HARE KRISHNA,
I am very concerned about the environment, but is being ecofriendly an illusion because we cannot hold the powers of manipulating krishna's will? Or the forces of material nature are acting regardless of what we do. Or does doing so fuel our false ego of lording over material nature?
Or should we do it as of duty, to protect what Krishna has given us.It can be seen as taking care of the body, as we have to use it in Krishna's service. But Is it still beyond our hands or authority to control material nature? After all it is temporary. But krishna himself had a simple living and high thinking, like Prabhupada lived. He wanted us to use natural cow's products, live in farm communities, serve Krishna. But, is it then binding us to the world if we campaign for the environment and forests, trees?
Ignorence is darkness, where there is light there is no ignorance. Kindly show your mercy by replying,
Jai Gauranga,
your lowly servant.
Replies
It is good to be concerned about the environment. However more we focus on the environment within our heart and focus on Bhajana we will see that there is a lot more to be done within than without
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Namaskaram Sairajesh ji
this is a very nice article , I am in full agreement that we should strenghten our devotion within , but I am not sure of its relevance to this question ? ...in this article it there are references made to .....''the light of soul dimming on account of the soot of attatchment to material nature'', ''it results into weakness of character and subsequent dimming of the vista of consciousness.''
Here in this thread when talking about protecting the enviroment we are talking about doing our Duty , we are not talking about material attatchment , it is our ignorance greed and and material attatchment that has lead to the distruction of this earth planet , it is this attatchment and greed for financial gain that had lead to the dissrespect of the natural order , where opon in our ignorance and greed we manipulate and steal from the earth , we cut down trees that provide shelter and food stuffs for many living creatures and we kill and misstreat the most dearly beloved of all animals the mother cow ....the more we focus on Krsna the more we make room in our hearts for divine love , when this is so the more sympathy we will naturaly find for other beings .
many think that to concentrate upon enviromental and social economic concerns means forgetting Krsna , No No , this is not so , if we do not show concern and try to educate and protect we are not thinking of the countless other jivas who will be deprived of a simple living and basic food requirements , we must all live and provide for our families and comunities as without basic provisions of food and shelter how is a man to think of Krsna ?
If we continue to strip the land of trees we will devestate many rural economies by creating soil erosion droughts and flooding thousands will go hungry and or die , part of the battle of ''working within'' is to remove the strong sence of self which motivates our greed and selfishness .
Yes Mataji,
I agree with you with all the nice and relevant points that you have made on the environment. All that I am saying Mataji is that as Srila Prabhupada said once at Los Angeles in 1975 that once we become completely Krishna Conscious all our actions will automatically be in agreement with Krishna's will. If we teach others to be Krishna Conscious based on Guru,Vaishnava and Sastra ; to that extent you have protected the environment!! We cannot wage a war against atheistic governments and populace through non-Krishna Conscious means. If you have identified one person who is harming the environment ; take a larger responsibility ; give him Krishna. Don't waste your time taking up dharanas and non-cooperation movements against groups / industries that spoil the environment. It is then better to be selfish and take care of your consciousness ; This planet is the Lord's creation and He is in charge!! Our free will should be directed towards simply clearing our consciousness and if along the way help others and that too if it does not harm your consciousness; then that should be done.
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namaskaram Prabhu ji
it is the most unfortunate truth that in this age of kali that no matter how hard we preach there will be many who cling to their ignorance and who are atheistic or aggnostic by nature even those who are willfully demoniac ....
if it were possible to preach Krsna Consciousness to such demoniac persons why did Sri Krsna tell Arjuna that it was his duty to fight on the battle feild of Kuruksetra , why did Sri Krsna not advocate preaching ...
in this age of Kali we must accept that there are some who are envious of sri Krsna , and there will be times when we must protect the inocent , just as we must protect cows .
If I thought that I could change atheists into devotees then I would do it , all I can do is pray that these people will slowly change , but this is kaliyuga !
namaskaram prabhu ji
I am very worried that you will missunderstand my point , .... you are very nicely repeating what you have heard and I agree entirely that Srila Prabhupada and I quote your reference ....
''said once at Los Angeles in 1975 that once we become completely Krishna Conscious all our actions will automatically be in agreement with Krishna's will.''
and with this I agree , but here we have to understand what is ' Krishna Conscious' ....
we as devotees are trying to become Krsna Conscious !!! and all this time that we are still trying to raise our selves to this platform we are still comitting offences , we are still under the inflience of maya we canot just sit back and and think that we can teach others , only Krsna can do this , only Krsna can remove the dust from the eyes of a conditioned soul .
but with what little realisation we have we can dedicate our selves to service of the lord . this means we must be a perfect example we must become just a little of Krsnas attractiveness in our every action , this starts with Ahimsa the first principle , we must by our conduct demonstrate the importance of these principles by giving sharing and protecting , in this way we should allways try to educate others as to the importance of this principle sometimes we do not have time to wait untill every one becomes Krsna Conscious unfortunately you know that in this age of Kali this is not going to happen untill Kalki arives .
I could give the example of many many people who are harming the envirioment because of their incessant greed , but If I were to even try to introduce Krsna into the argument they would laugh in my face , the only way to even enter the consciousness of these people is to discuss on a level that they will understand , normaly this level is only one that relates to what they can imidiately comprehend , and that is the level their own benifit or the benifit of their own imidiate family , so we have to educate on a very basic level .
we can still do this without it detracting from our Krsna Consciousness , we just have to be very skillfull as to how we share and bring others to a higher level of consciousness . this i think is our duty .
namaskaram Charag ji , Yashvini ji ,
Here is the difficult question , to what extent do we accept technology to forward our Ideals ???
this is the problem with technology , we think that we have aleviated one situation by employing technology , but if the technology it self is more distructive than the problem it eleviates then it is a false technology , ...
here Yashvini ji asks should we use technology in the form of pvc pipes to help rural comunities provide for themselvs , to become self suficient ? ...is there a danger that where one comunity gains another looses as Chairag rightly points out another comunity suffers by becoming servants of a massive plant who's sole purpose is to make pvc products ?
faced with this dilema our only choice is to buy only absolutely nececary goods , and to buy from sources that we know to have a good reputation for fair treatment and ethical behavior , those whos factories are cleanly run , who do not engage in slave labour and who do not polute . ...unfortunately we will never find a perfect solution , but we can exercise some descrimination . only to buy what is absolutely nececary , and when deciding to do so our first choise is to buy natural products where ever possible , secondly we should buy from small local companies who are visable , we can see for our selves how they behave within their comunities , and how fairly they treat their staff and that they are acting responcibly .
and never to be wastefull of any recorce what ever it is , ...recycle absolutelty everything one possibly can , ...and think carefully about whether something is truely nececary . ...of course providing water is an important project and the use of the pvc pipe has its benifits , so all we can do is to try our best to source it responcibly and it is up to us to aply this principle where ever we can , when you go to buy what ever your needs may be , enquire with the shop keeper , where is this from ? ...who is the company and what are their policies, ... this may seem crazy , but it is spreading the awareness that people want to buy ethicaly sourced produce , the shop keeper will then ask his supplier and the manifacturers will begin to realise that they canot get away with unethical behavior , he will begin to realise that things are changing , then he will have to change too , ..Yashvini ji raised a perfect point , .. that this society has been raised on the Idea of economics over ethics and because of this the world is now in such a precarious position . we have given too much emphasis to economics , even science is governed by economics , economics has grown too , too powerfull , we have lost all sence of proportion , ...
and yes to just sit back and expect science to come up with the answers whilst we continue to think that we are the enjoyers expecting to continue to aprofitise from others is on roughly the same level as the previous scenario .
we canot wait for science to find a solution , we have to be the solution now .
it is a slow process but one that is our duty . and it is a situation that causes us to examine exactly what is meant by 'Simple Living High Thinking' , ...
jai Sri Krsna
Hare Krishna,
please accept my obeisances again and again
head on conclusion,"we canot wait for science to find a solution, we have to be the solution now " thank you so much ratikala mataji and chirag prabhu too!:)
aspiring service,
yashvini
Hare Krishna,
What you've said is cent per cent true,and I also just came across a verse recently in the Bg 5.4&5.5...http://vedabase.net/bg/5/en1
"Those who are actually learned say that he who applies himself well to one of these paths achieves the results of both."- especially struck me; does it mean that the physicists and devotees are on the same platform?
But prabhupada in various lectures doesn't speak favourably for Sankhya(material studies) philosophy.In purport, he says something similar to you, of both paths ultimately reaching Krsna.(I even think e=mc2 may be touching vaguely somewhere, as physicists have concluded that the universe is just energy - a hologram http://www.crystalinks.com/holographicuniverse.html - where the "consciousness" they are talking of alludes to the superior energy(soul) above the inferior energy(matter)
Do you think that some of them therefore may not be cheaters after all , as they are concluding (though what was already known to vedas), that matter is just energy (of Krsna, but inferior),while we are consciousness directs it (superior energy, soul)?
(you also may google search things of quanta, and how subatomic particles, though believed to be solid previously ,are not so, but is just energy at high frequencies)
namaskaram ,
Hare Krsna yashvini ji ,
thank you also for raising this valuable question , but todays answer also puts me in mind of verse 35 ch 3 Bhagavad Gita , ....''it is better to discharge ones own prescribed duties , even though faultily'' , ...we too should be content with what ever small thing we might be able to do , and we should not shirk these responcibilities as they are our responcibilities not the responcibility of scientists , ...prehaps the true duty of scientists is to examine matter so that we might all be more knowledgable about its exact nature if the scientist put his mind to examining the matter he observes along side the vedic sciences , and if he were to realise the true nature of the universe he would without doubt become convinced of the existance of sri bhagavan , this would be of more benifit to mankind than if he were to spend his time trying to find temporary solutions to the problems that others have created , if science were God conscious it would be truely free to work for the betterment of mankind instead of the current tendancy for science to be all to often applied to the service of comercial dictates .
unfortunately science in the wrong hands can be an extremely distructive force .
namaskaram Chirag ji
I beleive yes it could be possible although it would take a massive shift in consciousness (Krsna Consciousness), ...and it is our duty to do as lord Buddha taught and practice fewness of wishes , ..the Santosha of the Niyamas ...we do not need this material lifestyle all it does is destract us from that contentment which is God Consciousness !
but this is Kali yuga the predominating mood is ignorance I dont think we will ever bring back Satya yuga only Kalki can do this , ...
but devotees can and should reverse their lifestyle and truely live by ''Simple living High thinking''
yes we can do it , it will also enable many more people to live better and more god conscious lives . it is a masive chalenge , but to work it needs the right motivation.
jai sri Krsna
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