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EDITORIAL August 16, 1999 VNN4511 Comment on this story Moral Standards BY MAHAVEGAVATI DASI EDITORIAL, Aug 16 (VNN) — Giridhari prabhu made a sweet submission concerning the meeting of two such wonderful personalities, Srila Narayan Maharaj and Srila Gour Govinda Maharaj. The pure devotees are ALWAYS hearing, chanting, discussing and remembering Krsna, (satatam kirtayanto mam...), going deeper, and deeper, diving into and digging all of the details about Krsna and His devotees that they can dig into, just like gold miners. It is ONLY by THEIR association that we can make ANY progress along the path of bhakti. (sadhu sanga sadhu sanga sarva sastra kaya lava matra sadhu sanga sarva siddhi haya) Amazingly enough, within ISKCON, we can see that such sadhus like Srila Narayan Maharaj, Srila Gour Govinda Maharaj, and others, are and were subject to SO much criticism from the neophyte ASPIRING devotees. (In CC Adi lila 1.64 purport, neophyte is not defined in terms of years, but rather "devotees endeavoring to attain perfection are called neophytes".) The GBC wanted to kick Gour Govinda Maharaj out of ISKCON, but Gour Govinda Maharaj CHOSE to leave the planet THE DAY BEFORE that meeting was to take place. (Just SEE HOW Gour Govinda Maharaj left the planet. Will it be like that for us?) With all of the discussion concerning "Guru" - what is guru, who is guru - and the siddhanta, as well as the politics, I think we should be a little bit, (VERY), careful of who we are accusing of being "sahajiyas", "unbonafide 'gurus'" and the like. Krsna Himself says to Uddhava, SB 11.17.27, acarya mam vijaniyan navamanyeta karhicit... "One should know the acarya to be my very self and should never disrespect him in any way. One should not envy him because he is the sum total of all the demigods. (sarva deva mayam guru). One of the qualifications of guru, (tasmad gurum prapadyeta jijnyasu sreyah uttamam...) is that s/he has left aside ALL material considerations. Can all of our ISKCON gurus say that they are of this caliber of guru - NO MATERIAL CONSIDERATIONS AT ALL; their ONLY attachment is to KRSNA, his service and to Krsna's devotees? Following is part of an email conversation that was recently forwarded to me by one devotee. The email was a question answer dialogue between another devotee and one of the ISKCON gurus. The devotee was asking this guru to respond to his question whether it was against the regulative principles for this guru's disciple to be engaged in the occupation of research psychologist conducting studies with gay men for finding "better", "safer" ways to have illicit sexual connections so that there would be less risk of AIDS. (I have chosen to withhold the names to protect everyone involved.) Guru: Apart from all this, why are these things being discussed about a devotee in any case? Devotee: The character and personal life of someone who is trying to turn the morals of our society on its ear should and indeed must be closely scrutinized. If (name of devotee) seeks to influence others by her warped moral standards then it is very much everyone's business, especially our leaders. Guru: As far as her occupation. She is a PHd and her profession is to be an expert on AIDS and dealing with its social impacts. As long as she isn't doing abortions I don't think it is breaking principles. It is a heavy job, but that is what she was trained for prior to Krishna consciousness and is it possible to change your profession so easily? Also why should she? The devotee then provided the following references to the ISKCON guru as evidence to support his position that what this guru's disciple in question, was doing, was NOT supported by scripture or by the Vaisnava philosophy. "The so-called civilized man does not take account of this horrible condition of life, and sometimes, for the purpose of sense gratification, he tries to kill the child by methods of contraception or abortion." SB 3.31.17 "Contraception deteriorates the womb so that it no longer is a good place for the soul. That is against the order of God" SSR 1 "There is a great fault by destroying dynasty. Nowadays people are destroying from the womb, abortion, contraception, destroying. They do not know." (BG 1.37-39 London, July 27, 1973) "Sterilized means the body is killed, but not this... There is abortion. The body is killed. Contraception... The body is killed." (BG 2.12 London, August 18, 1973 Yogesvara: Do we have a viewpoint on contraception? Prabhupada: That is most sinful activity. Because a child is coming to live at the expense of God's property, and the rascal father is thinking of overpopulation. (Room Conversation with French Journalist and UNESCO Worker August 10, 1973, Paris) Guru: You may make a big thing about it, but not all our second generation is following regulative principles and is it better if they break principles of sex life to get infected with AIDS or not? Best is if they followed, but some don't. Better they live and then they may leave all these bad habits and come up to a spiritual standard. It is all kali yuga polution. Despite the devotee's above presentations, the final comments of this ISKCON guru were: "Still I don't see bad karma in what she is doing. According to sastra do you?" The devotee then answered: "I beg to disagree Maharaja. The few quotes above make it very clear what she is involved with. There are many classes of people but there was never a profession (except among asuras and rakshasas) that systematicly assisted, facilitated the killing babies along with assisting sodomists in safely engaging in their perversions. To add insult on top of injury, she even thought that we may want to introduce her "methods" among our gurukula children. What standards are we prepared to accept in Iskcon? How low will we stoop to accomodate "new devotees"? Could you imagine explaining to a pious... who promotes contraception and safe sex as a profession, who promoted gay marriages in ISKCON after she received initiation... Pretty embarassing... is appalled by Iskcon's moral bankruptcy and it's ethical hypocrisy. If we make Krsna consciousness so cheap we will attract those who feel right at home with that bad excuse for Vedic culture. Funny how our standards in ISKCON have SUNK SO LOW in many places due to the impurity in consciousness which usually comes right from the top on down. (In some temples people are allowed to live there as long as they pay some rent, EVEN WHEN THEY ARE NOT following the four regulative principles. On the other hand, sincere, dedicated, and PROPERLY practicing devotees, who have rendered so many years of service to Srila Prabhupada and HIS movement, have been FORCED by the leader in charge, to leave SRILA PRABHUPADA's maths. (Contrary to SOME opinions, these maths ARE SUPPOSED to be Srila Prabhupada's maths and do NOT belong to certain disciples in position of guru and GBC, who choose to kick their Godsiblings out of Srila Prabhupada's temples for NO reason other than their own envy and other MATERIAL concerns on their part.) I would like to present the following quote from Srimad Bhagavatam where Narada Muni is speaking to Srila Vyasadev concerning his presentation of the Vedas, in reference to those activities WHICH FALL UNDER THE VEDIC SANCTION, what to speak of those activities that DO NOT: SB 1.5.15 jugupsitam dharma-krte 'nusasatah svabhava raktasya mahan vyatikramah yad-vakyato dharma ititarah sthito na manyate tasya nivaranam janah The people in general are naturally inclined to enjoy, and you have encouraged them in that way in the name of religion. This is verily condemned and is quite unreasonable. Because they are guided under your instructions they will accept such activities in the name of religion and will hardly care for prohibitions. In CC Adi lila, 3.61 it says, "The greatest ignorance consists of activities, whether religious or irreligious that are opposed to devotional service. They are to be known as sins." This is NOT good AT ALL, that present day ISKCON gurus will make THESE kinds of compromises, (some of them slipping up on the principles themselves, and/or NOT chanting their prescribed number of rounds), where they "condone" principles being broken, things like THIS being SANCTIONED, and it is NOT made DEFINITE that it IS WRONG. We compromise this and compromise that. It is one thing to be weak, to be honest about, and recognize one's weaknesses in spiritual life, but to have such philosophical deviations that we SANCTION something like this, THAT is VERY bad, ESPECIALLY when it comes from ones "guru" as being made legitimate. It is this MINIMIZATION of the philosophy that will KILL us. Since WHEN is this kind of thing sanctioned?. At this point, for all practical purposes, present day ISKCON is VERY sick, or in one sense, at least almost dead, if not completely dead. Of course, those who knew the Vedic mantras and the system, were able to revive the dead, and bring them back to life. Maybe at some point, ISKCON will be brought back on track; if not, then it will be a diseased, (or dead?), branch of the Caitanya tree. Rather than blaspheming and being envious of PURE devotees like Srila Gour Govinda Maharaj, Srila Narayan Maharaj and others, we should INSTEAD seek out their help and BEG them for their mercy. So purifying, (SB 1.1.15), and so RARE is such association, especially in this age of Kali. Yet the pure devotees are making their association available. But we, in our stupidity, and out of envy, blaspheme them. What did Maharaj Yudhisthira say about Krsna's pure devotees? (Maharaj Yudhisthira was speaking to Vidura. SB 1.13.10) bhavad vidha bhagavatas tirtha bhutah svayam vibho tirthi kurvanti tirthani svantah sthena gadabhrta "Devotees like your good self are verily holy places personified. Because you carry the Personality of Godhead within your heart, you turn all places into places of pilgrimage." SB 11.26.26 says, "One should avoid bad company and should associate only with devotees. With their realized instructions, such saints can cut the knot connecting one with activities unfavorable to devotional service." Prahlad Maharaj states that the ONLY way to become Krsna conscious is to take the dust of the pure Vaisnavas upon one's head. (That means to render service to them.) It is our DUTY to speak the truth of the philosophy, rather than make compromises. My guru Godbrother may say, "You may make a big thing about it..." but it is a big thing when we dilute the philosophy to make compromises for the sake of materialism. The whole Vaisnava philosophy turned into a "mishmosh" until Bhaktivinode Thakur put it back together with his preaching. Do we want to be guilty of turning it into a hodgepodge too: "It's your thing; do what you want to do?" In our compromising of the philosophy, it is possible, that instead of people giving up their bad habits, (especially if they are taught that it is alright to do this and that and chant Hare Krsna), they may just, rather than give up their illicit sexual connections, engage in them, using a Krsna conscious tape as background music for their illicit affairs. I was amazed when, in 1997, in New Vrndavan, I was "introduced" by one devotee to a "new school of thought", that there are "3" regulative principles. He started the discussion, "NO ONE can follow the four regulative principles strictly", (specifically the regulative principle regarding illicit sex). I said that it COULD be followed, and that Srila Prabhupada wanted us to follow it. He then called me a "fanatic". Fanatic? My Guru Maharaj said, "NO illicit sex." In NOI, pg 12, Srila Prabhupada says, "As far as the urges of the genitals are concerned, there are two - proper and improper, or legal and illicit sex. When a man is properly mature, he can marry according to the rules and regulations of the sastras and use his genetals for begetting nice children. That is legal and religious. Otherwise he may adopt many artificial means to satisfy the demands of the genitals and he may not use any restraint. When one indulges in illicit sex life, as defined by the sastras, either by thinking, planning, talking about or actually having sexual intercourse, or by satisfying the genitals by artificial means, he is caught in the clutches of maya." (Just a side note, Srila Prabhupada purports in SB 6.1.13, that "brahmacarya has eight aspects: one should not think of women, speak about sex life, dally with women, look lustfully at a woman, talk intimately with a woman, or decide to engage in sexual intercourse, nor should one endeavor for sex life or engage in sex life." It is one thing to be weak and to admit to one's lack of ability to follow, ones frailties and weaknesses, (understanding that one must at some point aspire to make a change), but it is another thing to try to twist the philosophy, invalidate it, and even destroy it, just to suit or "justify" our desires for sense gratification. If our ISKCON gurus, who are supposed to be the pillars of strength, the "acaryas", the persons who SHOULD be upholding the philosophy and preaching it to their disciples and to others, are not doing so, then we are in some VERY BAD trouble. Hoping in my honesty I have not appeared to have been too offensive. I remain your servant, Mahavegavati Dasi Hare Krsna Comment on this story  Contact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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