Who is Lord Jesus Christ?

• There is a purpose behind the universe
• Buddha is an incarnation of Krishna
• Jesus taught the same thing as Krishna -- but in the language of fishermen
• Jesus is an empowered incarnation of God
• Bhagavada-gita is the A-B-C of spiritual life
• Christian Priests who are also Hare Krishna's?
• God has a big plan
• God is available to everyone, He's in everyone's Heart
• My religion is right and all others are wrong...
• Levels of understanding God
• The material world -- a perverted reflection of the spiritual world
• Here we work for our own pleasure -- there we work for Krishna's pleasure
• Different relationships with Krishna
• Krishna consciousness -- "higher education" in spiritual knowledge

One verse in the Bhagavada-gita states: (Bg. 4.7)

Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion -- at that time I descend Myself.

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• There is a purpose behind the universe
  There is a purpose behind this material world. The world is manifest to give us, the rebellious living entities, an opportunity to enjoy separately from the Lord and to simultaneously reform us and bring us back to the service of the Lord. To fulfil the purpose of the material creation God appears Himself personally and also sends His empowered representatives and sons to act on His behalf and re-establish the religious principles.

  The Lord can advent Himself anywhere and everywhere, and whenever He desires to appear. In each and every incarnation He speaks as much about religion as can be understood by the particular people under their particular circumstances. But the mission is the same -- to lead people to God consciousness and obedience to the principles of religion.

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• Buddha is an incarnation of Krishna
  From the Bhagavatam we understand that Lord Buddha is the incarnation of Krishna who appeared when materialism was rampant and materialists were using the pretext of the authority of the Vedas. Although there are certain restrictive rules and regulations regarding animal sacrifice for particular purposes in the Vedas, people of demoniac tendency still took to animal sacrifice without reference to the Vedic principles. Lord Buddha appeared to stop this nonsense and to establish the Vedic principles of nonviolence.

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• Jesus taught the same thing as Krishna -- but in the language of fishermen
  We can also see Lord Jesus Christ appeared in a society at a time when religious principles were not being followed. He appeared to re-establish the principles and to speak on spiritual knowledge as much as could be understood by his followers. Jesus was speaking to simple people, villagers and fishermen, so his presentation of spiritual knowledge was made accordingly. His presentation is completely valid and he is accepted as an empowered incarnation of God by all authorities in the line of Krishna consciousness. Once somebody asked my spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada what he thought of Jesus Christ and he replied that Jesus is our guru.

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• Jesus is an empowered incarnation of God
  Jesus is an empowered incarnation of God. His message is no different to the message of Krishna in the Bhagavada-gita, it is simply presented in a different way to a different audience. The principles of Bhagavad-gita were spoken to Arjuna and to other highly elevated persons. They were highly advanced compared to ordinary persons in other parts of the world. Two plus two is a mathematical principle that is true both in the beginner's arithmetic class and in the advanced class as well. Still there are higher and lower mathematics. In all incarnations of the Lord, therefore, the same principles are taught, but they appear to be higher and lower in varied circumstances. There are many dictionaries on the market and they are all factually dictionaries but one may be a small pocket dictionary and another a large international version. Both are dictionaries and contain essentially the same information, however, the depth of knowledge is different.

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• Bhagavada-gita is the A-B-C of spiritual life
  Bhagavad-gita is simply the A-B-C of spiritual life. It is the introduction to a vast library of transcendental and material knowledge called the Vedas. Veda means knowledge and any actual knowledge can be found to have its source in the Vedas. There are many, many divisions of Vedic knowledge. The complete spiritual science is analytically described, all material arts and sciences are described, there is the Auya Veda which describes medical science, the Dana Veda describing the science of warfare, the Joyti Veda describing astronomy and astrology and so many other fields of knowledge. Lord Jesus Christ had knowledge of this Vedic literature because the Vedas is the science of God and Jesus Christ is the son of God. He presented this same Vedic knowledge in a manner and language suitable to his audience. His presentation is a simplifiede one, but the essence i the same.

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• Christian Priests who are also Hare Krishna's?
  Many Christian scholars and priests have studied the Vedic literature and have come to the conclusion the knowledge presented is not different to the knowledge presented by Jesus Christ. We actually have a number of Christian priests in Australia who are also devotees of Krishna, they don't find any contradiction between the two systems of knowledge. I meet many staunch followers of Jesus Christ on the streets but often they are completely closed-minded and the conversation can't go past the famous line, "The only way to the father is JESUS!!!" There are many other Christians, however, who are prepared to hear about Krishna and anyone who is prepared to hear something about Krishna will appreciate it.

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• God has a big plan
  God has a big plan. His plan is to somehow or other bring all His fallen sons and daughters back home, back to Godhead. We are suffering here in the material world due to our rebellious attitude. We want to enjoy separately from God. But God is so merciful that He comes Himself and sends His representatives also to help us. God is willing to help anyone come to Him if that living entity desires it. He, however, has given us a certain amount of free will.

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• God is available to everyone, He's in everyone's Heart
  It is not that God is only available to one sectarian group and all others are bereft of His association. He's in everybody's heart, be he a Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu or anything else. God's plan is to bring everyone back to Him so He has sent His representatives into every society to establish religious principles suitable for bringing those people closer to Him. There may be differences in the details of various systems of religion but the basic principles are the same. No religious system accepts happy life in the material world as the ultimate goal, they all see this life as a time of preparation, a time to come closer to God so in the next life we can go back to Him.

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• My religion is right and all others are wrong...
  To say "My religion is right and all others are wrong," is completely naive. There are so many societies, so many countries, so many planets and so many universes and all of them are teeming with living entities who have forgotten their relationship with Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Krishna loves them all and cares about them all. In the same way as we have a huge variety of educational institutions to cater for many different types of students at many different levels, Krishna has given many different religious and spiritual paths to enable all people to come closer to Him. If the chemistry student said, "Only chemistry courses are valid, all other education is useless," what would you think?

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• Levels of understanding God
  There are levels of understanding God. Many religious and philosophical systems don't even have a clear understanding of who God is, some don't even accept a personal God. The highest relationship generally available is one of worshipping God in aware and reverence, in a way similar to the worship one would offer to a king or great person in this world. This is certainly one of the loving relationships possible with Krishna, but it is not the only one.

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• The material world -- a perverted reflection of the spiritual world
  This material world is a perverted reflection of the spiritual world. As the tree on the bank of the river is pervertedly reflected on the water so the spiritual world is reflected in the material world. As the reflection of the tree is situated on the water and the reflection is distorted by the movement of the water similarly the reflection of the spiritual world in the material world is situated on desire. The pure desire is to serve Krishna and the perverted desire is to serve ourselves, our families, our country and so on. As the reflection of the tree in the water gives an idea of the actual tree so this material world gives us an idea of the original spiritual world. Everything we see here has its origin in the spiritual world. We see trees here so the original trees are in the spiritual world, we see animals, rivers, oceans, buildings, people and cities here so the originals are in the spiritual world.

  As there is a difference in quality between the original tree and the reflected tree there is similarly a difference in quality between the original spiritual existence and the reflected, perverted material existence. The original tree has fruit and the reflected tree also has fruit. The fruit on the original tree is real and can be tasted and actually enjoyed, however, the reflected fruit is simply illusory. It may appear to be enjoyable but there is actually no enjoyable substance there, it is simply a reflection situated on the water. Similarly the enjoyable things in the material world are illusory. It looks like an enjoyable object, but the enjoyable substance is not there. That enjoyable substance is with Krishna in the spiritual world and we are seeing but a perverted reflection.

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• Here we work for our own pleasure -- there we work for Krishna's pleasure
  The point of this discussion is what we see in the material world is a perverted reflection of what is going on in the spiritual world so everything we see here has its origin there. The difference between the material world and the spiritual world is here we are working for our own pleasure and in the spiritual world we work for Krishna's pleasure. One pleasure is illusory and the other real.

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• Different relationships with Krishna
  We can have many different relationships with other people here and these relationships are simply perverted reflections of the original relationships we have with Krishna. Everybody has an eternal relationship with Krishna in one of four different moods. We have already discussed the mood of aware and reverence, the only relationship approachable outside Krishna consciousness, but there are others. As we can have somebody as our friend here we can also become the friend of Krishna in the spiritual world. As we can become the parent of a child here we can also become a parent of Krishna. As we have our husband or lover here we can also become a wife or lover of Krishna. If you want to understand anything of God beyond the relationship of aware and reverence you have to study the Vedic literature because outside the Vedic literature there is no information of these highly elevated spiritual concepts.

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• Krishna consciousness -- "higher education" in spiritual knowledge
  From the above discussion on can conclude that Krishna consciousness is the "higher education" in spiritual knowledge. It is the natural progression for anyone who has understood God or spiritual knowledge up to a certain point. We don't condemn any valid spiritual path. Every valid spiritual path leads to understanding God, Krishna and Krishna is completely described in the Bhagavada-gita and Srimad Bhagavatam. These books are the natural higher education course for any person on any spiritual path and they are so nicely presented that anyone seriously studying them will automatically develop their natural, dormant love of God and experience transcendental bliss. My humble request is that you PLEASE READ THESE BOOKS. Thank you. Hare Krishna.

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  Chant Hare Krishna and be happy! All glories to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada!

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