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Betraying Jesus Christ by taking to Krishna consciousness?

• Subject: Betraying Jesus Christ by taking to Krishna consciousness?
• From: Brad S
• Date: Mon Feb 26 12:59:00 1996
• Message-Id: id759

Dear Brad



Hello. Hare Krishna!



At 04:11 AM 22/2/96 -0800, you wrote:

>Thank-you for the wonderful information.  I listen to a Christian teacher on 

>the way to work every morning.  His name is R.C. Sproul.  This morning he 

>talked about the Lord's prayer and his key text was "Hallowed be thy NAME."  I 

>thought it was unusual timing for my spiritual life!  Hare Krishna.



Yes. "Hallowed be thy NAME." It is the same message, just presented in a 

different time and place, that is all. The Bible is presenting Krishna 

consciousness, Lord Jesus is preaching Krishna consciousness, devotional 

service. Krishna consciousness, devotional service means reawakening our 

dormant love for God, Krishna. It is not sectarian -- it is what every servant 

of God is after. It is just like gold. Gold is gold wherever you find it. You 

can't call it "Hindu Gold" when it is owned by a Hindu nor can you call it 

"Christian Gold" when it is owned by a Christian. It is gold wherever you find 

it. So devotional service, God consciousness, Krishna consciousness is not 

sectarian. The Christians are performing devotional service by offering prayers 

in the Church, by glorifying the name of God, and by serving Him in so many 

ways. It is the same thing.



Of course some don't believe in God. For example the Buddhists don't believe in 

God. They are atheists. But Buddha is an incarnation of Krishna, God. So it is 

a little bewildering. When Buddha appeared in India sone 2,500 years ago he 

didn't preach about Krishna or God at all because at that time in India the 

atheistic mentality was very strong. They were using the Vedic scriptures and 

supposedly following them, but they had practically turned every place into a 

slaughterhous and were justifying this wholesale animal slaughter as "Vedic 

Sacrifices". So they had become atheists by misinterpreting the scriptures. It 

is also going on today. Many claim to be Christians or Hare Krishna's but they 

are nothing of the sort. They just take a verse here and a verse there as it 

suits them and neglect the difficult passages...



So the purpose of Lord Buddha's incarnation was to stop the animal-killing in 

India, for when one is engaged in animal-killing he cannot understand spiritual 

life. So if at least Lord Buddha could stop the animal-killing that would be a 

step in the right direction. So he presented his own philosophy, it has nothing 

to do with the scriptures. He preached about non-violence (ahimsa) and his 

preaching was very powerful and Buddhism spread all over India under the 

sanction of King Asoka who supported Lord Buddha. So Buddhists are not directly 

performing devotional service. They don't believe in God so where is the 

question of serving God? But Krishna has tricked them, although they don't 

believe in God, God has appeared Himself before them as Lord Buddha and they 

offer Lord Buddha all respects -- so in this way they are indirectly serving 

God.



There is another class of philosophers who say that ultimately everything is 

impersonal. They think that individuality and personality are temporary 

manifestations and in the ultimate issue there is no individuality or 

personality. They have slogans like "It is all one"... But this is a miserable 

conception. Even in this material world whatever pleasure we can get is derived 

from our individuality and personality and our dealings with other individual 

persons. Otherwise there is no ananda, bliss, pleasure. So these relationships 

we have with people in the material world are perverted reflections of the 

original, pure relationship we have with Krishna. Here relationships, actually, 

are the cause of anxiety and distress -- because they are temporary -- but "I", 

the soul am not temporary. I am eternal, full of knowledge and full of 

pleasure. SO these temporary material relationships cannot satisfy us. It is 

not the real thing. The real thing, the source of real transcendental bliss, is 

reestablishing our eternal, but now forgotten relationship with Krishna.



>  What is 

>the correct pronunciation of the chant?  



I have an audio file on my home-page of Srila Prabhupada chanting Hare Krishna, 

it is just one mantra, but you will get the idea. If you have a computer with a 

sound-card you can just click on the "wav" speaker box in the top right-hand 

corner of my home page at:



     /~balarama



It should work -- although I don't know if it does or not. I have not been able 

to test it yet. So perhaps you could tell me if you can get it to work?



>I would like anything that has to do 

>with reconciling Christianity and Krishna consciousness.  Where does atonement 

>or forgiveness of sins come in?  Why did Christ have to die?  Do you believe 

>in the resurrection?



Atonement is not that effective. It works, of course, but it does not get rid 

of the sinful desires within the heart. One may atone for his past sinful acts 

and may be forgiven for them -- but he still has the desire to act sinfully -- 

so he will most likely perform the same sinful acts in the future also. So this 

process -- performing sinful activities understanding that he can later go to 

the Church [I was a Catholic and we had confession for this purpose] and be 

absolved of his sins -- only to start performing another batch of sins -- is a 

useless process. It is likened to the elephant when he takes a bath. The 

elephant goes into the water and very carefully takes a bath -- but as soon as 

he comes out of the water he throws dirt all over his body. So what is the 

point of taking a bath?



"Pariksit Maharaja compared atonement to an elephant's bathing. The elephant 

may take a very nice bath in the river, but as soon as it comes onto the bank, 

it throws dirt all over its body. What, then, is the value of it's bathing? 

Similarly, many spiritual practitioners chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra and 

at the same time commit many forbidden things, thinking their chanting will 

counteract their offenses. Of the ten types of offenses one can commit while 

chanting the holy name of the Lord, this offense is called namno balad yasya hi 

papa-buddhih, committing sinful activities on the strength of chanting the Hare 

Krishna maha master.



"Similarly, certain Christians go to church to confess their sins, thinking 

that confessing their sins before a priest and performing some penance will 

relieve them from the results of their weekely sins. An soon as Saturday is 

over and Sunday comes, they again begin their sinful activity, expecting to be 

forgiven the next Saturday. This kind of prayascitta, or attonement, is 

condemned by Pariksat Maharaj, the most intelligent King of his time... A 

sinful activity cannot be counteracted by a pious activity, Thus real 

prayascitta, atonement is the awakening of our dormant Krishna consciousness."



I have included another page from the Sudarsana web site below.



                            [ Sudarsana ] [Image]

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                         Who is Lord Jesus Christ?



You can find this at: /~balarama/a005.html

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