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WORLD March 7, 1999 VNN3261 Krishnasoft's Newsletter March 1999 BY KRISHNASOFT  USA, Mar 7 (VNN) — TABLE OF CONTENTS:(1) Who is a Devotee of Lord Krsna? (2) Xena-Krsna: Modern-age Mayavada!!! (3) Krishna Software and the Y2K Issue (4) Our Editorial Policy and Other Info 1. WHO IS A DEVOTEE OF LORD KRSNA? [The following is the fourth of a series of articles to present to the benefits of the Srimad-Bhagavatam. The multimedia Krsna CD published by Krishnasoft presents the summary of the 10th Canto with parts from the 5th Canto of this great spiritual masterpiece.] Lord Krsna is understood ONLY by devotional service. As we pointed out in the last month's issue, the only reason we are in the material world is because we are opposed to devotional service of Lord Krsna, and by once again taking up devotional service as it is received from a bona-fide devotee [Vaisnava], we again regain our original status of eternity, knowledge, and bliss: "The fallen, conditioned living entity, trapped by the external energy, loiters in the material world, but if by good fortune he meets a bona fide representative of the Lord who gives him the seed of devotional service, and if he takes advantage of such a guru, or representative of God, he receives the bhakti-lata-bija, the seed of devotional service. If he properly cultivates Krsna consciousness, he is then gradually elevated to the spiritual world." (Bhag. 7.9.21) So the million dollar question is: Who is a bona-fide devotee of Lord Krsna? (a) Someone wearing saffron, tilak, and having a shaved head? (b) Someone whose name ends in "Dasa"/"Dasi" or has a long name like "Maharishi 1008 Superguru"? (c) Someone who is initiated by a bona-fide spiritual master? (d) Some who is saying "Krsna", "Visnu", etc.? (e) Someone who has read the scriptures and is a scholar and expert in the scriptures? (f) None of the above? The answer is (f)-- none of the above. According to Srimad-Bhagavatam, a devotee is SIMPLY one who is engaged in devotional service. Anyone can wear the dress of a devotee including demons. In Kali-yuga (the current age), people make a business using the dress of a devotee. Anyone can have any name he likes [especially on the internet]. People can call themselves whatever they like, but the only real thing is their consciousness. Similarly, a devotee may appear like a materialist in name and dress, but within his heart he may have genuine love of Krsna. A person may have studied the scriptures yet have no interest in serving Lord Krsna. Even great exalted scholars have failed to understand Lord Krsna: "Lord Krsna is not properly understood even by such exalted personalities as Lord Siva and Lord Brahma, what to speak of ordinary men, but by His causeless mercy He bestows the benediction of devotion upon His devotees, who can thus understand Krsna as He is." (Bhag. 7.15.77) Mayavadis, who are definitely not devotees, can say the name of 'Krsna' and 'Visnu' and poison one's spiritual life: "'One should not hear anything about Krsna from a non-Vaisnava. Milk touched by the lips of a serpent has poisonous effects; similarly, talks about Krsna given by a non-Vaisnava are also poisonous.' One must be a bona-fide devotee, and then he can preach and impress devotional service upon his listeners." (Bhag. 6.17.40) NOTE: a non-Vaisnava is simply one who is not engaged in devotional service and is thus under the external or illusory energy. Whatever a person concocts under the illusory energy is simply more illusion and cannot benefit anyone. And a person may be initiated by a bona-fide spiritual master, yet be engaged in materialism instead of devotional service. Such a person cannot enter the kingdom of God, for this is reserved only for those who want to serve Lord Krsna: "Only one who executes his spiritual life under the direction of the spiritual master can achieve the mercy of Krsna. Yasya prasadad bhagavat-prasadah. If one desires to advance in spiritual life but he acts whimsically, not following the orders of the spiritual master, HE HAS NO SHELTER." (Bhag. 7.12.11) [editor's emphasis] The ultimate purpose of all living entities is to engage in devotional service once again. So without taking up devotional service, everything else is useless-- the name, the dress, reading the scriptures, the initiation ceremony, etc.: "Almost everything going on in this world as religion is devoid of any ideas of devotional service and is therefore condemned by the verdict of Srimad-Bhagavatam. Without devotional service, so-called religious principles are only cheating." (Bhag. 7.11.7) No one can cheat Lord Krsna. If someone thinks that just by performance of the initiation ceremony without engagement in devotional service he is guaranteed to enter the eternal kingdom of God, he is living in a hallucination. The ritualistic ceremony helps to remember our vow to execute the spiritual master's instructions but we see that Narada Rsi, Dhruva Maharaja, Prahlada Maharaja and other great personalities attained perfection without the ritualistic ceremony by just following the orders of great Vaisnavas. The all-merciful Lord Sri Krsna is always ready to help anyone who has the slightest interest in performing devotional service. For those who are interested in performing devotional service, they are never bewildered and the Lord personally sends the spiritual master to them: "The Lord sends the spiritual master to train a devotee, and when the devotee is advanced, the Lord acts as the spiritual master within his heart....To those who are constantly devoted to worship Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me." (Bhag. 7.15.76) The instructions of the spiritual master is a rope for the conditioned living entities who are drowning in the dark well of the material world: "For such a man to get out is extremely difficult unless he is helped by a strong person, the spiritual master, who helps the fallen person with the strong rope of spiritual instructions. A fallen person should take advantage of this rope, and then the spiritual master, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna, will take him out of the dark well." (Bhag. 7.6.13) 2. XENA-KRSNA: MODERN-AGE MAYAVADA!!! In the Srimad-Bhagavatam, Srila Prabhupada spends a lot of time and effort to refute Mayavadi and athiestic speculations on the Supreme Personality of Godhead Lord Sri Krsna, the Absolute Truth. The greatest problem of such speculations is they deprive us engagement in pure devotional service which is the one panacea for all the woes of everyone's lives. Sometimes the Mayavadi attacks are subtle. There are different flavors of Mayavadis, but the basic idea of the Mayavadis is that the impersonal Brahman is the source of everything including Lord Krsna, Goddess Kali, Ganesha, Lord Siva, Hanuman, the living entities, and all other forms. The Mayavadis believe these forms to be illusory, being but temporary manifestations of the impersonal Brahman effulgence. Some even worship them. Their idea is that individuality is not a fact and so we can worship any form to get whatever benefit you seek whilst we are not merged in Brahman. With such a misunderstanding, there is no possibility for the Mayavadi to engage in or aspire to engage in eternal, loving devotional service to Lord Sri Krsna. Although we, at Krishna Software, do not make it our business to implicate ourselves with the producers of the Xena-Krishna serial, the misportrayal and misunderstanding of Lord Krsna is of concern for all devotees. The fictional idea that Lord Krsna is a just a supreme *manifestation* of the deity conveys the idea of the impersonal Brahman being absolute not Krsna. [This is indicated in other ways as well.] Lord Krsna is NOT just a *manifestation* of the Supreme Personality of Godhead; this simply implies Krsna is the supreme form but NOT the Absolute Truth. The Srimad-Bhagavatam condemns this interpretation since the truth is that everything is manifested from Krsna including the impersonal Brahman. Krsna is not just a supreme form but the Absolute Truth. The impersonalism is conveyed throughout the show. At the end of the show, Kali becomes Xena (or Xena becomes Kali). What happened to the eternal individuality of Xena and Kali? Did they merge into one??? Given the speculation that everything is coming from the impersonal Brahman, it's no big deal for the Mayavadis to commit rasa-abhasa-- mixing up different mellows of devotional service-- Rama's pastimes, Krsna's pastimes, Hanuman, Kali etc. They have no knowledge about the eternal nature of devotional service on different Vaikuntha planets because for them, there are no Vaikuntha planets. Mayavadis want to merge into the supreme Brahman to become one with God and kill the eternal devotional service mood as promoted by both the Lord and His confidential devotees. Just by assisting in the service of Hanuman, one can be promoted to Vaikuntha and associate with Lord Rama eternally. Hanuman is always engaged in devotional service. Is this service attitude being promoted in the Xena show? If so, then why is Xena punching out Hanuman??? Why does Hanuman drop his devotional service to Lord Rama and assist Xena's whims? This shows complete defiance of devotional service and blasphemy of devotees. To watch the blasphemy of devotees or perform it or promote it is a major offense. So one may say, "it had some faults of impersonalism but it spread the name of Krsna to millions of people." This is nonsense as indicated in the Bhagavatam (3.19.33): "Sanatana Gosvami, therefore, has especially warned that one should not hear anything about the personality of the Lord from the lips of a nondevotee. Nondevotees are considered to be like serpents; as milk is poisoned by a serpent's touch, so, although the narration of the pastimes of the Lord is as pure as milk, when administered by serpentlike nondevotees it becomes poisonous... Once one is associated with impersonalists, he can never understand the personal feature of the Lord and His transcendental pastimes." Nondevotee means one not engaged in devotional service; i.e., having no connection with devotional service as coming down through the disciplic succession. A devotee engages things in Krsna's service and everyone and everything engaged in assisting in Krsna's service is purified. Similarly, a nondevotee with the malicious intention to defame the Supreme position of the Absolute Truth, Lord Krsna, poisons everything and everyone who assist in his desires. Thus, every single frame of the current Xena-Krsna serial should be rejected because the purpose is defamation of Lord Krsna. It may not be apparent to most of the producers of the show but their so-called "Indian expert" is a Mayavadi. So one may say, "Not many people will really deeply analyze things through the eyes of the scriptures as the audience is neophyte at best." This is also nonsense since the mentality and intentions of the person behind the work shows up in his works. This association has a big impact whether someone understands the subject matter or not. We have seen it practically that Srila Prabhupada's books although imperfectly composed from the grammatical point-of-view caused many people to become devotees of Lord Krsna. On the other hand, so many so-called 'scholars' and 'experts' on Hinduism with no devotion wrote books with more elaborate logic and grammar on the same subject matter and no one became a devotee. Anyone who belittles Krsna and His devotees' position and eternal devotional service is a nondevotee. Srimad-Bhagavatam (3.19.37) is very clear regarding treating all forms as temporary or part of the illusory energy or maya: "The impersonalist philosophers cannot understand the activities of the Lord. They think that all His activities are maya. Therefore, they are called Mayavadis... Some impersonalists are reluctant to hear Srimad-Bhagavatam, although many of them are now taking an interest in it just for monetary gain. Actually, however, they have no faith. On the contrary, they describe it in their own way. We should not hear, therefore, from the Mayavadis. We have to hear from Suta Gosvami or Maitreya who actually present the narrations as they are, and only then can we relish the pastimes of the Lord; OTHERWISE THE EFFECTS ON THE NEOPHYTE AUDIENCE WILL BE POISONOUS." [editor's emphasis] If you wrongly teach a young person mathematics like 2 + 2 = 5 and 3 + 3 = 9, then to correctly teach him is more difficult than to teach another person with no knowledge of mathematics. You will have to unteach him what he has improperly learned! So it's better to not hear about Krsna at all than to hear from a Mayavadi. The best is to hear from a devotee. For example, Srila Prabhupada's chanting the mahamantra caused many drug-addicted hippies to also imitate and chant the Hare Krsna mahamantra. Since the hippies heard from a bona fide devotee, their repitition of the holy names purified them and whoever heard them in turn. Thus, it's better to hear from a drug-addicted hippy who has heard from a devotee than to hear from a so-called 'expert' on Hinduism who has not heard from a devotee. [Thanks to WVA and other devotees for the details about the Mayavadi Xena-Krsna serial. Please send a protest of the Xena-Krsna show to Universal Studios: EMAIL: smay@clear.net.nz, FAX (preferred): (818)866-1402 ] 3. KRISHNA SOFTWARE AND THE Y2K ISSUE All software that does not involve computations using dates and can somehow represent years after 1999 is automatically Y2K compatible. The Y2K problems are due to the date being misrepresented in some software packages and some specialized hardware after the year 1999. MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows '95, Windows '98, and Windows NT are all Y2K compatible software packages and all PCs (IBM and clones) are Y2K compatible. The "badly-written" software packages that used only 2-digits to perform computations with the date (for example, 99 instead of 1999) will consequently run into problems because computations with these dates will cause errors after 1999. For example, if you owe someone $100/year for 4 years and the current date is January 2000 then the bad software will compute (00-96)*$100 = $-9,600; i.e., he now owes you $9600 intead of you owing him $400: (2000-1996)*$100 = $400. MS-DOS and operating systems based on it like Windows 3.x will run smoothly till the year 2108 AD when their filing system becomes unable to handle dates. Krishna Software products like the Multimedia Bhagavad-gita CD and Multimedia Krsna CD do not use computations of dates so they are Y2K compatible. The instructions in these CDs are eternal and not based on dates. You can set your computer back to 2000 BC or 2000 AD and the software will run all the same. And even if your computer cannot handle the current date, you can set your computer back to the year that it can handle and reboot the machine and run the software. 4. OUR EDITORIAL POLICY AND OTHER INFO Krishna Software Inc. is dedicated to help people become peaceful and happy via spiritual science presented using modern multimedia technology. Our editorial policy as well as our mission is stated in the Srimad-Bhagavatam (10.2.37 Purport): "One should engage in practical service to the Lord. In our Krsna consciousness movement, *ALL* our activities are concentrated upon distributing Krsna literature. This is very important. One may approach any person and induce him to read Krsna literature so that in the future he also may become a devotee.... By fully concentrating on distributing books for Krsna, one is fully absorbed in Krsna." Krishna Software Inc. has produced some multimedia CDROMs and all the details of these CDROMs can be found at our website http://www.krishnasoft.com. Here is our current list of products: (a) Multimedia Bhagavad-gita As It Is CD: Lord Krsna's eternal instructions to Arjuna and the rest of the world about Isvara (Supreme Lord), jiva (the soul), karma (activities), kala (time), and prakrti (nature). This is a 30-hour audio-visual CDROM. (b) Multimedia Bhagavad-gita As It Is Hindi CD: Same as (a) but with Hindi translations; currently available on CD-R only. (c) Multimedia Krsna CD w/Vedic Astronomy game: This is a 51-hour audio-visual presentation of the Krsna book and a Vedic Astronomy game based on the Fifth Canto of the Srimad-Bhagavatam. All on a single CDROM. Free sample demo downloadable. (d) Multilingual Word Processor CD [version 4.00]: Type in diacritics, Hindi, Sanskrit, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, and Assamese without knowing the alphabet. Free demo downloadable. All of the above software was tested on various Intel 486 and Pentium processors running Windows 3.1, Windows '95, Windows '98, and Windows NT (client and server). All products are in stock. Latest pricing and ordering information is at our web site: http://www.krishnasoft.com. ------ End of Newsletter- written and edited by KSI staff; (c) 1998-1999 Krishna Software Inc. Our staff consists of: Hari Rama Dasa, Rajni Dayal, Virender Dayal and a few part-time volunteers. As long as this newsletter is sent in whole without adulteration, please forward this newsletter to any friends who may be interested. If you know anyone else who is interested to receive this free newsletter, please email their email address to: info@krishnasoft.com or vdayal@castle.net. On the other hand, if you want your name removed from our mailing list, please tell us via email. If you have any questions about our products, company, or this newsletter you can email them to us and we will respond in the next issue. Our website: http://www.krishnasoft.com and email service was down from March 1st-4th. Thanks to Nikhil for getting us up and running again (http://www.nols.com). [There's a transcendental story behind this!] All glories to Lord Sri Krsna and His transcendental potencies! All glories to the Srimad-Bhagavatam, the literary incarnation of the Lord Sri Krsna! Comment on this Story This story URL: http://vaishnava-news-network.org/world/WD9903/WD07-3261.html
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