Re: Offender chanting Hare Krishna

Dear Swamiji and all Vaisnavas,

     Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna! All glories to the guru parampara! Please accept my respectful obeisnaces!

     I have been following this post and I was very pleased to see the questions and answers posted in the first 4 entries. I too have had the doubt on aparadhas myself and distinguishing between aparadha and normal sin. But to the last post, I personally am not too sure whether anyone has or ever will land up in a situation where one is continuously committing heinious Vaisnava aparadhas every second day and night, non-stop offending with his mind and senses completely out of control and acting by themselves and not being able to stop it no matter what he tries. 

     Continuously offending Vaisnavas I believe is only possible when one is a demonaic person to the very core who continuously desires to offend Vaisnavas all the time. I personally haven't heard of anyone who has suffered from a case like this and I don't know whether such a person can even think of loving the Lord. Even if there is a desire in the beginning, very quickly a Vaisnava aparadha makes the person lose that desire until he is forgiven for the offense committed. 

       Anyhow if someone IS like that, I don't think that person will last for very long....before we know it he may be dead and be born in a tree's body without any brains or memories of his past activities. In effect, that erases his mentality too as that soul no longer has any developed mind or memory and so forgets his demonaic natures. We all have free will to some extent which no one trespasses.

     (Really a person who can't stop himself from doing Vaisnava aparadha ought to consider whether he is possessed by a ghost or something else because unless we want to, our arms and legs and mind can't take a life of their own and act independently!  Without the soul they are actually dead!)

      That said, I beg you to excuse me for the joke and pray that no one got offended. But in case one realises that one has been committing Vaisnava aparadha unknowingly, the only solution is to go and beg forgiveness from the offended Vaisnavas who will of course forgive him readily. If one has no physical association, then atleast one must repent by mind and words and actions and pray to the offended Vaisnavas and the Lord to forgive them.

      The most important thing is that there is the hand of the Lord involved in the life of a devotee and if a person is finding himself in a situation where he is being forced to commit offenses, he must surrender to the Lord and his Holy names. The Lord is always there and he knows if a person is truly disgusted at the situation he is put into. None of us who would want to be pure devotees  can tolerate put into such a situation and I am absolutely sure that if we face such a danger all we have to do is chant Nityaaananda! Gauraanga! Hare Krishna!, pleading to the Lord to free us from this trap and he will very quickly release us.

       And another point I'd like to make :  Having taken shelter of the mantrarajas, we mustn't succumb to the fear that we'll be put into such situations because the Lord is always there and he knows your desire. Who can stop Lord Nityaananda Gauranga from having their way? I understand your concern because like you I too had all these doubts, but the more and more we surrender the more we realise that we'll cross over all these problems easily. The permutations of logic can create any number of ghastly and terrifying circumstances distorting small fears to extreme situations, but actually that's just the symptom of an agitated mind and maya trying to distract us by fear. 99.99% of all these thoughts are all irrational and purely imaginary. Like someone had asked in the past what would he have to do if someone came and put a dead body on his plate over the prasada being eaten.

       Irrational fear is THE one thing that stops a person from giving his best, even in devotional service & surrendering to the Lord. The so called, "What ifs?".... The one unshakeable answer to all those agitated questions is this, --- "Lord Gauranga Krishna is there! None of these things can ever happen if we surrender wholeheartedly to the naama prabhus and the Vaisnavas. No need to have all this silly fears, when the Lord is there, how can these ghastly things happen?" You'll find your fears will eventually vanish. Surrender is the key to all these problems.

     PS:  Anyhow Mihir thanks for putting those questions up as I was thinking on addressing the issue on irrational fears for sometime now, but I was unable to get a starting point. The Q&A section is the best place where these issues can be addressed live.

Trying to serve the Vaisnavas,

Srinath.

Nityaananda! Gauraanga! Hare Krishna!    

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