Nowadays homosexuality is a huge topic. There are men who are attracted to other men, and ladies who feel attracted to other ladies. One could discuss if this is good or bad, but the fact is that many who have this tendency become attracted to Krsna and try to follow devotional life, and of course, they often face a lot of challenges inside our movement. How can a sincere person surpass these obstacles and be able to practice and achieve success in spiritual life?
In this article, I’m not going to discuss if homosexuality is good or bad, nor enter into the institutional aspects of it. Instead, I will just focus on the individual and his potential challenges in his practice of Krsna Consciousness and how it may be surpassed.
July, August, and September is the period of rain in Mayapur. That’s the period of the monsoons, included in the four months of Caturmasya. When we speak about “monsoons”, some apocalyptic image comes to mind, but it is not as bad as it may seem. Nothing terrible happens, it just rains more.
One important topic in the Bhagavad-Gita is the difference between Karma, Akarma, and Vikarma. This is a very important concept to grasp if we want to understand the message of the Bhagavad-Gita.
We hear in the scriptures that it’s possible to serve Krsna in our minds. We hear for example the story of the poor Brahmana who started cooking sweet rice for Krsna in his mind and was surprised when he burned his finger when he touched the pot of hot sweet rice in his meditation, showing that Krsna was actually accepting his mental service.
One could then conclude that there is no need for us to strive to build temples or cook nice offerings for the deities since we can just do everything within our minds. However, we also see passages of Srila Prabhupada discouraging it. See this one for example:
In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krsna tells Arjuna to abandon all types of mundane religion and just surrender to Him. He promises that if one does that he will be protected from the result of all past sins. Krsna reinforces it by saying “Do not fear”.
Many understand that this verse means that one should abandon his family, his job, and his mundane education and just join a temple, surrendering to the institution. They understand that if they do that, Krsna (represented by the institution) will take care of them and they will not have any reason to fear.
In the early days of our movement “surrender to Krsna” meant abandoning all one’s possessions, dropping his academic education, and going to live in the temple, hoping that the temple would supply all his necessities. Surrender to Krsna is obviously always good from the spiritual side, but this particular approach offered some challenges, which caused difficulties for many devotees.
The difference between Sadhana-Bhakti and Raganuga Bhakti is a constant source of misunderstandings. We all know that Sadhana-Bhakti is the path of the rules and regulations and disciplined devotional service, while Raganuga Bhakti is the path of spontaneous devotion. We hear that the path of Raganuga Bhakti is higher, so why do we need rules and regulations? Would it not be better to just cultivate our spontaneous devotion to Krsna? It sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it?
The point is that the path of Raganuga Bhakti can be practiced only when one has already love for Krsna and is not interested in the phantasmagoric enjoyment of this material world. At this point, it’s not really necessary to follow rules and regulations, because a devotee in this stage doesn’t have the desire of doing anything sinful, and he doesn’t see anything as being separated from Krsna. At this stage, one has a natural propensity to serve Krsna with love, and rules and regulations may actually start getting in the way. A devotee in this stage may reject some of the rules connected with standards and rituals, for example (like Goura Kishora Das Babaji chanting japa in the toilet, for example), but they will never do anything sinful. If a devotee starts doing sinful things it means that he is just in the material platform. If someone claims to be serving Krsna but at the same time he is doing sinful things, it means he is just a sahajiya, who is following neither Raganuga Bhakti nor Sadhana-Bhakti.
An additional difficulty is that seeing someone with real love for Krsna is quite rare and, as Krsna explains in the Bhagavad-Gita, even someone who is on this platform still has to follow the rules and regulations to give example to others and thus avoid creating a bad precedent. Arjuna was certainly in a stage of spontaneous devotion, but still, Krsna instructed him to perform his duties. Similarly, the six goswamis were certainly in a stage of spontaneous devotion, but still, they were practicing all the rules and regulations of the process of Bhakti to give example. What to say about the six goswamis, even Krsna Himself follow the rules with the purpose of instructing us: “If I did not perform prescribed duties, all these worlds would be put to ruination. I would be the cause of creating unwanted population, and I would thereby destroy the peace of all living beings.” (Bg 3.24)
What about us? When we are starting on the devotional path, we don’t have love for Krsna. At this stage we are just struggling with our material desires, trying to control our disturbed minds.
Why do we need to accept a spiritual master? Can’t we just consider ourselves disciples of Srila Prabhupada, since we are anyway getting knowledge from his books? What is the difference between accepting a disciple or grand disciple of Srila Prabhupada as my spiritual master and learning the philosophy from him, or just considering Prabhupada as my guru and learning from him through his books?
This may look like a perfectly honest proposition at first, but there are a few faults in this reasoning. It can be explained in the following way:
Srila Madhvacharya is considered a direct disciple of Vyasadeva, although he was born in the 13th century. However, in his case, he was able to get the direct darshan of Vyasadeva in the Himalayas and get instructions from him. Similarly, Vyasadeva is a disciple of Narada Muni, because he was able to directly associate with him, being instructed and corrected by him.
I’m also learning a lot from Narada Muni through the pages of Srimad Bhagavatam, but what would be your reaction if I would start claiming to be a disciple of Narada Muni? Unless I could produce some proof that I’m somehow being able to meet him, you would probably reject me as a fraud. Any intelligent person would question if I’m really meeting and receiving instructions from him. Similarly, you would probably not accept me as a disciple of Rupa Goswami or Vyasadeva, even though I’m reading their books.
When talking to Indians about Krsna, a very common argument or question is about the story of the Keśa-avatāra, supposedly narrated in the Vishnu Purana, as well as the Mahabharata and Srimad Bhagavatam that describes Krsna and Balarama as incarnations of two hairs of Lord Vishnu, one black and one white. How to deal with that?
There are a number of passages in the Bible that appear to mention meat eating. In Luke 8:55, referring to a woman Christ raised from the dead, it’s said: “And her spirit returned, and she got up at once. And he directed to give her meat.” In John 4:8 it’s mentioned: “For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.”, and in Acts 9:19 it’s said ” And when he had received meat, he was strengthened.”
There are a number of passages like that, and naturally many Christians use them to sustain the idea that meat eating is supported in the Bible. Some go as far as sustaining that Christ was himself eating meat. How can we understand that?
The Srimad Bhagavatam describes the appearance of two different incarnations of Varahadeva, one white and another red, that came at different times. However, in the Srimad Bhagavatam, the pastimes of both Varahas are amalgamated in the same pastime, which makes it a little hard to understand.
On SB 3.13.31 Srila Prabhupada mentions that “According to Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, the Vedic literature describe the incarnation of Lord Varāha (Boar) in two different devastations, namely the Cākṣuṣa devastation and the Svāyambhuva devastation. This particular appearance of the boar incarnation actually took place in the Svāyambhuva devastation, when all planets other than the higher ones – Jana, Mahar, and Satya – merged in the water of devastation. This particular incarnation of the boar was seen by the inhabitants of the planets mentioned above. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī suggests that the sage Maitreya amalgamated both the boar incarnations in different devastations and summarized them in his description to Vidura.”
