Re: Question about a Book

Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna!

Dear Swamiji and devotees, please accept my humble obeisances.

The above is a very interesting reply. I agree that when we know up forehand that the author of a book is mayavadi, atheist, or simply against the Lord that we should rather not take any interest whatever he or she writes. Everything that the mayavadis present and can present is already an integral (tiny) part of the whole of the vaisnava philosophy.

A few things come to my mind when you say that we have to read (for our material career) the necessary books for acquiring knowledge. Often these books are written by pure materialists and as you said their actual monistic and offensive thoughts about the personal form of the Lord shines through in their sentences and affect us in a subtle way. The question is can we really separate this �material knowledge� from our �spiritual knowledge?�  Are they not very interwoven with each other?  Damodara is talking about the practical application of knowledge. What if a car is not designed and developed by a pure Vaisnava with the intention �to spread Krishna consciousness throughout the world�, but by a materialist who doesn�t believe in the holy form of the Lord, or even in the existence of the Lord, and has just the intention to sell as many cars as possible for his own sense gratification? Does this make the utilization of the car for devotional purposes worthless? Or is the internet for that sake worthless? Materialism and �bad intention� from others is fully interwoven into our daily existence and our spiritual life. On the subtle level all the nonsense that is spoken by billions of people through their cell phones crosses our atmosphere constantly even when we are at sleep. We simply cannot avoid the influence. The only thing left is that we learn how to protect our Bhakti creeper from all those influences and the best way is that we surrender all our thoughts and actions and our total being to the Lord. The question is can we really protect ourselves against maya? Only the Lord can protect us from that. We are fully dependant on Him to begin with.

In order �to know the enemy� Srila Prabhupada went even so far that (while flying) he debated in the role of a mayavadi philosopher and the devotees were the defending vaisnavas and visa versa. Sometimes Srila Prabhupada defeated vaisnava arguments with mayavadi philosophy just to show the devotees what they were up to. Of course he then defeated those arguments again with vaisnava philosophy. Again, I totally agree that when it comes to spiritual acquirement we should only read vaisnava literature to receive understanding because it has the right intention. However to find out about somebody�s reputation we have to read something about what they have written. Let�s say you have never heard of a philosopher called �Schelling�, you don�t know his reputation but you read the back cover of his book and it seems interesting. To find out what he really is about we have to read at least some of his work.

In my earlier answer I referred to the psychology of communication. There is a wealth of practical information there about how to communicate more efficient including techniques with which we can see if somebody is sincere or even lying. Some of it is developed by some psychologists and they had nothing spiritual in mind when they developed the techniques. However the techniques are extremely effective when it comes to core-communication. You know within a minute if somebody is sincere interested in your preaching or that they are just polite. When I have to choose to spent my time let�s say with one out of three people at a given moment, I rather spent my time with him or her who is the sincerely interested.

Yes it would be terrible when we would be influenced in such a way that we would lose our Bhakti. The dangers are luring all around us and maya will not wait one second when we show a weak spot. She will enter, exploit and destroy. Our Bhakti creeper is never safe even not when it has grown to a full grown mighty tree. Still a mad elephant can come and destroy everything we have been given. But to stick our head in the sand and not knowing what the enemies� tactics are is also not an option except when we would choose to live in a cave totally oblivious to human society.

Coming back to the practical application of knowledge: I do not think that driving a car from A to B with the intention to deliver the message of Lord Nityananda and Lord Gauranga is roughly disturbed by the fact that the design and production of the car, the road and the traffic lights are created by many non-devotees. As a matter in fact I trust that everybody drives on the right side of the road (in this country) so my undertaking is not suicidal. I understand that there is quite a difference between spiritual advice and driving a car but where exactly do we draw the line? Are both not interwoven into the daily reality as we experience it? Is knowing and confronting your enemy not better than running away from him? In an article on this forum of a few days ago we could see how knowledgeable Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura was of so many different philosophers and their philosophies. How could he have categorized and disposed them so perfectly without understanding them first? Of course we can never compare our conditioned minds to a pure devotee as Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura. But in my humble opinion we can use the practical applications of mundane knowledge for the benefit of inducing the entire planet with Nityananda Gauranga Naam. And ultimately we have to ask ourselves the question: Do we please the Lord with our actions? And when we don�t know the answer we should beg the Lord for His guidance because we can�t do anything without His blessings.

These are some of the thoughts of an insignificant fool.

Hadai Nityananda dasa

Nityananda Gauranga Her Krishna!

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