Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Newsletter - June 2013 - Vol 4/ Issue 2 Page 01

Dedicated to His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder Acharya of International Society for Krishna Consciousness

Krishna - Karuna Sindhu - An ocean of infinite loveOne day, while little Krishna resided in Vrindavan, a simple tribal lady came out of the forest with a leaf basket �lled with fruits. She cried out, “O residents of Vrindavan, if anyone would like to buy some fruits, I have fresh ripe fruits for you.”Little Gopal heard this and He picked up a handful of grains to barter for the fruits. He had seen His mother, father and other brijwasis barter grains for other goods. As little Gopal came running to the fruit vendor lady, grains were falling out of His tiny hands. By the time He reached hardly couple of grains remained in His hands. Little Gopal smiled at her and said, “Please give me fruits, here is the payment”.As the fruit vendor looked at little Gopal’s smile, His glance stole her heart. By this time there were no grains le� in little Gopal’s hand. �e fruit vendor said,“I want to make you happy my child, take as many fruits as you can hold.” With her own hands she put one fruit a�er another fruit in Krishna’s hands and �lled up His arms. Little Krishna was so happy, He smiled at her and ran home. In the Bhagavad Gita 9.26 Krishna mention patram puspam phalam toyam yo me bhaktya prayacchati - “If one o�ers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a �ower, fruit or water, I will accept it.”By Krishna’s grace the fruit vendor’s basket �lled up with precious celestial jewels!�e fruit vendor was conquered by little Krishna’s innocent smile. She decided to bring more fruits to Krishna’s home and feed the whole family. She thought “Anything that I can do to make Krishna happy, I will do”. She picked up the basket and ran home without even seeing what was inside. As she picked up the fruits to put them into the basket, she saw that there was no space. �e basket was over �ooding with precious jewels.Shrila Jiva Goswami explains, she was feeling such intense separation from Krishna’s loving smile, she became completely transcendental to things of this world. She just wanted to go back and please Krishna by bringing Him more fruits. She didn’t care about the jewels. She thought “the most precious wealth I have ever achieved is Krishna’s beautiful smile”.  So she ran back to Krishna’s house.Meanwhile Krishna came up to mother Yashoda and said “Look what I have? I have all these fruits.” And Yashodamayee said “Where did you get all these fruits from?” Gopal said “�ere was this tribal lady and she was selling fruits. I gave her some grains and she gave Me the fruits”. Yashodamayee became worried and said, “Krishna You cannot trust everyone in the world just like You trust in Your home”. Krishna said “What does it mean to not trust somebody?”. Just then Krishna understood that the fruit vendor was outside and ran to satisfy her with His loving smile.Krishna received more fruits from the fruit vendor lady and brought them back to mother Yashoda and said, “Please distribute

Bhagavad Gita 9.27: Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you o�er or give away, and whatever austerities you perform — do that, O son of Kunti, as an o�ering to Me.

�us, it is the duty of everyone to mold his life in such a way that he will not forget Krishna in any circumstance. Everyone has to work for maintenance of his body and soul together, and Krishna  recommends herein that one should work for Him. Everyone has to eat something to live; therefore he should accept the remnants of foodstu�s o�ered to  Krishna. Any civilized man has to perform some religious ritualis-tic ceremonies; therefore Krishna recommends, "Do it for Me," and this is called  arcana. Everyone has a tendency to give something in charity;  Krishna says, "Give it to Me," and this means that all surplus money accumulated should be utilized in furthering the  Krishna consciousness movement. Anyone who practices meditat-ing on Krishna  twenty-four hours a day by chanting the Hare Krishna mantra round his beads, he is surely the greatest meditator and the greatest Yogi as substantiated by the Sixth Chapter of Bhagavad-Gita.

FROM THE DESK OFFOUNDER ACHARYA

the fruits to all our friends and relatives”. To please Krishna, Yashodamayee started to distribute the fruits to all the friends, relatives, gopas and gopis. However as she gave, hundreds and thousands of fruits, there was always more fruits! Shrila Jiva Goswami explains anyone who tasted even one of those fruits, could never ever forget the sweet taste of those fruits. In this way Krishna captured the heart of the simple lady. Shrila Prabhupada explains that if a person takes one sincere step towards Krishna, Krishna is willing to run thousands of steps towards that person. Krishna just wants to see the sincerity of the person. If anyone from anywhere simply o�ers a little love to Krishna, Krishna (Karuna Sindhu) reciprocates with an ocean of in�nite love. Its futile to be attached to the illusory jewels of this world which simply binds one to ego and attachment while Krishna is eager to give the crest jewel of all realization, prema pumartho mahan, the jewel of ecstatic love – prema. Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda, who are none other than Krishna and Balarama, appeared in this world to distribute this fruit. While in Varanasi Lord Chaitanya gave this analogy, “I am like a fruit seller and My fruits are the fruits of love of God. I have so many fruits, in�nite fruits. I will give any one these fruits of ecstatic Krishna prema for the smallest cost of just the sincerity of willingness to accept it. I can’t distribute all these fruits with My own hands. I am asking all My devotees for all time to come to render the highest welfare work for the entire creation, by helping Me distribute the fruits of love of God, by promot-ing this chanting of the holy names: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare”

VOL 4 - ISSUE 2

“Oh My God” – movie raises many good questions about God, Godmen, Deity worship, religious rituals etc and also attempts to answer them. �ese answers raise serious questions about several speci�c practices as well as the generic role of religion in society. Many of our readers may also have similar questions. So we brie�y share some aspects from an excellent book “Oh My God! Re-answering the Questions” by our illustri-ous devotee HG Chaitanya Charan das. For comprehensive understanding please refer to this book. Interested readers could also visit author’s website www.spiritualscientist.com.

As mentioned in the book – author has no intention to defend the fake Godmen who make a mockery of spiritual principles or support the incorrect following of religion - portrayed in OMG. �e intention is to educate so that we can discriminate the good/correct from the bad/wrong.

Q: Does God help atheists & oppose Godmen as OMG depicts?

Ans: God helps everyone, but He doesn’t force his help on anyone. He respects our free will. �e Bhagavad Gita (4.11) states that as we approach God, He recipro-cates. He helps us to the extent we seek and accept His help.

To understand how God reciprocates, let’s look at di�erent categories of people:

1) Sentimental believers: Majority of religious believers fall in this category. �ey have some faith in God, but they don’t go deeper to seriously enquire about him. God provides scriptures to enlighten all human beings. Sentimental follower’s relationship to these scriptures is limited to respect. �ey just take up whatever religious practice they learn from their upbringing or culture or word of mouth –anything that feels good and seems to suits their needs. As they base their religious practices ONLY on feeling and not on proper understanding of scriptures, they are especially susceptible to exploitation by fake Godmen.

2) Exploitative Godmen: �ey are materialistic opportunists who mint money and gain prestige by exploiting the gullibility of above sentimental believers. �ey talk about God but have no interest in God. For them God is just a tool to ful�ll their own materialistic agendas. As they mislead people and cause much disturbance, God ensures they get the just consequences of their misdeeds.

3) Intelligent Non-believers: �is category uses intelligence to question and seek answers about life. When they don’t get proper answers to their questions, they assume that the answers are nowhere to be found, they become skeptical or even atheists. If they remain open minded and continue to sincerely seek out, God will eventually lead them to His genuine representa-tives who will answer their questions. �en their skepticism will become just one passing phase in their evolution – they will graduate to become the next category of intelligent believ-ers.

4) Intelligent Believers: OMG does not depict this fourth category of people called intelligent believers, who guides the atheist. OMG portrays Krishna’s miraculous personal intervention to guide Kanjibhai alone. Would

Krishna not wish to guide others to become wise like Kanjibhai? Surely He would – His love is for everyone. Could Krishna use these intelli-gent people to guide others – He certainly could. Moreover, wouldn’t these intelligent people themselves want to help others along the journey they have taken? Naturally they would have as we see in Kanjibhai’s example. Does this mean there was no intelligent sincere seeker earlier than Kanjibahi who could guide him?

De�nitely there are such people as described in Vedic scriptures. �ere exists a succession of such seers. �is succession extends back into antiquity and originates in Krishna’s personal instruction to the �rst seer. And there exists not one but several such successions called param-paras. �e Padma Purana explains that there are four such paramparas, Sri, Brahma, Rudra and Kumara. �ese paramparas have living seers even today and all of us can get God’s help through them.

Q: Are rituals needed in religion?

Ans: Rituals are integral not just to religion, but also to every part of life. For example during birthday celebra-tion we blow candles, what is this if not a ritual? Similarly in spectator spot clapping is a ritual for expressing applause. Shaking hands with friends is a ritual for greeting. In general, rituals provide a template to guide our emotions and actions according to situations. �ereby, they bring a sense of familiarity and order in our life.

Rituals serve a similar purpose in religion. �ey provide us with time-honoured means of expressing and experiencing devotional emotions. Lighting incense, singing sacred songs, ringing bells, playing musical instruments, chanting the holy names of God – such rituals help make our experience of God tangible and real.

Additionally, many religious rituals are far more deeply and meaningfully connected with their corresponding occasions than secular rituals. �ere is no intrinsic connection between a birthday and blowing of candles. However the ritual of bowing down

before God in the temple intrinsically promotes the appropriate emotion of humility.

If we perform the rituals without knowing their signi�cance & purpose, we may still get some bene�t. But if we do them with proper under-standing and sincere devotion then we get the full bene�t. A ritual imbued with the right spirit is Spi-ritual.

Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Newsletter - Jan 2013 - Vol 4 / Issue 1Page 01 Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Newsletter - June 2013 - Vol 4/ Issue 2Page 02

Oh My God! Re-answering the Questions

Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Newsletter - June 2013 - Vol 4/ Issue 2 Page 03

Not all rituals are spiritual. Many unscrupulous people have exploited the widespread ignorance about the purpose of rituals. �ey have concocted many rituals which are mundane and don’t serve any spiritual purpose. One common example of concocted ritual is the repeated recitation of the names of some self-styled spiritual teacher as if those names were as potent as the names of God.

By proper education, we can avoid the two extremes of rejecting all religious rituals as blind faith and accepting all rituals as if they were spiritual.

Q: Why do temples spend so much money on expensive religious rituals when beggars are starving outside the temples? Wouldn’t God be more pleased if his starving children – those beggars are fed?

Ans: Is the worship of God really causing starvation among the poor? Why are religious rituals in temples only targeted? Why not target the billion-aires and trillionaires who spend millions on their wardrobes and perfumes? Beggars starve outside their mansions also. Why not target theatres, casinos, race courses, malls, sports tournaments and the like where huge amounts of money are spent on entertainment? If even a fraction of that money was used for feeding the needy, starvation could be wiped out from the entire planet.

Actually, the gorgeous worship of God, far from causing starvation, decreases starvation in several ways. Such worship is an essential part of a comprehensive spiritual culture that fosters self-mastery among people. If people started living according to the spiritual culture, they would become vegetarians and they would never kill the animals just for satisfy-ing their tongues. �is shi� of vegetarianism would decrease starvation globally as large quantities of fodder which is required to feed the slaugh- terhouse animals would be replaced by grains required to feed the human beings. Many surveys have shown that the land required to feed one non-vegetarian person can feed three or more vegetarian people. If everyone in the world became vegetarian, the world’s starvation problem would be substantially reduced, if not entirely solved.

Similarly, if people participated in an authentic spiritual culture, they would give up drinking alcohol. To produce alcohol, so much land that could be used to grow grains is used instead to grow sugarcane. If people stopped drinking alcohol, all that land would become available for feeding starving people.

Spiritual culture enables us to relish a higher happiness. �is happi-ness empowers us to break free from the desires for lower materialistic pleasures like meat-eating, drinking, smoking and so many other unnecessary necessities - thereby freeing resources for food produc-tion. �at’s how even from a practical perspective the various rituals contribute to decreasing starvation.

Q: Do we need middlemen to approach God?

Ans: �ose who convey the idea that no middle-men are needed to approach God are making a self-refuting statement because by stating this they are themselves acting as middlemen. In OMG, Kanjibhai takes up the role of middleman. By thus giving us the message that we don’t need any middlemen, he ends up acting as a middle-man.

Even if we argue that in OMG Kanjibhai rejects the role of a middle-man by beheading his own image that people were about to worship, still even in that rejection, he is acting as a go-between by telling people that this is not the way to worship God.

Even if we listen to atheists and reject the existence of God entirely, we can’t avoid middlemen; we are letting those preachers of atheism become our middlemen. But these are middlemen who meddle in our relationship with God and push us far away from Him.

So, rather than futilely denying the need of middlemen, we will be much better o� investing our intellectual energy in �nding out the right kind of middlemen – those who are actually close to God and will help us come closer to him.

Q: When God is in our heart, why do we need guru to come between us and him?

Ans: �e guru doesn’t come in between us and God; he removes whatever lies between us and God.

�ough God resides in our heart, can we feel His presence there? No. A huge wall of misconceptions blocks our access to Him. �ese misconceptions are of two types – conceptual and practical.

Conceptually, we may have many doubts like ‘Does God actually exist?’ and ‘If God is good, then why is there evil in the world?’ Such doubts make it di±cult for us to even believe in God, leave alone love Him. To remove these doubts, we need systematic philosophical education. �e guru provides this education and thus breaks down the wall of doubts that stands between us and God.

Practically, we may have many desires that distract us from devoting ourselves to God. �e guru guides us about how to balance between the mundane and spiritual aspects of life, and how to cultivate love for God even while living in the world. Without such guidance, we will either postpone devotion for a tomorrow that never comes or will neglect our worldly responsibilities in the name of devotion. By such actions we let the wall between us and God remain intact. �at’s why, if we are serious about breaking that wall, we indispensably need the guru’s guidance.

�e role that the guru plays is conveyed by the two parts of the word ‘guru’: gu and ru. Gu refers to the spiritual ignorance that we are in. Ru refers to the radiance of spiritual knowledge that dispels this ignorance. �us, the guru is the one who dispels the darkness of our spiritual ignorance by illuminating us with spiritual knowledge.

FEED CAPACITY OF 1 ACRE OF LAND - MEAT VS VEGETABLES

Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Newsletter - June 2013 - Vol 4/ Issue 2Page 04

MAHENG/2010/34766Edited and Published by : Krishnan M Iyer, Building No. 4, Flat No. 5, LNHO Compound, K. M. Munshi Marg, Chowpatty, Mumbai, 400007Printed by him at : Steadfast printers, A/12-47, Chittaranjannagar, Rajawadi, Vidyavihar (East), Mumbai, 400077, India For : International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Temple, 7 K. M. Munshi Marg, Girgaum, Chowpatty, Mumbai – 7. Phone: (022) 2366 5500, Fax:(022) 23665555.

Visit us at : www.radhagopinath.com, www.deitydarshan.com Send comments and letters : parth.seva@gmail.com Photos printed with permission from BBT.

SRI SRI RADHA GOPINATH MANDIRThe world within its fold

Founder Acharya: His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

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