namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

by Kaunteya das

Competing brands of Gaudiya-vaisnavism at times claim that Srila Prabhupada only gave the basics, and that ISKCON people need to take shelter in their representatives to accede to higher dimensions of bhakti.

I beg to disagree. Besides the insulting and indefensible remark that ISKCON's Founder-Acarya didn't provide his followers with enough directions to achieve whatever is there to achieve, I would propose that ISKCON—or at least a good percentage of its members—need to go in a different direction. My observation is that devotees would tremendously benefit by absorbing themselves in the narrations of Mahabharata and Ramayana, thus imbibing the fundamental ethical values presented therein.

As His Holiness Bhakti Vidya Purna Maharaja put it so succinctly: "When men are men, women are women."

That's a simple yet powerful statement with profound implications in terms of both ideal and strategy for implementation.

A lot of problems come when unqualified men demand that roles be respected when qualification is not present. This is the same dynamic that lead the people to reject the varnas at the time of Buddha. Similarly people have rejected traditional gender roles.

Just as both Buddha and Sankara demonstrated at their relative points in the course of social development, we need intelligent readjustment. We have to keep the goal in sight like the pole star ("normative view" in the language of Krishna-kirti prabhu), and work our way back onto the "royal road" of varnasrama (as Srila Prabhupada describes it Bhagavad-gita—the safer path).

Several days a go I received an e-mail giving a small quote from one of Srila Prabhupada’s letters it is as follows:

31 December, 1970

Surat

At my school yesterday, there were a lot of people doing the silent protest to bring about awareness of the mistreatment of people who are homosexual. Ironically, His Grace Sankarshan Das Adhikari received a question regarding homosexuality. I thought I would share this with all of you. =]

Question: Are Gay People Demons?

Greetings to you. I bow to you and all the wonderful work you are doing for the good of the world.

In relation to the recent GBC announcement about H.H. Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Bhakta Eric asks: What exactly is a retired sannyasi?, among other questions.

These are good questions, because the terminology and idea of "retired sannyasi" and "retired diksa guru" have been introduced without much discussion or philosophical explanation.

I was just reading some articles on Sampradaya Sun.

Content-wise, this time I saw an article involving Gita-Govinda, who was the brahmacari commander when I first arrived in Peru and got married to Madre Graciela while I was there; Virabahu prabhu, whom I met in his capacity as co-GBC of the zone; and Daru Krishna prabhu, a legendary figure, the remnants of whose empire I inherited (stewarding it on behalf of Srila Prabhupada).

For a documentary on yoga in America, my partner and I recently interviewed renowned cardiologist Mehmet Oz. “If you come to me with a heart condition,” he said, “and you expect me to cure you, but then after the operation you go back to your old habits or you don’t exercise or you don’t do yoga, then all that I’ve done is palliate your problem. You’ll be back with the same problem again, expecting me to fix it. The bottom line is that if your heart doesn’t have a reason to go on beating, it won’t.”

The recent departure of Balabhadra Dasa from ISKCON, and the account of the circumstances leading up to his departure, will no doubt prompt some of my newer readers to ask the obvious question: “How could this possibly happen?”

How is it that a man who was has been a Vaishnava for more than thirty years, a spiritual leader, acknowledged by all as a guru—how could such a man fall prey to sensuality, anger, and corruption?

Once, when the great saint Ramanujacarya (1017-1137) was narrating this particular story, he suddenly noticed that many members of his audience were standing up and leaving. Noticing their troubled expressions, he enquired as to what was their concern that they should leave his discussion. “By hearing Lord Rama’s associates describe Vibhisana’s disqualifications,” they said, “we think that we shall never attain Lord Rama’s company for we also have these disqualifications. The sincerity required before one can gain the company of Rama, means that we will not attain His eternal company at the end of our lives.” Ramanuja replied with great concern, “My dear friends, please come back, sit down and be peaceful. I shall personally speak on your behalf to Rama. I shall take you all with me at the end of your lives and thus be your guarantee of salvation.”