The Pillars of Religion

In the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, we learn that the four pillars of  religion are cleanliness, austerity, compassion, and truthfulness.  There is a systematic and well-rounded process to religion, whose  foundation is structured on these four pillars. Religion is not simply  a matter of faith, nor just a system of morals and ethics, although it  is often portrayed as such. It is more than faith, it is a science: in the Bhagavad-gita, Srila Prabhuapda writes that faith without philosophy is sentimental, and philosophy without religion is dry speculation.

As these four pillars are the foundation of religion, the Vedic scriptures  also teach that there are four main sinful activities: illicit sex, intoxication, gambling, and meat eating. Why are they "sinful?" Because they each attack and destroy a specific pillar of religion:  cleanliness is destroyed by illicit sex;  austerity by intoxication; compassion by meat-eating; and truthfulness by gambling.

Thus it is clearly seen that modern, contemporary culture is consistently trying to destroy religious principles  by undermining the four pillars of religion. For example, the vast majority of all TV series and movies are  based on the repeated and glorified practice of the four sinful activities mentioned above, which destroy religious principles. There is a constant propaganda going on to normalize and make acceptable illicit sex, intoxication, meat-eating, and gambling.

Thus, western culture, which is being hailed as the pinnacle of human development, progress, and knowledge, is actively seeking to destroy the eternal religious principles mentioned in the Vedas. An other sign that contempory culture is thoroughly degraded and guided by atheistic principles  is that in a huge number of movies out of Hollywood, the kissing between men and women, is depicted in minute, graphic detail. According to the Vedic standard that is tantamount to pure pornagraphy.

Now, when mentioned to mainstream people, it is rejected and scoffed at as being backwards and primitive. But one of the most intimate exchanges  between a man and a woman, ie. kissing, is engaged in freely and publicly without any restraint. What does that tell us about the culture that we live in?

Why this observation, at all? Because as devotees, we are trying to emulate the Vedic culture and values. At the same time many of us live in a society, where these values are regarded as primitive and back-wards. In fact, as westerners we have grown up to see the standards of the modern consumer culture as normal and even coveted and glorified.

There is a very real chance of us being contaminated by our surroundings and our cultural heritage. Srila Prabhupada said, that the difference between him and his disciples was that he was afraid of maya, they were not. This is to show how important it is for a devotee to understand how harmful and degraded the modern culture is. Things that according to the Vedic standard are considered extremely sinful are considered completely normal in modern society - cowkilling, publicly kssing, and carassing, scantily clad women and so on.

The global culture is more or less an attempt to make the whole world into a market place of McDonalds and Coca-cola. It is being hailed as the info-age, but when examined closely the info available is more or less a barrage of propaganda to make the population, the brought masses, into good and loyal consumers and usurpers of nature. The goal of life, instead of being knowledge of the self and an end to the problems of life, is now centered around getting an education, then a job that will enable me to spend money.

The goal of life has become to spend money on consumer goods, and the producers of these
goods spend vast amounts of money to convince people to buy their products. Basically the whole world is running on trade. It is a business-culture governed by vaishyas. not by brahmanas, as a proper human culture is meant to be. So Srila Prabhupada ordered us to create a class of brahmins to guide society, and the only way to so that is by preaching Vaishnava.dharma, and that is exactly what ISKCON is doing all over the world.

Krishna says:

Those who are free from false prestige, illusion and false association, who understand the eternal, who are done with material lust, who are freed from the dualities of happiness and distress, and who, unbewildered, know how to surrender unto the Supreme Person attain to that eternal kingdom. (Bg. 15.5)

Big Bang? hahaha :)

By Murari Das

The first problem with the Bing Bang theory and the theory of evolution is that they are both theories, so they should not be accepted as fact...yet.

Second problem is that there is no room for God in either theory, and humans are just the latest in a line of animals, governed by the law of the jungle which is the only REAL law.

There is no right or wrong in a moral sense, only in the sense of whether the species will survive or not. Hitler and Stalin were both social Darwinists, and like any other powerful animal, they did whatever they saw
necessary for the survival of themselves and their people. This is quite acceptable in a jungle. Animals, reptiles and insects are not hauled beforecourts and tribunals to answer for the deaths they cause, it is all quite
natural. A fox that gets into a chicken coop and slaughters ever hen in the place is a problem. If you can catch and kill it, good for you. But the fox is not considered sinful or criminal; it is after all, just an animal

Without God, humans are not fettered by any laws other than what apply to the fox...Do whatever you think you can get away with.

Justice, morals, ethics, compassion, truthfulness, austerity, sacrifice, sympathy, kindness and many more qualities are absent from the jungle and the animal world. They are meaningless in a world that knows nothing of God.

Without God there is no purpose to the world. It is a freak accident caused by random mutations and survival of the fittest. There is no meaning to life and never will be. All life is just chemicals interacting for a short space
of time with other chemicals, and then becoming inert again. What's the big drama in that? Why the desperate urge to survive? Why the fear of dying? Ifwe are our bodies, then we come from the earth and return to the earth. Why the big palaver over 60 - 70 kilos of dirt and water that combine and move around for 70 - 80 years and then stop and return to the earth?

These aspects of Big Bang and evolution are never emphasized because the productivity of the nation would decline rapidly if everyone thought whatever they were doing was pointless. A reduction in productivity means
less money, which means less power and influence for the leaders of the country.

The more God is fazed out of society, the more godlessness (animal life) will increase.

Sex-life and maintaining the family will be the only reasons for life.

Big Bang and evolution, (and the corruption in religion), are root causes for this.

This is the most demeaning, deceitful and despicable nonsense that is being pushed down the throats of an unsuspecting, un-protesting, helpless public.

It makes me sad.

Is life a dream?

In the Vedic philosophy,  the material world is described as a dream.  All of us have had the experience of a dream. While we are in the dream, everything that goes on, seems quite real. We move through the same register of emotions and impressions as when we are awake. In a dream we can experience misery or  enjoyment the same way we do as when awake.

So anyone can testify to the fact that their dreams seem real enough. What, then, is it that makes a dream unreal? Because it ends. When we wake up, we know, oh, it was only a dream. So it is the element of time, that makes a dream unreal. If the dream continued, that would be our reality.  But because it only lasts a few seconds, we know it is a dream. Real existence is continuous.

The funny thing is that life is exactly like that. Life is a dream in the sense that life has a beginning and an end. But because the 60, 80, or 100 years  it lasts feel like a life-time, we say that life is real. But in a cosmic time scale of, say, billions of years, our life-span of 60-80 years are but a few fleeting seconds. Next to a demigod with a lifespan of millions of years, our life would be more or less unreal. Actually, what we experienced a week ago might as well have been a dream. The enjoyment I had a week ago, now, is no more real than had it been something I experienced in a dream.

So in terms of time, the idea that life is illusory like a dream begins to make sense.  The crux is to understand the temporary in relation to the eternal. In contrast to eternal time our current temporary existence will always be fleeting and insubstantial; it will be a short flash - like a dream. Even a long dream like life comes to an end. Our perceived lifespan, however long, is such a miniscule glimpse in the vastness of eternity that it doesn’t even register. The same is true of the computer I am writing on.  In terms of eternity it is illusory.

Even if I left it sitting alone on my desk and never touched it, in due course, it would be demolished by time. It would be broken down into atoms and cease to exist. However long that would take is immaterial. To us a thousand or a million years may seem like a substantial amount of time but from the point of view of, say, Lord Brahma, the first created living being in the universe (who lives for the unfathomable length of time of 311.04 trillion years) surely my computer, the desk my computer sits on, as well as the house that surrounds the desk, cannot be said to exist. Before Lord Brahma even has time to finish his morning ablutions we would have been born and died thousands of times.

That’s why our present existence in a body that changes from childhood to youth to old age, is unreal and dream-like. Our life in this particular body has a beginning and an end, and for that reason it is a dream. Our life is not unreal in the sense that it does not happen. Obviously it does. If I bash my head against a wall it will hurt, and that pain is real enough. So the unreal factor about the body is not that it doesn’t take place but that it ends.

 That’s the real illusion of material life. One may consider his enjoyment in the material world very substantial. What’s wrong with enjoying? What’s wrong with seeking some happiness, one may ask? The answer is that the pleasure of life always  ends. That’s what’s wrong. Such pleasure can never satisfy the self, because the self is eternal and therefore hungers for lasting pleasure.  That's why no amount of bodily and mental gratification can satisfy the self.