Reincarnation

I'm not sure if Prabhupada says there's an eternal hell or not.
I do know however, that Madhva did definitely teach eternal damnation - I believe that in this, he is virtually alone among major Hindu teachers.
He is one of the Archarayas of the Vaishnava line.

Some say he may have been influenced by Christian missionaries.

 

Nicole, this is something of a vexed question. It is pretty certain that some early gnostic sects believed in re-incarnation. But the gnostics were a kind of hybrid of christianity coupled with greek/hellenistic philosophy, and some remnants of earlier 'mystery schools', which flourished in most parts of the ancient world.
Plato, and later on Plotinus, who was a very influential figure in the early part of the christian era, and whose ideas also influenced catholic philosophers, both taught a type of reincarnation, although not quite along Hindu or Buddhist lines. It's quite likely that these ideas were mixed in with the then new Christianity, and the result was some schools which are called gnostic.
Much of what is known of the early gnostic sects comes from hostile writings of orthodox and catholic writers. There are also the gnostic texts, including a number of gospels, which were discovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt some years ago. The Dead Sea Scrolls it appears, emmanate from another gnostic sect, the Essenes.
Some claim that Jesus and John the Baptist were both members of the Essene brotherhood. Myself, I am sceptical of such claims.
The gnostics generally flourished alongside catholicism for some time, although there were intermittent persecutions, but even in the works of the earliest church fathers is not the slightest hint of a belief in reincarnation. Later on, when Christianity became the Roman state religion, the gnostics were stamped out, and their writings destroyed.
Anyway, the sum of all that is that the belief some early christians had in reincarnation may have come from the Greeks rather than Jesus.
And the Greeks in turn may have got it from India.

 

::shrug: You never know...it is also said that Jesus traveled to India in those years that aren't accounted for in the Bible

the Bible was translated and changed many times also...so no one could know for sure...you know....

 

I agree that forgiving is healing for the person who forgives. To hold onto negative feelings can only be to damage oneself. Not only one's vision, but even the physical body can be affected.

I wonder though - if Jesus could forgive sins, then because He was a Divine being, I suppose that would amount to a kind of anullment of karma. But can we forgive in that way too? Maybe it depends.

Vaishnaviasm says that when Krishna killed the various demons, He awarded them instant liberation. So presumably, that would be an anullment of karma, since some of them had been dealing out death and destruction etc on a wide basis, Kamsa for instance had all the babies killed - like Herod. Yet when he was Killed by Krishna, he had a vision of Narayana and was liberated.

 

No one can say for sure I agree. I'm only giving my opinion based on my studies in these various areas. I don't think a great deal of the early history of Christianity can be established beyond doubt...esp. since the church did a pretty thorough job of stamping out both the gnostics, and their later medieveal heirs, the Cathars, or Albigenses, who definitely believed in reincarnation, and were exterminated ruthlessly in the Albigensian crusade.

Some say that Jesus came to England too, as a child with Joseph of Arimathea. Hence the words of Blake's famous 'Jerusalem' hymn.

 

I agree also...

That would be interesting if because he who he was he could stamp out karma...perhaps even if we cannot annul others karma...forgiveness allows us to undo our own karma...

As for Jesus coming to England...I've heard that too...I've also heard the whole "holy grail" legend with Joseph of Aramathea as well...

 

I've heard that some Masters can take another's karma on themselves. Some say that Sri Ramakrishna died of cancer as He did because of the negativity He had absorbed from Devotees.

The Grail legends are close to my heart. But I'm not sure if the Grail is really even a physical object...

 

I've heard that too...Yogananda always uses the example of St. Francis of Assi (sp?)...that he was so sickly because he did this...

 

I've heard that too about St. Francis. Interesting that Francis was the first person ever to manifest the stigmata - bleeding from hands, feet and sides - the wounds of Jesus. Maybe that's because Yogananda is perfectly correct, and Francis was actually suffering a kind of crucifixion, having taken the sins (karma) of others on himself.

 

i think st francis may have been sickly cuz he barely ate or slept and tossed himself into thorn bushes whenever he had a carnal desire

 

Hmm...I didn't know that about St. Francis...I did know of that woman Theresa (I can't remember her last name) that Yogananda visits in Autobiography of a Yogi...and she had manifested the stigmata once a week and only ate the host....

 

Moll - I have no time at all for all that ascetic stuff. I think though that Francis was a very complex character - some aspects of his life are attractive, others, including the stigmata, and his pryer to suffer as Christ suffered I find repellant, if thats not too strong a word. But he belongs to a previous epoch as far as I'm concerned.
But - don't let's overlook Hindu ascetics too, some of whose practices - 'breaking the penis' for instance, are perhaps even more repulsive in nature.

 

There have been recent stigmatics too - the most famous being Padre (now a saint) Pio. But there is controversy - some say he faked it, and that the doctors who examined him were all vatican men.

 

heh, it does put fear in you though when catholics come up to you and say that you have to believe in christ as your ONLY savior or you will suffer in hell for the rest of your life/eternity... "there was a sacrifice made for you remember!, you better adhere to this or else", but I know the pope does not believe that- he seems more tolerant of other religions.

 

Basically when a soul gains enough bad karma, it can fall even more to lower planets, these lower planets have more suffering than there is seen on earth. If soul gains good karma and keeps developing spiritually, it will rise and will be born in planets that are higher than earth- there is less suffering in those higher planets than the suffering seen here on earth, thats all.

 

and if a soul gains good karma, santa claus comes on christmas and brings lots of toys or other presents and fills their stockings up with candy

 

I grew up Cathoic and I have never had this happen to me from another...or seen them do it to another....Catholics I know stay to themselves....I've encountered this with "born-again" Christians...many people scare me who are like that...they've tried to "save" me when I was a full 100% Catholic...one told me Catholocism wasn't' Christianity... ::rolls eyes:: Its all the same Spirit children...all God....

 

It is an interesting thing that Bill brough tup a few pages ago about forgiveness. There are many tales where party A harms party B and party B forgives and prays that party A not suffer the full consequence of his action. As a result party A's karmic results are greatly mitigated. Also there are things that the offender can do, prayaschitta karma, which is performed as atonement, out of true repentance at having harmed others.

Also the Hindu naraka lokas or hells are reached by truly globally abominable acts, such as wanton murder, etc.

 

I remembered reading something like that about Madhvacharya's teachings, and did a little more research. You're right, he was pretty much alone in that position. Maybe appropriating part of this idea from Christian missionaries helped him philosophically resolve the problem of extreme evil in humanity, since he taught that only a certain group of jivas are predisposed toward the kind of extraordinarily evil behavior that would lead one toward damnation. This would help explain the existence of the Hitlers, serial killers, etc., that otherwise defy reasonable explanation in any faith.

I don't think any prominent Hindu acharya ever taught that mere lack of belief could cause one to be eternally damned, as Christians teach. Srila Prabhupada's view was that an ordinary fallen jiva's period of material conditioning, which can include protracted periods in both heavens and hells, is generally so long that it might as well be eternal, but that one of this class can definitely re-attain eternal spiritual nature. In his Gita, he made a clear distinction about demoniac people, and stated that they have practically no chance of receiving the mercy of God at any future time. Srila Prabhupada's lineage was a branch of the philosophical tree of Madhvacarya, and it seems that some of his writings in relation to damnation/salvation strongly show that influence.

 

Think again in that case -

New Pope: Buddhism replaces Marxism as Church's main enemy.

......as if that weren't enough, the ever-busy Cardinal has used his privileged take on the Truth to set back inter-faith tolerance and religious pluralism a few decades. In 1997 Ratzinger annoyed Buddhists by calling their religion an 'autoerotic spirituality' that offers 'transcendence without imposing concrete religious obligations'. And Hinduism, he said, offers 'false hope'; it guarantees 'purification' based on a 'morally cruel' concept of reincarnation resembling 'a continuous circle of hell'. The Cardinal predicted Buddhism would replace Marxism as the Catholic Church's main enemy this century.”