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Post by avadhutadas on May 19, 2022 18:00:12 GMT -6
I wonder if Nitaidasji would appreciate this brief article about how Krishna has no interest in suffering humanity. Perhaps this understanding would solve the theism problem. bhaktitattva.com/2021/07/05/sri-kṛṣṇa-does-not-wish-to-save-lost-souls/comment-page-1/#comment-3196I’ll paste the article; A feature of the human ego is that it values those who provide value to itself. For example, people will vote for the politician who provides some narrow benefit to them, even though the politician may be harmful otherwise for society. It is not that the ego actually values the politician for who he or she is. That requires freedom from a personal or selfish motive. This same quality of the ego can be observed in some modern sects of Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism toward Śrī Kṛṣṇa Himself. These sects claim that Śrī Kṛṣṇa wants the jīvas, or ‘lost souls’, to return to Him. We are told how merciful Śrī Kṛṣṇa is, and how soft His heart is, because He is suffering ‘due to separation’ from the jīvas, even though the jīvas are insignificant ‘lost souls’. This all sounds very nice, but unfortunately has no basis in śāstra. I see it as a manifestation of the above quality of the human ego – Śrī Kṛṣṇa is great because He has compassion for the jīvas. And He is greater than great, because after all, the jīvas are ‘lost’ souls, lower than the lowest. This is simply a subtle form of flattery of one’s own self. Worse, it is a type of ‘anthromorphization’ of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, that is, reducing Him down to emotions that ordinary human beings feel for others. I remember a bhakta who would ‘preach’ how the jīvas were all hurting Śrī Kṛṣṇa because they were neglecting Him. Really? The jīvas have the power to hurt Śrī Kṛṣṇa? Actually, not at all. Others ‘preach’ how He is so merciful because He even goes in stool with the jīva if/when the jīva is born as a worm. First, Śrī Kṛṣṇa doesn’t go anywhere with the jīva- because in His form as Paramātmā, He is already present everywhere. Second, He cannot experience the smell of stool at all even if He tried. We are told that Paramātmā is ever-waiting and ever-patient for the jīvas to ‘turn toward Him’. He is ever-available. All this is supposed to be His greatness. No, Paramātmā is disinterested in suffering humanity, and has no interest in the jīvas ‘turning’ toward Him. He is not waiting for an ordinary jīva to ‘turn toward Him’. All these statements are likely written from an egocentric perspective, written to excite emotions in a similarly egocentric audience. As Maharajji would say, people can have their own understanding, but they are still supposed to base their understanding in śāstra. As we have seen in this article (https://bhaktitattva.com/2020/04/19/bhagavan-has-no-experience-of-material-misery/), Śrī Jīva explains that Śrī Kṛṣṇa has no agenda of ‘saving’ people in the world because He is fundamentally incapable of empathizing with their suffering. What then, can be said of the notion that He is suffering ‘due to separation’ from the jīvas! Śrī Jīva writes that Śrī Kṛṣṇa is fully self-satisfied- atmarama – being made purely of bliss. As such, He is incapable of experiencing suffering. But isnt Śrī Kṛṣṇa compassionate? Isn’t that a fundamental property of Bhagavān? Śrī Jīva explains that His compassion is also aroused only by bhakti manifested as humility in a bhakta. He gives the example of Gajendra. Gajendra suffered because of the powerful grip on his leg of the crocodile for a very long time. But Bhagavān did not appear. It is only when Gajendra’s bhakti manifested itself as an expression of humility (dainya) did Bhagavān appear- moved by His bhakti. It is as if Śrī Kṛṣṇa lives in a ‘bhakti bubble’ – He is capable of understanding only the language of bhakti and nothing else. A bhakta, by definition, is already turned to Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Those jīvas who are turned away from Him are of zero interest to Śrī Kṛṣṇa, because He cannot empathize with their condition. To say that these jīvas can hurt Him because of separation is opposed to Śrī Jīva’s extensive analysis. Śrī Caitanya is not special because He ‘comes to save the lost souls’. He is special because He tastes the bliss of rāgānugā bhakti, and in doing so, the concomitant (lucky) effect is that the mood of rāgānugā bhakti has become available in Kaliyuga to sādhaka bhaktas through authentic paramparās.
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Post by kirtaniya on May 19, 2022 22:15:24 GMT -6
Gaura created a cult of romance of empathy. Seeing the confusion of people, and rather intelligent people, in abstract philosophy, he pointed out a way to look directly into the heart of suffering. The world already knew the power of empathy, but he offered a way to empathize together, magnifying that power many times over. The woman regrets the lost youth and all the most beautiful, but fleeting in her life. Gaura sympathizes with her. A verse he liked to chant during the Ratha Yatra festival:
yaḥ kaumāraharaḥ sa eva hi varastā eva caitrakṣapā- ste conmīlitamālatīsurabhayaḥpraudḥ āḥkadambānilāh/̣ sā caivāsmi tathāpi tatra suratavyāpāralīlāvidhau revārodhasi vatasītarutale cetaḥ samutkaṇṭhate//
Who deprived me of my virginhood that same, indeed, is my bridegroom; those same are the nights of Chaitra (spring); and those same are the luxuriant kadamba breezes, fragrant with the blooming malati flowers; and I too, am what I was; yet my heart longs for indulging in sports of love, there beneath the cane arbour on the banks of Narmada (Translation by R. C. Dwivedi)
This is a verse by a poet named Silabhattarika. She supposedly lived near the Narmada River (also known as Reva) in the 9th century. This verse is also famous for being quoted by Mammata (11th cent.) in his work Kavyaprakash.
Wiki states, According to American author Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, the poetess, possibly a middle-aged woman, implies that the illicit, pre-marital love between her and her lover was richer than their love as a married couple.
Rupa Gosvami understood the meaning of this mood in the following way.
priyaḥ so ’yaṁ kṛṣṇaḥ saha-cari kuru-kṣetra-militas etc.
Radhika is the deity of empathy. In fact, Sri Rupa is this, who chants these two moody verses. Whoever penetrates your heart with the mood. Radhika alone is absolutely meaningless. There must be tuning with her anxiety. The fire of any suffering can be consumed by the ocean of prema, which is essentialy empathy. Krsna embodies the suffering that even the closest people can bring. Even if not intentionally, for example, disappearing, dying, changing internally and externally. He reminds of the subtlest richness that has gone. And empathy embraces this very embodiment.
Kaumara-hara - the thief of the heart of youth - actually steals everything. Everything is destined to be swept to nothingness. He tramps and destroys with a mild mischievery, fooling you with the hope to increase your love to him. What kind of miserable fool would be inspired by the idea of the developement of his own love? Isn't it funny idea: I want my love to be stronger?
By his very existence, God brings suffering to many, the history of religion is the history of religious strife, atrocities in the name of God, complacency, cynicism, malevolence. Religion embodies the principle of the boundary, fencing off unworthy problems, since there are a lot of more important problems for religious thirst for personal salvation through the hope of selling oneself to unlimited mystical power. Prema dismisses personal salvation as illusory.
The presence of God does not relieve anyone from suffering, but only empathy can do this. And therefore Krsna is not exactly like God (who is, in fact, just opium for people). Krsna embodies the supreme principle of the inevitability of suffering. When the heroine, in the mood of svadhina-bhartrika, subjugates her lover, this happens with the support of the collective efforts of her friends. Likewise, people who are tuned to unite for the benefit of others are able to overcome any obscurations and delusions, to know the essence of all religious teachings and save all sentient beings.
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Post by avadhutadas on May 20, 2022 4:52:11 GMT -6
Everyone sees the light that refracts off the diamond of Krishna a little differently I guess.
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Post by Nitaidas on May 20, 2022 9:34:41 GMT -6
Thanks to both Avadhutadasji and Kirtaniyaji for your postings here. They are views very much in opposition to each other and instructively so. Taken together they expose a flaw in the way we usually think about our tradition. The flaw is in thinking that all our acaryas speak with one voice and one view and we have merely to learn that view and accommodate ourselves to that view. Anyone who has read in the tradition knows that there are multiple views espoused by multiple thinkers, theologians (I don't consider theologians to be thinkers, they are more properly like car salesmen and women), interpreters, and lineages. Even the closest three Sri Sanatana, Sri Rupa, and Sri Jiva are not in agreement. I have been studying all three for years and find them all to have distinctive voices and views. It is natural to privilege one of them above the others. The Jiva Institute privileges, well guess who? IGM claims to be among the Rupanugis, privileging again guess who? And me, well I have read a lot of Sri Rupa and I love the expansiveness of his heart and his vision of Krsna-lila and his understanding of the unfolding of Krsna Prema (based as it is on some of the work of previous alankarikas such as Bhoja and his southern tradition coming through Saradatanaya and Simhabhupala). But for me, I am a Sanatananugi. Sri Sanatana really speaks to me for some reason and though he mostly sticks to scripture in his argumentation, he humbly recognizes how little we know being so short-lived and of feeble intellect. I am reading Sri Sanatana's Brhad-bhagavatamrta now along with Sri Sanatana's own commentary and I must say so far it is my favorite. It seems to me that he treats scriptural statements as provisional, not as the final word, subject to revision or a myriad of other interpretations to which he gives us hints and peeks as we read along. If he were alive today I like to think that for him scripture would only be one source of valid knowledge, that for him the whole world would be a source of valid knowledge since Krsna can speak to us through so many sources including science, philosophy, literature, other religious traditions, and simple lived-experience, if only we have the eyes to see. The world is scripture. We merely need to learn to read it like we learned to read Sanskrit or Bengali.
Those who blinker themselves so they only see scripture are fools because scripture is full of so many foolish things. There are also many wise things there, sagacious things, but like the proverbial swans (actually hamsa means goose, but okay, swan) we have to sort out the nectar from the saline solution (with maybe a little arsenic added).
I continue to read Sri Jiva (Tattva-sandarbha with its comms., including his Sarva-samvadini) and I must say that my opinion of him has improved. Nevertheless, I don't think he is the voice of CV for me. He is clearly a man of his times and severely limited by those times. He accepts as valid certain views inherited from Sri Sankara's efforts to validate the Veda's authenticity that are patently absurd. I will give examples of that later.
My overall view is that all of these great teachers were children of their age. They knew what they could in their times and nothing more. They were not omniscient. They were shaped by their traditions and times. There is no reason for us 21st century aliens to adopt their views, though we may come to appreciate them as brilliant in their age.
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Post by kirtaniya on May 21, 2022 3:39:43 GMT -6
No amount of knowledge will help you predict or guess the result of tantric practice in advance. The rational mind cannot even begin such a practice. Because it is like the journey itself, you must have complete trust in your teacher who is leading you by the hand. No descriptions or explanations work that way as all descriptions are like maps and travel blogs. Illusions of knowledge and understanding, reasonable assessments and mental constructions are very strong and do not allow you to go to the basics. This is what is called the jungle of views. A good koan to break out of the trap of the rational mind: where will you go after death? <angel smile>
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Post by avadhutadas on May 21, 2022 6:13:19 GMT -6
I don’t think you will like this comparison Nitaidasji but I see a strong similarity between your ideas and those of Bhaktivinoda, Bhaktisiddhanta and Bhaktivedanta. We know for a fact that BSST thought CV was a dying tradition. All three of these men felt that bringing CV to the west was the way to revive it so they made many concessions and adjustments to the original siddhant to make it more palatable and relatable to a western audience. This is how many of the judeo Christian memes such as “falling from Vaikuntha” and “Krishna cares about the suffering of the Jiva” have entered into neo Gaudiya sects. I see you as trying to carry on in the tradition of the reformers by trying to make CV more palatable to a scholarly western audience who can’t relate to things like faith and god. I’m not too worried about your reformation causing as much damage as the previous one because you just don’t seem to have the ability to unify people. A quick perusal of your time on the internet shows just the opposite in fact.
Anyway, I find the idea that you are simply doing what the six goswamis would do if they were alive today quite humorous. I will leave you to your fantasies of grandeur as you follow in the footsteps of the three neo Gaudiya reformers that you loathe.
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Post by meeno8 on May 21, 2022 8:29:56 GMT -6
This whole notion of invoking authority as evidence, scriptures, acharyas et al, does not sit well with me personally. I do not see that any of that has much value in the end, if a sadhaka fails to have any direct mystical experiences, which are in the realm of the subjective for the most part. What precludes any human being from achieving whatever 'realizations' those authors of texts and present day lecturers may have or have had? I do not see that any of it is 'genetic' after all. There there is the question of the exclusivity of CV as a mystical tradition. We may like to see that it has many features that make it our favorite one, but as some discussions here have brought to light, Buddhist traditions also have much to offer. I for one started out with a Buddhist mantra before taking to the mahamantra, and that was combined with asanas and mudras.
Will ALL mysticism die out eventually? That is highly doubtful, even in the face of scientific advances that are on a geometric trajectory. As a computer scientist I am left to ponder the advent of quantum computing, and IBM already offers a platform for writing code for that sans owning a quantum computer of one's own. I have not even searched Amazon for one, and I would be surprised if you can purchase one for an affordable price (well, if your name is not Elon Musk at least).
Who gives a flying fuck about religion in general anyways? (Excuse my French, but I think we're all adults here, and if not then hey parents where are you right now that your kids may be here reading these posts. Besides they are just words anyways - as the late George Carlin built a whole routine around: The 7 words you can't say on television, but that was before HBO. If kids do not know what fucking is yet, they are bound to find out eventually, are they not?) If all those die out, that can only be beneficial to society in general around the world. That may just be my opinion, but I would have to propose it is based on hard evidence as opposed to those 'authorities'.
We should be dealing in the world of non-fiction, unless we are just reading fictional novels or watching films or streaming series on Netflix, etc. And religion generally resides in fantasy land in the final analysis. God created man and woman in his own image? Ha ha! More like the other way around, for the most part. (I am being tongue in cheek here, in case that is not obvious)
I think a charming rain cloud colored youth with a peacock feather in his wavy locks and playing a flute, and with a consort like Radhika, is far more appealing than some old man with a white beard. The latter sounds more like that fictional character Santa Claus. And as young children we loved to sit on that guy's lap and tell him what we wanted for XMas.
First Amendment rights? Well, the US Constitution was original based on the constitution of the Navajo Nation, which they did not teach us in school when we were growing up. I think if IGM had their way, this Symposium would be censored, or shut down entirely. Ponder that Mr. Musk, if you are lurking around here. Maybe you will be when one of your staff finds your name in a Google search. Perhaps we need to start a threat on space flight where you can post.
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Post by meeno8 on May 21, 2022 9:29:17 GMT -6
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Post by Nitaidas on May 23, 2022 12:03:51 GMT -6
I don’t think you will like this comparison Nitaidasji but I see a strong similarity between your ideas and those of Bhaktivinoda, Bhaktisiddhanta and Bhaktivedanta. We know for a fact that BSST thought CV was a dying tradition. All three of these men felt that bringing CV to the west was the way to revive it so they made many concessions and adjustments to the original siddhant to make it more palatable and relatable to a western audience. This is how many of the judeo Christian memes such as “falling from Vaikuntha” and “Krishna cares about the suffering of the Jiva” have entered into neo Gaudiya sects. I see you as trying to carry on in the tradition of the reformers by trying to make CV more palatable to a scholarly western audience who can’t relate to things like faith and god. I’m not too worried about your reformation causing as much damage as the previous one because you just don’t seem to have the ability to unify people. A quick perusal of your time on the internet shows just the opposite in fact. Anyway, I find the idea that you are simply doing what the six goswamis would do if they were alive today quite humorous. I will leave you to your fantasies of grandeur as you follow in the footsteps of the three neo Gaudiya reformers that you loathe. The difference is that the Bhakti-whatsits were wrong about CV in the 19th century. It was far from dead. It was in fact thriving, as anyone who studied the century would know. The idea that CV was dead was a convenient fiction made up by the three to introduce their own ideas and their own claims to sanctity and purity. It is ironic that they, as the only community that had no parampara, claimed that theirs was the only surviving one. What a bunch of hucksters! And the Mayapur claim was brilliant. One could not get a foot in edgewise anywhere in old Mayapur, so invent a new Mayapur and buy up land cheaply from poor Muslim farmers in the area. Build your Disneyland on the other shore where with false advertising one could make a killing among simple minded bhaktas. No, my view is that the Bhakti-whatits were themselves responsible for weakening CV and perhaps even killing it. The misrepresentation of the tradition, the introduction phony sannyasis, phony teachings, phony mistranslated books and fake texts (Bhaktivinode). These were Kayasthas, remember, great at business and morally very challenged. IGM imitated the Christian Missionaries in the same way the Ramkrishna Mission did. Even Lalitaprasad considered his brother a demon. The old Bisikisan story. Anyway, who cares what you think? That is probably in your case oxymoronic. You are better off not thinking. Let the blind lead the blind to their own destruction. Since when is the number of one's followers any indication of the truth of one's teachings. I take the acaryas of this tradition seriously. I think that they really sought after the truth and if their efforts fell short it was because of the weak sources of truth they had to depend on, i.e., the scriptures. We are much better off today, though there is still much we don't know. I, however, certainly know that there is no Brahma and he did not utter the Sanskrit word te and create the gods in the beginning. This is what the Vedas would have us believe. This is also what Sri Jiva would have us believe. Of course, what else could Sri Jiva say? If he said anything else, he would be pressed for evidence, the only evidence accepted by his blinkered readers. And then there is IlAvrta the continent where Siva is the only male (5th Skandha, Chapt. 17). He is served there by millions and millions of women. This is clearly nothing more than a male fantasy. Believe away, Mr. Know-nothing! I will base my views on real evidence as much as possible. Not on such hokum. The Goswamis were intelligent and well educated men, but when what is fed to them is garbage, what comes out is the same. In Sanatana's writings, I sense someone who has his doubts about what one encounters in scripture and he even says so in some of his commentary on his work (Brhad-bhagavatamrta). The Bb is after all a work of fiction. Narada never went on such a search for the one who was the greatest object of Krsna's grace. There isn't even a Narada to make such a search. But Sanatana uses the fiction to attempt to impose order on the much-conflicted world of bhakti. He had little of the arrogance and complacency of the Bhakti-whatsits or even perhaps of his nephew Sri Jiva, who certainly must have struggled with some of the positions he was forced to take. If they really were as smart as I think they were they must have had their doubts. If they were as dumb as you think they were, perhaps not. Anyway, I have no illusions about my abilities to unite people or lead anyone, nor do I have any desire to do so. Even though I don't regard IGM as a genuine part of the CV tradition, I wish them well and hope the best for them. We can only really experience the bliss of bhakti in this life. When we die there is no certainty of continued existence, at least not as integral "selves." Our bodies will dissolve into the ocean of matter/spirit and their constituents will recombine and continue on forever. This is our real and only eternity. We should focus our attention on cultivating and experiencing bhakti-rasa here and now in this life and not depend on anything after death. This is the best I can say based on the evidence available to us now. I could be wrong, but it seems unlikely.
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Post by kirtaniya on May 23, 2022 19:46:24 GMT -6
Everyone sees the light that refracts off the diamond of Krishna a little differently I guess. To understand who is Krsna, it is not enough to take birth as a human being. It is necessary to be born as a god. It is necessary to be attentive to such a birth. Giving up clinging to the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body one is to dive into the realm of the mind alone. By overcoming sensual clinging to forms, one can transcend the tendencies and habits of this birth. One can see countless births and deaths of countless beings. Thus the tendencies to be born in the worlds of the senses are suppressed. Following above, one can discover the most general images of forms, one can cover the whole of sansara, one can see the great continent, the great ocean, the slope of the great mountain. One can rise above and see four oceans, four continents and four slopes of a great mountain. Rising even higher, one can see the sphere of this world, with golden light shining at one pole, white light at the other pole, surrounded by a great blue ocean, with the green mountain of Sumeru, divided into four continents, and the red worlds located on the back side of the great mountain and four continents. Rising even higher, one can find the palace of Brahma, covering the whole realm. Rising even higher, one can find black rocks covering this sphere of the limits of Brahma, the limits of the world system. Rising even higher, one can find many such spheres, a great multitude of these spheres, all space is filled with these spheres. However, one should focus the mind only on arising and ceasing. Directing the mind in this way, one can see that the whole variety of arising has a universal cessation, unconditional, independent. Being in this cessation, one finds liberation from the propensities for existence, one finds liberation from suffering. It is immediately clear: there is no more birth and death. No tendencies, no clinging, no craving, no ignorance. Everything that arises ceases.
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Post by Nitaidas on May 24, 2022 11:00:47 GMT -6
I wish to apologize to Avadhutadas and the other members of this forum for my post in response to Avadhuta's on my my supposed similarity to the reforming inclinations of the founders and members of the IGM. I got hot-headed and I should not have. His post was a relatively innocent expression of his sense of the similarity between my views and those of the IGM. My response should have been similarly an innocent account of how and why we differ. I should not have descended to name-calling and attribution of traits to Avadhutadas that I am sure he does not have. He does not think the Goswamis are stupid. We understand intelligence differently. I think of them as thoughtful men who were limited by what they had to think about. Clearly their acceptance of scripture as true was an expression of their faith.
[More later]
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Post by meeno8 on May 24, 2022 16:07:57 GMT -6
OK. Then maybe just edit your posts instead of making apologies.
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Post by kirtaniya on May 24, 2022 21:43:35 GMT -6
As for the perfection or imperfection of Rupa, Sanatana, Jiva. These are free people, free from delusions and obscurations, no longer looking for any secrets, mysteries, special achievements, and so on. Of course, passion is clearly visible in them. Passionate desire, very concentrated, like a lazer beem. But this is their family recipe that can help scattered minds become more collected. Through catharsis.
They are good friends for everyone. They are not looking for entertainment, including mental ones. In such company I get bored, and this is what the doctor ordered. I want to talk about what does not occupy their mind, what they do not pay attention to, and in such a moment I can clearly notice the thirst of mind. This is a good moment of training with them. They are really good friends.
Yes, they can pay attention to me and my topics, as they have paid attention to topics important to the Hindu. But this is only so that I do not immediately run away from them. You know, these people live in the forest, they won't talk about it forever because it doesn't make sense or benefit. I may like those moments when they allow a bit of obscurity, sinking to the Hindu level, but I know, this impression is deceptive.
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Post by Nitaidas on May 25, 2022 15:15:05 GMT -6
OK. Then maybe just edit your posts instead of making apologies. Nah! I think I will just leave things as they are as monuments to the folly of anger. What do you have against apologies? You should try it sometime. Anyway, most of what I said there is true. I want to spend some time later supporting it. First, though, I want to comment on the article that Avadhutadas posted. In spite of claiming that everything should be support by scripture, 90% of what the author said is not supported by scripture. Instead it is based on either lived-experience or personal speculation. I am not saying that is bad. It is what we do most of the time. We gather information from a number of different sources and express it in some meaningful way (hopefully). Scripture really accounts for very little of it. Even when some quote from the shastras is the core of your communication what we say about it is generally not. We are being fed information from all kinds of sources and some of it we cook up in our own noggins, some of it valid, some of it not, and with that we form our theories and platitudes. Similarly, some of what we find in shastra is valid and some of it is the fantasy/fiction of some unknown writer of the past. Then, in the middle of it all, as quotation from someone called Maharaja! Can you imagine quoting someone called Maharaja in a meditation on ego? What kind of an ego would someone called Maharaja be guilty of? My guess would be a super big one. How could he not? Notice we are not talking about a woman here. Women don't get to be called Maharajas or His Holinesses, or Swamis. The best she can do would be Mataji. She has to be someone's mother, either really or potentially, to be of any worth. My suggestion for the good of these poor guys who get called Maharaja all the time and who get bowed down to and who get to be asked questions as if they had some real wisdom is that we change what we call them. Let's call them Shitheads! Or Assholes! Or Turds! It will help them control their huge egos and maybe find a little humility in themselves to realize that they really are in fact turds, or at least turd factories. Our ego problems are small compared to theirs. And of course it should be pointed out that they probably would not be in their current egotistic cages if they had not asked someone to make them sannyasis to begin with. In a way it is the result of their own megalomaniac, psychotic disorders to start off with. Whoever made them sannyasis did them a great disservice. He (again no she) took a turd factory and pretended to make him an ice cream factory. But sadly, even now, they do not shit ice cream, only shit, just like what comes out of their mouths. It is the saddest thing that has happened in the Caitanya tradition for over a century. But we can help them out, can't we? Now, in terms of the claim that Sri Krsna does not care about the sufferings of us poor little jiva beings, cannot sympathize with our suffering because he does not know what it is, and essentially does not care what happens to us at all, I think this is demonstrably falsified by the fact that he appoints others to descend or makes numerous descents himself. Why does he do that if he does not care about our sufferings? Sanatana Goswami says in many places in his Brhad-bhagavatamrta that the point of a descent, avatara, is to spread the rasa of bhakti among those who don't already have it. Sri Caitanya is supposed to even more generous and compassionate in that way because he gave it to anyone, whether they deserved it or not. Look at all the Shitheads (I'm already trying out my own suggestion) he gave bhakti to in his day. Sri Visvanatha Cakravartin in his Svapna-vilasamrta (posted here somewhere) portrays Sri Krsna as not able to sleep at night and frequently having tears in his eyes because of his concern for the plight of his poor little jivas. The implication is that that compassion for us prompted his descent as Sriman Mahaprabhu. Another implication is that he does love us; we are little tiny parts of him. He is our source and we are his. Why should he not care what happens to us. His constant descents, either as actual physcial beings, or as psychic beings, or as texts (Gita, Bhagavata, Goswami literature) suggest to me that he wants us and our love tiny though we are and it is. Now if it is true that Krsna does not care a fig about us or our sufferings, cannot even recognize suffering and that we are undergoing it, then he must be a monster. It all kind of adds up. A monster would not care at all about the 19 people who were murdered in Texas yesterday, would not feel the least bit sad, and would not want to do anything about it. This in itself would be bad enough. But when we add to that his always wanting people to be singing his names and praising him, his always wanting people to be talking about him, his withholding joy and fulfillment from a great writer like Vyasa who wrote so many great works and treatises, but did not spend sufficient time praising him, when all these things plus his lack of caring for the sufferings of his own little parts, we have brutal, monstrous being far worse, I propose, than any God of any other tradition, even Yahweh who is a big, murderous bully, or a Jesus who lets no one come to the "father" but by him and couldn't give a fuck about those who don't want to, or an Allah who advocates the Jihad against all non-believers (no matter how Muslims vainly try to explain that away). Way to go, Sri Jiva, you've turned the Lord of Love into an indifferent, self-absorbed, homo-erotic, narcissistic asshole who cares nothing for anyone else, not even innocent little kids. It is all about Him, Him, Him. Bhakti, after all, is His. It is his own hladini-sakti. And you cannot develop it on your own. There is nothing you can do to get it. It has to be given to you by someone else and according to Sri Jiva Sri Krsna does not care if anyone does give it to anyone, cause that would affect their suffering which he doesn't care about either. See! Caitanya Vaisnavism is dead! Killed not by IGM but by the Jiva Institute!
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Post by kirtaniya on May 25, 2022 23:08:05 GMT -6
Jihad seeps out of every pore of religion as such. Of any religion. I know what it is in essence and don't get upset with all sorts of shitty commandments and opinions. When I forget this I fight back on the same level. It's like healing of a rotten cow hoof. Definitely one need a sharp knife to take off all the mess, but also one have to apply some medicine in order to lift up the struggle to the level of healing.
Jihad is a method of correlating the material and the spiritual. Religion tries to curb this method, but does not change its essence. Jihad means a struggle for the spiritual, for the value of the supermaterial, the extramaterial. But this is just a struggle. Paritranaya sadhunam vinasaya ca duskrtam - a vivid highlight of jihad.
Then there is another method - no rage but only fear of God. And here comes bhakti, the selfcontradictory concept. So much stress is in the scripture and folklore on superiority and inferiority in the same body. If one is a good bhakta he is not bhakta at all but just a worm in a shit.
The idea of a kind and merciful God is based on the fear of God. Das Gosvami says: I don’t care if he is good or nasty, my boy. This is the third method: no rage and no fear. He cares of a boy and not of some resolver and giver. He doesn’t cheat himself with imposed spiritual values but he has ones, his own. He doesn't need to rate scriptures, he is already practicing. Lila smarana teaches us to deal with a person and his actual response. And to deal not with just one person, care of all of them. If Krsna is acting like an asshole, the kinkari will say, “you asshole, get out of the kunja”. This is the trick by the Gosvamis. There are two cubes in the room, one is white, the other is black. The teacher asks the children in the room, what color are these cubes? All the boys and girls (except for one of them) are told in advance that they should say the same: "both are white." And they say it, one after another. And then the last boy in the group, who is actually being tested, says it too: "both are white." The task of the teacher is to build the personality of this pupil in such a way that he will be confident: "You are all wrong (morons), these are the black cube and the white cube."
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