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EDITORIAL  Comment on this storyAbout the AuthorOther Stories by this Author "Children Should Not Be Beaten At All" BY MAHAVEGAVATI DASI EDITORIAL, Sep 18 (VNN) — Dear assembled Vaisnavas, Hare Krsna. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Please accept my fallen obeisances. I am submitting the following for the scrutiny of the assembled Vaisnavas. Hopefully this letter should make some things more clear for those devotees who have any doubts.
I remain your servant, Mahavegavati Dasi Hare Krsna Srila Prabhupada's Letter: Nov. 18, 1972 72-11-18 Hyderabad 18th November, 1972 My dear Bhanutanya dasi, Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter undated, and I have noted the contents with great concern. One thing is, I am very much sad to learn that you have left the company of the devotees over this incident at Gurukula school. Now you are living by yourself because you have been hurt by seeing that the children are sometimes mistreated, and because no one has taken your good advice in this connection. But you may be assured that I am always anxious about the welfare of my disciples, so that I am taking steps to rectify this unfortunate situation. Now my advice to you is to give up these feelings and return to your life of Krishna Consciousness devotional service, and if you go back to Dallas school and demonstrate to the other teachers there just the proper way to instruct and discipline the students nicely, that will be a great service. I am forwarding the copy of this letter, with your letter, to Satsvarupa for his immediately attention. Now the thing is, children should not be beaten at all, that I have told. They should simply be shown the stick strongly. So if one cannot manage in that way then he is not fit as teacher. If a child is trained properly in Krishna Consciousness, he will never go away. That means he must have two things, love and education. So if there is beating of child, that will be difficult for him to accept in loving spirit, and when he is old enough he may want to go away; that is the danger. So why these things are going on: marching and chanting japa, insufficient milk, too strict enforcement of time schedules, hitting the small children? Why these things are being imposed? Why they are inventing these such new things like marching and japa like an army? What can I do from such a distant place? They should run and play when they are small children, not forced to chant japa, that is not the way. So I have given you the guiding principles, it is not that I must be consulted with every small detail, that is the business of the in-charge, but if no one is there who can manage in the right way, what can I do? Now if you have got the right idea how to do it, you may go there again and take some responsible post for correcting the situation, that will be your real duty, not that there is some disagreement and I go away disgusted, no. That is not Vaisnava standard. Standard should be that, never mind there is some difficulty, my spiritual master has ordered me to do like this, now let me do it, that's all. Hoping this will meet you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami And while we are on this letter of Srila Prabhupada, this brings me to another letter that I think this other letter from Srila Prabhupada to one of the temple presidents. To the GBC: Devotees Whose Bodies Become Sick or Old Srila Prabhupada said the following in a letter written to Sukadeva prabhu dated 4-5-74: "First of all, there is not question of a devotee becoming ostracized because he has become ill. One of the symptoms of a devotee is that he is kind, so if our godbrother becomes ill, it is our duty to help him get the proper medicine and treatment so that he can recover.... So there is no question of ill treating our own godbrothers simply because they are sick, nor should you allow such neglect to go on." To the ITS GON leaders: All glories to our beloved eternal father, His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada. It is very difficult for me to say to you as a body, "Please accept my obeisances" because I am not on that much of an advanced platform to be that humble and feel genuinely that attitude of offering obeisances to people who (like you, the GBC as a general body) treat devotees in general with such abomination. Nonetheless, after my being contacted by quite a number of devotees, both older and younger, I felt that I should send this letter on to you. Now, as to whether you will pay any regard to Srila Prabhupada's words or not, THAT is a different story: Satyam eva jayate. I remain your servant, Mahavegavati Dasi Hare Krsna About the Author Other Stories by this AuthorRelated VNN StoriesComment on this storyContact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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