Lord Krishna, the Eternal Guru

I am new to this forum. I was just trying to locate like-minded people on net and came across this site. I consider Lord Krishna my Eternal Guru & my destination.
Some of the members appear quite enlightened and may perhaps guide me on my way to my Lord. Unfortunately, I have not much idea about Sri Prabhupad. I wish I had.
Can anyone tell me why Lord Krishna says to act as per Shastras (Scriptures) in Geeta Chapter-16, Sloka-24 ? What does he exactly mean by shastras ? If the Shastras include only Hindu Scriptures then that would mean excluding all who are not Hindus, which would be simply wrong as for God everybody is equally loveable. [/quote]

[tirthadas]

I am new to this forum. I was just trying to locate like-minded people on net and came across this site. I consider Lord Krishna my Eternal Guru & my destination.
Some of the members appear quite enlightened and may perhaps guide me on my way to my Lord. Unfortunately, I have not much idea about Sri Prabhupad. I wish I had.
Can anyone tell me why Lord Krishna says to act as per Shastras (Scriptures) in Geeta Chapter-16, Sloka-24 ? What does he exactly mean by shastras ? If the Shastras include only Hindu Scriptures then that would mean excluding all who are not Hindus, which would be simply wrong as for God everybody is equally loveable.

Srila Prabhupada didn't encourage people of established faith to "change", just to become a better Christian, Muslim, Jew, or whatever their faith might be. In light of this, a liberal interpretation of the Gita verse you cited would mean that all bonafide scriptures, not just the Vedic, could be classified as shastras.

Re garding His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaltivedanta Swami Prabhupada, there's plenty of info online.

To start:
http://krishna.org/

Thanks, Tirthadas ! I am gathering works of Swamy Prabhupad. I have already got his work on Lord Krishna from ISKON.
Thanks again.

[mathuranath das]

Dear Devotee....As Tirtha das mentioned...the bonafide scriptures of all faiths can be broadly termed as "shastra" however its helpful to examine their origin and intention. Faith, as well as the shastras that represent the various forms of faith, can be colored by the modes of nature. Lord Krsna describes this in the Gita....faith in the mode of ignorance...faith in the mode of passion...etc. So scriptures also can be viewed energetically in this way. If we don't get hung up on methodology we can examine any system of spirituality and gauge its proxcimity to the central truth. In the Chaitanya Caritamrita also, in the Ramamnanda samvad, Mahaprabhu and Ramamnanda Raya discuss the various levels of theistic developement from varnashrama dharma and karma-kanda, karma-mishra, jnana-mishra and finally Shudda-bhakti (pure unadulterated devotion in the two forms of viddhi-marg and raga-marg) Every aspiring devotee should try to understand these concepts in conjuction with active service to a higher living vaisnava (maha-bhagavat if possible) Another example is that of the heliocentric universe. Some planets are closer to the sun and therefore reflect more light, some are more distant and the light they reflect is dimmer and may be color to some extent by the planet itself. shastra is like this as well.

Krsna Consciousness represents the pure unadulterated cognition of the soul.. The scriptures that purley represent this conception are called Veda (revealed Truth) And are shuddha-sattva (pure spiritual goodness)They are the realizations of the tattva-drishis (the ancient research scientists of a previous age). They are not the manufactured speculations of conditioned souls and as such they hold a pre-immenet position in the worlds cannon of theistic literature. This is not bias but by a scientific fact eveidenced by the science of transcendental rasa. An unbias comparative study reveals this.

I would recommend you to read the famous "Bhagavat speech" delivered by Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur in the ninteenth century. He expesses these points very nicely. In any case it sounds like you are reading Srila Prabhupads books, so you are definitely in good hands. The only thing I would add is that krsna Consciousness is revealed truth and it will be revealed to you in proportion to your surrender and service to a bonafide vaishnava saint. Surrender - serve - realize. This is the formula.

ye yatha mam prapadyante...'As they all surrender unto Me, I reward them accordingly" Gita 4.11