two ways to look at the world

"They say that this world is unreal, that there is no foundation and that there is no God in control. It is produced of sex desire, and has no cause other than lust."

This is the description of the demoniac viewpoint given in the Bhagavad gita about what makes the world go 'round.

A devotional vision, however, is completely the opposite. What makes the sun rise that grows the farmlands, dries the laundry and warms one after a swim? What makes the rainfall and tanks of fresh water fill? Why was nature designed to continuously supply all our necessities of life? It is all done by love. Krishna made this world because He loves us. 

 

 "This material creation is so nice—don’t you think there is a friend behind it? The sky is so beautiful, the foodstuff is being produced, the moon is rising in due course, the sun is rising in due course, supplying heat for your health, supplying heat to the planetary systems. Everything is arranged very nicely; and yet the fools say there is no brain behind it, but it is all happening automatically." -Srila Prabhupada

symptoms of the soul

One of our geckos may have gotten stepped on accidentally during the night. Sometimes they crawl across the floor. I found it's lifeless body next to the shoe rack by the front door.

It got me thinking about the difference between a live body and a dead body.When someone is sick, how can we tell? The person may look tired. His nose may be running. He may be sneezing and coughing or have a fever. These things are all symptoms that indicate the presence of sickness in the body.

 Similarly, since the tiny jiva soul is full of knowledge or consciousness, even if one cannot see the soul within the body, one can understand he is there because the current or energy of the spirit soul is felt all over the entire body as consciousness. Prabhupada commented in the Gita: "Even if one does not find the soul within the heart, where he is situated, one can still understand the presence of the soul simply by the presence of consciousness. Sometimes we do not find the sun in the sky owing to clouds, or for some other reason, but the light of the sun is always there, and we are convinced that it is therefore daytime. As soon as there is a little light in the sky early in the morning, we can understand that the sun is in the sky. Similarly, since there is some consciousness in all bodies--whether man or animal--we can understand the presence of the soul." (Bhagavad gita 2.20p)

Looking at the dead gecko, this difference between life and death is clearly seen. When it was alive it was quick and alert and kinda cute. It was gentle and soft to touch and had shiny black eyes. The kids sometimes like to play with them.

But now the gecko is not alive anymore. I mean, would you want to play with it? Is it still as cute and fun to look at? Would you want to pet it? Normally the answer is, "No". But why not? Because it is now a dead body. The spirit soul that brought energy and awareness to the gecko and made it alive is no longer present.

When a machine doesn’t work anymore, machine parts can be replaced with new machine parts so that the machine will work again. But if you disconnect the electricity or power that makes the machine run, it will no longer work no matter how many new parts are added. Well, the body is also like a machine. Lord Krishna confirms this in Bhagavad gita:

"The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone's heart, O Arjuna, and is directing the wanderings of all living entities, who are seated as on a machine, made of the material energy."(18.61)

Today many parts of the body can be fixed or replaced if something doesn’t work anymore. A person can get an artificial arm or leg or false teeth. They can get a heart transplant. But when the body dies, there is no way to fix it. That’s because the living spark that powers the body with energy to make it work is no longer there. It’s like a machine that got unplugged. No matter how many new parts are added, it just won’t work. The energy that made the body work has been disconnected. That energy is the soul.

One more example is that one could pick up a pillow and start beating it really hard with his fists. A lump of matter such as a pillow will never say, "Stop it!" It doesn’t cry. It doesn’t protest at all. But if someone comes to hit me or you, we feel it. That’s because the soul within is conscious. The pillow is not.

Srila Prabhupada says this the first lesson. Human life is special because now is the chance to learn to discriminate between matter and spirit, and first of all, as one can learn from Lord Krishna in Bhagavad gita, "I am not this body, I am a spirit soul".

When we know this very well we can begin to make great progress in spiritual life.

Attraction for the All-Attractive

So what is that attraction to something or someone really?

It's because everything, both material and spiritual, emanates from Krishna, the source of all existences. The holy name "Krishna" means "All Attractive". Whether it's adventure, romance, beauty, fun...Krishna is the attractive principle behind all things.

"I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise who perfectly know this engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their hearts." Bhagavad gita As It Is 10.8

It's His energy, so when you get something from the person you love the most, you naturally take good care of it and use it in His service. So instead of tossing into the sink the cooking utensils used for making His daily offerings, for example, you carefully place them to get washed, and then set them in proper order to dry.

Loving Krishna extends to all living beings. A nice quote from Srila Prabhupada illustrates this nicely:

"If you love your child and your child is away, you think of him when you see his shoes. You think, “Oh, this is my dear child’s shoe.” It is not that you love the shoe, but the child. The shoe, however, evokes that love. Similarly, as soon as we see Kṛṣṇa’s energy manifested in a living entity, we love that entity because we love Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, if we love Kṛṣṇa, universal love is accounted for."Path of Perfection", Chapter 6

animal food without slaughter

Prabhupada wrote, "A human being has no need to kill animals, because God has supplied so many nice things... Animal fat is available in the form of milk, which is the most wonderful of all foods. Milk, butter, cheese and similar products give animal fat in a form which rules out any need for the killing of innocent creatures."

GHEE
I made ghee today. Then I made some fresh cheese, squeezed out most the weigh, chopped it up and fried the pieces on a cast-iron skillet in the ghee. Mmmm. Only a die hard meat eater could still eat meat after tasting it.

I learned that the taste of ghee, clarified butter, especially satisfies any meaty cravings. In fact, I give credit that ghee helped my transition to become full time vegetarian. To this day I use it to cook many many preparations. It is said to delay aging, aid digestion and other health benefits. I don't know if it contains high cholesterol like butter. I read once that it does not from a paper by the World Health Organization; it is considered to be unique, but I could not find the information again. But I do know from the craze over the "Paleo diet" that butter and milk aren't as bad for us as once thought.

Here's a quick method for making ghee:

First you bring the butter to a boil. Be careful to not put too many pounds into a pot. It foams up in this initial stage.If you stir constantly at this point it may not boil over, or else get a bigger pot.

The next stage, the foam will suddenly drop down and the texture changes to a glossy-like consistency. 
 Keep cooking and stirring until the ghee and ghee solids separate. It'll start looking more clear instead of opaque. 
 Keep cooking stirring occasionally until the ghee and ghee solids separate. It'll start looking more clear instead of opaque.  
 At the same time it must not be cooked too long or the ghee will foam once again and continue to do so if used later for deep frying (although it is not unusable, just annoying, especially if one deep fries it will foam over).

When I am satisfied with the clarity of the ghee and see some solids forming on the bottom of the pot, I turn off the heat and leave it on the burner to settle and brown the solids a little.

Next, I strain the ghee solids from the ghee with a cheesecloth while still hot.

Properly made ghee has a very long shelf life, without refrigeration. Practice makes perfect.

GHEE FOR CHAUNCES
I use ghee to chaunce my subjis and soups.

 


FOR FRYING AND DEEP FRYING
Ghee can be used to fry things like pancakes (incomparable flavor), or deep fry things like pakoras. Ghee has the highest smoking point I know of. 
 Chunks of cauliflower pakoras are the perfect substitute for fried chicken! I call it "Happy Chicken".

PANEER CHUNKS
Here's how to make fresh cheese or paneer. I bring fresh milk to a boil, add lemon juice or if unavailable, I use a small amount of citric acid. Best to start with a little. Add more as needed, until the curds separate nicely from the whey.

I next pour the curds into a colander and then put them into a cheesecloth to drain.

Paneer can be used in many many ways like adding it to a subji: 
or shape it into patties for a curd burger: 
 YOGURT Here's how I make yogurt. Bring the milk to a boil, let it cool enough that you can hold the clean back of your little finger in the milk long enough to chant one Hare Krishna mantra. Then add the culture. You can  use plain yogurt from the store. Stir in about half a cup of plain yogurt for a half-gallon of milk. Cover and keep it in a warm area. I keep it in an oven that has a pilot light to keep the yogurt snuggly warm. In about 4-5 hours you'll have a nice pot of yogurt!
With yogurt I love to make lassi. Today I added roasted ground cumin with a dash of salt and pepper per cup.
Or how about some stir fried chickpeas in a sauce made from yogurt?
MILK SWEETS
In India they make many other wonderful sweets  such as sandesh, rasagullas, kheer and burfi. Burfi or sweet milk cooked down into fudge has many variations such as adding coconut, cardomom or ground peanuts.


 So I hope this post illustrates nicely that there is no need to kill animals to eat well. In fact, the whole process of Krishna consciousness is simply joyful. There is no lack of enjoyment when we give up meat eating because we are given a higher taste. Bhagavad gita says:

"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." Bg2.59

when self-realization is not enough

So the question has been raised, "How did I get here in the first place?"

The Bible gives a very nice illustration. God provided a wonderful place for Adam and Eve to live with Him, and he had just one request, "Don't mess with the tree in the middle of the garden."

Now remember, they had an entire garden, replete with fruit trees and so on. But no, notice how they just had to go and eat that fruit!

Similarly, the Vedic scriptures describe that the fall down of every soul is due to envy. We just gotta have what God has. We want to be the Enjoyer rather than the enjoyed. We want to be the Creator rather than the created. We want to be everyone's Best Friend and so on.

So basically we fall to the material consciousness like Adam and Eve did, becoming self centered rather than God centered. That's when Adam and Eve saw they were naked, allegorically speaking. There was a shift in consciousness that separated them from God.

 That's the material world. Its for separatists, because when one becomes envious of someone, one wants very little to do with him or her. We see this practically. The more materialistic a society becomes, the more the people try to divorce themselves from nature as well as each other.

This envy can continue all the way to the spiritual platform. Most notable are faiths that teach their followers to destroy the sense of self altogether. After all, that's much better than having to deal with the demands of a Supreme Person. Relationship is seen as the root of all pain.

No one to talk to in the void gets boring, however, so impersonalists eventually fall down again to the worship of family and friends and all living beings and even themselves as God by acts of charity and other piety. The problem is lumping Lord Krishna in there as just another living entity. "There's nothing special about Him.  He just happened to discover his divinity before I did." So many translations of Bhagavad gita have been translated in this envious, competitive spirit. This is why Bhagavad gita As It Is is recommended reading instead. It gives us Krishna As He Is.

Bhagavad gita tell us how to become happy by self satisfaction or realization of the soul and how to transcend this material nature. More importantly we can uncover the activities of the soul. They involve one's eternal loving relationship with the Supreme Soul Mate, Sri Krishna. Living for and being with one's beloved, even in a mundane sense is undoubtedly the topmost happiness in which every normal person hankers. If we can't find it, it's because we are looking in the wrong place. By definition, only God is infallible.

Coming to this understanding of a loving relationship with God, however, is when one can see another side of envy and another pitfall for aspiring transcendentalists. In other words, some spiritualists get so impatient in reawakening that relationship, they jump over the scriptures and teachings of experienced souls and concoct their own way. They make a show of loving God, but it is all imitation, used for gaining recognition via a competitive spirit. This is common in India, but evangelists rolling on the ground and crying in love for Jesus aren't much different.

The Lord kindly facilitates these choices because exercising our minute independence gives meaning to love.  Going back to the tree in paradise, Adam and Eve represent that ability to choose. We choose whether to serve Him indirectly via dictations from His material energy or serve Him directly via dictations of His spiritual energy (divine love). His energies are so powerful, they can even make a devotee forget the Lord's position, just so there can be exchanges beyond awe and reverence.

So there is self-realization and there is Self -realization. The small "s" signifies realization of the self or what some call the soul. The large "S" signifies realization of the Supreme Self, the Supersoul or expansion of God seated in the heart of every living being. Some call it the "higher self" and mistakenly equate the two. They say we are persons, but only in the stage of material consciousness, but when we remember that we are "God", personhood is disposed of as inferior.

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Yet, forgetfulness doesn't seem very qualifying when considering the definition of God as all- powerful, all- knowing, etc., nor does the loss of individuality into a homogeneous oneness appear appealing. Nor is the question answered, if God is originally formless, where does form come from.

For impersonalists and voidists, individuality is the disease to be done away because of bad experience with material relationships. They reason that if we simply stop desire we'll stop suffering. If we simply stop living, that is, because how can one live without desire? Their proposal is comparable to a foolish person who cuts his head off to stop a headache.

Worst of all,  when this limited realization of the Absolute Truth as ultimately impersonal is passed off as the whole truth about existence,  it causes people to take to materialism even more profoundly. More sex, more intoxication, more animal slaughter for the pleasure of the palate and so on, since spirituality has been reduced to simply consciousness, with no complete knowledge of the Absolute or the actions of personal expression beyond the material condition. We see this practically whenever doomsday is predicted such as the Y2K. People spend more just in case they will be dead soon.

To some extent the Sri Isopanisad agrees yes, the Lord is inconceivably one with our puny selves, we being His parts and parcels or mini expansions made in His image, but simultaneously He is aloof or separate from His entire creation. This is said over and over in many ways inside the Vedic scriptures. Here is a very nice verse:

"The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. Whatever is produced of the Complete Whole is also complete in itself. Because He is the Complete Whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance." --Sri Isopanisad, Invocation

Any object, upon examination, is an entire object in an of itself, but simultaneously comprised of many parts. For instance, the keyboard I am writing on.  We call it a keyboard, but if you look at all the separate parts that make up the keyboard, each is complete as an entire unit itself. Such as the keys, the letters on the keys, the white paint the keys are comprised of...even the individual molecules that make up all the plastic parts and paint are individuals.

Impersonalists, on the other hand, say something like, "The one you are looking for is the one who is looking". There is no distinction between whole and part. That means no God which means no relationship. Just the self is looking for the self.

Granted someone is becoming partially self aware as a spark of God in a spiritual sense, but to equate the part and whole is nonsensical. And there's No juice. No real joy unless there are two - the lover and the Beloved, our original source. Bhagavad gita says that after many many births, such speculators may finally understand that a relationship is the most satisfying, and a relationship with Krishna is everything.

LATER NOTE: Materially or spiritually, our very nature as jiva is self centered, either fixed on a false bodily conception of self or upon the Krishna, the Supersoul or, in this case, the Superself.

Bhagavan

QUESTION: According to your words, Krishna = Jehovah. But I wonder why the same God said differently in India and Israel, respectively.

REPLY: In the Vedic tradition, God is called Bhagavan. Bhagavan was defined by the sage Parasara as the one who is the most beautiful, the richest, the wisest, the most famous, the strongest and the most renounced. Every living being has some of these characteristics, but when Lord Krishna advented on this earth, it was noted that He exhibited all these six opulences fully.

The Srimad Bhagavatam states that Krishna is the source of all incarnations., "O brahmanas, the incarnations of the Lord are innumerable, like rivulets flowing from inexhaustible sources of water....All of the above-mentioned incarnations are either plenary portions or portions of the plenary portions of the Lord, but Lord Shri Krishna is the original Personality of Godhead." (SB 1.3.28)

Lord Brahma in Brahma samhita also supports this: "Krishna who is known as Govinda is the Supreme Godhead. He has an eternal blissful spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin and He is the prime cause of all causes."

And although Krishna is the source of the material world, simultaneously He is aloof. It is comparable to a first class king who doesn't need to supervise His kingdom directly. He has unlimited expansions to do that, such as Lord Brahma in charge as secondary creator.

Vyasadeva in Srimad Bhagavatam states, "O my Lord, Shri Krishna, son of Vasudeva, O all-pervading Personality of Godhead, I offer my respectful obeisances unto You. I meditate upon Lord Shri Krishna because He is the Absolute Truth and the primeval cause of all causes of the creation, sustenance and destruction of the manifested universes. He is directly and indirectly conscious of all manifestations, and He is independent because there is no other cause beyond Him. It is He only who first imparted the Vedic knowledge unto the heart of Brahmäji, the original living being. By Him even the great sages and demigods are placed into illusion, as one is bewildered by the illusory representations of water seen in fire, or land seen on water. Only because of Him do the material universes, temporarily manifested by the reactions of the three modes of nature, appear factual, although they are unreal. I therefore meditate upon Him, Lord Shri Krishna, who is eternally existent in the transcendental abode, which is forever free from the illusory representations of the material world. I meditate upon Him, for He is the Absolute Truth."

So if Jehovah in the Bible can match this criteria then, yes, we could equate Jehovah with Krishna.
I do not know the meaning of "Jehovah" and how it was revealed, but coming from the Bible, it must has something to do with the Lord in His various categories concerning the material manifestation

But although devotees love to hear about the Lord in all His various appearances and never tire of such recitations, they are naturally most attracted to the more intimate names of the Lord which involve His direct loving dealings with His devotees. In other words, the pastimes of Krishna acting as one's dependent child, best friend or lover are more personal than His activities of creation, maintenance, killing demons, directing a person from within the heart as Paramatma, etc. . When Krishna descends on earth to display His lilas, His personal expansion of Vishnu is always present; it is Vishnu who takes care of those matters.

It's like the difference between knowing (but often never meeting personally) someone who is in charge of an entire business corporation, or knowing him as your best buddy you hang with. With His pure devotees, Krishna kicks back and takes His crown off. He wears a peacock feather on his head.

He has a picnic with His friends on the bank of the Yamuna River each day.

He teases His girlfriends.

He steals butter from the neighbor's houses. 

He's runs home to his loving mother:

It's a whole other mood, and He displays all the propensities of a human being which makes Him a bewilderment. Often in India therefore, Krishna's expansion of Lord Narayana is considered God Supreme, and Krishna is His incarnation instead of vice versa, because Lord Narayana fits the God -mode. He is four-armed and worshiped in awe and reverence and has attractive opulences.

Krishna, on the other hand,  prefers simple village life amongst His cows and intimate associates. He is the source of Narayana. Nectar of devotion explains sixty transcendental qualities Lord Narayana and Krishna share, but Krishna has four more, which are not manifest even in the Narayana form of Godhead, what to speak of the demigods or other living entities. They are as follows. (61) He is the performer of wonderful varieties of pastimes (especially His childhood pastimes). (62) He is surrounded by devotees endowed with wonderful love of Godhead. (63) He can attract all living entities all over the universes by playing on His flute. (64) He has a wonderful excellence of beauty which cannot be rivaled anywhere in the creation.


In the beginning of my life, I could not think of God as anything beyond "Father" or"Master" or "Lord", whom I am sometimes angry at. I still think this way but with increasing affection because one cannot jump to a higher platform artificially. There are rules and regulations to prevent this, from becoming a sahajiya or mundane sentimentalist. We must be invited by the Lord and gradually we will see how we can naturally overstep these boundaries.  I came to realize that although I feel totally unqualified to love Krishna any other way, it is He who wants this. He wants intimacy. Scriptures state that He is not satisified with awe and reverence. The Lord once said to His devotee:

"My dear child, please give up this attitude of fearful respect that your reverence toward Me has produced in you. I do not so much like this sentiment in My devotees. Instead, just feel free to express your love for Me. When a devotee looks at Me without hesitaiton and speaks to Me affectionately, My pleasure grows with every new moment. Although I am eternally free from all limitations, such behavior binds Me with ropes of love. Although I am unconquerable, My devotees can conquer Me. And although I am subject to no one's control, I become their subordinate subject." (Sri Brhad-bhagavatamrta)

This explains to the atheist why God does not appear at our demands. He is only controlled by love. In Gita Krishna says, "Only by loving devotional service may I be understood as I am. Only in this way can you see Me standing before you."

But the love for God being described in this post is considered very rare. Why? Because for most montheists, awe and reverence is fine and dandy. It is the general rule of all the spiritual planets called Vaikuntha ruled by Lord Narayana's unlimited eternal expansions. You love God, you visit with your family and friends His holy temple daily to sing His glories and view His lotus feet, He rules His kingdom like a loving father, etc. But the Supreme Planet of the Supreme Vishnu, Lord Krishna, on the other hand, is only revealed once in a day of Brahma whenever Lord Chaitanya makes His advent. It is Chaitanya's special contribution. Once one has even heard there is more than awe and reverence and becomes attracted, their spiritual path is never ever the same. One just can't settle for anything less and a special hankering for associating with those in higher relationships with Krishna develops. You want to personally be with Krishna always, and even a moment of separation feels like years are passing by.