Ice Cream Through Your Ear

When you are miserable, what can you do to get rid of your misery? Drown yourself in sense gratification? No. That will only make it worse. To get rid of misery you have to intelligently analyze your situation and understand why you are miserable and then do the needful to eliminate it.

Misery is due to our false sense of trying to be the owner and enjoyer of that which is actually the property of someone else, namely the Supreme Lord, the source of all existence. When one is infected with this false sense of overlordship, which is contrary to his constitutional identity as a servant of the Supreme, he will naturally be miserable. To try to be happy in that way is like trying to eat ice cream through your ear. It is completely unnatural and artificial.

The natural solution is understand and realize that since you come into this world with nothing and leave with nothing, you are not the proprietor of what you survey and are thus also not its enjoyer. So instead of trying to be proprietor/enjoyer all you have to do is agree the serve the actual proprietor and enjoyer--the all-beautiful, all-powerful, all-renounced, all-knowing, all-merciful, all-wealthy, and all-famous Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Sri Krishna. As soon as you do so, you will immediately experience the wonderful reawakening of divine bliss within your heart. You will be so happy just by the mere fact that you exist as the eternal servant of that absolutely amazing Supreme Person.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Answers According to the Vedic Version:

Question: How to Reply to Challenge from a Muslim?

I met a Muslim recently, and he told me that the Quran is the most authentic scripture and all other scriptures, be it the Vedas or the Bible have all been tampered with. Of course, that did not bewilder me since I have experienced practically the authenticity of the teachings of Bhagavad-gita and Srimad Bhagavatam in my life. My question is: How do we reply to such people or counter such arguments?

I hope I am not troubling you with small questions like these, but I do not like to keep questions hanging in my mind.

Please bless me so that I can do my sadhana effectively and attentively. Please let me know how can I serve you?

Hare Krishna,

Tushar

Answer: Answer According to the Scriptures

Anyone can claim that his scripture is the most authentic and authoritative. It is not surprising that he will feel that way because that is his chosen path. But if we objectively analyze the different scriptures from a scholarly point of view we will see that while the Bible and the Islamic scriptures both state that there is higher knowledge beyond what they present, in the Bhagavad-gita Lord Sri Krishna declares that there is no knowledge beyond what is presented in the Bhagavad-gita:

jñānaṁ te 'haṁ sa-vijñānam
idaṁ vakṣyāmy aśeṣataḥ
yaj jñātvā neha bhūyo 'nyaj
jñātavyam avaśiṣyate

"I shall now declare unto you in full this knowledge, both phenomenal and numinous. This being known, nothing further shall remain for you to know."--Bhagavad-gita 7.2

So if we accept the authoritative statements of all the revealed scriptures, we will naturally see that the Bhagavad-gita is the perfection of knowledge, while the Bible and the Quran are stepping stones on the path to perfection of knowledge as revealed in the Bhagavad-gita.

If you want effective sadhana, you must rise early and chant at least 16 rounds of Hare Krishna japa mala, every day before sunrise.

You can serve me the best by fully dedicating your life for assisting us in our mission to make the whole world Krishna conscious.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari