Re: A case in preaching

Dear Vaisnavas,

     Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna! My humble pranams!

     This is the last part of that letter I sent him. I have not written this out of dogma to condemn every faith or philosophy as inferior, but it's the truth and I have seen and experienced it. I accept those portions of other faiths and philosophies that are bonafide as per pure sanatana dharma, but I must also reject the misconceptions and the danger of allowing them to bias our mind towards the pure truth.

      PS : If my son were to go on the wrong path and I chastise him out of love, is it my fault? Sure I don't like to see my son in a prison, and I am sure he is not happy to be in a prison either. But in the name of giving him happiness can I allow him to fall down? He won't be happy that way, neither will I. So if the father chastises the son, it is not to give suffering, but to give happiness. That is the purpose. That's where your friend's argument falls flat. He asks how the father is so unkind to give his son a stone or a serpent when he asks for food. But the truth is that we are actually asking for poisonous serpents. Which father is so unkind to his son that he'll allow him to take the snake and die? Actually the Lord is trying to give us food for the soul when we ask for poison. It's actually the other way round.

       That argument comes from Jesus's sermon on the mount where he tells them that there is no need to worry about getting food or water on the path of love as God is merciful (I read it you see). But there Jesus himself adds that first we should seek the kingdom of God before all this is available to us. But it is misinterpreted by those who want to make mischief. Tell him that. You can see all these deviations in their interpretations of those statements. I personally see sahajiya contaminations even within the doctrine of love taught in other religions. I only wonder....

         You see, it may be difficult to believe, but those religions originally borrowed all these things from the Vedas. Therefore we find descriptions of Krishna and love of Godhead even there as Mahaprabhu himself revealed. However history shows that these religions as they are today in the 21st century are products of mental speculation right from their very origin. Each of these religions came from the one before them and so when we speak of one we are also speaking of the others. Those religions are incomplete. People without proper qualifications tried to fill up the gaps by speculation and the result was that everything became a disaster. As Lord Gauranga Himself also mentioned in the Chaitanya Charitamrta, the compilers of those scriptures didn't understand and freely also incorporated their personal opinion in 90% of the places. Some people argue that since everything God made is good, alcohol is good too. (He made arsenic and cyanide too, but who takes that?)

       On the whole these scriptures are full of all the 4 defects (mistakes, illusion, cheating, limitations). They are also full of contradictions too. There is no need to mention all those contradictions. In the end, such religions have done more harm to the real religion of Lord Gauranga as they have promoted and nourished the growth of atheism far more than Charles Darwin and all the atheistic scientists before and behind him. These uprisings have defined the course of history for the last 1200 years. I know so many people who became atheists because they felt cheated by the speculative theories. As a matter of fact the atheistic theories are all based upon that which is taught by these faiths. It's a pity as many of those people could have become devotees. People may have become more entangled in sense gratification out of technology, but actually the mayavadis are far more dangerous than the atheists. The scientists have actually given us all the tools we need for the ultimate preaching movement!

         The ultimate purpose of the followers of those religions today is to wait for D-day when they will become the Lords of the world or they believe they'll go to heaven where they can get higher levels of sense enjoyment. So this whole idea of love is simply emotional brainwashing as it is an aritifical imitation of the original Vedic teachings. If you don't believe me, just see the religious programmes on TV. That's how all these doctrines are so successful in cheating the people in Kali Yuga. At some point of time, actually tickets were being sold to go to heaven! In other words, these faiths are also different manifestations of mayavadism. These faiths were originally delivered at the end of a sword, but then when the populace rebelled, they are now being delivered cloaked in sahajiyaism and mayavadism. Though there are still places where the swords rule.

         So the material world is a prison meant for rectification. It is not a place for us to enjoy as the Christians and materialists think. God is not our order supplier, "Give me happiness." In the long term, the material world is created for our happiness, but that happiness is attained by realizing our mistake and going to Godhead. It is a tool that serves the purpose and not the end itself. It is the means towards the goal of making the conditioned jivas happy by getting out of illusion, not falling into it further. So it is indirectly there to make us happy by turning us towards the Lord, but it should not be taken as the direct means to make us happy. This wrong philosophy that God created the material world for our sense gratification is very dangerous.

         Those who indeed want to embrace the real religion of Gauranga Mahaprabhu must be like the swan that only takes the milk out of an emulsion. We must be prepared to understand that our earlier ideas and beliefs need not be necessarily all correct. Our acaryas publicly only accepted the good points of other philosophies and encouraged that. However they were outright blunt when it came to the bad issues and came down upon the misconceptions part with a hammer. We must never hang on to a faith that we were conditioned with from material experience when it comes to accepting the truth. We must keep our mind clear so that our own opinions do not interfere or distort the message which we hear from acaryas. We do not want our personal beliefs to create a bias in our minds and try to interpret the truth based on what we think is right.  In doing so if there is a necessity to abandon our earlier system of beliefs, then be it so!

          I may have been a follower of some faith before coming here to pure bhakti. But after seeing the pure teachings of Lord Gauranga, I have seen how many misconceptions have been spread by so many people all over the world. So now I only accept those portions of other faiths which are in accordance with the real truth. As for the rest, we must reject the misconceptions outright when we are given the opportunity so that we can progress spiritually. Nityananda! Gauranga! Hare Krishna!

Daasos'mi,
Srinath

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