Los Angeles SD Newsletter Vol.3 Issue 22
VANCA KALPA…
FAITH IS NOT RELIGION
By Nitika Thapar
Our last meeting was held at Bhakta Tony’s home. The program was attended by the faithful patrons of Sastra Dana who are always eager to receive the mercy in the form of Krsna-bhajan, Krsna-katha and Krsna-prasadam. Kakudmi Prabhu enthused us all with his beautiful bhajans and following this, Arcita Prabhu spoke from the Bhagavad-Gita (11.55): “My dear Arjuna, he who engages in my pure devotional service, free from the contaminations of fruitive activities and mental speculation, he who works for Me, who makes Me the supreme goal of his life, and who is friendly to every living being—he certainly come to Me.” Arcita Prabhu spoke at length about the misguided civilization of this modern age which is intent upon fighting in the name of religion. Sadly, these so-called “civilized” people do not practice what they preach. There is no religion in the world which preaches annihilation of innocent people for a selfish purpose. There lies the difference between a pious and an impious soul whose basis of ideology is similar but the method of interpreting it is entirely different. A true Vaisnava never even thinks of offending anyone leave aside actually hurting a person physically or mentally. Whereas a Vaisnava is eager to negate his karmic reactions by serving the Lord and His devotees, an impious hypocritical religionist heaps piles and piles of negative karma upon himself. Unfortunately the goal of such a person is to attain the heavenly kingdom by performing pseudo-welfare activities which are suited to only a handful of self-indulging people.
Arcita Prabhu also enlightened us by quoting Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s classification of scriptures based on their ability to give knowledge to the seeker. This knowledge pertains to actually realizing God and rendering service to Him as the ultimate goal of life and does not stop merely at the point of impersonalism as most of the modern religious treatises do. In this age of “mlecchas”, the ignorant totally misinterpret the teachings and with un unmistakable “mleccha” attitude, resort to committing heinous crimes. Srila Prabhupada had a wonderful dialogue in 1975 with the then Chicago Police Department chief regarding the source of crime and the solution to it. Srila Prabhupada responded to a query questioning peace as a precursor to a return to religion: “At the present moment, no one actually knows the meaning of religion. Religion means to abide by the laws of God. Because no one has any understanding of God, no one knows the meaning of religion. This is the present status of people in today’s society. They are forgetting religion, taking it to be a kind of faith. Faith may be blind faith. Religion means the laws given by God, and anyone who follows these laws is religious, whether a Christian, a Hindu or a Muslim.” Srila Prabhupada ki! jai! We pray and hope that you all can advocate the formula of peace by preaching the pure philosophy in Srila Prabhupada’s books which are the ultimate essence in themselves. Hare Krsna.
