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Reflections on the A-Z's of Life

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 10:23 am
by Auttareya
What are your reflections on RESPONSIBILITY?

Re: Reflections on the A-Z's of Life

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 12:02 pm
by harsi
Auttareya wrote:Hari: What is your reflections on RESPONSIBILITY?
How about "Reflections about our Quest for Enlightenment above the divine Supreme Being and all that what our own "spiritual" being could be in reality". Just my, Harsi´s two cents proposition to it... :wink:

Re: Reflections on the A-Z's of Life

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 12:43 pm
by Auttareya
harsi wrote:
Auttareya wrote:Hari: What is your reflections on RESPONSIBILITY?
How about "Reflections about our Quest for Enlightenment above the divine Supreme Being and all that what our own "spiritual" being could be in reality". Just my, Harsi´s two cents proposition to it... :wink:
First point: Not Hari is asking about Responsibility but I am asking him about his reflections on Responsibility. Therefore please take more care on what you are reading.

Second point: My question is not directed to you but to Harikeś as my previous spiritual master so I am waiting for his and not your answer, because he, not you was making vows before God during my initiation.

Third point: I am interesting about Harikeś understanding of his own responsibility in present time made in past time before God in connection to my person and to others his disciples.

Forth point: There are different kinds of responsibilities but the most special responsibility is that, which is made before God and exactly about this kind of Responsibility I am asking him.

Re: Reflections on the A-Z's of Life

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 6:31 pm
by harsi
Auttareya wrote:First point: Not Hari is asking about Responsibility but I am asking him about his reflections on Responsibility. Therefore please take more care on what you are reading.

Forth point: There are different kinds of responsibilities but the most special responsibility is that, which is made before God and exactly about this kind of Responsibility I am asking him.
I understand you very well dear Auttareya, what I have some problems to understand, and I am asking now from "disciple" to "disciple" whatever that means to you or anyone else out there, what do you think his "responsibility" was or is in regard to you, or you are of the opinion that he "made" concerning your person, in front of God or Their Lordships Radha-Krishna ?
I am just curious what some of my "Godbrothers" think in this regard.
I personaly have no problems whatsoever with what you see as a "problem". Please feel free to elaborate moore on it, if you so desire, of course.

Re: Reflections on the A-Z's of Life

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 6:58 pm
by Janus
harsi wrote:
Auttareya wrote:First point: Not Hari is asking about Responsibility but I am asking him about his reflections on Responsibility. Therefore please take more care on what you are reading.

Forth point: There are different kinds of responsibilities but the most special responsibility is that, which is made before God and exactly about this kind of Responsibility I am asking him.
I understand you very well dear Auttareya, what I have some problems to understand, and I am asking now from "disciple" to "disciple" whatever that means to you or anyone else out there, what do you think his "responsibility" was or is in regard to you, or you are of the opinion that he "made" concerning your person, in front of God or Their Lordships Radha-Krishna ?
I am just curious what some of my "Godbrothers" think in this regard.
I personaly have no problems whatsoever with what you see as a "problem". Please feel free to elaborate moore on it, if you so desire, of course.
In retrospect I do not think that very many people appreciate the seriousness of oathtaking, for if they did then few would have taken them. An oath is binding. One can only be released from it through the other parties permission, through the release of one from one's oath by them.
I am sure that Krsna appreciated the lack of maturity, intellectual, emotional and otherwise that led to many people making oaths that they did not realize at the time that they would later regret, but all that said and done an oath is still binding and one who breaks an oath becomes an oathbreaker.
In Nectar of Instruction it is said that the disciple should examine a prospective guru to determine his qualification before accepting him, let the buyer beware. What matters it if someone gives you promise that he will take you back to Godhead if he is only in delusion about his qualification to fulfill that promise?

Re: Reflections on the A-Z's of Life

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 7:59 pm
by harsi
Janus wrote: In Nectar of Instruction it is said that the disciple should examine a prospective guru to determine his qualification before accepting him, let the buyer beware. What matters it if someone gives you promise that he will take you back to Godhead if he is only in delusion about his qualification to fulfill that promise?
I like your way of writing very much dear Janus, you are a very learned man with whom one can discuss any issue of knowledge very open.
Therefore I would know your opinion about why do you think that someone should "take you back to Godhead". Would it not be moore apropiate to say I come close to this, my spiritual goal by using the knowledge and understanding I may get from it, by a qualified person, as a "guru" or guide for making progress in this endeaver of mine, if it is indeed so.?

time and circumstance

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 11:12 pm
by GPandit
Personally, I never saw it or felt it as: guru promises to take disciple back home, back to Godhead. More realistically, the guru gives some tools and instruction in use of the tools. The disciple then has the chance and opportunity to use such tools for self-realization.

I wonder how one breaks an oath? By not chanting Hare Krishna a certain of number of times per day? Maybe the disciple has found that "tool" is no longer working well for him. So, he/she uses another method that works better. I don't see how it is helpful or nurturing to pine about "oaths", broken or not. But how are you progressing on your own, individualized path.

Reflections on the A-Z's of Life

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:41 pm
by Auttareya
GPandit wrote:Personally, I never...
Are you advocate of Harikeś?
Please take under your consideration that I am asking Harikeś not you. There is not discussion "Time and circumstance" but "Reflections on the A-Z's of Life" corresponding to Harikeś realizations, which he is presenting in "Hair’s Corner". Therefore please don’t dilute the meaning of my question into marginal directions and don’t cover by your personal opinion the answer from person to whom my question is directed.

how I see it

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 3:35 pm
by GPandit
Last time I checked, this was called "good old days discussions". So I am commenting on the discussion going on in this thread. Is that okay with you? My comments are not based upon being an advocate of Hari or anyone else. They are based on my own experiences and viewpoint, which you have already stated that you don't want to hear. It's okay, I understand. You want to hear from Hari, personally. You demand an answer to your very important question. It is so important and consuming that you want everyone else to shut up and wait for Hari's reply to your incredibly important question.

Maybe your attitude would lead someone like Hari to not answer your question. Did you ever think that way? Probably not, it's too important to you. Maybe he has heard this question a lot of times, and it is answered in another thread. I really don't know. What I do know is this: my comments are not solely meant for you, it's me expressing an opinion. I plan to continue to exercise this privelege; hopefully you can deal with it.

Re: how I see it

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 4:15 pm
by Auttareya
GPandit wrote:Maybe your attitude would lead someone like Hari to not answer your question. Did you ever think that way? Probably not, it's too important to you. Maybe he has heard this question a lot of times, and it is answered in another thread. I really don't know. What I do know is this: my comments are not solely meant for you, it's me expressing an opinion. I plan to continue to exercise this privelege; hopefully you can deal with it.
Maybe yes, maybe not. Maybe my attitude is this or maybe that. Maybe he has heard this question or maybe not. Maybe he will answer or maybe he will not.
If you really don't know, simply stop your speculations.

Re: how I see it

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:15 pm
by harsi
Auttareya wrote:Maybe yes, maybe not. Maybe my attitude is this or maybe that. Maybe he has heard this question or maybe not. Maybe he will answer or maybe he will not.
If you really don't know, simply stop your speculations.
I dont know what your occupation is dear Auttareya, for maintaining yourself and your family, but would I react the way you are doing here in achieving your goals, I guess my clients would send me home...

I guess what I want to say by this, is that there is also a right way and one which is not so good in achieving ones goals, and fulfill ones heart´s desires, whatever that may be, for you its important to get an convincing answer from Hari, in this your uncertainty, for someone else there might be something else to achieve in ones life. I guess that one has to concentrate also on the "how´s" and not only on the "why not".

By the way, I also wait for an answer from you, dear Auttareya, do you remember? :wink:

First thing first

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 6:41 pm
by Auttareya
harsi wrote:I guess what I want to say by this, is that there is also a right way and one wich is not so good in achieving ones goals and ones hearts desires, whatever that may be, for you its important to get an convincing answer from Hari, in this your problem for someone else there might be something else to achieve in ones life. I guess that one has to concentrate also on the "how´s" and not only on the "why not".
Certainly you are right. Thanks for your sincere advice but I have not any problem, maybe that my English is too poor to communicate with you properly. Please take on it correction.
harsi wrote:By the way, I also wait for an answer from you, dear Auttareya, do you remember?
Yes, I do, but I am also remember that I am free to do it. I hope that Harikeś also feels similarly.

Re: Reflections on the A-Z's of Life

Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 6:09 am
by Janus
harsi wrote:
Janus wrote: In Nectar of Instruction it is said that the disciple should examine a prospective guru to determine his qualification before accepting him, let the buyer beware. What matters it if someone gives you promise that he will take you back to Godhead if he is only in delusion about his qualification to fulfill that promise?
I like your way of writing very much dear Janus, you are a very learned man with whom one can discuss any issue of knowledge very open.
Therefore I would know your opinion about why do you think that someone should "take you back to Godhead". Would it not be moore apropiate to say I come close to this, my spiritual goal by using the knowledge and understanding I may get from it, by a qualified person, as a "guru" or guide for making progress in this endeaver of mine, if it is indeed so.?
The similarities between clinical psychology, in its relation between patient and therapist and the relationship between guru and disciple, as most people in ISKCON are familiar with it, is that dual relationships are frowned upon. In psychology it is illegal in most sates for a therapist to date his own patient for example.
This is for fear of counter-transference, a condition in which both sex and violent outbursts become greatly increased in probability. That such things can happen between both Guru and Disciple and Therapist and Patient when such dual involvement takes place, the devotees and the psychologists interpret it in much the same way. In either case it is considered that the Therapist or the Guru has lost control and that neither is as qualified as they should have been, the one through spiritual attainment and the other through academic degree. Nothing is blamed upon the patient or the disciple who is considered to be the one that has been victimized.
Such considerations are understandable, for both the reactions of the patients and the disciples are the same; their fondest illusions are destroyed and the disappointment and pain of emotional loss and feelings of betrayal can become overwhelming. One thing that is particularly important is that when the illusions of the disciple or the patient are crushed his oe her own self illusions become threatened.
Both the disciple and the patient become angry and depressed, and the guru or the therapist looses their reputation or license, and the whole thing ends up a mess, the patient or disciple perhaps being as far away from a cure (or farther) than he has ever been and not having any desire to have a go at it again.
A "Good" Guru or Therapist however is aware of their own lack of perfection, and knows how to help his patient crush his illusions about not only himself, but about the Guru or Therapist as well.
In this respect "Good" therapists are far more fortunate than ISKCON Guru’s are, who are forced to pretend that they are as good as God and worthy of worship. If this were indeed the general standard of qualification for a Guru then it no one would have one, for such persons aren’t exactly in plentiful supply, even presuming that there are any, or that any ever existed.
Having to have a Guru of this type or having to pretend to be a Guru of this type in order to have a Guru Disciple relationship has misses the whole point that any guidance is better than none and that for all intents and purposes, Guru is One, just as a particle of Gold is always Gold, no matter where you find it.
You might be surprised to learn how often the dullest and most ignorant of people have instructed me in truths numerous and profound, it is all in the attitude of the disciple, for the truths that he seeks are all around and inside of him. Either/Or is the disease, submissive, eager and relevant enquiry is the solution.
It works like this: Two people can be in the same existential situation but experience two very different visions of the "truth" If they are both modeltheists or fundamentalists, these different conceptual understandings of what the actual truth is will both be experienced as being "objective" and each of the participants will react passively. If both however are in heightened consciousness, seeking more and more information, (and not just conceptual, but sensual as well) every moment, both of the participants in this same space-time event will still have different visions, but each will be experienced as a creation and both participants will be involved. It is far more likely that in the second case that they will be able to communicate clearly and progressively and that some understanding or realization will develop and that they will understand each other. Transparent via-medium means only this, someone, or both may be the passive receiver or the active medium at any given moment, an a learning experience is shared. In the former case though, as like as not, both will fall into quarreling about who is being the more objective. In this discription we have been talking about only two human beings, but if "the doors of your tent are open wide to the firmament", then everywhere you look guru is there.Even a rock can instruct you.
In the typical relationship between Guru and Disciple in ISKCON however, we see a situation in which both persons are usually fundamentalists actively engaged in seeking only for those signals that affirm their conviction that either/or are qualified to assume their respective places as savior and saved, or in some unfortunate cases; as victim and victimizer, but such is the nature of this institutionalized insanity that no other options exist within its boundaries and then they all wonder why no one is becoming actually self realized or spiritually advanced. They never see that what they are condoning,
At least that is my take on it.
To set the record straight although I lived in ISKCON as a devotee for over a year, I never sought and actively avoided taking initiation and the point was not pressed, not because it wasn’t considered that I was not making advancement. But because the situation was unusual, even extraordinary. I had no peer pressure to accept initiation simply because I hadn’t any peers. I was for most of the time the single bhramachari of a temple community that consisted entirely of a woman’s traveling sankirtan party, a girls Guru-Kula, and their support network. Had it been otherwise I doubt that I would have been able to stay for I had some definite problems with Srila Prabhupada’s presentation, to which was added both an uncertainty as to whether I could accept Initiation within the tradition at all and some considerable concern that even if I choose to do so that I would not be able to keep the oaths that I would have had had to make once I left, which I intended to do should familial responsibility demand it of me.Most of this is to long to go into here, especially my problems then with the presentation. In regard to that I consider that it was presentation made according to time, place and capacity and not for me, which brought me to the second problem, the fact that I was already initiated into another tradition.
In the tradition of which I am initiated the penalties for oath breaking can be severe, so much so at one time that the penalty for oath breaking included death. This because other peoples lives and the lives of their families depended upon ones faithfulness to one’s oaths. There were other penalties as well, which I would discover over time, for I broke the greatest most sacred oath that I had ever taken, albeit under severe emotional provocation. Whatever else he was to you, Srila Prabhupada set me free of the curse that I had brought onto myself and suffered from for a long, long time, so I was most concerned about not being able to keep to the terms of the little oaths that I might make to him, not for fear of consequence to me, but out of appreciation of him. Even the meanest dog can feel appreciation for kindness done to him.
The reason that I was concerned that I might not be able to keep up my oaths is that one of the devotees in the temple, mother Svahna, had confided in me that Srila Prabhupada had said that it was impossible to keep up the regulative principles outside of the movement, and as already mentioned, I thought I might have to leave. Because of this, more so than anything else I did not seek or accept initiation, and this is what happened to me.
I got the call. My mother had had another seizure and falling had broken her neck about a week before and lay close to death. My father blaming himself, had died of a heart attack. Nothing could save my mother I knew, except perhaps only me. It was time for me to leave the movement, so I went into the temple room, offered my obeisance’s to Srila Prabhupada and explained to him my situation, that I could not be a devotee, if I could not be a son. He did not try to talk me out of it, he knew that I had made up my mind to follow my heart as I had followed my heart to his footsteps. He offered no objection to my heart. I asked though for his leave, promising I’d return some day when my mother didn’t need me to care for her anymore. I bowed down one last time in the temple room that had been such a place of spiritual healing and recovery to me. Once more I bowed down to the beautiful deities that I would never see again, to Lord Jaganatha, Lord Balarama and Lady Subhadra, and then I left.
Generally speaking, I’m sure that what Mother Svahna had said to me about devotees being unable to keep their oaths outside of the movement was right, but as I waited at the depot for the bus that would take me to the plane that would take me home to the funeral of my father and to perhaps the funeral of my mother shortly afterwards, a strange thing began to happen, a dark curtain that had obscured my vision for as long as I could ever recall was suddenly lifted. Suddenly I could see.
Oh such sights, my brothers. It was like as if you had been born in a dark room and had continued living in the darkness all of your life, not ever seeing a single gleam of light and then someone sets off a camera flash and everything that was hidden in the darkness is suddenly revealed in that bright flash of light . All around me spirit souls asleep.lost in hankering and lamentation, in ignorance as thick as syrup, in passion like hot coals to the touch. And suddenly I realized something. What mystic yogis aspire and devote their lives to for ages, Krsna sometimes awards as if it were the cheapest door prize to the least significant guest at a party. Not only was I awarded what would make it possible for me to honor the vows that I had never taken outside of the Krsna Consciousness movement, I had also been given the rarest of opportunities.
I was familiar with the bus depot, I had come and gone from it many times when I was still in the service and commuting back and forth between Ft. Lewis and the Seattle, but I had never seen any devotees there before, nor did I know that some of them used it as a base for their sankirtan activities in the city.
There were about 100 lockers in the depot, but I had no need of one. For some reason unbeknownst to me I just waked over to one of the lockers and opened it up. Inside was a bucket of carnations and a farewell note to the devotees at the temple from another devotee that had also left, his name was Dadhiharta.
Just a bucket of carnation that had been offered to Lord Krsna and me standing there, an obvious invitation to enter into devotional service in a liberated condition. I thought of my mother, that she would understand, but that she would still die in loneliness and heartbreak, so I shut the locker, turned and left, lest I forget and follow my bliss.

I was just in time to slip a copy of Bhagavad Gita into my fathers coat pocket before they closed the coffin lid, that and a necklace of tulsi with beads made from mud of the Rahda-Kund, that and to note his unusual haircut/

What was unusual about my fathers haircut was that he didn’t have a one. Even into his seventies my father had a full head of hair and although he would wear it in a business style I’d never know him to shave his head before, so I asked the mortician if he’d shaven my fathers head and he told me that he’d just finished the job my father had begun by removing the tuft of hair that my father had missed shaving off.

They had had to break his arms to get him into the coffin as when they’d found him face down on the floor with his arms stretched out over his head, he’s already been dead for a while and riggermortus had set in. Later on when looked at the room in which he had died I found on the little table some pictures I’d sent him of the Vancouver deities; Sri Sri Rahda Madana Mohana, those and a glass of water, some wilted flowers and some dried up slices of apple. My father had been a demon, his father, his, his, his, but my father had tried to follow me and had died offering his obeisance’s to Krsna. My father had died a devotee. Did I leave the movement? How could I ever leave?

My mother lived and I took care of her for twenty more years until she didn’t need anyone to care for her anymore. And when she finally left her warn out crippled body I could feel her all round me, such a vast and loving presence and free, free at last.

Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 8:39 am
by harsi
Your story and spiritual insight were winning me over. It seems to be indeed so, that there is someOne behind the scene who is steering our "ship" and has a hold on to it, if we so desire, and takes care that it may dock on ones somehow in time, at the right harbour on our spiritual journey to our all spiritual destination in life. Thank you ones again for sharing this spiritual insight to us, it answered all my questions in this regard.

Coming from insight my heart,
Harsi

Re: time and circumstance

Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2005 6:32 pm
by Janus
GPandit wrote:Personally, I never saw it or felt it as: guru promises to take disciple back home, back to Godhead. More realistically, the guru gives some tools and instruction in use of the tools. The disciple then has the chance and opportunity to use such tools for self-realization..
divyam jnanam yato dadvat
kurvat paspasya sanksyam
tas,mad dikseti sa prokta
desikais tattva-kovidaih"

"That process (working model) which bestows transcendental knowledge (divya-jnana) and destroys desires for material semnse enjoyment (subtle & gross) is called diksa by learned authorities in the absolutr truth"
Sri Jiva Bhakti-sandarbha (868)

Chanting 16 rounds and following the four regulative principles were the tools which Srila Prabhupada gave his Western disciples by which their material desires could be destroyed and transcendental knowledge could be attained to. This is all quite scientific. The only question then is whether the hypothesis could be proved through the utilization of these tools precisely. In short, does it work, or doesn't it? And if it does, even to a degree in anyone then one's personal failure may be attributed to a failure in the employment of those tools properly, either through lack of understanding or due to some other cause.
GPandit wrote: I wonder how one breaks an oath? By not chanting Hare Krishna a certain of number of times per day? Maybe the disciple has found that "tool" is no longer working well for him. So, he/she uses another method that works better. I don't see how it is helpful or nurturing to pine about "oaths", broken or not. But how are you progressing on your own, individualized path.
One breaks an oath in the same way as one breaks a promise, by simply not doing what one has taken an oath or made a promise to do. For isstance' if one has taken an oath not to harm anyone and then goes about laying waste to crops, making cattle and women barren, etc., for whatever reason, then it is considered that one has become an oathbreaker (or a Warlock in my tradition).

In the case of devotees who fail to execute their promise to chant a prescribed number of rounds in preference of doing something else which they consider to be more spiritually benificial, the warning on the usage of the Holy name state specifically that it is an offense against the name to consider any other name to be more powerful than the name of Krsna, (that any other process or method is better is inferred).

There is something that modern esoteric schools refer to as "the dark night of the soul", a time in which the means and methods that once so enlivened one seem stale, useless, and lifeless, and other methods more attractive. If one flits around from tradition to tradition attempting each one, but never working through or past this, one encounters this "dark night of the soul again and again", and so it is my personal opinion (since I believe that Krsna consciousness works through both my own personal experiences and through the testimony of devotees who I am acquainted with, well enough, to trust that their testemony is from experience), that one who has taken oaths in the Krsna Consciousness tradition should evaluate themselves before abandoning the process in favor of some other. If one finds that one still wants to enjoy material nature but was unfamiliar with his own desires well enough to stop him from taken oaths that he took, then I believe that a simple apology is sufficient to release one from the reactions to everything that he promissed not to do, but insufficient to protect him from everything that he may have did that brough harm to others. Again, this is only my opinion.