The Person and God - Loving God or Humanity?

To love a person, you must love the person not a facsimile of the person.

We have been taught that one must water the root in order to give nourishment to the fruits and flowers. But we have seen at the same time that loving God exclusively leads to neglect of individual human beings--they become expendable or useful to the extent that they serve as accoutrements to our personal search for love for God, for our mission.

It seems that this is a failure of love for God. After all, there is a valid criticism that sees "loving God" as a kind of disguised selfishness. It is ultimately an individual endeavor. I want my personal satisfaction--my personal embrace from my personal protector. And I only hope that something good will accrue for the rest of the world as a kind of side effect.

If I glow with love for Krishna, does that mean that I can treat every individual as though they did not matter? That they will be benefitted as if by magic, without any separate effort on my part?

But if other human beings become dispensible--family, friends, business associates--for any cause whatsoever, however noble sounding, does it not warp the nobility of that cause?

And yet, we have been taught that we must seek that most noble goal, even at the cost of human love. We have been taught that human love is an obstacle to God. Is even selfless love for another human contradictory to love for Krishna? If it does not have the correct "cultural" overtones?

After all, how can we love everyone individually? Our meager energies would be dissipated so quickly that any good we could accomplish would be lost in moments.

No, we are called to express love in little ways--commitment, taking responsibility for those in our charge, serving Krishna in the forms that he appears to us to the best of our capacity. Krishna appears in human form, sometimes the most mundane and familiar forms that surround us, day in, day out. Krishna in the forms that he reveals his needs to us for love, or even lesser needs--for food, for shelter, for hope.

Why does it always have to be him who renders us service? Why are we always hoping for the "big explosion" of unending liberation? Why do we mistake liberation for devotion, and why do we refuse the challenge of devotion and love for the apparent repose of liberation?

Why can't we see that we are the servants? And at the same time, why does nothing ever seem like enough? Is it tuSTiH puSTiH kSud-apAyo'nughAsaH--Or, is it Leonard's

"I ate I ate I ate I ate,
I could not eat another plate,
I asked how much these dinners cost
They said, We'll take it out in hate."?

Right now, I feel sad and troubled, and these ever-accumulating failures of love seem like an unsurmountable conundrum, and certainly not soluble by mere theology.

bhaktiH parezAnubhavo viraktir
anyatra caiSa trika eka-kAlaH
prapadyamAnasya yathAznataH syus
tuSTiH puSTiH kSud-apAyo’nughAsam

Jagat:
Thanks for this.. it puts perfectly into words something I have been feeling for quite some time, and a topic that it seems like we have been creeping around the edges of here at GD. The thread on Rambhoru Mataji's plight has brought this particular issue into the spotlight. I look forward to the discussion.

Oh, right.. and sorry, I'm at work right now, so I can't add anything longer

kRSNere nAcAya prema, bhaktere nAcAya
Apane nAcaya tine nAce eka ThAi

Prema makes Sri Krishna dance
and the bhakta dance apace.
Then prema itself joins in the dance,
The three dance in one place.

(Antya 18.18)

Thank you Jagat!


Materialism has crept into our view and practice.



Again what we have in our psychi - inherited by the world - something we sometimes need to consciously weed out.

I think something is wrong somewhere if we are not responsive to those around us - God resides in the heart of every living being. It is the realization of That God (usually comming after the Realization of Brahman), that comes where we can love each living being we encounter. Boro Baba's life was about that (I believe), as well as many other Saints that have graced this world.

And then there is the whole issue of the social malaise we have found ourselves plunged into recently. We can view that as just another test of our faith. I think that is true, but there is also the challenge for us to become healed via our sadhana and thereby become proactive as healers of those around us. I personally have sought refuge not only in the limbs of bhakti but also in living healthier via increasing physical exercise including practice of Tai Chi and having a more balanced diet (not necessarily extremist along the lines of a vegetarian version of Atkins or vigilantly counting carbs, but rather paying attention to the glycemic index of foods and drinks).

We are, after all, social creatures and not lone wolves (and even wolves travel in packs). My opinion is that we need to strike a balance between our solitary practices of mantra meditation and smaranam and interactions with others. Those interactions can be both secular and bhakti-related.

Dear Mina,

It is always a pleasure to read your insights; care to elaborate it with applicable solutions?

Ah, there's the rub!

It is going to be challenging, no doubt, but we need to find some way to communicate with others that does not alienate them. For example, using some tact in a situation where you may have to attend a family gathering where some type of meat dishes are being served. Instead of responding when asked about your not partaking of those dishes, "Well, thats sinful activity and you will end up on some hellish planet for eating that stuff", you could just say, "I choose not to eat those things for personal reasons", or "My doctor has advised me against indulging in certain types of food". That leaves everything on neutral territory and does not challenge their own religious beliefs as Christians or Jews. I know, it tends to be an awkward situation whenever you are the one in a crowd that is different, and it is a natural group dynamic to pressure all non-conformists to conform to the norm, but think about what a boring place the world would be without the creative and innovative individuals that buck the status quo.

I have even gone so far as to comment on the superior qualities of lobster in such situations, despite not having eaten them for about thirty five years now. Although that may seem a little extreme, it does accomplish putting them at ease and they may feel it easier to relate to you as a person that was raised omnivourously just like them, who decided as a teenager or adult to follow a strict diet. They may even ponder attempting that course of action themselves, especially if they have been stuggling with weight gain or some other health problems related to their unhealthy American diet that is more than fifty percent fast food. Most people like to follow leaders rather than becoming leaders themselves. They might just perceive you as a bold leader that can put them on the road to better health, rather than some religious fanatic that is likely to lead them down the garden path into some weird cult.

On the radio, the other day, this cooking writer and chef was going on about how impolite vegetarians were. He is one of these guys who goes into every hidden corner of the world to taste indigenous foods, so I found his example a little funny. It went something like, "Imagine you're in some steppe in Mongolia, and a poor sheepherder invites you into his home as a special guest from afar, and in order to treat you serves the most special thing he can think of--raw sheep's brains (or something like that). How can you refuse him when he has gone so far out of his way on your behalf?"

I personally think that I would try to avoid such situations. Or at least warn my hosts ahead of time.

There's also the story of the hunter that your kathaka like to tell in India. The hunter heard from a brahman that "Whatever you eat, etc., you should offer to Krishna first." So he started offering all the meat that he was eating. When the brahmin found out, he chastised the hunter saying that such things were unofferable. The hunter had devotedly been making the offerings and was shattered when he was told that it had all been offensive. So he cried and fasted until finally Krishna appeared to him and told him that he had indeed been accepting everything.

There's probably more to that story than I remember there. But of course, I remember ACBSP saying somewhere that if necessary, devotees could adapt to other, non-vegetarian cultures in order to spread the Holy Name. Pretty heavy sacrifice for someone habituated to a vegetarian diet. When I see what our Innu and northern Cree, etc., live on--raw whale blubber, etc.--and the effect it has on their health generally, it seems like too great a sacrifice for me.

I remember living in the mountains with two people who were learning about Krsna and worship and one day - it was Govardhan Puja and I had my GiriRaj and they were helping with arrangements, etc. for the celebration. One person brought in some flowers for the puja and I said they won't do, because they had no scent...........Well later I found out how crushed she was by what I said. Since then I try to be more loving and accomodating!

Interesting how you pictured that. I remember when back in Brazil a had a small business where I use to sell imported stuff, one of my suppliers became a close friend to the point that we start to visit each other quite often. By the end of two years of that friendship he start to be very attracted to the idea of being a vegetarian. I confess that I actually never preached about it and never got into any type of arguments about religion. After all, we were doing business and I want to keep that way. Besides, he had a lot of Buddhist influences, so to talk about God was out of the picture.

Things just turnout that he naturally became a vegetarian, not only that but he wanted to be a devotee. I asked him how those changes were happening and he just said that he has been observing my eating habits, and the way I talk about life. “But I never had the straight to follow it”. He said. Now, after all this time working together and eating prasada he developed some desire to do it.

As a result of that experience, what I will try to say is, one of the many ways to preserve the Vaishnava culture in the west is to try to conciliate both, the secular and bhakti world, by trying to be as normal as possible like anybody else. People are people, it doesn’t matter whatever they maybe. They are always looking for Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksa. (I’m not excluding us!) However, as devotees, at this point in life does not matter where we look or how we look at things, the “light” (paramatma) will always be there following and pinching us all the time.

Therefore, by the continue association with that "internal devotional life", one way or other, people that somehow get close to devotees will naturally feel that need for changing.

They may change or not, however, that is a whole different thing, we just try our best within a family view.

Jagat,

Thanks for the stories. The latter one was SP's response to Harikesh when Harikesh complained that in Russia they only ate meat and potatoes. Anyway, I really like reading stuff that pokes a hole in the norm of things. Don't get me wrong, I'm not out the door on my way to Burger King, but I just think its unfortunate when devotees get fanatically dogmatic about vegetarianism. In fact the way that devotees usually get fanatically hooked in so many issues like vegetarianism is really just niyamagraha. But thanks again.

Oh and Hari Sharan, I liked your piece too!

Ys,

Well, I'd say being fanatically dogmatic about vegetarianism is the least of our worries over things people get fanatically dogmatic about. There are things with which one is better off indulging than nagging about, but abstention from meat-eating isn't on that list as far as I can see.

I really wouldn't count vegetarianism as just another among so many issues. If your head is not somewhat in sattva, how will you engage in bhajan? If you consume heavy foodstuffs in the mode of ignorance, and moreover participate in slaughtering animals, what are the chances your head will be very clear for bhajan? Besides, compassion and tenderness of heart are among of the carrying forces of sane religiosity, and as far as I can see, they are in direct contradiction with the principle of slaughtering animals for food.

For me it is equally, (if not more so) important how I relate to other devotees than how I present myself to those who see us as "The Hare Krsnas". It is a fact that once finding some identification within the community, the challenge really is how to remain there making a contribution and experiencing self-growth. I imagine that very few of us have not been let down by some big or small prabhu who has either stolen our shoes or attacked the character of our guru, or something on those lines.

Presenting a pretty picture to the world is good, but we need to have the real thing to picture in the first place.

Jana seva Janardana seva
Manushya seva Madhava seva
Jiva seva Siva seva

Yes, Madhava, but they do not consider themselves as the slaughterers, because someone else does that nasty work. They just buy their meat at the supermarket and it is renamed something else - 'beef' instead of 'steer', 'mutton' instead of 'sheep', 'pork' instead of 'hog' - so that they do not have to think about the once living, breathing creature that was sacrificed (and not to any deity either). The PETA people may be extremist, but they do heighten people's awareness of conditions on farms which are nothing less than torture of the poor animals. Even most meat eaters will not endorse abuse and cruelty of the animals that end up on their dinner tables.

My sister and nephew are now following the new 'paleo-diet' in the belief that it is healther because it is more natural. What is odd about that viewpoint is that the diet calls for consumption of a lot of animal flesh, even though from a biological standpoint human teeth are not anything like those of carnivores like wolves, bears and lions. It also ignores the fact that primates like chimps and gorillas only catch an occasional small rodent or monkey to eat, but are otherwise pretty much vegetarians and eaters of termites that they dig up with a stick.

Dear Jagat,

This text of yours has been haunting me since I read it. I am sad that you feel sad. I recognize myself in the sadness of having one's own selfishness and the limited amount of love one feels able to give, thrown back at one by others acting like a mirror.

This won't be a very coherent piece, but they say that when you share sadness, it diminishes by half. (And when you share joy, then... ;-)

Love cannot be commanded. Not even by ourselves, not for the best of reasons. Putting ourselves down when our heart doesn't well up with love at the sight of another person is about the best way to make sure next time we see that person, the feeling welling up in our heart will be resentment -- because we remember last time we saw the person it resulted in us feeling like a failure (because we failed to love). To feel love for a person who makes you feel like a failure, you need to be a masochist.

It is healthier to require of ourselves to treat others fairly and in a friendly manner, to have high moral principles, etc. This is about actions, not feelings, and therefore it is doable. And it is an order tall enough.

I, too, feel that a failure of love is not solvable by mere theology. Theology is good for making sense out of things that are already there, but perhaps less useful for making things happen -- ? Once everything is so clearly explained, where is the space for wonder, chance-taking? There is something about authenticity in human encounters that seems to require that we do not know too much, that we are not too sure. Some cliff-hanging may be essential.

Your text made me think of an instruction that comes up many times in the Bhagavatam and that has been repeated gazillions of times by ACBS and others. It goes more or less as follows:

"A devotee should offer respects/obeisances to everyone, knowing that the Supreme Lord is present in their hearts as the Supersoul."

I felt uneasy about this instruction. I felt that this exemplary devotee was not acting very straightforwardly. He offered obeisances, making it look as if he respected the other person, but in reality the obeisances were for the Paramatma in the heart of that person. not to the person, the jiva. The reason to bown down had nothing to do with the jiva to whom you bowed down! It felt like mockery. I could even imagine offering obeisances to someone I disrespected -- because the Lord is in their heart and I am bowing down to the Lord, ignoring the jiva sitting next to Him. Imagine two people are sitting close together and you come and happily greet one, while totally ignoring the other. It would have been kinder to ignore them both!

I tried to "rescue" the instruction by speculating that if the Supersoul is in the heart of that person, this means the Supersoul Himself respects the person, and so should I.

But if you look at the Sanskrit verses, they convey something different from what I heard and read in ISKCON. There is hardly any Paramatma mentioned. A good example would be verses 21-34 in Chapter 29 of the 3rd Skandha. The passage is Kapila's instructions to Devahuti about Deity worship and worship of the Lord in the hearts of all living beings.

Verse 21:

ahaM sarveSu bhUteSu
bhUtAtmAvasthitaH sadA
tam avajJAya mAM martyaH
kurute'rcA-viDambanam

Verse 34:

manasaitAni bhUtAni
praNamed bahu-mAnayan
IZvaro jIva-kalayA
praviSTo bhagavAn iti

There are more such verses. What they have in common is that if you translate just what you see, in plain words, the reason to respect the jivas is that they are a part of God, or because God is their very self. One doesn't even need to be an Advaitin to accept such a reading. You respect the spiritual, the personal, the divine in persons you meet. You respect THEM, in appreciation of that special "something" that makes them what they are, and that makes them ultimately indescribable, irreducible. What better reason to respect a person? Paramatma in their heart is really their concern, not anybody else's.

I think the ISKCON (and probably Gaudiya Matha) reading is motivated by an exagerrated fear of "all is one" philosophy. A fear of fuzzy contours, insisting that they be sharp. But what is bhinna-dRk (Prabhupada's "separatism" in the chapter above), seeing distinctions, if not that?

I have an argument with the notion of selflessness as well. But that will have to wait until I have a chair to sit on as I type. Anyway, enough rambling for one sitting...

Show me a flower with no scent and I'll show you a person with a diminished sense of smell.

Good one Talasiga - That is worth following up on! Thank you!

Well said, Dhyana, that always troubled me too, in much the same way. I did finally make the assumption, back in my temple days, that it meant to offer respects to Supersoul. But I see your point that it means disrespecting the jiva if you think you are just offering respect to Paramatma.

We were also told repeatedly that the spirit soul is pure as a diamond is pure, and if the "dirt" were washed off you'd have that pure and shining diamond/spirit soul. So I told myself that I was really offering respects to that pure self underneath the muck.

Now that I'm old and, sad to say, covered over with even more muck myself, I just can't see myself as all that far above anyone else. I have done things I am not proud of and hurt people I cared deeply about, so I am in no position any longer to think that I am someone above another and unwilling to behave respectfully toward them.

We also have this notion in Western society (I don't want to speak for the rest of the planet) that once someone has done something truly horrible (rape, murder, child molestation) then they are not only not worthy of our respect, but deserve to be mistreated.

I remember watching the movie Silence of the Lambs and seeing Hannibal Lecter in that dungeon-like cell in a row with two other prisoners (mental patients). No windows and no time outside. Granted, he was fictional, yet I'm not so naive as to imagine that no one is housed like this in real life. I remember thinking, "No one has the right to mistreat someone just because they have done harm to others. We have the right to confine them to avoid further crimes but what gives us the right to abuse or kill someone? Nothing!" I might not feel as if I respect such a person (at least their false ego) but I would treat them with respect. If no one ever demonstrates such behavior to them, how will they ever learn from their own mistakes? Abuse only confirms their world view that you have to "get" them before they "get" you.

The next step is to actually have compassion for the rapist, the molestor, and the murderer. Whatever has led to their being this way, mental illness, past life actions, childhood abuse, they are in a hellish state where they cannot love or be loved, and that should elicit compassion. One can hold such a person responsible for their actions, confine them to prevent further harm, and still feel and express compassion towards them. If one can give them spirituality, so much the better. But they'll only take it if they are moved by our own practice of it.

If we can genuinely come to the platform of compassion and respectful treatment of those normally despised in society, how much easier it is to have respect and compassion for our fellow spiritual travelers? Our spouse? Our children?

It has always seemed to me that loving God and loving others are intimately connected. Whatever view you have of how we came to be here--parts of God, created by God, etc., if you believe in God you believe that somehow He is not just your personal God but the God of everyone else here. If you believe that He cares about you, you have to accept that He cares about everyone else. It naturally follows that if He cares about everyone else, He is noticing how you treat everyone else. Is it likely that He cares about them and yet doesn't care how you treat them? If He loves them isn't it likely that He hopes or even expects that you will also? Do we not hope our first child will love our second or our third, and likewise that our third will love our first and second child? Doesn't it pain us when they hurt each other?

We are not alone in some vacuum having our relationship with God. We are not in a monogamous marriage with Him. He and I and you and the guy down the street are all connected. We'd better all learn to love each other because we aren't going anywhere. We'll always be connected, dead, alive, in this body, in that body, this loka, that loka. We're all in it together. If the guy at the end of the line is unhappy his distress is felt all along the cord that binds us all.

I believe that working to improve life for everyone, in every way, is part of my spiritual practice and part of what God expects from me. Perhaps I reached this conclusion in part because I couldn't get behind the coldness of iskcon life (in the 70s) where the answer to suffering was always "You're not that body, prabhu."

Yes all these jivas are not their bodies, but their bodies still need food, a warm and safe place to sleep, decent clothing and productive work to do. And I think that God wants me to do my part and help with that.

My pagan 2 cents' worth on the great web of life

As for how to develop love and compassion for our fellow jivas, the Buddhists are right on it with a whole meditative practice to open up our hearts:



from Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber by Ken Wilber, paperback edition pages 244 and 245, published in 1991.

(...)indicates more impersonalist language edited out by myself--while they are trying to reach a nondual state, we recognize that we are eternally distinct souls and can use the same practice to affirm our connection as parts and parcels of God, developing love and compassion for one another.

I find it useful when I do crisis counseling, after the call, to imagine that I am taking in their distress and giving back peace. (During the call I must focus on the caller's situation, of course.)

A lot of our training for the crisis line centered around staying open to feeling others' pain rather than denying their feelings in order to protect ourselves from them. To begin healing from emotional distress one must first be allowed to really FEEL it, and have it acknowledged as such rather than discounted or dismissed. Tonglen practice can enable one to instinctively open the heart rather than recoil and contract the heart.

I recognize this is not a tradition more people here are involved in, and I hope you can find something of use in the concept if not the practice. If anyone is interested I can refer you to more on tonglen.

Blessed Be--Tapati

By the way, I highly recommend the book Grace and Grit for anyone dealing with life threatening or chronic illnesses. For those who prefer not to read the Buddhist portion, that's entirely possible, and one can simply read the account of two spiritualists trying to confront cancer and maintain their spiritual focus. It's designed so that the philosophical material is clearly delineated and one can avoid it or read it. It has accounts by both Ken and his wife Treya from her diary preceding her death. It is so excellent that every time I loan it out I end up buying another copy because it never comes back to me. It also gets into our cultural attitudes toward illness and behaviors toward cancer patients (and sick people in general). It has a lot of layers...

First of all, the Rupanuga marg focuses more on Radha than on Govinda, for reasons that are maybe not so obvious to all chanters of the maha mantra. We are taught to establish our relationship with Her and the sakhis and other manjaris, rather than to establish our relationship with Him. The reason: Without a relationship with Her and Hers, we have no basis for a relationship with Him.

As far as the whole crime and punishment issue, modern society has a ways to go to progress from the medieval dungeons and executions of the past. Our US constitution has outlawed cruel and unusual punishment, yet confining all criminals to prisons where they are likely to be raped by HIV positive predators and then likely to have a life sentence of a horrible disease hardly seems like justice in fair measure. Of course, it would be naive to think that we can just toss out the whole criminal justice system and just use psychology as a tool. I think what we need is more punishment to fit the crime along with psychology. Religion, unfortunately, has failed dismally in the area of fostering good morals. Besides, priests, rabbis and gurus have no business getting involved in the dirty business of society. All of that aside, the first order of business is to fix the broken system itself: The people with the money to afford the best lawyers get all of the preferrential treatment in the courts.

Wisely spoken, Tapati. Thank you for sharing your realizations. I can't comment on everything in your texts that I found inspiring. A few words will have to do.



Some Christian saint -- S:t Jerome perhaps -- said: "If you do not love your brother you have seen, how will you love God whom you haven't seen?"



LOL

I read about tonglen in a book by Sogyal Rinpoche and tried it several times in connection with counseling, and to get over aversive feelings I had towards some people without knowing why. I also found it could be used to heal parts of myself.

It was helpful. But I felt limited by the length of breath. The two images alternated too fast to allow me to get into them as deeply as I wished to. It worked best if I could combine the in-breath visualization with the out-breath one so that they would be parts of one scene; then I only needed to shift the direction of the gaze. I don't know if this could still be called classical tonglen, but it worked for me.

Thank you, Dhyana, for this lovely quote!

Yes, I agree with you about the difficulty of visualizing all of that effectively just on an in or outbreath. Though it forces you to slow your breaths way down, and that's not a bad thing for stress reduction. I think the essence of the exercise doesn't so much depend on the actual breaths as on the visualizing, and I can see lengthening it and seeing yourself transform that black, negative energy into glowing, positive energy even over several breaths if need be.

Blessed Be--

Tapati

Dear Tapati,

I have been reading with great interest your various posts on this site, and they are so good and full of insights that I would like to thank you for sharing them with us. You are our wise young grandmother.

Can you tell more about your present beliefs? What kind of Pagan are you and how did you come to paganism? I just read your list of things you still believe in and honor in Vaishnavism (in Community and Moderation), and these are exactly the same things (plus reincarnation) which attracted me initially to Krishna consciousness.

I also read that you don't proselyze, but maybe you won't mind a few sentences. I am curious what ideas and rituals stand behind your views of life and religion which I find very intriguing too.

Indranila

Dear Tapati,

Thank you for the tips on tonglen; yes, perhaps I breathe too fast!

Re: the quote. Now that I have unpacked this particular banana box (I have just moved) and checked the reference -- it is 1 John 4:20!

"He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?"

I second Indranila's request! Please tell us a little more about yourself, Tapati.

-- Dhyana

I should also point out that many of the things that irritated Tapati about Iskcon and made her leave are also things that most of us here are sympathetic with. We do not feel that they are integral to Vaishnavism itself.

All religions, to a certain extent, are hybrids. Especially religions that are full of converts.

For me, the image of the Yugala Kishora, the Divine Couple on the one hand, and the image of Mahaprabhu, as the Divine Androgyne (in the sense of being the combined form of the Divine Syzygy, or coniunctio oppositorum, to use Jung's expressions) trumps almost everything that is in the lila.

This does not mean that the lila is not very instructive or full of delight, but since the symbol itself is intutively egalitarian about the sexes and sexual relationships, it remains constant in spite of things in the lila that may appear dated in changing social relationships.

Nevertheless, this old Venus/Mars debate about sexual relationships appears to have a certain element of eternal truth to it, but naturally these relationsh are in constant flux make the goalposts ever mobile.

Ah, I forgot reincarnation, karma, etc., probably because I take those so for granted.

It's hard to quantify exactly what my beliefs are because it's trying to pin a moving target, I continually re-evaluate them in the light of new information. What I like about paganism is that it has been very conducive to that. I will think about how to present it and move the topic to one of the non-Rupanuga areas out of respect for Madhava and Jagat's great work at moderating. Thank you so much for being welcoming and interested rather than wary and closed-minded. That means a lot to me, because after reading the topic about the purpose of the board I felt that maybe I ought not to be disrupting it. I am attracted to it because of the bhakti orientation, which still holds a part of my spirituality that isn't so much talked about in this way in pagan circles. And most pagans don't share this history.

I came to paganism gradually, through reading, just as I was coming out as a lesbian and becoming estranged from the devotees in my area. While most of them weren't rejecting of me on that basis on the surface, they soon distanced from me emotionally and I felt kind of frozen out. And since I had been a fundamentalist type of devotee, I didn't see any place for me in the literal interpretation of KC that I had at the time. (I initially thought I was lesbian, not bisexual, just because I didn't understand that there were more than two options. ) In finally rejecting the notion that being a lesbian was automatically maya, I had to question the whole package and decide what I believed. So that was the "how" and I'll talk elsewhere about what I believe now. That's harder to do in a nutshell, as I'm sure you've experienced!

I do feel like a crone in a middle-aged body. I'm the young, hip grandma who rocks to Tool.

Blessed Be--

PS Dhyana, thank you for tracking down that quote and I empathize with your banana boxes--our psycho landlady caused us to move last year for the second time in one year and I have several bookshelves full. I feel your (back) pain!

Strictly speaking, that's not what drove me away from iskcon, although it was always a thorn in my side and something I felt I had to tolerate while there. I left iskcon solely over the bogus "appointed" guru lie. That was in '79 or so, although really I had kept my distance throughout '78. I continued practicing for another decade on my own, and it was in '87 that I came out to myself as lesbian and '88 that I came out to my devotee community, and by '89 had stopped considering myself a devotee. So I was a devotee from 1974 to 1988 or so. As a devotee I was very serious and did actually read all the books. I read Bhagavatam straight through during my pregnancy, quite an ecstatic experience, to read all day long like that. I was morning sick. I would dream about it at night. I credit my years as a devotee for a good part of my over-all spiritual advancement. I see myself really as being on one continuous spiritual path that started at 13 with becoming a Catholic, and has meandered through traditions to the present eclectic terrain. As long as I keep getting closer to the target I don't even care what I call it anymore.

I agree, there are differences between women and men, it's just hard to tease out which are innate and which are culturally constructed. As long as no one starts arguing about how women are automatically less intelligent, we'll get along just fine.

No, I did not mean exactly that. My first sentence included everything about Iskcon. We don't particularly care to discuss the "guru" business. It's natural for disruption to follow the death of someone as charismatic as Srila Prabhupada. No matter what system had been left in place, there would have been crises, which would in all likelihood have followed similar basic patterns.

Oh, since the rest of your post dealt with gender issues it seemed to me you thought that was a major factor in my leaving iskcon. Not at all. It was purely on the basis of philosophy, not gender and not politics.

I don't like to discuss the guru business either.

Om Peace Peace Peace.

May Sri Krishna Caitanya, in the form of His bhaktas, accept this praise.

Krishna is the very self of all selves, the being of all beingness. There is nothing outside of Krishna. There is nothing beyond Krishna. Indeed, there is only Krishna. If you look around you will see only Krishna. One may say that the Jiva will never be Krishna, but I say, "how can it be anything but?" What else is there to be?

The All Pervasive One is never seperate from the pervaded. It is the rope and the snake. By always honouring the Indivisible Ocean, we will simultaneously be honouring the individual waves within it. How can one dishonour the waves, without dishonouring the ocean?

The only energy we have to love with is the unlimited energy of Krishna. Krishna Sakti IS the ONLY energy.

To love is simple, just as Krishna is simple. Be nice, show kindness, do not take what is not given, be well wishing, do not impose, apologize when mistaken, etc. Even love of ones own body, mind and soul is accomplished by Krishna Prema. How can we neglect to honour anything that belongs to Krishna?

All that is manifest in the world is only a mixture of Krishna with Krishna. Krishna is the One, the Many and the None-at-all, all at once! Whatever you see in this world, including the thoughts you may have, even that which may disgust you, know it all to be conceived by Krishna alone and it all to serve Krishna alone in it's purpose.

Nothing is ever outside of Krishna. Nothing is independent of Krishna. Every pearl strung on the thread of Krishna is composed of nothing more than Krishna Himself. To dishonour the pearl, is to dishonour Krishna.

May Sri Krishna Caitanya, in the form of His bhaktas, accept this praise.

Om Peace Peace Peace.