Lesson from Power Outage in Austin

24 May 2015--4:20am--Last night a heavy rain/lightening storm with tornados blew through the Austin area. Heavy winds in our neighborhood knocked over trees and a wooden fence. Our temple suffered only minor damage. Now we are among 19,600 residences that are without electrical power for the last six hours. Fumbling in the dark at 4:00am trying to do our morning program, wondering how we are going to cook the Sunday feast without our electric stove/oven, I am seeing how much dependent we are on electricity for so many of the things that we do. This reminds me of how much we are even more dependent on Krishna, the supreme provider of power, for absolutely everything that we do, even for our very existence. I am hoping that for the sake of our service to Krishna that our electrical power will soon be restored and hoping even more that Krishna consciousness can become fully restored on this bewildered planet to bring the bewildered humanity back to sanity.

Heavy Storm Hits Austin


Heavy Storm Hits Austin

Testimonial from Ruben--Manifestations of God's Presence 

Testimonial from Ruben--Manifestations of God's Presence
After reading in Thought for the Day on Friday May 15 the hopeful assurances of my sister Shyamapriya Devi Dasi I asked myself, "How I can accept this message if I am a Catholic, a disciple of Jesus? This would be a contradiction to my faith."

After this spiritual confrontation, I felt the need to listen to the Master A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada chanting the Hare Krishna mantra and after doing this, I opened the Thought for the Day of 18 May and read these words from Sankarshan Das Adhikari:

"Don't cheat yourself by being a slave of maya or illusion. You are an eternal spiritual being qualitatively one with God. While it may appear very attractive to gratify your senses whenever they request to be gratified, the reality is that you have nothing to do with your material senses. They are just a covering of your actual self. Therefore as long as you remain on the platform of material sense gratification you will never be able to taste or experience the genuine unlimited pleasure of your actual spiritual existence. Quasi-spiritualists talk about God and self-realization, but they take God as someone who facilitates their material sense gratification. Such "God consciousness" is not God consciousness at all. It is sense gratification consciousness masquerading as God consciousness. Real God consciousness is taught both by Lord Jesus and Lord Krishna. Real God consciousness means to fully surrender unto Krishna or God accepting everything in your life which is pleasing to Him and rejecting from your life whatever is displeasing to Him. This the real platform of spiritual realization, of unlimited happiness which every living needs to come to as soon as possible if they are going to be genuinely satisfied with their life. Otherwise they will remain frustrated and confused just like Arjuna was in the opening pages of the Bhagavad-gita."

In our Catholic religion we call experiences like what I got from Prabhupada and Thought for the Day to be manifestations of the presence of the Lord.

Ruben
Mexico City, Mexico

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version:

Question: Were We Originally With Krishna in the Spiritual World?

I have a doubt about the existence of the soul. I heard two theories about its existence.

In one I was told that we were all present with Krishna in the spiritual world and due to being envious of Krishna we were transferred to the material planets.

Today one senior devotee in ISKCON Chennai told me that the scriptures tell that from time immemorial we have had free will to either to love Krishna or to enjoy separately without Krishna.

I want to know the actual truth regarding our existence with any references so that I can show him Maharaja.

Please forgive me if I have presented my question improperly.

Hare Krishna
Roopkiran
Chennai

Answer: Yes, But We Foolishly Left

Both things you have heard are true. We are all the eternal residents of the spiritual world who possess the free will to remain in our natural position as Krishna's servants or to, like a foolish fish who tries to enjoy living on the land, defy our natural position by coming to this material world to try enjoy separately from Krishna.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

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