Pariprashnena — Q&A Archive

not for a brahmana for sure hehe

what kind of Kshatriya will fight for Bush or corporate interests for that matter?

fighting? like with guns and everything?
which website?

I met Parthasarathi prabhu. He met devotees after he joined the Marines. Then his guru (now fallen) told him to reenlist for another 10 years. Now he should be getting for a religious vocation of some sort. He told me that he had distributed a book to his current command officer many years ago. The officer recognized him, amazing huh!

I think that all Marines enrolled in the US Army should be devotees.

> what kind of Kshatriya will fight for Bush or corporate interests for that matter?

bhisma, pure devotee and first class ksatriya, fought for duryodhana ...

> not for a brahmana for sure hehe

first of all, traditional varnasrama isnt applicable in todays society. were all born as sudras, and if all who received second initiation were real brahmanas, we wouldnt have as many problems as we do.

apart from that, even traditional brahmanas are allowed to act as ksatriyas if the circumstances require.

"I think that all Marines enrolled in the US Army should be devotees.

Marines dont enroll in the US Army. They enroll in the US Navy which has a Marine Corps division. been there. done that.

But yeah ... I agree ... they should all be devotees.

And Partha-sarathi Prabhu is as sincere as they come. He accepts his situation as a result of his karma and makes the best of it by preaching - distributing the Holy Name and Srila Prabhupadas books. He deserves our respect for showing us how when life gives us lemons we can make lemonade. He was even going to have a Ratha-yatra there in Iraq but he got shot recently so Im not sure what will happen now.

So I think we should behave ourselves and try to at least pretend to be Vaisnavas by praying for his well-being and recovery. Hes a rare soul whos given himself to Krishna.

"first of all, traditional varnasrama isnt applicable in todays society. were all born as sudras, and if all who received second initiation were real brahmanas, we wouldnt have as many problems as we do."

Second initiation, in terms of the second birth and the sacred thread, is traditionally given to all twice-born in the classical varnasrama society - that means brahmanas, ksatriyas, and vaisyas. Not just brahmanas.

Are you comparing Bush to Duryodhana? ufff
From the point of view of character and qualities no comparison. It is explained by Srila Prabhupada, the citizens loved Duryodhana for his good qualities. Pity he was envious of the Pandavas.

I heard that fighting should be only to protect dharma and nothing else...

He seems sincere to me according to that article. It seems that no matter what devotees do that we will criticize them.

pelota

If he was ordered by his (now fallen) spiritual master and he is making the best use... I did not know that. I was also bewildered..

> Are you comparing Bush to Duryodhana?

only in the sense that duryodhana was against the pandavas and krsna, the bad guy in the kuruksetra situation. you cant always choose where you end up, and if its your duty to fight, then you fight. (personally i would make great efforts, though, not to end up in that situation.)

i would be surprised if all or even most marines and US soldiers were fighting for bush personally. for some its probably a job that comes close to their nature, for others its a way to get through the army while getting some benefits, and some will want to protect their country. all legitimate reasons, i think. far as i know soldiering is among the honest professions.

Well If you want to get into how evil bush is then we will have a loooooooooooooong discussion.

In kali yuga soldiers are for money, or have so little brain that they buy the right wing stuff, or are there for some other reason but they wish they werent there.

If someone believes that America is saving the countries that invades... men, we to do an IQ on them.

http://www.vedanews.com/story.php?title=Be_nice_to_America

Search for Bush in that site and you will be surprised to know that one can be more evil than Duryodhana.

Duryodhana had character, was trained, the citizens were happy with him. I cant produce quotations but afaik we shouldnt even compare with modern leaders.

And no, I am not Kuru relative descendant.

Partha-sarathi P.s battlefield preaching:

The weather is hot: 130F and 140F in my truck... danger at every step...
I was out walking, to check out and refill my book rack and drop off some prasadam sent from some wonderful devotees, when all of a sudden explosions were heard. At first I thought it was nothing but it got louder and closer... we were under a mortar attack. Quickly I ran into the closest bunker. As I got in, I noticed there were some soldiers there. I was smiling and right away started handing out cookies and books to all. They were so grateful, smiling ear to ear upon receiving such wonderful gifts.
Then I ran to the next bunker and again handed out more cookies and books to the hungry soldiers. They were hungry for spiritual knowledge. While all this was going on, we were still taking incoming mortar rounds. Finally after running around to four more bunkers, I came across an empty bunker. As I got in and looked down, I saw that I had one cookie left and a book. I thought, let me eat this last cookie and read a bit. I earned it today. Just as I was going to enjoy these transcendental treats, another soldier came in. I looked at the cookie and felt embarrassed. The job of a devotee is to give out all the mercy, to not keep anything for himself. I turned to the soldier without saying a word, handed him the cookie and my last book and sat back. Thinking to myself, thank you Krsna for teaching me such a valuable lesson.

Things are good here, we have passed out the 550th book in 3 months!

Your servant,
Partha-sarathi dasa

I wonder what he will do when an officer orders him to attack a town full of innocent iraqis. Sorry to pop your soap bubble.

I suppose hell continue to distribute prasadam to them (and books if he has any in Arabic.) ;)

[quote][cite] VEDA:[/cite]I suppose hell continue to distribute prasadam to them (and books if he has any in Arabic.) ;)[/quote]
you know there is military law and discipline. It might be not so easy.

..the short answer is no , but since a terrorist may attempt to harm devotees that may be on a commercial airline , or public bus , or on the street , then theoretically they ( terrosrists) are trying to kill devotees, so the terrorist must be destroyed by any means.So maybe yes.

In my humble opinion, joining the armed services is problematic because the individual is submitting to the authority of men, and men may lead him astay.

I can see many conflicts of interest where a devotee might have to choose between obedience to the Army and obedience to God. The Guru accepts the karma of his follower, but Im not sure the Army can accept the karmic consequences for its troops.

My brother in law fought for the Marines straight out of boot camp in Vietnam, and entered into the biggest slaughter of the war. He was ordered to kill innocent children, women, everyone. He cannot sleep at night, hasnt slept with my sister in the same bed for years, and spends most of his time alone on a sailboat.
When I was in the Marines we used to go out for up to a month at a time and eat only out of canned rations. Now they have powdered food but it is mostly non-vegetarian. On top of that I never would have been able to chant my rounds regularly while out in the field. And the association was hellish. So I have great respect for anyone who can stay in and preach.
However had I gone in as an officer as a Chaplain and been allowed to acquire vegetarian foodstuffs based on religion things would have been different. But what is it, close to 80% of Americans claim to be some sort of Christian as their religion? I didnt see an opportunity to become a Hare Krishna Chaplain coming up any time soon. Otherwise this devotee has the right idea, stay in the military and preach. If 99.9% of the Marine Corps were devotees it would help make the other one tenth of one percent who joined who werent devotees into devotees themselves.

[quote][cite] Thomas:[/cite] The Guru accepts the karma of his follower, but Im not sure the Army can accept the karmic consequences for its troops.[/quote]

Yes they do. The leader(s) take 1/5th (some say 1/6th) of all of the karmic reactions accumulated by their dependents. Who is the head of all four of the US military branches? ....

George W. Bush

[quote][cite] adikavi:[/cite] On top of that I never would have been able to chant my rounds regularly while out in the field. And the association was hellish. [/quote]
were you practicing at that time? why is it so difficult to chant in the field? i am very interested.
and what do you mean by hellish association?

I became a devotee after I joined the Marines by acquiring and reading Srila Prabhupadas books in a bookstore outside of base. I immediately went to the nearest temple and understood I had to chant, be a vegetarian, etc. I went AWOL when I was ordered to go on a Mountain Training Package that consisted of thirty days at twenty-nine Palms military base in California.
During the 30 days I would have to "remain tactical" which means pretend we were at war. That means no chanting. You cant really chant your rounds out loud when you are pretending to hide from the enemy or else they will hear you. So that is why it is difficult to chant in the field, and also offer bhoga since they order you to take only certain supplies in your backpack, such as clothing, and no food.
The association was extremely hellish because the way the Marines are always ready to fight is they keep you so agitated all the time that you just want to kill someone.
For example, they might tell you that you are going on a march to get conditioned in case they need to march in a war (I was in during peacetime). So they load up your backpack with lots of stuff so it weighs a lot. Then they make you strap on your canteens, ammo mags and pouches, cartridge belt, rifle, helmet, etc.. Up to seventy-five pounds. Then you go on a race against the other companies around the bases, up to twenty-five miles sometimes. And not all even terrain, we had one mountain on our base known as Mount Motherf*cker that was so steep when you were marching up the mountain you could see the mans butt ahead of you instead of his head because the hill was so steep. But we had to stay in formation. So then after sweating like pigs and being dog tired when you finally want to relax at the end of the day they make you stay on base as a firewatch, which means guard, guard the barracks. Or any other one of a myriad of things to keep you from enjoying yourself so you are stuck on base with tens of thousands of men at Camp Horno and no women and all of the men are full of false pride. Only one person I knew was even religious. One time I went to the Chapel on a Sunday and only three people were there out of the entire Camp.
Even the Chaplain assigned to our unit in Korea, when we went there I personally saw him with a young prostitute under one arm and a bottle of wine in the other. Most of the men I knew were drunk every night while we were in Okinawa and when we got back to California there were so many drugs available you could get whatever you wanted.
There is a saying you arent a real Marine until you have had "Office Hours" which means getting in trouble with the authorities for one reason or another so it is not uncommon to see things like men ripping the urinals off the walls which happened a lot or one time some of the men in my platoon ran their car off Mount Motherf*cker when they werent even supposed to be driving up there and it got caught on a tree otherwise they all would have died.
We laughed when our medic told us that if someone drank a six pack of beer a day they were alcoholics because we were all drinking a case of beer a day at the time. The other divisions of the military on Okinawa had a ban on Marines from drinking at their enlisted clubs because the Marines had so many fights there. I was involved one time when our company had a fight that turned into a small riot with the next company over because we were all being "dogged" so much that each of us thought we were being mistreated more than the others.
With so much suffering going on all you can think about is killing the enemy, that is the philosophy they told us in boot camp. There is also a saying that there are no atheists on the battlefield though. But my association was so bad I hated it. Once I became a devotee I tried to preach but no one was interested really so all I wanted to do was get out. When I finally went up in front of the General in charge of the whole base he told me that he wanted to see me personally and that his niece was a devotee and she sold him a different big book every time he went to the airport. They printed a little story about that in the old ISKCON World Review back in the eighties.
Sorry for the unbrahminical language but thats how it was in there.

thank you so much for taking the time to tell us the story!
I guess sadhana is not much of a problem for an ex marine.
:)

I usually dont talk about it anymore but I did a lot of reminiscing about it here. That was back in the late seventies and early eighties.

I was in the US Navy on USS ESSEX LHD-2 filled with Marine Corps fanatics. (in the early 90s)

Talk about a cult! These guys have so many secret handshakes and inside cover-ups itd make the freemasons look like school boys.

Most of the young guys are half mad and the older soldiers are dedicated to exploring newer and deeper realms of madness. They get these guys so wound up that killing someone is an outlet for the matrix of anger and hatred they are conditioned to experience - even an artform for some.

But if you are already in then you have to make the best of it like HG Parthasarathi Prabhu is doing and has done. This is noble and deserves our respect.

"But if you are already in then you have to make the best of it like HG Parthasarathi Prabhu is doing and has done. This is noble and deserves our respect. "

following this same logic, we also owe our respect to the members of the nazi party that pushed forth hitlers agenda because "they were already in". seems like someone has to take a stand for right at some point and not just maintaining the status quo.

[quote]following this same logic, we also owe our respect to the members of the nazi party that pushed forth hitlers agenda because "they were already in".[/quote]
[p]no. nobody proposes to offer our respect to all US marines, because they are [i]already in[/i], just those who became devotees and have no easy way out now.[/p]
[p]and yes, if there had been some member of the german army (not [i]nazi party[/i], we were not talking about the republicans here) who became a devotee, and couldnt have left the army without getting shot but preached to all he possibly could, i would offer my respects to him.[/p]

[quote]Most of the young guys are half mad and the older soldiers are dedicated to exploring newer and deeper realms of madness. They get these guys so wound up that killing someone is an outlet for the matrix of anger and hatred they are conditioned to experience - even an artform for some.[/quote]
[p]earlier i wrote that i considered soldiering an honest profession; i didnt konw, though, how crazy the environment of the marines really was. that statement came from a purely theoretical (mis)understanding. i was born in (west) berlin and nobody ever bothered me with any army-duty.[/p]
[p]after reading ekendras and adhikaris posts, i concede that nobody in their right mind should consider this type of job if they have a choice.[/p]

My marine buddies used to love to tell me about their hand to hand combat training they all had to go through in boot camp.

There they learn how to cut the entrails out of people, cut throats, spinal columns and lots of other ghastly skills.

Most know how to quickly snap a persons vocal chords so they cant scream through torture or in case they are doing silent ops and have to take down targets stealthily.

.... and they talk about it all the time .... and there are some things they arent allowed to talk openly about ....

Its always been my opinion that armies destroy the people they employ to fight wars then the survivors come home and destroy the communities they belong to, then the children grow up and destroy what they have. And that is what happens to the winners. What happens to the losers is of course worse.

Of course that is not always the case.

I wonder what parallels and lessons we can learn from the military/police regarding training people in iskcon.
It seems you hear the same stories from both sources: they exploited me, authorities were abusive etc...

more of the same:
http://chakra.org/news/newsAug04_07.html

What if Parthasarati das shoots mother/father/brother of some Iraqi devotee or some sincere practicing Muslim trying to protect his family?After all we are all duty bound to protect our families/property and have every right to kill in order to accomplish it.

I would say that Prithu das (Prathas former Guru) didnt know what he was talking when he instructed him to go to fight in Iraq.he would not be former guru if he knew what he was doing.

Moral of the story:do exactly the opposite of what the fake gurus say and you will do just fine.

This question should be put in the following way:

Is it moral and ethical to kill or assist in killing innocent women, old people and children and get paid for it?

The answer is:

NO.NO.NO!!!

Was it moral to kill professional soldiers on the battlefield of Kurukshetra? (there were no children,ladies and old incapacitated people to kill there)

Answer:

Yes it was.And that situation can not be compared with the modern cowardly warfare in any way.