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EDITORIAL April 22, 1999 VNN3669 The International Day Of The Vaisnava BY DEVARSIRAT DAS EDITORIAL, Apr 22 (VNN) — A response to Jagadananda Prabhu letter: Humanitarian work and Krishna Consciousness Jagadananda Prabhu letter was excellent, it is true that the basic problem of society is the lack of God consciousness and that the "best welfare activity for all of human society is to awaken man's Krishna consciousness." But it is also true, that many people including devotees feel an indifference to human suffering based on the doctrine of karma. This is indeed the great danger of the karma doctrine, it can make us uncompassionate to the suffering and feelings of others, this is especially bad when practitioners of Krishna Consciousness without really understanding the soul in the body, treat each other with this point of view and cause lots of damage to each other. In so many cases a total loss of faith is the result. The soul can not be harmed in any way, but this should not mean that we can do anything we like to the body or the mind of a person. The soul does experience the suffering as real and therefore suffering is real. Otherwise what's the point of Karma? I am sure that an uncompassionate attitude also creates negative Karma and I can imagine such persons to be in great need of mercy in the future. Jagadananda Prabhu proposes humanitarian acts as a process both for preaching Krishna consciousness and for developing the compassion that is an integral part of Krishna consciousness. He writes, that there are several levels on which humanitarian activity should be seen as helpful in spreading Krishna consciousness. That is certainly true and can be seen as a type of devotional service if the goal is to join the Jiva with the Lord . Other humanitarian activities based purely on helping the body, but who neglect the spiritual site will in my humble opinion only create good Karma which is something unwanted especially for a devotee, because it will bind us to be reborn again to experience the results of our actions. So I propose that even so humanitarian activities are certainly needed in this time and day, they have to be dovetailed with devotional service and made transcendental. Otherwise one falls into the category of an unsuccessful spiritualist who resolves again to pious activities having lost his spiritual perspective. At present there are unlimited opportunities to act pious all over the World and we could get lost not knowing where to start first. The great earth changes have begun and I do not think we can do anything else then doing our best, to be Krishna Conscious ourselves first, because things will take their toll as time goes by. Everyone will be affected by the times ahead and we should now try our very best to develop our relationship with Sri Sri Radha Krishna, develop love to other devotees, ( without prejudice to Iskcon or the Gaudiya Math devotees or indeed any devotee ) chant and develop a compassion based on the souls suffering in ignorance of her real nature, because it is that ignorance which is the course for the souls suffering in the first place. One might ask why the soul suffers so much or why Krishna has set up a system such as this one, how could He, He who is supposed to be full of love for all? We forget that the soul has forgotten her real nature and thinks itself to be the body. Would it not be really violent and evil if Krishna would leave the soul thinking this way, whilst He is happy laughing and joking and enjoying somewhere else? He has to do something to wake the soul up. So karma does look terrible in many cases and it makes us cry just to watch and hear about some of the atrocities going on everywhere, but it does make the soul cry out for mercy to the Lord. Something he otherwise might never do. After cursing God and rejecting Him and not understanding Him we all come to the point of waking up and ask for His mercy instead of material goods and fortune or a good life and material solutions to our domestic life. I understand when this happens and the soul does actually cry's out in in utter hopelessness and despair her prayers finally become sincere and she turns to the Lord and receives His mercy. In fact that is the only time when Krishna can give His real mercy. At this point begins the revival of Krishna Consciousness and the relationship to Krishna in the Jiva. Its totally pleasurable to both, Krishna experiences the Jiva turning towards Him and the Jiva finally seeing the light after countless of births in bondage and begins to serve Him. The Jiva is totally block headed when it comes to understand God, the goal of life and so on. I understand that that is why the material World can never be made perfect and is a place where good and evil are experienced side by side with the option to get out after we are exhausted and go where we belong. Pious activities should never be given up, but they must become transcendental . Normal pious humanitarian activities are meant in my understanding for the Jiva in order to develop good sukriti to qualify for a higher understanding and also to ensure another human birth to be able to continue and get another chance to find Krishna. So definitely the distressed are the ones who are the best candidates to preach to, but they also might not had have enough. I believe that if we as devotees carry the message of Lord Caitanya within our hearts and begin to work on healing ourselves and the overall situation and relationships we have to another first, and become true devotees, then Krishna will send us the distressed and unfortunate automatically. We do not need to look for them, they will come as the did in the past, the same as we did. I also believe that as we go on arguing and fighting, engage in politics and nip picking, find faults with one another, we do not realize that we are falling into Mayas trap and become like so many other religious groups who got stuck on certain things and completely have lost focus of their religion. Instead of engaging in devotional activities meant to please Krishna we do lots of things which must be displeasing to Him. He says clearly that those who explain this knowledge to others are the most dear to Him and He says that the devotees enlighten each other. What about practicing the principles of love between devotees? We must begin to work on these things and put sectarian dogmas behind us in order to attract Krishna and also the suffering souls of this world. They will come and Vaisnavism will become a true world religion but only if we become pure and our dealings with one another become free from politics and false ego. Everyone is attracted to Krishna and just think how powerful we could become if we would put our differences behind us and just deal with each other and do things together or individually to please Krishna. That is the way to go forward and to create a society with less karmic reaction and calamities. We must come together, all of us, on a grand scale and overlook our different opinions and just serve and satisfy Krishna. Everyone can take part in this, no matter where we are or who we are, right now. We need to understand that Krishna will accept anyones loving service as long as we are not offensive and respect all vaisnavas. He does not say "I only accept a leaf flower or water from..." He says everyone who offers Him with love and devotion..We are all brothers and sisters, ritvik, Iskcon, Gaudiya Math we all have something in common and that is our love for Krishna and His pure devotee. So instead of swimming in this horrible atmosphere of claims and counter claims which make everyone uncomfortable and certainly never attracts anyone, we need to get focused again on our goal and that is as Srila Prabhupada said and advised.. "Always remember Krishna and never forget Him" We need to create this pool of divine love everywhere, in small centers, within our families, inside us, big temples and work on it, then the Jivas who are un attracted now will begin to come and take shelter. It will happen automatically, as our Krishna Consciousness expands we find that so many people will come and take shelter in our association, because we will lead them into the right direction, to the pure devotee who alone can get anyone out of this mess. When this time comes we will all understand that all that happened in the past, was a big learning process not to make such mistakes in the future. We will all mature and accept each other, there will be pure devotees on this planet as there are now, and they will freely and unrestricted go everywhere to preach and enlighten everyone. Vaisnavism will soon get out of these theesing problems and become a true World Religion. As we learn to understand, that this is a time where pure devotees will fill the planet to fullfill Lord Caitanyas mission we also begin to understand that the Hare Krishna Movement and Vaisnavism is made up out of all of us and can not be restricted to just one group or name or institution. So thanks Jagadananda Prabhu for inspiring me to write this letter may be on one point in the near future we should have a new festival day, called the " International Day of the Vaisnava " where all devotees come together and just for one day forget all differences just to please the parampara. One this day no one should speak politics or anything detrimental on purpose, as this is the only objective of this day. On this day we all come together to taste the sweetness of just associating and practicing the principles of love between devotees and also to realize, that this is actually possible. Just for one day without any trouble, everyone comes to practice just this. Kirtans Prasadam and Philosophy. Ritviks leave their stuff at home, so does Iskcon and we all make one huge effort with each other and as soon as someone speaks anything else then Krishna Katah or tries to force His or Her opinion unto anyone, we turn away towards someone who speaks about Sri Sri Radha and Krishna, or something non political Just for one day every year, let the healing process begin, we might soon get the hang of it.. I also would like to invite any devotee to write articles which promote the union of all vaisnavas worldwide for my website under the writers section. The Temple of Understanding http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/2469/ Devarsirat das p.w.w@diamond.co.uk Comment on this Story | Contact VNN regarding this Story
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