© 1999 VNN
|
EDITORIAL May 22, 1999 VNN3923 Comment on this story Whereabouts Are Unknown (3) BY MAHANANDA DASA  EDITORIAL, May 22 (VNN) — (Continuation from part 2) Everything seems to be getting back to normal by the middle of January. Kirtanananda had written to Srila Prabhupada on New Years Eve to wish him a happy new year, and Srila Prabhupada takes the opportunity to engage Kirtanananda in his service by encouraging him in his new project that he and Hayagriva had started at New Vrindaban. Hayagriva had recently been married to Shamadasi and he wanted everyone to worked together, both householders and renunciates, in co-operative spirit. Srila Prabhupada wanted to get going with his plans to make New Vrindaban Krsna conscious.But although Srila Prabhupada encouraged Kirtanananda in his letter to him at New Vrindaban, he wrote about his first sannyas again to one of his confidential disciples Woomapati(now spelled Umapati), and again his criticism for Kirtanananda's actions was strong.'' I thank you very much for your acceptance of my guidance. My guidance means Krishna's guidance. I am very poor and therefore I can pray only to Krishna for your guidance. Krishna is Absolute and we are all under His guidance, but the bona fide Spiritual Master is accepted as guidance because he is transparent via media between Krishna and the devotee. The devotee has no access to Krishna without the via media....our line of action is simultaneous service to the Spiritual Master and Krishna. Without being favored by Krishna, nobody can have the association of a bona fide Spiritual Master and nobody can have the mercy of Krishna without being favored by the Spiritual Master. It is so intimately connected.'' ''Kirtanananda's refusal to accept the Parampara system and authority of the scriptures is the cause of his misfortune. His version that the sun and the sunshine are one and the same is right, but when the sunshine is in the room it is not correct to say that the sun is in the room. His knowledge therefore is imperfect and therefore he cannot be a preacher. He is therefore contemplating starting a nightclub of the psychedelic type. His association is not desirable for the present neither I can think of his future correction. Hayagriva has fallen a victim and I am sorry for this.'' ''Anyway, my dear boy, please remember that Maya is very strong. Any one of us can be arrested by her at any moment if we are not strongly attached to Krishna Consciousness. So my request to you and all others is to follow the principles of Krishna Consciousness adherently and there is no danger however the Maya may be strong. Hope you are well.'' And to Hayagriva, Srila Prabhupada writes "Kirtanananda made everything topsy-turvy. After we reached Vrindaban, Kirtanananda became too much eager to return back. He was daily insisting me for his return back and once I told him that I have no money, how you can return? In reply to this, he said that he would go to the American Embassy as American citizen and take money from there and he would return. Then I was obliged to arrange for his return passage money and because he changed his program the society practically lost $1200 for his going to India and coming back again without any purpose. I thought that part of this money could be recovered if he would return to New York, stopping a few days in London to see the prospect of opening a branch there. He agreed, and I gave him letter of introduction, and required money for immediate expenses, but he had no desire to stop at London and he directly reached you. He was also very eager to take sannyasa and I awarded him the sannyasa order; and I do not know, he wanted a certificate of his sannyasa. We never took any certificate of our Spiritual Master or anyone, but he told me that it was required for facility of preaching, so I gave him the certificate, but unfortunately the whole thing was smashed by different doctrine. Now it is understood from the letter of Umapati that Kirtanananda does not believe in parampara or in the necessity of scriptural authority. He seems to feel that this is a sort of tyranny. That means, after taking sannyasa and understanding the philosophy for more than a year, he has changed the whole view, and I do not understand how you would like this recent doctrine. Though I do not find much mention of Kirtanananda as I read on through January and much of February of 68, I am finding such nice nectar. One nice thing that I read which is certainly worth mentioning, but has nothing to do with Kirtanananda, was in a letter to William Odell, February 4th, ''Please accept my blessings. I thank you very much for your nice letter, and for your inquisitiveness. You are Krishna's part and parcel. As you love your hands and legs, as you feel when your hand is in trouble, similarly Krishna feels for you when you are in trouble. The hand has value when it is attached to the body. Similarly, we have values when we are Krishna Conscious. The hand has no value detached from the whole body. Krishna is the Whole and we are His parts and parcel. Try to understand this philosophy of simultaneously one and different.'' "The hand and body is created all at a time. It is not that the body is created first and then the hand is created. Our relation with Krishna is like the hand and the body. Therefore, Krishna and we both are eternal, and there is no history of eternity. It has no beginning and no end. Krishna is blue because....."There, I thought I'd end the letter on such a suspensefull note! I might mention one interesting paper I came across today. While looking in my file folder on my computer today, I stumbled accross an old file in my hard drive from last year that really surprised me. It seems that last year I had made a small attempt to do a study of Kirtanananda like this one and after a short start had just saved it on my hard drive.I had forgotten completely about this file and was surprised today when I found it just how similar it is in it's mood to this present effort. It seems that many of the same thoughts have been there dormant drom this original beginning, and at this time I am again continuing a project already started. this is the file... "Some people still wonder about what happened at New Vrindaban and about thecontroversial Swami who was one of Srila Prabhupada's earliest disciples, Kirtanananda Swami. There are some people even today who still remain loyal to Kirtanananda, and he remains defiant even though it has become "proven" that he was involved in murder and child molestation for which he is serving a 25 year sentense. Srila Prabhupada was very merciful to Kirtanananda and I have no doubt that he remains his well wisher, but I think it is important to know all of the facts and have the whole truth about the developement of Srila Prabhupada's movement , which includes New Vrindaban Forthis reason, and to better understand what happened at New Vrindaban , I would like to explore what Srila Prabhupada has said to other disciples about how he felt about Kirtanananda actions and character . This obviously can do a great deal in shedding light on the whole New Vrindaban question. The question seems to be 'did Kirtanananda please Srila Prabhupada though making many mistakes, or did Srila Prabhupada flatly condemn many of Kirtananda's activities.' Did Kirtanananda generally please his spiritual master or did he greatly displease him and disobey him? We all know that all is gained by pleasing our spiritual master but at the same time one who displeases his guru and thus offends the pure devotee, his whereabouts are unknown' So in the following paper I will explore what exactly Srila Prabhupada words about Kirtanananda were , keeping in mind that Srila Prabhupada always remained his well wisher and wanted to do whatever he could to purify him and bring him back to Godhead. It is my premise that Kirtananda's actions were in fact very displeasing to Srila Prabhupada and I will try to find the evidence to support this assumption.'' Reading again my introduction at the beginning of this paper, I am reminded of my goul here.'' For a long time I have wanted to create a forum to delve into the phenomenon at New Vrindavan when Kirtanananda Swami created his community there. There are several reasons for this. One important reason is to try and shine some light on the topic for the benefit of those good souls who are still confused about the whole developement and subsequent collapse of the community that flourished for years there.'' But the fact is, everything that has been revealed here so far happened before Kirtanananda ever really got his controversial community started there. But what we are seeing so far is important in that it shows the general mood of Kirtanananda and what his inclinations were. It also shows how Srila Prabhupada felt about some of the changes Kirtanananda would later make in a much larger scale. ''Habit is second nature'' we have heard Srila Prabhupada say. Whatever material inclinations we have when we take to Krsna consciousness, we have a strong tendency to repeat the same activities when we fall back into the material clutches. Unless we take full shelter of our guru and of Krsna, we are bound to repeat the same mistakes. Srila Prabhupada has indicated that Kirtanananda was simply carried away temporarily my maya. He did not want us to be angry with him. I am reminded of Srila Prabhupada's most instructive purport in the Bhagavad-gita (Gita 9.10) about a devotee falling down. Srila Prabhupada indicates many times by his merciful characterization of this disciple that this purport might in a way even include him, and we should be careful how we treat even the most fallen soul who has once done some service to Krsna's devotee. One devotee wrote to me asking how it could have happened, how he attracted so many innocent devotees. My answer was to them that there are many mystics, yogis, and somewhat liberated souls whom people are attracted to,and Kirtanananda had his share, though pure devotional service may not have been one of them.. He had created a cult type following and his followers blindly accepted him as their guru. Sentimentally they accepted him, though he was certainly disqualified as a representative of the bhakti cult, having deviated from the order or the guru. Pleasing the bonafide spiritual master is the only way to be blessed by Krsna and develope Krsna consciousness. Srila Prabhupada had said that we shall see the results of Kirtanananda's new ideas, whether he would spread Krsna consciousness. And one CAN see, the results were disasterous. His entire plan was smashed and soon to be forgotten. Devotees were murdered, childen molested, and many lives left in shambles as they try to piece things together again as their leader spends his life in jail. More later?.. For now i will end this search with giving my obeisances to all sincere devotees, affectionately, Mahananda dasa About the Author | Other Stories by this Author Comment on this story | Contact VNN about this story | Send this story to a friend
NEWS DESK | EDITORIALS | TOP |
