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EDITORIAL March 2, 2000 VNN5598 Related VNN Stories "Free Speech" Or Vaisnava Aparadha BY MAHANANDA DASA  EDITORIAL, Mar 2 (VNN) — Dear Prabhus, Please accept my humble obeisances.Last October a great blunder was made on Topical Discussion on COM when one misguided girl spoke of Srila Prabhupada like he was a common man with ulterior motives, etc. Dvaipayana Vyasa dasa, one of the moderators even posted that he agreed with her. (After the girl wrote many things that 'bothered' her about Srila Prabhupada, Dvaipayana Vyasa dasa writes to her: "This was a good analysis. It bothered me as well, though I never understood so clearly what is exactly wrong, except maybe subconsciously."This blasphemy (by the girl) set off a chain of events that has caused waves all over the world. I have decided not to repeat her actual words again at this moment, feeling that others may fall down simply by hearing them. Better they are not repeated, though already (painfully) they have been spoken too many times! I was involved in this event only in that I objected wholeheartedly on the forum that our beloved master was being ridiculed, and warned the girl about her improper manner of characterizing Krsna's dearest devotee and friend, which eventually got me distrusted by Madhusudhani Radha dd, who barred me from the discussion. This action on her part has been the focus of other's critisism towards her. Madhusudhani Radha dd is getting an incredible amount of heat over the whole thing, because people think that her allowing the blasphemy and defending the comments, along with her removing others who protested, are unacceptable. Her whole defense has been that our reaction over the comments and strong words of warning to the foolish girl (who mistakenly made the public remarks belittling his Divine Grace) were worse than the remarks themselves and were an infringement on "free speech." Until now, I have not written a single thing to protest this action to remove me from participating on the conference, accepting it as part of Krsna's higher purpose. But it has caused such a controversy that I now feel it might benefit others to understand the whole picture from different perspectives, including my own. I don't want to criticize Madhusudani Radha dd or defend my own actions, thus perpetuating this unfortunate event any more that necessary, but I do want to share some of the actual exchanges and let people judge for themselves. I don't require that Madhusudani Radha "repent," or be proven "wrong." If she is sincere, the truth of which I subscribe, then Krsna will reveal Himself to her and gently guide her. Many of her writings and letters to me reveal a sincere devotee, though purhaps misguided in some vital areas. In that spirit, I am posting some of my own contributions to that forum, and the replies in return,since I keep seeing my name mentioned in relationship to the controversy. Bhaktin Bev had kept all the files of all the old posts from the early days of the infamous forum, and has just sent them to me, giving me this opportunity. I hope it will help to make things a little clearer to understand. Here are a few of the highlights that got me in trouble with the moderators. On 7 Oct 1999, Dvaipayana Vyasa wrote: "So much was told about accepting authorities, about rope/snake etc. Yet still I do not see a good reason why any human authority (that is, anyone who is not God) should be accepted as infallible.My response to him was..... "Dear Dvaipayana Vyasa, please accept my humble obeisances. To be frank, I was warned before I joined this conference that it was run by two devotees who had no faith in Srila Prabhupada and do not understand his transcendental position, and have made many statements in the past that minimized his exalted position. I only make this confession not because I believe it or not, but want to give you a chance to explain your actual position and show that the person was misinformed. Do you think that we need to address your comments about our beloved guru? I am not familiar with what you have said to make one make these charges against you, nor am I certain at this point the validity of them. That is why I am bringing it out in the open to you. Above in your post you begin to indicate how you DO feel about Srila Prabhupada's fallibility. I think that is a good place to direct this discussion. I have written some editorials Click here: abo ut the subject and have indicated in them the understanding that has been passed on to me by disciplic succession about the position of the completely surrendered pure devotee. Gradually I would like to share some of my thoughts with you as expressed in these editorials and would like to hear from you your view of this vital topic. In the next post I will share with you the first of these writings ("Srila Prabhupada Cannot Be Subject To Maya") and will look forward to your comments. I write this in all due respect, Mahananda dasa" Later he writes to me again..... "Do you think about Krishna with every breath of yours? Come on. Can you sincerely tell that 100% of your activities is intentionally connected to God? My deepest obeisances to you Prabhu, but such persons are very rare."And I replied..."No, no, I do not claim to be in that exalted position. But that is the thing. At one time, in 1969 when I joined in Detroit with Bhagavan, because of our association and determination, we were 24 hrs. a day absorbed in Krsna. We were careful to be engaged at every minute in chanting, class, cleaning while chanting, cooking while chanting. 4 to 6 hrs. of chanting on the streets, going out at night to the bars and to knock on doors with a straw in our teeth, asking people to please chant the holy name [ note: there was no picking or hitting them up for money yet, so that was not the impetus!]. While waiting in the line for prasadam we would never talk nonsense but would chant incessantly. As for myself, I read 2 to 3 hours a day, greedily hearing the nectar (very submissively) from our beloved master. So we passed our days like that. We actually endeavored to fill our day every minute with Krsna's devotion, within the nine fold guidelines. And the process worked. My motive here is to try and preserve those philosophical standards, though covered over mostly again, in the hopes that by trying to represent Srila Prabhupada by always upholding those high standards, somehow the results will be that someone will benefit. That particular formula that Srila Prabhupada established in the temples in the late 60's is our hope and salvation. If somehow we can recreate the same determined adherence to those standards and devotional arrangements, everyone can again taste the same nectar that we were so privileged to experience." (he also wrote) "Also what I said already: do you think that God is a terrorist? That He does not allow to anyone anything not directly connected to Him? It is really not a good opinion about Him. Dictators of this world are such. Not God."again, my reply..."It is not a question of not allowing. He gives us freedom to choose. He doesn't force. But you do not seem to understand Krsna's actual position. Everything is connected to Him. Either transcendentally when we are agreeing to make Him the central point of literally everything, or through the agency of Maya, which is under His control also. To think that anything in creation is not connected to Krsna, either directly, or indirectly through His material energy, is ignorance and the cause of our illusion and bondage. So those are our only options. Not that there is a third choice where we are acting without Krsna as the center, but somehow are not under the strict clutches of Maya. Sorry, but that is our position as marginal entities." (DV dasa) "If God cares only for His pleasure, would they be married or single or what? It is obvious that He allows to every living entity to exist in a condition most befitting for that living entity."(reply) "It is not a question of His not caring. He is simply the all in all, the Supreme Enjoyer. All living entities were created by Him for His personal enjoyment. If there is marriage by the conditioned souls it is not because God is being a good guy and letting others have a little fun too. He is simply just allowing a religious process of gradual purification so that the conditioned souls can gradually become free of their perverted sex desire. He always remains the Supreme proprietor. Everything is for His enjoyment. Our thinking otherwise as indicated by your suggestions is a sign of why we stay in this material world endlessly chasing after some phantasmagoria of illusional pleasure through the body. Thank God Krsna sent Srila Prabhupada who is above these three modes and has explained all this as it really is." "And why we have fallen? Everyone will agree that one falls from the spiritual world if one wants to be God, to kick Krishna out of His position and rule over all that be. Attraction between man and woman exists in spiritual world (though according to SP not expressed by sex, not that we know of) so we did not fall because of that. "(my reply ) "Better not to speculate about things you cannot understand." "Again: God is not a terrorist. What more can I say? The attitude you describe would not befit God, but a Mafia boss. Actually even Mafia bosses let their men get married etc. I can't believe that God is such."(my reply) "Your thinking that this would make Krsna a terrorist or Mafia boss is due to your misunderstanding of our exact connection to Krsna. When properly understood, there is no question that it would resemble our preconceived notion of some material situation here in the material world. But that takes time and unless we are submissive to the realized souls we can never understand. It is realized knowledge shown within the heart by Krsna because He is pleased with our faith and devotion to His favorite living entity, his confidential servant pure devotee. If we do not have that faith and submission, our speculative nature will lead us far away from the actual shelter of the maha bhagavata. We must give up our pride and arrogance and approach the realized soul as great fools and render him menial service, and this attitude will gain the favor of the Supreme lord. That is the process as taught by the previous acarya, and any other understanding will lead to chaos and not love of God. That is our goal. Why waste our live in vain and useless mental speculation. By the forces of nature we may be thrown again into the lower species of life, so we must take advantage of this association with such a rare soul and not be fooled by our own deductive thoughts and logical conceptions that are independent of the actual understanding from the realized soul." "About absoluteness: do you think that power gives justice? Do you obey God because He is powerful?""Yes, that can be a good starting point for a conditioned soul. " Sincerely Mahananda dasa- Later, after Dhyanakunda dd made her infamous comments about Srila Prabhupada, she sent the following notice out on the conference to try and inhibit the distribution of her blunderous remarks... On 19 Oct 1999, Dhyanakunda dd wrote: "I know that in these kinds of controversial COM discussions, some of the members forward texts to other persons or forums. A personal request: if you want to forward anything that I post to someone else, please ask me first.I then wrote the following post to her about her blasphemy. "Now things are getting out of hand. No wonder you want to hide this worst example of blasphemy (in my opinion only) to the pure devotee. You have said these things in public forum, so how do you expect it now to be kept from being heard by others. I am personally pained and shocked at the way you have characterized Srila Prabhupada. The comments you made in your third installment are what is known as blasphemy to the pure devotee, though you might not be aware. It is forbidden that others even hear such criticism of one who has surrendered his life and soul to Krsna. Maybe others may not agree, but it is my humble opinion that they are wrong. You just cannot talk that way about someone like Srila Prabhupada. It is condemned. Regrettably, if this mood continues and Srila Prabhupada's character continues to be diminished, I may have to ask that my name be removed from the forum because to remain in an atmosphere that is tolerant to people posting such blatant criticism of a pure devotee is also forbidden. One who hears such words and does not at least go away, falls down from their devotional service. Some here may welcome your posts, because it reinforces their own mentality towards a realized soul, but what you have said in your posts will certainly offend many who hold Srila Prabhupada in his proper lofty position. I urge others to not entertain these same doubts and criticisms about he who came to save the world. Also I urge sincere devotees not to associate with anyone who would make statements about Srila Prabhupada that make him more and more a person like us. A menial servant of the genuine maha bhagavata, Mahananda dasa" Also I wrote to the moderator.... "Dvaipayana Vyasa You do your job so well. May I make a humble request? Why don't you moderate the blasphemous comments of those who would dare to make the remarks about Srila Prabhupada in the first place that would cause sincere souls to vacate such a condemned environment? Why don't you have in your rules "no criticizing the pure devotees"? Then your moderation would actually serve the highest good, rather than making sure no one quotes Srila Prabhupada too extensively, etc. I request that devotees that think that this permissive attitude that allows this blatant depicting of our founding acarya is such an offensive light-- write to the overseers of COM itself, in the hopes that bringing it to their attention will end this great slap in our beloved guru's face. To hear from several devotees in protest will get their attention. I am afraid the poor girl who was concerned that her postings get out to the wrong persons is going to realize her worst fears--because these words, now posted publicly about our beloved master, may very well become the topic of concern in many quarters of our movement, regretfully, Mahananda dasa" He replied as follows... "Mahananda, these comments were not blasphemous. They were intended to find the truth. You find them blasphemous. Most of others did not express such concern only a very small percentage of conference members expressed that they have problems with that......"(also) "poor girl" is not the proper way to address anyone here. You are awfully close to being forced out of the conference."Of course, by now, my fate is sealed. I was barred permanently from the conference. Since then I have had no comments to make about the situation, but have been amazed (watching from the sidelines ) at Krsna's unwillingness to tolerate mistreatment to His most confidential servant. My single comment on the subject is revealed in the following letter I sent to Dhyana-kunda dasi's spiritual master in reply to his post about the current status of his disciple. "Dear Sir, Please accept my humble obeisances. You recently wrote: " Because this thread has continued uninterrupted for seven weeks, I decided to again write to DKdd a few days ago to assess what is her mood, and suggest that perhaps a wider apology would be appropriate for her to write.Yes, materially speaking the reasons may seem complex, but the simple reason as found in Vaisnava literature is not so complex. Every sincere and intelligent devotee who has heard her comments has surely winced in pain to hear someone dare to speak about Prabhupada in such an unthinkable way. We know that no one can publicly ridicule our blessed master and still maintain their status in devotional service. There is necessarily an immediate fall down from one's position in devotional service because Krsna never tolerates abuse to His favorite and dearest confidential servant. Mostly anyone (accept a few who will foolishly speak out in defense of a person's right to say any damn thing, in the name of free speech, even about our beloved Srila Prabhupada) would honestly rather die than to even think such thoughts. The real reason one leaves Iskcon after truly blaspheming a bonafide unalloyed devotee is because by Krsna's arrangement all attraction for devotional service gradually fades like a waning moon. Also you write... "..Or, we can recall Prabhupada's comment that the only reason anyone leaves is for sense-gratification. But her decision has caused me, for one, to give pause to think how we might best proceed in such cases as hers. I have to admit that I am by nature inclined to a mood which has the leitmotif 'give the benefit of the doubt' and which would urge proceeding with extreme caution before giving anyone the final boot from the Society. In the case of DKdd, she (and others similarly accused) have perhaps gotten the deserved reaction in that the offenses they seem to have been making have been made on this COM/internet medium, and now the same medium is leading to various proceedures of judgment."From this point everything is out of our control. Giving her or not giving her the benefit of the doubt is not the issue. There never was any doubt whatsoever that what she said was grossly offensive to a pure devotee, and there is no excusing that. If we simply excuse it and look the other way then we ourselves fall down for our tolerating genuine blasphemy and not reacting properly. There are guidelines in these matters. Officially booting her out of an organization we might do or not do, but Krsna is still the real controller and all of our hopes of remaining in the association of devotees and receiving Krsna's mercy depends on our submissive attitude to His dearest devotee. If we love and serve and glorify His devotee, then He blesses us a little (Because the pure devotee desires our well being) and we make advancement. But take this away and it doesn't matter we are booted or not, the transcendental bond of love and blessings is broken and our whereabouts are unknown. Sincerely Mahananda dasa" Thank you for taking the time to read my letter here on VNN. My desire is that we may all understand better who Srila Prabhupada is, and that his greatness is not gradually diminished. Our only hope of reaching Krsna is to fall down at the feet of his confidential devotee. If we forget this, everything will be spoiled. May the pure devotee be glorified all over the world... Affectionately, Mahananda dasa About the Author  Other Stories by this AuthorRelated VNN Stories Comment on this storyContact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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