still don't /images/graemlins/confused.gifget the fact that they always talk about vaikunta, goloka and stuff when vaikunta and goloka are in our hearts, how do we gain something that has already been established in our heart in the first place? /images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

please shed some light on this issue. /images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

 

[Narayanidd]

My dear spirit soul,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

 

You asked, "What is salvation and why do we bother?"

and "...how do we gain something that has already been established in our heart in the first place?"

 

"A pure devotee of the Lord caonstantly sees the presence of the Lord within himself because of being transcendentally related by loving service. Such a pure devotee cannot forget the Lord for a moment...A devotee more easily attains this state by constantly remembering the Lord's personal feature along with His holy name, fame, pastimes, etc. Therefore the concentration of the mystic yogi [for example] and that of the devotee are not on the same level. The concentration of the mystic is mechanical, whereas that of the pure devotee is natural in pure love and spontaneous affection."

 

While we are in this material world entangled with material nature we need a goal to strive for; something to focus on. It is material nature to desire. Better to desire to go back home back to Godhead right? As we become purified and get closer and closer to the goal, pure love for God, our attachment to Him will become more natural and spontaneous. It will no longer matter what or where we are, we will only be thinking of Lord Krsna and wishing to engage in HIs service. There aren't many out there that are born with the natural and sontaneous desire to Love Krsna with our whole being. Seeking "salvation" gets us one the path of rendering devotional service. The more advance in our service we become the less we'll care about ""salvation" and the more we will desire to render more service to the Lord. Devotional service is both the path and the goal.

 

hope this helps.

Your servant,

Narayani d.d.

 

[srinivas]

in christianity we want to go to heavan

in islam we want to go to heavan

in hinduism too

 

and all other major world religions

 

so salvation is a part of our duty to our soul but the real duty is to serve krishna.

 

This is the difference between krishna conciousness and all other religions.Krishna conciousness is like putting a fish back into water of the ocean.While it is lost in all the rivers of religion.

 

 

[Guest guest]

when you have so many questions in spiritual matter,

why you choose a user name "enlightned"?

such name is proper for one who has the answers.

 

krishan devotees are not hypocrates.

considering all these,

you would wnat to change your user name to something more appropriate to the livel of your enlightnenment.

 

with that said,

let me answer your inquirey- why care about next life?

 

it seems you do agree that there is next life.

if not, then you missed krishna's message in gita,

so read it again.

 

bahUni me vyatitAni

janmAni tavachArjuna..

 

now, today you dont want to care for next life,

tomorrow you will not care for next year,

then you will not care for next month, next day, next hour next second.

 

ok.

 

so what would you do for the next second?

 

for most people not spiritually advanced, the answer would be - AhAra nidrA bhaya maithuna.

this is nothing but animalism, not even human.

 

so progress towards god is caring about next second, then hour, then day, then month,then year, decade, century and then next life when you know that there is next life.

 

now why vaikuntha, golok, etc.:

 

even in this material world people choose a place to live.

there is separate section of town where rich and affluent live. there is separate place where homeless live, KC live, etc.

 

similarly, when one advances spiritually, he/she qualifies to live in a planet appropriate to his/her advancement.

 

hope you get the point.

 

now, if you worry about pleasing krishna every second,

then you do not have to worry about anything else, because you will get it any way. when a baloon gets hot air, it rises, that is natural. same for one who has advanced spiritually. he will automatically go to spiritual planets.

 

now he/she can choose to remain here to help others to advance. that is great sacrifice, and some do it.

 

most hare krishnas are selfish and just want to go go to krishna. they do not want to make the barbaric terrorists krishna devotees. they do not care if the terrorists destroy radhan kunda, vrindavan etc.

 

that is unfortuante.

i pray every day they become selfless.

there is a lot of KC work to be done in indian espicially, the home of their culture.

 

jai sri prabhupada!

 

 

[stonehearted]

A guest writes: most hare krishnas are selfish and just want to go go to krishna. they do not want to make the barbaric terrorists krishna devotees. they do not care if the terrorists destroy radhan kunda, vrindavan etc.

 

that is unfortuante.

i pray every day they become selfless.

 

stone: I'm not sure just who you mean by "hare krishnas." That's a rather inprecise term. Do you mean those who see themselves as members of the Hare Krishna movement (and just ISKCON? or other Sarasvat Gaudiya missions? or Gaudiya vaishnavas in general?)? And by "most" do you mean more than half (more are selfish than selfless)? This accusation shows some sloppy thinking.

 

That aside, I want to point out that those who are actually Krishna conscious are indeed selfless, since their exemplars are the residents of Vraja. And even among those who aspire to become Krishna conscious, we see that many thousands around the world mainly want to advance spiritually so they can help others. Therefore, they live in cities in India, throughout Asia (including China!), in Australasia, South and North America, Africa, and all over Europe and work hard to make this perfection available to all. There are also many preaching in many "Muslim countries," perhaps mainly to resident Hindus, but making themselves available to everyone, often at great risk. So be careful.

 

May I ask you, dear guest, what you are doing to make the barbaric terrorists into devotees? Perhaps your example will inspire more of us.

[Enlightened]

Its true guest, i am unenlightened, but i do have the right to have a screen name named enlightened right?. I mean, we see many people named Krishna, Rama, Raghurama. We dont expect them to be just like krishna or rama, because they cant be krishna or rama or some one else.

 

I guess my screen name is like that too, i am not enlightened but i want to be enlightened and i want to be in the presence of the enlightened people. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

-unenlightened /images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Guest guest]

may you enlightened.

 

jai sri prabhupada!

 

 

[Guest guest]

 

babhru ji,

hare krishna!

 

yes, my accusation is exaguration. sorry.

my intent was to get attention.

 

i wish that no hare krishna leader/preacher would forget that real challenging work is in giving KC to the muslims.

hindu already are KC (may be they need some polishing), but muslims (bin laden and co.) really need it. making them KC helps more than 10 fold to the world.

 

you also asked what i mean by hare krishna.

i mean any follower of prabhupada.

 

you asked, "what you are doing to make the barbaric terrorists into devotees? "

 

i wish i could do more, but i expose islam's barbaric message to the world. there is a lot of barbarism in koran and hadith. i wish that hare krishnas dig all these out and expose to the world intellectually, and in comparison show what the vedic literature says in contrast to islam.

in other words, i wish hare krishnas wage an intellectual war against the ideology. the center of gravity of the barbarism is koran and hadith. so it is worth attacking and smashing its barbric nature.

 

just recently a tv newsman said that some people from other nations have come in iraq to fight americans. he said they need to understand it is not worth fightihg for saddam. the man missed the boat. they do not fight for saddam. they fight the kafirs for islam. why? see koran.

to them hare krishnas are no different than the amerians or hindus or jews. this fact is not worth forgetting.

 

jai sri prabhupada!

 

 

[stonehearted]

Guest: i wish that hare krishnas dig all these out and expose to the world intellectually, and in comparison show what the vedic literature says in contrast to islam.

in other words, i wish hare krishnas wage an intellectual war against the ideology.

 

Babhru: Well, we have been charged by our spiritual mastes to wage intellectual war on materialism. More than showing everyone what demons the muslims are, we're interested in showing everyone that they are inherently Krishna's eternal servants. It's the materialism in Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, etc. that we want to expose. Whatever is spiritual we want to encourage and purify.

 

You wrote that Hindus are Krishna conscious, but, especially these days, that's only in a superficial sense. In Kali yuga, rakshasas are born as brahamanas. Part of our job is to show them that they are not Hindus, brahmanas, men, or women. I remember approaching Hindus in the early '70s, and they would brush us off, saying, "Yes, yes--I know all this Krishna," when in fact they understood little if any spiritual knowledge. Now many of them are showing some interest in reviving their culture; many, though, are still much more interested in American consumer culture. There is the enemy.

[Enlightened]

Muslim fundamentalists are ignorant, i read koran once, it said that people who do not believe in "allah" and who are not Islamic people can be buried alive and it is not a sin.

 

that is just ignorance right there...

the problem is that these muslim fundamentalists have great effect on people and there are lots of those innocent uneducated people in the middle east who are influenced by that. its so sad. However, in my opinion, any fundamentalist is horrible, because they are fanatics....

 

Example:

When one of my mom's relatives was working as a teacher, the "converted christian" teacher denied an invitation to our relatives house because she(my mom's relative) is a hindu and has alot of Vishnu, Narasimha and Balaji pictures all over the walls.

 

well , in my opinion it is just insulting to say to some one "I won't come in your house cuz you have your deity's picture there" (its stupid in my view).

 

______

So fundamentalists are all very ignorant... cuz they believe in something just blindly with out analyzing and thinking the rules and precepts over first. /images/graemlins/mad.gif /images/graemlins/mad.gif

 

 

This has been posted by Me! /images/graemlins/grin.gif.