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Re: Ramakrishna & Vivekananda
In article <3g42o4$ke8@ucunix.san.uc.edu>,
Srikrishna Darbha <S2DARBHA@elecom2.watstar.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>May I invite you to (an English translation, of course, of) a song
>by a great Indian saint, Mirabai:
>
>----------------------------------------------------
>"If abstinence from sex made one attain the Lord,
>Then all eunuchs should have done so;
>If abstinence from meat bestowed Bhakti,
>Why, the deer, then, should be the greatest devotee;
>...
><few more similar analogies>
>...
>Thus, Mirabai says, Only LOVE can affect the Lord."
>----------------------------------------------------
Of course, Mirabai's message is that one must not only
avoid illicit sex and meat-eating, but that one must go
_beyond_ these "don'ts" and elevate to the level of "do"s
by loving the Lord and chanting his holy names. That is
obvious because Mirabai herself was a PURE DEVOTEE OF
KRISHNA and that she never engaged in nonsense activities;
she only ate food that was first offered to the Lord.
Radharani, Yasoda, and other great devotees didn't read the
sastras, they didn't memorize slokas, and so forth, but everything
they did was completely in accord with the Vedas _because_
all their activities were dove-tailed with the will of the Lord.
Their natural attraction for Krishna included as a subset
all those regulative principles, but they went far, far
beyond that.
>There is a stage when sensual plesures are harmful. But there
>is a stage FAR beyond it, when outward cleanliness becomes
>immaterial due to the attainment of immense internal purity.
This is wrong in many ways. Sensul pleasures, that is, activities
done for the gratification of one's own senses, is known as
KAMA (lusty activities), but activities done for the gratification
of the Lord's senses is called PREMA (true love).
As Srila Rupa Goswami said, a show of devotional service contrary
to the Vedas, Upanisads, Puranas, and Mahabharata is A DISTURBANCE
TO SOCIETY.
Besides, the issue of meat-eating is not just an issue of outward
cleanliness; the items one eats has a direct impact on one's mental
state and one's spiritual condition. This is explained in the Bhagavad
Gita. It is understood that those who eat vegetarian food that was
first offered to Krishna (BG 9.26) are acting in a sinless way, but
that those who eat anything that wasn't for the pleasure of the Lord
are EATING ONLY SIN (BG 3.13).
>RK. and V. stressed internal transformation. They were not
>typing up postings. Their style was to march into the avenue
>of practice, by experiencing the scriptures before preaching them.
As has been pointed out on this group repeatedly (mostly by followers
of RK), RK and V preached love for all critters and even demanded
vegetarianism of disciples but they themselves were NOT vegetarians.
How thick is your skull that this hasn't sunk in yet???
THEY DID NOT PRACTICE WHAT THEY PREACHED, AND THIS MUCH HAS BEEN ADMITTED
_ON THIS NEWSGROUP_ BY FOLLOWERS OF RK!!!
>Srikrishna Darbha
>s2darbha@elecom2.watstar.uwaterloo.ca
Yours,
Vijay
