Friday, March 21, 2014

an unfortunate mistake

Food offered to Krishna transforms, it becomes non different than Krishna. Eating prasada is said to be eating Krishna in that form.  It is similar to holy communion. It is also similar to having rules like the Jews and Muslims must have to make food kosher before taking ( although Krishna does not accept any meat offerings).

This brings to mind an interfaith event in which some attendant Jewish rabbis refused to eat prasadam at its conclusion because it was offered to "idols". This was an unfortunate mistake on their part. Reverend Hart, on the other hand, an Episcopalian who gladly ate the tasty prasada, intelligently noted that the Bible contains no prohibition against worshiping the transcendental form of God Supreme. Here's the verse from Exodus that gives so many people trouble:

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God..."

This mistake made by the rabbis most likely comes from difficulty with the word "heaven" used in this verse because their idea of heaven is confused with the kingdom of God which is eternal and fully spiritual. Heaven generally means to monotheists where the pious go after death, but that doesn't necessarily mean God's personal abode. The Vedas explain more carefully how heaven is also material or temporary because those who go there- although they have earned fantastic lifespans which relatively appear immortal, although everyone in heaven is a believer and worshiper of God almighty, and although they have earned immense opulence due to pious actions in their former lives- they must fall back down again to the earthly plane after the results of their pious deeds are used up. 

The true kingdom of God, on the other hand, is fully spiritual and understood to be beyond heaven, beyond the seven layers of earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego covering the material universe.  The rare soul who goes there never returns to this place of miseries. The Bible writers had to have known better.

With that understanding, it is the worship of the various deities or demigods in charge of the material elements listed in the above verse that are prohibited, not God Supreme. For example, Indra is the god of heaven, Varuna is the god of the waters, Yama the god below the earth, Bhumi and Durga the goddesses of the earth,etc. This would make sense since both Bible and Bhagavad gita advise against the worship of demigods contrary to worship of the Supreme Lord.

This is further supported when God in the Bible recognizes these demigods by saying, "For I am a jealous God." Jealous of whom? There'd have to be someone else to be jealous of.  

Krishna wants that we worship Him directly instead of through His servants the demigods. He calls demigod worshipers less intelligent, because the boons they obtain are always temporary and thus unfit for the eternal soul, and because all gifts are coming from Him, although in the case of demigod worship indirectly. For intelligent persons, their worship is discouraged by Krishna because it is much better to water the root of a tree rather than all the leaves and branches separately. The demigods are more easily satisfied by the worship of their master, although the Lord occasionally performs pastimes where He punishes one of His demigod servants in order to set them straight in this kind of thinking, and to further expound this point for our welfare.

Then there's the problem with the golden calf. It's fabricated., created by the Israelites who "considered this to be an image of the eternal". According to the Vedic view, one can only create an image in accordance to the descriptions given by revealed scripture, not whimsically. The example is given that if you want to mail a letter you cannot put it in any box lying on the street. You need a bona fide box recognized by the Post Office. Similarly, the genuine deity is carved according to the descriptions of the Lord found in scripture. The Lord is invited to appear in that form for the sake of the worshiper and then becomes an "installed deity", ready to accept our worship which is also dictated by scripture. 

Such deity worship is a hands-on form of God worship very suitable for the present condition of people in general. To be able to see, touch, and serve the Supreme in this way causes the devotee to remember and meditate on the Lord 24/7, thus giving simultaneously the benefits of yogic meditation in trance that are no longer possible in this age for most people. Krishna explains in His Gita:

"For those whose minds are attached to the unmanifested, impersonal feature of the Supreme, advancement is very troublesome. To make progress in that discipline is always difficult for those who are embodied. But those who worship Me, giving up all their activities unto Me and being devoted to Me without deviation, engaged in devotional service and always meditating upon Me, having fixed their minds upon Me, O son of Prthä—for them I am the swift deliverer from the ocean of birth and death."

The Lord kindly appears in this form because our vision is material, but over time the transcendental form of the Lord, which was seen as material by the neophyte is revealed according to the spiritual vision of the worshiper. There are countless cases and records of the deity reciprocating with His devotee even to the present day.

Furthermore, conditioned souls have trouble accepting that God has a human-like form. This is because they have no clear understanding of what is actually God, and secondly, their experience of a "person" has generally been not very palatable within the material sphere. Some are so fed up with the human experience they wish to eradicate it in their spiritual existence as well. For them, anything is better than being a person, what to speak of dealing with a "Supreme Person" (!).

A person has likes, dislikes, demands and so on. Thus we see so many paths of impersonalism and voidism becoming popular. They say, "God can't have a personal form, God can't have relationships, can't have feelings.... God can't, can't, can't.... because that would put limits on God." 

Yet this kind of talk begs the question, just who is putting limits on God?