Middle East Muddle / Krishna And Cows / Rupanuga Continued 07 25 26

We are always with Krishna.

We simply do not always know it.

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Low Life Crazy Bastards Scum!

PADA: Oh oh pilgrims. The Iranian Government people are being painted as low life scum etc., by our "masterful top negotiators." If some gunmen were holding hostages in the bank, and I started yelling "drop the guns -- you savages, and low life crazy bastard scums," the police would arrest me for inciting these guys. They would think I was making things WAY WORSE. 

I have no idea why so many people think this is the topmost masterful negotiating technique? At the same time, there are plenty of actual low life drunks around San Francisco. Same thing -- calling one them on the street here -- "you are a savage, dumb, crazy, bastard, low life scum" would create a giant cat fight right on the spot -- and the police would arrest me for inciting things. 

In other words, even when dealing with an actual low life, we have to use diplomacy and at least appear to be a friendly agent in order to forward the negotiations favorably. It does not appear the name calling group has any real interest in making any sort of an actual deal here. 

It is amazing to me how so many Americans are thinking this is the past master "fourth dimension chess game" level of negotiating when it seems to me -- it is making things worse. Maybe much worse. But now we are begging someone to lend us some minesweepers, which means, we never had any actual plan to deal with any of this from the get go.  

The problem now is, Iran says, OK if you take us to the stone age, we will take the whole entire gulf region back to the stone age. And that would make a giant humanitarian crisis with millions of people having no power, water de-salinization and basic living accommodation. Never mind the oil processing would be blown to bits. There would have to be a mass exodus, or they would die.  

Of course this would create a giant worldwide economic collapse as well. I think this would make the "Jesus is coming soon" folks very happy, they finally made Armageddon.  

So now there is a lot of anger and frustration, which ended up with a lot of name calling. But that is making matters worse, I would tend to think at least. This happens to PADA all the time, "you crazy low life bastard scum ritviks." Umm, ok then, it means you have not ever had a good plan to deal with us, and so now you are frustrated and name calling. 

But yeah, IMHO this just makes things worse and does not solve the issues. If the "negotiations" are not going well, I think we can easily see why not. But unfortunately, the Armageddon-ites are running the show and calling the shots right now, and we could be in for a bumpy ride. 

Then again Srila Prabhupada said exactly that, make farms, this system is not going to last. This also reminds me of so many important and powerful Princes and Kings at the time of Krishna. They could see Krishna is wiping out their pals over and over. But they could not resist -- also attacking Krishna. They just have the nature of destroying, attacking, fighting, and without seeing it until it is too late -- creating their own destruction in the process. Either fortunately or not so much, Krishna fulfills all desires. 

ys pd angel108b@yahoo.com  

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From the Śrī Kṛṣṇa-Bhāvanāmṛta-Mahākāvya by Śrī Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura.

Chapter Four

In addition to herding the cows from one forest to another throughout the day, Kṛṣṇa also milks them morning and evening in barns whose opulence rivals the palaces in the heavenly kingdoms. As soon as He rises, Kṛṣṇa, accompanied by Balarāma and friends, goes straight to the barns, where He moves amongst the cows like a black bee flying amongst different coloured lotuses.

Nandarāja has cows of various sizes, colours, and bodily constructions, with horns in different shapes and sizes. Kṛṣṇa loves them all equally. Kṛṣṇa enters the barn and calls His cows by name, “Gaṅgā! Godāvarī! Kālindī!” And the faithful cows low joyfully as they smell His fragrance and drink His beauty though their eyes.

Govinda caresses Nanda’s cows with His nectar-giving hand, showing the type of love only a son can have for his mother. The cows too lick Him with greater  affection than they have for their own calves. Since there are too many cows for Kṛṣṇa to milk them all, He only milks a few, placing the milk vessel between His knees and the weight of His body on His toes. His friends milk the rest.

Actually, no one needs to milk the cows, for as soon as they gaze upon Kṛṣṇa’s face, milk automatically drips from their udders out of love. Still, Kṛṣṇa milks them just to reciprocate that love. In the afternoon, after Gopāla returns with Balarāma from the pastures, He separates the cows, their udders swollen, into different groups, and herds them into the appropriate barns or corrals.

One day Kṛṣṇa was eager to milk the cows, but Nandarāja said, “Son! Let the cows rest and the calves drink. Go home and let Your mother bathe You. Rest a bit, and then come back to milk the cows.” After following His father’s orders, Kṛṣṇa eagerly returned with His friends to help the cowherd men milk the cows. Sometimes they milk them in the barn; sometimes they milk the cows outside.

Whenever Rādhikā hears that Kṛṣṇa is outside milking the cows She comes to the watchtower by Pāvana-sarovara and drinks with the cup of Her eyes Kṛṣṇa’s ambrosial form and movements. At times, Rādhā’s eagerness to see Kṛṣṇa overwhelms Her; then, as She remembers that Her friends are present, bashfulness overcomes Her. 

Lowering Her face, She loses sight of Her lover. At one such time Viśākhā-devī continued to describe Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes as Rādhā hid Her face: “Friend! Just listen! When Hari calls the cows by name, they jump over each other just to come near Him. 

“Pleased with them, Kṛṣṇa’s eyes glow with tears of love as He kneels on the ground, holds a gold bucket set with jewels between His knees, and expertly milks one cow after the other.

“First Kṛṣṇa worships mother earth with a few squirts of milk, then moistens His fingers and the cows’ teats with milk, and finally He begins the milking itself, skillfully moving His hands up and down. “As Kṛṣṇa milks, attractive sounds like ‘san, san’ and ‘ghaṁsa, ghaṁsa’ resound from the bucket. 

The reflection of His face in the quickly filling bucket resembles the moon rising from the milk ocean. “As Kṛṣṇa leans against the cows’ bellies, His turban is pushed to one side, freeing locks of His hair to swarm about His perspiring forehead like bumblebees greedy to drink the beauty of His face.

“While He is absorbed in milking, Kṛṣṇa’s normally restless eyes are still, but around Him the cows are restless to be milked and the gopas are rowdy, shouting, ‘Come here!’ ‘Hurry up!’ ‘Take them!’”

As Viśākhā was speaking, one of Kṛṣṇa’s friends told Him that Rādhā was spying on Him, so He stealthily left His service and unseen by others crept away to the tower from where the gopīs were watching. In this way Govinda finished milking His father’s cows, just as He did every morning and evening, for He felt as bound to reciprocate the love of the cows as He did the love of the gopīs.

While herding, Kṛṣṇa runs amongst the cows. While the cows rest, He lies down with them. To purify Himself, Kṛṣṇa enjoys smearing His divine limbs with the dust raised by the cows’ hooves. Kṛṣṇa lifted Govardhana Hill to shelter the cows. And He ignored Indra, king of heaven, until Indra took shelter of a surabhi cow. Such is Kṛṣṇa’s love for the cows, with whom He drinks from Vraja’s lakes.

Kṛṣṇa considers the cows and bulls of Vṛndāvana His mothers and fathers. He greets them each morning with loving words, “O mother! Have you rested well? O father! Are you happy?”

Raghunātha Dāsa Gosvāmī advises us to remember Kṛṣṇa’s transcendental cows in order to invoke their protection: “The hooves of Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s surabhi cows are decorated with sapphires— “Their horns are plated with gold set with jewels, and their white cheeks have crippled the pride of the snow-capped mountain peaks. I pray that these surabhi cows may protect us all.”

A throne is kept for Nanda Mahārāja at Nanda-baithaka, where he sits and counts the full churns of milk the gopas place in neat rows before him as his secretaries keep a running account. Just as Kuvera counts the demigods’ wealth, Nanda Mahārāja keeps track of the cowherds’ opulence, directing his servants and gopas, all the while looking down the road waiting for Kṛṣṇa to arrive.

Kṛṣṇa’s father strains his eyes to spot any clouds of dust that might be rising in the distance and his ears to hear the far away sound of Kṛṣṇa’s flute, both of which are sure signs of his playful son’s return. At the first indication Kṛṣṇa is coming home, Nandarāja, out of ecstatic love, becomes confused and loses count. 

His chief secretary then corrects him, saying, “O King! The actual count is this.”
And when Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma finally do appear before Nanda Mahārāja, he embraces Them, washes the dust from Their bodies with his tears, and has Them sit to either side of him on the throne.

Let us meditate upon the king of Vṛndāvana flanked by his two beautiful sons, Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma. He teaches Them arithmetic by tallying the churns of milk as they sit together on the throne. All these things go on in the area called Gośāla-sthāna, where the barns are situated, where the cows are fed hay, and where Kṛṣṇa and the gopas daily come to take the cows out to pasture.

To the right of the barns is the corral for Nanda’s majestic bulls, looking like the peaks of Mount Kailāsa. Kṛṣṇa takes great pleasure in speaking kind words to and caressing these emblems of religion. Kṛṣṇa has a pet bull named Padmagandha whose handsome, expansive gold-plated horns are studded with gems, whose hooves are covered with sapphires, and whose neck is garlanded with red flowers.
In Gośāla-sthāna in Vraja there are stakes to which Kṛṣṇa once tied unruly calves. Even today women worship these stakes. Simply remembering or bowing before them helps tie down the restless mind.

To tame the calves, Kṛṣṇa would gently place small bunches of tender grass in their mouths and lovingly massage their limbs. In this way they became tranquil enough to come along and graze in the forest.

Near the fence is Raṅga-sthala, the boys’ wrestling arena. Kṛṣṇa visits this arena almost as religiously as He does the barns for milking cows—but only after the milking is complete.

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RUPANUGA CONTINUED

Now, Śrīla Prabhupāda was not a regular guru. He was an ācārya. And there has been a limited number of ācāryas since time immemorial, especially since Lord Caitanya.

Not all of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s disciples could be considered ācāryas. Why? Because they are not the teachers. Śrīla Prabhupāda is the teacher. Śrīla Prabhupāda is the book. They use his books to teach their disciples, not their own books to teach their disciples. They use Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books.

If they write a commentary on Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books, that is another thing. Devotees have done that, made commentaries on Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books. They have not claimed to me that this is new, this is brand new, this is special. Anyone who claims that should be ignored.

Host: I would like to get your thoughts on this.

For instance, Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote to Hamsadūta in 1968 — and you have quoted this in your letter to the GBC — that he wanted his disciples, boys and girls, to all become proficient in our philosophy by taking the successive examinations: Bhakti-śāstrī, Bhakti-vaibhava, Bhaktivedanta, and then up to Bhakti-sārvabhauma.

It is like Prabhupāda was Bhaktivedanta. So those who inherit the title Bhaktivedanta by passing these successive examinations on Bhagavad-gītā, Teachings of Lord Caitanya, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Caitanya-caritāmṛta — they will receive these degrees.

And then Prabhupāda said — in that letter — that therefore they will be qualified to initiate their own disciples. And he said in that letter that even, “I am seeing possibly by 1975, all my disciples will be initiating.”

So how I see that — and Prabhupāda often said in his purports, just like in the Fourth Canto, Prabhupāda states, “This is the Vedic system: guru makes disciple, and then when the guru leaves, disciple becomes guru.” This is the Vedic system.
So what I see in the present-day milieu, the culture of ISKCON, is that this is the system that has been going on since time immemorial: naturally, we may hear from a person who inspires us in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and inspires us perhaps to take more shelter of Śrīla Prabhupāda. And that person is someone from whom we may want to take shelter for guidance.

PADA: This "regular devotee" initiation idea was never ordered, implemented, explained or systematically organized. The only people actually authorized to do ANY initiating were doing so as ritviks or agents. 

Srila Prabhupada also said at the same time, none of us should take karma (as gurus). But yeah they keep citing this Hansadutta letter, to a guy who is then a lifetime Vodka drunk who is having sex with half dozen ladies. And he was meant to be worshiped as a paramahamsa / parampara diksha guru -- due to some letter he got. 

Sorry, you guys making Hansadutta the example of your parampara has been the whole problem from square one. Hansadutta got some letter, that does not make him a pure devotee. This letter was also not the final word, the final word is -- the initiations will be made in future, by ritviks. Amazing, they find a letter written to one of their drunk and disorderly acharyas to prove he was supposed to be an acharya. Nope! 

But we understand that the real divya-jñāna is coming from the eternal śikṣā of Śrīla Prabhupāda. And therefore, it is the duty of regular gurus within ISKCON—

Rūpānuga Dāsa: I like that term, regular guru.

Host: Yes, regular — because Prabhupāda used the term.

Rūpānuga Dāsa: There will be regular gurus.

Host: Regular gurus. They are like the guide, the friend — not like, “I descended from the spiritual world, and I am associating with the gopīs and making tasteful arrangements for their affairs with Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa and the girls of Vṛndāvana.”
I never could buy that. It was so odd, because it seemed incredibly artificial and disingenuous.

But they are simply guides. And the duty of the regular guru in ISKCON is to guide their disciples to the śikṣā and the divya-jñāna coming from Śrīla Prabhupāda. And then they are fulfilling their duty. Would you agree with that?

Rūpānuga Dāsa: Yes.

The thing is that if someone approached me who liked what I said and wanted to get initiation from me — and that has happened in the past — I said, “No. Your initiation means to accept Śrīla Prabhupāda’s teaching.”

PADA: OK so we cannot connect anyone to the acharya, but their connection is with the acharya? This is contradiction. We cannot connect, but -- we can and we must. The ritvik idea is that we must connect people to the acharya, but that is bunk, because -- we have to connect people to the acharya. Circular argument.

Rocana says a similar thing. So they are really making the ritvik idea de facto, and the reason is -- we have exposed their false acharya-hood program. So now all of a sudden they are agents, and a ritvik is an agent. But, we cannot have agents, because then we would have to admit our false acharya program was a failure. OK. They are not being fully clean, their hands are still dirty.

ys pd 

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