Questions and answers by HG Sankarshandas Adhikari
I have a question which a friend asked me. If a pregnant mother comes to know that the baby in her womb has some abnormality, will it be still sinful to abort the baby? Isn’t it better to abort the child than seeing the child suffer in this material world?
Answer: Does an Abnormal Person Want to Die?
If you were suffering from an abnormality, would you like us to kill you? For example, let’s say that you were blind or lame. Would you like us to kill you? Ask any blind man if he would like to be put to death to be relieved of the misery of being a blind man. Will he volunteer, “Yes. Please kill me.”?
Abortion does not free the child from suffering. To abort the child is to increase his suffering. If you want to free the child from suffering, let him take birth and raise him in Krishna consciousness. In this way he will become free from all suffering for all of eternity.
Please advise me which rasa (relationship) with Krsna I should seek. This is based on following excerpt written in Srila Prabhupada’s purport to Bhagavad-gita, Chapter 4, Text 11:
“In the transcendental world also, Krsna reciprocates with His pure devotees in the transcendental attitude, just as the devotee wants Him. One devotee may want Krsna as supreme master, another as his personal friend, another as his son, and still another as his lover. Krsna rewards all the devotees equally, according to their different intensities of love for Him.”
Should I choose the rasa which is the most rewarding? In other words is there an order (more…)
Questions and answers by HG Sankarshandas Adhikari
I know that there are sevenfold coverings covering the material universe. My question is that does each and every material universe have these sevenfold coverings, or are these coverings only after the last material universe? Although my prime interest is to go beyond these coverings and enter the inexplicably amazing spiritual sky, but just for knowledge I would like to know this.
Answer: Each Universe Has the Seven Coverings
Each universe has its own coverings. Srila Prabhupada describes this in his purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 6.16.37:
“The first covering is earth, the second is water, the third is fire, the fourth is air, the fifth is sky, the sixth is the total material energy, and the seventh is the false ego. Beginning with the covering of earth, each covering is ten times greater than the previous one. Thus we can only imagine how great each universe is, and there are many millions of universes.”
The key to reviving your lost loving relationship with Krsna or God is simply to follow the instructions that He gives in the Bhagavad-gita. Just as to bake some banana bread you must carefully follow the recipe given in the cookbook in order to get proper banana bread, in a similar way if you will simply do exactly what Krsna says in the Bhagavad-gita, you will experience the most amazing transformation of entering in the spiritual world within your heart even while you externally act dutifully and successfully in the material world.
If you are really Krsna conscious, you will see Krsna everywhere. You will have no interest in anything unless it is connected with Krishna. Since Krsna is the source of everything, nothing has any real meaning unless it is connected with Krsna.
Just as a light bulb serves no purpose unless it is connected with the electrical power house, the living being who is not connected with Krsna suffers an empty meaningless existence.
Questions and answers bij HG Sankarshandas Adhikari
Why is it that this Bhagavad-gita knowledge, which is the highest of all wisdom, is opposed in highly developed countries such as we see in the recent court base in Russia to ban the Bhagavad-gita? Where else does the Bhagavad-gita get opposition? Why do we accept the validity of Christ’s teachings while many of the conventional Christians don’t accept the science of the Bhagavad-gita?
Answer: The Fools Want to Remain Fools
In a world society where the status quo is ignorance, it is natural that there will strong opposition to knowledge. One time I was arrested and put in jail for 36 hours for distributing this sublime knowledge of Krsna in Leesburg, Florida USA.
The Vedas teach a universal understanding of religion, that anyone who becomes a pure devotee of God is a first class religionist, no matter what religion system he may be following. Unfortunately not all religious people are fortunate to have this universal understanding of religion. They think that one can reach God only by belonging to a particular religious sect. Such fools are ignorant that religion is one, to become a pure lover of God. There is no such thing as this religion and that religion. Religion is one, to become a pure lover of God. In this connection it is important to always remember that while God has given us religion, the science of giving our loving service to Him, it is man who has invented so many religions based on the selfish concept of taking service from God instead of giving service to God.
svasty astu viśvasya khalaḥ prasīdatāṁ
dhyāyantu bhūtāni śivaṁ mitho dhiyā
manaś ca bhadraṁ bhajatād adhokṣaje
āveśyatāṁ no matir apy ahaitukī
“May there be good fortune throughout the universe, and may all envious persons be pacified. May all living entities become calm by practicing bhakti-yoga, for by accepting devotional service they will think of each other’s welfare. Therefore let us all engage in the service of the supreme transcendence, Lord Sri Krsna, and always remain absorbed in thought of Him.”–Srimad Bhagavatam 5.18.9
After millions of repetitions in the miserable cycle of birth, death, old age, and disease now you have achieved the very rare human form of life. This is the greatest blessing, the greatest good fortune, because now you have the facility to become spiritually perfect by dovetailing your individual consciousness with the Supreme Consciousness and going back to your original home in the all-blissful paravyoma, the absolutely amazing Spiritual Sky.
Although the duality of the material world does not ultimately exist, the conditioned soul experiences it as real under the influence of his own conditioned intelligence.
This imaginary experience of a world separate from Krsna can be compared to the acts of dreaming and desiring. When the conditioned soul dreams at night of something desirable or horrible, or when he daydreams of what he would like to have or avoid, he creates a reality that has no existence beyond his own imagination.
The tendency of the mind is to accept and reject various activities based on sense gratification. Therefore an intelligent person should control the mind, restricting it from the illusion of seeing things separate from Krsna, and when the mind is thus controlled he will experience actual fearlessness.
Sri Kavi to King Nimi
SB 11.2.38