I know many Hindus after they become a devotee remain attached to their demi god worship or chanting their names of a particular demigod or doing certain pujas or festivals for demi gods. But Srila Prabhupada said this is not necessary. Vaisnavas are not in need to worship demigods as they are for those who want to remian in this material world and get a better position in the heavenly planets ect. So why do they continue their attachment, when Lord Krishna says to give up all of these material attachments. He says to fully surrender unto Him and that he will protect you. He can remove all lobsticles, so there is  no need to worship Ganesh. If one wants to remove all obsticles they should worship the Supreme Lord and if you like in the Form of Lord Narasimhadeva. Dont they know Lord Narasimhadeva is unlimited times more powerful and able to protect and remove all obsticles than any demi god?

Why continue to chant their names when we have Krishnas names?

And if any devotee says anything in this regard, they think we are offenders of the demigods.

In fact I have all respect for the demigods, but I dont feel a need to worship them after reading Srla Prabhupadas Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad GIta As it is.

What can Ganesh, Lord Shiva, Dhurgha, Indra, Brhama etc. give that Krishna can not Give?

The fact is Krishna can give anything.

I understand if we want Krishnas full mercy, then we have to prove to Him we fully have faith in Him as our all worshipful lord.

But I feel people have been brainwashed in their traditions and religions and they fear to give it up.

Just think of the Govardhana Puja passtime. Krishna is telling all the Cowherd men and women to stop this Indra Yjna (sacrafice) there is  no need to do so. This passtime is proof that there is no need to do demigod worship when you have Krishna. Krishna says just worship Govardhan Hill which is an expansion of Him, just worship the cows which He loves so dearly. ( of course we are not worshiping the cows as god, (Which is another misconseption) but we worship them as dear to God Krishna.

sorr so long.

Kindly give your reasons.

Jayas Sri Krishna!

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  • HARE KRISHNA

     

    If we take Lord krishna as our best Friend, we can have Demi Gods as our friends.... prayers dont mean just to ask for material things only but it can also be taken as  a way to remember them.. as most of us would have been worshipping one Demi God or other before coming into Krishna Consciousness, we can not easily do way worshipping them, despite the fact that we have got oUR bEST fRIEND (KRISHNA).. IN FACT We all who believe in HIM are the luckiest ones to have a single destination to focus on and gradualy the worships of other kinds would cease to matter much to us.. but I feel ( subject to all criticism) there can not be any forceful abandoning of any DemiGod.. all glories to Lord KRISHNA

     

    I regret if my stataement offends anyone

    • my first post but something i have been pondering on for a while....

       

      My personal belief is that God is Krishna, ganesh, jesus, shiva, durga are all avatars of krishna, a certain feature of Krishna's supreme personality is identified in each of these avatars.

       

      I pray to Krishna and i chant my japas with pure thought to Krishna but i also respect buddha as a avatar of Krishna and i choose to offer my services to both.

      You may say well why worship Buddha if it is in fact Lord Krishna? Buddha has been with me a long time and always been a constant in my life, ive always owned a book or statue of him from a young age, i also find great wisdom and love in the buddhist literature. It's sentimental to me, he was my guide to finding Krishna so i pay respects to him.

       

      i may be wrong, i am new to this path and all of my teachings so far are from reading books and forming my own opinons. I think that Krishna and whatever name you call him under is supreme and he answers to all of his avatars names but the devotee must realise that although they may worship Ganesh, his perfections are the perfections of Krishna. Ganesh is Krishna.

       

      I hope that makes sense and it at least sheds some light on one person's mind set,

       

      Hare Krishna! x

      • Welcome Fracis Lane

        It is great that you give all respect to all of the devatas and parts and parcels of Krishna. We all should. But we should also understand each of their positions, so we dont make offense.

        His divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Prabhuapda who is in Line of the Brahma Mhadva Godia Sampradaya. Steaming from Krishna to Lord Brahma all the way to Lord Caitanya and Srila Prabhupada is in the pure disciplic succession of this pure Vaisnava line.

        Prabhupada is a Shaktya Avesha Avatar.. means directly sent by lord Krishna to reestablish the Truth.

        As through time the thruth appears to be lost. So Krishna sends a pure representative to reestablish the truth.

        This ISKCON means we fully accept what ever Srila Prabhupada has told us as he was sent driectly by Krishna and is directly empowered by him. There is all proof of this in the vedas and he was also predicted to come.

        Srila Prabhupada has wrote that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of GOd head. There is nothing before Him. The Brahman or Light.. .is the effulgence coming from Lord Krishnas Transcendental Unlimited Body.

        Lord Buddha is also a Shaktivesha Avatar of the Mercy of Sri Radha.. (Krishnas consort and spiritual energy)

        She is the most mercyful and She did not want to see the athiets go to hell for blasphemeing the Supreme Lord. So to trick the athiests Lord Buddha came to say there is no God. (he was not coming to speak the absolute truth. He was coming so that those athiest who can not accept a Supreme God would at least follow his instructions of Ahimsa (nonviolence) and stop animil sacrafice and meat eating. In this way if they followed buddha they would please God (Krishna) and would not go to hell but have a chance to merge into his brahman Effulgence energy. Though this is not a permanet place for the eternal soul. IT woudl keep them out of trouble for a very long time, until they become bord in this situation. In the brahman energy of Krishna there is no service to Him..there in Krishnas Brahman energy the soul remains dorment and is not suffering from material existance. But tThis is not their eternal position, the souls position is to serve The Lord in His differant Eternal Forms  Such as Lord Krishna, Caitanya, Vishnu, Rama, Narasimha and all of the Vishnu Tatwa.

        When those souls become borde they then fall again to the earth planet to get another chance to surrender to the loving devotional service of the Lord. And when one fully surrenders they become free from all material suffering and come to their eternal position.

        Krishna has many devatas in this material world.. Who are not Him. They are His servants. They take posts to run this material creation on His behalf. Lord Vishnu is Krishna directly and Lord Brahma is a Servant but the most intelligent living being and co creater of this material creation under Vishnus guidance. Maya (Dhurgha) Is the material illusory energy of the Lord and she is not God either. Sri Radha is The Supreme Goddess and Laxmi is one of Her direct expansion with only some of Her potencies as is Sita Devi.

        Ganesh is also a servant of Krishna... He is not Krishna. He is a empowered Jiva soul.

        All of these things have been mixed up over time by teh so called Hindus. Hindu is not even a term mentioned in the vedas. It is a term the Muslems gave the worshipers of the Vedas who lived on a river called Sindhu.. They could not pronounce the S. So they called them Hindus.

        Srila Prabhupada said at the time there where over 5000 comentaries of the Gita that where not bonafide comentaries.

        THose gitas mislead the innocent people to belive so many untruths.

        So I urge you to kinldy read Srila Prabhupadas books.. Especiall the Srimad Bhagavatam, and Bhagavad-gita As it is. In this way you can get the Truth that is steaming down directly from Lord Krishna.

        Other wise we are misled by so many misinterpertations and mental speculations.

        All is in those books and one can become enlightened just by submisively hearing or reading them and praying to Srila Prabhupada and Sri Viasadeva for the pure realization of them.

        I hope this is helpful for you and other new comers to Srila Prabhupada.

        Hare Krishna.

         

         

         

        • phew! that was a lot of learning for 9am! lol thank you so much, i own the Bhagavad Gita - as it is and i've read some of it, i've been trying to learn a lot lately and have read the science of self realization and found it a joy to read. the bhagavatam is massive and in all honesty my budget cannot afford to stretch to buy copies.

          So is what i was saying right? that Krishna are the avatars? such as Ganesh, Durga and so on and Radha carrying the line of Goddess?

          as i say i am trying to learn and get my head around it, it would be so much easier if i had a guru or at least a devotee friend.

           

          sorry if i sound an idiot,

           

          PAMHO xx

  • Thank you Bhaktine Shobana You said it correctly.
    We shoul never belittle the demigods as they are empowered representatives and servants of the Supreme Lord Vishnu to run His material creation. But it is clear that when one wants to get out of here, then one should get up all other worship and fully surrender to Krishna. Yes one may occasionally give worship to attain Krishnas lotus feet as the Gopis did. BUt who is actually doing for that? But if they do wonderful.
    It is said in the Krishna Book (taken from 10th canto SB) that the Cowherd men of Vrndavan once went to a Shiva Fetival to check it out (adlibing) but in general they did not go to those festivals.We must give respect that is important as Lord Shiva is a great meditator on Lord Krishna and considered the Greatest Vaisnava, if we understands him in that respect then All Glories!
    Why people are putting Ganesh above Lord SHiva in the matter of more worship really makes no sense even acoding to the material parts of the Vedas.
    One funny thing.
    Lord Ganesh is to get rid of Obsticles on the path of Devotioanl service because he has written down the vedas with his tusk. So he knows the Absolute truth.
    But people are making Ganesh an obstacle to Surrrender unto The Absolute Truth Lord Sri Krishna.
    Many think Ganesh to be an incarnation of God and that Krishna is in the same bunch lumped in whith Ganesh, this is a grave offense as Krishna is not a HINDU GOD! Krishna is God.
  • I fully agree that demigod worship is not necessary when one has accepted Krishna as Supreme personality and surrendered all personal likes and dislikes to Him and started working entirely for His pleasure.

    However , one word of caution. I have observed from my personal experience that I tend to take advantage of this fact to avoid demigod worship altogether, including those for ancestors which gave me great relief in terms of time and money and energy. But the resources that I saved in the process , I did not deploy in the service of Krishna by intensifying my sadhana.

    This put me in a worse situation than before in spiritual/ religious life. My hypocrisy in accepting and rejecting the teachings as it suited me has resulted in this regression.

    My appeal to neophytes like me is to guard against this tendency. Our giving up demigod worship should be exclusively to intensify our service to Krishna. Until we are ready to constantly monitor this fact, I recommend we do not give up the vedic rituals .

    Hare Krishna. Of course I would like to hear the views of advanced devotees in this matter.
    • Hare Krishna! I am not advanced, but I do understand from those advanced devotees waho have trained me in Krishna Consciousness that worshiping our anscesters is deffinately not necessary. But we can do Pujas to Lord Krishna and Lord Narasimhadeva for their benefit in their next life they are in.
      But what is the use of worshiping a conditioned soul? They are just bodily relitives. Last life we could have been in a cows body and our mother and father was a bull and cow. So though we give all due respect to our current family members and the ones who have passed on, once we come to Krishna evne just the basic process, we have no need to worhip them What to speak of not even worshiping Lord Indra as Krishna makes that very clear in His passtime of Lifting Govardhana Hill.
      Kindly take no offense. We should give respect to all living entities.

      Jaya Sri Krishna!
  • hare krishna mata g....
    u r absolutely right but the things which hav become habitual can't be eliminated easily....
    but in my view more will be chanting and discussion about krishna lesser the wish for immediate gains from demigods....
    but since demigods are also parts of Krishna's creation they must be given due respect......

    hare krishna....
    • Yes Nimmi! All respec,t but not necessary to worship. We can ask them for more love for Krishna that is all that is needed.
      Hare Krishna
  • I agreed with you mathaji,
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