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The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Sri
Krishna, and His eternal consort, Srimati
Radharani are enjoying transcendental pastimes in
the topmost planet of the spiritual world, Sri
Goloka Vrindavan. They are beckoning us to
rejoin them. (Click on photo to see a larger
image.) |
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Our Mission: To help everyone awaken
their original Krishna consciousness, which is
eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss.
Such a global awakening will, in one stroke,
solve all the problems of the world society
bringing in a new era of unprecedented peace and
prosperity for all. May that day, which the
world so desperately needs, come very soon. We
request you to participate in this mission by
reviving your dormant Krishna consciousness and
assisting us in spreading this science all over
the world. |
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Dedicated with love to
ISKCON Founder-Acharya: His
Divine Grace A.C.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, our beloved spiritual master, and
to you, our dear readers. |
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Today's Thought: |
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An Unexpected Exceptional Evening
Uploaded from Bhaktivedanta Ashram--Austin,
Texas USA |
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I
was desperately searching to find a way that I could
transcend the sufferings of
material existence and enter into a state of
unadulterated, uninterrupted spiritual bliss. I had
tried so many ways to achieve this enlightened state,
but I had always failed. Still I did not give up because
I had hope against hope that if I persevered, somehow
or other I would sooner or later be successful.
It was finally one unexpected evening in the fall of
1968 in Denver, Colorado, USA that I got the
breakthrough I had so long been seeking. My good friend,
Patrick Dolan, dropped by my apartment at 1271 Lafayette
Street along with a few friends and starting chanting
the Hare Krishna mahamantra. He expressed his faith in
its power and asked us to chant with him. I will remain
forever grateful to Patrick for this act of
extraordinary kindness. And I will always marvel
in remembering that exceptional evening when the Supreme
Lord Sri Krishna so magnanimously revealed Himself to me
in His most merciful manifestation of His inconceivably
sweet holy names:
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare
Sankarshan Das Adhikari
1271
Lafayette Street--Denver, Colorado, USA
http://www.backtohome.com/images/1271_Lafayette_Street.JPG
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Answers According to the Vedic Version: |
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Question:
Devotion Only to Krishna? |
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Please accept my humble obeisances
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
In regards to the emphasis on having a spiritual master,
in the recent "Thought for the Day" questions and
answers:
In Chapter 9, Text 34 of the Bhagavad-gita, Krishna
says, "Engage your mind always in thinking of Me, become
my devotee, offer obeisances to Me and worship Me. Being
completely absorbed in Me, surely you will come to Me."
In Chapter 12, text 8 Krishna says, "Just fix your mind
upon Me, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and engage
all your intelligence in Me. Thus you will live in Me
always, without a doubt." There is no mention of a
spiritual master in these texts. Your comments will be
much appreciated. Feel free to share with all your
readers.
S.D.
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Answer: If You Love Me,
Love My Dog |
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In the verses you have
quoted Krishna says that if we become His devotee, we
will come to Him. So it is a fact that all we have to do
to go to Krishna is to become His devotee. When it comes
to learning how to become Krishna's devotee, who can be
a better authority to teach us how to become His devotee
than Krishna Himself? So let us learn from Him how to
become His devotee.
tad viddhi praṇipātena
paripraśnena sevayā
upadekṣyanti te jñānaṁ
jñāninas tattva-darśinaḥ
"Just try to learn the
truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from
him submissively and render service unto him. The
self-realized souls can impart knowledge unto you
because they have seen the truth."--Bhagavad-gita 4.34
Krishna is clearly instructing us to take lessons from
and render service to the spiritual master. Therefore if
we want to become Krishna's devotee, we are obliged to
obey this instruction to accept a spiritual master. Plus
Lord Krishna directly tells us in the Adi Purana how to
become His devotee. He say to do this we must become a
devotee of His devotee.
ye
me bhakta-janāḥ pārtha
na me bhaktāś ca te janāḥ
mad-bhaktānāṁ ca ye bhaktās
te me bhakta-tamā matāh
"My dear
Arjuna, those who are My direct devotees are actually
not My devotees, but those who are the devotees of My
devotee are factually My devotees."
If we tell Krishna that we do not want to be the devotee
of His devotee, that we only want to be His devotee, He
will say that we are not His devotee. In this connection
Srila Prabhupada often quotes the English saying, "if
you love me, love my dog." He explains that the
spiritual master is the dog of God, that if you want to
love God you must also love His dog, the spiritual
master.
The final conclusion is that we have to accept Krishna's
teachings in full. It is not that we can accept the
verses we like and reject the verses we don't like. If
we do that, we are guilty of the fallacy known as
half-hen logic. There was a farmer who had a hen who
laid very nice eggs that commanded a good price in the
market. The only problem was that the hen ate a lot of
chicken feed. The foolish farmer came up with a "bright
solution." He decided to keep the end of the hen that
lays eggs and cut off the end of the hen that eats. The
result was he killed the hen and there were no more
eggs. So if in the same way we think that we will accept
the verses we like and reject the verses we don't like,
the result will be that we will not become Krishna
conscious, and we will not go back to Godhead. Therefore
we should accept Krishna's teachings in full by becoming
the devotee both of Krishna Himself and His pure
devotee, the bona fide spiritual master. In this way we
will become qualified to return to His kingdom at the
end of this lifetime.
There are many, many more verses throughout the Vedic
literatures stating the necessity of accepting a
spiritual master. For the sake of brevity I have
mentioned only two.
Sankarshan Das Adhikari
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Krishna
Now you too
can render the greatest
service to the suffering humanity and
attract the all-auspicious blessings
of Lord Sri Krishna upon yourself and your family by assisting our mission.
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