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Was Jesus a Pure Devotee?
Dear Net-readers:
In an earlier article in alt.hindu by vivek@cs.rice.edu (Vivek
Sadananda Pai) in the Subject: Re: Shri H. K. Susarla's Recent
Postings, Date: 30 Jan 1995 20:07:32 GMT, References:
<3g9b33$7jn@ucunix.san.uc.edu>, he writes:
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>--
>--
>I'd like to paraphrase a little since I don't have exact quotations
>handy. I hope you'll forgive me for being vague. Swami Prabhupada was
>always accomodating regarding the nature of other prophets. For example,
>he has said that Jesus was a pure devotee of the Lord, and he has been
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>equally favorable to all of the other major prophets. I believe he made
>a statement to the effect of "we want people of other religions to
>follow
>what their prophets have preached". All of these prophets were sent by
>God to different people at different times to tell them what they were
>capable of understanding. Hence, you have different faiths for different
>people. Prabhupada basically said if you follow a certain prophet,
>follow
>his message completely, not just the parts of it that you want to hear.
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The question that arises in my mind is:
Was Jesus a Pure Devotee?
In order to be a Pure Devotee, Swami Prabhupada prescribed some qualifications.
One of them is to have a guru-parampara. What is Jesus's guru-parampara going all the way to Krsna? The second qualification is that authorities declare Jesus as a Pure Devotee. Have authorities such as Caitanya Mahaprabhu said anything about Jesus being a devotee? Again repeating what Swami Prabhupada said about a guru: a guru is one who simply repeats what he has heard from his guru.
In one of his lecture tapes, Swami Prabhupada said that according to the vedic scriptures, if one does not base his religion on the vedas, that person is considered a nastik (atheist). Last year, Chinna Jeer swami of the Ramanuja sampradaya on his tour of U.S.A. also said the same thing during his lecture in Ann Arbor. It does not appear that Jesus refers to the vedas in his teachings.
So the question again is that what is the basis on which Jesus was called a Pure devotee? Without going into speculative theories of mundane scholars, can someone present what other religious schools have said about this question? What is the postion of the other vaisnava sects? What is the position of Gaudiya Vaisnavas?
Thanks,
Eswar Josyula
76142.1306@compuserve.com
