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EDITORIAL June 24, 1999 VNN4156 Comment on this story Please, We Need Your Voices, Loud And Clear BY YADUNANDANA PADA DASA EDITORIAL, Jun 24 (VNN) — Dear Srila Govinda Maharaja, Please accept my prostrated obeisances at your feet. All glories to Sri Guru and Sri Gauranga. All Glories to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. I know in my heart that you are pure and you are also my wife's initiating guru. For these two reasons I am addressing this primarily to you, and I am also sending copies of this humble request to Srila Narayana Maharaja, His Grace Hrdayananda Maharaja, His Grace Mukunda Goswami and others. I am also begging other Vaishnavas to concur and acknowledge these sentiments by forwarding this Email to others as well as back to the aforementioned recipients of this Email. I am hoping that if enough voices cry out in this petition we might then be heard. I have to ask in advance that you please forgive my offenses as I am born of a melecha family and do not know how to think, talk, or write without committing offense. I am afraid that the only offense more detrimental would be my silence. So I place my entire spiritual career on the line and at your mercy with this humble inquiry. My name is Yadunandana Pada Dasa. I am a disciple of Srila Prabhupada. My wife is your disciple, Priyanana dasi. She is doing quite well chanting nicely 16 rounds of Japa everyday, following all 4 regulative principles, offering everything to Krishna through Guru and Gauranga, attending nightly Bhagavad Gita classes, preaching and assisting our preaching programs every weekend. She is a very nice disciple and speaks of you every day. I have been teaching her and our congregation the importance of not committing offenses based on the complicated politics and differences between Maths. There is a lot of this talk among the disciples and especially among some of the older Prabhupada disciples who are serving in the different Maths. We are learning to take the nectar and leave the dirt behind knowing well that it is not any of our business. We only avoid the association of devotees when we feel that their example is outright offensive to other Vaishnavas, any other Vaishnavas. We do not avoid the association of devotees because they are different or perceive the details of the philosophy differently. We do not avoid the association of devotees simply because someone tells us to. But people are speaking like this (gramya-katha). I have taught my wife and others, as Srila Prabhupada taught me. We are to respect all Vaishnavas regardless of the apparent differences of opinion that Maya has cast over Lord Chaitanya's mission. Srila Prabhupada clearly taught us that we should avoid the association of non-devotees, "as much as possible," and the association of Mayavadis completely. He also taught us that we should seek out the association of higher devotees, and all devotees, and to learn to get along and work in cooperation with each other. This was also the wish of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Goswami Maharaja. I have always detested the petty bickering that is allowed to go on between the members of the different Maths (including ISKCON). All that nonsense is clearly Maya defeating our soldiers and tearing down our barricades. We cannot allow this to go on anymore at any cost. Srila Prabhupada and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Maharaja are not gone from this planet, as Maya would have us belief. They are right at our sides in their full splendor, power and purity. The proof of this is that ISKCON goes on so nicely. The proof is also that even outside of ISKCON and outside the Maths so much preaching and chanting and book distribution is going on so nicely. The proof is that new devotees are coming, not only to the Maths and to ISKCON, but even outside of these structures, people are attracted to the teachings of Lord Chaitanya, to Krishna, and they are becoming devotees. Sometimes we say, "Srila Prabhupada lives on in his books," or in his "instruction", but that is only the metaphor for "if you want to associate with Prabhupada, then you must follow his instruction and read his books". In actuality Srila Bhaktisiddhanta and Srila Prabhupada are very much here with all of us in a much more real manner than corporeal. Those devotees who do not understand this have not accepted the Sat Chit Ananda of the pure spirit soul. Anyone who believes that Srila Prabhupada abandoned us here was not paying attention. Srila Prabhupada comes to us in our dreams. He is all around us in our awakened state. He continues to prove himself through you, Srila Govinda Maharaja, through Srila Puri Maharaja, through Srila Narayana Maharaja, as well as through all the Acharyas and devotees in and outside of ISKCON who continue to push on Lord Chaitanya's mission. My Srila Prabhupada is here with me, with all his disciples. I can guarantee that. My wife and I try to attend every possible festival or gathering that we can, where devotees are gathered for chanting the glories of the Lord, as is prescribed by all the great Acharyas. We run across different flavors and even certain slight differences in the details of the instruction. In the Nectar of Devotion (Chapter 6 Paragraph 1), Srila Prabhupada clearly states that these "Details will vary but the "basic principles (64) are good everywhere". My wife and I recently went for three days to New Dvarka (Los Angeles) for the Srila Prabhupada Memorial. This was quite nice. We later traveled North to Badger, California (New Vraja) where we visited and listened to Narayana Maharaja speak on the Srimad Bhagavatam for a few days. I have known Narayana Maharaja from before. He is my friend and higher Vaishnava who speaks beautifully about Srimad Bhagavatam and Srila Prabhupada. His disciples are very enlivened, chanting 16 rounds and following nicely. I introduced my wife Priyanana to him and told him that she was your disciple. He then stated that you were his "bosom friend" touching his heart with both hands and smiling. He enlivens us as you enliven us. He carries Srila Prabhupada and all the preceding Acharyas to us, as you do, as does Puri Maharaja, and other Acharyas who are purely teaching and following in the line of Lord Chaitanya. All this Kirtan and sadhu-sanga was so enlivening that we have come back home from this trip inspired to open a preaching center, regardless of what it takes. But, we are faced with a great gargantuan dilemma. This very difficult question needs to be answered first: "Under what Math?" Whom will we ask to be our living Acharyas? There is so much discord between your disciples and the disciples of Narayana Maharaja, and between ISKCON disciples and your disciples, and between ISKCON disciples and his disciples, between the ritvik and the non-ritvik. Your disciples are going around saying that you have told them to "stay away from Narayana Maharaja". His disciples, in turn, are saying to "stay away from you". Then there is ISKCON, and the ritvik, and the non-ritvik, they are all saying to stay away from the other. What is going on? Why is this going on? Why can't the leaders of all these Maths get together and have lunch Prasadam one day a month and iron all this out? This is not what Srila Prabhupada and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta wanted. This is not Vaishnava behavior. Everybody claims that the other side did something in the past that is inexcusable. But the Bhagavad Gita teaches that "even if one performs the most abominable action, he is to be considered saintly, if he is properly situated." Chaitanya Charitamrta explains that if one is chanting Hare Krsna, one is properly situated. Everything that is in the past is in the past. We are Mahaprabhu's army. We need to cooperate, one and all. The way things stand right now, devotees from all the Maths are sneaking around like criminals when they go to hear someone else speak about Krsna. Most of us believe that it is the neophyte disciples of the different Maths (including the managers) who propagate these territorial feuds in order to aggrandize their position and re-affirm their brittle, flimsy faiths. It is extremely difficult for a mature person to accept the possibility that all these Higher Vaishnavas and Pure Devotees have so much animosity for each other that they would actually remain silent while the disciples bicker and commit offenses over territory and the monopoly of purity. All these disciples are claiming that their guru is the only pure devotee and that everyone else is a rascal. Yes, this is what we are hearing! Why is there a monopoly on purity? Srila Prabhupada has been known to say, "silence is consent", in other words Īto tolerate is to encourage'. Why can't the leaders begin to come together and slowly work to compromise on the details and the differences? We all have the same goal, to re-awaken our servitude and Krishna consciousness. Why can't the disciples of each Math be instructed by their respective Gurus to stop this animosity and simply concentrate on their Sadhana? The Acharyas have the power to change all this. If one has disciples and a following, they will listen to him. Can we please schedule a monthly meeting to discuss these "Details" between the Acharyas of the different Maths? This needs to be done for the benefit of the Krishna Conscious movement at large? Until now the generic answer to these problems has always been, "Why are you concentrating on the negative instead of the positive?" This answer no longer works. All this discord is an inexcusable embarrassment and obstacle to the entire Vaishnava Global Community. I am nobody, a fool born of melecha parents and raised in a demoniac society. But even I, with my poor fund of knowledge can understand these truths. Why can't my god brothers? Can you please tell them? Can you please explain it bold and say it loud and clear so that the three worlds can hear you? I beg all of you, Srila Govinda Maharaja, and you Srila Narayana Maharaja, Srila Puri Maharaja, Mukunda Maharaja, Hrdayananda Maharaja, anyone and everyone, please explain these simple truths to your disciples. Please implant these truths in the hearts of all your Vaishnava disciples, that it is the similarities we need to concentrate on, not the differences. Please reiterate that all this work is about spreading the holy Name and working together. It is very important to allow others to live with the details of the philosophy as they have realized so far, without alienating them, so that we can encourage them and they can encourage us (Dhimahi). It is about creating a global Kirtan so pure that it will shatter matter and dissolve it back into Brahman. Is this too much to ask? I prostrate myself at all your feet and beg for the mercy of your instruction. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada. All Glories to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati All Glories to all the Vaishnava Devotees of the Lord. Your worthless servant Dasa-anudasa Yadunandana Pada Dasa Comment on this story | Contact VNN about this story | Send this story to a friend
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