Tomorrow is Lord Nityananda Prabhu's divine appearance day. Lord Nityananda is Lord Balarama. Lord Balarama is the original Guru who is teaching us to serve the Supreme Lord Krishna. Therefore it is through the mercy of Nitynanada prabhu that we are able to approach the Supreme Being Krishna. He is the source of Guru tattva.
In that line is His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada and H.H.Radhanath Swami Maharaja.
For me in my own life, Srila Prabhupada is like the person who laid the foundation and built the spiritual house for me to live in and my Guru Maharaja H.H.Radhanath Swami showed me practically how to live inside the house.
On the auspicious appearance of the Supreme Guru Lord Nityananda prabhu, I would like to seek His infinite mercy and blessings to engage in unalloyed devotional service to Guru and Gauranga!
Hare Krishna
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Friday, January 30, 2015
Discover life for your self
Read everything, listen to everybody, believe nothing, unless you can prove it with your own research - William Cooper
William Cooper is a controversial figure but I found his quote interesting and very much fits the spiritual paradigm of life. From a spiritual perspective, we must be diligent and serious in our studies of the scriptures. If necessary, study all World religious scriptures to get a broad perspective. In fact we should also study modern scientific literature seriously to understand how science is conducted. Then, we should listen submissively to leaders of the respective faiths and science. We should ask questions if necessary to clear our doubts in a cogent and comprehensive manner. Then only, finally, we should embark on the journey of life be it spiritual or material and discover life for ourselves. Otherwise, either religious, spiritual or scientific, if we do not follow the above steps, it is simply dogmatic to follow a particular way of life.
This quote is very much related to Bhagavad Gita and Krishna Consciousness. Unless, we deeply understand the inner meaning and essence of Bhagavad Gita, listen to the experts, how can we practice Bhagavad Gita in our own life and prove to our selves that Krishna exists? How can we gather evidence towards the existence of a Supreme Being? Therefore it is paramount to study, listen, and practice to prove to ourselves of a higher dimension. Blind following is not a sustainable and eco-friendly formula for a Bhagavad Gita way of life.
Hare Krishna
William Cooper is a controversial figure but I found his quote interesting and very much fits the spiritual paradigm of life. From a spiritual perspective, we must be diligent and serious in our studies of the scriptures. If necessary, study all World religious scriptures to get a broad perspective. In fact we should also study modern scientific literature seriously to understand how science is conducted. Then, we should listen submissively to leaders of the respective faiths and science. We should ask questions if necessary to clear our doubts in a cogent and comprehensive manner. Then only, finally, we should embark on the journey of life be it spiritual or material and discover life for ourselves. Otherwise, either religious, spiritual or scientific, if we do not follow the above steps, it is simply dogmatic to follow a particular way of life.
This quote is very much related to Bhagavad Gita and Krishna Consciousness. Unless, we deeply understand the inner meaning and essence of Bhagavad Gita, listen to the experts, how can we practice Bhagavad Gita in our own life and prove to our selves that Krishna exists? How can we gather evidence towards the existence of a Supreme Being? Therefore it is paramount to study, listen, and practice to prove to ourselves of a higher dimension. Blind following is not a sustainable and eco-friendly formula for a Bhagavad Gita way of life.
Hare Krishna
Friday, January 9, 2015
Conversions
We hear so much about people converting from one religion to another. Srila Prabhupada in his introduction to the Bhagavad Gita says that conversion of faith is material where as the dharma of all living entities is eternal. In other words, even if a person converts, still his dharma remains constant and eternal.
If a person is seeking God to serve God, then there is no need to convert from one religion to another.But if a person is seeking happiness (material or spiritual) in God, then such a person will convert. To serve God with no motive and no break in time is the ultimate dharma for mankind. Such selfless and timeless service can be conducted under any religious banner be it Christianity, Islam, Judaism or Krishna.
Most often than not, the institutional form of religions do not teach such selfless service to God, but however, propagate self-preservation and self-happiness in the name of God as the ultimate goal of life. Because there is lot of customer base for self-preservation and happiness in this world, institutionalized religions are competing with each other using mundane tactics to pull these customers to their institutions. This competitive pulling of customers from one religion to another is called conversion. Such conversions have no real basis in true dharma. It is an illusion!
Real dharma for all living beings is to serve God without any ulterior motive and without any break in time. One can do this in any setting any where!
Hare Krishna
If a person is seeking God to serve God, then there is no need to convert from one religion to another.But if a person is seeking happiness (material or spiritual) in God, then such a person will convert. To serve God with no motive and no break in time is the ultimate dharma for mankind. Such selfless and timeless service can be conducted under any religious banner be it Christianity, Islam, Judaism or Krishna.
Most often than not, the institutional form of religions do not teach such selfless service to God, but however, propagate self-preservation and self-happiness in the name of God as the ultimate goal of life. Because there is lot of customer base for self-preservation and happiness in this world, institutionalized religions are competing with each other using mundane tactics to pull these customers to their institutions. This competitive pulling of customers from one religion to another is called conversion. Such conversions have no real basis in true dharma. It is an illusion!
Real dharma for all living beings is to serve God without any ulterior motive and without any break in time. One can do this in any setting any where!
Hare Krishna
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
My views on Christianity
One of my biggest disappointment after coming to the US is mainstream science. Modern science I realized is so much filled with gas, in order for it to have any crude shape it simply is packed with speculative ideas of the fertile minds of the so called scientists. Two pieces of evidence are tied together through stories laced with scientific jargon. Studying in a Land Grant university in the US and rubbing shoulders with these so called academia, I was anything but disappointed.
But this post is not about modern science. It is about Christianity. My other biggest disappointment is Christianity as a religion. Right from the early Christian era of the 1st century, there are so many holes in the religion that I am surprised that believers think the Bible is the true word of God. I am not against Christians or Christianity. I am just disappointed at how the Christian religion evolved and how it is practiced today by mainstream Christians. Living in the boundaries of the Bible belt, most of the people here practice the Christian faith. However, in the past decade, I am yet to find a person who is seriously Christian in the sense that he or she is connected with Jesus in a spiritual way. All I here is dogmatic fundamentalism. Jesus is the way, otherwise eternal damnation or a very watered down materialistic form of Christianity. Recently I heard from a born again Christian, such material Christians are called "carnal Christians". I have not personally met any Christian who is practicing austerity for purifying one's existence.
Anyways, my point is Christian religion is simply a platform for either finding fault or for instant gratification. Honestly, I find this very disappointing. I also grew up in an Islamic state for eight years or so and honestly I found many Muslims piously submitting to Allah. Of course there is the terrorist aspect of it but that is a minority. Majority Muslims take their faith seriously or at least this has been my personal experience.
I hope I am not hurting anybody's sentiment, if so my sincere apologies. I just wanted to express my views on the Chrisitan faith.
Hare Krishna
But this post is not about modern science. It is about Christianity. My other biggest disappointment is Christianity as a religion. Right from the early Christian era of the 1st century, there are so many holes in the religion that I am surprised that believers think the Bible is the true word of God. I am not against Christians or Christianity. I am just disappointed at how the Christian religion evolved and how it is practiced today by mainstream Christians. Living in the boundaries of the Bible belt, most of the people here practice the Christian faith. However, in the past decade, I am yet to find a person who is seriously Christian in the sense that he or she is connected with Jesus in a spiritual way. All I here is dogmatic fundamentalism. Jesus is the way, otherwise eternal damnation or a very watered down materialistic form of Christianity. Recently I heard from a born again Christian, such material Christians are called "carnal Christians". I have not personally met any Christian who is practicing austerity for purifying one's existence.
Anyways, my point is Christian religion is simply a platform for either finding fault or for instant gratification. Honestly, I find this very disappointing. I also grew up in an Islamic state for eight years or so and honestly I found many Muslims piously submitting to Allah. Of course there is the terrorist aspect of it but that is a minority. Majority Muslims take their faith seriously or at least this has been my personal experience.
I hope I am not hurting anybody's sentiment, if so my sincere apologies. I just wanted to express my views on the Chrisitan faith.
Hare Krishna
Monday, January 5, 2015
Reverse climate change and solve global poverty
Dr. Arvind Panagariya is a professor of economics at Columbia and an alumnus from Princeton. He is also an editor for India Policy Forum and Brookings Institution. He is currently the Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog of India. Talking about climate change in developing countries like India and China, his solution is that developed countries such as the US should invest heavily in research in developing countries so there is enough technology using non-fossil fuels to alleviate climatic change. This may sound like a solution but so far, we have not found any convincing alternate fuel source that can be implemented at a global level. Besides, climate change, poverty and world economy are interlinked to the point that one can adversely impact the other. New technology still requires exploitation of natural resources which again may put us back to square one.
There is another solution – shutting down or at the least reduce half of the global slaughter houses that promote factory farming. This can have a significant impact on climate change and global poverty. Slaughtering animals on a mass scale (factory farming), repeated research has shown, creates massive amounts of greenhouse gases that it is the leading cause of climate change. Al Gore is on record saying "the growing meat intensity of diets around the world is bad for the planet…and the factory farming way so much of our livestock is raised now is very bad for the planet, no question about it". While Al Gore won Nobel peace prize for elevating the climate issue, he admits he likes his meat and has no plans of giving it up. Obviously, there is an inherent hypocrisy involved in his book and movie.
Raising animals for slaughter is a highly inefficient way to use our land and its resources. The prestigious Worldwatch Institute states, "Meat consumption is an inefficient use of grain—the grain is used more efficiently when consumed directly by humans. Continued growth in meat output is dependent on feeding grain to animals, creating competition for grain between affluent meat-eaters and the world’s poor.” According to the United Nations, raising animals for food (including land used for grazing and land used to grow feed crops) uses a staggering 30 percent of the earth’s land mass. More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals, and according to scientists’ at the Smithsonian Institution, the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed worldwide every minute to create more room for farmed animals. It takes more than 11 times as much fossil fuel to make one calorie from animal protein as it does to make one calorie from plant protein.
Raising animals for food gobbles up precious energy. Nearly half of all the water used in the United States goes to raising animals for food. In 2008, John Anthony Allan, a professor at King’s College London and the winner of the prestigious Stockholm Water Prize, urged people worldwide to go vegetarian because of the tremendous waste of water involved with eating animals. It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons. You save more water by not eating a pound of meat than you do by not showering for six months! According to Greenpeace, all the wild animals and trees in more than 2.9 million acres of the Amazon rain forest in Brazil were destroyed in the 2004-2005 crop season in order to grow crops that are used to feed chickens and other animals in factory farms. Finally, According to Oregon State University agriculture professor Peter Cheeke, “factory farming constitutes a frontal assault on the environment, with massive groundwater and air pollution problems”
The evidence is overwhelming - animal slaughter is not only causing global climate issues, it also is promoting and sustaining food poverty. By living a vegetarian lifestyle, one can save large amounts of land and water resources. Using the saved land and water, more people across the world can be fed thus fully eliminating food poverty. When people do not experience food shortage (or food insecurity) there will not be a need to work in substandard working conditions at low-wages. This will also bridge the gap between the rich and poor thus creating a more equitable social, economic and political society.
If the leaders of society can simply take one strategy of stopping or reducing factory farming of animals, one can solve global poverty and reverse climate change. Since the desire to eat meat will always remain, a policy should be mandated to cull animals’ in small scale in local farms. As such a practice will be expensive; the frequency of meat consumption will reduce.
There is another solution – shutting down or at the least reduce half of the global slaughter houses that promote factory farming. This can have a significant impact on climate change and global poverty. Slaughtering animals on a mass scale (factory farming), repeated research has shown, creates massive amounts of greenhouse gases that it is the leading cause of climate change. Al Gore is on record saying "the growing meat intensity of diets around the world is bad for the planet…and the factory farming way so much of our livestock is raised now is very bad for the planet, no question about it". While Al Gore won Nobel peace prize for elevating the climate issue, he admits he likes his meat and has no plans of giving it up. Obviously, there is an inherent hypocrisy involved in his book and movie.
Raising animals for slaughter is a highly inefficient way to use our land and its resources. The prestigious Worldwatch Institute states, "Meat consumption is an inefficient use of grain—the grain is used more efficiently when consumed directly by humans. Continued growth in meat output is dependent on feeding grain to animals, creating competition for grain between affluent meat-eaters and the world’s poor.” According to the United Nations, raising animals for food (including land used for grazing and land used to grow feed crops) uses a staggering 30 percent of the earth’s land mass. More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals, and according to scientists’ at the Smithsonian Institution, the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed worldwide every minute to create more room for farmed animals. It takes more than 11 times as much fossil fuel to make one calorie from animal protein as it does to make one calorie from plant protein.
Raising animals for food gobbles up precious energy. Nearly half of all the water used in the United States goes to raising animals for food. In 2008, John Anthony Allan, a professor at King’s College London and the winner of the prestigious Stockholm Water Prize, urged people worldwide to go vegetarian because of the tremendous waste of water involved with eating animals. It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons. You save more water by not eating a pound of meat than you do by not showering for six months! According to Greenpeace, all the wild animals and trees in more than 2.9 million acres of the Amazon rain forest in Brazil were destroyed in the 2004-2005 crop season in order to grow crops that are used to feed chickens and other animals in factory farms. Finally, According to Oregon State University agriculture professor Peter Cheeke, “factory farming constitutes a frontal assault on the environment, with massive groundwater and air pollution problems”
The evidence is overwhelming - animal slaughter is not only causing global climate issues, it also is promoting and sustaining food poverty. By living a vegetarian lifestyle, one can save large amounts of land and water resources. Using the saved land and water, more people across the world can be fed thus fully eliminating food poverty. When people do not experience food shortage (or food insecurity) there will not be a need to work in substandard working conditions at low-wages. This will also bridge the gap between the rich and poor thus creating a more equitable social, economic and political society.
If the leaders of society can simply take one strategy of stopping or reducing factory farming of animals, one can solve global poverty and reverse climate change. Since the desire to eat meat will always remain, a policy should be mandated to cull animals’ in small scale in local farms. As such a practice will be expensive; the frequency of meat consumption will reduce.
Hare Krishna
Friday, January 2, 2015
Prabhupada's speciality
Why is Srila Prabhupada special? - Of course, personally he is my beacon of light. I have not seen any person (not exaggeration) as intelligent and humble as Prabhupada. That being said, the point here i want to make is among the jet paced global spiritual gurus of his time, I think Prabhupada was the only person who was not afraid to call a spade for a spade.
For those who were serious of spiritual life, like an expert doctor, he clinically isolated the bad from the good. Prabhupada was not afraid to point out bogus philosophy, watered down vedanta, pure word jugglery and outright cheating. After clearing the dirt, Prabhupada injected pure organic vedanta as have been taught through the ages without adulteration. This style of presentation of God was actually a systematic scientific presentation found only in academia.
Prabhupada presented the topic of God with such clarity (distinguishing the fake from real), it was hard to find fault. The only way one can disagree was if one simply was not interested in the real message of God. Even today, so called spiritual gurus beat around the bush explaining the metaphysics of life. I don't think there will be anyone as clear as Prabhupada in explaining the science of God.
Hare Krishna
For those who were serious of spiritual life, like an expert doctor, he clinically isolated the bad from the good. Prabhupada was not afraid to point out bogus philosophy, watered down vedanta, pure word jugglery and outright cheating. After clearing the dirt, Prabhupada injected pure organic vedanta as have been taught through the ages without adulteration. This style of presentation of God was actually a systematic scientific presentation found only in academia.
Prabhupada presented the topic of God with such clarity (distinguishing the fake from real), it was hard to find fault. The only way one can disagree was if one simply was not interested in the real message of God. Even today, so called spiritual gurus beat around the bush explaining the metaphysics of life. I don't think there will be anyone as clear as Prabhupada in explaining the science of God.
Hare Krishna
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