Question:Why Doesn't
Krishna Let Us Also Be Krishna?
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When
Krishna is all merciful, then why He lets us suffer in this material world.
He can simply allow us to become Krishna and enjoy everything like Him. Some
devotees answer that Krishna, by sanctioning, one conditioned soul to become
Krishna would be unjustifiable and biased for other souls. But, when Krishna
is almighty then he can certainly make all the desiring conditioned souls to
become exactly like Himself full with all six opulence at its maximum,
because it is possible for Krishna.
Is it
not a better solution rather than creating a material world and sending the
eternal souls to suffer there by providing a material and subtle body?
When
sons of a rich businessman fight with their father, the father shares the
property and business with the sons without duplicity and thus the sons also
start a new business and gradually become good businessmen one day with the
help of their father's guidance. And we have many examples of it like Ambani
Brothers (Mukesh and Anil Ambani) inherited their business from Dhirubhai
Ambani and expanded the business and doing well. So, why Krishna does not
share His opulence and gradually make every soul as Krishna eternally like
Himself so that nobody falls down from the material world and suffers? Why we
all have to go back to Krishna when He can make us Krishna?
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Answer: Because We Are
Not Krishna
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Loving
parents chastise their misbehaving child to rectify him of this tendency to
do wrong. This is the loving affection of the parents. If they neglect
to do this, this is their lack of compassion for their child.
The
sun globe emanates the sunshine. It's not that the sunshine can become the
sun globe because it is of a different nature. Similarly, Krishna is the
source of all existence. Everything emanates from Him. Therefore it is not
possible for someone other than Krishna to be the source of all
existence. Others exist simply due to the fact that Krishna is
manifesting them like the sun globe manifesting the sunshine.
You
cannot blame Krishna for creating this material world. This is an incorrect
understanding. We wanted a world like this where we could imagine ourselves
to be the center of all existence and Krishna facilitated us. Therefore if
there is any one to blame for this material existence, the guilty party would
be us.
The
desire is to be God is the immature desire of the impersonalists. Why
foolishly desire to be God, like the impersonalists, when you can aspire to
be greater than God, like Arjuna and Mother Yasoda? The impersonalists want
to become God, but our philosophy is to become greater than God, just like
Arjuna who engaged Krishna and his chariot driver, and Mother Yasoda who
chastised Krishna for stealing butter by tying Him up with rope.
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Question: How to Repent
for My Many Mistakes?
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I did
a lot of mistakes in this present birth. How can I repent on it?
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Answer: Only Full
Surrender to Krishna Will Save You
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There
is only one way to become free from the reactions to your sins from this
lifetime and from your unlimited previous lifetimes. You must simply must
fully surrender yourself at the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krishna as His eternal
servant. This and only this will save you from the unlimited karmic reactions
of your previous transgressions.
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Question: Why Do We
Begin Bhakti With 0% Love of God?
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On 16
March 2014 you wrote the following: ''No loss in this endeavor means that
whatever spiritual advancement you make in this lifetime will be your eternal
asset. In other words if you make 1% spiritual advancement in this life, in
your next life you will pick up where you left off at 1%. You will not have
to go back to 0%.''
Now it
is a fact that before falling from spiritual world we were 100% Krishna
conscious. So why should we begin our spiritual life from 0%, if spiritual
advancement is our eternal asset? Why don't we begin our spiritual life from
100%?
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Answer: Because We Are
Covered by Lust
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It is
a fact that all us here in this material world are pure devotees of Krishna
with 100% pure love of God within our hearts. But presently our asset of 100%
pure love of God is frozen on account of our being covered over by lust. Now
if we will totally surrender to Krishna without any hesitations or
reservations, we will immediately come back to the position of activated 100%
pure love of God. But because we are still foolishly hanging on to varying
degrees of lust we are not yet fully reactivating the pure love of God within
our hearts.
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Question: Does Krishna
Come From Vishnu?
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From
my early days, we were given to understand that Krishna is one of the avatars
or incarnations of Lord Vishnu. However, ISKCON preaches it exactly in
reverse; He is not an avatar of Vishnu, which is contradictory to the popular
belief in India that Krishna is one of the ten avatars of Lord Vishnu.
I
would like to get more clarity on this as this question was asked by one of
the devotees during our Bhakti Vriksha classes.
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Answer: Krishna Is
The Original Vishnu
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We
Krishnites, devotees of Lord Krishna, are also known as Vaisnavas, devotees
of Lord Vishnu, because Krishna is the original form of Vishnu. There are
unlimited Vishnus or forms of the Supreme Lord, not just ten. Ten is just the
tip of the iceberg. Out of all of them, Krishna is the original Vishnu
because all of the other Vishnus emanate from Him. In other words, they are
His expansions. This is confirmed both in the Bhagavad-gita and in the Srimad
Bhagavatam.
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Question: Material
Desires Before Krishna Consciousness?
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In one
of your questions and answers I have heard not to ask or pray to Krishna to
fulfill any material obligations. But if not to Him to whom we can ask? It is
only when our material commitments are fulfilled that we can fully
concentrate on Krishna consciousness. Isn't' it?
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Answer: The
Devotee Has Only One Desire: To Please Krishna
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The
birds don't pray for their material needs and they get everything they need.
So why do you think that you have to pray for your material needs? As a child
growing up in your parent's house did you have to ask your parents to take
care of your material needs? No it was all given to you because they love
you. So do you think that God is any less loving than your parents and less
capable to provide your material needs than your parents?
The
devotee of the Lord only prayers to awaken love of God within his heart. This
is His only prayer. And the Lord automatically takes care of all his material
needs. Once you start praying for material things such prayers will never
stop because the fire of material desire burns hotter and hotter, the more
you feed fuel to it. It you will simply pray for Krishna bhakti, you will see
how easily all of your material needs are met and how peaceful and happy you
become.
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Question: Conditions
For Being Guided by the Spiritual Master?
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Could you please tell me is there any conditions for accepting
spiritual guidance from the spiritual master? Namely is it possible to accept
spiritual guidance or a spiritual master, if one can't yet completely follow
the four regulative principles or chant 16 rounds? And if no, so what to do
in such case, if I can't handle it myself?
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Answer: Simply Be
Sincere to Advance in Krishna Consciousness
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That depends on the individual spiritual master. In my case, I
am happy to guide anyone who is sincerely trying to come to Krishna
consciousness, even if they are not yet able to chant at least 16 rounds of
the Hare Krishna mahamantra on japa beads every day and follow the four
regulative principles: no illicit sex, no intoxication, no meat eating, and
no gambling. Simply you must be sincere in your desire to advance yourself on
the pathway of Krishna consciousness and I will be happy to guide you how to
become Krishna's pure devotee and go back to Godhead.
Question: Why Is the
Soul Called Immovable?
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Thank
you for your most inspiring messages on the Net.
My
question is: In Bhagavad-gita 2.24, why is the soul called immovable?
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Answer: It Remains
Situated in One Place
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Krishna
calls the soul immovable because it always remains in the same place in your
body. For example, in a heart transplant when the old heart is removed and a
new one is put in, the soul remains in same place switching its seat from the
old heart to the new heart. Therefore it is immovable.
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Question: Is Sannyas
Guru Equal to One's Diksha Guru?
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Gurudeva,
if one takes sannyasa from other Guru that is not from his diksha Guru
because of his disappearance from the world then what is the relation with
Guru other from whom one takes the sannyasa . Is it that now he becomes his
authority and now he is his initiating spiritual master. What we call the
other Guru from one takes sannyasa . Is he is also respectful on the equal
level to the Guru from one takes his first initiation.
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Answer: He Who First
Initiates You Is Your Only Real Guru
When one takes
sannyasa he does not become the disciple of the sannyasi who gives him
sannyasa. In a Bhagavad-gita lecture given by Srila Prabhupada in Los Angeles
on 27 November 1968 he compares the sannyasa guru to a priest who performs
one's wedding ceremony. The sannyasa guru performs the ritual of awarding
sannyasa but does not become the spiritual master of the new sannyasi. If you
look at the list of the disciplic succession given in the Bhagavad-gita, you
will see that Lord Caitanya is listed as a disciple of Isvara Puri, not Kesava
Bharati, the sannyasi who gave Him sannyasa.
Regarding who is
one's guru Srila Prabhupada has written as follows:
"Actually, you
have only one spiritual master, who initiates you, just as you have only one
father. But every Vaisnava should be treated as prabhu, master, higher than me,
and in this sense, if I learn from him, he may be regarded as guru. It is not
that I disobey my real spiritual master and call someone else as spiritual
master. That is wrong. It is only that I can call spiritual master someone who
is teaching me purely what my initiating spiritual master has taught."
So the conclusion is
that the spiritual master who first initiates the devotee, chanting on his japa
beads and giving him his spiritual name is his one real guru, not others.
Others can only be accepted as guru if they teach the disciple purely what his initiating
spiritual master has taught him. Is this clear?
Question: How is God
the Origin of Himself?
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How
can one explain to someone why we believe in the Vedas, if they ask how do
you know it is coming from God and not man-made?
Also
during book distribution one man argued that if everyone has a source than
who is God's source. We said that it is God Himself, but than he marked that
our claim is invalid. What to say in that instance?
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Answer: God Means the
Source of Everything
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We
know the Vedas are not man-made, that are coming from God, because Krishna
says that they come from Him.
That
man's "invalidity" claim is invalid. God means the source of
everything. Since "everything" includes both God and His creation,
it is impossible for there to be any other source for anything, including
Him, other than Himself.
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Question: Is Cultural
World Domination a Proper Goal?
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Recently
you wrote that one goal of our movement is cultural world
domination. Some people became very disturbed when they heard about this
thinking that this is some sort of fanaticism or some kind of lording-it-over
mentality. So what is the proper understanding of this concept?
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Answer: It Is
Compassion for the Suffering World Population
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Is it
an improper lording-it-over mentality to try to convince someone to take up
Krishna consciousness, or is it an act compassion to save them from going
down to the animal kingdom in their next birth? Similarly, it is an improper
lording-it-over mentality to dedicate one's life for making the entire world
Krishna conscious, or is it an act of compassion to save the human population
from becoming animals in their next life?
Either
spiritual culture or material culture will be dominant on this planet. So
which one is better for the world population? If material culture is
dominant, the people will be engaged in gross sense gratification and will go
down to the animal kingdom in their next birth. If spiritual culture is
dominant, the people will engage in devotional service and go back to home,
back to Godhead. Therefore out of compassion on these poor fellows we are
making the humble attempt to spread this Krishna consciousness movement to
every town and village to try to make spiritual culture dominant on this
planet. Therefore our goal of cultural world domination is not any sort of
lording-it-over mentality. Rather it is our compassion to try to save these
people from their suffering.
In
this connection Srila Prabhupada explains in his purport to Srimad Bhagavatam
2.7.1. as follows:
"Since
the beginning of creation, the demons and the demigods, or the Vaisnavas, are
always the two classes of living beings to dominate the planets of the
universes."
At the
present the demons are dominant on the planet earth. Therefore our movement
wants to bring about a spiritual revolution on this planet so that Vaisnavism
again becomes dominant as it once was before the advent of the Kali yuga
5,000 years ago. This is what Srila Prabhupada describes in his Srimad
Bhagavatam purport as, "the respiritualization of the entire human
society." If someone is opposed to Vaisnava culture becoming the
dominant culture, this means that they are in favor of the demoniac culture
remaining the dominant culture on this planet.
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Question:Why Do We Forget When We Were In Hell?
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It is
well-established that sinners face inexplicably horrible torments in hell. So
my question is: If life in hell is so horrible, why does the soul forget such
insurmountable horror in its next birth?
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Answer: Krishna's Kindness
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If the
soul were to remember the hell he went through in his previous birth, he
would be suffering from a severe case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD) and would not be able to function properly in his present life. So the
forgetfulness of his previous hellish suffering is Krishna's kindness upon
him so that he can live his life peacefully and cultivate Krishna
consciousness in a happy mood in preparation for going back to home, back to
Godhead.
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Question: How Can Each Religion Claim to Be the Only Way?
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I am a
little confused about various religions like the Vedas, Buddhism, and Islam.
The worshippers of each religion are so sure that they are on the right path
and have their own theories proving the facts of their religion, which
ultimately makes me confused whether any one of them is even real or not. I
am surely able to believe the concept of soul and karma which should be
equally applicable no matter what religion you belong to. I have also
heard that Buddha is an avatar of Vishnu, but that Buddha is not Gautama
Buddha. Please elaborate.
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Answer: They Don't Realize What is Real Religion
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Sectarian
religionists do not understand the science of God. This is why we see that
they are often fanatics who commit violence against humans and animals in the
name of their misunderstanding of what is religion. Kindly note that
followers of the Vedas understand the universal nature of religion and that
they are so non-violent that they don't want to hurt a little ant, what to
speak of a cow or a human being. And the Vedic followers never say that
religion belongs only to a certain sect of religion and not to everyone.
The
real fact is that religion is one, to become a pure lover of God. Since God
is unlimited, He has unlimited names. One can develop pure love for Him and
surrender to Him through the medium of any one of His unlimited millions of
names. This is the proper understanding of religion.
According
to the authority of the Srimad Bhagavatam, it is a fact that the Lord Buddha
who appeared 2600 years ago at Gaya is an incarnation of Krishna.
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Question:How is God the Origin of Himself?
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