Shiva

Imported quote 13958

Lord Siva, the most powerful demigod, second only to Lord Visnu, is self-sufficient. Although he has nothing to aspire for in the material world, for the benefit of those in the material world he is always busily engaged everywhere and is accompanied by his dangerous energies like Goddess Kali and Goddess Durga. (More...)

Imported quote 13959

Lord Siva is known as the greatest devotee of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He is also known as vaisnavanam yatha sambhuḥ, the best of all types of Vaisnavas. Consequently Lord Siva has a Vaisnava sampradaya, the disciplic succession known as Rudra-sampradaya. Just as there is a Brahma-sampradaya coming directly from Lord Brahma, the Rudra-sampradaya comes directly from Lord Siva. As stated in Srimad-Bhagavatam, Lord Siva is one of the twelve great personalities. This refers to the twelve great authorities who preach God consciousness. The name Sambhu means Lord Siva. His disciplic succession is also known as the Visnusvami-sampradaya, and the current Visnusvami-sampradaya is also known as the Vallabha-sampradaya. The current Brahma-sampradaya is known as the Madhva-Gauḍiya-sampradaya. Even though Lord Siva appeared to preach Mayavada philosophy, at the end of his pastime in the form of Sahkaracarya, he preached the Vaisnava philosophy: bhaja govindam bhaja govindam bhaja govindam mūḍha-mate. He stressed worshiping Lord Krsna or Govinda three times in this verse and especially warned his followers that they could not possibly achieve deliverance or mukti simply by word jugglery and grammatical puzzles. If one is actually serious to attain mukti, he must worship Lord Krsna. That is Sripada Sahkaracarya's last instruction. (More...)

Herein it is mentioned that Lord Siva is always accompanied by his material energy (saktya ghoraya). Material energy-Goddess Durga or Goddess Kali-is always under his control. Goddess Kali and Durga serve him by killing all the asuras or demons. Sometimes Kali becomes so infuriated that she indiscriminately kills all kinds of asuras. There is a popular picture of Goddess Kali in which she wears a garland composed of the heads of the asuras and holds in her left hand a captured head and in her right hand a great khaḍga, or chopper, for killing asuras. Great wars are symbolic representations of Kali's devastation of the asuras and are actually conducted by the Goddess Kali. (More...)

Asuras, however, try to pacify the Goddess Kali or Durga by worshiping her in material opulence, but when the asuras become too intolerable, Goddess Kali does not discriminate in killing them wholesale. Asuras do not know the secret of the energy of Lord Siva, and they prefer to worship Goddess Kali or Durga or Lord Siva for material benefit. Due to their demoniac character, they are reluctant to surrender to Lord Krsna, as indicated by Bhagavad-gita: (More...)

Lord Siva's duty is very dangerous because he has to employ the energy of Goddess Kali (or Durga). In another popular picture the Goddess Kali is sometimes seen standing on the prostrate body of Lord Siva, which indicates that sometimes Lord Siva has to fall down flat in order to stop Goddess Kali from killing the asuras. Since Lord Siva controls the great material energy (Goddess Durga), worshipers of Lord Siva attain very opulent positions within this material world. Under Lord Siva's direction, a worshiper of Lord Siva gets all kinds of material facilities. In contrast, a Vaisnava, or worshiper of Lord Visnu, gradually becomes poorer in material possessions because Lord Visnu does not trick His devotees into becoming materially entangled by possessions. Lord Visnu gives His devotees intelligence from within, as stated in Bhagavad-gita: (More...)

Thus Lord Visnu gives intelligence to His devotee so that the devotee can make progress on the path back home, back to Godhead. Since a devotee has nothing to do with any kind of material possession, he does not come under the control of Goddess Kali or the Goddess Durga. (More...)

Lord Siva is also in charge of the tamo-guna, or the mode of ignorance in this material world. Both Lord Brahma and Lord Siva are incarnations of Lord Visnu, but Lord Brahma is in charge of the creation whereas Lord Siva is in charge of the destruction, which he carries out with the help of his material energy, Goddess Kali or Goddess Durga. Thus in this verse Lord Siva is described as being accompanied by dangerous potencies (saktya ghoraya), and that is the actual position of Lord Siva. (More...)

Bhaktisiddhanta-Sarasvati Thakura Gosvami Maharaja Prabhupada (1874-1937) the spiritual master of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and thus the spiritual grandfather of the present day Krsna consciousness movement. A powerful preacher, he founded sixty four missions in India; The transcendentally empowered son of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura appeared in this world on February 6, 1874. His father was deputy magistrate of Jagannatha Puri in Orissa at this time. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura had been very concerned about unauthorized pseudo-Vaisnavas who were usurping the pure teachings of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and therefore had begun a revival of the sahkirtana mission. Though very busy with his profession, he wrote profusely about all aspects of Krsna consciousness. He prayed constantly for someone to boldly preach his writings. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura's prayers were answered in Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. When he was six months old, the Ratha-yatra festival of chariots was held in Puri. Lord Jagannatha's chariot stopped in front of Srila Bhaktivinoda's house, which was on the main road between the temple and the Gunḍica mandira. The chariot stayed there for three days. On the third day, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta's mother brought the child out to see the Lord. The pūjaris picked him up and put him on the cart. He crawled to the base of Lord Jagannatha, touching His lotus feet. Simultaneously a garland fell from the neck of the Lord and landed around the child. The pūjaris exclaimed that this child was especially blessed by the Lord. The boy grew up to be a great scholar in many fields of learning. But when he reached twenty-two, he left his studies at college, vowing to never take to householder life. For three years, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura held the post of raja-panḍita (royal scholar) of the Vaisnava king of Tripura. Thereafter he took initiation from Srila Gaurakisora dasa Babaji. Srila Gaurakisora was a Vaisnava renunciate who had fully absorbed himself in the worship of Krsna at Vrndavana for a long time. Then he settled at the holy city of Navadvipa on the bank of the Ganges. By this time Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura had retired from his government work and was worshiping Lord Krsna in a small house near Navadvipa, at Godruma. Every day he gave Srimad-Bhagavatam class there. Srila Gaurakisora used to attend these classes. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura told his son, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, to accept Srila Gaurakisora as his initiating spiritual master. He received the name Varsabhanavi-devi-dayitaya dasa. Thereafter Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura gave up all other activities to chant 194 rounds daily for seven years. He stayed in a kutira (hut) but did not take time to repair the roof; if it rained, he just used an umbrella. In 1918 he opened the first center of the Gauḍiya Mission in Ultadanga Road in Calcutta. He was then forty-four. All across India he established Lord Caitanya's teachings as the most excellent spiritual philosophy. He started his mission in the midst of war and political agitation for national liberation. He was uncompromising in his disregard of such mundane concerns. The most important thing is to invoke the spirit of devotion to the Supreme Lord; this concern lies far above any material consideration. Many leaders objected that he was diverting too many young men from India's national interests, but he paid them no heed. In this period, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada visited Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura on the rooftop at Ultadanga Road. Srila Prabhupada, at that time known as Abhay Caran De, was an adherent of Gandhi's svaraja movement. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura convinced him in just one sitting of the vital necessity of Lord Caitanya's mission over everything else. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura departed this world in 1936. Two weeks before leaving his body, he instructed Srila Prabhupada to introduce the sahkirtana mission to the Western world. See Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Krsna. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is the foremost Vaisnava acarya in the modern age. In 1896, he appeared in this world as Abhay Caran De in Calcutta, where he received an English-language education. He first met his spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, in 1922. At their first meeting, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura requested Srila Prabhupada to broadcast Vedic knowledge through the English language. In 1933, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura initiated Srila Prabhupada as Abhaya Caranaravinda dasa. In the years that followed, he wrote a commentary on the Bhagavad-gita, assisted the Gauḍiya Mission in its work, and in 1944 started Back to Godhead, an English fortnightly magazine, still continued by his disciples today. He received the title Bhaktivedanta in 1947 from the Gauḍiya Vaisnava Society. In the 1950's, Srila Prabhupada retired from family life, accepting the vanaprastha order. Thus he was able to devote more time to his studies and writing. He came to Vrndavana to live humbly at the historic medieval temple of Radha-Damodara. After several years of deep absorption in Krsna consciousness, Srila Prabhupada accepted the order of sannyasa from his Godbrother Kesava Prajna Maharaja, in 1959. It was then that he began to work on his life's masterpiece: a multivolume translation of and commentary on the eighteen-thousand verse Srimad-Bhagavatam. After publishing three volumes of the Bhagavatam in India, Srila Prabhupada came to the United States in 1965. After great difficulty, with no initial financial resources, he established the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in New York in July, 1966. The residents of that great metropolis of materialism were astounded as the youthful American followers of Srila Prabhupada danced and chanted the Hare Krsna maha-mantra in their midst, that eternal Vedic sound echoing between the glass and steel skyscraper canyon walls. The Krsna consciousness movement soon spread to San Francisco, where the Ratha-yatra festival of the chariots was held for the first time outside of India. A group of American disciples started a branch in London, where George Harrison of the Beatles became a life-long follower of Srila Prabhupada. From England the movement went to Germany, Holland, France, and other European countries. It likewise flourished in Canada, Latin America, Australia and Africa. Simultaneously, Srila Prabhupada personally established several multi-million-dollar ISKCON temple and guesthouse projects in India at Bombay, Vrndavana, Mayapur and Hyderabad. But Srila Prabhupada considered his most significant contribution to be his books, which form a veritable library of Vedic philosophy, religion, culture and literature. Highly respected by the academic community for their authority, depth and clarity, they serve as standard textbooks in numerous college courses. His writings have been translated into more than eighty languages. The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, established in 1972 to publish his works, is the world's largest publisher in the field of Vedic studies. In the twelve years after his first arrival in America up to his departure from this world in 1977, Srila Prabhupada circled the globe fourteen times on lecture tours that took him to six continents. Even in his physical absence, his great mission continues to move forward. With the collapse of the Soviet Empire that Srila Prabhupada predicted during his 1972 visit to Moscow, Krsna consciousness is vigorously blossoming throughout Eastern Europe, Russia, a (More...)

Imported quote 17471

So therefore it was enquired by Yudhisthira Maharaja... There is a verse in the Srimad-Bhagavatam that... This question was raised by Pariksit Maharaja to Sukadeva Gosvami. So "Your Honor, we see just the opposite thing, that one who is devotee of Lord Visnu, the wife..., the husband of the goddess of fortune, they become gradually poorer." Because a Vaisnava, generally, they remain humble and poor, brahmana also. "Whereas the worshiper of Lord Siva..." Lord Siva means..., at least, he voluntarily accepts all poverty. His wife is Durga-devi, so powerful. Srsti-sthiti-pralaya-sadhana-saktir eka [Bs 5.44]. (More...)

Lord Śiva, in association with māyā, has many forms, which are generally numbered at eleven.

Similarly, by expanding Himself as Lord Shiva, He is engaged when there is a necessity to annihilate the Bramhanda. Lord Shiva, in association with Maya, has many Forms; generally, they are numbered at eleven. Lord Shiva is not one of the living entities-he is more-or-less Krishna Himself. The example is given of the distinction between milk and yogurt. Yogurt is a preparation of milk, but still yogurt cannot be used as milk. Similarly, Lord Shiva is an expansion of Krishna, but he cannot act as Krishna, nor can we derive the spiritual restoration from Lord Shiva that we can derive from Krishna. The essential difference is that Lord Shiva has a connection with the material Nature, but Vishnu has nothing to do with the material Nature. In Srimad Bhagwatam, Tenth Canto, Eighteenth Chapter [10.88.3], it is said that Lord Shiva is a combination of the three kinds of transformed consciousness, known as Baikrik, Taijsa and Tamasa. (More...)

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