Love the Devotees of Krishna

Our love for Krishna is manifested only to the degree that we love His devotees. Therefore if we want to love Krishna, we must learn how to love His devotees. If we harbor even the slightest amount of ill well towards the devotees, we will not be able to awaken the pure love of God which is currently sleeping within our hearts. Therefore the secret of advancement on the path of pure love is to never think, speak, or act in a negative way against even one of the Lord's devotees.

You cannot avoid this negativity simply by avoiding the association of the devotees. The only way to effectively protect yourself from being offensive towards devotees is to cultivate positive loving relationships with all of them within your heart.

Ecstatically Diving Into Kirtan at the Summer Baltic Festival
Palanga, Lithuania--22 July 2015

Sankarshan Das Adhikari - Ecstatically Diving Into Kirtan at the Summer Baltic Festival Palanga, Lithuania

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version:

Question: Is Deity Worship Allowed in the Vedas?

Is there any verse in the Vedas which say that God has a form or that worshipping the deity in the temple is allowed? There is a lot of propagation and sermons by Islamic groups telling it is not there and hence Hindu temples are against the Vedas.

Your ever humble servant

Amar

Answer: Deity Worship Is Not Only Allowed; It Is Required

Not only do the Vedas allow the worship of the deity in the temple. The Vedic wisdom states that we must worship the deity of the temple until we realize the presence of the Lord everywhere.

arcādāv arcayet tāvad
īśvaraṁ māṁ sva-karma-kṛt
yāvan na veda sva-hṛdi
sarva-bhūteṣv avasthitam

"Performing his prescribed duties, one should worship the Deity of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in the temple until one realizes My presence in his own heart and in the hearts of other living entities as well."
--SB 3.29.25

Some people argue that since God is everywhere we should not worship the deity in the temple. But if God is everywhere, He must also be present within the deity in temple. Worshipping Him in the temple purifies our hearts so that eventually we will be able to see God everywhere at every moment.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Little Sparrow Who Conquered the Ocean

Image
In his purport to Bhagavad-gita, Chapter 6, Text 24 Srila Prabhupada wonderfully teaches us the power of determinations by telling us the story of the little sparrow who conquered the ocean: "As for determination, one should follow the example of the sparrow who lost her eggs in the waves of the ocean. A sparrow laid her eggs on the shore of the ocean, but the big ocean carried away the eggs on its waves. The sparrow became very upset and asked the ocean to return her eggs. The ocean did not even consider her appeal. So the sparrow decided to dry up the ocean. She began to pick out the water in her small beak, and everyone laughed at her for her impossible determination. The news of her activity spread, and at last Garuda, the gigantic bird carrier of Lord Visnu, heard it. He became compassionate toward his small sister bird, and so he came to see the sparrow. Garuda was very pleased by the determination of the small sparrow, and he promised to help. Thus Garuda at once asked t
Read more

Heart Melting Reunion with Amarendra and Gayatri

Image
On Friday 26 June 2015 I was blessed with the greatest good fortune of meeting with two of the dearest devotees of my entire life, His Grace Amarendra Prabhu and his good wife, Srimati Gayatri devi dasi. I am eternally indebted to these great souls for how much they helped me in my spiritual life when I was a young devotee. When I was young brahmacari monk in 1973 I joined with the two of them in Gainesville, Florida. We were a three person preaching center, and they were just like a mother and father to me. I had so many wonderful Krishna conscious experiences in their association that I can hardly begin to describe them here. But at least may it suffice for me to say for now that Gayatri taught me what it means to be a soft-hearted devotee of the Lord and she gave me my first cooking lesson, teaching me how to make cauliflower pakoras, and Amarendra taught me the art of how to preach strongly, intelligently, and coolly to defeat opposing arguments. Recently Gayatri almost died. But
Read more

Misguided Fools Say that Masturbation is Healthy

Image
Foolish modern day materialists recommend masturbation as follows: "Masturbation is a common activity. It’s a natural and safe way to explore your body, feel pleasure, and release built-up sexual tension. It occurs among people of all backgrounds, genders, and races. Despite the myths, there are actually no physically harmful side effects of masturbation." They are wrong. To get a proper understanding on this this topic read the question and answer section below. Answers According to the Vedic Wisdom Question: What are the Ill Effects of Masturbation? Since you answered questions related to understanding the real need of sex in a human being's life, so I also request you to please enlighten us with the knowledge about semen conservation, it's importance, and the consequences of frequently releasing it thorough sex or masturbation. Since today most of the youth are indulged in mansturbation and they think it to be good in comparison to doing sex with some female for
Read more