hare krishna

'Did not Christ say: "Those who are heavy laden, come to me and I will give you rest"? Why not hold Him to that promise - why not give the Lord a trial?........

What is neccesary is for each one of us to give what we can. Don't calculate, don't plan. Whatever little you have to give to the Lord - give it today. Some days back Indira overheard one aspirant tell another: "I missed two hours meditation yesterday. Today I'll make it up". He did not realize that those moments he failed to think of Him were gone forever!
People say: "As soon as I get out of my present circumstances, I'll give myself up to the Lord". But this tommorrow never comes, it is eternally before us. Does a mother say "Tommorrow, after I do this or that thing I will love my son?" No, that is not the way. The hostile forces will see to it that your circumstances remain always with you.
If you cannot give yourself completely to Him today, then pray that you may be able to do so tommorrow. Only give what you can today. If you are sincere there will always be time to remember Him, no matter what we are doing. If we truly want Him, He is bound to change our circumstances if they are unfavourable. I defy anyone to disprove this. The crux of the trouble is that we do not really want Him.'

Ma Indira Devi in 'PILGRIMS OF THE STARS'.


'We are told to abstain from fleshy desires that we may loose no time from the work of the Lord. Every moment lost is a moment that cannot be redeemed; every pleasure that intermingles with the duty of our station is a folly un-redeemable, and is planted like the seed of a wild flower among our wheat. All the tortures of repentance are tortures of self-reproach on account of our leaving the Divine harvest to the enemy, the struggles of entanglement with incoherent roots.'

'He who waits to be righteous before entering the Saviour's Kingdom will never enter in there'. (my italics).

William Blake in 'JERUSALEM'.

 

Hare Krishna!

Dear Nicole,

Thank you!


Dear Bill,

Thank you for the wonderful post!
Truly it says that the time gone does never come back and we waste the opportunity to look at Him for the period lost.That is why it is so important to form the habit of remembering Him through the process of doing Japa. It can never be done by planning. Continuous Japa or 'Smarana' removes the ideas of preponing or postponing the thing that we must do, that is to remember Him, to thank Him and to talk to Him(This automatically happens when Bhav becomes deep and continuous. He is never away from us, He never leaves us. We, the egoistic souls, just deny to accept His existence even ! How can He show up? ..................

Thank you again for the post causing Bhav(Thought) for the Lord again.

Love,

Kumar.

 

Thanks for sharing that Andrew....
---
Something a bit different...

"The Hardest Part is People

The hardest part is people
So Lord, help me face them
without rancor or disappointment
Help me to see the pain behind their actions
rather than the malace;
the suffering rather than the rage

And in myself, as I struggle
with the vise of my own desire--
give me the strength to quiet my heart,
to quicken my empathy, to act
in gratitude rather than need.

Remind me that the peace I find
in the slow track of seasons
or an uncurling fern frond,
is married to the dispair I feel
in the face of nuclear war.

Remind me that each small bird shares atoms
with anthrax, with tetanus, with acid rain,
that each time I close my heart
to another, I add to the darkness;
Help me always to follow kindness.

Let this be my prayer."

--Karen Holden

 

Hare Krishna !


He is inside us, He never leaves us. He shows up to him who prays for Him with love, bhakti and prem.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Patram pushpam phalam toyam yo me bhaktya prayacchati
Tadaham bhaktyaupahritam ashnami prayatatmanah"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Whatever in love one offers Me
Fruit, water, flowers or leaves
My heart in joy receives
To bless My devotee"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"There was a priest, a very poor Brahmin, in Brindaban, who used to weave garlands daily from dawn to midnight for the Lord. That was his only sadhana : he went ever on offering such garlands to the Lord. But the Lord was mute like the marble he worshipped till, after twelve years, the Brahmin concluded that the Lord would not come to life in the Image to accept him and make him His own. So he decided to drown himself in the Jamuna. As he was about to take the final plunge , the Lord as Balgopal appeared before him, barring his way and said : 'If you drown yourself to-night, my dear, who would weave garlands for me tomorrow?'

In the Bhagavat He said to the Gopis that He absented Himself from them temporarily only to deepen their thirst for Him.

Love,

Kumar.

 

Thanks both for the quotes. I hope this may be of interest also.




“Now you might ask, what is detachment, since it is so noble in itself? Here you should know that true detachment is nothing other than this: the spirit stands immoveable in all the assaults of joy and sorrow, honour, disgrace or shame, as a mountain of lead stands immoveable against a small wind. This immoveable detachment brings about in man the greatest similarity with God. For if God is God, He has it from His immoveable detachment, and from this detachment He has His purity, His simplicity and His immutability. And therefore, if man is to become like God, as far as a creature can possess similarity to God, it must be by means of detachment. It is this that leads man to purity and from purity to simplicity and from simplicity to immutability. And these things bring about a certain similarity between God and man. But this similarity must take place through grace, for grace draws man from temporal things and purifies him from all transient things.”



Miester Eckhart.

 

Beautiful, bill. Reminds me of a verse by Goswami Tulsidas, from his Ramcharitmanas:

prasannata ya na gatabhishekatah
tatha na mamle vanavaasa dukhatah
mukhambujha shree raghunandanasyame
sadastu sa manjula mangala prada.

May the face of Sri Rama,
which did not light up with joy upon hearing of his impending coronation,
nor cloud over with disappointment upon being sentenced to live in the forest the next day,
always bring grace and goodness to me.

 

"Prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us."


Saint Teresa of Avila.

 

Dearest Andrew,

That is a beautiful quote. Thank you.
----

A random and beautiful picture post!

 

Hare Krishna!


Dear Bill,

That's a wonderful quote from Saint Teresa of Avila, thank you.

Love,
Kumar.

 

Hare Krishna!


Dear Nicole,

That's a very beautiful photograph! How do you manage to get them?

Thank you so much !

Love,

Kumar.

 

Truthfully...I went to google images and typed the word :"Sri Krishna" and it was the one that jumped out of the page and said : "Post me!" hehehe

 

So yeah, Hare Krsna - read Monkey on a Stick and looked at all the abused children.

You will tell the tree by the health of its fruit.

 

Yes - we know all about the abuses in ISKCON - there are previous posts to this thread giving links to details. But - ISKCON are one small sect within the much larger compass of hinduism. The majority of people in this world who believe in Krishna are not members of ISKCON, or even adherents to it's off-centre teachings.

 

Are we talking about Hare Krsna or Hinduism? Hare Krsna is, as a Brahmin friend of mine once said (rather too rudely for my tastes) a kind of Hinduism-lite that tries to distill centuries of religious thought into "dance around mumbling a Sanskrit limerick."

I wouldn't say it quite so disrespectfully, but Hare Krsna != Hinduism.

 

What your friend says is right, but perhaps needs a little more adding to get a truer picture.

The Hare Krishna movement, known as ISKCON, are a particular sect which derives from Hinduism. But just as in the west, there are many churches and sects who worship Jesus Christ, in India there are different lines and schools of yoga, many of whom acknowledge the Divinity of Krishna. It is mainly Bhakti Yogis, those practicing devotion who are focused on Him.
From a philosophical standpoint, your friend is quite right that the ISKCON teachings represent 'hinduism-lite'. And worse, they are very narrow minded and closed to anything but their own teachings.
And still worse, the whole movement is completely corrupt, including in the past to the extent of serious criminality. To-day it's a fragmented mess. If ISKCON people find my saying that disrespectful, so be it. But it is true.

This thread has gone from Hare Krishna to Hinduism in general to pretty well anything connected with spirituality.

*peace*

 

I think that is def. safe to say that that is indeed what has happened to this thread....lol...

 

What makes me really sad is that the ISKON have taken a truly beautiful school of Hinduism, Gaudiya Vaisnavism, and totally defiled it. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a great bhakta and truly noble person, but now his name is inextricably tied up with ISKON, because of one bad disciple in the lineage.

 

That's about right Bhaskar. And I notice that, presumably because they seek to defend the indefensible, they've all stopped posting on this thread. It is sad that the very thing meant to liberate people leads only to increased bondage to narrowness and division.

 

Hare Krishna!



Dear IronGoth,

Welcome to this thread which, to the best of my understanding, is all about God, His messages and His devotees. Let us concentrate on that only. When you start churning anything to obtain something in particular, undesirable things will automatically come and separate out(Because you don't want them).

Names of God, His devotees and religions are different but we are all trying to understand that it is one with so many differences. He has become good and bad as well, so we cannot have love and hate feelings. Can we go above these feelings? That is the whole point.

Love,

Kumar.


Very nice posts from SGB, Bill and Bhaskar.....Thanks to all of you.

Love,

Kumar.

 

Actually Bhaskar, it is worse than that, because prior to Srila Prabhupada's coming to the west, the situation in the Gaudia Math back in India was pretty bad. The details of this are hard to get at, but it seems that there was some dispute over the lineage on the passing of Bhaktisiddanta Saraswati - as I understand it, false claimants put themselves forward, and the norm became "kill guru become guru". Nor do the Gaudia Math people accept that SP was the true successor. At least, so far as I can ascertain - they don't exactly broadcast this stuff, in fact, they'd like to keep it hidden.
So it's not just SP who is to blame. The thing seems to have been pretty corrupt before he came west.
I get no joy from these posts denouncing ISKCON, I feel it sad that it is neccessary. I would only say that as I know a few ex-devotees, who have suffered badly due to the fallout from all this, I just feel it's sad if young people get mislead.

In a way, It's similar to the situation with Christianity, where there is a history of corruption etc. in the Church. One can criticize the church, that doesn't mean Christianity is a fake or has nothing to offer. It just means it has become twisted and distorted. Similarly, although some of these so called devotees are both ignorant and corrupt, it doesn't at all mean that Krishna is no good, or that there aren't very sincere and pure devotees around. (I know you know that is so Bhaskar).

Where Sri Chaitanya is concerned, it is a shame there isn't more literature in English about Him. I don't actually know of any other book than SP's 'Golden Avatar'. (of course there are references to him in many works by various writers) If anyone does know of an alternative life of Chaitanya, I'd be very grateful to hear of it.

*peace*