JESUS
THE BIBLE
CHRISTIANITY MISC
ISLAM
JUDAISM

JESUS


What do you think of Jesus Christ? Are his teachings the perfection of life?

We have great respect for Lord Jesus Christ, who we accept as an incarnation of Lord Brahma, the first living entity in this material universe and the originator of the lineage of the Esoteric Teaching in which I am initiated. I grew up in a very devout Christian family, and I benefitted a lot from this background.

However, every Christian sooner or later has to face the issue of the lack of original, unaltered texts for the Bible, especially the four Gospels. Christian fundamentalists want to accept the Bible as the literal Word of God. But the earliest texts of the Gospels we do have are 4th-century Greek versions, and even the Catholic Church admits that they were edited.

Christian history notes that the Council of Nicea called by Emeror Constantine edited, adapted, and made so many changes in the original beliefs and practices of the early Christians. Emperor Constantine was trying to unify the Roman Empire, which Constantine's father had divided amongst his four sons. After killing his three brothers and taking over their shares of the Empire, he wanted a standard version of Christianity that would be uniform throughout the Empire. Great guy, huh? Just the type of person we can trust to create a new world religion.

Constantine arranged for all the Christian leaders of the Empire to convene at Nicea just to create his 'Catholic' (universal) state religion. Those who disagreed with his ideas—no mysticism, no vegetarianism, no meditation, salvation through faith, move the Sabbath to Sunday—were murdered on the spot. So this fine fellow was the one who determined what should be left in the Bible and what should be cut out, and what Christians should believe and practice. And so much important information was cut out, that our current version of Christianity is but a shadow of the original.

For example, where was Jesus between the ages of 12 and 30? What really happened in the Garden of Gethsemane during the night before the crucifixion? There are so many important questions the Bible has no answer for. If you would like to inquire further into these questions, you can read my book The Book of Gethsemane.

Anyway, the issue of authenticity of the Bible was the most important reason that I left the association of Christians and broadened my search for truth to include all the world's religions. Finally by God's grace, I found the Esoteric Teaching, and was initiated by the current Master Teacher. In due time, by following the ancient methods of the Esoteric Teaching, I was blessed with self-realization and God-realization. I am just an ordinary person, so if I can attain these exalted spiritual states, anyone can.

Indeed, the Esoteric Teaching holds that any soul who sincerely desires the truth can attain it by following its powerful spiritual methods. The chief method we use is chanting the Holy Names of God. The Holy Name of God is glorified in all scriptures and practiced in all bona fide religions. Chanting the Holy Names of God is the best way to attain spiritual advancement in the present age of kali-yuga.

The source materials of the Esoteric Teaching are very ancient, and they were written down in their present form at least 5,000 years ago. Due to the unbreakable system of disciplic succession, in all that time, there have been no changes or deletions to its scriptures. The Vedic system of parampara, disciplic succession, and the sophisticated error-correction methods of the Teaching ensure the fidelity of transmission of the transcendental message from one generation to the next.

The Esoteric Teaching contains extensive passages of direct quotes from the avataras or incarnations of God such as Krsna, Rama, Varaha, Narasingha, Vamana and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. It also contains the actual ancient history of this planet from ancient times to the present.

The specific qualification of the Esoteric Teaching is that it contains all the spiritual wisdom also found in other traditions, and it also contains much that is not found in any other tradition. So by becoming a qualified Student of the Esoteric Teaching, one automatically surpasses all other religious teachings and all other forms of religious philosophy available in the world today.

According to the Esoteric Teaching, there are three main grades or levels of transcendentalists. The neophytes are those with little knowledge of the science of God, who are still in the offensive stage. Thier knowledge is still incomplete and their practice is impure. They are members of the Exoteric Circle of the Esoteric Teaching. The intermediate stage of transcendentalists are those whose knowledge is complete, but are still working on perfecting their practice of spiritual life. These devotees are called Teachers, and they are members of the Mesoteric Circle.

The third and highest grade are those transcendentalists who have achieved perfection in the practice of spiritual life. These are known as Master Teachers, and they are members of the Esoteric Circle of the Teaching. It is a long journey of learning and practice of self-realization from the first Gate of the Teaching, the gate of Desire, to the Esoteric Circle. But anyone who is sincere and applies himself to the methods can make certain progress toward the goal of complete enlightenment.

So the conclusion is that to be situated in spiritual life is the best condition for the living entity, and of all traditions of spiritual life, the Esoteric Teaching is the most complete, original and authoritative, becasue it is spoken and recorded by the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself.

Did Jesus leave any writings?

As far as we know, Jesus himself did not produce any writings. But he is mentioned in the Sanskrit scriptures, especially the Bhaviṣya Purāṇa, where he is known as Īṣa. Īṣa is another name for Lord Brahma, the first-created being in the universe born directly from the transcendental body of the Lord. So he is the son of God in every way.





Are there links between Jesus and the Vedic writings?

Thus far in our interdisciplinary studies we have identified Lord Jesus Christ with Lord Brahma. My Godbrother Bhakti Anand Gosvami (aka Devadeva das) is a very profound religious scholar fluent in ancient Greek, Latin and even Egyptian Hieroglyphics. His research indicates a similar but even deeper understanding: that Lord Jesus Christ is an expansion or incarnation of Baladeva, the Supreme Personality of Servitor Godhead. There is a nice series of writings here by my Godbrother HH Bhakti Ananda Gosvami.




Can Jesus be understood as guru?

A student writes:

The two questions raised were:

1. In the Bible (John 14:6), it says "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (King James Version) Why does Jesus say this and how are we to understand this?

2. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. If we understand this to be Jesus' initiation into a disciplic succession, then who baptized John?

While I can only briefly attempt to provide some more information on the second question, it is the first question that is of primary focus - and importance.

What Jesus is expressing in John 14:6 is the exalted position of a bonafide Guru, or spiritual master. It is difficult to understand this within the current Christian understanding because we have lost so much background information about Jesus' ministry that our context is all warped. I will touch upon this problem in more detail in a later post. Jesus also mentions his specific mission in Matthew 15:24:

But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

However, when we place our understanding in the Vaisnava context through the Esoteric Teaching, everything falls into place nicely and we are able to properly appreciate the significance of John 14:6 and deepen our relationship with Jesus. Let us examine the Vaisnava understanding of Guru (which is a huge topic in itself, but we will nibble at it here). All the quotations that I am pasting are from here. Ideally I should paste everything, but I hope that the readers will be intrigued enough to follow up on these excerpts and study Prabhupada's essays and interviews carefully in the link provided. First, we tackle the necessity, nature and transcendental purpose of the Guru.

One may ask whether the guru is absolutely necessary. The Vedas inform us that he is:

tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet
samit-pāṇiḥ śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham

[MU 1.2.12]

The Vedas enjoin us to seek out a guru; actually, they say to seek out the guru, not just a guru. The guru is one because he comes in disciplic succession. What Vyāsadeva and Kṛṣṇa taught five thousand years ago is also being taught now. There is no difference between the two instructions. Although hundreds and thousands of ācāryas have come and gone, the message is one. The real guru cannot be two, for the real guru does not speak differently from his predecessors.

[...]when we speak of the fundamental principle of gurudeva, or ācāryadeva, we speak of something that is of universal application. There does not arise any question of discriminating my guru from yours or anyone else’s. There is only one guru, who appears in an infinity of forms to teach you, me, and all others. The guru, or ācāryadeva, as we learn from the bona fide scriptures, delivers the message of the absolute world, the transcendental abode of the Absolute Personality, where everything nondifferentially serves the Absolute Truth.


Thus, a bonafide Guru is a necessity ("I am the only way"). We cannot expect to reach God by dint of our independent efforts; we depend on the mercy of Krsna through his bonafide representative, the Guru, by serving him and inquiring submissively about the Absolute Truth, as Krsna Himself says:

Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the truth.[Bhagavad Gita 4.34]

What, then, is our relationship with our Spiritual Master? How is he to be treated?

The guru is Kṛṣṇa’s representative, the former ācāryas’ representative. Kṛṣṇa says that all ācāryas are His representatives; therefore the guru should be offered the same respect one would offer to God. As Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura says in his prayers to the spiritual master, yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādaḥ: “ By the mercy of the spiritual master, one receives the benediction of Kṛṣṇa.” Thus, if we surrender to the bona fide guru, we surrender to God. God accepts our surrender to the guru.

[...]

In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (11.17.27) it is said:

ācāryaṁ māṁ vijānīyān
nāvamanyeta karhicit
na martya-buddhyāsūyeta
sarva-devamayo guruḥ

“One should understand the spiritual master to be as good as I am,” said the Blessed Lord. “Nobody should be jealous of the spiritual master or think of him as an ordinary man, because the spiritual master is the sum total of all demigods.”


That is, the ācārya has been identified with God Himself. The sum total of all the demigods! He is most certainly not to be considered an ordinary human being, in every sense of the term. "Guru" is not some material designation that is attained if you do some hard work, like getting promoted at the office. People who think it is offensive to call Jesus a Guru are completely missing the meaning of the exalted status of a Guru. (Of course, the term has been much abused by many pretenders so that nobody knows what to make of things any more.)

We are all completely ignorant of the offenses we make at the feet of a spiritual master, and have been ignorant throughout the ages. Krsna is so kindly sending us His beloved devotees, servants and His son to pull us out of the muck of material existence and we repeatedly abuse them, deride them and ignore them - not understanding the giant elephant offenses that we commit in the process. All of this stems from the misunderstanding that the Guru is just another dude. In the Bible we can see the treatment that all the great prophets have had to endure. We see the treatment that Jesus endured. Or John the Baptist. What do we know about John the Baptist? Historically, very little. However, we are given an insight into the real nature of John the Baptist in Matthew 17:1-13, and also into the spiritual potency of Jesus and Moses.


Elias is the same as Elijah. So, by this account, we are to understand that Elijah returned as John the Baptist, a great Guru himself. And how was he treated? Like an eccentric troublemaker, and he was finally beheaded by Herod. This is the kind of treatment that bonafide Gurus have got outside the Vedic culture, because of a complete lack of understanding of the position of the Guru. Unfortunately, this lack of understanding has been perpetuated even after the appearance of Jesus in this world by people who decided to put him in a different category - and so continued abusing and deriding the Gurus who came after him. A Guru is always revolutionary, shaking up the status quo and giving life to the Teaching, as Srila Bhaktisiddhanta points out in his essay 'Organized Religion' :

The bona-fide teacher of religion is neither any product of, nor the favourer of, any mechanical system. In his hands no system has likewise the chance of denigrating into a lifeless arrangement. The mere pursuit of fixed doctrines and fixed liturgies cannot hold a person to the true spirit of doctrine or liturgy.

Prabhupada outlines the offensive and lazy nature of popular "Christianity" today:

A Vaiṣṇava is unhappy to see the suffering of others. Therefore, Lord Jesus Christ agreed to be crucified—to free others from their suffering. But his followers are so unfaithful that they have decided, “Let Christ suffer for us, and we’ll go on committing sin.” They love Christ so much that they think, “My dear Christ, we are very weak. We cannot give up our sinful activities. So you please suffer for us.”

In conclusion, I will paste a moving excerpt from a talk that Srila Prabhupada gave in February, 1936 on the occasion of the appearance day of his Guru, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. This is 3 decades before Prabhupada would arrive on the shores of America to spread the Holy Names.

Gentlemen, our knowledge is so poor, our senses are so imperfect, and our sources are so limited that it is not possible for us to have even the slightest knowledge of the absolute region without surrendering ourselves at the lotus feet of Śrī Vyāsadeva or his bona fide representative

[...] Personally, I have no hope for any direct service for the coming crores of births of the sojourn of my life, but I am confident that some day or other I shall be delivered from this mire of delusion in which I am at present so deeply sunk. Therefore let me with all my earnestness pray at the lotus feet of my divine master to allow me to suffer the lot for which I am destined due to my past misdoings, but to let me have this power of recollection: that I am nothing but a tiny servant of the Almighty Absolute Godhead, realized through the unflinching mercy of my divine master. Let me therefore bow down at his lotus feet with all the humility at my command.





What is the problem with not having the complete content and context of Jesus' teachings?

A student writes:

Babaji has already explained this many times in his video seminars and in many of his answers on this forum. I will give my understanding.

The biggest problem and danger we face with the Christian texts is the lack of scriptural completeness and hence the lack of context to be able to understand even the parts that we have access to. For example, the impersonalist Mayavadi philosophers are fond of picking and choosing certain convenient verses from the Vedic cannon to support their ideas. However, they fail the test of being able to fit their theories into the complete context of the Vedic literatures and so we can recognize their theories as bogus. With Christianity, however, so many of the early texts are either missing or are being kept hidden in the Vatican, which considers itself the sole guardian of the Truth and hence justifies this secrecy. So, with what is left it is difficult to understand the full context of Jesus' ministry. Anyone can understand the nature of this problem. It is just like misunderstanding a person; how many times have we been told "Get to know him/her better and you'll understand why he/she said that"? That is the problem of context. Let us take an example of how this issue leads to the twisting of truth. Here are two verses from Matthew, Chapter 15:

11 Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.
17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?

I've been presented with these verses, as "evidence" that Jesus doesn't place any dietary restrictions in his teachings. This, along with the favorite story of Jesus feeding the multitudes fish (feeding, not eating, in a place where there was nothing else to eat). In fact Jesus supposedly came to explain to all the people that even these Jewish Kosher rules were nonsense and that we can actually eat anything and everything. It's all good.

First of all, even if we read the context of these verses in the Gospel of Matthew itself, we can see that the point Jesus is trying to make is that of putting things in perspective. He is referring here to hygiene (washing hands) and not food. Hygiene is important only in as much as it keeps us clean in mind and body so that we can focus on God and not be bothered by disease and other problems of filth. The pharisees are missing the forest for the trees and so Jesus is taking them to task.

But now let us consider the Essene Gospel of Peace. This is a Gospel from the time of Christ, expounding his other teachings. In there, we find not only a very strict form of vegetarianism that Jesus taught and required from all his disciples, but also further teachings of de-toxifying the body and cleansing the bowels. Are these teachings contradictory to Matthew, where he says it doesn't matter what goes into your mouth? No. It provides a larger context for his teachings, so that now we understand his nuances when he is stressing a particular point in a particular situation. Any parent can tell you that they will say apparently contradictory things in different situations to foster a particular understanding in the child.

(Oh, why is the Essene Gospel of Peace not included in the regular Christian canon? Well, I dunno. The Vatican implicates itself by storing the only original Aramaic manuscript, thus lending authenticity to it. It wasn't until the early 20th century that a priest studying there leaked it out to the world.)

I find it helpful at times to also look at the prevalent political and religious atmosphere when Jesus preached. This website provides some decent historical context of Jesus' ministry (although it's dry, atheistic scholar-speak). Most people know about the severe persecution of the Jews by the Romans, especially revolutionaries like Jesus. However,we should also know that there were a ton of other rascals running around and proclaiming themselves the Messiah, duping people into joining their band - which would usually be some sort of mundane revolutionary political outfit. This, for example, also gives us another dimension in which to contemplate John 14:6 where Jesus says "I am the only way".

As Babaji has already explained, the loss or suppression of so many scriptures leaves us with a crippled ontology and theology. Ironically, this is made clear by none other than the Church's most esteemed theologian, Thomas Aquinas, who spent his life fitting Christian philosophy into an Aristotelian framework. We now know this was a bad, bad idea because Aristotelian logic is not even able to explain material phenomena, what to speak of matters of the spirit! This led to all sorts of nonsensical "theological" debates like how many angels can dance on the point of a needle. What we don't commonly know about Aquinas is this: he had a mystical experience while celebrating Mass on December 6, 1273, after which he stopped writing, leaving his great work, the Summa Theologiae, unfinished. When asked why he had stopped writing, Aquinas replied, "I cannot go on...All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me." He died on March 7, 1274. (Source) So even Aquinas, at the end of his life realized that his spiritual experience was of a wholly different nature than what he had been constructing all along - which would unfortunately become the bedrock of Christian philosophy.

But even before the time of Aquinas, we find that the early Christians preached a very different Christianity than what we know of today. The interested reader can also take a look at the actual writings of Eusabius here. The point that I'm building up towards is that at some point in the development of the Christian tradition, certain teachings began to be held back from the people and kept hidden. The idea was that the Truth was too valuable to be given out to the common man. Thus, we find in the writings of Origen:

But on these subjects much and that of a mystical kind, might be said; in keeping with which is the following: It is good to keep close the secret of a king, (Tobit xii, 7), in order that the doctrine of the entrance of souls into bodies, not, however, that of the transmigration from one body into another, may not be thrown before the common understanding, nor what is holy given to the dogs, nor pearls be cast before swine. For such a procedure would be impious, being equivalent to a betrayal of the mysterious declaration of God's Wisdom

This is only one example. Dig deeper and you will find many more. So at what point did some powerful leaders decide to keep the people in ignorance of their real spiritual identity, and thus under control? How much of Jesus' teachings have we lost? In the 12 years that Prabhupada spent preaching internationally, we have over eighty books and thousands of hours of audio and video recordings. And for Jesus, we have 4 small Gospels. It is no wonder that we have a hundred different Christian sects running the gamut of philosophies.

It may take a lot of time and energy trying to understand how the Absolute Truth is consistent with the fragments of Jesus' teachings that we have today, because we have lost so much content and context. Instead, in my humble opinion, it is a far more efficient use of this short lifetime to immerse one's self in the study of the far more complete, consistent and practical teachings and ontology of the Esoteric Teaching. I'll end with a quote by our beloved Visnujana Swami:

Don't think that Krsna Consciousness means another sectarian religion. It doesn't. We're not pushing a religion. I didn't quit all other religions when I was eighteen years old and at the age of nineteen accept this. I only rejected organized religions. This is not that. This is not what makes another rope end that doesn't tie up with the rest of them. This is what ties all the rope ends together and makes them all appear very sensible - why Jesus appeared, why Buddha appeared, why Mohammed appeared, why Sankaracharya, why Chaitanya appeared...




Can't we just believe in Jesus and attain salvation?

The root of the problem and the misunderstanding is due to the fact that the Christian doctrine, like all sectarian philosophies, is a product of human reason, and therefore defective. While it states the root problem of suffering reasonably well, the solution offered is a theological interpretation of some mysterious statements recorded in the Gospels, which were heavily redacted during the Council of Nicea under the direction of Emperor Constantine. No one knows how much of what we read in the Gospels is true and accurate, or what Jesus' exact meaning really was. Jesus Christ's direct disciples were systematically slaughtered by the Romans, who later made the interloper Paul the first head of the Church. Paul never had direct contact with Jesus, and his claim of miraculous conversion is specious. Yet his salvationist theology informs the Church. The Romans needed a simple popular religion to unify their splintered empire, and Christianity was selected because frankly, no other religion would accept the job. But first, of course, it had to be adapted to the Romans' political requirements, so all the original teachings and practices were changed. We find from the Nag Hammadi scrolls, for example, that the Essene sect to which Jesus and his whole family belonged belonged were strict vegetarians; but there is no mention of the Essenes in the Bible whatsoever. Read your history, and better, think about what it means in terms of the integrity of the Christian teaching.

Human reason and theological speculation are not reliable platforms for the salvation of the soul, because of the well-known biases, limitations and unreliability of human beings. For example, although Jesus mentions the soul more than 20 times in the Bible, we do not find a definition for or explanation of the soul anywhere in the Bible. And although the Nicene Creed talks about how Jesus was born in the beginning of creation directly from the body of the Father, there is no explanation or even mention of that in the Bible whatsoever. This invites speculation, and so many theologians have rushed in to full the gaps in the knowledge of the Bible. But everything they say is merely their own idea. Even the Bible itself admits its inadequacy and incompleteness at the end of John.

All the details of spiritual life are, however, very nicely explained in the Vedas. The Esoteric Teaching of Vedanta is not based on speculation but on revelation. None of its tenets were manufactured in the febrile minds of men, but were received by revelation directly from the Lord. In fact the Lord Himself speaks in Bhagavad-gita and other Vedic scriptures, and gives His perfect understanding of the reasons for our suffering and the way out of it. None of these texts have been edited, because they contain a unique checksum feature precisely to discourage interpolation. So we know that we have the original Vedic texts.

In reality it is much more difficult to obtain the full mercy of God than is portrayed by the Christian preachers. They want to keep their big, expensive church buildings full of tithing believers, so they have to edit Jesus' teachings to suit their audience. For example, when was the last time you heard a sermon on the text, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God"? So they have compromised with materialism for the sake of maintaining their professions. Jesus was a total renunciant, yet his so-called representatives live in palatial houses and live like kings. They have never fasted in the wilderness a day out of their lives; how can they pretend to understand Jesus?

Therefore we have the paradoxical situation that students of Vedanta understand Jesus and Christianity much better than the Christians do. I was raised in a Christian family, and like most intellectual young men during the '60s I became agnostic, because our religious leaders could not answer the simplest philosophical questions, nor explain our practices without resorting to mere authority and dogma. As soon as I contacted my spiritual master, however, I got satisfying answers to my questions. Therefore I now feel a much closer connection with God and Jesus than I could attain through Christianity, because Vedanta does not insult my intelligence by demanding blind faith without a reasonable explanation.





I accept you as a Spiritual Master but I think you are blaspheming Jesus. Sure there is a sectarian aspect to some Christian sects but that doesn't mean all of Christianity is wrong. I think this site is quite sectarian. Anyway, wasn't Srila Vyasadeva human. So how can we be sure the Vedas aren't free from mistakes if you claim the Bible contains errors? We can't count on anything but Christ to get us into heaven in my opinion. You are wrong to say otherwise!

Please hear our discussion on the Esoteric Teaching and sectarian religion.

Well, it seems that I hit a nerve. You certainly do like to argue. Actually this is not a proper attitude for a student of esoteric truth. Your attitude is more like the doubter, or the skeptic who feels they must defend their faith. Instead of making concise arguments that address our actual points, you try to overwhelm us with a barrage of sentimental verbiage and shouting. It is most telling that you have not quoted a word of scripture to back up your points. Still I will try to reply to your points, if I can locate them in your torrent of angry words.

First of all, we mean no insult to Jesus Christ, for whom we have the highest regard. We understand him in his celestial form to be none other than Lord Brahma, who is also the originator and root of our disciplic lineage of the Esoteric Teaching. But the Christian Church has not done a very good job of representing Jesus Christ. They made changes in the manuscripts of the Gospels that obscured the meaning, and edited out or covered up anything that was politically inconvenient. Because of this fundamental error of interpreting revelation with imperfect human reasoning, they have become the very antithesis of actual religion.

The Council of Nicaea was certainly dominated by Emperor Constantine, who was anything but a saint. First, he acceded to the throne by murdering his three brothers. What kind of a saint is that? Then at the Council of Nicaea itself, he executed hundreds of delegates from Christian sects that refused to go along with his politics. Fewer than half of the delegates returned home from the Council. Another bloodbath occurred to cleanse the precincts of Rome of all the sects that had been declared anathema at the Council. These are all historical facts, publicly admitted by the Church and available in any good history of the Roman Empire.

In my efforts to get the the bottom of the mystery of Jesus Christ, I learned Latin and Greek, and spent many days in the libraries of monasteries and seminaries questioning the monks and reading the histories in the original languages, including the Gospels. I have to say that I came away from these studies with an extreme distaste for the Church because of its many acts of violence aimed at suppressing those who differed or dissented from its dogma and propaganda. The Christian Church was born and raised in violence, fed with the blood of many whose only crime was to demand a better explanation. They made great efforts over a span of centuries to keep this Esoteric Teaching a secret from the world, the better to use this spiritual knowledge to increase their own power.

So while we love Jesus Christ and his original teachings, we have no respect at all for any institution that misuses his name for materialistic purposes. We saw the same thing going on in our spiritual master's organization: the rascal politicians insist they are serving the Master and do everything in his name, but behind the scenes they are changing everything, exploiting the congregation for their own benefit, and making the real story and teachings a secret. It's the same old story, and it happens whenever organizations and institutional politics get involved with religion.

We have a higher standard, a better way of doing things, a superior epistemological process; and if you cannot see that then it is likely that you do not belong here, because you will not be happy with the real truth.

It cannot be that everyone is right, or that all religions are true. Religions differ, and when they disagree with our own Esoteric Teaching, then we have to reject them. There are so many aspects of Christian theology that disagree with the teachings of the Vedas that it is impossible to list them all here. But the basic difference is epistemological: the Christians start with an incomplete history that has been edited for political reasons, and try to fashion a complete theology out of it by speculation or induction. Vedanta starts with a teaching of divine origin that is complete, and uses it to clarify specific questions by deduction. There is a world of difference between the two, but you seem not to have recognized that.

Srila Vyasadeva is recognized by all Vedic schools as an incarnation of Godhead.

sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo
mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca
vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyo
vedānta-kṛd veda-vid eva cāham

"I am seated in everyone's heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas am I to be known; indeed I am the compiler of Vedānta, and I am the knower of the Vedas." [Bhagavad-gita 15.15]

So because He is a divine incarnation, there is no mistake or illusion in the works of Vyasadeva, and He says in Vedanta-sutra 2.2.45:

vipratiṣedhācca

vipratiṣedhāt – on account of contradiction with all authorities; ca – and.

[The theory of the sectarian religionists is untenable,] because it contradicts all sacred authorities.

The "sectarian religionists" include anyone who differs with the divine revelation of the Lord as given in the Vedas. Therefore although we have the greatest respect for Jesus Christ, we cannot support the misunderstandings and misbehavior of the Church.

Now this site exists for the purpose of learning the nonsectarian Absolute Truth from the lineage of the Vedanta. It is not for sectarian arguments about which religion is better, nor for sentimental attacks against our school or myself personally. We have no problem with philosophical discussions, but these need to proceed soberly, logically and on the basis of scripture. So you need to adjust your attitude and mode of expression to meet our guidelines, or we will be forced to cancel your posting privileges.

Here is a response to the same question/statement from another student:

Prabhupada said: "Religion without philosophy is sentiment, or sometimes fanaticism, while philosophy without religion is mental speculation."

At the outset, I should immediately state that it appears that your agitation is only due to not yet having understood the philosophy of this school, and not having studied it in any depth. So please take a minute to understand that position of yours before reading the rest of my reply, otherwise you will only be arguing against it in your head and not understanding anything of what I say. I am writing this for your benefit and for the benefit of others who read this. I can tell you with all the conviction that I have, that if you actually make a deep study of this Esoteric Teaching, you will see no sectarianism or contradiction in this philosophy and instead will recognize your own sectarianism.

1. You have repeatedly said that you have accepted Babaji as your master teacher, but yet the tone used in your post is quite offensive. Maybe this is because English is not your first language, but still it is unacceptable. This is your first and fundamental misunderstanding of the Esoteric Teaching - your attitude towards and your relationship with your Spiritual Teacher.

Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the truth. [Bhagavad Gita 4.34]

 "Inquire submissively". That is the first step. This means that if we don't understand something, we inquire from the teacher about how it is true. It does not mean that we take it upon ourselves to try to instruct the teacher about our own opinions on the matter. Unless we have this attitude of submissive inquiry, we will never learn anything new and will only stick with whatever philosophy we have concocted in our heads that makes us feel good.

Instead, spiritual advancement is not about feeling good - especially in the beginning stages. We will have to trash many things that we find dear and will have to accept many things that we may not want to accept in our lives, because we must come to a point where we are not serving ourselves but instead serving the Lord by serving His representative, the spiritual master.

So, in that light, you may want to start by studying what the Bhagavad Gita says about the process of accepting a spiritual master and reassess your acceptance of Babaji as your teacher. We are not looking for sentimental relationships or personal drama here.

2. Your second misunderstanding is about the position of Srila Vyasadeva, because again you have not made any deep study of the scriptures that are made available on this site. This is the great danger of sentimental attachment to some spiritual tradition without a sincere effort to study it carefully and dedicate our lives to it. Just reading the forum posts is quite useless if you do not first study the scriptures.

There are six different kinds of incarnations of the Lord: the Purusha Avatars, the Lila Avatars, the Guna Avatars, the Manvantara Avatars, the Yuga Avatars and the Shaktyavesha Avatars. I will not explain what all of them are, but the Lila Avatars are listed in the Srimad Bhagavatam.

Thereafter, in the seventeenth incarnation of Godhead, Śrī Vyāsadeva appeared in the womb of Satyavatī through Parāśara Muni, and he divided the one Veda into several branches and subbranches, seeing that the people in general were less intelligent.[Srimad Bhagavatam 1.3.21]

"To explain further about Srila Vyasadeva, Jiva Gosvami quotes the Vishnu Purana (3.4.2-5) in his Tattva-sandarbha (16.2) that a different empowered jiva soul takes the position of Vyasadeva in each incarnation as a shaktyavesha-avatara. However, in this particular divya-yuga, or cycle of the four ages, Lord Narayana Himself appears as Srila Krishna-Dvaipayana Vyasa to divide the Vedic literature into various branches, and is not simply an empowered living entity. " [Source]

3. The Lord never descends in a material body but His body is always pure spirit, never to be confused with matter. He never takes on any material form when He descends, unlike the fallen souls. His form is not a "vehicle". His form is His form! It is a bogus and nonsense philosophy that God is actually formless and has to take on some material vehicle to descend to this world.

4. Constantine didn't personally censor and edit the hundreds of books and gospels that were existing at that time. Instead, he convened a council of bishops and they decided which gospels to keep and which ones to discard. Some bishops declined the invitation to attend the council. Some bishops in the council disagreed with the eventual selection of books and with the censorship of certain teachings. All this is pure institutionalized political rascaldom interfering with matters of the spirit. Censorship is a sure sign that there is a material agenda. Unfortunately, the games have already been played with the Gospels and you are correct to be upset about it.

Added to that, it took several hundred years more for Christian apologists to somehow fill in the glaring gaps in the philosophy. This theology was most certainly not divinely revealed but speculatively inserted in response to philosophical challenges from the Greeks and the Muslims. Thus, Augustine writes that "reincarnation is ridiculous" and that animals cannot possibly have souls. We have no interest in his personal opinions. I am not going to go into any details here, but you can read up on it if it interests you. Last weekend I was singing aloud the Holy Names of God in public and an evangelist came up to me and said that I was going to hell for it. This is the sad result of sectarianism.

We are not interested in following the speculations of any person. We are simply interested in following the word of God, Krsna, as He spoke it in the Bhagavad Gita and as it is explained in the Srimad Bhagavatam, the spotless scriptures of the world. There is no need to speculate about this or that, or about whether it is correct to be vegetarian or not. The whole science of God is clearly presented in these books and the sincere seekers of truth will study it with great enthusiasm to perfect their lives.

From what I have mentioned so far, I hope to get this message across very clearly: it is a completely useless endeavor to try to interpret the Esoteric Teaching within some limited framework of a crippled theology. The result will only be more confusion and furthermore you are bound to make many offenses and you have repeatedly done already. Rather, you have to trash all preconceived notions and start afresh. At least that is the minimum commitment to make if you are to accept a spiritual teacher.

Please understand that this is not anything personal. I have no axe to grind with anyone, so take my reponse in the spirit of trying to understand. And, if you are actually serious about learning about God through the teachings of the Vedas then you have to make the effort of studying the scriptures so you don't have serious misunderstandings.

Even if all the books of the world were to be burned, there would be no harm provided one treatise was left-the Srimad-Bhagavatam. Even if thousands of learning centers were to be abolished there would be no feeling of inconvenience provided the reading and teaching of the Srimad-Bhagavatam continued. . .There is no other book in the world like Srimad-Bhagavatam. This is not mere tittle tattle or exaggerated homage. -Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur






If the Lord never accepts a material body then how can you say He is born on Earth at certain times?

The Lord's form is always pure spirit. Of course He can appear anywhere and anytime He likes, but He accepts the pastime of appearing as His devotees' child just to enjoy their loving service.

tasyāṁ bahu-tithe kāle
bhagavān madhusūdanaḥ
kārdamaṁ vīryam āpanno
jajñe 'gnir iva dāruṇi

"After many, many years, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Madhusūdana, the killer of the demon Madhu, having entered the semen of Kardama, appeared in Devahūti just as fire comes from wood in a sacrifice." [Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.24.6]

PURPORT

It is clearly stated here that the Lord is always the Supreme Personality of Godhead, although He appeared as the son of Kardama Muni. Fire is already present in wood, but by a certain process, fire is kindled. Similarly, God is all-pervading. He is everywhere, and since He may come out from everything, He appeared in His devotee's semen. Just as an ordinary living entity takes his birth by taking shelter of the semen of a certain living entity, the Supreme Personality of Godhead accepts the shelter of the semen of His devotee and comes out as His son. This manifests His full independence to act in any way, and it does not mean that He is an ordinary living entity forced to take birth in a certain type of womb. Lord Nṛsiṁha appeared from the pillar of Hiraṇyakaśipu's palace, Lord Varāha appeared from the nostril of Brahmā, and Lord Kapila appeared from the semen of Kardama, but this does not mean that the nostril of Brahmā or the pillar of Hiraṇyakaśipu's palace or the semen of Kardama Muni is the source of the appearance of the Lord. The Lord is always the Lord. Bhagavān madhusūdanaḥ—He is the killer of all kinds of demons, and He always remains the Lord, even if He appears as the son of a particular devotee. The word kārdamam is significant, for it indicates that the Lord had some devotional affection or relationship in devotional service with Kardama and Devahūti. But we should not mistakenly understand that He was born just like an ordinary living entity from the semen of Kardama Muni in the womb of Devahūti.

A student adds:

I also just came across a purport that nicely explains this concept of the Lord's appearance and disappearance in different forms. Anything material is temporary, but all the Lord's forms are eternal and therefore not material. I hope you find it helpful.

The Supreme Lord relinquished the body which He manifested to diminish the burden of the earth. Just like a magician, He relinquishes one body to accept different ones, like the fish incarnation and others.

PURPORT

The Supreme Lord Personality of Godhead is neither impersonal nor formless, but His body is nondifferent from Him, and therefore He is known as the embodiment of eternity, knowledge and bliss. In the Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava Tantra it is clearly mentioned that anyone who considers the form of Lord Kṛṣṇa to be made of material energy must be ostracized by all means. And if by chance the face of such an infidel is seen, one must clean himself by jumping in the river with his clothing. The Lord is described as amṛta, or deathless, because He has no material body. Under the circumstances, the Lord’s dying or quitting His body is like the jugglery of a magician. The magician shows by his tricks that he is cut to pieces, burnt to ashes or made unconscious by hypnotic influences, but all are false shows only. Factually the magician himself is neither burnt to ashes nor cut to pieces, nor is he dead or unconscious at any stage of his magical demonstration. Similarly, the Lord has His eternal forms of unlimited variety, of which the fish incarnation, as was exhibited within this universe, is also one. Because there are innumerable universes, somewhere or other the fish incarnation must be manifesting His pastimes without cessation. In this verse, the particular word dhatte (“eternally accepted,” and not the word dhitvā, “accepted for the occasion”) is used. The idea is that the Lord does not create the fish incarnation; He eternally has such a form, and the appearance and disappearance of such an incarnation serves particular purposes. In the Bhagavad-gītā (7.24–25) the Lord says, “The impersonalists think that I have no form, that I am formless, but that at present I have accepted a form to serve a purpose, and now I am manifested. But such speculators are factually without sharp intelligence. Though they may be good scholars in the Vedic literatures, they are practically ignorant of My inconceivable energies and My eternal forms of personality. The reason is that I reserve the power of not being exposed to the nondevotees by My mystic curtain. The less intelligent fools are therefore unaware of My eternal form, which is never to be vanquished and is unborn.” In the Padma Purāṇa it is said that those who are envious and always angry at the Lord are unfit to know the actual and eternal form of the Lord. In the Bhāgavatam also it is said that the Lord appeared like a thunderbolt to those who were wrestlers. Śiśupāla, at the time of being killed by the Lord, could not see Him as Kṛṣṇa, being dazzled by the glare of the brahmajyoti. Therefore, the temporary manifestation of the Lord as a thunderbolt to the wrestlers appointed by Kaṁsa, or the glaring appearance of the Lord before Śiśupāla, was relinquished by the Lord, but the Lord as a magician is eternally existent and is never vanquished in any circumstance. Such forms are temporarily shown to the asuras only, and when such exhibitions are withdrawn, the asuras think that the Lord is no more existent, just as the foolish audience thinks the magician to be burnt to ashes or cut to pieces. The conclusion is that the Lord has no material body, and therefore He is never to be killed or changed by His transcendental body. [Srimad Bhagavatam 1.15.35 Purport]

So how do we solve the problems of life if we can't just accept Jesus? I have a hard time letting go of my attachment to Jesus and what he stood for.

A student writes:

Every problem is a problem in the experience of some conscious entity. This is why an understanding of consciousness is essential to our spiritual understanding, because consciousness is the primary symptom of the spirit soul. Our desire to be separate from God, to be independent enjoyers is a problem because that is not our constitutional position. The constitutional position of every soul is to be fully engaged in the loving service of God. As soon as we desire to enjoy independently from God we encounter suffering; over a period of time we get used to this suffering and take this as our normal condition of life. But in fact we are like a fish out of water. As soon as you put the fish back in the water he is happy again. Similarly, as soon as we come back to the platform of loving service to God we recover our original spiritual nature and find causeless bliss. So God is always inviting us to return to that state, but we have to make that choice ourselves.

This is the philosophy of Bhakti or devotional service to God. Every bona fide religion teaches this fundamental principle that underlies everything else. This is the only eternal religion, which is packaged in different forms according to time, place and circumstance. Try to understand this. This is Absolute Truth and it is beyond any boundaries of space or time. Saintly people will always descend to this world at every place and for all time because they are tied to this timeless Absolute Truth, not because they are within some instutition - but despite it. There is no force in this universe that can conquer this Truth so it will naturally prevail despite all inimical conditions. It has always been and it will always be.

You have your heart set on Christianity and that is great. Srila Prabhupada often said that there is nothing wrong with Christianity; it's just that people are not following the teachings of Christ because instead they want to gratify their own senses. Otherwise all the essentials are there: love of God and the chanting of His Holy Names. Lord Jesus's preaching in the New Testament is very deep and very clear about what he expects from his followers, but even then people are finding excuses and making up interpretations of what Christ actually meant so that it doesn't directly apply to them. So I heartily wish you well on your journey to find God in the Christian tradition and implore you to take the words of Jesus very seriously and honestly live your life by them. That is all.

"It is our nature to render service. Somehow or other we have come to the service of material things, but when this service is transformed into the service of the spiritual energy, then our life is perfect. To practice bhakti-yoga [loving service to God] means to become free from designations like “Hindu,” “Muslim,” “Christian,” this or that, and simply to serve God. We have created Christian, Hindu, and Muhammadan religions, but when we come to a religion without designations, in which we don’t think we are Hindus or Christians or Muhammadans, then we can speak of pure religion, or bhakti. " [Understanding Krsna and Christ; Srila Prabhupada in conversation with Father Emmanuel]

If you chant the holy name of Jesus in mantra form, using Rosary, you will have a much better understanding of these explanations:

Jesus Christ Jesus Christ,
Christ Christ Jesus Jesus,
Jesus Lord Jesus Lord,
Lord Lord Jesus Jesus





What do you recommend we read if we come from a Christian background?

The Book of Gethsemane. I wrote this book while I was on Kaua'i on my six-month solitary chanting retreat in 2001.

From the first chapter:

Most people have heard the story of Jesus and his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane. The core teaching of this familiar account from the New Testament is that when in difficulty, one should approach the spiritual Master Teacher or God to pray for advice and inspiration. The Lord will respond, either directly or through the spiritual Master Teacher, resolving the sincere disciple’s difficulty. This tenet is actually an integral part of the Esoteric Teaching from which all the bona fide religions in the world are derived. Therefore it is universally relevant to all Godly people, regardless of their doctrinal orientation or level of attainment in self-realization.

However, this pastime also contains a much more profound meaning. There is a clue to its deeper layer of significance in the fact that Jesus’ disciples could not remain awake while he prayed. The unenlightened person can hardly appreciate the personal presence of God or the timeless Esoteric Teaching He reveals when He appears in this world. As the Lord stated in the Esoteric Teaching, “The time of awakening for the self-realized soul is night for ordinary beings.” Therefore, although a spiritual event of universal significance was happening right before them, the neophyte disciples who would later chronicle of Jesus’ life in the Gospels and found the original Christian religion could not remain alert. They slept despite the fact that God was present, engaged in an intense personal dialog with His son and intimate disciple Jesus Christ. This inattention is revealed in the Gospels; or rather, in what is omitted from the Gospels. After all, the writers could not possibly have recorded what was happening while they were asleep. Therefore in the Gospels’ version of the story, Jesus goes from protesting “My Father, all things are possible for You, take this cup from me,” to capitulating, “Yet, not as I will, but as You will,” in a single verse.

A great soul like Jesus does not so easily doubt the order of the Lord, which is his life and soul. If Jesus had doubts (“Take this cup from me”), they must have been significant. Significant doubts are not easily erased. One gets the feeling that a lot of dialog is absent from the narration; indeed, the Lord’s side of the conversation is completely missing. Except for a brief mention of the appearance of the Lord of Heaven to Jesus, only statements and actions of Jesus appear in the Gospels.

This is consistent with the observation that the disciples were inattentive and unaware of God’s presence. They were dozing, and only half awoke when Jesus cried out to his Father in prayer. Alas, the Gospels, for all their beauty and value, are not perfect. They contain many omissions. Another glaring dereliction is the entire story of Jesus’ young manhood. The Gospels narrate a few precious pastimes of Jesus as a child, and then suddenly skip to his preaching activities as a grown man. Twenty years or so are utterly missing from the Gospels’ account of Jesus’ life. However, this is not the case with other records. The Esoteric Teaching narrates Jesus’ early travels throughout the ancient world, notably to Egypt and India, where he took instruction and received initiation and recognition from many spiritual authorities. Not surprisingly, the Esoteric Teaching contains a similar, but more complete version of the Gethsemane story as well.

Was Jesus named St. Issa while he was in India? If so then why wouldn't he continue to call himself Jesus?

You are not aware of how words change as they propagate from one language and historical period to another. "Issa" is a clumsy transliteration of Īśa, which means 'the first.' Just as Christ is etymologically derived from Kṛṣṇa:

[Kṛṣṇa (Sanskrit) → Kṛṣṭa (Farsi) → Kristos (Greek) → Kristus (Latin) → Christ (English)]

Jesus is etymologically derived from Īśa:

[Īśa (Sanskrit) → Yeṣa (Farsi) → Iesos (Greek) → Iesus (Latin) → Jesus (English)]

Īśa is one of the names of Lord Brahma, who is the first created being in the universe, and incidentally the first guru in our lineage of the Esoteric Teaching. Lord Brahma is born directly from the transcendental body of Lord Viṣṇu. So when the Lord (the Father) sent His one and only direct son (Lord Brahma) to this planet to save His devotees and destroy the Jews for their blasphemy of declaring themselves God, he appeared as Lord Jesus Christ.









THE BIBLE



What are The Apocrypha?

The Apocrypha are the books of the Bible that were cut out by Emperor Constantine at the Council of Nicea in 325 CE. The Dead Sea Scrolls are writings of the Essenes, the mystical cult to which Jesus and his family members belonged, and which expected his coming. Nowadays they are more widely known as the Nag Hammadi scrolls or writings, after the community where they were found.



Can you provide any reliable resources concerning the council of Nicea and Constantine? I found many on the web but there are a variety of contradictory opinions.

Oh, boy. Back in 1978-79 in Atlanta I was researching a book on the Bible, so every day I was going to Columbia Theological Seminary and looking for the earliest or most authentic manuscripts of the Gospels. Of course, that trail led directly to the Council of Nicaea and Constantine. But I don't remember the sources; they were all old histories originally in Latin. I first read them in English, couldn't believe my eyes, so I looked up the Latin sources, and there it all was. Of course I don't have access to any of that stuff now; if you could find some primary sources, that would be great.

But the primary argument, that the original Gospels were edited at Nicaea, is uncontested. That alone means that the Christians can't rely on the revelation argument, because they changed their original manuscripts (for whatever reason). Later on in Christian history we see a lot of effort to interpolate the missing knowledge. But it was too late: once the original is lost, it's all speculation.






When a teaching is incomplete or has become deviated, some philosophical speculation is required to restore it to its original condition. Philosophical speculation is different from mental speculation. Mental speculation is based on our own thinking and opinions: "I like," and "I don't like." Philosophical speculation is based on Vedic scriptural conclusions (siddhanta).

I understand this aspect of it. However, doesn't it rest upon this statement?:

Philosophical speculation is based on Vedic scriptural conclusions (siddhanta).

Is that an axiom? Is it equally valid if someone says that philosophical speculation is to be based on Biblical scriptural conclusions (as they are known today)?

It is not axiomatic, it is a proof, and therefore does not apply to scriptures other than the Vedas because the Bible and other scriptures, such as they stand today, are flawed and incomplete. For example, the Bible mentions the soul many times, but does not define the meaning of the soul anywhere. It also defines God in terms of the material universe as the Creator, but does not describe His transcendental attributes. However, Krsna speaking in Bhagavad-gita gives a detailed definition of the soul before basing any other teachings on it. He also clearly describes the Supreme Lord as a transcendental Person, a description that is greatly amplified in Srimad-Bhagavatam.

Thus we can observe that the Vedic scriptures are ontologically conceived and semantically consistent, a large part of which derives directly from the transcendental logic and structure of the Sanskrit language. This is not the case for other scriptures. For example, the Romans had to bring in Aristotelian philosophy and logic in the 10th century because the Bible was an inadequate basis to answer the philosophical queries of the Greeks, who had a detailed ontology, theory of knowledge and several very powerful forms of deductive, inductive and transactional logic—all of which are completely missing from the Bible, yet are found in every part of the Vedas.

If the Bible is the complete and perfect Word of God, as many Christians believe and try so hard to convince others, then why was it necessary for the Romans to take shelter of Aristotle? (Plato would have been a much better choice IMHO, but that is a different subject.) Why do the Old Testament and New Testament differ so much in their theological perspectives and standards of religious practice? Unless a scripture is internally self-contained and self-consistent, it can hardly be considered a perfect representation of spiritual knowledge.

oṁ pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaṁ
pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate
pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya
pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate

"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]

If God emanates the scriptures, then any scripture that actually comes from God must display His attributes of perfection, completeness and self-consistency. As much as we respect and appreciate the Bible and other scriptures, they just don't meet these criteria.



Do you think 2012 could be related to the biblical book "Revelations."

To my mind the whole revisionist Christian historical interpretation of Revelations is a joke. They try to make God like Santa Claus giving free passes to heaven to anyone who will just believe in their puerile religion. God is not so cheap; after all He is the inventor of the Law of Karma. To get liberation from this miserable world you really have to deserve it. Of course it is natural that the religion of the meat-eaters will be riddled with misunderstandings and errors.

When the demons are forced to give up this planet at the end of the Kali-chakra of Kali-yuga, even though it is fated by cosmic law, they will not give it up without a fight. Like Saddam torching the oil fields in Kuwait, they will do as much damage as possible on their way out. After all, they are demons. Their policy is exploitation, destruction and death. Just see what they have done to this planet so far. In the last 5000 years they have destroyed so much of the wealth left by the Vedic Empire, and even worse, obscured the truth.

If the Fundamentalist interpretation of Revelations is true, then where is the Antichrist? Where is the Beast and the Cult of the Beast? If the current war is meant to be the Biblical Armageddon, then those characters ought to be on the scene by now. It is best not to try to reconcile the warped views of ignorant pseudo-Christian fanatics with Vedic Absolute Truth, but simply take this Esoteric Teaching to heart and learn to view things and live by its ontology. That ontological commitment will prevent any confusion about who is who, and what is really going on.




Is there anywhere in the Bible that says we shouldn't kill animals?

There are many. For example:

"He who kills an ox is as he who kills a man."

It's somewhere in the Old Testament, there are any number of Bible search sites where you can look it up.







CHRISTIANITY MISC



I don't think you can say that Christianity is a philosophy can you?

Of course Christianity is a philosophy. Everything is a philosophy; even foolish rascals who hang out in bars and watch football have a philosophy. A philosophy is a system of values and reasoning by which people try to understand and live their life. If you cannot understand that Christianity is a philosophy, then we have no common basis for discussion.




Could you give a brief comparison between the Vedic disciplic succession and Christianity?

Regarding the integrity of the Vedic disciplic succession, if you do an ontological and epistemological analysis of the Bible versus the Vedas, the results are completely different.

I found out about the edits made by Emperor Constantine to the Bible and the incorporation of Aristotelian philosophy in the theology of the Church in the library of a Catholic Seminary. It's no secret, it's clearly mentioned in all the better histories of the Catholic Church. Then there is the checkered history of the Popes, who are supposed to be apostolic successors but are elected by committee, and many have been politically involved, even alcoholics and homosexuals. Somehow the Christians rationalize all this nonsense because they think they have no other alternative. The conditioning, propaganda and suppression of outside views has been very effective.

The Vedic history is completely different. There were no editorial committees, no emperors with heavy political agendas or suppressed recensions of the texts. In fact there is an elaborate checksum system that keeps the original texts from being altered. The originals are stored in four archives in widely separated locations, and periodically compared to eliminate copying and publishing errors. The members of the four authorized disciplic lineages of the Vedic Esoteric Teaching are all self-realized saints of the highest caliber, not voted in by committee but selected directly by Kṛṣṇa. There really is no comparison with the Christians at all.

If God can send His son to this earth to perform service for Him, then who is to say that He cannot come Himself? God can do anything, even the impossible, simply by desiring it. He is all-powerful, and He Himself is the origin of the Vedas. Therefore we accept the Vedic literatures like Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Vedānta-sūtra without any change or editing. The knowledge of the Vedas is perfect because the Lord is perfect; therefore any knowledge He gives is automatically perfect.

You cannot realize any of this as long as you have intimate connection with material existence. Chanting the Holy Name of God is the most important part of the process. You should try to chant daily, first thing in the morning. If you make it a regular habit then your whole life will go so much better; ask any of our students. If you have an attraction for analytical thinking, then you should study Sanskrit or our scientific books like Transontology. That will keep that rascal mind engaged!





In the collection of Paul's letters in the Bible, are there teachings that you feel are contradictory to the original teachings of Jesus?

There are so many examples of disagreement between the teachings of Jesus and those of Paul. For example, Jesus said:

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." [Matthew 5:16]

Jesus answered them, "Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?" [John 10:32]

There are 43 similar references in the New Testament glorifying good works. Yet Paul insisted that works were not important, and that salvation is achieved through faith alone. This belief became the cornerstone of Roman Catholic theology, basically because it gave so-called Christians permission to do any nonsense, and they will still be saved simply because of faith in Jesus Christ. It made spiritual perfection easy enough that you can attain it in a pep rally at the local church.

Yet we have from Bhagavad-gita the far more scientific principle that the only way to change our karma, and thus our destiny, is to change our activities from ignorance and passion to goodness. The Pauline Roman theology actually short-circuits the only way that people can get out of the muck of material action and reaction. It automatically creates a hypocritical church where a person can be called a Christian in good standing, yet do all manner of terrible sinful things that bring pain to others, as long as his actions are sanctioned by the authorities.

This hypocrisy is exactly what we see and experience in all religious institutions, even so-called Vaisnava organizations. It is a business of false material designations replacing authentic spiritual realization. If someone has an exalted ecclesiastical title, then whatever they say or do is unquestionably right, even if it causes so much distress to other beings. But names and titles are not the essence of religion; self-realization is, and that cannot be measured by any material means.

Religious hypocrisy arises from the need of politically-minded people to justify their cruelty as somehow spiritual. But we should not be deceived; actual self-realization means that one becomes a source of transcendental knowledge and removes the ignorance that causes rebirth by transcendental instruction. That is the actual standard.






Could you expand on works and faith in spiritual life?

A student writes:

I am only vaguely aware of the debate in Christian theology about salvation by Faith and Works, but it was my understanding that the Roman Catholic stance negates salvation by faith alone.

I came across this website that argues against this Catholic stance and comes to the absurd conclusion that:

Salvation is a free gift from God given to us by His awesome Grace and is based upon the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.  Christians receive this by faith because faith is all we have left since our works are excluded, by God, as having anything to do with attaining salvation. (emphasis mine)

I notice the tension between statements of Jesus in the Gospel and some excerpts from Paul's letters, as listed in this webpage - which then tries to reconcile the differences.

I think this whole business of faith and works is nicely captured in the Nectar of Devotion:

By the process of executing regulated devotional service, one is actually elevated onto the transcendental stage, beyond the material modes of nature. At that time one’s heart becomes illuminated like the sun. The sun is far above the planetary systems, and there is no possibility of its being covered by any kind of cloud; similarly, when a devotee is purified like the sun, from his pure heart there is a diffusion of ecstatic love which is more glorious than the sunshine. Only at that time is the attachment to Kṛṣṇa perfect. Spontaneously, the devotee becomes eager to serve the Lord in his ecstatic love. At this stage the devotee is on the platform of uttama-adhikārī, perfect devotion. Such a devotee has no agitation from material affections and is interested only in the service of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. [Nectar of Devotion, Chapter 17 - Ecstatic Love] (emphasis mine)

By "works", what is actually meant is "devotional service" and not mundane "good" works. To this end, there is also this excerpt:

Some scholars argue that simply by following the principles of varṇa and āśrama one can gradually rise to the perfections reached by practicing devotional service, but this argument is not accepted by the great authorities. Lord Caitanya also condemned this idea while He was talking with Rāmānanda Rāya about the gradual development of devotional service. He rejected the idea of the importance of varṇāśrama-dharma when it was put forward by Rāmānanda Rāya. He said that this advancement of varṇa and āśrama is merely external. There is a higher principle. In Bhagavad-gītā also the Lord says that one has to give up all other principles of elevation and take simply to the method of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That will help one in achieving the highest perfection of life. [Nectar of Devotion, Chapter 13 - Five Potent Forms of Devotional Service] (emphasis mine)

 And finally, from Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur:

We are not doers of good or bad deeds, nor are we scholars or illiterate. Carrying the shoes of Hari's pure devotees as our duty, we are initiates into the mantra "kirtaniya sada hari". [Upadeshavali, 7]

Their distinction between 'works'—which in the Biblical context is seen as actions in accordance with the Law of God—and devotional service is that good works are performed in accordance with the material mode of goodness, while devotional service is always on the transcendental platform. Please see our chart on the Laws of Karma to study this subtle distinction applied over a wide range of topics.

The Esoteric Teaching makes everything very clear, just like when the sun rises in the morning he dissipates the darkness of night.

Another student adds:

The Catholic church reduced "works" to ritualistic karma-kanda kind of service to the institution, such as the selling of indulgences, and counting prayers, which is what the protestants denounced. But even other church theories of "faith" and "works" do seem to be a little muddled. This comes out even in how some gospel texts were left out of the canon, and are considered "heretical" by modern churches even today. An example is the Gospel of Thomas.

I feel that, like the Mayavadis, the churches have trouble explaining the proper relationship between "faith" and "works" because of what Srila Prabhupada called "a poor fund of knowledge." In this case, its about the Modes of Nature.

According to the Vedic philosophy, a particular mode of nature (sattva, rajas, tamas) forms the context within which an action is performed. It is possible that an action performed in tamo-guna has a totally different (maybe even opposite) spiritual value to the same action performed in sattva-guna. This is explained in the Bhagavad Gita, chapter 17. For example, see the verse 17.7:

aharas tv api sarvasya
tri-vidho bhavati priyah
yajnas tapas tatha danam
tesam bhedam imam srnu

"Even food of which all partake is of three kinds, according to the three modes of material nature. The same is true of sacrifices, austerities and charity. Listen, and I shall tell you of the distinctions of these..."

Thus, an ignorant act of "charity" can actually be qualitatively of "harmful" value, and conversely an act of "murder" for justice may be "compassionate", depending on the qualitative modal context in which it is performed.

We find the same idea in the Gospel of Thomas, 14:

"Jesus said to them: If you fast, you will give rise to sin for yourselves; and if you pray, you will be condemned; and if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits."

Here Jesus is turning commonly accepted "virtues" on their head. This may easily be understood in the context of Bhagavad-gita chapter 17. Unfortunately, because of a poor fund of knowledge, many historical and modern Christian churches consider the gospel of St. Thomas (and many other gospel texts) to be "incompatible with the New Testament", or even "heretical".

And so a genuine ontological adjustment and commitment, and even renunciation of abominable habits, are not emphasized as a problem for salvation. But it seems that the Lord shows how consciousness works recursively, and so the sadhaka should attempt to work with love in the mode of goodness, even if he/she has great difficulty doing so. Bhagavad-gita 17.3:

sattvanurupa sarvasya
sraddha bhavati bharata
sraddha-mayo 'yam puruso
yo yac-chraddhah sa eva sah

"According to one's existence under the various modes of nature, one evolves a particular kind of faith. The living being is said to be of a particular faith according to the modes he has acquired."

Many earlier Christian saints acknowledged that Absolute Truth is actually eternal. Does it just find different expression in different cultures?

Here are some quotes in this regard:

"That which is called the 'Christian Religion' existed among the ancients and never did not exist from the beginning of the human race until Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion which already existed began to be called Christianity." -- St. Augustine, in his treatise, "On True Religion" (De Vera Religione)

Another two quotes by Eusabius, a founding father in Church history right around Constantine:

"The names of Jesus and Christ were both known and honored by the ancients." (Hist. Eccl. lib. i. ch. iv)

"That which is called the Christian religion is neither new nor strange, but - if it be lawful to testify the truth - was known to the ancients." (Hist. Eccl. lib. 2, ch. v.).

Yes, the Absolute Truth is the eternal religion, sanatana-dharma, which finds various particular expressions in different times and places. Holy Names like Īṣa and Kṛṣṭa (which later on became Jesus and Christ in the Western languages) are well-known in India and are in use even today.

What concerns me is that there seems to be a body of material containing knowledge about the ancient world from which these statements of Eusabius and Augustine are drawn. That information is known to the founding fathers but is concealed from the public. They deliberately made it a secret to prevent people from finding the actual source. Another good example of this type of manipulation is the lines from the Nicene Creed that seem to describe Jesus as Lord Brahma:

"We believe in One Lord, Jesus Christ the only son of god. God from god, light from light, true god from true god. Begotten not made, of one being with the father, Through him all things were made."

Where did this understanding of Jesus come from? Certainly not the books of the Bible. Even one of our students, who has access to all kinds of early Judeo-Christian manuscripts, was unable to find a clear historical reference when we discussed this matter. But of course it is clearly described in the Vedas, specifically in the Third Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam.

What bothers me about this is a lack of acknowledging their sources, a lack of transparency and accountability for their editorial input. This is fundamentally dishonest; a breach of trust that patronizes their followers. Worse, it keeps them from knowing about the existence of an ancient tradition that predates Christianity by millennia: the Esoteric Teaching of the Vedas.

The Roman Church wanted to be perceived as the source of all religious knowledge, but that was just political propaganda. That spin is belied by statements such as the above quotes, revealing that the founding fathers knew of the pre-existence of the Eternal Religion, the sanatana-dharma of the Vedas. But they withheld that knowledge from their followers. This smokescreen between East and West has been in existence for twenty centuries, and so much of the resources and policies of the western world were invested in maintaining it. Even today they refuse to acknowledge how much they took from that ancient tradition.

You will notice that whenever we make an important point, we acknowledge the source, and even link to it. We are not manufacturing anything new; all our intelligence is derived from the heritage of our spiritual master and the Vedic tradition. This is an ethical principle that runs deep in our lineage.

Certain mundane religious organizations want to follow in the footsteps of the Roman church and change the books of Srila Prabhupada to support their deviant notions of Vedic philosophy. Even that would not be so bad, if at least they were honest and took credit for the thousands of editorial changes they have made. But instead they are hiding behind a screen of anonymity, refusing to take responsibility for their differing views from their spiritual master, and passing the books off as original works of Srila Prabhupada. This tactic is not only fundamentally dishonest and philosophically bankrupt, it goes against the mood of our entire lineage and is a blow against the principle of disciplic succession itself. Finally it is doomed to backfire, because we have preserved the original texts and can easily point out all the differences, exposing their intransigence.

Our main qualification in presenting spiritual knowledge is that we are truthful; we will not mislead the student, but will give the best and clearest account possible of that ancient Absolute Truth that was cherished by the ancients. That same Absolute Truth is available to us today only because many generations of teachers vowed never to change even one word. There are so many narrations in the Vedic literature that recount very ancient conversations verbatim, without any specious editorializing.

evaṁ paramparā-prāptam
imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ

"This supreme science was thus received through the chain of disciplic succession, and the saintly kings understood it in that way." [Bhagavad-gita 4.2]

That is the value of the Esoteric Teaching: it is not only very ancient, it is true to its sources. I could go on about the checksum system that prevents changes to the original texts, whether accidental or deliberate. But the matter of fidelity to the original Esoteric Teaching actually rests with the integrity and brahminical principles of the teachers in the line. Truthfulness is the basis of trust, and without that trust how can we ever fully surrender in love, either to guru or God?




How should we celebrate Christmas?

In the usual way, with chanting of the Holy Name, ecstatic dancing and feasting on delicious praṣādam. Hare Kṛṣṇas!







ISLAM


Do you think Mohammed was a true prophet and what do you think of the teaching in the Quran?

I must confess that I have never studied the Qu'ran, other than to read articles about it by my own spiritual master. Unfortunately, encounters with various representatives of Islam in my formative years discouraged me, because they seemed as sectarian and fundamentalist as the Christians I had grown up among, if not more so. Others, such as 'Sufi Sam' in San Francisco, seemed far too materialistic and populist for my taste. I already had a taste of esoteric knowledge through studying Gurdjieff, and knew I was looking for a serious esoteric school.

Fortunately, soon I found my spiritual master and took shelter of him. Srila Prabhupada accepted Hazrat Muhammad as a holy teacher who had done great service by spreading God consciousness among very fallen materialistic people. He taught me that anyone who is really God-conscious knows that God is one, He is universal, and all are His children. Different religions and spiritual cultures are simply His eternal causeless mercy, distributed according to the time and circumstances by His agents, the enlightened prophets and sages, who apply their divine vision to compile the sacred scriptures for the benefit of all living entities.

These sages appear in all cultures, times and places. Do we think that God is so partial, fickle and miserly that He agrees to allow His truth to appear in only one scripture or religion, and everyone else is out of luck? No, God is merciful by nature, and His program of spiritual education and enlightenment is eternal and universal. Therefore we honor all authentic religions and respect all divinely inspired and empowered holy teachers.

However, if we perform a careful comparative study, we can easily understand that the Vedic tradition contains a more complete vision of God, the spiritual world and the development of transcendental consciousness than any other. First of all, it is far more voluminous than other spiritual traditions. The world's first epic Mahabharata alone is 22 thick volumes, seven times the size of Homer's Odyssey. Plus there are the original four Vedas: Rk, Sama, Atharva and Yajus; the 108 principal Upanisads, Vedanta-sutra, the 18 principal Puranas including Srimad-Bhagavatam the jewel of the Vedic literature, the Vedangas, Tantras, lawbooks, histories and so on, not to mention the extensive commentaries by the Master Teachers of the four bona fide Vedic lineages.

The complete Vedic literature is thus tens of thousands of volumes—a huge library of transcendental literature, full of eternal Absolute Truth, written in very sophisticated Sanskrit poetry, completely consistent in style and content. A compendium far too vast to be written by any ordinary human being, they were compiled by the sage Vyasadeva who is himself an empowered incarnation of God. The Vedic literature makes the Bible and Qu'ran, for all their value and importance, seem like small streams compared to an ocean. We find the same truths in all of them, but the Vedic explanations are far more complete and philosophically satisfying, because they are contained within a completely consistent literary context of transcendental philosophy and ontology.

The scriptures themselves admit their incompleteness. For example, Jesus said in John 16:12, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." And the Gospel of John closes with, "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen." [John 21:25] The Qu'ran describes that when Muhammad ascended into heaven and visited the Throne of Allah, he received three kinds of knowledge: knowledge that Allah ordered Muhammad to communicate to all members of his ummah (community of disciples); knowledge that he was at liberty to share or conceal; and confidential knowledge that the Lord ordered him not to reveal.

So both the Bible and the Qu'ran themselves admit that they are not complete teachings; therefore although we certainly respect these sacred texts and their holy teachers, our principal field of study is the Vedic texts Sri Isopanisad, Bhagavad-gita, Srimad-Bhagavatam and Caitanya-caritamrta, as recommended by our spiritual master Srila Prabhupada. We also have read and spoken on the Bible and teachings of Jesus such as his Sermon on the Mount. It is the same teaching, but huge pieces are missing because of the political involvement of the Romans in early Christianity. The Vedic teachings fill in these gaps very nicely, and our local students especially appreciate this information.

You can also read further on Islam in A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada on Islam available for free on our site.





Is the Qur'an the last holy book and Muhammad the last prophet?

Actually the Qur'an is not the last holy book, nor is Muhammad the last prophet. That may be true of his particular lineage or school, but certainly not in the world in general.

Krsna says:

yadā yadā hi dharmasya
glānir bhavati bhārata
abhyutthānam adharmasya
tadātmānaṁ sṛjāmy aham

"Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion—at that time I descend Myself." [Bhagavad-gita 4.7]

So just like Jesus was not the first ambassador of God to this forlorn world, Muhammad was certainly not the last.

The appearance of the incarnation of the Supreme Lord Himself, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, in Bengal India 500 years ago is a historical fact. His appearance was predicted in Vedic literatures such as Srimad-Bhagavatam, more than 5,000 years ago. If you will kindly read it, you will certainly find that it is on a much higher philosophical, moral and transcendental level than any of the scriptures of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).

First of all the Abrahamic scriptures make concessions for meat-eaters, whereas the Vedic scriptures insist on complete ahimsa or nonviolence to all living creatures. Second, although the Abrahamic religions instruct us to love God, they do not give information about the personal transcendental form, qualities, abode, devotees and pastimes of the Lord. How can we love God unless we know Him as a person? Therefore the Abrahamic religions are just preliminary studies compared to the complete transcendental knowledge given in the Esoteric Teaching of the Vedas.

There is a wonderful discussion between Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and the Chand Kazi or Muslim governor of Navadvipa at the time of His appearance narrated in Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila Chapter 17. After detailed discussion of principles of the Vedic scriptures and the Qur'an, the learned Kazi admitted,

tumi ye kahile, paṇḍita, sei satya haya
ādhunika āmāra śāstra, vicāra-saha naya

"My dear Nimāi Paṇḍita, what You have said is all true. Our scriptures have developed only recently, and they are certainly not logical and philosophical." [Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila 17.169]

This was spoken by a very learned and senior scholar of the Qur'an. So the Caitanya-caritamrta, Caitanya-Bhagavat and other scriptures narrating the pastimes and philosohical revelations of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu are even more recent than the Qur'an—only about 500 years ago. If you take the time to read them, you will discover a world of spiritual revelations higher than any other tradition in the world. And if you actually practice their principles of pure devotional love and service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, you will experience spiritual enlightenment beyond anything available in any other tradition.

Another point is that there is no last, final revelation. The Lord Himself appears regularly in this world to restore the principles of religion:

ajo 'pi sann avyayātmā
bhūtānām īśvaro 'pi san
prakṛtiṁ svām adhiṣṭhāya
sambhavāmy ātma-māyayā

"Although I am unborn and My transcendental body never deteriorates, and although I am the Lord of all sentient beings, I still appear in every millennium in My original transcendental form." [Bhagavad-gita 4.6]

It is the nature of this material world that everything deteriorates by the influence of time. Even the Esoteric Teaching of the Vedas, with so many built-in safeguards to prevent against change, has to be renewed periodically by the Lord:

evaṁ paramparā-prāptam
imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ
sa kāleneha mahatā
yogo naṣṭaḥ parantapa

"This supreme science was thus received through the chain of disciplic succession, and the saintly kings understood it in that way. But in course of time the succession was broken, and therefore the science as it is appears to be lost." [Bhagavad-gita 4.2]

No tradition can be the last or final one, because all traditions and teachings in this world degrade over time and must be renewed. For example, Islam means peace; but now extremists are making Islam the excuse for horrible terrorist attacks against innocent people. Even with my limited knowledge of the Qur'an, I can understand that this is completely against the religious principles of Islam. They are ruining the good name of Islam and Muhammad by distorting the teachings to justify their cowardly, irresponsible behavior.

So we must acknowledge that the Islam, Christianity and Judaism available today are completely different from, and in many cases antithetical to, the original forms of thee religious traditions. This is the effect of the natural degradation of human endeavors over time. Therefore no religious teaching can be the last or final one, because all religious traditions require periodic renewal. That is why Muhammad said,

"Certainly God will send to my sect, at the end of every hundred years, a person who will renew my religion."








JUDAISM

You say many times when talking about the secret teachings of Jesus that there is no given name of God in the Bible.

But it is.

Psalms 83 17-18

"Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; Yea,let them be put to shame, and perish: That men may know that thou,whose name is alone is JEHOVAH, Art the most high over all the earth."

Where did I say that exactly? What I did say is that the Bible has no explanation of the soul. If you want to argue with your teacher you better have some good evidence lined up. It is common knowledge that the Jewish name of God was JHVH. But Jesus called Him 'Father' (Abba).

Actually we have no idea how the name Jehovah was pronounced. In the Hebrew language it is written . These four letters, called the Tetragrammaton, are read from right to left, and can be represented in many modern languages as YHWH or JHVH. God's name, represented by these four consonants, appears almost 7,000 times in the original Old Testament, or Hebrew Torah.

The name is a form of a Hebrew verb ha·wah' (), meaning "to become," and actually signifies "He Causes to Become," or the Creator. But according to the Vedic historical records of the creation in the Puranas, the Supreme Lord is not directly the creator of the material world. He assigns that task to His son the Christ, or Lord Brahma. Actually God has nothing to do with this material world; He is completely transcendental. The actual work of creation is carried out by His potencies. By defining God in terms of the material world, the Jews limited their conception of God. Either they had no knowledge of the spiritual world, or they actually were not worshiping the Supreme Lord, but the creator Lord Brahma instead. This last is most probable, since we know from the history of the Jews that they were an extremely warlike people, intolerant of others' religious beliefs and practices, and since these are attributes of the mode of passion it is likely that they actually worshiped Brahma, the lord of the material mode of passion instead of the Supreme, the eternal Lord of pure goodness.

Also, nobody knows for sure how to pronounce the Hebrew name of God. The Hebrew alphabet contains only consonants. While ancient Hebrew was a living spoken language, the pronunciation of the Holy Name was familiar to the Israelites, and when they saw it in writing they supplied the vowels without thinking; just as we know the abbreviation "bldg." represents "building".

Two things happened to change this. First, a superstitious idea arose among the Jews that it was wrong to speak the Holy Name out loud; so when they came to it in their scripture reading, they spoke 'Adho·nai' ("Sovereign Lord") instead. In course of time, the ancient Hebrew language ceased to be spoken in everyday conversation, and the original Hebrew pronunciation of God's Holy Name was eventually forgotten.

Around 500 AD, Jewish scholars invented a system of points to represent the missing vowels, and they placed these around the consonants in the Torah. Subsequently, both vowels and consonants were written down, preserving the pronunciation as it was at that time. But instead of putting the proper vowel signs around the Holy Name, in most cases they put other vowel signs to remind the reader that he should say 'Adho·nai'. From this came the spelling Iehouah, and, eventually, Jehovah became the accepted pronunciation of the divine name in English. This retains the essential elements of God's name from the texts of the Torah, but not the original Holy Name given to Moses by the Lord.

So what use is a Holy Name that no one really knows how to pronounce? If I address you as "Cnr" in this forum  (NOTE: The Student's name was Conor), in a short time no one will remember how your name was really pronounced. Then if they try to call you by guessing the original pronunciation, maybe you will respond, but maybe not. So much information is irrevocably lost by faulty transmission of the early beliefs of Western religious sects like the Jews, who by trying to keep their beliefs and practices secret, actually ensured their eventual deterioration and demise. As a result, almost no one chants the Holy Name of Jehovah, as King David and his subjects did in the olden days.

The Sanskrit language of the Vedas is not only strictly phonetic, including both consonants and vowels, but also each letter of the Sanskrit Devanagari script is actually a picture of how one holds his mouth and tongue to pronounce it. The Devanagari alphabet is divided into Gutturals, Palatals Cerebrals, Dentals, Labials, Semivowels, Sibilants and Aspirants, depending on how they are pronounced. We pronounce Sanskrit today exactly as it was pronounced thousands of years ago.

The Vedic scriptures are completely public and open; there are no secrets, nothing left out. Our process of translation and interpretation is completely open, transparent and accountable. That's why all our books include word-for-word synonyms for each translation. Where will you find that in any Bible?

Plus the Sanskrit language contains a strict system of checksums, where the long and short syllables of each sloka have to add up to a certain total. This prevents copyist and other unintentional errors in the transmission of the texts over time. When the voluminous transcendental Vedas are available in their original meaning through our lineage, why would anyone want to try to piece together the original meaning of some obscure, fragmentary Hebrew scriptures whose original pronunciation, meaning and practice have undoubtedly been lost?




What are your thoughts on the Kabbalistic path?

The Kabbalistic path is dangerous, not only because it is complex but because it is ultimately impersonal. It is based on the principle of jñāna, and that path is full of difficulty.

kleśo 'dhikataras teṣām
avyaktāsakta-cetasām
avyaktā hi gatir duḥkhaṁ
dehavadbhir avāpyate

"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." [Bhagavad-gītā 12.5]

Besides, the word Jew is derived from the Sanskrit and Bengali jiu, which means God. The Jews declared themselves to be God and claimed as a race to be the chosen people, and it is for this offensive attitude that they have been punished down through the millennia. This is called Māyāvādī philosophy, and it is the cause of all the evil and suffering in the world. After all, if we are God, then we do not have to answer to anyone or observe any morality. Therefore the Māyāvādī philosophy is condemned by all the bona fide scriptures in the world (please see the Impersonalism FAQ).

You are very fortunate to have come to the path of the Vedic Esoteric Teaching, which shows us how to have a direct personal relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead by chanting His Holy Names. When you call Him with love and devotion, then He may appear to you according to His sweet will. But this can happen only if we adopt an attitude of service. After all He is the Master and we are His servants.




What are your opinions on Gaza?

What can I say? This is a feud between two sides of a family, thousands of years old, going all the way back to Abraham and his sons Cain and Abel. Abraham means 'not a brāhmaṇa,' and they have proved it with this endless unprincipled fratricidal war among the Semites.

In the process they have become animals, killing civilians instead of holding civilized and honorable battles between military units only. This is the most terrible disease of Kali-yuga, that innocent people are killed in war. Both sides are guilty of it. So how can they ever have peace? Those idiots will be fighting forever.

< Prev		Next >