Jagat

This is a revision of an earlier article ( Bhaktivinoda's Meat-eating, the complete story ). It was adjusted to make it suitable for the introduction to Sva-likhita-jīvanī . ////////// From the Autobiography , we know that the Thakur ate meat right up until the time he took diksha at the age of 42. The fact that he makes an issue of it, often talking about his difficulty in giving up his attachment to such a diet, serves to highlight the significance of his taking initiation and the grace of his guru. It stands as an important testimonial that he himself felt that it took the mercy that came to him through diksha to stop that bad habit. Without stating it explicitly, it is obvious that in Bhaktivinoda's childhood the family ate meat and fish. After all, they were Shaktas. Ula Birnagar was heavily populated with Shaktas and there were several temples to Kali and Durga in the family estate and around the village, which after all was named after a popular shrine to...

My friend, Paramadwaiti Maharaj’s young sannyasi disciple from Argentina, Padmanabha Swami, recently wrote me a note thanking me for introducing him to Jordan Peterson after I posted a few links on my Facebook page. He then wrote an article , extracting a few points from Peterson’s latest book, Twelve Rules for Life An Antidote to Chaos , that he felt were compatible with Vaishnava teachings. At any rate, Peterson’s full-throated defense of religious belief and his debates with neo-atheists like Sam Harris have attracted the attention of Christian pastors like Paul VanderKlay who use his insights in their own understanding and explanations of religion. I have not written directly about Peterson very much on this blog, as my own journey is taking me away from the kind of academic explanations of religion that were a concern earlier on in this blog, after I had gone through religious studies at McGill University. Nevertheless, that is what first attracted me to Peterson was his...

Bhaktivinoda Thakur's meat eating has been a subject of some interest on this blog. The article I wrote in 2007 has been one of the most read on this site and still regularly attracts readers. As I have been revising the translation of Sva-likhita-jīvanī , I have been asked by certain people to censor any mention of meat-eating in the book. I have said emphatically, "absolutely not," because it is my feeling that this would completely destroy one of the principal themes of the book itself. Bhaktivinoda Thakur's autobiography is an extremely interesting work, especially to one who is directly in disciplic succession from him. It was written as a letter to his son and disciple, my guru Sri Lalita Prasad Thakur, when he was only a boy of 15. It is hard to understand what the purpose of such a confession would have been in that context. Lalita Prasad was born and brought up in a household where there was a shuddha sattvika diet of prasad. He had feelings of hero-wor...

My friend Satyaraj Das, the founder and editor of the Journal of Vaishnava Studies , a successful, prolific and popular writer on subjects related to Vaishnavism, is writing a book on vegetarianism and Vaishnavism. He has already written successful books on the subject and is revisiting the subject from a deeper and broader perspective. He asked me my opinion on Krishna's recommending the killing of animals for the Govardhana Puja, as in the Vishnu Purana (5.10.38) and Harivamsa (2.16.21). Why not just take it as a historical development? We don't have to anchor ourselves to the past. This is a big problem with the way that Prabhupada presented Krishna consciousness to us, as something fixed in the past and unchangeable to which we must return. This is impossible, is it not? You never put your toes into the same flowing stream twice. But that is a big piece for most devotees to swallow. How can Krishna not have been perfect, if he was indeed a historical reality, etc.? And...