I was scanning the TV recently and noticed a considerable amount of ranting and raving on the homosexual issue that seems to be the topic de jour. I found it rather disturbing that so much energy was put into a topic of this nature. Meditating so deeply on what someone does in the privacy of their own home seems not only futile but vulgar. For example, I have a rather lusty tongue, what I consider a personal and private struggle and hope that I would not be judged on my sincerity or genuine desire to progress spiritually because of this. And I am sure that many of us have personal struggles of lust, anger, greed etc that we are trying to rise above but not always successfully. Who is to say who’s personal trial is better or worse than another and why spend time meditating on another’s struggle when there is much work to do in my own heart. I think our time is better spent engaging in activities that will soften our heart so we can feel compassion for our fellow men not judging who is doing what and where. Are we not supposed to love and support one another on our path of purification, that is difficult enough without having to put any energy in to defending it. Which leads me to my title, what’s love got to do with it? My understanding is that we are trying to attain the highest love and we should try to keep that in the foremost of our minds. I believe that love and lust have nothing in common, although I do believe that you should only have sex with someone that you love, love and sex are not synonymous with each other. Sex desire is a burden and to spend any energy on how someone else is trying to deal with it will only prolong our own struggle. Are gay’s and lesbians also human beings with feelings and frustrations just like everyone else? Who is to say my desires are more correct or better than anyone else’s just because I happen to be attracted to the opposite sex? Does someone who is different than me become a lesser person and have to adapt to my personal form of sense enjoyment to make them acceptable? I think we would be better off to find someone who has risen above the burden’s of material desires and follow closely in those footsteps smothering the dust of those feet on our heads. I feel so fortunate that I have the company of such persons who truly care about me despite the multitude of deviant desires that reside in my heart. I encourage all to come to Audarya dhama and absorb oneself in the pervading atmosphere of such a soul who is truly above and beyond such pettiness. When immersed in such a place perspective becomes clear and the goal evident.
Ratna, it seems like you're saying that an inordinate amount of time and energy is being spent on this particular issue. Perhaps that is so, but it obviously still needs to be addressed (repeatedly, unfortunately) because there are still many devotees who understand the issue in a fundamentalistic way.
So while I certainly agree that judging others for their chosen lifestyle is a waste of time (at best) I don't think that's what's been going on here on TV. The spirit of it has been to defend the choice of individuals to live according to their conditioning in a way that can help them to pursue spiritual life. In doing so there arises the necessity to speak out against fundamentalist interpretations of scripture and/or the words of previous sadhus like Prabhupada.
One final point: I strongly doubt anyone here is meditating on what anybody does in their bedroom, gay or straight. And neither is anyone advocating this; the discussion is about a social issue that needs to be understood and dealt with because it affects many devotees in our sanga and beyond.
I guess Citta, my question is when it goes beyond a discussion and someone is just trying to force their point of view incessantly. If we respond to that we are only adding more fuel to the fire.
I guess Citta, my question is when it goes beyond a discussion and someone is just trying to force their point of view incessantly. If we respond to that we are only adding more fuel to the fire.
We definitely don't want to add fuel to the fires of ignorance, but arguments with stubborn people can be useful. With regard to discussions with those outside of our sanga where there is a clear element of someone not listening and considering other points of view, Guru Maharaja has said before that generally we cannot hope to change the opinions of those we are arguing with, but that there are those who are watching the argument from the periphery who may be more openminded. If we do engage in such arguments we do it hoping to influence the openminded folks, also with a view to publicly establish more progressive streams of thought in the face of fanaticism. Here on the TV, if someone is just trying to force their point of view incessantly, after it has been clearly established that they are just arguing for argument's sake all we can really do is just ignore them. :Just Kidding:
arguments with stubborn people can be useful.
At what point is it an argument with a stubborn person or allowing a toxic person to spew their points of view into the atmosphere. Not everything should be given equal air time.
At what point is it an argument with a stubborn person or allowing a toxic person to spew their points of view into the atmosphere. Not everything should be given equal air time.
True, not everything should be given equal air time, but the fact is that some of the people with the most regressive attitudes also have the loudest voices and are already putting their opinions out there as truth. Should they be allowed to be the only voice in the marketplace? If so then many who would otherwise be attracted to Gaudiya Vaisnavism will be turned off, and in some cases devotees who would otherwise flourish in spiritual life will dry up due to presentations of GV that make it sound like they are social deviants.
Should they be allowed to be the only voice in the marketplace?
Okay you got me there, there were some great responses that came out it.
Short statistics:
The topic started by Maharaj “Siksastakam, Verse 1” is 15 pages, with 216 replies and received 3497 visits since 17th Oct. 2008.
The topic started by Gaura-Vijaya prabhu “gay couple devotees being acknowledged publicly” is 20 pages long, with 290 replies and received 4027 visits since 18th March 2009.
You can judge yourself by the statistics which are obvious… read them the way you wish and judge by them what is prevailing… and why.
Short statistics:The topic started by Maharaj “Siksastakam, Verse 1” is 15 pages, with 216 replies and received 3497 visits since 17th Oct. 2008.
The topic started by Gaura-Vijaya prabhu “gay couple devotees being acknowledged publicly” is 20 pages long, with 290 replies and received 4027 visits since 18th March 2009.
You can judge yourself by the statistics which are obvious… read them the way you wish and judge by them what is prevailing… and why.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, Yamuna, but you might want to consider this:
Number of Yamuna's posts on the "gay couples" thread: 45
Number of Yamuna's posts on the Siksastakam thread: 2
The statistics speak for themselves, don't they?
Sure, for Shikshashtakam I can rather read and learn, for the other topic I have opinion to defend which happens to be the opinion of many acharyas in our parampara nowadays and in the past. I was sure that you will give this apect of the statistics, the personal one, but I am not going to do the same, don't worry. No desire to use again the principle of the mirror due to the bad taste afterwards.
The statistics do speak for themselves, especially for those who know how to read them.
Sure, for Shikshashtakam I can rather read and learn, for the other topic I have opinion to defend which happens to be the opinion of many acharyas in our parampara nowadays and in the past. I was sure that you will give this apect of the statistics, the personal one, but I am not going to do the same, don't worry. No desire to use again the principle of the mirror due to the bad taste afterwards.The statistics do speak for themselves, especially for those who know how to read them.
I pointed out your statistics to illustrate that statistics don't really mean much in terms of people's level of interest in social issues versus core spiritual topics. Everybody can read a thread like Siksastakam and learn from it; most devotees do just that and don't have enough to say to up posts. And on the other thread, the devotees were doing the same as you: expressing and/or defending their opinions, which, I might add, concur with the opinion of their guru. Enough said.
I pointed out your statistics to illustrate that statistics don't really mean much in terms of people's level of interest in social issues versus core spiritual topics. Everybody can read a thread like Siksastakam and learn from it; most devotees do just that and don't have enough to say to up posts. And on the other thread, the devotees were doing the same as you: expressing and/or defending their opinions, which, I might add, concur with the opinion of their guru. Enough said.
Do you really think that that statistics don't mean much in terms of people's level of interest? That they don’t show something and that it is exactly the level of interest and emphasis?
Nowadays rating is everything. It does show something and that was what I wanted to emphasize giving this statistic here, in our family circle. Do you think that I am not aware of the quantity of my posts in that topic so that you have to point it out to me? Can’t you at least suppose that I am aware and search beyond it - what do I want to say then without pointing a finger to me? We all know that when we point a finger to someone we inevitably point 3 other fingers to ourselves. In my post I spoke about us, because it’s us here who have created that statistic, nobody else. This is our statistic. And when I speak about us I do include myself in this calculation. While in your post you started again the old song of “you you and YOU” somehow excluding yourself. We all did create that statistic so at least let’s look at it with some sincerity and draw some hopefully good conclusions.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to close the other topic (as you tried to close this one with “enough said”). I have more things to say and questions towards me there to respond. I would like us to be more aware about the whole when diving into a particular topic… and more aware about the balance. This is what I realized in my meditation during these weeks of absence. Because many times when diving deep into a topic we do lose vision about the whole picture.
I deliberately withdrew myself from that hot topic when it was at page 14. Needed some time to meditate on it without arguing, just to sit quietly and meditate on it. I also wanted to see if my withdrawal would slow down the topic and the passion of the activists in it. I wanted to see what if there would not be any more the main opponent so maybe since the others there have similar opinions the topic will just naturally slow down and eventually close. What I see now upon my return is that nothing like this had happen. Even with my absence there in the role of “the narrow minded, misinformed, prejudiced, homophobic etc. etc.” the topic still grew and added 6 more pages to its anyway huge volume. That does show something. And to me it shows that sexuality and the sexual preferences of the gays are indeed overemphasized. By themselves. This was one of my points in my posts to that thread and it got completely confirmed by the way in which it continued even upon my withdrawal. I do agree that sexuality is an important topic which has to be discussed openly in order to form a good and well balanced vision about it. This is what the author of Kama Sutra did – he openly described and discussed the sexual life and inclinations of mankind in detail, but he also discussed kama as a whole, and also in some very strong philosophical frames, never forgetting to keep the line of siddhanta and the right advise about it. And what I see as a kind of misbalance here is exactly this over emphasizing one aspect of sexuality, i.e. homosexuals and the problems they face. Do you think that the heterosexuals being majority have less or lesser problems? Yes, problems differ, but if we speak about the quantity and the gravity of the problems do you think that they are less or less important than the problems of the gays?
When I mentioned that I have written an article about “The Philosophy of Kama Sutra”, some leading devotees wrote that the Vaishnava community would shy away from me for doing so. When I asked may I present the article to your attention so that you can say do you really shy away from me for writing it after you read it… a silence followed. But when I left the topic “gay couple devotees being recognized publicly” no silence followed. One more statistical observation. Activists prefer to dive deeper into the details of the issue, but refuse to try to rise a bit and look at the whole picture when maybe exactly this can give the clue.
I do appreciate the work of the author of Kama Sutra and I do consider it a scripture with all the necessary assets for a scripture – given an authentic parampara of the descending of this knowledge coming down from Shiva, keeping the line of the siddhanta and the spirit of the revealed scriptures and keeping the balanced vision and balanced emphasis on the details without losing the vision about the whole. And that is something that I think we missed here… we missed the whole picture for the sake of overemphasizing an aspect and a detail. As the author of Kama Sutra writes “discernment concerns apparent as well as invisible things”. He also writes “One must behave according to the instructions of those who know the Scriptures”. Those who know the scriptures never advocated homosexuality and neither did the author of Kama Sutra. But he did advocate in the last and concluding verses of KS that even though one has the freedom to chose, he should be able to distinguish and through distinguishing make a correct choice.
But first he defined kama:
11. “Kama signifies the mental inclination (pravritti) towards the pleasures of touch, sight, taste, and smell, to the extent that the practitioner derives satisfaction from it.”
Kama is the perception of the power of illusion (avidya or maya) materialized in an object, since from perception is born desire (kama), attraction (akarshana), ardor (samvega). The tendency to possess oneself of these objects of the senses is eroticism (kama).
12. “Particularly concerned with touch, closely connected to selfish pleasure, eroticism is an experience that finds its finality in itself. This is the most general aspect of Eros.”
The definition of kama is at the beginning of KS, and the final conclusion is also there, but repeated once again in the concluding 6 verses, so that among so many details one does not lose the path and gist. Exactly in order to protect the reader from losing the whole picture amongst the details, the author explains:
41. “The fact of something being mentioned in the sacred books does not mean that it can be practiced.”
And then the final conclusion is given in order to avoid free speculations:
53:
“Reasonable people, aware of the importance of virtue, money, and pleasure, as well as that of social convention, will not let themselves be led astray by passion.”
Yes, he describes homosexuality along with many other aspect of sexuality, including also sodomism, sado-mazo etc., but does not approve or advocate it and reminds this once again in the concluding 6 verses of KS:
54:
“These strange practices for stimulating eroticism have been described in accordance with the requirements of the subject dealt with, after which each must strive to make a choice.
56:
Vatsyayana composed the Kama Sutra according to the rules of holy scripture and in conformity with tradition, inspired by the work of the Babhravyas.
57:
From the beginning to the end, from youthful chastity to final abnegation, one must succeed in life’s pilgrimage and not live to satisfy one’s passions.
58:
He who wishes to preserve virtue, wealth, and love in this world and the next must have a thorough knowledge on this treatise and, at the same time, master his senses.
59:
A shrewd man, expert in one thing and another, considering both ethics and his own interests, must not be a sensualist thirsty for sex, but establish a stable marriage.”
This is the final verse and conclusion of Kama Sutra, the scripture dedicated to kama in all it’s details and aspects. By marriage the author means of course a heterosexual union.
This is the art of being able to dive into details and still keep the vision of the right direction and the whole. And this is what we missed somehow here and what the statistics I pointed were meant to remind us.
for the other topic I have opinion to defend which happens to be the opinion of many acharyas in our parampara nowadays and in the past.
I am just wondering what qualifications you have to represent the opinion of many acharyas in our parampara. You might be wiser to listen more closely to a real representative and also be sensitive to the responses you get when asserting your opinions. It is okay for you to have your opinion but when it is not well received better to keep it to yourself.
I am just wondering what qualifications you have to represent the opinion of many acharyas in our parampara. You might be wiser to listen more closely to a real representative and also be sensitive to the responses you get when asserting your opinions. It is okay for you to have your opinion but when it is not well received better to keep it to yourself.
I cannot respond to your wondering what qualifications I have since my qualifications are not the object of my meditation. The object of my meditation is my beloved and my preoccupation is of the sincerity of my hankering for the Truth since Shridhara Maharaj says that "sincere hankering for the truth is our guide". Regarding the qualifications, Krishna promised in Gita that he is the one who alone gives the qualifications as a fringe benefit according to one's surrender. I am meditating on the goal, not on the fringe benefits of pursuing it which will come to me or not according to my surrender to the highest goal and according to his sweet will.
I would not be here if I was not seeing Tripurari Maharaj as a sincere and real representative so no need to remind this to me. But what I've learned from my Gurudevas for 20 years is that whenever I am doubting something, I can rely on 4 supporting points and they have to be in accordance with each other. These 4 support points are Guru, sadhu, shastra and Paramatma. There are also other real representatives and we should consider their opinion as well. Our Guru is a real representative, but there are other Gurus (including his own Gurus) and they are real representatives as well and still having opposing opinion.
As a devotee most probably you know the law of karma well - if you are telling someone that if his opinion is not well received he should rather keep it for himself, this is what you will receive back from the environment which always responds as a mirror. Also saying this you are not aware that you are contradicting yourself - gay activists are not following what you are advising me here. So don't be surprised if the society does not want to hear much of the opinions of the gay activists - obviously it responds to their attitude according to the law of karma. It was perfectly shown here in our forum how does it work and why. This forum is named Tattva-viveka, deliberation on the Truth, and I came here for this. On many topics I am a reader or an inquirer, but there are also topics on which I dare to give opinion and I dare to try to explain it and defend it. I consider this both as my duty and as my right.
God conscousness vs. society consciousness - this is what Shridhara Maharaj says. This is why I gave the statistics, to remind us about this.
What do we want more - to transform our inner hankering towards the highest goal or to transform the society? Do we want to fight for relative goals or for absolute goals? We have a certain amount of time and energy, each of us, and we have to decide in what we want to invest them. We have to choose, every moment we are making a choice – in what do I invest my prana, my time and my life energy. Shridhara Maharaj says: “absolute and the relative are two different classes of interest. And we find more importance in the absolute interest. We must be sincere to our own creed.” If we claim inside our hearts that our highest goal and our priority is the spiritual goal, but in our life we spend more time and energy defending relative goals, then what is really our priority? Or maya had covered once again our vision and we are living again in a sweet illusion of being on the side of the absolute while fighting for relative goals? Shridhara Maharaj advises us: “when there is a clash between the relative and the absolute standpoint, the relative must be left aside, and the absolute accepted”. He also warns us that party mentality is most detrimental for spiritual advancement. SM says: “Krsna says, "Give up everything. Come to Me directly." This is the revolutionary way. This is absolute. And this is relative: "Stick to your own clan. Don't leave them." There is party consciousness and God consciousness; society consciousness and God consciousness. God consciousness is absolute. If society consciousness hinders the development of God consciousness, it should be left behind. “Any other course will be hypocrisy, and it will check my real progress. If we are sincere in our attempt, then no one in the world can check us or deceive us; we can only deceive ourselves (na hi kalyana-krt kascid durgatim tata gacchati ) [bg. 6.40]. We must be true to our own selves, and true to the Supreme Lord. We must be sincere.”
While fighting for gay’s rights we shall develop gay consciousness, party consciousness, not Krishna consciousness. While fighting for relative goals we shall be gradually losing from our vision the absolute goal. Because this is how maya works to make us forget the Center and join a party. Working for that party we are not working for the Center.
Besides being excruciatingly tiring, you are also out of touch, although I don't know how conscious you are about it.
You love to argue so much that you don't really care what's being talked about, and whether you do that on purpose or not, you never have one point, but a couple, so that if people silence your arguments on one, you can always say: "No, but my point was another", and go on on that front, and on and on and on and on.
One moment you are opposing heterosexual attraction and life as sanctioned and blessed in the Vedas to the homosexual way as sinful; another moment you are opposing talking about the whole subject altogether to talking about the Absolute Truth.
Don't you think or imply that we are the misled ones here. We are not "fighting" for gay rights, or for anything. Actually, just because we are trying to be absorbed in the Absolute, the Infinite, the Inconceivable, we try at least to keep our discussions and approach to life open minded, while guided by our siddhanta.
We are not "fighting" for gay rights, we are just being spiritualists, which in time, or even by being in the company of true spiritualists, leads to becoming compassionate, flexible, open minded, harmonizing. This would translate 500 years ago in seeing nothing wrong if a Muslim or an outcast enters the temple, and nowadays in recognizing equal rights to people of alternative sexualities. It's not us who have invented that you are not the body, or the importance of sadhu-sanga, or of Guru, etc. It's just the same siddhanta that is being applied in different ways according to time, place and circumstance, both for the preaching, but most of all, for our own upliftment, since our present conditioning is connected with the (socio-political, cultural, etc) environment that we are living in.
But you can't seem to see all this, and that's why I say you are out of touch.
All you really care about is to argue. I argue therefore I am. The moment everybody here ignores you, you won't have any more ground to stand on. It feels that the only way you have to feel alive and have relationships with people is by antagonizing them, and I don't mean to talk down to you or do some cheap psychotherapy. I mean to address what affects us and how.
It's ok to have doubts and questions, as the Bhagavatam says almost at the beiginning (SB 1.1.19), or as GM says by paraphrasing Saunaka Rsi, "Your very questions are the answer." However, BG 4.34 tells us how to destroy doubts and obtain knowledge: through service.
You not only don't have a service attitude, although it's difficult to express it in a forum, but not impossible, you do the exact opposite, by aggravating the very source you come to for knowledge. If someone is sincere in his or her quest, after the second or third question or rebuttal of the same nature, they will try to meditate on the answers received from the authoritative source of knowledge, and try to see how it is that way; try to serve until you understand and "know". Or realize, because, by the way, knowledge and realization are not the same thing. That's the qualification that Ratna was talking about. You have to realize the knowledge contained in the sastra, not use it, or abuse it, as you tend to do with your research work. If you haven't yet, then listen to those who have realized that knowledge, and who you have approached in the first place. But all you seem to care about is to be right or at least heard, and that may bring about interesting conversations, in that those who try to give you answers may find out stuff themselves that they didn't know, or they may indirectly instruct others who had the same doubts, but after a while, your arrogant, passive aggressive demeanor is all that's left, and people would really love to ignore you, but you always say that one thing that's off, and triggers someone or other to speak up about it. I just fell into this trap right now, and you seem to feed on this sort of interaction that in the long term becomes unhealthy.
When you can't "come out victorious" with your point, or not even with the side B of your original point, then you play victim and say that we silence you instead of clearing your doubts, and that's the last thing I want. I want you to reply and have the LAST word and feel good, or deal with the silence that follows. I'm out of this machine.
While fighting for gay’s rights we shall develop gay consciousness, party consciousness, not Krishna consciousness. While fighting for relative goals we shall be gradually losing from our vision the absolute goal. Because this is how maya works to make us forget the Center and join a party. Working for that party we are not working for the Center.
What you seem to miss is that the focus here is on the center. There's no gay activism here, or fighting for gay rights (except, perhaps for Vamsidhari, from whom we would expect--no, accept-- nothing less). This makes many of your posts appear misplaced (they may be more appropriately placed on a GALVA forum, where you would not be treated as gently as here), makes your arguments appear toned deaf, and makes you sometimes appear unreasonable.
This is the same kind of accusation made against Hridayananda Maharaja in other places. He has made it clear, as I think several of us here have, that his point is to find a way to facilitate a broader number of people who find themselves drawn to Gaudiya vaishnavism to remain in the company of devotees and make progress in their attempt to find and return to that center. As we have seen over the last 40-odd years, among those souls who seem to have some sukriti that opens them to Mahaprabhu's message are many who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered. Why should we not treat them as human beings, indeed, as devotees, just as we do anyone else. The evidence that most of these people don't willfully choose those circumstances is more than just strong.
So our point is that we should encourage them from where they are. If someone has a background that arouses faith in the holy names and the association of devotees, that trumps everything else, in my book. That's more important than that they were born into a family of meat eaters, as I was, or into a culture that raises its children to drink and exploit others for sexual or other gratification. After all, Narada Muni says, "loke vyavayamisa-madya-seva, nitya hi jantoh": sex indulgence, meat eating and intoxication seem eternally to be part of the conditioned soul's nature. But that's not their real nature, and whatever devotees do to arouse those conditioned souls' real nature as eternal servants of Krishna, even though it may not directly confront their anarthas at first, should not be seen as encouraging those anarthas. Rather, we tell them what we understand of Mahaprabhu's philosophy and encourage them to take up the practices he gave, beginning with hearing and chanting, confident that sincere engagement in service to the holy names and the message of the Bhagavatam is competent at removing those anarthas. In the meantime, we treat them as friends, as devotees whose dedication may have lapsed, whether they were born black, brown, gay, Methodist, or Bulgarian.
You keep telling us how highly you regard Tripurari Maharaja. And we appreciate that. (I'd guess that if you and I were to meet, we'd like each other and find that we have much in common, including our regard for our Swami and your Narayana Maharaja.) However, you seem not to have similar regard for his associates, those who have made helping him in his service to guru and Gauranga central to their lives. Does that not strike you as problematic?
Since Syamasundara and Babru have adequately and eloquently responded I only have one more thing to add. We are not fighting for any particular cause we are just opposed to bigotry in any form and don't see any benefit in fostering a holier than thou attitude.
Since Syamasundara and Babru have adequately and eloquently responded I only have one more thing to add. We are not fighting for any particular cause we are just opposed to bigotry in any form and don't see any benefit in fostering a holier than thou attitude.
We are not "fighting" for gay rights, or for anything. Actually, just because we are trying to be absorbed in the Absolute, the Infinite, the Inconceivable, we try at least to keep our discussions and approach to life open minded, while guided by our siddhanta.We are not "fighting" for gay rights, we are just being spiritualists, which in time, or even by being in the company of true spiritualists, leads to becoming compassionate, flexible, open minded, harmonizing. This would translate 500 years ago in seeing nothing wrong if a Muslim or an outcast enters the temple, and nowadays in recognizing equal rights to people of alternative sexualities. It's not us who have invented that you are not the body, or the importance of sadhu-sanga, or of Guru, etc. It's just the same siddhanta that is being applied in different ways according to time, place and circumstance, both for the preaching, but most of all, for our own upliftment, since our present conditioning is connected with the (socio-political, cultural, etc) environment that we are living in.
Wow! What a premise! Nicely put!
You keep telling us how highly you regard Tripurari Maharaja. And we appreciate that. (I'd guess that if you and I were to meet, we'd like each other and find that we have much in common, including our regard for our Swami and your Narayana Maharaja.) However, you seem not to have similar regard for his associates, those who have made helping him in his service to guru and Gauranga central to their lives. Does that not strike you as problematic?
It strikes me as problematic, and even more problematic I find that her opinion is often at odds with Guru Maharaja's even after he has presented a broader understanding of the issue. And especially after he has expressed that her understanding needs upgrading. This is not what I would call submissive inquiry, and I find it rather unattractive.