© 1999 VNN
|
EDITORIAL December 23, 1999 VNN5137 Comment on this story Follow Up To Jivanmukta's Article BY DHYANA-KUNDA DASI EDITORIAL, Dec 23 (VNN) — A clarification letter from Dhyana-kunda dasi The following letter was sent by Dhyana-kunda prabhu to the Topical Discussions conference shortly after her October 20 letter (which was previously re-posted here by Jivan Mukta prabhu (VNN story # 5033) , without the author's permission). It explains her reasons for posting the original texts with the "contradictions", which she provided at the request of other conference members. In this letter she also shares the realizations which led to her expressing her doubts on a COM forum. This letter thus provides more of the context which was so sadly lacking in Jivan Mukta's earlier article. I'm forwarding this text to the Cybercommunity of Vaisnavas with the permission of Dhyana-kunda prabhu. Ys, Madhusudani Radha devi dasi Dear Vaisnavas and Vaisnavis, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada... to the person he was, not to a god I believe he was not. Many of you commented on my posts on TD, I also received many letters both critical and supportive -- too many for me to comment separately on them all. Therefore please allow me to comment here. I am sorry if I neglect to comment on someone's point; there were so many. .......... Re: Apology needed. From your posts it is clear that some readers were deeply hurt. I am sorry. I did not write in order to hurt, but hurt I did. For many devotees Prabhupada is the dearmost person and even more than that. And yet I "analyzed" him in the same way I would analyze any other human being. I tried my best to make it clear that my statements are subjective, that it is me who has a problem. I didn't try enough. I am sorry for that. I am not sorry, however, for expressing my thoughts. It is my great hope that some nectar will come up too from this churning. .......... Re: Several persons advised me to approach my spiritual master with this, or asked if I did so. Yes, I did. Over the last five years I approached him several times with rather far-reaching doubts in ISKCON. I never was admonished by him for that. He took the position of a friend who looks at the problems together with me, and offered his thoughts, not as instructions (though he had full right to), but as food for thought. The first time I did this, he concluded his response with the instruction to continue thinking and expressing these thoughts, not only to himself but to other devotees as well, in this way helping ISKCON to work out the direction where we are going. I also approached my spiritual master with these doubts about Srila Prabhupada. It was emotionally tougher than with the other doubts and we did not get far. We agreed more time was needed to sort this out. Still, his attitude remained as above. What can I say? I love him for that. ........... Re: Whether there are contradictions. Some of you sent your ideas on how to resolve the ones I presented. Thank you for these kind letters. As I said in the first post in the series, I was aware of it myself that many of the contradictions could be reconciled. Not all, though. And even those that can be reconciled sometimes require much painful jugglery. Some of you pointed out that there could be a slip of the tongue, lack of knowledge, or that this was just a 19th century Bengali style of speaking. I fully agree. It makes the point, though: even though considering Srila Prabhupada to be a perfect pure devotee, the devotee reader must exercise discrimination. One of you wrote: "...as far as one example you gave -- 12 syllables and 18 letters to the mantra, *om namo bhagavate vasudevaya* there is no contradiction: even with my neophyte knowledge of Sanskrit I can count that much respectively; letters and syllables are not synonymous."In devanagari they are *nearly* synonymous, since it is a syllabic script. In the above mantra there are 12 syllables, 12 (devanagari) letters, 25 (Roman) letters. No 18 letters by any means. I see it as an error and a contradiction. If you don't, we will have to agree to disagree. This is a tiny and harmless detail. The BBT authorities decided to keep it in the book when it was pointed out -- which proves they did not think it was someone else's typo. I agree. The books should stay as they are. I think that we would do Srila Prabhupada a disservice by removing these sorts of errors from his books. This would only increase the tendency of some readers to see him as a materially infallible oracle. The way the books are now, he looks more human. ............. Re: Do I live in Prabhupada's ashram? Institutionally, no. I live in an ISKCON village community that has some non-ISKCON members as well. I did live in temples for many years in Poland, Russia and Sweden. ............. Re: Am I merely asking questions or am I presenting conclusions? I began to question 4-5 years ago, so naturally I did a lot of reading and discussing. Inevitably one creates and tests hypotheses as one goes. In this way some hypotheses gain strength. Still, my conclusions are not final. "Conclusion is a place where you have tired of thinking." Besides, how can I make final conclusions about a person I never met? Still, an urge to understand the person who has changed my life in so many ways is natural. My spiritual master has said many times that we should try to develop a personal, close relationship with Prabhupada. When I try to get close to someone as a person, personality issues become a factor. ............ Re: I sound critical. Thank you for pointing this out. I will try to change. Inside me, I feel exasperated, bitter, and scared. Some of your comments felt critical to me. By judging you with the same standard, I guess you may have felt exasperated, bitter, and scared by reading my posts. I am not a demon or an uninvolved person who comes into ISKCON by some mistake and throws around thoughtless criticisms of Prabhupada. I have been a devotee for twelve years and for a greater portion of that time I felt happy or at least hopeful with my relationship with Prabhupada. I had much faith in him as a being perfect in all respects. "Planting the Seed" was my beloved book. So were the books by him that I translated. I spent hundreds of hours listening to his dictation tapes and it was one of the most wonderful experiences in my life. I felt very close to him. I wrote articles about him and Vyasa-puja offerings to him every year. I taught about him and helped the girls in the bhaktin program to develop a personal relationship with him. Once I asked each of them to recall something she particularly appreciated about him. Then each had to write a sentence for him, starting with "Thank you for..." We compiled these into his Centennial Vyasa-puja offering. These are sweet memories. It cost me a lot of pain and fear to go, from there, to what are at present my conclusions. It happened when I began to be confronted with the social ills of ISKCON and with persons that became psychologically damaged by the ISKCON experience. In Moscow it was my service. I saw devotees abusing other devotees (and nondevotees), doing harm to themselves also, and using Prabhupada's words or sastra as authorization. I was desperately digging in whatever texts he left, looking for proofs that these were misrepresentations. I read the books written about him. I studied the conversations and how he dealt with people's doubts. I found nice quotes (you have perhaps noticed I know many), but I found very troubling quotes as well. Troubling patterns in interaction. Please don't think I did not try to explain them away. I did, so much that it hurt. I wrote articles, presenting SP's instructions so that they would advocate what was, to the best of my knowledge and realization, a socially and psychologically healthy approach. It was very tiring. I know other devotees who did the same. And we were soundly defeated when our adversaries threw other quotes in our faces, the scary ones. We all, at one point or another, cried bitter tears to Prabhupada: "I love you and I am grateful that you saved me, but WHY DID YOU SAY THIS??" ............ Re: My fears about Prabhupada stem from my bad experiences with others who misrepresented him without being so advanced. Had I met him, I would not have these fears. Many devotees tell how wonderful it was to be with Srila Prabhupada and how loving and accepting he was. But I, and the countless generations of devotees to come after me, will not have that opportunity. We are forced to form our picture of him by reading what he said and by others' accounts. Written word does not convey everything. Even a recording does not. Srila Prabhupada was obviously an extraordinary person. It sounds probable to me that when he made violent jokes or spoke words that come across as harsh, his inner attitude was different than in the case of some modern ISKCON authorities. Still, the ease with which his words lend themselves to abuse is troubling to me. A devotee sent me a following message, pasting in a quote: ----------- Prabhupada said: "Then there must be argumentum at baculam. Baculam means a stick, or a gun. Therefore there can be a war. /pointing with the finger like a gun/ Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, puf puf/imitating a sound of gunshots/ Krishna Krishna puf puf, Hare Hare puff puff. That is Krishna consciousness."SRILA PRABHUPADA KI JAI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ------------ Such reactions scare me out of my wits. In the history of religious movements there were often leaders who may not have advocated violence, and yet cruel violence broke out in their name, because the followers were fanatical and fanaticism is organically connected to intolerance. How greater is the danger if the leader does seem to feel at home with violence, even if only verbal. Especially when critical reading of him is discouraged. ............ Re: If I cannot trust Prabhupada, this is because I have a problem trusting, not because he is not trustworthy. Babies come to this world fully trusting. Most of us, when we joined ISKCON, had a lot of trust. I trusted Prabhupada a lot and was disappointed, that's why now I can't trust him *as he is being presented to me* so much anymore. If not many others write critical texts as I do, it is not because I have a problem that is isolated. I have a big mouth (and not infrequently put my foot in it). Others just won't speak up. This is one of the factors that compelled me to speak up now. When I joined ISKCON in Poland, I used to ask many questions after lectures. In those days, asking questions was considered a sign of unchastity and lust if the questioner was a woman. Other women almost never asked questions. Guess what began to happen: regularly, during lectures, I would get messages from girls sitting around me asking me to ask a question on their behalf. And initially I did. But I would get harsher and harsher reprimands by the authorities. "You see, they are so chaste, they never ask questions. Why can't you follow their example?" My questions were sometimes stupid or inappropriate, but I got plenty of good answers. A senior devotee who was my mentor consoled me once after I got smashed by the TP for asking something that was stupid indeed: "Head up, do you think those others who never say anything stupid are smarter than you? They are just as stupid. Just that they have no courage to expose it, and so they will stay stupid." So it is with this controversy too. Please, when you reply to me, be aware that there are silent others who identify with my questions. When someone writes an intimidating post, I get a headache and can't eat for a while, but that's it. Someone who is more sensitive, seeing such a post, will see no alternative other than, "To put a show of devotion and play rules by the book while the silent scream in us is loud enough to kill." (This phrase is from Dvaipayana Vyasa's posting and it referred to something else, but it perfectly describes how it feels.) .............. Re: I should not entertain such doubts because they will spoil my devotion. Several of you expressed, in sincere and kind words, a concern for my spiritual life. I know doubts can be dangerous. Faith is an absolute requirement to develop pure devotion. My spiritual master taught me that certain doubts should be suspended until I become more mature. I did keep many of my doubts suspended for years. But there comes a time when the evidence becomes so compelling that you must dust off your doubts. I have material motivations and only *that much* of faith. I have to do the best use of this bad bargain, but I also want to stay true to what rings in me as my deepest inner voice, that which brought me to Krsna. I refuse to believe that in order to develop love we have to deny what we think and feel. Not all thoughts and feelings are wrong. I do believe God can lead us through the heart in individual ways and has ways of convincing us. I know I am risking. I have read those verses about respect for the guru many times. I feel I have no choice. If I relinquish that for which I feel so strongly, that which brought me to spiritual path, just because others (devotees; gurus; sastra) say it is offensive, then immediately my actions become based on fear -- selfish fear for my own skin. Fear never leads to love. And if the exalted devotees are worthy of love on their own merit, then there must be a way for me to realize that without coercion by fear. Doubts can be a sign of faith -- that an answer exists and that it will not crush us, no matter how hard it may be. Your humble servant, Dhyana-kunda dasi Comment on this story  Contact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
NEWS DESK | EDITORIALS | TOP |
