Spiritual FAQs

Q. All senses must be engaged in the devotional service of Krishna.  Kindly inform how the desire of Sex of a human being, can be put into the service of Krishna? – Krishna says in bhagavad gita…(7.11)

A. “I am the strength of the strong, devoid of passion and desire. I am sex life which is not contrary to religious principles, O lord of the Bharatas [Arjuna]“.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada-

The strong man’s strength should be applied to protect the weak, not for personal aggression. Similarly, sex life, according to religious principles (dharma), should be for the propagation of children, not otherwise. The responsibility of parents is then to make their offspring Krishna conscious.

Q. What are the differences between a demigod , Human being, and the Supereme Lord Krishna?

A. Demigods and human beings – both are servants of the supereme Lord Krishna.

Only difference between demigods and humans is that they have some extra powers for some time like here in this world president of  a country has some special powers for some time. When demigods exhaust their pious credits, they again have to take birth on the earth planet.

The  (Krishna) is supreme enjoyer for all the time… and no one can take his position….He is that original person from everyone and everything comes….

Q. What actions can make one a Demigod?

A. By perfoming lots of pious activities,one gets promoted to the heavenly planets.

Those who are simply official students of the Vedas become more interested in offering sacrifices to the different demigods like Indra and Candra. By such endeavor, the worshipers of different demigods are certainly purified of the contamination of the lower qualities of nature and are thereby elevated to the higher planetary systems or heavenly planets known as Maharloka, Janaloka, Tapoloka, etc. Once situated on those higher planetary systems, one can satisfy his senses hundreds of thousands of times better than on this planet.

Bhagavad gita-As It Is( 9.18)

Those situated in the mode of goodness gradually go upward to the higher planets; those in the mode of passion live on the earthly planets; and those in the abominable mode of ignorance go down to the hellish worlds.

PURPORT

In this verse the results of actions in the three modes of nature are more explicitly set forth. There is an upper planetary system, consisting of the heavenly planets, where everyone is highly elevated. According to the degree of development of the mode of goodness, the living entity can be transferred to various planets in this system. The highest planet is Satyaloka, or Brahmaloka, where the prime person of this universe, Lord Brahmä, resides. We have seen already that we can hardly calculate the wondrous condition of life in Brahmaloka, but the highest condition of life, the mode of goodness, can bring us to this.

Bhagavad gita 9.25

Those who worship the demigods will take birth among the demigods; those who worship the ancestors go to the ancestors; those who worship ghosts and spirits will take birth among such beings; and those who worship Me will live with Me.

PURPORT

If one has any desire to go to the moon, the sun or any other planet, one can attain the desired destination by following specific Vedic principles recommended for that purpose, such as the process technically known as darsa-paurnamasi. These are vividly described in the fruitive activities portion of the Vedas, which recommends a specific worship of demigods situated on different heavenly planets. Similarly, one can attain the Pita planets by performing a specific yajna. Similarly, one can go to many ghostly planets and become a Yaksa, Raksa or Pisaca. Pisaca worship is called “black arts” or “black magic.” There are many men who practice this black art, and they think that it is spiritualism, but such activities are completely materialistic. Similarly, a pure devotee, who worships the Supreme Personality of Godhead only, achieves the planets of Vaikuntha and Krishnaloka without a doubt. It is very easy to understand through this important verse that if by simply worshiping the demigods one can achieve the heavenly planets, or by worshiping the Pitas achieve the Pita planets, or by practicing the black arts achieve the ghostly planets, why can the pure devotee not achieve the planet of Krishna or Visnu? Unfortunately many people have no information of these sublime planets where Krishna and Vishnu live, and because they do not know of them they fall down. Even the impersonalists fall down from the brahmajyoti. The Krishna consciousness movement is therefore distributing sublime information to the entire human society to the effect that by simply chanting the Hare Krishna mantra one can become perfect in this life and go back home, back to Godhead.

Q. Who are the Demigods? Can we see them?

A. Demigods are the empowered representatives of Supreme Personality Godhead (Krishna). They are also devotees of Krishna and want to serve Krishna but they also have material desires. They have been given charge of the management of this Universe on the Lord’s behalf. So in heavenly planets where all the facilities for sense enjoyment are available, they enjoy and at the same time render service to Lord Krishna by managing the affairs of this universe.

As far as seeing them is concerned,they are not visible to the mundane vision.We can see them only when we have a fully purified heart or when they themselves want to show themselves to us.

Q. Why the material world/Maya has been created by Lord, when  Lord wants every one to come out of Maya?

A. In Srimad Bhagavatam, second canto  —–  Srila Prabhupada writes in the purport of first verse of ninth chapter (SB 2.9.1)………….

The spirit soul is distinct from the material conception of his life, but he is absorbed in such a material conception because of being influenced by the external energy of the Lord, called atma-maya. The external energy is controlled by the Lord, and the living entities are controlled by the external energy—by the will of the Lord. Therefore, although the living entity is purely conscious in his pure state, he is subordinate to the will of the Lord in being influenced by the external energy of the Lord. In the Bhagavad-gita (15.15) also the same thing is confirmed; the Lord is present within the heart of every living entity, and all the living entity’s consciousness and forgetfulness are influenced by the Lord.

Lord clearly wishes that every living entity be in his pure consciousness as a part and parcel of the Lord and thus be engaged in the loving service of the Lord as he is constitutionally made; but because the living entity is partially independent also, he may not be willing to serve the Lord, but may try to become as independent as the Lord is.

All the nondevotee living entities are desirous of becoming equally as powerful as the Lord, although they are not fit to become so. The living entities are illusioned by the will of the Lord because they wanted to become like Him. Like a person who thinks of becoming a king without possessing the necessary qualification, when the living entity desires to become the Lord Himself, he is put in a condition of dreaming that he is a king.

Therefore the first sinful will of the living entity is to become the Lord, and the consequent will of the Lord is that the living entity forget his factual life and thus dream of the land of utopia where he may become one like the Lord.

The child cries to have the moon from the mother, and the mother gives the child a mirror to satisfy the crying and disturbing child with the reflection of the moon. Similarly, the crying child of the Lord is given over to the reflection, the material world, to lord it over as karmi and to give this up in frustration to become one with the Lord. Both these stages are dreaming illusions only.

There is no necessity of tracing out the history of when the living entity desired this. But the fact is that as soon as he desired it, he was put under the control of atma-maya by the direction of the Lord. Therefore the living entity in his material condition is dreaming falsely that this is “mine” and this is “I.” The dream is that the conditioned soul thinks of his material body as “I” or falsely thinks that he is the Lord and that everything in connection with that material body is “mine.” Thus only in dream does the misconception of “I” and “mine” persist life after life. This continues life after life, as long as the living entity is not purely conscious of his identity as the subordinate part and parcel of the Lord

Q. Lord Rama appeared in treat Yuga, (much before Krishna). Then how Krishna is called the supreme? How Lord Rama is inferior to Krishna?

A. There is no question of inferior, both are Supreme Personality of Godhead. Both are Vishnu tattvas… and have eternal spiritual planet in the spiritual world. And they come again and again into this world to perform their pastimes.

About all the Vishnu tattvas, Brahma ji gives the example of candle…. After many candles are lit by one candle all candle look alike, still original candle which was used to lit all the candle that has special place. And that original candle is Krishna…

Krishnas tu bhagavan svayam…

Krishna is that Original candle from whom all other comes…

Q. How one can take the guidance from Krishna in day to day work and how one can be sure that, he has got the guidance to act in a prescribed way, which shall not bind one to the result of work done?

A. By His representative…. the bonafide spiritual master coming in line of bonafide spiritual masters in a bonafide sampradaya.

Q. Why Krishna being the Lord, could not stop the Mahabharat’s war? What efforts did Krishna make to stop the war?

A. Krishna Himself wanted to root out all unwanted elements…

Still Krishna before starting the war did go as Shantidoot (peace messenger) and tried to convince Dhritrashtra and Duryodhana..Krishna gave many pieces of nice advice and even warned about the outcome of war. But Duryodhana instead of listening to Him, was trying to make Him captive. Duryodhana’s idea was, that if he could catch Krishna, Pandavas will become very weak and they will give up the desire to fight.

Q. Why krishna wanted Arjuna to fight the Mahabharat war? What was the aim behind this fighting?

Q. One of the purpose of coming for Krishna into this world is to establish religion(yada yada hi dharmasya…..). So the aim of this war was to remove the irreligious people.

Srila Prabhupada writes in Bhagavad gita 1.1  purport…..

Both the Pandavas and the sons of Dhritrashtra belong to the same family but Dhritrashtra’s mind is disclosed herein. He deliberately claimed only his sons as Kurus and he separated the sons of Pandu from the family heritage. One can thus understand the specific position of Dhritrashtra in his relationship with his nephews, the sons of Pandu. As in the paddy field the unnecessary plants are taken out, so it is expected from the very beginning of these topics that in the religious field of Kurushetra, where the father of religion, Shri Krishna, was present, the unwanted plants like Dhritrashtra’s son Duryodhana and others would be wiped out and the thoroughly religious persons headed by Yudhishtra would be established by the Lord.

Krishna would have killed everyone Himself. As He showed, everybody was going in to His Universal form. But Krishna loves to give credit to His devotees and that is the reason, He engaged Arjuna….(nimitta matra bhava savyasachi……….) in this fight, so that whole world can glorify Arjuna.

Q. Why is there suffering?

A. The soul, although originally pure, is covered by illusion and ignorance when he comes to the material world. In this condition he forgets his eternal, blissful position with Krishna in the spiritual world and identifies with the material body.

When the soul thus identifies with the material body and material existence, he experiences the suffering inherent in matter. Here in the material world there is suffering from the body and mind, suffering from others, and suffering from nature. For the body there is birth, old age, disease, and death—all suffering conditions foreign to the soul.