Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

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harsi
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by harsi »

Nanda-grama wrote:I agree with you that any situation when somebody demands that I should accept a confirmation of some" authority" without questions is strange and not very spiritual. But look, Krishna didn't demand that Arjuna should bow Him and accept His words without questions, He acted as friend of Arjuna. He argued His thought during 18 chapters and then said: Do how you want! (this is I defend Krishna :) )
Well, good for you. But I have the impression that we talk here at cross purposes. My point was the understanding of authority as it was or is understood among certain people. You know authority does not equal authority. Being authoritative does also not necessarily equal being authoritarian. One can also ask someone, authority in what? An authority, expert or professional on this and this subject or this academic or spiritual field? You see authority has also more meanings as one may think.

To be considered an authority in his field has something to do with confidence, faith and trust in someone's ability, professional competence or outstanding knowledge in a certain field of knowledge or activity. But having access to or being in relation with such a source of knowledge or outstanding "authority" in his field does not free you to cultivate or gain that kind knowledge on your own. The son of my sister is studying at an engineering school. He was choosing the university in the town of Coburg some 100 km far away from Nuremberg because he heard and considered that the professors there would be an authority in their field, much more than at the University here in Nuremberg. But still he will have to develop and gain that knowledge he may receive from his professors or outstanding authorities in their field, on his own in order to qualify himself one day as a mechanical engineer.
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by Nanda-grama »

I think I understand the meaning of word " authority" which you use and about what you write here. But this term is desided for me very long ago and therefore it is not very interestingly for me. I am not a member of some organization and if I learn from somebody I choice this people not because they are acknowledged authoritetive by somebody but because I like this people, what they speak is interestingly and actually for me and it helps me in my life. I prefer to experience, to feel things and for me "to know" means to experience directly it. For example, you wrote this quotation from Shishtashtaka, but this is simply words for me if I don't feel same.
In ISCKON I didn't feel Lord Chaitanya, I liked very much Krishna. But once, two years ago we( my friends and me) celebrated Gaura-Purnima in closed circle, and we began to play. We invited Lord Chaitanya to come into everybody and to speak through him( we used techniques of Helinger, but indeed in sanscrit it called " aveshkara"). We invited Him into everybody and asked Him our questions. When my turn came, it was very interestingly to feel as Lord Chaitanya feeled. Of course His display was limited by my perception, but then in the first time I felt how He was wonderful. I felt His very friendly, very tender treatment to me and to all who were there. And it is interestingly, when I "was" Lord Chaitanya, I sow differently. I didn't sow limits of the room, there were not any walls, and our party was not limited by several people, I sow many-many people and other beings and all they radiated as stars. Not only me, but all participants of it, when they "were" Lord Chaitanya, sow same things. Among us there was the girl who never befor heard about Lord Chaitanya, but when Lord Chaitanya " was into her", she felt striking experience, she answed our question quite good. And small girl, the daughter of host, told wonderful for her age things! There was atmosphere of love and holiday, and in the first time I had feel and understand Lord Chaitanya and love Him. After this I attitude to Lord Chaitanya absolutely differently, He for me is not simply somebody who somewhen walked in India and chanted Holy names,even if it was God.
If God is, I want to associate with Him right now, and I don't worry about what how much it is "authoritetely", and I don't need somebody "more great" would tell me how I should do it.
But I like to listen to somebody who want to share his experience, and again, I don't worry about I should or should not accept his words. If I like it I try to experience same tings. Therefore this topic about use of Krishna consciousness for manipulation with people seems to me strange a litlle. If you don't want it nobody can manipulate you.
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

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I am sorry, dear Nanda-grama, if I may have offended your`feelings. Such was not my intention. On the contrary I like it to awaken feelings or affection or produce interest or passion for the particular details which are sometimes overlooked in regard to why we may have acted or thought in a certain particular way in the past or even now. As you may know, "the devil is in the detail."

Lovingly,
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by Nanda-grama »

Dear Harsi, no, I quite was not offended . May be, it sounded so in my bad English. I participated in this topic because it did some resonance in me. All is ok. :)
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

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That's nice. Its always better to also follow ones heart. I was thinking the other day how one could best describe the meaning of the word "authority" as it was understood by many of us before. We were all young people at that time and often not so well educated or did not have so much life experience. In our closed circle or society of "devotees" our opinions about curtain issues like this one were often second-hand opinions or views or habits adopted from others or the way they were understood and disseminated or "preached" by others.

And often this "preachers" did not had o broad or wide view about this issues rather the specific narrow or antiquated views and opinions of the specific group or society of people some of us were associating with. If one can speak at all about an own opinion in this regard, since such a thing was completely discouraged or seen as counterproductive for the goal one had in mind, to "become" Krishna conscious. It was understood that only through complete surrender or a kind of mental or intellectual self-abandonment to the view of the "authority" meaning mostly the guru and the specific understanding of the content of certain scriptures such a thing as "becoming Krishna conscious" would ever be possible.

An "authority" had to fulfill certain criteria as understood in the group in order to be also acknowledged or respected as an authority. He did not had to just explain or disseminate knowledge as an expert or "authority" in his field but it was understood that he would had to also live exemplary according to the common understanding of the community members, in order to be viewed and accepted as an authority whose teachings or knowledge one could follow and live ones life accordingly. Live by example so to speak. Otherwise what ever such a person would talk or teach, however reasonable or informative, or however meaningful or full of common sense one may consider it to be, would have to be rejected and considered meaningless for ones "progress in Krishna consciousness". And that although Prabhupada himself said so often in his lectures that even from a dog one could learn something. But at the same time he founded and encouraged this narrow or conditioned way of seeing and thinking in the society he founded. So much for to see and describe things from an insider's perspective.
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

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Generally, this is good thing- to speak and to live by same way. But it should be so-at the first to live according own nature and to then to express it . In ISKCON all was on the contrary- there was definite matrix of what person should speak and then he tried to live according it. As all speakers should repeat words of Prabhupada, they should live by same way. The ideal of life was to be as Prabhupada. Or for example, it was easily to find out disciples of Vishnupada- they was such small Vishnupadas- had same manners and even same glasses :022 :022 :022 :004 When I came to ISKCON I just finished to training in conservatoire very successfully,but " authoriteties" told me: if you want to be disciple of Vishnupada you should sell books. I thought:" why should I sell books? I never sold something!" They told me: "understand,mataji, when you play violin your desecrate consciousness spreads itself through this music. In order to be purged you should preach!" After I had studied to sell books good and to do it not simply as sale and to get enjoy from it. May be, I suppressed my nature then but ,may be, I found some other aspects of myself. Any way this was not my choice.My husband who cooks very tasty was cook in ISKCON and all loved his " prasadam" but he always thought about himself as about a person of second sort because he could not cell books good. Even when he became president of a temple he thought that he could not satisfy his spiritual master because he was not good distributer of book :? . The nature of man and person himself was not valuable in ISKCON, it's energy or egregor simply used people.
But now when we are not in any organization there is good possibility to live and to express oneself according own nature. Indeed this is not very simple task.Different patterns influence our " doing". Hari spoke about what how " doing" would be after-effect of " being". If we could do something to outcome from what we are it would be real enlightenment and spiritual progress. I interest it more than what was in ISKCON. I think generally this combination of " being" and "doing" is secret of any success . This is key for any creation, may be, this is secret of all sum of things, why all exists. And it is not simply a kind of philosophical point of view, it may be very practical thing, very useful. I think that to conscious what we are is real spirituality. And this aspiration to become better, to develop oneself-can display itself through wish to express own being more completely. Again, you can say that I simply repeat words of Hari as words of an " authority" but I think about it because I really interest it, because it resonates with me ,although it seems to me , I understand this things differently than Hari.
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

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Dear Nanda-grama, if someone (for example Harsi) says you accept Hari as authority (for example about ,,being,, and ,,doing,,) why should you (or anyone else) feel ashamed and try to defend your independent image by additional explanations (like your feeling of Hari's unity between ,,being,, and ,,doing,, is different from his own). As Vaclav Havel said: ,,from the comunists worst are only anticomunists,, I don't think a general stigmatisation of ISKCON-people (headed with their founder), as if they (and ourselves amongst all others) were brainwashed, will make anyone (including ourselves) different from them. Instead of trying to discontinue ourselves from our past, it would be better to try to improove our present by accomodating paterns of the heritage to our individualistic reality (like your uniqe use of avesh-fenomenon described in Caitanya-caritamrta in relation to the behavior of Nrsimha-Bramacari), so that our future wouldn't be likewise artificialy burdened by our present. And, Harsi, speaking about ,,the devil,, (of the ,,details,,), the sceptical part of our personnalities would be satisfied with starting to exemining concret details that aren't consistant with our personal preferances (at least not anymore). For example, visiting an ISKCON-centar on the Gaura-Purnima celebration, I heared on the lecture that this year they celebrate 500 years of Gouranga's taking sannyasa. Now, considering the description of this event by Krishnadas Kaviraja, the devotees felt worse than if they would have given their own lives, so what is there to be celebrate about? By the way, celebrating the departure of an acarya (we used to sing ,,ye anilo prema dhana, koruna pracur...,, you remember) is somethimg I always have had hard time to accept as reasonable. How could sadness inspire anything spiritual in anyone (at least in someone like me, who already strugles with enough pesimistic paterns of behavior)?
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by Nanda-grama »

Yes, Aradhya, you are right, I should not justify myself if I like and interest something and somebody or I learn from somebody. This is Harsi influenced on me so. :020 :)
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

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Nanda-grama wrote:Generally, this is good thing- to speak and to live by same way. But it should be so-at the first to live according own nature and to then to express it. In ISKCON all was on the contrary- there was definite matrix of what person should speak and then he tried to live according it.

Image.Simhacalam.de - Photos


As you may know consciousness is understood to be not a product of matter but rather a symptom of the soul. Read more >
When we look at all the people on the photo above who are gathered in the temple room of the Prahlad Nrsimhadeva temple in Jandelsbrunn in the south of Germany close to the border to Austria one may ask oneself why do this people actually behave in such a way? Grown up people who are bowing down in front of a plant. Very, very strange. Are this people not in their right mind or why are they doing such things? Is this the way to act like a grown-up person an onlooker from outside might ask.

But for one who is living within such groups like ISKCON or others of this kind such a behavior might be quite normal. The reason to do such things and behave in such a submissive manner every morning, or whenever one may meet ones guru, another swami or come in front of the deities of Radha Krishna or Lord Nrsimhadeva might be or is self-evident and natural. Now one may ask why is this so? The answer is because one accepted such a behavior as a means to an end or goal, to become Krishna conscious, self-realized and so on. And as the proverb goes there's no fool like an old fool, one does or may really believe and have faith in this "process of devotional service," a term invented by Prabhupada as a description for the Sanskrit term bhakti yoga. And often this "devotional service" was and is understood by the members or followers of such groups as a kind of "military service" or "social welfare service" (book distribution and so on) for the other people whose souls were "struggling in the clutches of maya", which is or was practiced and executed for the goal one had or has in mind. Growing on the job so to speak and become Krishna conscious, God conscious, and realize or become aware of oneself as spirit soul, part and parcel of the Supreme Soul and act and behave accordingly. And since many are or were too young to be experienced one is or was really believing that such a thing would be indeed possible.


Image


As you may know the concept was that everything belonged to Krishna, to the deities on the altar. I remember in this regard an incident from my time (in Iskcon) when I was put together with another man to be in charge and to take care of the cows and bulls of the Nrsimha farm seen above, here in Germany. It was around the year 1986 when a young man came on a visit to the farm in the Bavarian forest near Passau. He stood overnight and decided than to stay longer. On the ground floor of the temple building seen above was the kitchen and a few rooms where we were eating together, man and woman in separate rooms, on the first floor was the temple building and a few other rooms and the office of the temple president. On the second floor were the living rooms were the brahmacaris were sleeping at night on the floor in their sleeping bags, there were no beds. The woman were living and sleeping also on the bare floor in the building seen behind the temple building.

Than there was some free place for sleeping under the roof, the garret, were we sometimes also deposited some things. This man made there his place to stay and to live in "Krishna's temple". The first time he was OK, he helped us during the day in the cow barn or house. There was a lot to do we had around 14 cows, and 8 bulls or so, I don't remember the exact number now anymore. It was summertime and in the morning after milking the cows we were driving them outside on the pasture ground for grazing (there are around 10 hectares there) and in the evening back to the cow barn were we were milking the cows. It was a full time job of around 12 hours a day. We were engaged also a lot with the agriculture. So after some time this man felt that this work or "devotional service" was to much or to hard so he very often was not helping us anymore.


Image Temple room in Simhacalam


He was just staying and sleeping in "his room" under the roof and just came to eat prasadam whenever it was served to the members of the community. He was reading a lot and was also participating sometimes to the morning and evening temple program where he always heard during the lectures that this was Krishnas temple, where we were all living and serving, that we were all members of Krishnas society, ISKCON and so on. So he slowly developed the understanding that we were all just guests in the house of Krishna or in this case Lord Nrsimhadeva. So as a guest he felt he could do whatever he liked and nobody could force him to work or do anything, since he was just a guest among all other guests, meaning us. And that the building he was living was not ours or anybodies rather belonged to Krishna and the deities. Who is Krishna? Well who knows what his understanding was.

After two or three weeks this behavior become to much for our temple president, Ashoka Kumara, who felt that this man is not in his right mind since he was just eating and sleeping so called on the expenses of others meaning us all who were living and working there. So he one day went up the stairs and under the roof and told this guy to leave the building since he was not working anything or was not doing any "devotional service". I was at that time also in our sleeping rooms on the second floor and listened to the conversation.


Image


The man was just defending his right to stay in "Krishna's temple" and Ashoka Kumar had to even force him physically together with a few other man to get him down from "his living room" in "Krishnas temple." This event just shows that all this talk is just relative. All to often it was just a pretext to defend ones own understanding or point of view. As the saying goes "faith can move mountains" but cannot necessarily prevent one to make a spectacle of oneself.


Image Photos
Last edited by harsi on Tue Mar 09, 2010 6:01 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

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You both ilustrated your points very impressively. So I draw a joined conclusion like this: The mistakes made by accepting someone's authority for the sake of doing it (just as a habit transfered to us by a tradition) shouldn't make devotees of a new tradition out of us, namely people who follow the fascion of subpressing the natural tendency of all of us (we can't excuse ourselves that we were naive youths, now we are far from youthness but still we continue to cultivate our common sentiment anyway, by negating it could we do anything but confirming it?!) to follow (or why not to be impressed by) the example (at least selectively) of someone we consider (at least temporary) as more advanced than ourselves. Admitance is half-relieved guilt, isn't it?
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

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It never ceases to amaze me your great insight in the certain potential relationships or causal relation among that what we may purport to be and that what we actually may really be. I find also that a fault confessed is half redressed.

We also can never see past the choices we don't understand. But its also so that denial is the most predictable of all human responses. In one sense we're all here to do what we're all here to do. Even if we might have great regrets about something we might have done ones in the past (like joining this or that group of people, or behaving in such and such a way) it might be so that we might had to go through all this in order to make the experiences we ones intended to make in order to grow in our understanding or consciousness.

Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness. I like what you said above that "The mistakes made by accepting someone's authority for the sake of doing it (just as a habit transfered to us by a tradition) shouldn't make devotees of a new tradition out of us." Thats just plane common sense but when you are living within such group of people one often looses ones common sense and may adopt that of the group.
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by Nanda-grama »

from this another question comes- why and how much we allow other people to influence on us, independently on what this people are "authoriteties" or not. How much are all we connected one with another, how much do we influence one on another, what is this interpenetration one person to another? The well-known example is with this butterfly who flaps in one place of globe to cause twister in another place...How much can we avoid influence of other people on us, and how much is this independence necessary for our self-determination? And simultaneously how much is interaction with other people important for our self-development? :roll:
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

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I wouldn't be surprised if Bhaktivinod Thakur realy said that Krishna-consciousness (social behavior according to the awareness of the simultanious unity and diversity) will prevail firstly in Russia and Prussia(Preussen). He wouldn't have said that about banana-corrupted Balcans-states, in his time they were even worse than they are now. I don't know if he predicted that Germany and Russia (including the stats between them) would have survived the temptation of totalitarianism that couldn't annihilate the cultural (and probably spiritual) potencial of their people. Of course, you, starwariors both, are stil rare kind of people in your countries too, nevertheless I am sure you will find appropriate social circle to share your realisations with (without fear of being inauspiciously influenced). Don't expect my virtual assotiation to replace the possibility given to you by your living circumstances! I'm rarely in situation to do even that. And please try to somehow persvade Hari to cast his benefficial influence more regulary all over the (rest of the) world! So long!
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by Nanda-grama »

:031 :)


:roll:

you self can try to inspire Hari.
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Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

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In my opinion our conversation here on this forum is not or should not have the intention to just patronize somebody or to condemn or make anyone down, person, society or community of people. At least my intention in this regard is to exchange my realizations or experiences with others with the hope to come to a higher understanding of all of this experiences we may have had or made in the past or even now. To consult together so called what we may have had or have in common or what we may see or have experienced differently due to whatever reason.

In the vernacular this is also called, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained". In my opinion we are all here on this earth to grow together or you can also say we're meant to be together although we may not always agree. Otherwise why would we be here in the first place?

"A mind once formed finds naught made right thereafter; A growing mind will thank you evermore." ~ J. W. v. Goethe, Faust I
Last edited by harsi on Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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