Lord Chaitanya Defeats the Buddhists
February 23, 2011 by stoka-krishna-dasa
Filed under Caitanya
Having made their plot, the Buddhists brought a plate of untouchable food before Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and called it maha-prasada. When the contaminated food was offered to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, a very large bird appeared on the spot, picked up the plate in its beak and flew away. Indeed, the untouchable food fell upon the Buddhists, and the large bird dropped the plate on the head of the chief Buddhist
Here is an interesting pastime of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu taken from the Chaitanya Charitamrita.
There are many kinds of philosophers. Some are logicians who follow Gautama or Kanada. Some follow the Mimamsa philosophy of Jaimini. Some follow the Mayavada philosophy of Shankaracarya, and others follow Kapila’s Sankhya philosophy or the mystic yoga system of Patanjali. Some follow the smriti-shastra composed of twenty religious scriptures, and others follow the Puranas and the tantra-shastra. In this way there are many different types of philosophers. All of these adherents of various scriptures were ready to present the conclusions of their respective scriptures, but Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu broke all their opinions to pieces and established His own cult of bhakti based on the Vedas, Vedanta, the Brahma-sutra and the philosophy of acintya-bhedabheda-tattva. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu established the devotional cult everywhere. No one could defeat Him.
Being thus defeated by Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, all these philosophers and their followers entered into His cult. In this way Lord Chaitanya made South India into a country of Vaisnavas. When the nonbelievers heard of the erudition of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, they came to Him with great pride, bringing their disciples with them. One of them was a leader of the Buddhist cult and was a very learned scholar. To establish the nine philosophical conclusions of Buddhism, he came before the Lord and began to speak. Although the Buddhists are unfit for discussion and should not be seen by Vaisnavas, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu spoke to them just to decrease their false pride. The scriptures of the Buddhist cult are chiefly based on argument and logic, and they contain nine chief principles. Because Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu defeated them in their argument, they could not establish their cult. The teacher of the Buddhist cult set forth the nine principles, but Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu broke them to pieces with His strong logic.
All mental speculators and learned scholars were defeated by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and when the people began to laugh, the Buddhist philosophers felt both shame and fear. The Buddhists could understand that Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a Vaisnava, and they returned home very unhappy. Later, however, they began to plot against the Lord.
Having made their plot, the Buddhists brought a plate of untouchable food before Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and called it maha-prasada. When the contaminated food was offered to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, a very large bird appeared on the spot, picked up the plate in its beak and flew away. Indeed, the untouchable food fell upon the Buddhists, and the large bird dropped the plate on the head of the chief Buddhist teacher. When it fell on his head, it made a big sound. The plate was made of metal, and when its edge hit the head of the teacher, it cut him, and the teacher immediately fell to the ground unconscious.
When the teacher fell unconscious, his Buddhist disciples cried aloud and ran to the lotus feet of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu for shelter. They all prayed to Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, addressing Him as the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself and saying, “Sir, please excuse our offense. Please have mercy upon us and bring our spiritual master back to life.” The Lord then replied to the Buddhist disciples, “You should all chant the names of Krishna and Hari very loudly near the ear of your spiritual master. “By this method your spiritual master will regain his consciousness.”
Following Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s advice, all the Buddhist disciples began to chant the holy name of Krishna congregationally. When all the disciples chanted the holy names Krishna, Rama and Hari, the Buddhist teacher regained consciousness and immediately began to chant the holy name of Lord Hari. When the spiritual master of the Buddhists began to chant the holy name of Krishna and submitted to Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, all the people who were gathered there were astonished. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the son of Sachidevi, then suddenly and humorously disappeared from everyone’s sight, and it was impossible for anyone to find Him.
End of Story
Yours in service of Lord Krishna,
Stoka Krishna Dasa.
can you please tell me how can one best serve his spitual master and all the devotees of LORD GAURANGA in seperation?
Hare krishna,
Your question is one of the main & greatest question of our spritiual life ….thanks for your question .
ANSWER : WE CAN SERVE THE SPIRITUAL MASTER BY SURRENDERING TO THE LOTUS FEET OF THE MASTER & BY OBEYING ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN BY OUR SPIRITIUAL MASTER..
THAT IS THE ONLY WAY & ONLY WAY & ONLY WAY……
HARE KRISHNA
IN YOUR SERVICE
SHYAMSUNDERDAS
vande ‘nantaadbhutaishvaryam
shree-caitanya-mahaaprabhum
nico ‘pi yat-prasaadaat syaad
bhakti-shaastra-pravartakah
(teachings of Lord Chaitanya Chapter 2)
Hare Krishna
PAMHO, AGTSP.
The Manu Samhita says that if one cheats a Brahmana and makes him eat contaminated food to degrade from his position, one has to spend about 100 years in the mansions andha Tamisra of hell, where the vultures and jackals will rip out the entrails, and then will be born as a vulture, a pimp or a buzzard. If he is a ksatriya 75 years, a vaisya 50 years, a Sudra 25 years and so on.
In the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna says that if you do not offer the food are eaten only sin. It makes sense that foods not offered to Krishna are unclean by nature and therefore our mind is contaminated with material desires.
In addition that the unclean foods also contain bacteria that produce gas and phlegm.
There are the misleading concept that we are vegetarian, when in reality we are prasadians, we are vegetarians because Krishna is vegetarian, but in fact we go much further. The concept is that one must offers everything to Krishna and Krishna does not accept unclean foods. Another thing is that the plants do not suffer when you cut them because it has the conscience asleep.
Another distorted concept is that Ekadasi is only for eat whitout grains. Ekadasi means total fasting. But if you can not fast completely be allowed to eat foods that not contain grains and beans. It is also said in the puranas that if one eats on Ekadasi after taking a glass of water first is not considered an offence if eats without grains.
Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu highly recommend to Mother Sachi to do Ekadasi fast. After Srila Prabhupada’s departure gbc changed the Vaisnava calendar schema and say that if you were born in the West then you have to do the Ekadasi fast in the next day because there are ten degrees of the moon of difference with respect to India. This is another speculation for many reasons. Some of these are: First and foremost, we must understand that Sri Ekadasi Devi or Sri Papa Purusa not going to say, “Today we will give our influence over half the globe and the other half tomorrow.” No. It is not a matter of astrological karma of the people, but a planetary astronomical phenomenon. Even karmis have an international line for the date change. If the Lord Caitanya is in India and says: “Today is Ekadasi.” One can not speculate and say well but as I live in America I will do Ekadasi fast tomorrow. It is a matter of planetary astronomy not astrology. If we applied that rule to astrological charts would create great confusion, because if I was born on Sunday but the moon says that I was born on a Saturday.
SRILAPRABHUPADAPAGE.KIJAY
Hare Krishna,
I am very new to ISKCON. I have a question regarding the “Lord Chaitanya defeats the Budhhits”
I heard that Gautam Budhha was an incarnation of lord Krishna.If its true then how come Budhhists(Followers of Gautam Budhha)could do that to Lord Chaitanya and why they are not seen as vaishnava’s?
Please reply
Hari Bol
Gautam Buddha is considered an incarnation of Krishna. But due to the time and place he is not preaching Krishna consciousness. What Buddha is preaching is basically non-violence. At that time the whole of India had become meat eaters based on some mention of animal sacrifice in the Vedas. So to stop the meat eating Buddha said “I reject any scripture that condones animal killing.” So Buddha actually rejected the Vedas and taught a philosophy that does not have any connection with God, but which does stress non-violence.
So the bottom line is although Buddha is an incarnation of Krishna, due to the time and place and the consciousness of the people he was preaching to, he did not preach Krishna consciousness at all. Therefore the followers of Buddha are not Vaisnavas at all. They do not even believe in Visnu, how could they be Vaisnavas.
The Buddhist philosophy is very weak. It was only prominent in India for about 1000 years and then another incarnation of Krishna appeared, Sripad Sankaracharya, and he preached strongly, again reestablishing the authority of the Vedas, and as a result of his powerful preaching Buddhism no longer had any followers in India and whatever Buddhists were left went to neighboring countries. Even though Sankacharaya was preaching impersonal philosophy it was far superior to the Buddhist philosophy and therefore the people in India accepted this and gave up Buddhism.
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Madhudvisa dasa
wonderful story taken from caitanya caritamrata.
but here too i have a question,it is said that lord buddha is also an incarnation of sri krishna then how can he teach a void philosophy.
please clarify my doubt
Krishna can teach anything He wants to teach. At that time in India the people in general were claiming to be followers of the Vedanta, claiming to be religious, but they had taken out of context quotes from the Vedas that mention animal sacrifice. So practically the whole of India had become atheistic meat eaters who were using the Vedas, “religion” to justify their sinful activities.
If you try to talk to an atheist about God he will simply get angry. You can not preach to them. And meat eaters are not capable of understanding the finer spiritual ideas. So Krishna, in His incarnation as Lord Buddha, had the gradual elevation of the people as His goal. In the incarnation of Lord Buddha He taught “ahimsa parama dharma,” He taught that “non-violence is the highest religious principle.” In this way Lord Buddha encouraged his followers to stop animal killing and meat eating. That was the purpose of his preaching.
Later on Krishna sent Lord Shiva in the form of Sankaracarya and he preached the impersonal Vedanta philosophy, again accepting the Vedas as the authority, but explaining everything in an impersonal way, giving stress on the impersonal brahman, and minimizing the personal form of Visnu, Krishna, etc.
Then later on Krishna Himself appeared as Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and He defeated the impersonal teachings of Sankaracarya and established the pure personal teachings of Krishna consciousness.
So you see Krishna has a plan and He executes that plan over a period of many hundreds of years. Hundreds of years seems like a long time to us but it is nothing for Krishna.
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Madhudvisa dasa
Is it a matter of such great importance as to who someone “defeated” ?
There is a reason why Lord Buddha was against the vedas and the vedic Gods, including Mahadev and the rest. But even this was twisted through religious propaganda and Lord Buddha “was made to become” Lord Vishnu’s reincarnation, when, in fact, there is no connection between Buddha and Vishnu, and such references connecting the two are only to be found in hindu books, not the main buddhist ones, like the Dhammapada.
One would like to trust the buddhist books more, isnt it, with regard to the personality of the Buddha ?
Do you really think the Hindu sources are more trustworthy when it comes to the Buddha, when the Buddha was opposed to the Hindu religious books, like the vedas and so on ?
That would be like saying…. you trust the very sources Buddha was opposed to, in order to know more about the Buddha.
The world has been deceived, and most people do not question it, because it is thought to be not safe to do so. But there is no safety in falsehood.
Hare Krishna
The Buddhist scriptures are not at all reliable.
Buddha is an incarnation of God. But he is preaching to atheists. If you speak about God to athiests they get angry. So Visnu, in the form of Lord Buddha, was very careful not to mention God…
So basically the Buddhist philosophy is simply a concoction, the only real truth in Buddhism is that to make spiritual advancement one needs to be a vegetarian. The only real point of the preaching of the Buddha was “ahimsa parama dharma,” non-violence is the highest religious principle. At the time Lord Buddha was preaching India was full of meat eating athiests. Meat eaters can not understand the subtle aspects of spirituality and philosophy. So he was simply trying to get them to stop eating meat.
Therefore Buddhist books are not a very good or authoritative source for anything. And of course they do not say that Buddha is an incarnation of Visnu… Why would they?
But Buddha is an incarnation of Visnu and this is perfect knowledge as revealed in the Vedas.
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Madhudvisa dasa
hi
I think there is no difference between one Buddhist or one Moslem or one vaishnav.
it depends on the degree of surrendering to god.
I think religions should marry with each other
I like nature of Lord Chaitanya as much as I like Mohammad P. nature
they both are so close to god very humble.
thanks
Dear Afsaneh,
Your thinking is really great, Each and every individual is part and parcel of God.ACTUALLY THE PHILOSOPHY OF HARE KRISHNA ISKCON IS VERY GOOD, ONE 4 RULES 1.nO MEAT EATING. 2. nO gAMBLING.3. no ILLICIT SEX. 4. nO dRUGS, INTOXICATION………………
as per your liking IF YOU LIKE ISLAM, CHRISTIAN, OR OTHER RELIGION AND YOU CAN ADVANCE IN BHAKTI AND SELFLESS SERVICE THAT IS ALSO GREAT.
THANKS. hARE KRISHNA
here i say dharma not meant for competence.dharma is a path by which we know to take decision about our soul wheather it goes in path to nirvana.Bhudhism clearly said know the god exist or not by your self,i can only show the path.lord budha got nirvana ,that means he become free of cycle of life.then how can you declare someone to rebirth .thankyou.namo budhaye.
There are many problems in Buddhist philosophy…There are many contradictions…A contradictory thing can not be true…Buddhist deny soul…but who is that denies…Buddhist preach Shunyata (void)…But who is that sees or experiences that void…An Arhat gets Nirvana…If there is no soul,who gets this Nirvana…Everything can be denied,but a watcher (seer) consciousness can never be denied…Try to deny it,and you,an Atma, will always remain separated from it…True knowledge is given in Gita…and it is given by God Himself…The word “Nirvana” is also taken from Gita (see shloka 2/72)…
!! Hare Krishna !!
The aim of human life is to love and understand God, thus you attain humanity and morality in your life…………….. OK.
CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU TEACHING IS A GLORY, BRAHMA SAYS NETI NETI(DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND GOD)……………….
I ONLY REQUEST TO PEOPLE TO ATLEAST READ THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU AND FOLLOW ITS TEACHING………………… ITS VERY EASY TO UNDERSTAND AND LOVE GOD BY THIS PHILOSOPHY……….THAT;S IT I WANT TO SAY.
THANKING YOU FOR THE OPPORTUNITY…….
PRAISE THE LORD, HARE KRISHNA.
I always have one question in my mind…
1. If God control everything.. why can’t he control my angry attitude.
2. hey Lord Chaitanya please help me out , so that i again become a calm girl.
vaishnavas teach to Love God…they say Love is most important. What I feel is Love is stable feeling..When you attain to love you should Love all humanity.
If a person is hungry give him food..give him shelter. a place to live. loving suffering human beings is the way to love god.
If love for krishna is not matured in to love for suffering people…then you have failed in your mission.
true love results from True Understanding. Love has no meaning for me if it is devoid of Understanding. a mind which is open to understanding can love.
Hi dears,
I am really and honestly sympathetic to most of my friends who are carrying jealousy, stressed out souls, not happy, not contented, ready to fight, ready to insult, ready for unhappiness, ready to show, ready to get frustrated , rhetoric, pejorative- All these are because, you haven’t understood the buddhism ( not need to be a buddhist..as it isn’t a religion in no way).
Buddhism is like a mirror. when you see through it, it doesn’t lies about how u look. It is the truth like fire is hot and ice is cold..thats it. Buddhism isn’t a design as per your taste. Lord Krishna was immeasurables in the way we know. Buddhas teachings has no connection with what krishna taught, so why u people feel the competitiveness. There is nothing substaintial to be disscussed, because it is simple that, you believe that God can cancel your bad doings if he is pleased and I believe that, only myself can do that and for that matter not even buddha can do it for me. So,don’t take tension. Be with your god and never feel the need to come here and write who was defeated or won.
my friend: If one doesn’t have guts for the following four immeasurables, He/She is not a ready rocket to reach Buddhas moon….
1. Love-means= wanting, hoping and waiting to see others happy.
2. compassion-means= wanting, hoping and ready to feel and rectify sufferings in others.
3. Sympathetic joy-means= Wanting, waiting and hoping to see others in prosperity..
4. Equanimity-Means= a fealess stable soul with no anger, hatred, jealousy,fear etc.
In case i don’t have these minimum ..i Just can’t make it in buddhism…so understand it…i know..non of you seem to possess these..But I do atleast some of them…..take care…creat causes of happiness….
Hello,
Your comment is correct. In this story and the subsequent “Hare Krsna” comments, I see nothing but competitiveness and the belief in legends and stories meant to misdirect truth. There is alot of hearsey, but no real substance.
The floor is yellow.
!! Hare *Krishna !!
Krishna is great teacher. His followers mush spread his teachings which are always perfect.
Hare Krishna,
I heard Bhuddists eat meat. They also say Lord Bhuddha ate meat. Is it true? In that case how can you say that Bhuddha had come to this world to prevent animal killing?
Hare Krishna Rajesh
Yes. Lord Buddha was a vegetarian and preached ahimsa paraama dharma. “Non-violence is the supreme religious principle.” So he preached vegetarianism. In fact that was the purpose of his appearance. At that time the Hindus had misrepresented the Vedas and were using the mention of animal sacrifice in the Vedas as an excuse for animal killing and meat eating. So the whole of India became a country of meat-eaters. So to rectify this Krishna appeared as an empowered incarnation in the form of Lord Buddha and simply preached non-violence and vegetarianism because the meat eaters can not understand any fine spiritual subject matters.
The “Hindus” were all meat eaters and were basing their meat eating on the Vedas so Lord Buddha rejected any scripture that condones animal killing, so he rejected the Vedas and presented his own teachings.
But the whole purpose of Lord Buddha’s appearance in India was to stop the meat eating. And it worked. With the spread of Buddhism all over India the whole country returned to a vegetarian diet. This paved the way for Sankaracarya who defeated Buddhism and reestablished the authority of the Vedas, even though he stressed the impersonal conception, still his preaching convinced practically all the Buddhists in India to switch back to becoming followers of the Vedas.
Sankaracharya could not have done this with a country full of meat eaters. Because they would not have been able to understand what he was saying… So Lord Buddha made India vegetarian and Sankacharaya converted the Buddhists back to followers of the Vedas, and Lord Caitanya converted the impersonalist followers of Sankacarya into personalists, Vaisnavas, devotees who believed in and worshipped Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
This movement of Lord Caitanya is still going on and we are that movement. And Lord Caitanya’s mission is far from complete. Lord Caitanya predicted that His Sankirtan movement will go to every town and village of the world. We still have a long way to go and the impersonal philosophy is still very, very strong.
So we have a lot of work against us.
So the bottom line is if you find someone is eating meat that person is most certainly not a Buddhist.
It is Kali-Yuga, the age of hypocrisy–in this age we find practically everyone is not following the things they are supposed to be following, but they still claim the qualification anyhow. A person eating meat is not a Buddhist. But still he will claim to be a Buddhists and the fools will believe him because they want to eat meat. It is a world of the cheaters and the cheated. The people like the idea of something spiritual. They like to think they are philosophers, Buddhists, but they like eating meat and will not give it up. So some bogus Buddhist comes and tells them “No worries, Buddhists eat meat…” And they are very happy and give him a lot of money…
It is a world of the cheaters and the cheated and they are all going to hell..
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Madhudvisa dasa
Hello,
I have a more personal question relating to Buddhism. I am a Buddhist. I’m also a vegetarian to clarify the hypocrisy stipulated earlier on the posts. I used to go to the Hare Krishna temple back home for Sunday services for a while but I have walked another path since then which took me away from Visnu. Perhaps it is indeed because of Kali-Yuga in which case I believe I will come back to samsara and try another life to reach out for Krishna. I agree with the fact that I will personally not be able to make any sort of spiritual progress as long as I survive on the killings of other sacred beings. That being said, I do not judge Buddhists who eat meat or Hare Krishna for not doing so. These are only my personal choices. Among other teachings in Amidism, compassion and loving kindness are very central. And so my question is: how come Hare Krishna devotees have so much animosity against Buddhists? I still have many friends in the Hare Krishna movement, up until very recently, and when they learnt that I went through my Buddhist affirmation ceremony, they all refused to talk to me which broke my heart. The more I read Krishna related posts, the more aggressiveness I find against Buddhists, sadly. I believe in a place where the Supreme being is omnipresent, there is no room for hatred and despise. We are all trying to achieve a greater and more sensible spiritual life and what happens in the end is nevertheless a mystery. It all lies within our believes. I would imagine if there were to be a God, or Visnu, or Allah, what he would feel for all creatures, be it animals still working their way up to humanity to achieve Krishna Consciousness, or misled people who do not believe in him and live kind and respectful lives nonetheless, what he would be feeling is love and compassion. I have saked this question to many people, from the movement, and none have answered. Not even the temple I sent an email to a little while back. So how are we to progress, how are we supposed to correct our mistakes of we are willing to see things that way from a Buddhist perspective, how are we to realize our illusions from a Hare Krishna perspective if no one answers the questions when we have them? I still hold very dearly a lot of the Vedic principles for I find them sound and compassionate. I mean absolutely no disrespect in posting this and hope someone will reply.
In Gassho,
Shaku Eshin
Hi Shaku
Thanks for the nice question.
Actually the world is flooded by two things at the moment and that is impersonalism and voidism. The philosophy of Buddhism is voidism. Because the idea of perfection for a Buddhist is to cease to exist.
On the other hand the philosophy of Krishna consciousness is to reestablish our original eternal relationship with Krishna and to remember Krishna at the time of death and be transferred to the spiritual world where we can enjoy with Krishna and the other devotees of Krishna and live an eternal life of unending bliss and knowledge there. It is a much nicer alternative to ceasing to exist.
So devotees of Krishna do not like voidists or impersonalits very much. They do not like to associate with these people because association is powerful. So if these people are not interested in hearing about Krishna then generally a devotee will not be very interested in speaking with them.
Actually we offer prayers to Srila Prabhupada and part of that is that his mission is to destroy the impersonal and voidist philosophies that currently flood the world and replace them with the ocean of transcendental love of Lord Caitanya’s Sankirtan movement…
Of course you may know that Lord Buddha is an incarnation of Krishna and we also worship Lord Buddha. But Lord Buddha’s appearance is a bit confusing. He is Krishna, but when he appeared in India around 500 BC the whole country was full of meat-eating atheists who were justifying their meat eating as Vedic sacrifices. So they were using the Vedas to support their sinful activities. Krishna wanted to help them advance in spiritual life but He knew that if He appeared as God then the atheists would not accept Him. So instead He tricked them. He appeared as Lord Buddha and said that He rejects any scripture that condones animal killing, so He is an incarnation of Krishna, but He rejected the Vedas, and He went on to preach a philosophy centered around “ahimsa parama dharma” “non-violence is the highest religious principle.” His preaching is atheistic, there is no God, and even the soul is not eternal in the Buddhist doctrine. So actually the Buddhist philosophy is not really correct. It was given by Buddha, an incarnation of Krishna, to achieve a particular goal at a certain point in the history. And it worked. Buddhism spread all over India and everyone in India became vegetarian again and that paved the way for the next empowered personality who was Sankacharaya, an incarnation of Lord Shiva. Sankara reestablished the authority of the Vedas and as his philosophy was much more sound and logical than the Buddhist philosophy very quickly it spread all over India and Buddhism was only left in the surrounding countries. In India even now Buddhism is very rare.
But Sankacharaya was preaching the impersonal philosophy. It is not incorrect like the Buddhist philosophy, but it is not complete. The Supreme is manifest in three features. (1) The all-pervading brahman effulgence, (2) The paramatma form within the hearts of every living entity and (3) Krishna and his Visnu-tattva expansions, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
So Sankacharaya was only speaking of the brahman, the all-pervading energy of the Lord.
The devotees of Krishna are in love with Krishna and have a personal relationship with Krishna so they do not like the voidist [Buddhist] or impersonal philosophy.
So if you have decided to follow the path of voidism then you can not really expect that the devotees of Krishna who are interested in a personal relationship with Krishna will get much joy from associating with you…
The Buddhist philosophy is not good at all. It is attractive for atheists because there is no god to surrender to. But it is quite a bleak future… Entering the void, ceasing to exist. It is a horrible thought to me…
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Madhudvisa dasa
Thank you for the reply! It is much appreciated indeed.
Thank you very much indeed. I appreciate you taking the time to reply. Could I count on your consideration furthermore and express these points?
I am reading your reply and sincerely understand and respect your point of view. At the same time, I fail to understand why there can be no amicable encounter with a Buddhist even knowing our different perspectives. When I was at the temple (ISKCON), as well as in the restaurant (Govindas), which as you very well know, a big part of is also focused on Krishna, there used to be random talks. About life, studies, various personal endeavors. So why do these amicable talks need to end? Why can’t we still live in harmony? As a general rule, I try not to talk about my spiritual journey much. Not because I hide it but because it is such a personal path that I do not see fit to discuss it with friends, there really is only my Sensei who can assist me. On a more Buddhist perspective, one really paves one’s own path and every one has a unique experience which renders rather irrelevant any personal discussions on that matter.
Also, in Amidism, we are grateful and thankful to Amida Buddha for his Primal Vow to wait for all beings to have reached enlightenment until He may experience His to the fullest. When our time comes, He will come with His two Bodhisattvas and welcome us to the Pure Land. So there is something else at the end of our journey. When we leave Samsara, there is the Pure Land. And for an Amidists, our deepest wish is to become ourselves Bodhisatvas and return to Samsara to help people free themselves from it. Also, we chant the Nembutsu very much like you chant Hare Krishna in order to be connected to Amida Buddha. So why can’t we accept each other in this superficial plane of existence that is Samsara?
Again, my most sincere thanks for your consideration. I have had these questions for a long time and I am more than grateful to you for considering them.
In Gassho,
Shaku Eshin
Hare Krishna Shaku
Devotees have no interest in hearing about Buddha or the Buddhist philosophy which they hate actually. It is atheism. It is against Krishna. So you can not expect devotees to be very interested in talking to you if you have decided to follow this path of Buddhism which is completely against all the principles of Krishna consciousness. You should talk to the Buddhists if you want to follow the Buddhist path.
Devotees of Krishna have no interest in talking to anyone unless it is in connection with Krishna. So if you are not interested in hearing about Krishna and trying at least a little bit to practice the process of Krishna consciousness in your life then the devotees are going to try and find someone else to talk to who is interested in hearing about Krishna rather than wasting time with you and having to tolerate all your talks about Amidism and the Holy Land and the Bodhi Sattvas… We are just not interested in any of this stuff. We are interested in talking about Krishna to people who are interested to hear about Krishna…
If you develop an interest in Krishna consciousness the devotees will be interested to talk to you but if you want to talk to them about Buddha they will be gone before you can say “om mani padmi hum…”
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Madhudvisa dasa
Again, thank you for the reply Madhudvisa dasa (though I must admit I personally find hatred to be a very strong feeling to have against anyone, let alone someone you’ve never met). As I mentioned, I actually don’t talk about Buddhism with anyone but my Sensei really. I engaged in a conversation with you on the ground that you seemed to be very well versed on Krishna Consciousness works and as I mentioned earlier on, I still hold dear a lot of the Vedic precepts. I never said I wasn’t interested one little bit about Krishna Consciousness. As a matter of fact, I am currently reading an excellent work by Devamrita Swami, Searching for Vedic India. It’s a very refreshing and welcome perspective on what we know, I find. On a lighter note, I don’t actually know what “om mani padmi hum” exactly means except that is is related to Tibetan Buddhism. It appears I have some reading ahead of me.
In Gassho,
Shaku Eshin
Hi Shaku
There is no hatred at all. If one is actually a devotee of Krishna he has love for everyone. But we are interested in talking with people who want to hear about Krishna. If you want to find out about Krishna you have to hear from a pure devotee of Krishna, because he is always seeing Krishna and he can naturally describe Krishna to you. So rather than reading books by Davimrita Swami who is probably not a pure devotee of Krishna and is probably not seeing Krishna himself constantly, I strongly suggest you read the books of Srila Prabhupada. If you want to advance spiritually it is very important to hear from the right person. The only way we can come to understand Krishna actually is by hearing from someone who is a pure devotee of Krishna. Otherwise it is more-or-less a waste of time.
I think actually you do not really know what you are. You are saying you are a Buddhist at the moment but I think you do not completely comprehend what it means to be a Buddhist and what the Buddhist philosophy really is. It is really miserable and really artificial. Ultimately it is about ceasing to exist and entering the void. But actually we can not cease to exist and there is no void anywhere within the material or spiritual worlds. These days, because the actual Buddhist philosophy is so miserable, the modern Buddhists are changing it and saying things like you are saying about the beautiful land you will go to after nirvana, etc. But this is nonsense. In Buddhism there is no beautiful land to go to. The Buddhists analyze everything and come to the conclusion that everything is a source of misery so their ultimate conclusion is that everything should be given up, everything should be taken away. And when you take away everything you are left with nothing and that is the true Buddhistic concept of Nirvana.
Anyhow the devotees love Krishna and they love everyone but if you are not interested in hearing about Krishna from them they will go on to speak with someone else who is interested to hear. That does not mean they hate you, just that you don’t want to hear about Krishna and it is the devotees business, their whole existence, is glorifying Krishna…
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Madhudvisa dasa
Hello Madhudvisa dasa,
Thank you for the reply; I am indebted to your consideration as always.
I’m quite surprised to read your comment about Devamrita Swami though. I mean he was initiated by Srila Prabhupada himself so surely Srila Prabhupada would have had a different opinion of him other than “probably not a pure devotee of Krishna and (who) is probably not seeing Krishna himself constantly”. I believe you are describing a Guru here, in respect to your post “Who Is a Real Guru?”, by all means, correct me if I’m wrong. He is one of Krishna’s humble and faithful devotees and the Hare Krishna movement sells his books. He must have some support within ISKCON. As a matter of fact, this is how I came to have his book. It was offered to me by a devotee on the recommendation of their guru. He is “a member of ISKCON’s Governing Body, he has been chosen by his peers to serve as international vice-chairman and then chairman. His extensive current regional responsibilities include “down-under”–Australia and New Zealand–where he spends five months of the year, as well as north western Russia, South Africa, Hawaii, and the Gita-nagari farm project in Pennsylvania. Beyond those areas of spiritual responsibility, he travels far and wide, especially in North America, Europe, and India.” http://www.devaswami.com/
As for the statement that I “don’t know (who rather than) what( I am)”, well, to a certain extent, indeed. I haven’t found any set of truths anywhere that would justify that I close my mind to the world. The Buddha said “don’t take my word for it, find out for yourself”. Lord Buddha was Lord Krishna Himself as you and I both came to agree upon. I read the Bhagavad-gita, yes, but I also read the Bible, and the The Dhammapada, yet I am not a follower of any of the above. Curiosity feeds wisdom and from a Buddhist perspective, one can never be further away from enlightenment than if one cultivates a narrow mind and a narrow heart.
Greed, hate and ignorance are poisons to a clean mind. I was convinced of that before I turned to any sort of spirituality. Perhaps I lack objectivity in thinking that it is fairly obvious that these extremes will always spoil a beautiful mind, just like too much sun will burn a flower, or too much water will drown it, and the same goes for the opposite. Srila Prabhupada himself said: “We are glad that people are taking interest in the nonviolent movement of Lord Buddha.” I believe his ultimate point was to ensure that in that direction, Buddhists would stop the killing of animals. My understanding of that is that he’s talking about the meat-eating practice. I cannot endorse what other Buddhists do, as you cannot endorse what other Krishna devotees do. But in the end, I feel there is a lot of prejudice against Buddhists on the ground that they are Buddhists, even though they might be vegetarian, use plant based shaving cream and after shave and wear plant-based clothing and footwear.
Unfortunately, this is why I shied away from ISKCON back then, “devotees have no interest in hearing about Buddha or the Buddhist philosophy which they hate actually.” That’s already stating the cultivation of ignorance and hatred in that one sentence alone, be it against a philosophy or against people for whom that philosophy is part of.
I am just wondering in the end how come we cannot acknowledge each other without judgement. Buddhism isn’t for everyone, I agree and honestly see your point when you say that (e)ntering the void, ceasing to exist(…) is a horrible thought to (you); I would respectfully argue that the constant rejection and belittling of other’s beliefs isn’t for everyone either. But I do not despair and surely there must be a peaceful way to simply appreciate each other’s dedication and heartfelt devotion to whatever our higher purposes may be. This is what I do anyway, and whenever I get a chance to defend ISKCON’s devotees beliefs and way of life from prejudicial comments, I do so. As I do about all sort of prejudices which to me are sources to a lot of pain and unneeded extra suffering in our Societies.
In Gassho,
Shaku Eshin
Hare Krishna Shaku
As far as the Swami, yes, he is obviously doing some nice service and distributing Srila Prabhuapda’s books. He is certainly a nice devotee. But there is a difference between a nice devotee and someone who is a liberated soul and who has the potency to guide you back home, back to Godhead. I can guarantee you that Srila Prabhupada has this potency, but I do not know if Devamrita Swami has this power or not. We have become a little skeptical about these ISKCON swamis after being in the movement for over 25 years and seeing dozens of these swamis turn out to be ordinary conditioned souls like the rest of us.
So my point is not to belittle the swami but to simply let you know that I can guarantee Prabhupada is a pure devotee of Krishna and if you read his books the potency is there. There is no guarantee at all that potency is in this other swami’s books. So time is short, it would be better to read Srila Prabhupada’s books–that is my point.
We are glad that people are becoming Buddhists if that means they stop killing the animals… That is the point of Buddhism. To stop the animal killing. That is its only purpose.
That does not mean we like the atheistic, godless philosophy of Buddhism. Surely you can understand that a lover of God will hate a philosophy that claims that there is no god, only a void? That doesn’t mean devotees hate Buddhists. They love all living entities.
As far as philosophies we will speak the truth and some may not like it but what can we do about that?
There is a class of bogus so-called spiritualists in India who say ‘yato mat tato pat,’ it means ‘whatever path you are following, that is good…’ If I would say that to you then you would be very happy. They also say all the paths lead to the same destination. People like this sort of watered-down bogus nonsense. What can we do about that? We will continue to speak the truth and the truth is that there are different paths and the different paths have different destinations.
Although as I have already mentioned the Buddhist philosophy is not sound and it talks about things that do not exist. There is no void anywhere in the spiritual or material worlds and the eternal soul can never cease to exist. So these two basic fundamental principles of Buddhism are simply incorrect. Wrong. That is just the way it is, that is the truth. You will not hear it in many other places of course…
It is probably better if you post your questions on the Buddhist websites and they can tell you all about the void and ceasing to exist. But I think if you do a little meditation and contemplation yourself you can actually perceive you have a spiritual existence separate from your physical body and you may even be able to perceive an eternal nature to this spiritual existence…
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy [why not give it a try?]!
Madhudvisa dasa
if you can show me convincing evidence,not just the nasa photo or the stones of rameshwara,that there was a man named rama who lived in ayodya and kiled raavan to rescue sita,i will convert to your kraishnavism but i doubt you will be able to do that.the first mention of rama wasnt ramayana but one of the jataka’s of buddha which first mentions a rama.also rama,according to the jataka story,was from varanasi and was sent away for 14 years but came back and lived happily ever after.thasts what the jataka says.i dont know for sure but thats what it says.i would sooner accept the buddhist concept of rama than the hindu one(or at least the north indian one).there is no proof that a bunch of talking monkeys(or as some contemporary hindus say,south indian tribals) built a bridge to lanka and killed a proto-muslim ruler named raavan.suffice to say that the saiva version that ram was the real demon and that raavan was a rightous tamil king sounds more likely to have happened than the aryan rama story.im not nessesarily denying that ram did exsist just that valmikiji’s ramayana is NOT his story,thats something valmiki or whoever wrote it made up.if there really was a historical rama then he was either the rama in the jataka or he was the south indian(tamil) rama and the real monkeys were actually tamil tribals and raavana was a muslim.or he(rama) was a demon and raavan was a just king.either way those three are more likely to be acturate than your aryan ramayana.just saying what’s most likely true.
Dear Nagarjuna,
Hare Krishna! If you believe in the scientific proofs let me tell you NASA has released a photograph which clearly shows the bridge between india and Sri lanka which is not visible from ordinary eyes but only from sky.
Sri lanka was much larger a few thousand years back due to cold weather and much of the ice was in glaciers.
Krishna’s Dwarika is found beneath the sea in Gujrat which has mention in ancient texts. There is mention of multiverses as against universe which is very much scientifically possible. We do not even know 0.000000000001 percent of what is around us and just gauging everything scientifically is not possible and “what scientifically you know is abolute truth” thinking this is totally arrogant and absurd. A few years back we knew nothing can travel faster than light but now we know neutrons can. So dude, keen an open mind, read those ancient texts and make some sense.
Haribol
what is god&bhakthi/
Read the articles… Read Prabhupada’s books….