police work and leading a spiritual life....

[Guest guest]

a major part of my duties as a police officer require to deal with the nastier elements of society and their offences on a daily basis. this inevitably leads to a use of force, sometimes a major amount of it, to bring the person and the situation back under control. i'm not on some battlefield of good vs evil, with krishna advising me that it's going to be ok (the gist of the gita) am i committing offences against fellow man by carrying out my duties to society and the organisation i belong too?

[Dervish]

I've heard of several devotees who are police officers. Ask around, and most likely you will find out from them how to deal with it. Also in India, there are many policemen who are devotees.

[yasodanandana]

if we do not offer ourselves to krsna, what else remains to offer? this is the essence of bhagavad gita.

So in my opinion pray krsna to send you a pure uttama adhikari spiritual master and chant hare krishna under his guidance, in this way your karma will turn in karma yoga and your work will turn in devotional service. it is not really possible to do separated efforts to change our character, behaviour, destiny, karma.. it is not possible to repress our nature... only krsna can change it.

So the preminence has to be given to the practising of krishna consciousness, the improvements in our charachter and behaviour will follow automatically. Your work/service is very useful to the society.

 

in my opinion

[Kulapavana]

read about the duties of kshatriyas in Vedic society - it fully applies to your situation. without law and order in society there cant be much devotional service. Lord Rama was called to restore peace in the community of renunciates troubled by Rakshasas. do your job as an offering to Krishna. Haribol!

[theist]

 

i'm not on some battlefield of good vs evil,

 

 

Depends on how you define battlefield. If it wasn't for people like you this society would be ruled by anarchy. It would be absolute madness.

 

Thin blue line is too thin in my opinion. God consciousness can't spread very well in a society ruled by chaos.

 

It's not that all cops should quit being cops and become devotees. Rather all cops should continue being cops and become devotees.

 

[gHari]

Inside us all there is good and evil. Some little false egos must die, slain by the soul. We have lusty little devils inside us; these little false egos must die. We have dishonest false egos who must be slain. Only five personalities can emerge from that battle.

 

Those little false egos that beat Rodney King; they should never have reached the surface of consciousness.

 

These little false egos are always competing for the action; they all want to be ME. One wants to eat strawberry ice cream, another wants to read the Bhagavad-gita, another wants to listen to Def Leppard, another wants to go to sleep, and so on. Sometimes one will win and I will eat ice cream; at other times the nobler false ego will win and I will read the Gita. Millions of these little would-be MEs are vying for top spot at every moment. Even when we reach the ice cream parlour another minor battle will take place between the chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream false ego monsters.

 

The archer soul must slay these little monsters (yes, that little monster wants ice cream - it's a gradation of degraded deviation). They all want to enjoy this world in varying degrees of social acceptibility. The five who stand after the battle are all related to Krsna perfectly; one in a neutral status in awe and reverence, another serving Krsna as a servant, another loving Krsna as a friend, another serving Krsna while feeling like His parent and the most intimate will be in love with Krsna as His paramour lover. Only these five personalities emerge from the battle within. Everyone else is slain during the battle. All little false egos, the false enjoyers are slain by detachment and yoga.

 

The police are an agent of Krsna. If you do as Krsna would have you do, then there is no karma or sin. Win the battle inside, and the outside will be perfect; whether that is serving in a temple or protecting the weak.

 

Armed with yoga and detachment, stand and fight, O mighty-armed policeman.

 

[ancient_paztriot]

I think to have you say you're constantly monitoring the acceptability of the citizens behavior and in the next breath that it's not a battlefield of good vs. evil means you're a scary fool.

 

A devotee knows there's a moral dimension to every act. You don't seem to have a devotees sense of moral understanding. Not very good for a so-called authority.

 

Now how many times a day do your compromise Krsna's interests or the citizens welfare for hypocritic policies… just licking the butt of your employer?

 

I won't go into the many transgressions of the capitalist few who assume to write their own laws, we all know them. But how do you feel telling someone they can kill their baby today but not tomorrow? That's the nature of your moral field. And it stinks to high hell.

 

Can you as a citizen and not a cop say you are satisfied with this government? How about as a devotee?

 

There's probably some special hells for people who pretend to be liberated just to cheat the public with religion. Likewise, politicians and soldiers who cheat and harrass the citizens in the name of law and order and who thus end up being much worse than the criminals they chase, are probably destined for a hard time in the next life.

 

I mean there's a price to pay for authority. Spiritual master assumes sins. So do government men. I mean they have to share the citizens sins.

 

If they don't consider that when they act, then they're acting in ignorance. If they don't even care about their owns sinful implications they subject themselves to on a metaphysical level, if they don't know or care what's best for themselves, then how can they be well-wishers of society. The criminal knows but also doesn't care. But such is the nature of our law enforcement. No spiritual life, no metaphysics, no philosophy, just laws for the rich and powerful. Law-enforcement has been reduced to little more than mercinaries these days.

 

Now those considerations are just like varnasrama-dharma stuff or social laws.

 

That doesn't even begin to consider the personal collection of sins one is forced to accept by choosing to exploit the situation for money - or anything - "in the name of" God and truth.

[ancient_paztriot]

Hey, why is it the local fuzz feel they have to call my house and ask for a donation (of all things!) as if I'm doing better than they are?

[Guest guest]

also what if the politicians you are a mercenary for are corrupt?it stinks,do you beat gays and druggies and black people up?self righteousness springs to mind...

[Guest guest]

Haribol. Im not a policeman, but with a career of security type work under my belt, I can comment. Some of my best friends (as well as worse enemies) are cops, but how is this different than any other profession.

 

This is Arjunas dilemma. He, as duty, was required to cause the death of his beloved teacher, Dronacarya, the pure mahajana devotee Bhismadeva, Krpacarya, so many who were on the other side. Krsna was there, and Arjuna said he could not do such a thing, because his conscience would not allow him to live with the duty he had to perform.

 

Krsna, made it clear that his work was not an impediment, rather a means to attain spiritual perfection. It is called Karma Yoga, which is non different from bhakti yoga in that devotion to the supreme lord is the entire focus.

 

Now, there may be a conflict of interest, if you were called upon to break up a noisy Hare Krsna festival because someone couldnt sleep off his drinkin spree. If such a case arises, please do not hesitate to contact me here on the forum, and I will present you with a handful of ammunition from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that would allow you to disobey a direct order from your superiors up to and including the Chief eXEcutive Officer of this country (Actually, Im assuming, perhaps incorrectly, thaqt you are a US policeman) without punishment, and if forced, you would be so weaLTHY that you may never have to work again.

 

I know devotees that were US Army majors, I personally gave a set of japa beads to a US Navy Captain of a Trident Submarine, and an admiral of the Navy allowed me to place bhagavad gitas on eight trident submarines in the ship library. (If only the big shot civilians of the Navy had as much sense as their military counterparts, I may still be working there, but I may soon be filthy rich via EEOC because of it).

 

I work now in a hospital, and there is opportunity to preach in ways most folks dont get, at critical turning points of ones life. As a policeman, you can also be sneaky in this respect. Srila Prabhupada spoke extensively on crime issues, with criminal science specialists. This is how we go from being karma enslaved to practitioners of karma yoga, we inject this science into our daily lives. This is Srila Prabhupadas plan, not that we exclude ourselves from society, rather act within society that is influential to others, first, your partner, then your shift, then your division, then your precinct, then the whoile force, devotee cops.

 

I wish, then when I get pulled over at three AM after work, I could tell him I was chanting, and this is why I was drivin so weird. No ticket, rather, a wonderful haribol. Get to work, officer. And hare vkrsna, ys, mahaksadasa

[yasodanandana]

the thing is very simple, krsna consciousness is basically:

 

tad viddhi pranipatena

pariprasnena sevaya

upadeksyanti te jnanam

jnaninas tattva-darshinah

 

Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him.

The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the truth.

 

One has simply to go with his bag of karma and guna to the pure vaishnava master and ask: "i want to surrender to krishna, this is what i have to offer, what do i have to do?".

Moral rules are surely there, the advice to make less karma as possible if we want to practice bhakti is there and right, but the success in krsna consciousness ultimately depends from gurudeva's and krsna's mercy not from some social behaviour.

 

In one letter written to narayana maharaja, prabhupada, before going in USA, says to be ready to allow meat eating to his future western followers if it would have been necessary to build the movement and some years after, lilamrita, sending harikesha swami to the eastern european countries "if you have nothing to eat, eat meat, no problem, preaching is more important (or something like that)"

 

So everything starts from surrendering not from our material and social arrangements, if we surrender, like arjuna did accepting to make the war and kill personally some millions of people, our karma will soon turn in karma bhakti yoga... if we are extremely accurate in avoiding to produce karma but we do not surrender, we remain in the material world.

 

"Being a butcher and a devotee"

why not?

 

(in my opinion)

 

[ancient_paztriot]

let's say we're watching a movie wherein there's a crooked cop. Do we empathize with him? Let's say the "official pretender" even justifies his behavior with arguments that are right. Does that make him right?

 

What if what he's not telling you has alot more bearing on the situation?

[gHari]

This is a tangent but quite amazing.

 

My uncle was a cop. He eventually taught in the Police Academy. I found out a few years after it happened that my young cousin, his daughter had been deprogrammed from being a devotee. I guess my mother never let on that her son was a crazy Harry-Karry too. I haven't given it much thought.

 

I can only imagine what may have gone through her mind when she saw my neckbeads at our grandmother's funeral. I didn't know about the deprogramming story then.

 

I had never spoken to her about Krsna. Odd how two of us were able to shake off the conditioning long enough to wake up. Maybe when I'm older I'll contact her.

 

I can remember how upset my mother became when I warned her never to try that with me, because I would fake being deprogrammed; then I would grab the deprogrammers, tie them up, break their arms and legs, and ensure that they never would or could do that to anyone ever again. I would give them a thousand times what they gave me. I was still Hercules, and she knew I could and feared I would do it. A plague on all their houses! LOL. Butterfly gHari still ready to deprogram the deprogrammers.

 

[ancient_paztriot]

BG 10.38

Among all means of suppressing lawlessness I am punishment, and of those who seek victory I am morality. Of secret things I am silence, and of the wise I am the wisdom.

 

PURPORT

There are many suppressing agents, of which the most important are those that cut down miscreants. When miscreants are punished, the agency of chastisement represents Krsna. Among those who are trying to be victorious in some field of activity, the most victorious element is morality. Among the confidential activities of hearing, thinking and meditating, silence is most important because by silence one can make progress very quickly. The wise man is he who can discriminate between matter and spirit, between God’s superior and inferior natures. Such knowledge is Krsna Himself.

 

SB 10.33.31

The statements of the Lord’s empowered servants are always true, and the acts they perform are exemplary when consistent with those statements. Therefore one who is intelligent should carry out their instructions.

 

SB 10.33.31

My dear Prabhu, when these great persons who are free from false ego act piously in this world, they have no selfish motives to fulfill, and even when they act in apparent contradiction to the laws of piety, they are not subject to sinful reactions.

[livingentity]

I had a friend that was deprogrammed....they snuck up on her and dragged her into a car never to be seen again.

 

I heard what had happened to her from her then boyfriend who was quite proud of himself for helping the deprogrammers. I guess the idea a certain one of the four regs did not suit his agenda.

 

 

I can remember how upset my mother became when I warned her never to try that with me, because I would fake being deprogrammed; then I would grab the deprogrammers, tie them up, break their arms and legs, and ensure that they never would or could do that to anyone ever again. I would give them a thousand times what they gave me. I was still Hercules, and she knew I could and feared I would do it. A plague on all their houses! LOL. Butterfly gHari still ready to deprogram the deprogrammers.

 

 

<marquee width=20%><font color="red">FILM AT ELEVEN </font color></marquee>

[ancient_paztriot]

There's a prevelent idea about now that someone's silence about a crime they know is to take place is somekind of complicity. They are implicated by not taking the proper action in the interests of others.

 

Someone can speand many years in jail for such "inside information", especially related to murder or uh "traitor to your country".

 

Do you think God does not hold His "authorities" accountable?

 

Lives In the Balance

I’ve been waiting for something to happen

For a week or a month or a year

With the blood in the ink of the headlines

And the sound of the crowd in my ear

You might ask what it takes to remember

When you know that you’ve seen it before

Where a government lies to a people

And a country is drifting to war

 

And there’s a shadow on the faces

Of the men who send the guns

To the wars that are fought in places

Where their business interest runs

 

On the radio talk shows and the t.v.

You hear one thing again and again

How the u.s.a. stands for freedom

And we come to the aid of a friend

But who are the ones that we call our friends--

These governments killing their own?

Or the people who finally can’t take any more

And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone

There are lives in the balance

There are people under fire

There are children at the cannons

And there is blood on the wire

 

There’s a shadow on the faces

Of the men who fan the flames

Of the wars that are fought in places

Where we can’t even say the names

 

They sell us the president the same way

They sell us our clothes and our cars

They sell us every thing from youth to religion

The same time they sell us our wars

I want to know who the men in the shadows are

I want to hear somebody asking them why

They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are

But they’re never the ones to fight or to die

And there are lives in the balance

There are people under fire

There are children at the cannons

And there is blood on the wire

 

Black and White

Long before you ever saw your chances

You were going to burn this city down

Tired of the fashions and the dances

Tired of the people standing around

Ticking like a bomb in the night

And you knew you were right

Black and white

 

Blame it on the time it took to leave here

Blame it on the ones who slowed you down

Blame it on the kind of friends you knew here

Blame it on the sickness going ’round

Going round and round in the night

With your heart out of sight

With your world burning bright

Like a moth ’round a light

Black and white

The pictures of a life in flames

Black and white

The picture of a life remains

And the search you half remember

Setting out on at the start

Is burning like an ember in your heart

 

Time running out time running out

For the fool still asking what his life is about

Time running out time running out

Time running out time running out

Yeah, beyond a shadow of a doubt

Time running out time running out

 

Tell them that you’ve gone to find a person

Someone you lost track of long ago

Tell them that it’s someone you need worse than

Anybody else you’ll ever know

Ticking like a bomb in the night

You were strong, you were light

You were fast, you were bright

Then you were gone in the light

Black and white

The pictures of a life in flames

Black and white

The picture of a life remains

And the high ideals and the promise

You once dressed the future in

Are dancing in the embers with the wind

 

Time running out time running out

For the fool still asking what his life is about

Time running out time running out

Time running out time running out

Yeah, beyond a shadow of a doubt

Time running out time running out - Jackson Browne

[stonehearted]

Reading gHari's story reminds me of the devotees I know who have encountered deprogrammers. One devotee I knew in Hawaii was kidnapped by Ted Patrick in Texas. His mother had spent a fortune to "get her son back." As soon as he figured out what was going on, he decided that the easiest way out was to pretend to go along with Patrick and his thugs. When they started yelling their blasphemy, he shrugged and said, "Oh--I hadn't thought of that! amybe you're right." After a while, they tried to get him to eat meat but relented when he said he had been a vegetarian before he became a devotee. At the end, they told him that they had $5,000 and that he could go anywhere he wanted in the world. He said he appreciated what they had done for him so much that he wanted to spend more time with Patrick. He stayed with him at his home in the San Deigo area for three days, and what he saw made it clear that Patrick's deprogamming business had absolutely nothing to do with any principles or with saving young people. It was all about money and nothing else.

[gHari]

I saw a panel discussion on TV with the two, and Tamal was so clever that he had Teddy talking about how he had deprogrammed a nun. Poor Teddy lost a lot of supporters that day. It was apparent to everyone on the panel that Teddy was just demonic, period. Their mouths dropped gasped stunned, but dumb Ted had no idea how foolish he looked as he proudly shamelessly recounted the details. The panel had assumed it was just a 'cult' thing. Turns out Teddy was not an angel saving the innocent from the brainwashing manipulating moneygrubbing opportunists.

 

[yasodanandana]

i was kidnapped by deprogrammers in 1984 in italy...

[ancient_paztriot]

So I can act selfishly or in empathy with my surroundings.

 

I can choose to act on an eternal platform in which all things can be reconciled in the Absolute Person, OR I can pursue my material gratification while the body last.

 

If a person is right that the body is all and the person doesn't exists beyond the duration of the body, then that could hardly make any difference to anyone else. I mean how do you live for that goal? By being an American capitalists?

 

But if people are wrong in betting on this body and it's circumstance as all-in-all, then they've misunderstood everything - without even trying.

 

Might it be a little self-defeating to argue for your own demise? In the the sense that you justify everything for the perishable body?

 

We all evaluate everyone we know or meet in terms of our favor - both individually and collectively. Might Krsna do the same?

 

Sairway to Heaven

 

And she's buying a stairway to heaven

And when she gets there she knows if the stores are closed

With a word she can get what she came for

 

Woe oh oh oh oh oh

And she's buying a stairway to heaven

 

There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure

And you know sometimes words have two meanings

In the tree by the brook there's a songbird who sings

Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven

 

Woe oh oh oh oh oh

And she's buying a stairway to heaven

 

There's a feeling I get when I look to the west

And my spirit is crying for leaving

In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees

And the voices of those who stand looking

 

Woe oh oh oh oh oh

And she's buying a stairway to heaven

 

And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune

Then the piper will lead us to reason

And a new day will dawn for those who stand long

And the forest will echo with laughter

 

And it makes me wonder

 

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow

Don't be alarmed now

It's just a spring clean for the May Queen

 

Yes there are two paths you can go by

but in the long run

There's still time to change the road you're on

 

Your head is humming and it won't go because you don't know

The piper's calling you to join him

Dear lady can't you hear the wind blow and did you know

Your stairway lies on the whispering wind

 

And as we wind on down the road

Our shadows taller than our souls

There walks a lady we all know

Who shines white light and wants to show

How everything still turns to gold

And if you listen very hard

The tune will come to you at last

When all are one and one is all

To be a rock and not to roll

Woe oh oh oh oh oh

And she's buying a stairway to heaven

 

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold

And she's buying a stairway to heaven

And when she gets there she knows if the stores are closed

With a word she can get what she came for

 

And she's buying a stairway to heaven, uh uh uh. - Page/Plant

[gHari]

Yashodanandana Prabhu, you can hardly end that with three periods. We want a story.

 

[Guest guest]

My Gurudev Narayan Maharaj was working as a police officer, there's a great story on VNN about it, from Raghunath Shelter book "in defense of reality" search with the following keywords:

NArayan MAharaj Satyaraj Ray cappo

it's great, maybe not directly answering your question, but at least you know you can be a policeman and advance a lot spiritually !!

[yasodanandana]

i was 22 years old and i was living at villa vrindavan iskcon temple in florence, italy... my parents were not agree and, trough the catholic bishop, they had the contact with a deprogrammer, martin fayers, english, ex adept of sun myung moon with some experience and success in making people getting out from little sects or even official religions.

 

(a little charismatic person, with some adepts voluntarily acting for him as information sources, financial and other helps and so on.... very funny)

 

they, together with my father, kidnapped me near the gate of villa vrindavan and brought me in a house in a little village in tuscany at about 50km from florence.

 

i was very frightened because i have heard of ted patrick in the usa, but the thing was very soft, i was allowed to have my food buyed separately by my parents at the supermarket, i had not phisical bad treatments (i have not used the world "abuses" because my poor english does not know if abuses are meant only for sexual abuses).. i was only closed in this house and i had to hear many discourses and lessons on the danger of sects, the danger of hare krishnas, the money stolen by leaders, prabhupada getting senile and maschilist (trying to demonstrate it with the most huge collection of back to godhead magazine i have seen), guru falling... i had some visits from deprogrammed harekrishnas including a funny (ex)devotee, prabhupada disciple, from germany with bad stories on leaders but very nice ones about his experiences with prabhupada.

 

i had only my japa taken away

 

my impression was that their main effort was to cheat my parents and relatives to have more money possible from them... and the attention and the efforts were more to make them see that something efficient and well organized was going on than on me and my deprogrammation. They had armed people at the four angles of the lawn around the house, they were ever engaged in speaking to my parents on the danger of the sects, the fact that it was possible to see armed harekrishnas commandos come and kidnap me and so on... their attention was more on them than me

 

i, even if a young bhakta, was a friend with some leaders in iskcon italy, i had many services with these devotees, i knew already the things that were not going well in the movement, guru fallings, hamsadutta, kirtanananda's stuff, suspects of prabhupada poisoning and so on.... i sometimes brought the samkirtan(book selling) money in the bank, so the deprogrammers had very few bad hings about harekrishhnas to say to me that i did not know before.

 

i was also for some time in the bhagavan prabhu's entourage, then bhagavan goswami, zonal guru of many countries including italy.... and even if we have seen that he was not fit to act as a guru, i observed personally and with some intimacy, great dedication and loyalty in making his service

 

so speaking with deprogrammers was not for me a great surprise, i know more bad thing about hare krishnas than them.. or i knew when these thing were lies

 

i was "prisoner" in this house for ten days, i know for sure that my parents gave to these demons (in lire) 15.000 euros for that days.. consider that we were in 1984, consider that now in italy the majority of people live reasonably well with 1000, 1300 euros a month.. consider that my father was desperate because i was not in any way convinced by them and i, seeing him crying like a baby, out of sentiment, i accepted to go twenty days in the martin fayer's house in the french alps to see "the decisive documents" that they had about hare krishna sect and it was not possible to bring with them in italy "for obvious safety reasons"

 

this 20 days in france turned out as a useless vacation payed by my parents, when i was basically free to do anything, make a little shopping, listening to the huge record collection of fayers, seeing tv, playing outside with the snow, going in the town and surroundings as a tourist and so on

 

for me it was an elegant way to quit the temple (temple was one of the nicest experiences of my life... but i am not at all a monk) as an hero without blooping or making bad things inside, after some time i come to the temple and i helped to put up an antideprogrammers course for devotees. And it worked, someone else was kidnapped and he was more clever than me, instead of arguing.. "ok you are right.. hare krishna is bad... give me the blue jeans i want to go in disco!!" and they went out after two days and come back to the temple

 

indeed i am happy to have practiced krishna consciousness out of the temple even in years when it was considered an heresy, i know for sure that bhagavan himself was concerned and praying for me, i know that some iskcon italian big leaders often criticized were very affectionate to me and passed long days in the car searching me ... and i am very grateful, i was really feeling to have real friends between devotees

 

some leaders proposed to me to proceed legally against my parents but i did not do it.. they were the real plagiarized, not me, they had the real damage (my father was a simple train driver... my mother did some works as a taylor at home, my father made for years another job making scenes and structures for teathers together with the "official" job ... poor souls! )

 

and some other italian devotees convinced by iskcon to do like that, were abandoned by iskcon ten years after when it was the time to go in the court... the line was changed, and fighting deprogrammers was no more a priority... devotees, in a less fanatical mood, have reconciled with parents and relatives, the movement was at all not interested to sustain them, the leaders of the 80s were no more leaders.. so i leave to you to imagine the mess...

 

(sorry for my english)

[gHari]

And great story telling.

 

Were you sworn to secrecy about the 'decisive documents'?

 

[yasodanandana]

oh.. no documents

 

a BBC tv program on videotape: CULT

 

very nice with Bhaktivedanta Manor... Soho street..

 

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