Your international feeling and my international feeling, your national feeling and my national feeling, are overlapping and conflicting.
[Posted
December 5, 2009]A Question of Loyalty
Conflict between patriotism and loyalty to neighborhood: 90 Year Old Purple Heart and Medal of Honor Recipient Told to Take Down American Flag in His Front Yard
Medal of Honor recipient Col. Van T. Barfoot, 90, raises and lowers the flag daily.
WWII Vet Fights Homeowners Group Over Va. Flagpole
Richmand, VA One of the nation's oldest Medal of Honor winners was back in the fight Thursday, this time against a neighborhood association that wants him to take down a front-yard flagpole.
Supporters, including a U.S. senator, have been falling in behind 90-year-old retired Army Col. Van T. Barfoot, a World War II veteran awarded the lofty Congressional honor for actions including standing up to three German tanks with a bazooka and stopping their advance. go to story
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Aim of Life Career - Occupation Friends, Community, Social NetworkingToday you are a nationalist, you are a very great follower of your country, but tomorrow if you stay in your country you may be a cow being taken to the slaughterhouse. So we have to thoroughly know our identity. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says that the actual identity of every living creature is that he is the eternal servant of God. more
Finding the center
excerpt from Journey of Self Discovery
If you throw a stone into the middle of a pool of water, a circle will expand to the limit of the bank. Similarly, radio waves expand in a circle, and when you capture the waves with your radio you can hear the message. In the same way, our loving feeling can also expand.
At the beginning of our life, we simply want to eat. Whatever a small child grabs, he wants to eat. He has only personal interest. Then, when the child grows a little, he tries to participate with his brothers and sisters: "All right. You also take a little." This is an increase in the feeling of fellowship. Then, as he grows up, he begins to feel some love for his parents, then for his community, then for his country, and at last for all nations. But unless the center is right, that expansion of feeling—even if it is national or international—is not perfect.
For example, the meaning of the word national is "one who has taken birth in a particular country." You feel for other Americans because they are born in this country. You may even sacrifice your life for your countrymen. But there is a defect: If the definition of national is "one who is born in a particular country," then why are the animals born in America not considered Americans? The problem is that we are not expanding our feelings beyond the human society. Because we don't think animals are our countrymen, we send them to the slaughterhouse.
So the center of our national feeling or our international feeling is not fixed on the proper object. If the center is right, then you can draw any number of circles around that center and they'll never overlap. They'll simply keep growing, growing, growing. They'll not intersect with one another if the center is all right. Unfortunately, although everyone is feeling nationally or internationally, the center is missing. Therefore your international feeling and my international feeling, your national feeling and my national feeling, are overlapping and conflicting. So we have to find the proper center for our loving feelings. Then you can expand your circle of feelings and it will not overlap or conflict with others'.
That center is Krishna.