My 5 day crash course in KRSNA Consciousness.

ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness—brought to the West from India by a Vedic guru called A.C. Prabhupada. It’s goal was and is that the whole world will become Krishna Consciousness or aware of Him.

As some may know, my sister became a devotee, (one who is devoted to devotional service) a bhaktin a few years ago. She waits for initiation—when she will be given a spiritual name which will describe her soul—how she really is without material coverings which her guru will see and draw out from her in service to Krsna.

I am a devotee of the Lord Jesus Christ. A bhaktin as well. I have been initiated and anointed by the Lord Himself—His Spirit infuses me with truth and light. My identity is Yesu Dasa—servant of Jesus, the person I really am without my clay enclosure. I am not this body—their popular teaching, “it’s no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me.” I gave myself the name—I was asked about it and said anyone can be Yesu Dasa, anyone can serve Jesus. The devotee sitting next to me said “I can be Yesu Dasa” and I replied of course.

When I was packing I questioned which Bible to take, my New Living Translation or my new testament in my favorite version New English Bible. I brought the New English.

Thursday I shared a feast with 8 devotees, 5 had been initiated by their guru, SdG—an early disciple of Prabhupad. I was thinking about initiation and beginnings and even reminded of my own believer’s baptism in a cowpond some many years ago.

I went back to the house thinking about initiation. I picked up the NEBible and began reading 1 John 2 and came upon these verses—
“You, no less than they, are among the initiated; this is the gift of the Holy One, and by it you all have knowledge.” 2.20 and “But as for you, the initiation which you received from him stays with you; you need no other teacher, but learn all you need to know from his initiation, which is real and no illusion."2.26,27

So I’m bona fide—a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, initiated by Christ Himself as He has done for 2,000 years.

I have also been through the chain of disciplic sucession from spiritual master to student.
1 John 1:1 "We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. 2 This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us."NLT

I was asked if I “believed that Jesus was God?” I said yes. I went on to say that I couldn’t find the exact place where that is made known in the Scriptures but that it can be known by revelation or ‘realization’ as they know it. God makes Himself known only by revelation through His Holy Spirit.

The Lord really blessed my time with them. I was able to casually talk about Jesus and was heard.

peace, Jim

What's going on

I've been dialoguing with some Krsna devotees. I am praying that the Lord Jesus Christ will shine through me. I am conversing with a few and becoming friendly with some older devotees--the same age as myself--the 60 somethings. I share my love of Jesus openly with them, they become friends, and I pray that Jesus will be revealed to someone through my own feeble and sometimes foolish devotion to the Lord Jesus.

peace

Interesting similarities

[Bhagavad-gita. 9.11]"Fools deride Me when I descend in the human form. They do not know My transcendental nature and My supreme dominion over all that be."

John 1:10 He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. 11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. 12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God. 14 So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

Colossians 1:15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,
16 for through him God created everything
in the heavenly realms and on earth.
He made the things we can see
and the things we can’t see—
such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
Everything was created through him and for him.
17 He existed before anything else,
and he holds all creation together.
18 Christ is also the head of the church,
which is his body.
He is the beginning,
supreme over all who rise from the dead.
So he is first in everything.
19 For God in all his fullness
was pleased to live in Christ,
20 and through him God reconciled
everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

Disqualified?

1Corinthians 9:24 Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! 25 All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. 26 So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. 27 I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified. NLT

I really like what Paul has to say here. Especially the shadowboxing reference. This life of following Christ is real—it is not virtual, not some undoable ideal, not some fantasy island. It is real and it is serious—a Jamaican Rasta once said to me ‘Rastafari is a serious ting, man’—Discipleship with Jesus is a ‘serious ting’.
I run with purpose, I train with purpose, for that high calling.
I want to avoid disqualification from obtaining the prize.
Could it be possible that somehow I (or anyone of us) should become disqualified?

JFK

So today it's 45 years since JFK was killed.
I guess I was in 8th grade. Walter Harms and I were the flag guys. We put the stars and stripes up in the morning and took'em down and folded it each afternoon around 2:55.
I was in class when the announcement came that day. Walter and I were told to lower the flag to half-staff (I used to call it half-mast and then was told that only applied to ships and boats) and to leave it that way until we were told differently.
We left school early that day.
The whole thing really made an impact on me as I'm sure it did on all who went through that time.

Record Dow drop

For those who are anxious or worried about Wall Street--

This Psalm speaks when the economy dives.

Psalm 121 (New Living Translation) A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.

1 I look up to the mountains—
does my help come from there?

2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth!

3 He will not let you stumble;
the one who watches over you will not slumber.

4 Indeed, he who watches over Israel
never slumbers or sleeps.

5 The Lord himself watches over you!
The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade.

6 The sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon at night.

7 The Lord keeps you from all harm
and watches over your life.

8 The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go,
both now and forever.

The thought presented was--

"Well, the original point seems to be that he wants to believe but cannot bring himself to do it. That requires more response from him. I have been meeting a lot of poeple like this and I have read many a quote from men like Ghandi. There is something about Jesus and His teachings that you cannot ignore and pull at you...but there is something about the church and the people within that tends to make it hard to reconcile this amazing figure in the Bible and or less than amazing subculture."

I’m going to try to keep what I am thinking as simple as possible.

I believe that the problem you are talking about here is that the Church tries to do the calling of people into discipleship and it cannot do so. Only Jesus can call people into discipleship “Come and follow me” He said. The Church has the duty of proclaiming the Word and the call of Jesus clearly—which often she fails to do (clearly, that is). The dispensation of grace without any corresponding action of faith in obedience to the call. Bonhoeffer called it ‘cheap grace’—grace without a price, without costs. The Church says—“say this prayer and all will be well”. Jesus says “follow me and learn to die, follow me and I will make you…”.

What was the effect of Jesus call on the early disciples? They got up, left all behind and followed—‘we have left everything” they said to Jesus. The call of Christ demands a response—either yes as in Matthew’s case-he got up and left his table or no as in the case of the one who said ‘first let me go and…’.

"You say you cannot believe? You can't believe as long as you disregard or flee some part of Jesus command to come. First obey the call to come and you will find that faith comes with that first step.

Remember that only the obedient have faith and only those who believe obey. You cannot have faith as long as you will not take that first step. This is NOT a work which creates faith but one is given a situation where one can have faith. The point is to get into such a situation so that faith is true faith which reveals itself as obedience to the call." Bonhoeffer

Hear Jesus’ call—clearly (the responsibility of us preachers) and respond and the way of discipleship begins.

Peace, Jim