Hare Krishna devotees,
Case 1- Will lord krishna be fully pleased if a devotee worships & thinks of only lord vishnu & does not participates in lord krishna's form of puja ?
Case 2- Similarly can lord vishnu be fully pleased if a devotee worhips & thinks of only lord krishna & does not conducts Vishnu puja ?
I want to know what is the difference ? Will a true devotee get salvation in both cases or only in case when lord krishna is worshipped.
Hariom
Lord Krishna's servant.
Replies
Thinking of difference in worshiping Vishnu and Krishna itself is an ignorance. You should feel only Love in both cases... that's enough.
Hare Krishna Dear Amit, dandavat,
Mata Bhaktin Maral has very rightly submitted essence of this discussion.
Kindly go through following prayers:
चैतन्य महाप्रभु की प्रार्थना: हे परम शक्तिमान भगवान ! मै न तो धन संग्रह करना चाहता हूँ, न मुझे सुंदर स्त्री का भोग करने की इच्छा है और न मुझे अनैक अनुनायी चाहिए | मै तो जन्म जन्मान्तर आपकी अहैतुकी भक्ति की कामना करता हूँ |
ब्रह्माजी की प्रार्थना: हे प्रभु, यह मेरा अहोभाग्य होगा कि इसी जीवन में ब्रह्मा के रूप में या दूसरे जीवन में जहाँ कहीं भी जन्म लूं चाहे पशु योनी में ही सही, मेरी गणना आपके भक्तों में हो और मै आपके चरण-कमलों की सेवा में लग सकूँ (S.B.10.14.30) |
राजा कुलशेखर की प्रार्थना: मुझे न तो धार्मिक अनुष्ठान करने, न ही प्रथ्वी का राज्य ग्रहण करने के प्रति आकर्षण है | मुझे इन्द्रिय-भोग की भी परवाह नहीं है; वे मेरे पूर्वकर्मों के अनुसार आते और जाते रहें | मेरी एकमात्र इच्छा यही है कि मैं भगवान के चरण-कमलों की भक्तिमय सेवा में स्थिर रहूँ, भले ही मुझे यहाँ बारम्बार जन्म क्यों न लेना पड़े |
Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna prabhuji,
Thanks for the knowledge. L try to be less greedy soul.;p
I forgot to mention one important thing in the other reply. The only reason Ajamil was liberated was because he remembered Narayana (again, although it was his son he was calling to, Lord Krishna / Lord Vishnu are that merciful). And this is what Krishna promises in the Gita.
BG 8.5:
"And whoever, at the end of his life, quits his body, remembering Me alone, at once attains My nature. Of this there is no doubt".. Srila Prabhupada writes in his purport: "Anyone who quits his body in Krsna consciousness is at once transferred to the transcendental nature of the Supreme Lord."
That is key. Now, going back to Ajamil. He was not immediately liberated, but Krishna showed great mercy on him. He gave him another chance and Ajamil used it wisely by renouncing all his material possessions and heading to Benaras for penance, and after this he got liberated.
This teaches us that we need to be 100% pure to get salvation. And this is just one reason why we remember Krishna as many times throughout the day as possible. So we can a) continuously purify ourselves and b) prepare us for that fine line of death where we can pass the test by remembering Krishna!
Now if you don't remember Krishna at the time of death, has everything gone to waste? No. Ultimately the decision is Krishna's (or Narayana's, etc.). So if a devotee is true (but a devotee should never think he deserves it), yes he may or may not get salvation. It all depends on what the Lord desires. For example, Krishna may immediately take the devotee to enjoy some time with him in another material universe, where both the devotee and the Lord partake in various leelas. The devotee though in the material world, is already liberated. And again this is mentioned in the Gita (I cannot remember the exact verse but I do remember reading it).
But to summarize, yes. Such intense devotion is not possible in Kali Yuga and thus the worship of the holy name as prescribed by Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the only way to be liberated. And even this is confirmed in the sastras:
Hare Krishna dear Devotees, please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Adam Prabhu, Mihir Prabhu right You can write here so that we also learn from You. It would be interesting to hear various replies.
Radhe Prabhu, very nice reply, thank You so much!
Hare Krishna Prabhu, Murari Gupta was a Devotee of Rama. When Lord Chaitanya told him to meditate on Krishna's form later he came and asked for blessings from Lord Chaitanya to drown in Ganges.
Lord Chaitanya asked why? Murari Gupta as Hanuman in his previous form, told that the time i think of leaving my Lord Rama but trying to meditate upon His Krishna Form my heart breaks. 'I can not leave my Lord Rama at the same time i cannot disobey Your order oh Lord Gauranga, because of that i have to drown in Ganges".
Lord Chaitanya was pleased with His devotion to Lord Rama and showed His Rama Form to Murari Gupta and told that i the reality i wanted to check Your devotion to Me in My Form as Lord Rama"
.....
Lord reciprocates to each Devotee as per his desire. If Devotee wants to see and worship His Form as Lord Vishnu then Lord accepts that and comes in front of him in that Form. If Devotee wants to see Lord as Govinda, Gopinath then Lord comes in front of that Devotee in that Form.
Mother Yashoda wanted to see Him as Gopal, so He became Gopal - little Krishna. Gopas wanted to see Him as their dear friend so He was their dear Friend. Young gopis of Vraja wanted to see Him as their beloved Husband - Lover so He accepted that Form.
Dhruva Maharaja wanted to see His 4 handed form so Lord appeared in that Form. ...
But for EACH AGE there are different types of prescribed religious duties for achieving perfection. So that part we cannot change. In Dhruva Maharaja's time it was meditation and austerities so he did. In Ajamila's time as like in this age is CHANTING OF THE HOLY NAMES so he chanted and achieved success.
So this one we cannot change. So in this age is chanting of the HOLY NAMES THERE IS NO OTHER WAY.
But which Name You want to chant You have to decide yourself. Srila Prabhupada told to Muslims chant Allah, to Christians chant Yahova. But we love Krishna so we chant Hare Krishna. In this way You will achieve perfection.
When we start to chant later we will understand our own svarupa, and which form of the Lord is dear to us. At this stage we may imagine that we love this form or that but in the reality in order to understand that first we have to purify our heart by chanting the Name.
Another thing is Name should be taken from a bona fide Parampara coming from Lord. It means we have to be initiated to one of 4 Sampradayas and have our Diksha Guru and follow his instructions. In this way we will be connected to God. Without Guru we cannot progress.
-----------
So if You wish to meditate on Lord Vishnu then do that, but first is Name and that Name should be taken from bona fide Parampara Guru and follow his instructions.
Only by the mercy of Guru we will see the form of God which is dear to our soul.
Now concerning time: in the reality true Devotee does not care if he will go back home this life or after millions or if he will go there at all. He does not care. He just cares of if my Lord is pleased with my service. If i can serve Him better. He does not have personal desires. If Lord says You will go back after 50 million lives then he says "ok my Lord, if it is Your wish let it be so, my only desire is always to remember You and serve You".
Your servant,
Hello, Hare Krishna.
Mata ji I have one question....
I am the beginner I don't have much knowledge about it. Please clear my doubt. If Hare Krishna mantra is so powerful then why the question arises of taking 50 million birth again, why not our this birth is considered as our last birth...in next birth probably we wont be able to gain the same knowledge again, as a result trap in the cycle of birth and death again.
and to add, a reason why we chant the Panca Tattva Maha Mantra before starting our rounds, so Lord Gauranga will forgive us for our offenses :)
Prabhu, you are confusing salvation in Kali Yuga with salvation in the various other Yugas which should not be done because there really is no comparison. This Yuga is the worst of all Yugas. Further, the cases you state are very very rare.
Ajamil got liberated because he called out to his son who was named Narayana and Lord Narayana is very merciful and he only saw that Ajamil was calling his name.
Prahlad was a direct disciple (so to speak) of Narada Muni and so was Dhruva Maharaja. Both attained Lord Vishnu's mercy at an early age (Prahlad was a devotee from birth and Dhruva Maharaja meditated severely to see Lord Vishnu).
When Lord Brahma was created, he had to meditate on Krishna for that knowledge on creation -- this was millions of years.
There are various yagnas (sacrifices) to do to please Lord Vishnu which takes hundreds if not thousands of years to do.
To have Krishna as their child it took Drona and Dhara (who became Nanda and Yashoda in their next birth) for ten thousand years of practicing austerities.
Devaki and Vasudeva in one of their past births did penance for twelve thousand years to Lord Vishnu with the wish to get him as their son (Prsnigarba, Rama, and Krishna).
As devotees of Krishna, salvation for us means Goloka - that is our goal. The Vaikuntha planets just don't feel as "great" when compared to being with Krishna in his original form playing and singing and dancing with him. Similarly for devotees of Rama, Ayodhya is greater to them. There are different relationships we can have with God.
Now then, what Mihir Prabhu states about the supremacy of Lord Krishna to Lord Vishnu is also important and builds on his statement. One name of Krishna = 3000 names of Vishnu. Unless you are a very ardent and pious devotee of Lord Vishnu (the likes of which this world has never seen), it logically cannot be possible to go to Lord Vishnu the QUICKEST AND EASIEST WAY in this Kali Yuga. Think about it this way - the Hare Krishna Mahamantra has 4 names of Krishna, 4 names of Rama, and 8 names of Radha (Hare). 4 names of Krishna = 4 * 3000 names of Lord Vishnu. 4 names of Rama = 4 * 1000 names of Lord Vishnu. And the name of Srimati Radharani is limitless because Srimati Radharani is very very dear to Krishna, so it makes obvious sense that Srimati Radharani's name has more power than Krishna (because Krishna always places his servants higher than him; that is his personality). But I couldn't find a source for that, so we can put that aside as my personal opinion and we will not include this for the remained of this post.
So in one Hare Krishna Mahamantra, excluding the power of Srimati Radharani's name that adds to it, we have 4*3000 (from 4 names of Krishna) and 4*1000 (4 names of Rama) = 16000 names of Lord Vishnu in one Mahamantra. It takes me approximately 10-15 minutes to do the Vishnu Sahastranama (and this just chanting Om (name of Vishnu) Namaha, and not the full Vishnu Sahastranama from the Mahabharata). So 16000 names divided by 1000 names (per Vishnu Sahastranama) and divided by 10 minutes (the time it takes for one VS) is 160 minutes which is about 2.66 hours (let's round up to 3 hours).
So in order to equal one Hare Krishna Mahamantra which takes maybe 10 seconds, I would have to recite the names of Lord Vishnu for 3 hours. Let's found out how many times we can recite the Mahamantra:
(1 MM / 10 sec) * (60 sec / 1 minute) * (60 minutes / 1 hour) * 3 hours = 1080 Mahamantras.
We determined that 1 MM equals 16000 names of Lord Vishnu, so 1080 Mahamantras = 1,728,0000 of Lord Vishnu...
(PS The words in caps were for emphasize only).
The point is - salvation is possible through both Lord Vishnu and Lord Krishna. But salvation is not the Bramhajyoti for devotees of God, it is residing with God in his home (Vaikuntha, Goloka, Ayodhya, etc.). By chanting Lord Krishna's names we not only reach an abode where we get to enjoy with Krishna in his cowherd boy, young teenish age - the most sublime of ages.
Further, there is a process to worship Lord Vishnu and Lord Krishna which is both very long and impossible in this Kali Yuga (first off we all have a demonic side to us, and secondly there are pretty much no brahmanas with the same powers as from the previous age). I mean it took these rishi's who meditated on Krishna for such a long time (millions of year I think) to be born as a Gopi. We cannot do such meditation in this Kali Yuga to go to Goloka.
But basically, if we worship and follow the instructions of Lord Nitai-Gauranga, who is an ocean of mercy, the process of going to Krishna will be expedited by their mercy. This is why going to Lord Krishna is in a sense easier than going to Lord Vishnu. Now if you chant the Hare Krishna Mahamantra with a desire to go to Lord Vishnu, so be it, that will be possible.
Please forgive me for any offenses, and do correct me for any mis-statements, etc. I am a learner and I do not wish to offend anyone. Thank you for a wonderful question Prabhu, it has certainly emerged into a beautiful discussion.
Dandavats Prabhu :)
All Glories to Shri Shri Radha Krishna and Gaura-Nitai!
Your Servant,
Im sorry friend, I thought you emailed me personally!, it was the last post that was emailed to me, sorry :)
I did not type here on the main chat because I was trying to avoid offending anyone in anyway.
Message me and I will tell you.