Hare Krishna ALL,
PAMHO,
AGTSP,
I want to know what species we get as soon as we fall from spiritual world. When we leave our body incurring karma we may go to heavenly planets or hellish planets there we enjoy/suffer based on our karma and again take birth on this earth planet, I want to know whether do we get our next species based on our desire? and one more question, it is said krishna has sent us to earth planet because we had desires to enjoy like him, Then what is the point going back to godhead with unfullfilled desires because there is again chance of falling down, In KC we try to control desires by meditating on krishna but they are not nullified. How can one raise to the platform of no desire? It is very difficult for me to control my desires even though iam chanting and associating , I am think my self esteem is low, Can anyone suggest some interesting things that I can do which can divert my attention to krishna all the time.
Hari Bol
Servant of your servants
aakash
Replies
Dear devotee Hare Krsna, Srila Prabhupada says in ninth canto of Bhagavatam that the first birth in the material world is as Lord Brahma. That is generaly so but it may be different in some cases.
As Lord Brahma you may go to Vaikuntha directly or if you desire you may stay in this material world.
By missuse of your independence you fell down from being Lord Brahma.
The spiritual world can be acheived from species other than the human species such as a demigod body or the form of an an animal like the elephant Gajendra.
For someone who lived on the heavenly planets they again take birth as ahuman being in a pious family or in a devoee family as explained in the Gita and get another chance to do devotional service.
KC does not mean to stop desires but to dovetail all desire in the sevice of Krsna.
There is never a time when there will be no desire.
All your desires whatever they may be can be directed towards Krsna under the guidance of the expert spiritual
master.
One who restrains the senses of action but whose mind dwells on sense objects certainly deludes himself and is called a pretender.
The embodied soul may be restricted from sense enjoyment, though the taste for sense objects remains.
But, ceasing such engagements by experiencing a higher taste, he is fixed in consciousness.
So never mind what condition you are in chant Hare Krsna , Hear more and more about Krsna and increase your feelings of love for Him and autmatically you will be purified . Hare Krsna
HariBol!!
Hare Krishna Aakash pr.
PAMHO. AGTSP.
From what I have heard from senior devotees is that when a soul falls down from the spiritual world to this material world, it is given the position of a Brahama in one of the universe. As we know, Brahama is the demigod responsible for doing all the material creation. Hence, he enjoys being a acreater even though Lord teaches him in soo many ways that he is only an instrument in the hands of Lord Hari. After being in the body of brahama, the soul is then given various bodies according to his desire and what it deserves. But the problem is that in all the other bodies, one can not perfect his life. It is only in the body of a human being can one practice bhakthi and perfect his life and go back to god head.
A devotee never aspires for heaven or hell. These things keep us bound to the cycle of birth and death. A devotee even does not aspire for liberation or mukthi which different paths define in different ways. Some say that we merge with the brahmajothi, some say we become one with God, etc.. These are all temporary aspirations. Once we are there, we have to come back to earthly planets to earn our Karma because in any other place than the earthly planets, we will not get any Karmic reactions.
Regarding your question about desires... A devotee never gives up any of his desires. That is not the aim/goal of life. The goal of life is to accept Krishna as supreme and to worship him and please him and go back to his abode to permanently serve him in Goloka Vrindavan. Srila Prabhupada gives this example for this giving up of material desires. A beggar usually feeds on the rejected food from streets. But if is given nice palatable dishes to his complete satisfaction, he will not be any more interested in having the rejected food. So, when we get a higher taste, the lower ones do not attracts us. Similarly, at present stage, we may feel happy about what we are doing which is not KC and also feel KC is very restricted. But over a period of time, we will start tasting the nector in this path, then we will not feel.
At this point, I would like to share a SMS I received from a devotee couple of days ago which really touched me. It says "Leave something for Krishna but never leave Krishna for something, because in this world something will always leave you but Krishna will always be with you". I am suffering from cough since 4-5 days now and its really horrible situation. My mom is a expert in home remedies for such things and she suggested I eat raw onion and gur when I got this SMS. Hare Krishna. I could feel the Presence of Krishna in this message and telling me to just tolerate it for some time and this too shall pass away.
We never try to control the desires. When we try to control it, the desire increases by many folds. All we need to do is, dovetail the desires to Krishna's service. If u want to eat something, then eat the food offered to Krishna, want to listen to music, listen to Krishna bajans. Bajans are of a wide varity available today according to our taste of music be it Rock or classical, we have all of it in here in ISKCON. You want to dance, go to temple and dance for the pleasure of Krishna in Mangalarthi/Guru pooja/Gaur Aarthi etc. If you like to read, then read Prabhupada books which is a power house of Knowledge. Infact there is nothing which we can not use in service of Krishna.
I hope this helped a bit for you.
Hari bol!!!!!
Dear Prabhu.. It's always a pleasure and an opportunity to gain invaluable knowledge reading your replies..
HariBol
Hare Krishna Sudheendra prabhu,
PAMHO,
AGSP,
Thank you for clear explaination. I am aspiring to become devotee but iam very weak in self esteem.
I have always fear of falling down in KC and easily get attracted to material things. But it is unbelievable that krishna is so merciful that he always protect me and fulfilled all my desires, many things happend in my life which cannot be achieved by human effort and all of them are real miracles. I dont follow regulative priniciples properly and krishna is so merciful that he gave me association of great devotees who are responsible to spread KC in massive scale. I dont understand why krishna is so merciful to me and even dont understand why I am not developing taste to him, but really love krishna.............
Hari bol.
HAre Krishna Aakash Menon pr
PAMHO. AGTSP. AGTSG&G
I am very glad that you are expressing openly your thoughts in this forum. All of us have these problems in the path of Bhakthi in different magnitude. By such questions, many devotees get benefit when senior devotees like Jagadatma Pr responds to such questions.
I would like to speak a bit on one point you made above of fear of falling down. This is technically called fear of failure. This usually comes because of a lack of self confidence. On top of all, its nothing but the trick of our mind... thats all. I was hearing one lecture of my Guru maharaj HH Radhanath Swami Maharaj in which the maharaj was telling about mind. He said, mind always laments for what we have done in past and hankers for what needs to be done in future. Never, the mind lives in present. Krishna has told in SB canto 1 that even if we fall down in this life time while practicing devotional service, there is nothing we are going to lose. It is however better we do practice Krishna Conciseness[KC] to what ever degree possible and try to perfect our life. Nobody is asking us to give up everything and become brahamachari or sanyasi. No. It is neither not possible for every one to be on this platform. What Krishna has told and Srila Prabhupada has tought us is to continue what ever we are doing and also practice KC. Prabhupad has made the process very simple.
Srila Prabhupada gives the example of a person having jaundice. For a person with jaundice, the most sweet sugarcane juice tastes very bitter. But that is the medicine for this disease. As he regularly takes this medicine, he will be cured of the disease and he can latter relish the taste of the sugarcane juice. Similarly we may not feel the taste in any of the things at our stage. But we have to continue practicing. We may fall down some time, but we should still continue practicing. Only with such a determination can we win the war against Maya.
Once a person asked Srila Prabhupada - What is the USE of chanting Hare Krishna? Then Prabhupada replied, OK you are asking me what is the use of chanting HK, let me ask you a question - What is that you are loosing by chanting HK ?????? That person was shocked!!! He latter became a nice devotee and surrendered to SP. The point I want to make here is, mind will give soo many ways why not practice KC. But we have one single reason for all its nonsense questions - Just to please Guru and Krishna and go back home back to Godhead this very life.
Hari bol!!!
thank You Prabhuji!
especially for : "Leave something for Krishna but never leave Krishna for something, because in this world something will always leave you but Krishna will always be with you".
Hare Krishna!
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Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4.9 says:
One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.
From Purport:
...The impersonalists and the yogis attain liberation only after much trouble and many, many births. Even then, the liberation they achieve--merging into the impersonal brahmajyoti of the Lord--is only partial, and there is the risk of returning again to this material world. But the devotee, simply by understanding the transcendental nature of the body and activities of the Lord, attains the abode of the Lord after ending this body and does not run the risk of returning again to this material world.
....
4.10
"In the beginning one must have a preliminary desire for selfrealization. This will bring one to the stage of trying to associate with persons who are spiritually elevated. In the next stage one becomes initiated by an elevated spiritual master, and under his instruction the neophyte devotee begins the process of devotional service. By execution of devotional service under the guidance of the spiritual master, one becomes free from all material attachment, attains steadiness in self-realization, and acquires a taste for hearing about the Absolute Personality of Godhead, Sri Krsna. This taste leads one further forward to attachment for Krsna consciousness, which is matured in bhava, or the preliminary stage of transcendental love of God. Real love for God is called prema, the highest perfectional stage of life." In the prema stage there is constant engagement in the transcendental loving service of the Lord. So, by the
slow process of devotional service, under the guidance of the bona fide spiritual master, one can attain the highest stage, being freed from all material attachment, from the fearfulness of one's individual spiritual personality, and from the frustrations resulting from void philosophy. Then one can ultimately attain to the abode of the Supreme Lord.
........
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If a person wants to eat meat, Paramatma in his heart puts him into a suitable body of a tiger or lion in order to help him to fulfill his desire for meat. Because human body is not for meat eating.
If one wants to over sleep and always cultivates his desire Paramatma fulfills his desire giving him suitable body of a beer. so that he could sleep for 6 months.
If one cultivates desire to live in heavenly planets, there are rules and regulations. if he performs them and by the permission of Paramatma can achieve those planets.
In this world there are universal laws. If do not obey to them for some time we may be put into jail-hell. But if we live pious life we may be given good job, wealth-heavenly planets.
In the reality we - souls do not act in this world. Only 3 gunas act. Our-souls' job is just to desire and all other things are done by the Demigods. Due to the covering of false ego we desire false things and it is the root of all our material existence.
It is very good, if one started to see his/her material desires. hence how we will work on them if we do not see them, yes?!
Material desires are countless as like the waves in the ocean. they keep coming and coming.
the only solution is to be sincere. Accepting that we are helpless we have to surrender to Krishna. He is Almighty. With just a blink of His eyes He can purify us from material desires.
Always pray to Him to help us.
In the reality even now Krishna is helping us controlling our senses and attracting our senses to His Holy Names. If He would not help us we could not follow 4 regulative principles and chant minimum 16 rounds.
But when we offend a Vaishnava Krishna stops to help us, and that time material desires as like lions will destroy us into pieces. We may commit any sinful actions, our senses will become uncontrollable.
Because of that in ISKCON it is always reminded to us not to offense Vaishnavas or any living beings because some day they also will become Vaishnavas.
Dhruva Maharaja's step mother offended Him when Dhruva even yet did not was a Devotee. But when He became a Devotee His step mother suffered because of that offense. Her own son was killed in the forest and some say that she also was burned in the forest fire.
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From our side recommended only 2 things:
1. efforts
2. mercy
and all other things will be done by Krishna.
as like in the story of a tiny bird who lost her eggs in the ocean. She asked the ocean to give them back. but the ocean even did not listen her. then she told that she will dry up the ocean and started to take out the water with her mouth. (our own determination and endeavor to achieve Unachievable). Then seeing this the great Devotee Narada Muni went to Garuda and explained the situation.
When Garuda saw the determination and faith of that small bird He roared to the ocean to give back her children otherwise He will dry up its water.
Ocean humbly gave back. so by our endeavor we attract the attention of great Devotees and by Their mercy and prayers get Krishna.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Your servant, maral