Welcome to the Purely Prabhupada YouTube channel. This video series is called “Reality distinguished from illusion for the welfare of all.” My name is Kamra devi dasi, and I am a disciple of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada.
This is video number twelve in the series. It is called “We are not a Christian nation.”
We are not a Christian nation, no matter what anyone proclaims. We are not following Jesus simply by calling ourselves Christians. I saw recently on one Christian based social media site criticisms of a very traditional Asian Indian parade on a Florida beach. Someone posted video clips of this parade, called Jagannatha. Rathayatra with comments to “send them home,” “this is a Christian nation, we don’t want their strange chanting and floats on our beaches,” “H-1B visa holders don’t belong here,” etc. Yet, there are so many anomalies in the Bible. Why are there so many Bible translations if even changing one word can alter the entire meaning, as in a legal document, where even the use of a small word, like “and” or “or” shifts the application of the entire document? How much really was changed by Paul after the departure of Jesus, how much was changed, omitted, institutionalized by the Council of Nicea in 325 AD and even before that? What was the political agenda behind the changes and omissions?
What is real history of Jesus and his teachings, what has been fabricated, similar to the false histories that we were forced to learn in school growing up and still believe out of resistance to finding out that we have been hoodwinked on a grand scale? What if Jesus really did live and study in India, especially in Jagannatha Puri, and hold very dear to his heart the very festivals and parades that are being criticized openly on social media? There is plenty of evidence in the Aquarian Gospel and other literatures that support the fact that Jesus lived, studied, and taught in India. Therefore, to vilify these festivals is not very honoring of the heart of Jesus Christ. How do we reject what was so dear to Jesus and then call ourselves his followers? In the same way, how do we reject his instruction not to kill, indulge ourselves in the products of slaughter, and call ourselves his followers? We must research, and be open to the possibilities that we have been purposely trained to be closed minded and dogmatic in our understandings.
There are many things that are being questioned in the world today. I am not promoting any particular take on these things, but it seems that the initial presentations of so many things are being questioned, very often for good reason and with good evidence. For example, on the worldly level, was Hitler really as evil as the history books tell? Was JKF really shot by a lone gunman? What about any agenda around the sinking of the Titanic? 9/11? On and on…. So many things that were lumped in as conspiracy theories are being proven not to be conspiracies at all- … In the same way, the Bible may have to be reassessed, if at all possible, as to the validity of its current presentation. As political histories have mostly been adjusted for some manipulative purpose, as the current “news” is mostly manipulated for propaganda purposes, there is enough evidence to suggest that the Bible may have been similarly adjusted, with very little of the original rendition remaining intact for some nefarious purposes… Maybe even to control the people and to prevent them from actually attaining the main purpose of the teachings of Jesus, to “Learn to love the Lord, they God, with all thy heart, strength, and mind.”
Thomas Jefferson was criticized for his understanding of Jesus and the New Testament, but it seems it is time for his concerns and the points he made to be duly studied. A gentleman, a statesman of his caliber, a great thinker, inventor, and analyzer with an uncanny ability to cut through a lot of fluff and get to the raw essence of things, the author of the Declaration of Independence, being highly spoken of and revered with great awareness for his straightforward practicality in these troubled times, maybe his deep introspections and even realizations are also ready to be heard on the subject of Jesus Christ. He cut through the romanticisms of the presentation of Jesus Christ and went to the crux issues in his many essays and also in his Jeffersonian Bible.
If we can imbibe the real teachings of Jesus without being limited by sectarianism, then we may call ourselves a Christian nation. But all that organized religion has done for us is create division, power struggles, and in fact, irreligiosity itself, especially adopted by the clergy in the most horrific, perverse, and obscene ways. Real Christianity will be unifying, not divisive. It will be loving, and yet firm in its principles of upholding moral and religious principles. Neither dogmatic nor sentimental. If we claim to be a Christian nation, let us study what that really means and become unified in the purpose of learning to love the Lord, not letting dogma, sentimentality, and willful, obstinate ignorance, be obstacles to that end.
Some things we will probably never know, but painful as it is, we may have to come to the core understanding that we have been misled, especially in the matter of the real teachings of Jesus Christ and other subjects of history, and never let it happen again, not to us, not to the generations forthcoming.
There was a statement made by William Casey, the director of the CIA in 1981. He said, “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
Whatever really happened in the past, we may not ever know. But we can move forward. This will mean looking at John 16:12. What follows is a short essay that I wrote several years back, entitled “The Rest of the Story.”
John 16:12 – “I have yet many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them now….”
There have been several speculations by modern Bible scholars as to what Jesus meant when he expressed this, but all their hypotheses relate to mundane, worldly dealings that were not the concerns of the Son of God. Jesus himself was only concerned with the transmission of the knowledge that would benefit humankind, and indeed all living entities, on the transcendental level of the soul’s journey back to the Kingdom of God.
There are the dealings of this world, and there is the science of how to exit it. By Jesus’ own admission, the entire science that he knew, and desired to present, could not be given at that time, as the populace was not ready to embrace it. The translations of the following verse, John:16:13, are hard to understand as they are presented. “When (the Spirit of Truth) comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority…” For better understanding, the preferential translation is, “When the Embodiment of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority.”
The true representative of God does not speak on his own authority. He speaks on the authority of God. I have sat very deeply with this in prayer and meditation. I have concluded, without a doubt, that the books of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda contain the precious, spiritual wisdom that Jesus was not able to give to either his disciples or to the masses at that time. Various Bible scholars have also noted that many of the teachings of Jesus were lost within a century of his passing, due to poor translations, omissions, or purposeful misrepresentation. In a similar way, it is essential to keep the original teachings of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda alive by studying the book editions and other materials that he wrote and approved before his passing in November of 1977.
I have observed much frustration, even among sincere Christians, as to how to make sense of the crazy things that are going on in this world. The Bible gives a wealth of information, and by its own words as seen in John 16:12, admits that it is a preliminary study that paves the way for greater insights that at the time could not be revealed. I humbly ask that that the sincere souls who have taken inspiration from the life and teachings of Jesus explore the works of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda in order to gain this greater understanding. Srila Prabhupada never spoke on his own authority. He spoke only on the authority of the Lord Himself and on the authority of literatures even more ancient and complete than the Bible itself, and that were passed down in pure form by previous spiritual authority. These books will not present anything that challenges the teachings of Jesus or present anything contrary. They will simply build upon the foundation that was laid by various spiritual predecessors, including Jesus Christ himself.
