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Janus wrote: Only my mother was human. Now why did I write that all knowing one?

Hard to say, it is not easy for me to assess the motivation behind what you just wrote, as well as behind many of your comments here in this forum. First you make an assertion, like "don´t tread on my devotees", than you admit yourself that what Prabhupada did and said, may have to be seen and examined also in the context of the particular time, place and circumstances he said it, which may well have changed somehow since than. Some persons may consider this to be also a kind of doing, what according to what you wrote "before, whould not be good to do, at least I understood it in that way. Since that would, according to them, diminish in their concept the vallue of that person, as be-ing someone spiritually fully perfect and faultless.
But I would say however it may be, I consider your presence here in this forum and discussing with us this issues for our all better understanding as a great enrichment. Of course, I don´t know how others would also see or consider it to be.

Janus wrote: You cited Srila Prabhupada, so I will too.

"Once only, by their permission, I took the remnants of their food, and by so doing all my sins were at once eradicated. Thus being engaged, I became purified in heart, and at that time the very nature of the transcendentalist became attractive to me."

As I said earlier I have extended the benefit of the doubt to Hari because unlike the several former ISKCON gurus that I have met and studied I have neither met not studied him.

Was not Narada Muni also eating the remnants of the food from the persons who happend to come by at the home of his mother, in his former life?

Now does he admits that he would be a kind of guru according to the term it is understood today by some, or in connection with some disciplic successsion one would like him to be, otherwise he would not be bonafide in his deliverance of spiritual knowledge to us? Would not rather the practicality or way to apply that knowledge in ones life, in achieving the desired spiritual result of it, count more than if the knowledge one particular person may make known to us, would be bonafide or not, acording to ones particular understanding if that person is or not in connection with the parampara? What does it anyway mean really to be in connection with the disciplic succession?

harsi wrote: would be bonafide or not, acording to ones particular understanding if that person is or not in connection with the parampara? What does it anyway mean really to be in connection with the disciplic succession?

It seems more kind of a "mystic", "esoteric", "not easy understanding for us down people", I called it "a belief" thing. One can blandly do something hopping that the parampara will safe from the hands of yamaduts after death. Or without an effort from our side we’ll be filed with knowledge and go directly to the God’s home described in the "scriptures" where we belong, amen. And the question who are "we" who is gona fly to the "abode", what is all around us mater is, who God is, all this question and realizations are replaced with dead book’s knowledge. And quoting these book’s verses and repeating "parampara’s" words we think we are attaining spiritual heights. Who is more learned and able quote more these verses is more highly elevated person.


Isn’t God in us directly? Way He can’t guide us? Why all around world can’t guide us?

And why Prabhupada in his speeches was not all the time quoting his spiritual master and parampara.
And why, as Kamalamala said, he doesn’t want to print his spiritual master’s books first. Why he was sharing with us his realizations?

harsi wrote:

Janus wrote: Only my mother was human. Now why did I write that all knowing one?

Hard to say, it is not easy for me to assess the motivation behind what you just wrote, as well as behind many of your comments here in this forum. First you make an assertion, like "don´t tread on my devotees", than you admit yourself that what Prabhupada did and said, may have to be seen and examined also in the context of the particular time, place and circumstances he said it, which may well have changed somehow since than. Some persons may consider this to be also a kind of doing, what according to what you wrote "before, whould not be good to do, at least I understood it in that way. Since that would, according to them, diminish in their concept the vallue of that person, as be-ing someone spiritually fully perfect and faultless.
But I would say however it may be, I consider your presence here in this forum and discussing with us this issues for our all better understanding as a great enrichment. Of course, I don´t know how others would also see or consider it to be.

I don’t know that I’m capable of absolute faith, but I sure know that I have an absolute aversion to blind faith, but I seem to have been one of the few persons who accepted Srila Prabhupada who took to heart the instruction of Sri Jiva in the Nectar of Instruction (before I ever read it,) and actually tested him.
I have always accepted the principle that Guru is One and my test of Srila Prabhupada was based upon that principle, and he passed that test with flying colors in the most remarkable way which ruled out all chance of coincidence and related to me in such a personal meaningful and life affirming way that despite my absolute aversion to much of his presentation I accepted him, as Guru and I have never lost that faith.
Others may see it another way, but I can only think that thier trouble stems from a mistaken identification of the material with the spiritual. We are all familiar enough with the oft repeated admonishment that one should not regard Guru from a material perspective, that we should not accept any physical manifestation, such as a crooked back, blindness or any other physical imperfection as a sigh of spiritual imperfection. But we forget that there are two levels of physical manifestation, the subtle and the gross, mind and matter.
So according to this a Guru can have both gross physical imperfections and emotional problems, that just as he might need a back brace or some eyeglasses, he might also need a psychologist, and still be spiritually perfect and perfect also in his apparently imperfect presentation.
There is however such a stigma associated with mental problems that although most devotees can look at physical debilities manifested in their Guru’s body and not regard them, we still have a hard time with even the Guru can have be less than perfect in his mental presentation. The mere suggestion that Srila Prabhupada was influenced in his presentation by his conditioning, let alone viewing him from the perspective of a psychoanalytic profile isn’t just a taboo to some, they are so fearful that that it wil compromise them that anyone who might care to evaluate him in this way becomes a demon to them in their conceptual universe.
That doesn’t bother me. What they might not see however id that my evaluation of Srila Prabhupada is from a perspective which knows him to be Guru and which believes him to be an eternally liberated associate of Sri Krsna, presenting perfectly in accordance with time, place and capacity! an imperfection. In their minds it simply isn’t possible because Guru can never cheat and Krsna can never ask His devotee to misrepresent the truth, to tell a lie, even when it is in their disciples and devotees best interest that they should. But both Srila Prabhupada and Sri Krsna contradict this consideration with what they themselves have both said that they do and have also done..

Any apparent imperfection in Srila Prabhupada’s materially apparent presentation, both gross and subtle were controlled and brought about by Krsna. Imperfect they were perfect according to time, place and capacity.
So I am not seeing him at all as a conditioned soul, just examining his presentation which includes him and understanding it from the nearest thing to absolute faith in Guru that I can mange. Far from being debilitating it has been enabling. I actually understand a thing or two and have been empowered to do some very odd things in Srila Prabhupada’s and Krsna’s service.

We needed to examine certain aspects of his presentation and call him on them. Had we done so at the time, since his presentation was according to time, place and capacity, we might have gotten a very different presentation than the one that has come down to us, one that would have had a snow balls chance in Hell, and one that would have been acceptable to any progressive human being.


For instance,the most of us are familiar with Srila Prabhupada’s consideration that the slaughter of animals violated the Biblical Commandment not to kill.

Even a slight familiarity with the Old Testament in which God prescribes animals (including cows) as acceptable food stuffs to human beings contradicts Srila Prabhupada’s assetion and makes him look very uneducated upon a topic that he is pontificating upon. Just a few pages back from the Commandment not to kill were dietary rules of God’s children which prescribed animal food for human consupmtion.
His disciples shouldn’t have been ignorant of this, especially considering how many came from Jewish and Christian backgrounds, and should not have protected him from appearing ignorant in the eyes of educated representives of both these religions.

No one said to Srila Prabhupada that the rope that he was grasping was actually a snake. That should have been done when Kirtananada first crawled up on his lap begging for forgiveness, but the responsibility for policing the movement, so to speak, was ours. Instead he was made to carry everthing.

On this and on many other things the devotees themselves were responsible for the presentation not being advanced and for its horrible failure to provide for us an example of anything except of something that no man, woman or child should ever become a part of, for Srila Prabhupada could have adapted it at any time and at any place to our capacity should have chosen to test Srila Prabhupada in a spirit of relevant, submissive and eager enquiry and to insist that Krsna was also ours.
They carried this blind faith acceptance of absurd propositions, etc over into acceptance of the Zonal acharya’s and of ISKCON today’s presentation.
None of these entities however share with Srila Prabhupada a position of spiritual perfection so they cannot adjust a spiritual presentation from the perspective of a eternally liberated soul, they can only point to Srila Prabhupada as being mistaken, sexist, whatever, a well meaning person certainly, but not at all the expert upon everyting that he claimed expertise on, they can only point to him as being mistaken.

You have to go back to Srila Prabhupada to adjust. He isn’t dead and as Guru he can still adjust his presentation at any place and at any time according to your capacity, through his personal relationship with you.

What I was trying to communicate to A was that you cannot be Srila Prabhupadas disciple and the disciple also of anyone who was once Srila Prabhupadas disciple but who has lost their faith in him as perfect.

I haven’t questioned Hari regarding his personal attitude but he has stated that he is no longer a disciple of Srila Prabhupada/ Perhaps I misunderstand him but this seems to me to mean that he no longer has faith in Srila Prabhupada, that he has transferred some imperfections in Srilla Prabhupada’s presentation into the consideration that Srila Prabhupada was less than what he once considered him to be.


Of course I had a human father as well as an Otherworldy paret, that transforming energy from another world or plane, and besides my human mother there is also my psyche, that self in me which has come up the ages.

Perhaps I sound less lunatic now that I have explained it thusly, but don’t you believe it simply because I couch the explanation now in more Jungian and clinically acceptable terminology.

Jungian therapy has long been dismissed as ineffective by members of the psychological community and his thoughts regarding archetypes as being a bit to far out, beyond the pale of what is real. Discussion of archetypes has however leant an aura of respectability to the New Age and Occult communities who restore to the term its original meaning which Jung misinterpreted.

Jung did not go far enough. Even though Jung commented to his friend Carl Kereny that the subjects of his studies, the Olympians might have a personality, might be personal, might be persons, he stopped at declaring that the archetypical world was an actual spiritual dimension which interrelated with our own in his exposition, perhaps fearing that instead of being remembered as one of the two founding fathers of psychology he might instead have been dismissed as a lunatic.

Although interestingly enough Jung maintained the practice of corroborating his psychoanalytic profiles by casting his patients natal charts Psychologists today seem not to notice that the citadel of their science was built by men (Freud had a backgroung in Hebrew mysticism) whose personal considerations went beyond the realty of material fundamentalism into another realm where the Gods, Deva’s and Daimons might be perhaps real.

The consideration that human beings have other parents besides those of their birth bodies is not unfamiliar to the Hare Krsna’s. One of those other sets of parents includes one’s guru and his spouse, which may be translated in a continuum from life to life here as one’s guru and that guru’s relationship with his disciples psyche, or soul. There is the external relationship an an internal one in which Guru is interactive in a dynamic, way with his (or her) disciple in a continuum that goes from life to life.

In Bhagavad Gita Arjuna asks Lord Sri Krsna of the fate of the "failed" transcendentalent, fearing that one who does not complete his path towatds perfection in a single life might utterly perish, like a "riven cloud."

Lord Krsna sets Arjuna straight. But in the West there simple aren’t any families of learned transcendentalists in which to be born in, so does that mean that in the West they aren’t to be born? Not at all, but instead of into a family of learned transcendentalists they are born into a life situation that will facilitate their development and their service.

My friend the Lady Morwyn, Priestess and Witch, explained that once you are dedicated to the service of the Gods, if they need you to serve them some place they will get you there. Such an arrangment doesn’t always entail first class accommodations. Indeed if you are living confortably in some place like Kansas they may occaision that a Tornado picks up your house and drops you wherever you are needed.

When a person who has been initiated by a guru dies and when his master dies, does that relationship continue? Many disciples of Srila Prabhupada and of other guru’s believe "yes."

The relationship between Guru can continue, life after life and is independent of time and place, it goes on.

Death is no barrier in the relationship between guru and disciple, even when the master is dead and the disciple lives.

Was Srila Prabhupada eternally liberated only when he was alive?

A disciple who takes birth again is more so the product of the union of this "marriage" than he is the product of a biological birth. If one accepts that we are not these bodies it should not require to much of a stretch to grasp very, very ancient theme. Prabhupada was not my initiated Guru, I had been initiated long, long before to this life I was ever born. That is at least what I believe, so it is at worst a harmless lunacy, that and a very, very, very enabling one.

Janus wrote:
His disciples shouldn’t have been ignorant of this, especially considering how many came from Jewish and Christian backgrounds, and should have protected him from appearing ignorant in the eyes of educated representives of both these religions.

No one said to Srila Prabhupada that the rope that he was grasping was actually a snake. That should have been done when Kirtanananda first crawled up on his lap begging for forgiveness, but the responsibility for policing the movement, so to speak, was ours. Instead he was made to carry everything.

Thats indeed a whole new way to look at, how you say "Prabhupada´s presentation" of spiritual knowledge, which somehow also makes much sence to me, although I was not used so much to think that way. It seems that you consider and see his perfection as a spiritualy fully realized person more in the changed attitude towards this world and the reality of things, than in his be-ing somehow perfect in everything he said, wrote or did. Am I right with this my presumption? It´s also interesting in this connection how some go on also today with presenting spiritual awareness as a kind of "holier than thou" attitude, instead of becoming aware of their own responsability to present it more in a kind of changed attitude in seeing and vallue something, and act, speak, write or adapt their everyday life in this world and in the particular society of people they may happen to be in, according to this spiritual awareness, instead of just pointing with the finger at something, or someone and his presentation of spirituality.
http://www.godulike.co.uk/phpBB2/viewto ... 8484#18484 -

harsi wrote:

Janus wrote:
His disciples shouldn’t have been ignorant of this, especially considering how many came from Jewish and Christian backgrounds, and should have protected him from appearing ignorant in the eyes of educated representives of both these religions.

No one said to Srila Prabhupada that the rope that he was grasping was actually a snake. That should have been done when Kirtanananda first crawled up on his lap begging for forgiveness, but the responsibility for policing the movement, so to speak, was ours. Instead he was made to carry everything.

Thats indeed a whole new way to look at, how you say "Prabhupada´s presentation" of spiritual knowledge, which somehow also makes much sence to me, although I was not used so much to think that way. It seems that you consider and see his perfection as a spiritualy fully realized person more in the changed attitude towards this world and the reality of things, than in his be-ing somehow perfect in everything he said, wrote or did. Am I right with this my presumption? It´s also interesting in this connection how some go on also today with presenting spiritual awareness as a kind of "holier than thou" attitude, instead of becoming aware of their own responsability to present it more in a kind of changed attitude in seeing and vallue something, and act, speak, write or adapt their everyday life in this world and in the particular society of people they may happen to be in, according to this spiritual awareness, instead of just pointing with the finger at something, or someone and his presentation of spirituality.
http://www.godulike.co.uk/phpBB2/viewto ... 8484#18484 -

Kirtanananda, etc., were the effects, not the cause, the cause was Srila Prabhupada’s own apparent blindness to the fact that many, perhaps most of his disciples were to intellectually and emotionally immature to realize that they lacked the commitment, even the desire to be what Srila Prabhupada and Lord Krsna did, in fact empower them to be.
But had he recognized this how many of the 8,000 or so disciples who he initiated would he have accepted, two, three? But how could he have not recognized this whrn even according to Srila Narayana Maharaja and according to my own, once in a blue moon spiritually awakened perception, even a beginning middle class devotee has the ability to see or tell such things? Srila Prabhupada seemed at times completely blind and incredibly naive Was he, or was he just ignoring what was apparent to him because the only other option that would have been left to him was just to initiate the two, three or whatever disciples that were ready. That certainly wouldn’t have translated into an International Society of Krsna Consciousness with hundreds of temples and a global effect, but neither would it have translated into a history of horrible abuses.
Was Srila Prabhupada one of " The End Justifies the Means" kind of guys, willing to ignore both his own personal peril and the peril that his organization would become to the lives of his own disciples just to spread what, Krsna’s glories? Kinda hard to look at ISKCON’s history of abuse and speak of it as a glorious accomplishment, don’t you think?
Whatever, he certainly shouldn’t have allowed persons like Hansaduta whom he recognized as wanting him to die so that he could take over the movement, or Kirtananada, or Jayatirtha, etc.,to have ever been allowed off of a very short leash to be thought of as great spiritual personalities, but he did and we allowed him to do this.
We we should never have allowed it. But then again hind sight is twenty-twenty and as I have already said we were all of us lacking in emotional and intellectual maturity, what to speak of any real power to apparently go against the wishes of a pure devotee within his own movement. Who among us believing that Srila Prabhupada was a pure devotee of Krsna expressive in his every word and decision the will of God would have denied him anything he wished? Further who would have denied him at the risk of spiritual death, of offending him?
Many did, for what he wished was ultimately denied to him and what he most desired, that the Krsna consciousness movement would become the spiritual light to the world is now just another dark stain in cult history, a movement stained with blood and the worst of the worst of all crimes, the rape and even murder of its own children.
Do you see your movement now Srila Prabhupada? How bout you Lord Krsna? Is this what you wished? Is this what you will tolerate in your service? Then it is my personal opinion that the both of you can go to Hell.

Hmm?
I loved Srila Prabhupada, but I never took initiation from him into his movement and I left it before he even passed.

From an individual perspective I am greatful for what both Srila Prabhupada and Lord Krsna have done for me, providing me with my lifes most meaning, but as I look back now at the cost of it in human pain and misery, I cannot imagine that lord Jaganatha Himself isn’t seething in a rage so black that he would rather immolate Himself than to see any of this go on. So it’s back upon our shoulders, where it has always rested to right all the terrible wrongs that have been done in Krsna’s and Srilla Prabhupada’s names. Sadly though neither one of them have empowered me to do this all alone, and nobody else seems to be as faithful or as insane as I in thinking that such a thing is even possible.

As far as those who go along with whatever is said, a favorate poet of my youth, Lord Byron put it beautifully in his play Cain. In a dialog between Satan and Cain Satan says:

"Believe and sink not. Doubt and perish. Thus would be the edit of the other god who names me demon to his angels. They worship the word that strikes their ear and deem evil or good what is proclaimed to them in their abasement."

Some minds have an emotional need for certitude which even blind faith belief can satisfy. All the Bible and Thumpers and "Prabhupada said" folk fall into this type and any challenge to their blind faith threatens them. You cannot reason with the reasonless harsi. When existential pressure becomes so overwhelming as to compromise the ratinocinitive faculty there are only two responses possible, flight or fight. Most people can't even distinguish between logic and rhetoric, reason is not their forte anyway and since they are acting to relieve an existential pressure they just want a comforting explanation, not a challenging question. Your asking blind faith believers to question "God's word" and "Prabhupada said". It aint going to happen, so what's the point?

Thank you for your thoughtfull comment, which inspired me to think a lot, till a few days. I seems you have a good insight in this matter and the human psychology as well.

harsi wrote:Thank you for your thoughtfull comment, which inspired me to think a lot, till a few days. I seems you have a good insight in this matter and the human psychology as well.

The science of self realization deals with understanding who we are, what we are and where we are, right now. Because if we do not understand these things we will NEVER advance.

Krsna says

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

In other words it is actually impossible according to the author of Sri Isopanisad to ever become self realized unless you employ the scientific methodology in not only the study of the Absolute, but also in the study of Nescience and what else is nescience but our false identification with our mind-body complexes, our false ego’s.

As Westerners (including Europeans as well as Americans), the consideration that science and religion are two incompatible disciplines is so ingrained in us that we read over Srila Prabhupada’s claim that Krsna Consciousness is scientific with a certain bewilderment, even un-recognition or lack of comprehension of the implications of such a claim.

Because we are so conditioned to regard reality as fundamentally and only material we actually fear, deep down, that any attempt at employing science in our spiritual persuit will result not in an increase of faith and realization, but in its destruction. For science teaches us not to accept anything as even being possibly true without both evidence and reasonable conclusion and the religions that we have been brought up in teach us that to not believe without evidence is immediate disqualification.

If we seek to regard Krsna Consciousness from a scientific perspective WE fear that our bubble might be burst. So we shy away from pure reason like a balloon would shy away from a pin.

We are conditioned to believe that we must believe and follow blindly the dictates of whatever spiritual authorities or system we happen to adopt as means to fufil emotional needs and relieve existential pressure, and we are conditioned to believe that should we dare to entertain even the tiniest doubt in the efficacy of whatever system we have adopted that we shall be classed together with the faithless and that we shall be damned.

But that is our conditioning harsi, one that plays upon our hopes and on our fears to such a point that our intelligence is overcome, to the point where we accept blindly and then we are done, it is finished.

After that it will be impossible for us to ever transcend for in that moment we have made a pact with Hell, we have identified ourselves with our own false ego's fears and have thus given them absolute control over us.

How are you doing anyway, and what have you been thinking?

Janus wrote: How are you doing anyway, and what have you been thinking?

Thank you I am fine, and you? are you living there in the wellknown hills of Hollywood or nearby?

In regard to what you wrote it sounds reasonable to me, at the same time I know that I still don´t know that much, or am aware of that much I would like to be aware of. And actually therefore I engage myself also in dicussing this issues on this forum, thus I feel that I grow and understand myself better and better. And not to make anyone down in what he wrote, like some may understand, thats not really my intention. Rather to increase and grow in ones understanding more and more, would I say.
I am also somehow surprised how fiew are inclined to understand or see knowledge also from a philosophical perspective. I am a philosophical mindet person, or am very much inclined towards this approach of it, like you.

Just right now I read a very interesting book which I bought in Romania this year. Its a translation of a famous book of Sankaracharya. "Sarva-Darsana-Siddhanta-Sangraha, Compendiums of Indian Philosophies." (The Sarva-Siddhanta-Sangraha, transl. Mahur Rao Bahadur Rangacharya, Government Press, Madras 1909) http://www.booksformind.com/books.php?id=185

The book starts with the description of the Lokaayata system, sections of it to be found at http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archi ... /0027.html
Here the great Sankaracharya writes also in his discription of the System of Vedanta text 87:
"The Self must be known through itself, because it cannot be understood otherwise (or cannot understand itself otherwise). He is thus (of such kind) that (the understanding or awareness of it) goes(reaches) beyond speach (or words can describe) and of thought (manas)." - I try to translate from the Rumanian language.
He continues to describe the System of Yoga of Patanjali, considered by him an incarnation of Ananta, as a mean to become also aware of the atma our true self.

In his description of the System of the Sankya school, he writes in text 34-35:
" It can be proven that the individual souls are existing in each and every body, they are thus in a large number. If there would be only One soul of all beings, than all beings would die or be born at the same time. When someone sees something than everyone would see the same thing at the same time. Since the multitude or large number of the souls is a logical cause of argument (condition), to assert the non multiplicity of the "atman" is inadequate."
Sounds logical, or?

What is your impression on the following qoute from St. Augustine?
"Tho O God has made us for Thee, and our heart are restless until they rest on Thee." ... http://www.homestead.com/philofreligion/

harsi wrote:

Janus wrote: How are you doing anyway, and what have you been thinking?

Thank you I am fine, and you?

As well as could be expected. I got to carry a flag draped coffin last weekend. My wifes "baby" died. It's one thing to know through tangible spiritual experience that the soul never dies, quite another to know that someone died because of another man's lies. Optimism of the spirit. Pessimism of the mind.

Janus wrote: As well as could be expected. I got to carry a flag draped coffin last weekend. My wifes "baby" died. It's one thing to know through tangible spiritual experience that the soul never dies, quite another to know that someone died because of another man's lies. Optimism of the spirit. Pessimism of the mind.

I guess what you want to say is the following: The characteristic of Vedic philosophies is that they are not merely intellectual exercises, but instead they should also lead one towards having or becoming aware also of some direct spiritual experiences, like Krsna tells Arjuna in the Bhagava-gita, and thus they are rightly called darshana or vision.

The Nyaya and the Vaiseshika systems define liberation as a state of freedom from all pain. Samkhya and Yoga on the other hand expresses that discrimination between prakrti and purusa leads to liberation. Mimamsakas believe that achievement of heaven is the highest bliss. The Advaitic Vedantis, who follow Sankaracharya consider identity of the soul and Brahman as liberation, and as we know, the Vaishnavas Vedantis propagate realising oneself as a servant of the Lord.
And what is the common feature of this six systems?

It´s also interesting to know in this regard that Krishna and Balarama went to Gargamuni to take the vow of brahmacarya, celibacy. Afterwords, they went to live and reside at the school of the spiritual teacher Sandipani Muni at Avantipura and learn from him.
In order to teach the proper way to respect one´s teacher or guru, They served Their spiritual master with great devotion, as they would serve a Deity of the Supreme Lord Himself. Does that mean that They would have considered him to be as good as God, in the sence some may understand it today? Very unlikely in my opinion.

Sandipani Muni being pleased by their service, taught them the entire Vedas and the Upanisads. He also taught Them the Danur-veda (the military science) with its most confidential secrets; the standards books of law (Manu samhita and other lawbooks), he taught them the sixfold science of politics and the knowledge of the techniques of logical arguments, from the Nyaya sastra, the vedic science of epistemology and the doctrine of Karma-mimamsa and other such theories. Krishna and Balarama needet to hear each subject explaind only once to assimilate it complitely, and thus in sixty-four days they learned the sixty-four traditional arts of that time. Before taking leave of their guru they offered Sandipani Muni any gift he desired. Then they braught him back his son who died in the ocean at Prabasha and offered him to their teacher as a guru dakshina, thanking him thus for the teachings and science he taught Them. Then they went back to their respective homes in the society they lived, and the responsability of the guru for Them endet. The love and appreciation among the great guru and his most wanderfull disciples or pupils of course may have persisted. How could it be otherwise...

harsi wrote:

Janus wrote: As well as could be expected. I got to carry a flag draped coffin last weekend. My wifes "baby" died. It's one thing to know through tangible spiritual experience that the soul never dies, quite another to know that someone died because of another man's lies. Optimism of the spirit. Pessimism of the mind.

I guess what you want to say is the following: The characteristic of Vedic philosophies is that they are not merely intellectual exercises, but instead they should also lead one towards having or becoming aware also of some direct spiritual experiences, like Krsna tells Arjuna in the Bhagava-gita, and thus they are rightly called darshana or vision.

The Nyaya and the Vaiseshika systems define liberation as a state of freedom from all pain. Samkhya and Yoga on the other hand expresses that discrimination between prakrti and purusa leads to liberation. Mimamsakas believe that achievement of heaven is the highest bliss. The Advaitic Vedantis, who follow Sankaracharya consider identity of the soul and Brahman as liberation, and as we know, the Vaishnavas Vedantis propagate realising oneself as a servant of the Lord.
And what is the common feature of this six systems?

It´s also interesting to know in this regard that Krishna and Balarama went to Gargamuni to take the vow of brahmacarya, celibacy. Afterwords, they went to live and reside at the school of the spiritual teacher Sandipani Muni at Avantipura and learn from him.
In order to teach the proper way to respect one´s teacher or guru, They served Their spiritual master with great devotion, as they would serve a Deity of the Supreme Lord Himself. Does that mean that They would have considered him to be as good as God, in the sence some may understand it today? Very unlikely in my opinion.

Sandipani Muni being pleased by their service, taught them the entire Vedas and the Upanisads. He also taught Them the Danur-veda (the military science) with its most confidential secrets; the standards books of law (Manu samhita and other lawbooks), he taught them the sixfold science of politics and the knowledge of the techniques of logical arguments, from the Nyaya sastra, the vedic science of epistemology and the doctrine of Karma-mimamsa and other such theories. Krishna and Balarama needet to hear each subject explaind only once to assimilate it complitely, and thus in sixty-four days they learned the sixty-four traditional arts of that time. Before taking leave of their guru they offered Sandipani Muni any gift he desired. Then they braught him back his son who died in the ocean at Prabasha and offered him to their teacher as a guru dakshina, thanking him thus for the teachings and science he taught Them. Then they went back to their respective homes in the society they lived, and the responsability of the guru for Them endet. The love and appreciation among the great guru and his most wanderfull disciples or pupils of course may have persisted. How could it be otherwise...

Reminds me of the time when Rameswara was explaining to some guests (in Srila Prabhupada's presence) what Srila Prabupada "really" meant when he said that he saw Krsna. Prabhupada practically roared "No! I see Krsna!"
I am not so fortunate as to see Krsna. I only see the dead and the living.
I helped carry the coffin of a young American soldier killed in Iraq this past weekend. I still see his face and I see the face of my wife, her eyes practically swollen shut from crying for her child that on this side of the grave she will never see, never hold again.