The characteristic of this Kali-yuga age is men become inclined toward four basic sinful activities that break the four pillars of religiosity, leading men into the darkness of passion and ignorance. These four degrading activities, are gambling, intoxicating habits, illicit sex, animal slaughter and eating of animal foodstuffs.
The other day I was reading the paper, Moscow News. There was a Communist congress, and the President declared, “We are ready to take others’ experience to improve.” So I think the Vedic concept of socialism or communism will much improve the idea of communism.
For America to fly the banner of “human rights for the world” presupposes that human rights flourish in our own land. True, we have a representative government and the Bill of Rights, and we enjoy many civil liberties not found in other countries.
“Thou shall not kill” Christians like to misinterpret this instruction. They think the animals have no soul, and therefore they think they can freely kill billions of innocent animals in the slaughterhouses.
“I have yet many things to say unto you,” Christ told a world, filled with crudeness and ignorance, “but ye cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).
Atheist-existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre writes that because man wants to be God but cannot, he is a “useless passion” in a universe that has no purpose—and thus, he is always in anxiety.
Jesus Christ said, “Thou shall not kill.” So why is it that the Christian people are engaged in animal killing? The Bible does not simply say, “Do not kill the human being.” It says broadly, “Thou shall not kill.”
Soren Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism, said we have to make the leap of faith and he saw the goal as God. He wrote, “There is a God—His will is made known to me in holy scripture and in my conscience.”
German pessimist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) thought that nirvana, (freedom from suffering) means becoming desireless—putting an end to our will. But His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada disagrees.
Abortion is a grave transgression of the laws of nature and of God. So those who are anxious to enjoy sexual pleasure, yet wish to avoid the responsibility of rearing children, should soberly consider abortion’s severe consequences.
Society is just like a child. If a child wants to go to hell, should the father allow it? Society may want so many nonsensical things, but it is the duty of the government to know how to uplift the citizens.
Who will say which religion is false and which genuine, which harmful and which beneficial? What we need is not someone’s self-interested opinion but a reliable, nonsectarian standard for separating the bogus religions from the bona fide.
Early Church father Augustine thought God eternally abandons some souls to soul-death. This is not so, our consciousness can always be revived, and that is the conviction of the Krishna consciousness movement.
Soren Kierkegaard was a mid-nineteenth-century Danish philosopher who is generally regarded as the father of existentialism. A devout Christian, he believed that religious truth is not innate within man, and that man must therefore receive this truth from God.
The following is a statement by Dr. Harvey Cox, theologian at Harvard Divinity School, at a symposium titled “Krishna Consciousness and Religious Freedom,” conducted at the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University, November 22, 1976.
Friedrich Nietzsche thought of the “superman” as someone totally self-controlled, unafraid, simple, aware, self-reliant… and nonexistent. But here His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada tells us about real supermen—who they are and how they get that way.
There are two kinds of living beings in the creation—the divine and demonic. A demon need not be a huge monster with ten heads, nor a red fiend with a pitchfork. In fact, the demons who live among us generally appear quite ordinary.
Wherever you go—India, America, and points between—you find certain people who seem to be getting less of life’s pleasures and more of its pains. What’s the solution? Increase public aid? Provide better job opportunities? Demand equal rights?
Thomas Aquinas compiled the entire Church doctrine in Summa Theologica, which constitutes the official philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church. He also systematized a good deal of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy.
Why is meditation becoming so popular these days? To answer this question, psychologist Lawrence Le Shan interviewed many meditators. To Le Shan, the comment that best summed up the meditational experience was, “It’s like coming home.”