{"id":1246,"date":"2006-09-14T18:43:14","date_gmt":"2006-09-14T17:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=1246"},"modified":"2007-02-02T15:44:01","modified_gmt":"2007-02-02T14:44:01","slug":"whats-in-a-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=1246","title":{"rendered":"What’s in a Name?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"By Praghosa dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n

Names play such an important role in all cultures and societies. Historically many people were not only known by their name but their name often identified their occupation, also a name can reveal nationality or ethnic origin.<\/p>\n

We even name cities and streets and pets and football teams and rivers and mountains and lakes and seas and so many more things besides. Yes names certainly play a huge role in society and we couldn’t really function without them. I often remember the inconvenience of driving around looking for a certain road in an unfamiliar area, if the road name was missing or obscured you could waste ages trying to locate the place you were trying to find.<\/p>\n

Giving a name to a living being or anything else is by definition personalising that entity or item, while on the other hand if a person remains nameless then there is little more that could be more impersonal.<\/p>\n

Srila Prabhupada writes in one letter to a disciple:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing, on the invitation card you have written All Glories to Our Guru Maharaja. This is impersonalism. As soon as we offer obeisances to guru, the name should be there. We are strictly personalists. The sahajiya’s, they write Glories to Guru. Why you are learning this impersonalism, who has taught you? Daily I am offering obeisances to my Guru by vibrating his real name, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, otherwise it is impersonal\u201d<\/p>\n

So giving names, having names and using names are all essential for increasing the personal touch.. Of course as devotees we receive even more mercy when we are given names related to Krsna and His devotees at the time of initiation. These names not only serve as a way of identifying us but they also remind us of the supreme Lord and His devotees and can award us unlimited spiritual benefit, as in the case of Ajamila.<\/p>\n

What then to speak of the holy name itself, which is the ultimate pinnacle of all names and all things personal:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lord smilingly explained to the devotee brahmana why the Mayavadi cannot utter the holy name of Krsna. “The Mayavadis are offenders at the lotus feet of Krsna, although they utter always brahma, atma, or caitanya, etc. And because they are offenders at the lotus feet of Krsna, they are actually unable to utter the holy name of Krsna. The name Krsna and the Personality of Godhead Krsna are identical. There is no difference in the absolute realm between the name, form or person of the Absolute Truth because in the absolute realm everything is transcendental bliss. There is no difference between the body and the soul for the Personality of Godhead, Krsna. Thus He is different from the living entity who is always different from his outward body. Because of Krsna’s transcendental position, it is very difficult for a layman to actually know the Personality of Godhead, Krsna, His holy name and fame, etc. His name, fame, form and pastimes all are one and the same transcendental identity\u201d Introduction to Srimad Bhagavatam<\/p>\n

Taking all this into account the staff at Dandavats have a humble request. This request is also desired by many of our readers and it is that whenever you want to make a comment or submit an article, you include as much information about yourself as possible, the absolute minimum being your name! Ideally when making a comment if you could start by saying \u201cComment by …………. das\/dasi that would be fantastic. If you are also inclined to give a short bi op all the better. If you look at the posting guidelines for Dandavats you will see that a real name (not an alias) is required when posting a comment or article.<\/p>\n

The more we know about each other the more we can nurture and develop a family spirit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe relationship of the Vaisnavas is always that of a family. The guru is father, and there are god brothers and god sisters. The param-guru is the grandfather, and the uncles and aunts are the guru\u2019s own god brothers and god sisters. In this way the philosophy of personalism is practically applied. To the extent that we relate on this level, to that extent our hearts have been melted by the chanting of the Holy Name so that we actually see each other as a spiritual family\u201d Radha Damodhara Vilas<\/p>\n

Thanks to all our readers and contributors for your continued support and the staff at Dandavats look forward to getting to know you all better (at least your names:-)<\/p>\n

Your servant, <\/p>\n

Praghosa dasa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"HareBy Praghosa dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n

So giving names, having names and using names are all essential for increasing the personal touch.. Of course as devotees we receive even more mercy when we are given names related to Krsna and His devotees at the time of initiation. These names not only serve as a way of identifying us but they also remind us of the supreme Lord and His devotees and can award us unlimited spiritual benefit, as in the case of Ajamila.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-praghosa-dasa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}