Seeking Krishna, the Reality.
Recently Sita-pati Prabhu composed a blog entry addressing my strained relationship with ISKCON, and I appreciated what he wrote. ( http://www.atmayogi.com/node/3595 ) ?I realize that it must be a challenge for him dealing with the controversy I sometimes raise, which feeds to PlanetISKCON. I try to take that into consideration when I write, but I also do not want to do too much self-censorship on account of PlanetISKCON readers. It’s important to me that it stays authentic. ? Still, I have several draft posts that will probably never be published in consideration of their feelings. ? One devotee told me that the PlanetISKCON aggregator can pull posts based on tags too, and I proposed that to Sita-pati as a possibility. ? Maybe that will help reduce the number of reader objections, but I’m still waiting to hear back about it. Until then I don’t have a way to prevent anything I write here from appearing there.
I get a significant number of requests for me to lay off the negative view, and I wish it were that easy. ?In theory, I could have this be a purely inspirational blog, but I think there’s enough of that out there, and frankly that kind of writing doesn’t inspire me. ?Thats why I’m trying to be real here. ?My idea for this blog from the beginning was to give a candid look into the experience of an aspiring devotee, and I can only do that in the “first person” perspective.
If my writing often expresses a negative view, it’s important to ask why that is. ? I don’t think I’m an especially negative person, especially when it comes to spiritual life, and when I began my relationship with ISKCON I was extraordinarily hopeful. ?Unfortunately much of that hope has turned into disappointment, and I’ve been trying to understand exactly how and why that happened. ? I would think others should see the value in that too. ? It’s not like I’m the only one who has felt spiritually injured by their experiences in ISKCON, and if this phenomenon is not examined and understood then I’m sure there will be many more to come.
I remember one of my first visits to an ISKCON temple. ?It was in Issaquah, WA. ? My wife and I (we were a couple, but not yet married) went there three times, and on the second or third visit one young mataji, a mother with a young child, told me she was being abused by the temple president, Hari Vilas. ? At that time I had no concept at all of temple life and knew nothing about ISKCON, and I don’t recall the details of her story (I don’t think she was alleging violent or sexual abuse, rather I recall that she seemed to feel like a slave working all the time and unable to properly tend to her child), but I got the impression she felt desperate to just tell someone. ?I really didn’t know what to make of it, and I couldn’t really offer any help since I had so little experience. ? But this sits in the back of my mind as my first encounter of a cry for help from an ISKCON devotee. ?I regret that I could not intervene, and I hope that she is OK.
Really, that whole encounter was so far outside of my concept of Krishna consciousness that I had no place to file it in my mind. ?It’s a wonder I can even remember her at all. ?Back then my conception of Krishna consciousness was entirely mystical. ?Six months earlier I had left my former life in New York behind with the intent to go live as a hermit meditating in the Olympic National Forest. ? I arrived in Olympia at 10pm on a Thursday night (Sept 28, 1995), and the next morning I went to town and found a used hardcover Bhagavad-gita As It Is in a new age bookstore and a Vrajabasi painting of Krishna in an imports shop across the street. ?I dove into studying the text, and a week later Krishna appeared through the painting to tell me that what Srila Prabhupada said was all real. ?That’s a long story… ? I went back and bought several more of the paintings thinking they were Krishna personally hiding in them.
After that, I read Bhagavad-gita three times before I felt like I was prepared to meet Krishna again. ?(I had no idea how ridiculous that would sound to devotees.) ?I assumed that by going to a Hare Krishna temple I would get a chance to speak with Him again, and that His devotees there would put all have such an intimate, manifest relationship with Him, and more. ? Instead, whenever I’ve talked about Krishna as a real person, devotees would usually look at me as if I was weird or just trying to get attention. ?So I mostly stopped. ? Actually I’ve noticed that at least at temples where I’ve spent time, its rare to hear anyone talking about Krishna, and those who do tend to be seen as more or less weird or even a little crazy. ?I’ve always liked them though.
So that’s one thing that’s nobody’s fault. ? We have a certain degree or aspect of Krishna consciousness, and get Krishna’s causeless mercy as He as He gives it. ?Still, I came to ISKCON because Krishna told me to get some association of His devotees, but also because I really needed to find someone who understood what had happened to me and could help me to see Krishna again. ? I thought at least the gurus would be able to do that, but instead they’ve had the opposite effect on me.
Recently I read something that Satsvarupa had written, saying that we’re too neophyte to see Krishna. ? Well, that may be true in one sense, but I first saw Him a week after I began studying Bhagavad-gita and had never even met devotees. ?I didn’t even know whether to believe what I was reading yet. ?So obviously it’s not a question of neophyte or not. ? I was sincere and had set aside all other goals, and Krishna saw that and put me on the path of bhakti. ? We may be neophyte or not, but Krishna is always free to decide whether to appear or remain hidden.
So anyway, what Satsvarupa said is just what I need not to hear from a guru. ? I need hope that if by purifying my desire to see Krishna, by looking for Him everywhere, Krishna may be pleased and reveal Himself again. ?When He visited me in October 1995 He said I would be back for me at my time of death and I would see Him then, but He did not exactly say that I couldn’t see Him sooner. ? Should I give up that hope just because I’m so neophyte? ?That hope is my life.
in the Spring of 1976 Leslie and I went back to New York together, and in 1997 I really wanted to do the Hare Krishna thing full time. ? We decided we wanted to learn to farm, so we went to New Vrindavava, where, instead of learning to farm (the temple president just laughed when I said I wanted to do that), I learned about the crimes of New Vrindavana. ? What if New Vrindavana had developed the way Srila Prabhupada wanted it? ?I imagine my life would be a lot different than it is now.
What went wrong there? ? I would have to say it was the Zonal Acarya era. ?Was it a mistake? ?I can’t imagine how. ? They must have known what Srila Prabhupada wanted them to do, but they did something else to satisfy themselves. ?What we have now is an evolution of that corruption. ?I still dream of what ISKCON would be like if the Zonals hadn’t appointed themselves as so-called acaryas and then instituted a guru-by-vote system when that failed.
The idea that the corruption was systemic first hit me when I heard about the child abuse lawsuit. ? How could a society run by so many Krishna conscious, self-realized souls, Hare Krishna gurus for goodness sake, allow the devotees to be molested, beaten, and tortured? ?It was inconceivable. ? One could harshly declare it the kids’ karma, or something, but ISKCON’s job isn’t to dish out karma; it is to distribute Krishna’s mercy, inspire everyone to devotional service, and train devotees. ?Instead it produced hundreds of kids for whom the sounds “Hare Krishna” produced nightmares.
Yes there was a settlement and a little remuneration, but it was really a pittance. ? What’s a few thousand dollars compared to what these kids endured, not to mention what was taken from them in terms of faith in Srila Prabhupada’s gift of ISKCON? ?Moreover, not much was done to correct the the cause of the problem. ?Who put creeps in charge of the children? ? Who let them stay when their abuses became known? ?Have any of these leaders and managers been prosecuted for endangering the children? ?I’ve heard of none. ?With so many Krishna conscious acaryas running around, it’s a real surprise that such a scandal could happen.
So what does it mean? ?I wonder how this fits into Krishna’s plan. ?I know I had nothing to do with any child abuse, except for standing for child protection when the need arose. ? But somehow the experience of belonging to a spiritual society plagued with such scandals must have a root somewhere in my karma. ? None the less, I don’t believe that diminishes my duty to assert what I believe is right and good, and oppose what is wrong.
Notice there are two sides to that. ?The principle for rapid?advancement?in Krishna conscious is to accept what is favorable and reject what is unfavorable. ? Without focusing on the unfavorable, for the sake of eliminating it, when it is present, the system is incomplete. ? I don’t know if the gurus are so focused on themselves that they don’t notice the problems that affect the society at large, or if they’re too busy trying to keep their own flaws out of the public view to deal with the problems. ? Someday it may be that there are enough really advanced devotees around that?everything?goes smoothly and any difficulties are handled automatically, but for now I really think ISKCON needs some ombudsmen types who can voice concerns without fear of retribution.
Right now it takes a lot of courage to point out the appearance of a glaring fault on the part of a popular guru, obviously more courage than most devotees have. ? I can only do it because Krishna has already promised my deliverance, and even still I can tell you without a doubt that the suffering that comes from being ostracized from devotee association is almost unbearable. ? None the less, I would do it again for Srila Prabhupada if the need arises.
From what I can see, the heart of the problem is aspiring devotees’ desire to pretend we are more advanced than we are, for the sake of being held in high esteem. Lord Caitanya said that we have to chant Hare Krishna humbly, without false prestige, and that definitely includes not posing as a worshipable guru without being completely free from material desires. ? Because we have many desires that are too subtle for the conditioned souls to see, we need a self-realized guru to give?authorization, saying when one is qualified to accept disciples. ?Who has been given such a certification by Srila Prabhupada? ? The historical record reveals no one. ?I don’t think it is at all unreasonable to say that no one following in Srila Prabhupada’s line should act as a worshipable guru without such certification by Srila Prabhupada. ? We should give that position back to Srila Prabhupada and see how everything quickly comes into place. ? All glories to Srila Prabhupada. ? Hare Krishna.
Dear Paul,
I appreciate your efforts to be candid regarding your introspection. However, I trust you are aware of some perspectives that aren’t mentioned in your thoughtful post.
For example, the general tenor of our tradition gives us a bit of a paradox, in that Krishna almost always appears only to those devotees who are so humble that they do not tell anyone else about their experiences with Him. In fact, they will deny such experiences if others discover them.
As a result, many devotees who hear of your experience will naturally conclude, “If he’s telling me that he saw Krishna, this proves that he did not see Him!” With this background, people may classify you as either a crazy man or as someone who has not reached the most basic level of humility required of a Vaishnava.
Some will conclude that if you had seen Krishna, you would have been empowered to follow His example of surrendering gladly to a guru of lesser standing. Both Lord Krishna and Lord Chaitanya accepted gurus who were of lesser adhikara than their disciple.
The core of Krishna-bhakti is service to the Vaishnavas. The Vaishnava does not think, “Let me serve Krishna directly.” The Vaishnava attitude is, “Let me serve the servant of the servant of the Vaishnava.” How could you have seen Krishna, yet have been so badly guided by Him that you sought to become directly connected with Him, instead of serving His servants?
Certainly, there are schools of Vaishnavism that teach the importance of direct service to Krishna, and that promise such service to members of their particular school. However, this is not the approach of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and his followers. If you are determined to consider your vision of Krishna as authentic, maybe He is calling you to meet Him in another branch of Krishna-bhakti that does not so much stress the “servant of the servant” mood, but that instead stresses your direct connection with Him?
Perhaps, then, you could come to see Srila Prabhupada as your vartma-pradarshak guru, whose role is to lead you to further direct connection with Krishna in some other lineage where your prior darsana of Krishna would be respected, and you could perform sadhana and receive mercy allowing you more and deeper such visions in the future as you draw ever closer to Him.
Yes, I did hear these things eventually, but Krishna didn’t say anything about it so I was trying to talk about this meeting for years before I learned why devotees were acting weird about it. At first I assumed everyone had something like this happen. Otherwise why would Westerners do all the seemingly strange things that Hare Krishna’s do? I certainly would never have come around. I was into studying Vasistha’s Yoga (which Advaita Acarya taught out of to make Lord Caitanya angry) and the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, when I bought Bhagavad-gita As It Is just to help learn Sanakrit.
As it happened, Krishna showed me a door to the spiritual world, which resembled blue flame in color and was marked with the number 108. The chanting of Krishna’s names, “Hare Krishna…,” was bringing me closer to the door, but there came a point when I realized that this would be the death of my false ego, and although I could sense incredible bliss radiating out from the door, I did not feel like I was ready for this. I got the sense that although the option was there, it was Krishna’s recommendation to take the gradual path. I considered the death that would occur, not just this body, but my entire material existence. I remembered my mother, and Krishna told me that if I go through this door then I will escape death, and in doing so I will not have been born. When He said my mother will not remember me, I became afraid of His power. I was already agitated and in a panic I tore up the painting. No doubt this was an offense, and He disappeared, leaving me with some parting words of advice: “Always chant My names, and get some association of My devotees. If you want your family to come to Me, name your children after Me. You will see Me again when I come for you when this body is finished, and then you will see this painting in one piece again.”
What always perplexed me is why devotees would want to undermine my connection with this experience, casting doubt upon it. It is the basis of my whole spiritual life, and I think about it practically every day. It is my whole motivation for devotional service, why I believe in Krishna and in Srila Prabhupada’s teachings. I realize the pure devotees don’t talk about seeing Krishna, but I’m not a pure devotee. I’m just a guy who got a little of Krishna’s mercy thanks to Srila Prabhupada and can remember some of the event although it’s still inconceivable to me. Actually the following day I couldn’t remember any of it, but over the following year or two I kept having deja-vu feelings that would come with a little piece of that night’s memory. I’m not sure how someone who accepts that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead can be considered crazy.
I can’t really imagine going to another branch of Vaisnavism. I just want to hear Srila Prabhupada speaking and chanting whenever I can, and I feel a deep connection with him. It upsets me to hear devotees try to separate me from him. I tried accepting another guru based on the advice of others, but it turned out to be a disaster. Krishna gave me His certification of Srila Prabhupada and I don’t want another guru. I just hope that someday I can be accepted as his disciple. Hare Krishna.
Again, Paul, I appreciate not only the candor of your comments, but also the sincerity with which you share them. Sincerity is the bedrock foundation for spiritual life, yet it seems that too many in institutional settings will quickly abandon their sincerity in order to achieve some material goal at the expense of bhakti. You probably recall Srila Prabhupada’s comment, when his earliest disciples quizzed him about some other popular figures, “Their sincerity is their God consciousness.” With sincerity one is at least on a progressive path. Without it, there is no hope for real advancement.
Obviously you have been touched by a very powerful experience. However, try as I might, I just cannot reconcile it with the siddhanta as taught by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and his followers. I expect that, along the way, someone has told you the story of how one of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples came to him, saying, “When I chant, I see a blue light surrounding me.” What was Srila Prabhupada’s response? “Keep chanting, and it will go away!” It is easy to suspect that if you told your vision story to Srila Prabhupada, he could dismiss it and you wouldn’t be offended. Yet when others with perhaps mixed motives (“Ignore that experience and become my disciple!”) question your story, it becomes much harder to accept that your story just isn’t in line with the philosophy as taught by the Gaudiya Math and ISKCON.
For example, in your comment, you wrote that you came to ISKCON, “because I really needed to find someone who understood what had happened to me and could help me to see Krishna again.” Yet when devotees have tried to explain that what happened to you isn’t in line with ISKCON philosophy, you have rejected their help. This makes me wonder: in your vision, did Srila Prabhupada tell you to seek ISKCON association, or just the association of devotees? If he told you to seek ISKCON association, then I can see that you have a conundrum, since your vision is not likely to be accepted as bona fide by those coming from Gaudiya Math and ISKCON, as it would seem to put Krishna in the position of contradicting His own philosophy.
If you are going to be able to reconcile your vision with ongoing association among Gaudiya Math and ISKCON devotees, I do suggest that you change your focus from “wanting to see Krishna again” to “wanting to serve the servants of the servants of the devotees.” In the temple, you and all your fellow devotees can see Krishna on equal terms in His Deity form, which is no less (and possibly more) than what you experienced in your vision.
Also, since siksa-guru and diksa-guru are equal manifestations of Godhead, perhaps it is your lot in this lifetime to have only a siksa-guru, despite pressures to the contrary. But I am sure you realize that your siksa-guru would want you to do all you could to push forward his movement, which may mean a lot more compromise and admitting you are wrong than is comfortable at times. If there is no senior devotee present whose judgment you generally trust as better than your own, then it is easy to suspect that you haven’t found the humility Lord Chaitanya seeks in His followers. But if you can take shelter (not necessarily initiation) of a senior devotee who you can trust to tell you, to your face, when you are wrong, then perhaps you can continue to advance and do great service helping the many other souls who may need to accept a diksa-guru in this lifetime in order to advance.
Again, thank you for having the courage to share your very personal experiences in such a public manner. Although you will probably disagree with my comments, I hope you can nevertheless find something helpful or useful in them.
Dear Tattva Prabhu,
Thank you for your patience. I’ve been finding this discussion rather enjoyable. It’s not that I don’t think anyone in ISKCON has knowledge greater than I do, but I know that spiritual understanding is extraordinarily subtle and conditioned souls are easily fooled. I trust that Srila Prabhupada knows Krishna and is entirely surrendered to Him, whereas I don’t know who else may be in that category.
It doesn’t mean I’m not open to other’s advice. At the moment I’m hearing from you and giving due consideration. That’s about the most I can do because my experiences in ISKCON have emphasized the need for caution. For example, perhaps you’ve seen that my first big step in devotee life was moving to New Vrindavana in 1997, and the next big step was hastily moving away one night the following year. Everyone there had previously thought Kirtanananda was a pure devotee, and at least one devotee was murdered with that in mind. Obviously they had been fooled, but still some of his closest followers have become some of the most revered gurus in ISKCON and are especially influential in my area. They are obviously charismatic, fluent in preaching the philosophy, and can tell interesting and inspiring stories, but I’m not convinced that they actually know Krishna.
You’re saying that my visit from Krishna isn’t in line with Gaudiya philosophy, but I think maybe Krishna has more freedom than you give Him credit. There were so many things I learned that night, when I had known almost nothing about Krishna a few hours before, and almost every detail I’ve since confirmed reading Srila Prabhupada’s books. I don’t think it compares to seeing weird lights like can happen just by pressing the eyes. There were many factors that came together just right, making it seem entirely reasonable for me to ask Krishna to give me guidance.
I was taught to believe in God from childhood, but I remember when I was 8 years old after church I thought that the people in church didn’t seem to really know God. I decided then that if I ever learned for sure that there is a God, that it would be the most important thing. Later I was influenced by materialistic science, but life events in college led me to dabble in the occult, where I tried some magic and found that it actually worked, which taught me that there was more to reality than meets the eye. Then I became a vegetarian and animal rights activist, and took up an intense study and practice of yoga. In over 100 yoga books that I read, there was almost no mention of Krishna at all. Eventually my practice focused on studying Vasistha’s Yoga and Ramana Maharshi’s talks, practicing raja yoga from Rammurti Mishra’s text, and practicing and teaching Kundalini Yoga in Yogi Bhajan’s tradition. After college I wanted to step up my practice so I drove from New York to Washington, where I intended to sit and meditate in a remote place in the Olympic National Forest. The day after I arrived in Olympia, I found Bhagavad-gita As It Is, which I dove into, and the painting of Krishna. Two days later I was at a gathering of shamanic healers, where I was told that I would die soon. After a few more days of studying Bhagavad-gita, my head splitting trying to understand it in conjunction with my prior teachings, I wrote a prayer to Krishna asking for guidance. It was the most pivotal point in my life, and I thought it was entirely reasonable to ask Him to help me. Certainly God could do anything without the least effort, so why would he not help me when I was sacrificing my life in pursuit of the absolute truth? Does our tradition not teach that for every step we take to Krishna, He takes 100 or 1000 to us? Maybe He doesn’t intervene whimsically when it’s not needed, but I needed to see Him, and I knew that if He truly existed that He was perfectly free to come. Apparently He thought it was a reasonable request, because two nights later He came. Or maybe He was just looking or a good laugh, since that’s what He was doing when I first saw Him and He said, “So you think you’re a yogi?”
When His visit concluded, He said to “Get some association of My devotees.” He didn’t specify ISKCON, and in fact one memory that came more recently was that He warned me that ISKCON devotees wouldn’t allow me to have Srila Prabhupada as my guru. I had asked why, and He directed my attention to the end of the book where it said that Srila Prabhupada was deceased. Yet for some reason although this was somewhere in my subconscious, Krishna didn’t let me know it when it came time to look for devotees. I just opened the back of Bhagavad-gita and picked the nearest temple. (A little aside, it was a 1983 printing of B.g., and the Seattle temple that was listed in there was closed. Instead after driving an hour to get there, we arrived just in time for a Baptist mass. We were the only non-black people there, and it was quite a cultural experience with their brass band and all the “Praise Jesus!” etc… When we got home we called a few other temples and learned that they had moved to Issaquah, about 15 miles further, which then became our first Hare Krishna temple visit. We brought our yoga mats. LOL.)
So anyway, for better or worse, we made our way into ISKCON, and there’s not much chance to go hunting for a different scene now. I’m married, with young kids, in a career, owning a house with a small farm; and I just don’t see us traveling for a long time. Although it’s not exactly ideal, we’re part of an ISKCON community, and I’m trying to avoid getting anyone too upset so that we can remain in this community. Maybe it’s my lack immaturity, but I really think ISKCON should accommodate people like us. Quite frankly, I suspect that this is precisely the service Krishna sent me here to do.
I don’t really think it’s a fault of mine to want to see Krishna again. I don’t expect Him give me that pleasure any time soon, very likely not until I’m leaving the body, but neither can I give up the desire nor do I think I should try. And naturally I want to serve His devotees, but I have yet to recognize a pure devotee other than Srila Prabhupada, and serving a materially conditioned person, even an aspiring devotee, does not necessarily mean flattering them and giving them what they ask. Isn’t it right that Krishna often serves His aspiring devotees by separating them from their material attachments so that they can better surrender to Him? It may be that I haven’t given enough service to be the recipient of that kind of mercy, or that He knows that I would not be strong enough to take it, but perhaps He wants to use me to help serve His more advanced devotees in that way. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do, other than be myself, keeping Krishna in my mind, chanting His names, etc., and try to be a good husband and father to help my family have a favorable impression of Krishna consciousness.
Hare Krishna.
Dear Paul,
Thank you for your patient and thoughtful response.
Two suggestions come to mind, and I hope you do not find them impertinent or distasteful.
First, while I will not use your blog as a public forum to advocate for one group or another, I will mention that at least one of the Gaudiya Math offshoots is led by a guru who (along with his predecessor) is and has been fully respectful of Srila Prabhupada’s unique position, and who does not pressure the disciples of Srila Prabhupada to “get reinitiated” into his Math. I am confident that if you presented yourself as a staunch Prabhupada disciple to this guru and his disciples, you could find uplifting sanga without feeling pressed to become disloyal to your siksa-guru. If you could bring yourself to acknowledge that some of Srila Prabhupada’s godbrothers and their disciples may be legitimate initiators, whatever their adhikara, then why not just accept the likelihood that you will probably forego diksa in this lifetime because of your unusual siksa relationship with Srila Prabhupada? Srila Prabhupada’s teachings make it clear that your siksa relationship with him can be as strong as any diksa relationship. Look what happened the last time you wanted diksa more than you wanted Srila Prabhupada! Why not simply accept that Srila Prabhupada is your primary siksa-guru above all others, then open yourself to hari-katha and good guidance from the best of Srila Prabhupada’s most respectful God-nephews?
My other suggestion may be a bit more unpleasant, and I hope my concern is misplaced, but I will offer it anyway in the hope that it may either spur some introspection or confirm you in your understanding.
You mention, “in fact one memory that came more recently was that He warned me that ISKCON devotees wouldn’t allow me to have Srila Prabhupada as my guru…. Yet for some reason although this was somewhere in my subconscious, Krishna didn’t let me know it when it came time to look for devotees.”
I trust you can understand how this looks to someone living outside of your head. You say that Krishna gave you all these amazing instructions, but they only become revealed when some external event seems to confirm the instruction. How convenient! Since that is exactly what a self-deceiving mind would do, it is natural that some observers will attribute your vision not to Krishna, but to your own mind.
I wonder, for example, whether you “remembered” Krishna telling you something about taking your previous harinama initiation? Did He “forget” to remind you beforehand that it was a mistake? Or did He tell you beforehand, but you only remembered it after the fact? Or did you THINK Krishna had told you something about that initiation, but then later concluded that you had misunderstood? Please understand; I am not insisting that the vision didn’t occur exactly as you say it did. But I hope you can see how, to an impartial observer, the “vision” and your selective memory of it seems almost too convenient to be true, and thus more like a mental phenomenon than a spiritual one.
Again, I hope I have not caused upset or offense with this note; I hope it gives you something useful to consider, whether or not you agree.
Don’t worry, I’m appreciating hearing your thoughts.
In the matter of other Gaudiya lines, this has been suggested before, but I really don’t see it as practical enough to consider, at least not in the near future. I simply cannot travel, and there are no other groups around. Our youngest child is not yet two years old, and my wife has been talking about maybe having another within a few years. Barring some radical unforeseeable life change, I don’t think we can get into another community within the next 20 years. So I think I would have to defer considering that until then, if it even remains an issue. I’ve already considered the possibility that I may not be able to get diksa in this lifetime, and if that’s Krishna’s plan for me then so be it. I trust that if I spend my life hearing and meditating on Srila Prabhupada’s teachings, then he will give me shelter sooner or later. In many ways he has already.
I’ve also thought previously about your point regarding my most recent memory from my encounter with Krishna. It’s the only memory that came with any effort, the others all arising spontaneously during other engagements. When He first appeared, after making His yogi remark, He said, “So you want to know what samadhi is?” and immediately everything disappeared. Of course, I’ve since learned that this is only samadhi in the impersonal conception, and that there is a superior samadhi in devotional service. However, He gave me what I had been trying to achieve, and as my consciousness entered into that state I saw my whole life occur in a moment along with the awareness of some uncountable other lives that I did not see in detail. When I saw this life, there were certain events that were most notable (with others disappearing from my awareness almost as quickly as they came), and as these came to pass I would have a deja-vu sensation and remember something from that night. This happened very frequently early on and much less so after several years had passed. And with this recent memory, it instead came from a concentrated effort to fill in a gap where I knew Krishna had said something but I needed to remember what it was. Therefore I think there is a significant possibility that it could be imagination, although I do believe it is a genuine recollection.
However, I don’t think it was necessarily a mistake that I did not know it before accepting another guru (which, by the way, was how devotees were telling me was the way to connect with Srila Prabhupada, although it didn’t feel that way to me after it was done), or rather that sometimes what seems like mistakes from our perspectives can have an important purpose in the big picture. Not that I’m in a position to see the whole picture, but I know Krishna sometimes mixes things up in complex ways that we can’t understand in order to achieve His goal most expertly. Knowing myself as I do, I’m confident that I would play my part best if I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. So while I may say that I feel like my accepting a guru other than Srila Prabhupada was a mistake, ultimately I trust that Krishna is in control of my life and He doesn’t make mistakes. I just don’t know the details of what He’s doing. Then again, my feeling like I made a mistake is also one of the gears in the machine, which really boggles the mind… and a boggled mind is a powerful reminder that I should chant Hare Krishna now.
I think the important point of this article Pandu Prabhu has written is not his experience but his point about how abuses in ISKCON are handled. The whole authority structure in ISKCON breeds this kind of manipulation and abuse.
Let’s be totally honest. None of us are pure devotees. Therefore, none of us should pose ourselves to be on an absolute platform, like many of the different ISKCON gurus are doing. And it stems back to the basic problem of what happens when you put a conditioned soul in the position of being a guru.
No one in ISKCON is equal to Srila Prabhupada. I can accept many of ISKCON’s members as very nice devotees, but I can never worship any of them on the same level as Srila Prabhupada, even if they are a “guru” or whatever.
Until the leaders of this institution and most of it’s members wake up, get real, and start to discuss these things openly, I don’t see much hope for change. I know many of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples and they tell me that none of their godbrothers are liberated souls. One Prabhupada disciple told me that he was old friends with BB Govinda Maharaja and that before BB Govinda became a guru, this godbrother asked him jokingly, “Hey BB Govinda, when are you going to become a guru?” and BB Govinda jokingly replied “Me? A GURU? Never! As far as I’m concerned, I’m still just a hick from Tennessee”.
So, that is an example of these gurus. I’m sure BB Govinda Swami is a nice devotee and very good person, but is he a liberated soul, a self realized soul? If not, then he has no business acting in the function of a diksa guru.
Anyway, Pandu’s experience is not the main topic in this article, the main topic is about abuses and the way the authority structure has allowed such abuses to continue. I think Tattva’s focusing on that one point is to miss the main point of this article, which should openly be discussed.
vaisnava dasa,
Caitanya dasa