What was the point?

[harsi]

Get off it Harsi, unless you have spiritually awakened vision you don't know if Prabhupada was any different from a million other people wanering the street who think God has sent them on some mission and is talking to them.
Whatever, you do not seem to think that what God was telling Srila Prabhupada was the truth. So in your mind Srila Prabhupada was a saintly man, just misguided and that what he presented us with was bhogus.

I think the difference between your approach on what Prabhupada had to offer to us and my approach to it, is best described by using the example of two man who are hungry and are searching for something to eat. They find at least something to fill their stomach with, and sit down at the table to satisfy their hunger. One of them takes the spoon in his own hand takes the food and filles it in his mouth, while the other one is just sitting there and stares at the good food, hoping that his hunger may thus be satisfyd, and he may thus become happy and more strong by doing that. What do you think who will fulfill his desire to satisfy his belly better? The one who takes the spoon in his own hand and starts to act, or the one who is just sitting there, and stares at the found eatables hoping that doing so his hunger may be satisfyd somehow?

The same thing may be applyd in ones spiritual life, Prabhupada surily made known to us that there exists an unsatisfyd hunger of the soul, now does that mean that we should just stay and stare at what he said and at his personality and hoping that this problem of us may be solved thus, or rather take our life in our own hands and try to find out what helped Srila Prabhupada to become aware of that problem and try to fix it ourselves

"The Peace Prayer" ... http://www.san-francesco.org/index.html ..His Prayers

[harsi]

I loved Srila Prabhupada. I loved the way he;d get so excited at each new shipment of the Bhagavatam. How a devotee would rush it to him and how he'd caress it, saying that "there are no books like these."

Srila Prabhupada did also "invented" the term "devotional service" as I was reading ones in the Vedabase.
Here Satsvarupa dasa Goswami is writing in the introduction to the book Narada-bhakti-sutra: "In 1967 Srila Prabhupada translated and wrote purports for thirteen of the eighty four aphorisms (he caled them "codes") of the Narada-bhakti-sutra. In 1989, at their annual meeting the GBC suggested that I complete the book. I was pleased to accept the assignment, especially because of my involvement with Srila Prabhupada initial writing of the Narada-bhakti-sutra....

...At first Srila Prabhupadas translation of the Narada-bhakti-sutra went quickly. He sent tapes of his dictation in the mail, and I transcribed them along with the tapes he sent for his major work, Teachings of Lord Caitanya. From the beginning it was understood that Narada-bhakti-sutra was a kind of "extra" for Srila Prabhupada. But it had it´s charm, and Prabhupada approached it in his inimitable way. I was surprised, on receiving the translation for the first aphorism, to see how Srila Prabhupada translated the word bhakti. The edition he was using translated bhakti as "devotion" or "Divine Love". But Srila Prabhupada "translated" bhakti as "devotional service."

Even by this one phrase he indicated that bhakti was active and personal. He would not tolerate any hint that bhakti was a state of impersonal "Love". It was significant that he begin this first purport with a reference to Bhagavad-gita the foremost scripture for teaching bhakti-yoga. The Narada-bhakti-sutra or any other treatise on devotion to God, should be supported by Krsna´s direct teachings in Bhagavad-gita."
http://www.vedabase.net/nbs/introduction/en1 .... http://www.vedabase.net/nbs/1/en1 .... http://www.naradabhaktisutra.com

Now does Krsna really supports only this explanation of the term bhakti? I mean the soul within is anyway just in an observing position on the material plain and not really activ in the way one may have understood "devotional service" as only something activ without being involved also with ones heart and loving emotions, or?

[Janus]

Get off it Harsi, unless you have spiritually awakened vision you don't know if Prabhupada was any different from a million other people wanering the street who think God has sent them on some mission and is talking to them.
Whatever, you do not seem to think that what God was telling Srila Prabhupada was the truth. So in your mind Srila Prabhupada was a saintly man, just misguided and that what he presented us with was bhogus.

I think the difference between your approach on what Prabhupada had to offer to us and my approach to it, is best described by using the example of two man who are hungry and are searching for something to eat. They find at least something to fill their stomach with, and sit down at the table to satisfy their hunger. One of them takes the spoon in his own hand takes the food and filles it in his mouth, while the other one is just sitting there and stares at the good food, hoping that his hunger may thus be satisfyd, and he may thus become happy and more strong by doing that. What do you think who will fulfill his desire to satisfy his belly better? The one who takes the spoon in his own hand and starts to act, or the one who is just sitting there, and stares at the found eatables hoping that doing so his hunger may be satisfyd somehow?

The same thing may be applyd in ones spiritual life, Prabhupada surily made known to us that there exists an unsatisfyd hunger of the soul, now does that mean that we should just stay and stare at what he said and at his personality and hoping that this problem of us may be solved thus, or rather take our life in our own hands and try to find out what helped Srila Prabhupada to become aware of that problem and try to fix it ourselves

"The Peace Prayer" ... http://www.san-francesco.org/index.html ..His Prayers

In your panic you're confusing yourself harsi. On the one hand you criticize the heirachical and mechanical process that Prabhupada presented us with, while on the other hand infer (without conscious appreciation that you are doing so) that you are the staunch practicioner of the very mechanical and heirarchical practice that you have criticized.
The process that Srila Prabhupada gave us was the "spoon" and the mechanical process of eating (which recognizes the hierachy of the head, or mouth rathery) which had to be fed before the stomach was satisfied.
mouths demand to be fed before the stomach.

[harsi]

I personally in my own understanding of things would classify or consider myself somehow "above" if one could say it like that, of this classifications or divisions or different processes of receiving or become aware of some wisdom or spiritual awarenes in life, dividet according to different religious systems. On the plain of the soul this divisions does anyway not exist. Thats my understanding by using wisdom or spiritual knowledge I find apropriate to make clear what I consider to be important in what I want to say here, from different sources. I like to consider myself a "searcher" of the Truth, and go through life with my eyes open, to find that Truth wherever it may start to manifest Itself acording to It´s own indipendent desire to manifest or reveal Itself in this world and in the awareness of the various spiritual entitys present here.
I don´t like to go with any ... through life, as maybe some are used to.

According to what you say about Prabhupada, again we speak by passing by to one another with our arguments, would I say, I meant something different from your understanding of things. I just know that when I want to become perfected in some discipline even on the so caled material plain, I need to come to the right understanding of things myself, even when I may use until I become aware of that, the wisdom or knowledge I may get or receive from someone else, who went before me or is going now, on this his own way to become aware of that. I don´t know why you so much insist that only Prabhupada´s understanding is the all in all what counts on becoming aware of that. Didn´t you described yourself as being a scientist or a former scientist? The scientist I know have a somehow different approach to discover or become aware of something in this world and their own understanding of things in life. Thats my understanding about this. Nothing to fall in panic over something, this are just some friendly talks among each other here, would I say, or would anyone see it differently?

[Janus]

I don´t know why you so much insist that only Prabhupada´s understanding is the all in all what counts on becoming aware of that. Didn´t you described yourself as being a scientist or a former scientist? The scientist I know have a somehow different approach to discover or become aware of something in this world and their own understanding of things in life. Thats my understanding about this. Nothing to fall in panic over something, this are just some friendly talks among each other here, would I say, or would anyone see it differently?

I never insisted any such thing, harsi. What I lately did was point out a glaring logical inconsistancy in your presentation. Must I now also now point out your usage of rhetoric? Please be carefull of what you see.

Science is a methodology consisting of a combination of sense data and pure reason. Our false ego's however are excellent at perception mangement and there are also many different systems pf pure reason each which may reason and conclude differently and all of which being vested in the raticinative faculty contain their own contradiction to any proposition. We must prove each step. Eventually we get tired of infinite regress and eternal argument and come to a singular conclusion in our look see for what we can discern of spirit by out study of matter. Neti! Neti!

But this does not mean that we abandon our objectivity in the areas in which science can discern that which of us impedes our progress, or that we should abandon the study of nescience. Indeed, we must not.

Vidyam cavidyam ca yas
Tad vedobhyayam saha
Avidyaya mrtyum tirtva
Vidyayamrtam asnute

Only one who can learn the process of nescience and that of transcendental knowledge side by side can transcend the influence of repeated birth and death and enjoy the full blessing of immortality.

Sri Isopanisad Mantra 11


" We place no reliance on virgin or pidgion. Our method is science, our aim is religion." 666

[Janus]

Today I was surfing in the internet and suddenly came to one Hare Krishna forum.
And people there are speaking about harimedia.net, Hari, that everything here are bogus, "new age" and all kind of nasty things.

But it was fanny to observe how they approach to each other there. All their letters start:
Please accept my humble!
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

When I read that approaches I remembered fashist ‘s approaches in movies.

It seems that Praphupada was powerful spiritual person but organization becoming with every year farther and farther from reality. Trying to replace own real understanding and realization with somebody’s realization. It’s like trying to satisfy thirst by word "water" or somebody else’s drinking water.

"Truth is one of the many propositions used to hold together a system based on violence."

The ultimate value of any tradition claming of transcendence lies in it’s ability to provide liberation to it’s adherents, to elevate them to the platform of the actual Absolute Truth. That and one thing more in those traditions claiming of themselves both transcendence and Theistic, the ability also to attain it’s adherents to personal loving relationship with God. EVEN WHILE THEY LIVE.

Tradition for tradition sake is a perversion and a tool of oppression.

The truths that we come to accept, to believe in, are oftentimes fictions, systems of metaphors created and used by cheaters to control and manipulate us, to launch us into unjust and insane wars and to place us into the machine of their paradigm, where slowly or swiftly it grinds us to dust.

[harsi]

Thank you dear Janus that you helped in neutralizing somehow this negative energy I felt it would like to take over our discussions here. We have reached again a somehow equal understanding regarding the truth we discussed here, would I say. I especialy find very enlghtning that what you have mentioned here:

Only one who can learn the process of nescience and that of transcendental knowledge side by side can transcend the influence of repeated birth and death and enjoy the full blessing of immortality.

[Gaura]

Janus have nicely said about the tradition.

I can add to that, I feel that no tradition could bring person to anywhare. I can’t tolerate anymore when somebody manipulates me by telling if I do this I’ll get that in the future. Especially when he says that steps is written in some very old or modern literature.

The path of progress is very individual and to say for all go that direction is useless. I mean I’ll accept if someone will tell, go inside and move trying always hear your inside voice, try to be always conscious of all of your actions, like cat on the tree making his steps very consciously aware of every moment in around world. I like to accept help from someone who can help me widen my consciousness and help me reach the truth myself. I will never again (at list in this life), make something because somebody just told me to do it for reaching something in the future.

All disputes is useless because everyone has his point of view. And in dispute to come to one’s understanding is impossible. Truth is impossible to explain by words. Especially in debates and even without debates. The only thing by which it is possible to make us to come to same conclusion is direct perception of the try. The feeling of that perception is the same for everyone. That is way when I start to argue in this forum a little bit longer I start to feel that it’s becoming mundane, useless. So I am, sorry for this.

[Janus]

Janus have nicely said about the tradition.

I can add to that, I feel that no tradition could bring person to anywhare. I can’t tolerate anymore when somebody manipulates me by telling if I do this I’ll get that in the future. Especially when he says that steps is written in some very old or modern literature.

The path of progress is very individual and to say for all go that direction is useless. I mean I’ll accept if someone will tell, go inside and move trying always hear your inside voice, try to be always conscious of all of your actions, like cat on the tree making his steps very consciously aware of every moment in around world. I like to accept help from someone who can help me widen my consciousness and help me reach the truth myself. I will never again (at list in this life), make something because somebody just told me to do it for reaching something in the future.

All disputes is useless because everyone has his point of view. And in dispute to come to one’s understanding is impossible. Truth is impossible to explain by words. Especially in debates and even without debates. The only thing by which it is possible to make us to come to same conclusion is direct perception of the try. The feeling of that perception is the same for everyone. That is way when I start to argue in this forum a little bit longer I start to feel that it’s becoming mundane, useless. So I am, sorry for this.

Tradition is one of the words that we are talking about and it can be no more than a system of agreed upon lies that take us worse than nowhere.

On the other hand I am sure that you consider the tradition of providing a general education before one launches into a specific field of study to be of some value, if not an absolute necessity. Please then do not throw the baby out with the bath water. Srila Prabhupada himself dispised the tradition of following a tradition for tradition sake (Veda-vada-rata). The implication of this is that we would also dispise ISKCON not only for what it has become, but for what it has at best apparently remained, a group of very neophyte devotees whose abysmal lack of relaization prohibits them from articulating Krsna consciousness according to space-time and individual capacity and personal needs.
This does not mean however that the tradition that Srila Prabhupada gave us must remain like this, or that it is only like this.

"Whoever has any practical experience of the different methods of spiritual development knows that the method must fit the temperament, and that it must also be adapted to the grade of development of the student. Westerners, especially such as prefer the occult to the mystic Path, often come seeking initiation at a stage of spiritual development which an Eastern guru would consider exceedingly immature."
Dion Fortune

People in general are quite intellectually and emotionally immature, especially here in America as they are heirs to a system of education that has been dumified since even before the 60's and which doesn't teach them how even to think, much less the ability to differentiate reason from rhetoric, much less the ability to analyze oneseld to the degree that one's own actual motivations become apparent to themselves.
Thus many people joining the movement were not even aware of why they joined it although they may have a greater degree of realization as to why they left it or why they stayed on, but this is not however gaurenteed.
People in general joined the Hare Krsna movement for the same reasons that people join any other messianic movement and it has nothing to do with any philosophical justification (search for the truth), it is rather to relieve existential pressures and to fulfill emotional needs, something that even blind faith can relieve and fulfill.
A man can believe anything that the earth is flat and has four corners, that the moon is further away from the earth than is the sun and that it is made of green cheese, anything, even that we (U.S.) needed to invade Irac because they had weapons of mass destruction after we had already bombed them back into the stone age.
It is to the advantage of those who whish to create beliefs in us so that we can be manipulated through those beliefs into sending our sons and daughters to die to increase their bank accounts to keep us stupid and unself realized and most especially to keep us from recognizing that belief equals ignorance.
Three people, an Theist, and Atheist and an Agnostic sitting altogether, the Agnostic in the middle and the Theist and the Atheist on either of the outsides argueing. Of the three of these, the Theist, the Atheist and the Agnostic only the Agnostic is self realized, for the Theist and the Atheist propose from positions of blind faith ignorance; belief and disbelief that they know that God is or isn't so. Only the Agnostic is self realized because he knows that he doesn't know while both the Theist and the Atheist have done the most dangerous thing imaginable, they have confused their positions of ignorance (belief and disbelief) with knowledge. They think that they know.
A man will live for his beliefs, may even die for them and may kill for them also, all in the service of those evil men who know also what I know, but who keep what I have just told you a secret, jo that you, your son's and daughters can fight and die to increase their bank accounts. The Krsna consciousess movement as it was after Prabhupada and as it is today seems still to me a microcosm of this. But was what Srila Prabhupada presented to us only that which was capable of being twisted and perverted into this? I'd say no, and I'd say no from the position of experience. I have been to forever, experienced the eternity of my soul. That and I know that Lord Krsna exists, we have an eternal and loving relationship. I am the friend of His devotees although I myself am no devotee at all. Prabhuada gave me this through his presentation and through my utilization of it to fulfill not just an emotional need but because of some damned philosophical justification that has afflicted me since childhood. I do not need to believe to fulfill my emotional needs, I have to know, all my little ducks must be quack, quack, quacking all together in a row, everything must be centered and relational to that center, so I do not believe in Krsna, nor in Srila Prabhupada as a spiritual master, tailoring his message according to time, place and capacity.

Srila Prabhupada related to me very personally and he was very appreciative of my individual perspective. I got the VIP treatment. I had a whole temple in which I was the only bhramachari most of the times and which was otherwise the center of a woman's traveling sankirtana party comprised of beautiful young girls. I had my own dieties, my own cook, my own intimate relationship with Srila Prabhupada and a forest of tulsi and within all of this I pretty much got to do my own thing. Srila Prabhupada was so supportive of me that he even sent out a letter to every temple president in the world to help me through a difficulty, conforming by putting into ISKCON law what had to be right for Krsna to be real. My God is God, and Srila Prabhupada was his arrow, shot straight into the very heart of darkness by his own guru. That Giant demon that Srila Prabhupada has slain is still in its death throws and may wash the earth red again and again before it breaths its last. We need to shorten the interum between here and the dawning of the Golden Age to alleviate human suffering. Whether we do or not will not stop the dawn, just that none of us will be alive to see it and the material reality of a atom bomb crater where Vrndavan used to be, won't be a pretty thing for our great, great, great, great gandchildren to wake up to the sight of, to that and to the rest of thw world poisoned, raped and ravaged

"If we intend to take our occult studies seriously and make of them anything more than desultory light reading, we must choose our system and carry it out faithfull until we arrive, if not at its ultimate goal, at any rate at definite practical results and a permanent enhancement of consciousness. After this has been achieved we may, not without advantage, experiment with the methods that have been developed upon other Paths, and build up an eclectic technique and philosophy there from; but the student who sets out to be an eclectic before he has made himself an expert will never be anything more than a dabbler."

Fortune again.

You can use Srila Prabhupadas system to attain to transcendence, it can work. It is not the only system that works. Even Wicca works, and that is a new age tradition whose claims to continuity with a surviving gross material historic tradition has been disproven. It has continuiity and works, sans the need of any of that for in a transcendent tradition such things are conveniances.

Anyway that's my two cents.

[Gaura]

Three people, an Theist, and Atheist and an Agnostic sitting altogether, the Agnostic in the middle and the Theist and the Atheist on either of the outsides argueing. Of the three of these, the Theist, the Atheist and the Agnostic only the Agnostic is self realized, for the Theist and the Atheist propose from positions of blind faith ignorance; belief and disbelief that they know that God is or isn't so. Only the Agnostic is self realized because he knows that he doesn't know while both the Theist and the Atheist have done the most dangerous thing imaginable, they have confused their positions of ignorance (belief and disbelief) with knowledge. They think that they know.

Nice story.
I think all three of them are in God. Whether believing, not believing or hesitating.

The difference between self realized soul and three others is understanding (realizing) of the Truth.

I like what you said. But I think all the time be aware of the eternity and us witnessing our action in this world, which is also part of the truth, is helping me more then other paths. I value present moment more then the past history.

[Janus]

I loved Srila Prabhupada. I loved the way he;d get so excited at each new shipment of the Bhagavatam. How a devotee would rush it to him and how he'd caress it, saying that "there are no books like these."

Srila Prabhupada did also "invented" the term "devotional service" as I was reading ones in the Vedabase.
Here Satsvarupa dasa Goswami is writing in the introduction to the book Narada-bhakti-sutra: "In 1967 Srila Prabhupada translated and wrote purports for thirteen of the eighty four aphorisms (he caled them "codes") of the Narada-bhakti-sutra. In 1989, at their annual meeting the GBC suggested that I complete the book. I was pleased to accept the assignment, especially because of my involvement with Srila Prabhupada initial writing of the Narada-bhakti-sutra....

...At first Srila Prabhupadas translation of the Narada-bhakti-sutra went quickly. He sent tapes of his dictation in the mail, and I transcribed them along with the tapes he sent for his major work, Teachings of Lord Caitanya. From the beginning it was understood that Narada-bhakti-sutra was a kind of "extra" for Srila Prabhupada. But it had it´s charm, and Prabhupada approached it in his inimitable way. I was surprised, on receiving the translation for the first aphorism, to see how Srila Prabhupada translated the word bhakti. The edition he was using translated bhakti as "devotion" or "Divine Love". But Srila Prabhupada "translated" bhakti as "devotional service."

Even by this one phrase he indicated that bhakti was active and personal. He would not tolerate any hint that bhakti was a state of impersonal "Love". It was significant that he begin this first purport with a reference to Bhagavad-gita the foremost scripture for teaching bhakti-yoga. The Narada-bhakti-sutra or any other treatise on devotion to God, should be supported by Krsna´s direct teachings in Bhagavad-gita."
http://www.vedabase.net/nbs/introduction/en1 .... http://www.vedabase.net/nbs/1/en1 .... http://www.naradabhaktisutra.com

Now does Krsna really supports only this explanation of the term bhakti? I mean the soul within is anyway just in an observing position on the material plain and not really activ in the way one may have understood "devotional service" as only something activ without being involved also with ones heart and loving emotions, or?

The soul can act on the material plane, but only in devotional service.. What do you think Jivan Mukta's do, those liberated while still in their bodys when their souls awake Is serving Krsna then a material activity? Is serving Krsna ever a material activity? What of serving Krsna's Devotees. Do they not still call this Bhakti?

I do not see that Prabhupada's definition of Bhakti is anything other than the most exspansive definition of love that I have ever heard.

Ah, to be a person in the eyes of those whom we love. What could there be that would make us want to climb mountains and swim oceans for the pleasure of just a smile? But to be loved by those who are the objects of all of our attraction? What could be possibly be more fullfilling than that? Even if there is no possibility that we can ever be more than friends, we still have that smile and then we have our lives anyway, what better than to live them just for the sake of that memory, devoted to the loves that our love loves, serving her from far away to one end that her happiness and joy should ever increase and that her love should never sadden her, never end?

Devotinal service means serving our love, even if we never see them again.

[harsi]

Devotional service means serving our love, even if we never see them again.

I would agree to this, and say yes, "live" your love in your encounters with others and in your relationship with the Supreme as well. And when that is being done from the plain of the soul, thats the best approach to express that love, and the supreme fulfillment of love as well, would I say. Isn´t there a saying that God is Love? Of course one would have to also become aware of what that really could mean.

[Janus]

Three people, an Theist, and Atheist and an Agnostic sitting altogether, the Agnostic in the middle and the Theist and the Atheist on either of the outsides argueing. Of the three of these, the Theist, the Atheist and the Agnostic only the Agnostic is self realized, for the Theist and the Atheist propose from positions of blind faith ignorance; belief and disbelief that they know that God is or isn't so. Only the Agnostic is self realized because he knows that he doesn't know while both the Theist and the Atheist have done the most dangerous thing imaginable, they have confused their positions of ignorance (belief and disbelief) with knowledge. They think that they know.

Nice story.
I think all three of them are in God. Whether believing, not believing or hesitating.

The difference between self realized soul and three others is understanding (realizing) of the Truth.

I like what you said. But I think all the time be aware of the eternity and us witnessing our action in this world, which is also part of the truth, is helping me more then other paths. I value present moment more then the past history.

I have yet to meet any other single person who has "realized" their souls eternity, but even if they had, such a position of realization does not remain a constant.
It's like climbing up a mountain. Finally you reach the top and from that vantage you can see everything below you. You can set there for a while but finally you must go either up or down, you must engage in some activity and if that activity isn't devotional service to Krsna you will go down.
I had this realization once and of course I have the memory of the experience and can understand it intellectually, but that isn't "realization", for realization like you say is in the here and now.

The two out of the three that we were talking about may very well be in God but they are also in ignorance and are ready to kill each other for what they believe. That's the point so please do not try to minimize it by interjecting something that you mean to be profound for in the context of the situation seems absurd to me. Bring them out of Ignorance first and stop them from invading Irac, from killing and dieing for what the believe. then you can go "Oh Wow, they're all in God." I'm sure that Krsna doesn't mind waiting.

[Gaura]

I have yet to meet any other single person who has "realized" their souls eternity, but even if they had, such a position of realization does not remain a constant.
It's like climbing up a mountain. Finally you reach the top and from that vantage you can see everything below you. You can set there for a while but finally you must go either up or down,

Yes you are right to always be there is almost unreal. The place for residing at first is not like mountain - wide place to sit there for a while, it’s more resembles a razor blade. It’s too thin for one to be long there. But when we are assertive this razor blade starts to widen. We can be there a bit longer and longer. And to reach there is becoming comparatively easier and easier. Even to be close to that stage is cooling the head, the mind stops bubbling all the time and we can see things more clearly. I’m saying this from my experience, I’m not just read it!
And about going upward from that place, where you know if you have no experience of that? The filling you had why you think is superior to that mountain. Is it because somebody told that?

you must engage in some activity and if that activity isn't devotional service to Krsna you will go down.

Firs what is "devotional service to Krishna"? Wake up at 4am in the morning, go to Mangala arati, be on class of Srimad-Bhagavatam!. It’s silly. For me to have huge eagerness to know the truth ourselves without concoction, without blindly following somebody is a "devotional service to Krishna".

The two out of the three that we were talking about may very well be in God but they are also in ignorance and are ready to kill each other for what they believe. That's the point so please do not try to minimize it by interjecting something that you mean to be profound for in the context of the situation seems absurd to me.

To belief in God or not belief in God is the same. They don’t know both. They both are in ignorance of darkness and the third one is by definition is in ignorance the only nice thing compare with other two that he accept it and has a chance more quickly reach the truth.

Bring them out of Ignorance first

Who am I to bring them out of ignorance if I’m just accidentally sometimes was on top of the mountain. I can just share with my eagerness and some real realization hoping that it can be of help to them, who knows who is right or wrong! Who is more close to that mountain.
Today I have a thought at night. The place after death is should be like when we are in dream. We start some action in night dream with some relative and while the action is going on the person become some other relative. I mean we end up the action and look at this relative we become surprise, look he is another one. Like this also in this life. We think we know something for sure but after sometime it gradually become another thing. The only thing what is real is our stupidity.

and stop them from invading Irac, from killing and dieing for what the believe. then you can go "Oh Wow, they're all in God."

Whether killing or being killed we are in God. I don’t say they are right that they are killing, or for me it’s the same. I mean when we are coming cloth to the Reality we see the ones and that people are in ignorance of themselves.

And I don’t go "Oh Wow, they're all in God."

My dear Janus even you are in God. Because where else can you be?

[Janus]

I have yet to meet any other single person who has "realized" their souls eternity, but even if they had, such a position of realization does not remain a constant.
It's like climbing up a mountain. Finally you reach the top and from that vantage you can see everything below you. You can set there for a while but finally you must go either up or down,

"The filling you had why you think is superior to that mountain. Is it because somebody told that?"

I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your last question, I do not recollect any mention of any feeling that I had during my experience of the eternity of my soul. Now that you mention it however, I’d say eternity is bigger than any mountain for it is after all quite measureless.

"Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings" Krsna

Mere belief on the other hand is not as comforting as the experience.

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you must engage in some activity and if that activity isn't devotional service to Krsna you will go down.


Firs what is "devotional service to Krishna"? Wake up at 4am in the morning, go to Mangala arati, be on class of Srimad-Bhagavatam!. It’s silly.

There is an old Zen saying:

"Before enlightenment; chop wood carry water. Ater enlightenment; chop wood carry water."

My how I envy you, I haven’t got up at 4 am in the morning to go to arati or the a.m class on the Bhagavatam in almost 30 years. But I do now and then manage to get to a Sunday Feast, perhaps my experiences during which might enlighten you as to whyI hope to never become so jaded as to consider such things to be a waste of time.

They must have been hard up for speakers on that night, whoever it was however had gone off upon some tangent, some development that he was interested at the time. While I was listening to him I began to get a stream of realizations that had nothing to do with his lack of profundity, explanations of what things meant in relation to Krsna. As I sat there congratulating myself and feeling rather smug I just happened to glance up at Lord Balaram, whose eyes of course were looking at me, as they seem to be looking at everyone. There was a difference however in His facial expression. Where normally Lord Balaram is smiling, He was frowning, frowning at me. It was a complicated expression, exactly like the frown of a parent whose child is amusing him, of whom he is proud, but to whom he also wishes to convey that something that the child is doing or feeling is not good for him. How long Lord Balaram could have managed to keep that frown before he busted out laughing in joy I do not know, but it is written that Lord Krsna destroys the false pride of His devotees.

Those realizations coming through the speaker though having nothing to do with him were Krsna’s gift to me, not anything that I had achieved independently (although I did know something about the occult topic that the speaker was talking about, more so than he, I might ad) The realizations given me that night were beyond anything available anywhere upon those topics, I know.

For coming all that way to see Him, to listen to a speaker not very interested in Bhagavatam, who didn’t know a hundredth as much as I knew about the topic that he was talking about, Krsna filled in for him, providing me with knowledge to push the envelope, if that is what I wished.

Language is hypnotic. Prabhupada was aware of this, as was Lewis Carrol, the author of Alices Adventures in Wonderland. Say that a thing is boring, say that it is a waste of time, and lod and behold it is.
We took a cat and put wires into his head and then placed a ticking clock up next to his cage. We then congratulated ourselves for through our advanced science we could tell that the cat was hearing the clock ticking.
We left the wires in and the ticking clock right where it was and then we took a cage full of mice and placed it up beside the clock. We expected that the cat would ignore the clock but what we did not expect is that it wouldn’t hear it (it was a very loud clock). But the cat didn’t have to ignore the clock for it had turned off the clock, at the ear.

If it’s mice or anything else you want, there’s a lot of things that you won’t see and or hear, especially if you’ve already categorized something as being boring, silly, pointless, or in other words of no interest. If you cannot find Krsna or Guru in the temple, where do you think that you will find them?

" Even when you can see Krsna and Guru in everything and everywhere rising up at 4 am to attend arati and Bhagavatam class might not be as boring or as silly as you might think, unless you’ve already made up your mind that they are."


After I left the movement I used to go into Woolworth’s five and dime department store. It was only a couple of blocks then from where I lived and it had parakeets and finches. I didn’t imagine that I could engage any human being in devotional service but I could always chant Hare Krsna to the parakeets and finches, it had a soothing effect on them. One day I had finished chanting to them and was walking down an isle toward the exit when I stopped. I just stopped. It wasn’t a conscious decision at all. I just stopped, for no reason whatever. Then I began to walk again in another direction. I was waking straight in a beeline, towards who9 or what I could not imagine. Then I looked up and noticed that I was walking towards a girl behind the lunch counter. I stopped in front of her and said hello and asked her for her phone number, no discussion, no attraction, she gave it to me.

I called her a day or two later and went over to the place that she was staying. She told me of how unhappy she was with life, of how she yearned to find a spiritual community, and I hadn’t even mentioned Krsna Consciousness, religion, God or anything. She kept on and on and on until she drug it out of me. The next Saturday I drove her down to the Los Angeles temple and surrendered.

She had had to drag it out of me anything to do with the Krsna consciousness movement because I knew that the Krsna Consciousness movement was in the jaws of wolves and I feared for the safety of anyone entering it. But she was so desparate and had even been praying so hard and so sincerely that Krsna had used me, so I told her, but held in reserve what I knew, not expecting her to just surrender so damn suddenly. But everything I told her about Krsna consciousness was what I still believe Krsna consciousness to be about She surrendered to my presentation and then she surrendered to what she thought was that presentation and I kept my mouth shut, never telling her that her soon to be guru was in Maya, etc. This I could see.

As it was she had surrendered so suddenly with no knowledge of anything about Krsna conciousness besides what I had told her that the authorities at the farm community where they sent her were suspicious of her and delayed her initiation for over a year.

Krsna protected here where I couldn't, saving her from the worst abuses. Still she got passed around from one advanced devotee to another. She had wanted a nice husband, not to be passed around by devotees who pretended by day that they were staunch brahmacharis but who called her to "worship" them at night.

I didn’t know about this while it was happening and learned about it only many years afterwards, many years after she had left the movement and was living with her little daughter as a devotee, worshiping Krsna, taking prasadam and greatfull to me and to Krsna. Today like so many others she is still a devotee just not a member of ISKCON.

She was the last devotee that I "made." Since 79 Krsna hasn’t taken control of my senses and directed me to say anything to anyone that would lead them to join ISKCON

But there are other things that Krsna has had me do that are quite amazing.


"For me to have huge eagerness to know the truth ourselves without concoction, without blindly following somebody is a "devotional service to Krishna".

Krsna Consciousness as a science doesn't require your belief, it requires you to conduct an experiment with yourself as the subject, to raise you up to the position in which you see.