God as One's Guru?

Question: God as One's Guru?

Do scriptures permit having God as one's guru?

Answer: Yes, Both Internally and Externally.

We must accept Krishna or God as our guru because He is the supreme authority. He orders us in the Bhagavad-gita to surrender to Him. He is manifested within our hearts as the caitya guru, the guru within. And when He brings us into contact with His external manifestation, the guru without, He orders to also surrender to that guru, the bona fide spiritual master. So if we decide that we will only surrender to the guru within and not the guru without, we are guilty of the logical flaw known as ardha-kukuṭi-nyāya, half-hen logic.

The farmer had a hen who laid very nice eggs. But he was unhappy that the hen ate a lot of feed. So one day he got a so-called bright idea. He decided the cut off the end of the hen that he did not like (the head) and only keep the end he liked (the rear end). He was so dull that after cutting out the hen's head he could not figure out why the hen stopped laying eggs.

So if we accept the guru within, while neglecting the guru without, we will find ourselves with a hen that does not lay eggs. In other words we will find that we are without any access to that wondrous spiritual sky. Therefore let us not be half-hen logicians. Let us intelligently both the guru within and the guru without, the internal guru and the external guru.

Are We In Danger Always?

Question: Are We In Danger Always?

You have explained that we are eternally emanating from the Supreme Krishna. Then do we merge with Krishna finally and become one with the source, or do we continue to exist independently in Goloka dhama as His eternal servants? If we do not merge, is it not then that there exist always a real danger of ourselves again falling by some play of our independent will?

Answer: After Returning to Godhead We Are Safe

After achieving perfection we do not merge into Krishna. If that were to happen, there would be no scope for giving Krishna the pleasure of having a loving relationship with us. Therefore we keep our individuality and serve Krishna in a state of perfect harmony.

Since we maintain our individuality in that liberated state there is always the potential of our misusing it. But as it stated, "Once burned, twice shy", once we have experienced the difference between the material and spiritual worlds we will not make the same mistake of leaving the spiritual world again. A foolish child may stick his hand in the fire once. But will he be foolish enough to do it again? No, he will not.

All But Bhakti is Bogus?

Question: All But Bhakti is Bogus?

Are you saying that all paths but bhakti yoga are imitations and bogus?

Answer: For Perfection Bhakti is Required

There are different systems which contain varying degrees of the truth. Some are completely bogus and misleading containing practically no truth. And some of them contain certain degrees of truth and have some benefit for the gradual elevation of the living beings. But unless through these various systems one reaches the point of loving service to the Supreme Person he will be unsuccessful in his attempt to attain spiritual perfection. For example, if follows the path of jnana yoga, his endeavor will be unsuccessful unless he overcoats his jnana with bhakti. And if he practices astanga yoga his practice of astanga yoga will prove to be unsuccessful unless he overcoats it with bhakti. Since bhakti must ultimately added in order for any system to be successful, the intelligent person does not waste precious time. He chooses to practice bhakti from the very beginning so that he can attain spiritual perfection in the quickest and easiest way possible.

How to Avoid Difficulties?

Question: How to Avoid Difficulties?

You always say that this material world is a miserable place to live in and all the sense enjoyments here ultimately lead to miseries only. I understand your point. a devotee should utilize this human birth to escape from this cycle and reach God. But still on the path of Krishna consciousness, a devotee has to undergo various troubles and sufferings due to various reasons. All these frustrating situations produce a lot of depression and anger in some devotees. Please explain how should we avoid such things.

Answer: You Cannot. Tolerate Them.

You cannot avoid calamities and difficult situations in this material world. It is not possible. Do not live in dream state. This is a world full of calamities. Therefore Krishna says that you simply have to learn how to tolerate them without being disturbed. The secret of how to peacefully tolerate them is to see every circumstance as the special arrangement of Krishna to help you become more and more surrendered to Him. In this way instead of being devastated by calamities, you will learn how to appreciate them and take advantage of them. This is compared to a business who also advances the purposes of his business no matter what is the situation of the market. When the prices go up he sells. And when the prices go down he buys.

Leather Clothing?

Question: Leather Clothing?

I would like to enquire about the use of leather clothing (shoes). I often speak to my work colleagues about meat eating and more especially the consuming of the cow. The question that one of my colleagues asked was, "If it is wrong to consume meat then why do vegetarians still use leather clothing?" I am not able to answer him. Please help.

Answer: Avoid as Much as Possible

A Krishna conscious person will naturally try to completely avoid using leather products as much as possible because he considers the cow to be his mother. Actually there is no need to wear leather because there are many non-leather alternatives now available in the market place. Non-leather alternatives are becoming more and popular in increasing demand every day. There are many non-leather types of shoes now available. I personally do not wear any leather. And I advise you to do the same.

CONSCIOUSNESS ITSELF - SHAIVISM

Shaivism is known as ‘the three’ because it discusses these three subjects:

♦ The nature of the Absolute

♦ The nature of the human being and contraction

♦ The method by which contraction is overcome

Shaivism holds that pure awareness and not matter is the basic stuff of the universe. This can be compared to the situation in a dream, in which the awareness of the dreamer is the fundamental substratum of everything that appears in the dream. The one Consciousness that underlies the universe can also be called God. Here we are referring to God as the Absolute, beyond any

specific form.

For reasons known only to Him, God decides to create a universe and become many. By means of His Power, which can be personified as His feminine aspect, He creates the universe in His own being, Himself becoming the individual soul by a process of contraction. Though it appears in

Consciousness, the created world is real. The universe is actually Consciousness vibrating at different frequencies, becoming more material and gross as it unfolds.

The human individual is nothing but God in a contracted form. When the individual looks at himself, he notices that he has the same qualities as the Absolute, though they are shrunken and vitiated. God has perfect will, perfect knowledge and perfect ability to do, while the human individual has all of these powers in limitation. They show up in him as three basic knots within his being. The first knot is limitation of will. The human individual experiences it in his heart as a painful sense of separation, weakness and grief. This is the fundamental birth trauma in which God becomes the individual. The limitation of knowledge is experienced in the mind. The human mind experiences darkness and confusion and strains to understand the truth. The third knot is experienced in the navel area and is felt as a sense of frustration and lack of fulfilment. Shaivism asks us to recognise our similarity with God and ultimately our oneness with Him. It minutely examines the human condition as a contraction that moves us from the divine status to that of a human being. It recognises a power of contraction and delusion that brings this about. The power is real but is actually an aspect of God. One of the ways it shows up is in language. The language that God uses in His true state expresses His ecstatic song of oneness, while human language tends to perpetuate separation and weakness. Having looked at the human situation, Shaivism now turns to the solution, a methodology for overcoming the woes and limitations of the human being. Shaivism proposes a comprehensive inner technology designed to restore the human being to his inherent oneness with God.

For this, he has to loosen the knots in his heart, mind and navel by means of three methods. To heal the contraction in his navel, he tries to act well in all situations and come into harmony with the higher power. To heal the contraction in his mind, having discovered its cause in the misuse of language, he tries to bring his thinking into alignment with his highest good. To heal the existential angst in his heart, he tries to transcend thinking altogether and merge himself in the oneness of pure Consciousness. Having profoundly practised these spiritual methods, the Shaivite seeker recognises the divinity within his own Self and also outside himself in the world and in other people. His main insight is that the subject, or Consciousness, is not separate from the object, or matter. In fact, he experiences directly that the object is contained within his subjectivity, that is, within Consciousness. He has now reached the culmination and the goal of the practice of Shaivism and he stands as a liberated being, fully free within himself, shining with divine wisdom and radiant with love.

Who Feeds the Bird or Polishes the Cage?

Question: Who Feeds the Bird or Polishes the Cage?

I would like to inquire about the example which is often given in our books about the bird and the golden cage. The bird is compared to the soul and the cage is compared to the body. The point of the example is that if we polish the cage all day long and neglect the bird inside, the bird will soon perish.

But in this example if I am the soul (the bird) and the body is the cage then who is there to feed the bird and polish the cage?

Please forgive me if the question is irrelevant.

Answer: The Self

Thank you very much for your very nice question.

The person who is either feeding the bird or polishing the cage is the self. If the living entity is polishing the cage, he is foolishly misdirecting his energy towards material sense gratification. And if he feeds the bird, he is tending to his real self interest by cultivating Krishna consciousness.

Why No Eggs?

Question: Why No Eggs?

I am a fervent reader of yours and I have really understood many things and I carry out many things like getting up at 4 in the morning, bathing, donning devotional clothing and chanting to the spiritual master. I am not yet initiated, I am an aspirant to be initiated, therefore I offer my obeisances to Srila Prabhupada and to the spiritual master I am aspiring for. In addition, I read daily a chapter of the book Self-realization, and when I am done with it I will continue with another one. I spite of the knowledge that I am acquiring through lectures and thanks to your wonderful movement in cyber space, there is something I cannot understand. I follow the 4 principles, no illicit sex, no gambling of intoxicating beverages, or drugs, chanting the holy names (at this time I am only chanting 2 rounds, my goal is to reach 16, no meat eating, or fish, chicken or eggs. In this last principle it is very clear to me why they should not be eaten. But I don't understand why not eggs if in this day and age there are specialized farms for producing eggs and as such they are not an embryonic product of the chicken since they have not been fertilized by a rooster.

Could you enlighten me and explain why one should not eat eggs?

I thank you in advance for your attention en reading this letter and giving me your answer.

Answer: Krishna Does Not Eat Them

We are not vegetarians. We are Krishnatarians. We only eat those foods that have been offered to Krishna. Since Srila Prabhupada, who has perfect knowledge of Krishna, has instructed us that Krishna does not eat eggs, we therefore do not offer them to Him, and therefore we cannot partake of them even if they are unfertilized.

Will We Fall Again?

Question: Will We Fall Again?

Earlier you told me, Prabhu, that once we go to Goloka Vrindavan we do not come back on the earthly plane. We live there for ever. All current individuals are destined to go to the spiritual sky. Please answer my following questions:

1. If we go to Goloka Vrindavan and again revolt or envy Krishna, will we come back to earth again?

2. If we merge into the impersonal effulgence of Krishna, will we come back to earth ever again?

3. If anyone in the past has talked to God or everyone has realized God in different aspects, why is there so much confusion regarding the nature of God?

Answer: Once Burned, Twice Shy

Once burned, twice shy. After having made the mistake of falling into material existence once and having learned our lesson, we will not make the same mistake twice.

The Srimad Bhagavatam states that those merge into the impersonal brahman effulgence fall back down into this material world. Therefore instead of trying to merge into Brahman we should become devotees and go the planet of Krishna from where we are guaranteed not to fall down ever again.

Many great pure devotees have established direct personal communication with God. The only reason the human society is confused about God is that people have stubbornly, proudly refused to hear about God from these great acharyas. If the people of the world can now agree to hear from the great acharyas, the whole world will become delivered. There will be no more confusion.

Cause of Our Fall Down

Question: Cause of Our Fall Down

In your 21 May 2009 edition of "Thought for the Day" you state, "We who through misuse of our free will have cast ourselves into the prison of this world of suffering." My question is, what form did our original misuse of free will take before our becoming embodied in the material world? In other words, if we are eternally existing as individual living entities emanating from the Supreme Cause, how and when did we first manifest our distaste for serving Krishna? Did we exist for a period each uniquely involved in some way in the pastimes of The Lord and then like spoiled rich children become dissatisfied with our state of privilege not realizing the alternative? Are we all guilty of individual acts of free will or was there an event of mass revolt against Krishna resulting in a collective banishment, like the story of Satan's fall to earth with his cronies in the Book of Genesis? Also, what is the nature of our eternality? Are we eternal in substance only, receiving our unique personality upon emanating from Krishna (as sparks from a fire) or is our unique personality itself coeternal with our spiritual substance? I have been curious about these matters for some time and have full confidence in your knowledge and guidance.

Answer: Hand in the Fire

Thank you very much for your deeply thoughtful questions. I can see and appreciate very much that you are person who is sincerely seeking the answers regarding our existence. Fortunately I have been blessed with enlightened wisdom from one of the greatest spiritual masters in the history of the universe, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Therefore in humble service to him and to you I will now explain to you what I have learned from him regarding the questions you have asked.

Your first questions is: "What form did our original misuse of free will take before our becoming embodied in the material world?

The answer is that the first manifestation of free will misuse is envy of the Supreme Person.

Then you asked: "If we are eternally existing as individual living entities emanating from the Supreme Cause, how and when did we first manifest our distaste for serving Krishna?"

The answer is that as the Supreme Person is fully independent and as we are part and parcel of him, we also possess a minute degree of independence. For independence to be real it must have the potential to either be correctly used or misused. When it is misused we fall into this material existence.

Your next question was: "Did we exist for a period each uniquely involved in some way in the Pastimes of The Lord and then like spoiled rich children become dissatisfied with our state of privilege not realizing the alternative?"

The answer is that we were like the curious child who stuck his hand in the fire because it looked so beautiful.

And then you asked: "Are we all guilty of individual acts of free will or was there an event of mass revolt against Krishna resulting in a collective banishment, like the story of Satan's fall to earth with his cronies in the Book of Genesis?"

The answer: It was individual.

And your final question: "Also, what is the nature of our eternality? Are we eternal in substance only, receiving our unique personality upon emanating from Krishna (as sparks from a fire) or is our unique personality itself coeternal with our spiritual substance?"

The answer is that we are factually eternal since we are eternally emanating from Krishna as unique individuals.

I hope that these answers have satisfied your intelligence. I can point out further that by diving deeper and deeper into the chanting of Hare Krishna you will be blessed with more and more profound realizations regarding the nature of the Absolute Truth, Lord Sri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Question: Is "Chant and Be Happy" a Contradiction

ISKCON has a book called "Chant and Be Happy". And Srila Prabhupada writes in his purport to Bhagavad-gita 2.38, "There is no consideration of happiness or distress, profit or gain, victory or defeat in the activities of Krishna consciousness." Isn't this a contradiction?

Answer: It Defeats the Competition

The Bhagavad-gita purport is referring to material happiness and distress. Krishna consciousness is completely transcendental to these dualities. It exists eternally on the plane of transcendental bliss. In other words in all conditions of material happiness and distress the devotee continues faithfully engaging in devotional service and thus he experiences ever-increasing transcendental bliss. So there is no contradiction.  Transcendental happiness defeats the competition.

What is the purpose of life? Is it spiritual practice?

Question: What is the purpose of life? Is it spiritual practice?

Answer: Yes! The purpose of life is spiritual practice. That is why we are here. But the truth is, it takes a long time for us to discover that purpose. Like rats in a maze, we have to get a lot of electric shocks before we find the right path.

Let us say that one day you wander into the middle of a strange game. You do not know the rules or the objectives. You have no trustworthy instruction manual. The other players pursue their own goals—career, money, family, fame—but seem as confused as you are. They are ready to lecture you about the game, but their understandings are superficial. This is how life is. You get what your culture says and you get what your parents say. Then you acquire other kinds of information. But how much of that is trustworthy? You see that the answers you have been operating from are not the ultimate answers. You have to go deeper. If you are fortunate, you start to ask questions that begin to awaken you. You become aware of a spiritual path. You also discover a certain pain in awakening: your family and friends are not necessarily awakening with you. Nonetheless, that awakening is a great blessing because you start to move along the path towards inner harmony, towards inner peace and towards understanding what your life is about. And, once you begin to awaken, there is no turning back. I have seen people of the ignorance-is-bliss school try to put themselves back to sleep, but it is only temporarily effective.

How to Know Krishna's Will?

Question: How to Know Krishna's Will?

You have mentioned that we shall be perfect when we are 100% surrendered to the will of Krishna. But with mundane imperfect senses, associated with a false ego and entangled with thousands of material desires and non important commitments at the family and professional front.. we are in complete dark to understand the will of God. Nor could we conceive the idea of thinking about the same.

Please do let us know how can we understand the will of Krishna and the real objective behind our life. His Grace please please bless us with your valuable advise.

Answer:  From the Spiritual Master

It is not difficult to know the will of Krishna because He fully reveals it in the Bhagavad-gita. He wants us to completely surrender ourselves unto His representative, the bona fide spiritual master. As a surrendered soul to the spiritual master we accept whatever order or instruction he gives us as our very life and soul. So to know how to execute the will of Krishna is not at all difficult. We simply have to mold our lives according to the directions we receive from Krishna from the transcendental via media of the bona fide spiritual master.

What Is Krishna's Origin?

Question: What Is Krishna's Origin?

One question, not sure if it is a question worth asking, but like my father used to say the only stupid question is the one not asked.

If everything in existence has origin and nothing can exist without it, then where from is Sri Krishna's origin? Must He not have has origin also. Or has he always just been? 

Answer:  Krishna

Since Krishna is the origin of all, Krishna's origin is obviously Krishna. In other words, He is self-manifested. So, as you have asked, He has always been.

Why Do You Ignore the Swine Flu?

Question: Why Do You Ignore the Swine Flu?

I am surprised that you who are up on current world situations haven't addressed the theme of the swine flu in Mexico and the rest of the countries including your own (since April 24th when all this started) and give us some words of encouragement both for Mexico as for the rest of the world which has been affected by this virus. I would appreciate from you some pastime of Krishna that could help all us spirit souls who inhabit this material world.

Answer:  We Focus on Curing the Maya Flu.

The swine flu is not as deadly the annual regular flu that goes around every year. And the most devastating and serious flu of all is the maya flu, the flu of material consciousness that has infected every man, woman, and child on the face of this planet. The mortality rate of this maya flu is 100%. And we have the medicine of Krishna's holy names that will cure everyone from this flu. Therefore we are focusing on curing this maya flu because curing it is millions of times more important than curing the swine flu.