A case in preaching

Dear Vaisnavas,

    Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna! This is one fine example of the innumerable varieties of people we face while preaching and how its a difficult matter to get the message through in some argumentative cases.

    Letter written by a devotee from the forum to a person inquiring about Krishna Consciousness,

Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna!!
>
>    lol take your time, pal. Its always a pleasure to chat with you. Im
> sorry, I wasn't able to make it this Sunday. I'll try to make it next week but its all Krishna's doing. Only if
> he wishes, can I attend the wonderful congregational chanting of His holy names.
>
>    Regarding that mail. It was just to show how even the Church is being
> influenced by speculative theories like Darwin's. Actually only the last
> note is important. Krishna designed this world imperfectly on purpose. The
> eternal spirutual and blissful worlds of Vaikuntha are the soul's original
> home. So how did we come into this material forest of misery? If you read
> the first paragraph of the email I sent you on the structure of the
> universe, it would have been said that we souls once desired to lord. That
> is we deviated from our normal constitutional position of being a servant of
> Lord Gaura Krishna. And hence we fell down. We were given this material
> world were we lord over the five elements. However sice our eternal postion
> is a servant, we cannot be happy by taking this artificial position of
> trying to be the controller of things around us. Krishna is the Supreme
> Controller and we are His servants. One who has realised this is said to
> have realised the summum bonum of the Vedas.
>
>   And the process of Hari nama kirtan or singing of the Krishna's holy name is
> the only way to go out of this material world. So we can have another
> doubt...whats the guarantee that we will not fall again? This assurance has
> been given by the Supreme Lord Himself in the Bhagavat Gita. Krishna says to
> Arjuna-" one who attains me, O Arjuna, will never return to this material
> world."  So we can happily chant the Holy names of Nityananda, Gauranga and
> Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Raama Hare Raama
> Raama Raama Hare Hare and end our miseries completely by submerging into the
> never ending ocean of ecstasy, bliss and complete happiness.
>
>    I also, please request you read the Bhagavat Gita As It Is. It is available
> at the ISKCON. I can lend you my copy if you wish. But please read it. It is
> the most important scripture spoken directly by the Lord Himself. But I also
> warn you not to buy any Bhagavat Gita. Nowadays, there are so many false
> versions of the Bhagavat Gita. I ve seen a lot of them. They leave the
> complete essence and the commentator puts forward his views rather then
> potraying what Krishna said. That is why the Bhagavat Gita sold by the
> ISKCON is named as Bhagavat Gita As It is. The book is presented in the
> original fashion from an authorised Vaishnava Sampradaya.
>
> Very happy to have your association!!!
>
> May Nitaai's mercy be on you!!
>
> Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna!!
>
> Your servant,

Reply written by the other party:

    Ah, but that doesn't really make sense. If 'Krishna made this world
imperfect on purpose," then the world is totally perfect. All of
Creation is Him and His creation, therefore it can be nothing less
than perfect. It is only our ego minds which prefer to experience only
certain aspects of His creation that can possibly call things
imperfect. Imperfect is only in the mind. Imperfect is what the mind
doesn't like. But He has created everything, so whether our ego, our
minds, like it or not, all is perfect. Once you realize this, then
earth is no place of suffering at all. God has created us out of Love.
God is Love. We are His beloved children. When a child asks his father
for bread, will any father give him a stone? when a child asks for
fish will any father give him a serpent. Surely not, a father will
give with love what the child asks and needs. If our earthly fathers
love us this much, imagine how much our Heavenly Father loves us! Why
would our Father ever want us to suffer!? No father wants this for his
children. Surely  this world is not meant to be a place of suffering.
It is His beautiful creation, and it is all pervaded by Mothers Loving
energy, or Shakti. This world is Divine, just as the Infinite
Dimensions are Divine.

So why should we want to go out of this world, by chanting His name,
or any other method?' even if you go out of the world, you cannot go
outside of Him. He is infinite everything. So why go anywhere at all.
Nothing needs to be transcended, but only remembered. God is with us
and within us, and all things always. It can be no other way. God is
the creator and sum total of all things. He is the life breath within
all too. So why would we ever have to ignore, or transcend Him as he
appears to us on Earth, through Earth, as all the experiences and
objects of Earth? God needs not to be realized nor transcended, only
remembered! When we remember He is all things, then we experience Him
as all things. Even these words and these thoughts now, and the moving
of my fingers, and the warm ,milk and tea in my stomach now, they
cannot be anything but Him. When we REMEMBER this, then where is the
search, where is the striving, where is the transcending? we are
already there. the only thing that seems imperfect is our minds, and
our minds remembrance of Him. But even that is Perfect, because that,
us, is his creation. If we want to experience Him, and His Bliss, all
we have to do is remember him and his love, and experience him in all
things. It's only a matter of getting our minds to remember that.
Chanting His names, is one way of stimulating the mind through
heartfelt devotion to fall back in love with God. As we chant his
names, we experience God Love.

I remember someone at ISKCON once told me, 'it is said that chanting
the mantra is the means, as well as the end.' It is true. When you
bask in His love, you are fully aware and conscious of His love. what
else can anyone ask but the Love of his Mother and Father. It is
nothing but Love.

When we remember that Love and stay connected to it, whether it is
connecting through prayer, mantra, meditation, dance, song, or any
action or inaction- when we stay in remembrance of His Love, we are
God conscious. Surely that is the means, the way, the goal, and the
Love. It is Peace, it is Love, It is Joy, It turns to Bliss, and it is
complete Happiness.

Amen, Hare Krishna! =)

         Dear Vaisnavas, this correspondence was forwarded to me sometime back and I was asked to reply to this as there was something ok and something very much Not Ok about this. By the grace of guru and the Lord, I got some insight while writing and I would like to share them in the next post which has my reply to it. There is something very wrong in this reply that looks right but is not right.

Daaso'smi,
Srinath

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