Little Tiffany

In the headlines a little girl was shot accidentally by a classmate. It's the horror no mother wants to even think about, but it happens. So where was God? Why does God allow such things to happen?

Of course, it would not be wise to say, "It's their karma" to someone who is grieving, and when we see a cute little child or anyone for that matter, in a state of suffering, it is difficult to believe they could have deserved it. But from a distance or when such suffering is not actually going on, we may be able to reflect that perhaps it is possible that they did do something. It's only the material nature's strong power of identifying with the here and now, these present bodies as the all in all, that makes us think otherwise.

I read a story in the Srimad Bhagavatam about a King who had no son to take his throne although he had many wives. Disheartened he revealed his mind to the sage Angira. Angira gave the King's favorite wife a special preparation to eat to conceive a son, and soon afterward a son was born.

Unfortunately, the woman's co-wives became extremely jealous because the king thereafter made the mistake of doting on the boy and his mother alone. Feeling neglected, his other wives did the unthinkable- they murdered the little boy by feeding him poison.

Inconsolably heartbroken, the king and queen's piteous cries reached heaven. Angira returned alongside his famous friend Narada Muni, who then proceeded to raise the dead boy back to life. What followed was a transcendental discourse from the mouth of the child that pacified his previous life's parents, and led to the understanding that "Citraketu's son could have been his enemy in a past life and had now appeared as his son just to give him severe pain. Indeed, the untimely death of the son caused immense lamentation for the father."

Next, let's consider the science fiction movie "Men In Black".  In the shooting range scene, set up to test whom to choose for an alien fighting team, character James Edwards, confronted with numerous menacing-looking alien targets (that presumably can take any shape or form at will), James Edwards finally shoots a cardboard little girl because he perceived she was not as innocent as she appeared. Here's his explanation:

Zed: May I ask why you felt little Tiffany deserved to die?
James Edwards: Well, she was the only one that actually seemed dangerous at the time, sir.
Zed: How'd you come to that conclusion?
James Edwards: Well, first I was gonna pop this guy hanging from the street light, and I realized, y'know, he's just working out. I mean, how would I feel if somebody come runnin' in the gym and bust me...while I'm on the treadmill? Then I saw this snarling beast guy, and I noticed he had a tissue in his hand, and I'm realizing, y'know, he's not snarling, he's sneezing. Y'know, ain't no real threat there. Then I saw little Tiffany. I'm thinking, y'know, eight-year-old white girl, middle of the ghetto, bunch of monsters, this time of night with quantum physics books? She about to start some..., Zed. She's about eight years old, those books are WAY too advanced for her. If you ask me, I'd say she's up to something. And to be honest, I'd appreciate it if you eased up off my back about it.

He passed the test.

In the movie Frailty, a widower suddenly announces to his two sons that he is deputed by God to deliver justice. Although we discover over time that he truly had the mystic power to see a person's previous crimes, his eldest son naturally thinks Dad has gone crazy because the person externally appeared to be innocent or upright. And it turns out the eldest son is actually a demon.

Please excuse the mundane examples, but they got me thinking how appearances aren't always the way they seem.

During the past several months I had wondered how I came to be apart from my oldest children even though I had previously planned to be located near them always (like a good Indian mom). It dawned on me that I really don't know my children or my own past. Who are we really? Who were we in previous lifetimes, and what sort of karma do they have and that I have which now separates us and for how long?

In Krsna book chapter 5, Vasudeva said to Nanda Maharaja, "My dear friend, it is very difficult for us to live together. Although we have our family and relatives, sons and daughters, by nature’s way we are generally separated from one another. The reason for this is that every living entity appears on this earth under different pressures of fruitive activities; although they assemble together, there is no certainty of their remaining together for a long time. According to one’s fruitive activities, one has to act differently and thereby be separated. For example, many plants and creepers are floating on the waves of the ocean. Sometimes they come together, and sometimes they separate forever: one plant goes one way, and another plant goes another. Similarly, our family assembly may be very nice while we are living together, but after some time, in the course of the waves of time, we are separated."

It's when we get the bigger picture, via Krsna consciousness, the separation is bearable when we know we all have a chance, as individuals, to go back to our actual positions in the spiritual world to live eternally. Supersoul is always just a prayer away.

fear of hell?

A question was raised whether a devotee fears going to hell.

We need to get out of this thinking about reward and punishment. If true love is there, a devotee doesn't care if he is in heaven or hell. We get glimpses of heavenly or hellish life even on this planet. Whatever is the Lord's desire. A devotee's only fear is to forget the Lord. His only sadness is to see the suffering of others.

Here's a little story. Once upon a time, Krishna manifested a "headache", so He told sage Narada that the only thing that will relieve His headache would be the dust from the feet of his devotee.

So Narada approached some brahmanas (priests) performing all ritualistic sacrifices, chanting mantras and prayers and reciting so many slokas and doing so many sacrifices and penances, "Quick", Narada alerted them, "Krishna has a headache. He says to take the dust from the feet of His devotees upon His head is the only remedy."

The brahmanas said, "We can't do that! Don't you know what a terrible offense that would be ( according to Vedic culture)! The reactions would surely be great! We cannot do it!"

Then Narada approached the gopis (village cowherd women) and made the same request. The gopis immediately dropped everything they were doing to gather dust from their feet to offer to Krishna.

Narada was surprised by the contrasting behavior of the brahmanas and the gopis so he just had to ask them. "My dear gopis, O best of the Lord's devotees, are you not afraid of going to hell for placing your foot dust upon His head?"

The gopis, who could never think of Krishna as more than their most beloved replied, "Let us go to hell, we don't care, just as long as Krishna is happy."

Of course afterwards, Krishna was very pleased by their behavior and could only bless them.

the most beautiful

Some time back, I went upstairs to Govinda's restaurant in preparation for a comparative religion class visiting the Denver temple. I went to make sure things were cleaned up for them to  be hosted there.  While there, I noticed some beautiful large photographs of the local mountains gracing the walls on one side of the restaurant. Near each one was a business card stating the photographer's name and so on. I had no idea until then how Bhakta Pat, a long time devotee who almost always makes it to the early morning program, was the photographer and such a good one.

Later that day, I told Pat about my discovery. An interesting conversation ensued, relating his love for nature. He had hiked to various places for several days to get the photos, "looking out for beauty".

I told him that was the first thing that popped in my head when I saw his photos, "This guy has an eye for beauty."

Then he said he had two favorite subjects- the outdoors and- he asked if I could guess the second...

"People" came to mind. I told him how I see much beauty in the personal form.

He said that was it, and when it came to learning about the Supreme Person behind material nature- Krsna-  nature no longer had the same grip it once did in capturing his heart.

I had to agree with everything he said. I described my experiences as a youth going to the top of a mountain and discovering this spectacular meadow of wildflowers, nestled between two peaks.  So many experiences I had that were similar, but when I came to know the Supreme Person, the Supreme Artist behind it all, material nature no longer had the same fascination as before.
 
                                           
Of course,  material energy is still very beautiful, but Krishna is the most beautiful and His gorgeous nature simply serves as a reminder of Him.

 I told Pat I didn't want to say that at first, to bust his bubble, his love for nature, so to speak, so I was happy to discover we both had the same realization.

Which should have been obvious when I remember that besides Krishna’s divine material energy, Pat continues to take some of the most beautiful photos of the ISKCON Denver deities, Radha and Govinda.

beauty and truth

There have been several experiences in my life that made me think about how beautiful the material nature is, but upon closer inspection how deadly.

Once, when I was a teenager, I was in the Rocky mountains having a great time hiking with friends. There was beauty all around us, fresh air to breathe... but a blinding blizzard hit us without warning. That beautiful scene quickly turned to a nightmare; we got lost for quite some time until we made it to a clearing and were spotted by a rescue helicopter. Meanwhile, one of our companions nearly died from hypothermia, stumbling, falling and talking incoherently until she had to be carried along in the freezing cold, nearly unconscious.

Then picture this- a young mother is happily watching her baby laugh as she is swinging back in forth in her automatic baby swing that a neighbor lent to her. It's a Kodak moment, something we get to relish for a few seconds, now and then, in the business of life. Well, I noticed after baby was no longer sitting in the swing, a tag was sticking out from the seat with a big "WARNING: Do not leave baby unattended...." and then proceeded to list all kinds of possiblities of what might happen if not heeded, including death.

Then there have been a few times my kids and I raised butterflies as a fun project. The second time around didn't go so well. The weather was bad, so I didn't want to release the newly emerged butterflies immediately. Meanwhile, I fed them sugar water and became rather attached to them.

So when the time came that I must finally release them into the wild, mother nature suddenly didn't look so beautiful or friendly anymore. The birds in the yard that I always loved to watch and listen to sing, suddenly felt evil when I thought they may gobble up the butterflies.

These kind of experiences have helped awaken me from a sort of illusion. The material nature is now comparable to a brilliant fire in which materialistic persons are like moths being allured to their deaths (Bhagavad gita 11.29).

But why do we have this intense attraction in the first place? It's because of its relation to the most beautiful, Krishna. In Bhagavad gita Krishna says:

"Of all that is material and all that is spiritual in this world, know for certain that I am both the origin and the dissolution....there is no truth superior to Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread...Know that all states of being – be they of goodness, passion or ignorance – are manifested by My energy. I am, in one sense, everything, but I am independent. I am not under the modes of material nature, for they, on the contrary, are within Me."

When we become Krishna conscious, material nature's attraction loses its grip. As will be thought upon further in the next post entitled "The Most Beautiful".

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?