UNDERSTANDING REALITY RATHER THAN FOLLOWING A BELIEF SYSTEM

KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS DOES NOT FIT INTO THE CATEGORY OF A BELIEF SYSTEM.

When people hear the word “religion,” they often think of faith based systems that one simply accepts or rejects. However, Krishna Consciousness does not fit into that category. It begins with the premise that truth is not a matter of belief but of reality, and that reality can be known, experienced, and verified through a practical process. Just as science studies the laws governing matter, bhakti yoga studies the laws governing consciousness, the soul, and the Supreme Consciousness.

A BELIEF SYSTEM CAN ONLY INFLUENCE A PERSONS PERCEPTION.

Belief systems cannot change the Absolute Truth because the Absolute Truth is not created by human thought. It does not arise from culture, imagination, or mental conviction. It simply exists. It is eternal, unchanging, and completely independent of belief.



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The Śrīmad Bhāgavatam states

“vadanti tat tattva vidas
tattvaṁ yaj jñānam advayam
brahmeti paramātmeti
bhagavān iti śabdyate

Learned transcendentalists who know the Absolute Truth call this nondual substance Brahman, Paramātmā or Bhagavān.”

https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/1/2/11/

A belief system can only influence a persons perception. It can cover the Truth like a mist covering the morning sun or it can reveal the Truth like a clear sky. But it cannot transform the Truth into something else.

The Absolute Truth remains what it is even if the entire world decides to believe something different. Human belief belongs to the changing mind. The Absolute Truth stands beyond mind, beyond time, and beyond personal preference.

In this way belief may rise or fall, a person may accept or reject, and cultures may come and go, but the Absolute Truth remains untouched and unchanged.

CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE SUBJECT OF STUDY

Modern sciences analyze the body, the brain, and the material world, but they cannot explain the source of awareness itself. Krishna Consciousness starts with the direct investigation of the conscious Self which is the experiencer.

Through introspection, mantra meditation which purifies the mind, and some regulation of lifestyle, the practitioner begins to perceive the difference between matter and consciousness. This is why it is called a science. It deals with observation, transformation, and direct experience.

THE PROCESS OF PRACTICING KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS HAS PREDICTABLE RESULTS

In regular religions, results depend on sentiment or emotional belief. But in Krishna Consciousness, following the method yields consistent outcomes.

By chanting the Hare Krishna mahā mantra

“Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare”

avoiding harmful habits, offering only pure vegetarian food to God, engaging in Bhakti serving the Absolute Truth Krishna and hearing transcendental knowledge, the heart becomes peaceful, one’s character transforms, and one develops genuine spiritual perception. These results do not depend on culture, nationality, or blind faith, but on applying the universal process beginning with Vaidhi Bhakti, the purifying force which by regular practice eliminates…

GROSS AND SUBTLE KARMAS

Both prārabdha and aprārabdha pāpa are destroyed by regulated Vaidhi Bhakti.

Aprārabdha: Are unmanifest reactions, seeds, impressions, and future karmas that have not yet appeared.

Prārabdha: Are manifest reactions, the karmas you are already experiencing in this life.

Vaidhi Bhakti destroys both. Other processes cannot destroy prārabdha and cannot uproot the seeds of future suffering.

ANARTHAS BAD HABITS

Everything unwanted in the heart, as listed by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī: lust, anger, greed, envy, pride, illusion, and all obstacles to sādhana.

KARMIC REACTIONS

Vaidhi bhakti uproots the seeds of karma and burns existing karmas.

MATERIAL DESIRES

The desires that make the soul attracted to sense enjoyment slowly fade as devotion and love increase.

IGNORANCE AVIDYĀ

Regulated bhakti destroys the ignorance that caused our forgetfulness of Krishna.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE MODES OF NATURE

Vaidhi bhakti lifts one above the modes.

The three modes of nature act in these ways.

TAMAS means ignorance, laziness, confusion, forgetfulness of the soul.

RAJAS means uncontrolled desire, agitation, constant pursuing of sense enjoyment.

SATTVA means clarity and goodness, but still material and binding.

The above modes bind the jīva, the soul, as Bhagavad gītā states

“sattvaṁ rajas tama iti
guṇāḥ prakṛti sambhavāḥ
nibadhnanti mahā bāho
dehe dehinam avyayam”

Material nature consists of three modes, goodness, passion and ignorance. When the eternal living entity comes in contact with nature, O mighty armed Arjuna, he becomes conditioned by these modes. This means the soul cannot be free until the modes are fully transcended.

Purport at

 https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/14/5/

 

TRUE SELF REALISATION

Ultimately, Vaidhi bhakti, when perfected, leads to a higher stage named rāgānugā bhakti and reveals the soul’s eternal siddha svarūpa, our eternal original spiritual form. This then is true Self Realisation, the ultimate goal of life.

A CLEAR DESCRIPTION OF ENERGIES AND LAWS

The teachings of Krishna Consciousness explain the structure of existence, the soul, the mind, karma, time, material energy, spiritual energy, and the Supreme Personal Absolute Truth.

These are described not poetically but systematically, with clear distinctions between temporary and eternal, cause and effect, action and reaction. One is not asked to merely believe but to understand, examine, and realise.

RELIGION SEEKS GOD… BHAKTI SCIENCE REVEALS HIM

Most religions attempt to reach God through belief systems, symbolic rituals, or cultural identity. Krishna Consciousness teaches that God Krishna is an eternal, personal, knowable reality. His qualities, form, energies, and relationships are described with extraordinary precision. Knowledge of God is not considered mysterious or speculative but factual. The more one purifies the heart, the more clearly this truth becomes visible.

SPIRITUAL LIFE IS MEASURED BY TRANSFORMATION

One’s progress is not measured by membership in an institution or by external labels. It is measured by the diminishing of lust, anger, greed, envy, pride, and illusion. It is measured by the awakening of compassion, humility, clarity, and devotion. This internal transformation is empirical. It can be observed in oneself and in others, just as scientific results can be verified in repeated trials.

BEYOND SECTARIAN BOUNDARIES

Religion often divides people: my faith versus your faith. Krishna Consciousness does not claim ownership of God. It simply presents the eternal relationship between the soul and the Supreme and offers a method for realising it. Any person from any background can practise it without giving up their culture. It is universal because it deals with the soul, which does not belong to any nation or sect.

THE ONLY REAL SUCCESS WE CARRY FORWARD

All material achievements, possessions, and even worldly knowledge remain behind at death. They belong to the temporary mind and body. What does go along with the soul is its spiritual advancement, its purified consciousness and attachment to the Supreme. For this reason, Krishna Consciousness emphasises realisation over information, experience over dogma, and eternal benefit over temporary gain.

In this sense, it is not a religion to be joined, but a science to be practised and realised. It is practicing the science of awakening the soul’s natural love for Krishna.

CONVERSATION WITH MR. FAILL

Can meditation solve our everyday problems? Is there life after death? Can drugs help us achieve self realization? During a visit to South Africa, Śrīla Prabhupāda answers these and other questions for interviewer Bill Faill of the Durban Natal Mercury.

Mr. Faill asked Śrīla Prabhupāda: “Do you think the great mystics down through the ages have actually seen the spiritual spark you mentioned earlier?”

Śrīla Prabhupāda: What do you mean by “mystic”?

Mr. Faill: It’s just a name given to people who have had an experience of another level of reality.

Śrīla Prabhupāda: We don’t use the word “mystic.” Our reality is God realization, which occurs when we come to the spiritual platform. As long as we have a bodily concept of life, our understanding is sense gratification, because the body is made of senses. When we progress from the bodily platform and we see the mind as the center of sense activity, we take the mind as the final stage of realization. That is the mental platform. From the mental platform we may come to the intellectual platform, and from the intellectual platform we can rise to the transcendental platform. Finally we can rise above even the transcendental platform and come to the mature, spiritual platform.

These are the stages of God realization. However, in this age, because people are so fallen, the śāstras give the special recommendation that people come directly to the spiritual platform by chanting the holy names of God: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. If we cultivate this practice on the spiritual platform, then immediately we can realize our spiritual identity. Then the process of God realization becomes successful very quickly.”

The Science of Self Realization
Chapter 5
https://vedabase.io/en/library/ssr/5/

Hare Krishna
Devarsirat das
Varnaprastha

Please also visit
http://www.harekrishnasociety.com/
http://www.purebhakti.com/

“AI assisted + edited by me, offered for Śrīla Prabhupāda’s and the devotees’ pleasure. Hare Krishna ☺️🙏

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