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05-13-2008, 02:50 AM
Quote:
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Originally Posted by krsna
When all are doing wrong, be the first to do right, or just keep silent??. 
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Well, the answer is no.
In this day and age and in this time and place, if I am struggling and ARE doing wrong, and then if I see others also doing wrong, then regardless of my fallen state, I will NOT remain silent, I will strongly and aggressively, if need be, speak out against the same things that have degraded me.
Frankly the above comment and many scriptual quotes can unfortunately be twisted and resemble a fascist statement to control the thoughtful thinking of others because it is a clever way to get others to never critize their leaders.
Do you really think that because one is not perfect and fallen, one should ignore all the faults in any other devotees or leaders and remain silent by not exposing and telling others about their struggle with Maya?
Maybe this is why so few spoke up in the past in early ISKCON when they saw wrong and lies, that back many believed as truth, going on.
In all fairness and honesty, the most probably reason very few did not speak or even recognise the truth all those years ago is,, we were too young, inexperienced and immature to know any better. When Prabhupada left us in 1977, the average age of the devotees was 26 years old
Therefore, many felt they were too fallen, useless and affraid to speak out about what little truth they new and expose the childish lies and difficult struggles of other very young devotees, who were also still learning how to be leaders and Gurus.
So they remained silent and lived the sentimental lie because they did not know any better, and look what happened - The hard way to learn a lesson.
In other words we were not smart enough to learn through knowledge of the Veda, we had to learn the hard way by trial and era
It was simply inexperience and immaturity these things happened, their was no plan of deceit by anyone in the Temple, at least not in Australia and certainly not by me even though I did struggle as revealed in a letter Prabhupada sent me
In all fairness there was an innocents back then that was in all the devotees because when one is young, as we all were back then, our ideals were very strong, we were very young and inexperienced in our attempts to understand and follow an age old religion.
Anyway, such a comment as "When all are doing wrong, be the first to do right, or just keep silent" also reminds me of an old Prabhupada disciple back in the 70s, who is actually a very nice old grandfather devotee today. But back then he always said such naive comments due to his youthful immaturity to just force you to do as he said. With his infamous saying 'SURENDER PRABHOOO' which really means to him, just do what I tell you to do and don't argue, question it or think.about it<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:" /><o:p></o:p>
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In 1971 every time I touched the mrdunga he would harshly say <o:p></o:p>
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"Leave that drum alone, you don't know how to play it, so don't touch it" <o:p></o:p>
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My obvious reply to this devotee was <o:p></o:p>
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"If I don't touch the mrdunga drum, how am I going to learn?" <o:p></o:p>
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He just ignored me, so when he was not around, I practised on the drum anyway, ignoring his request and taught myself. <o:p></o:p>
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So Prabhupada arrived a few months later and lead the kirtan in the Temple room, and yes I was playing mrdunga while the devotee who previously would not let me play the drum, was cooking in the kitchen. <o:p></o:p>
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While cooking another devotee said to him, <o:p></o:p>
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"Well it looks like he can touch the drum now, seeing he can play it"<o:p></o:p>
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There is a point and lesson in all this, don't let anyone tell you what you can and cannot do if it shastically does not make sense!! Which means one has to learn and study Srila Prabhupada’s books so one is not treated like a mushroom by anyone, aspiring devotees or karmis
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And certainly never ever remain silent when you see things are not quite right, no matter how fallen you are.<o:p></o:p>
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The old immature ways and sentimental ideas in ISKCON have to be out grown if we are to learn and go forward instead of remaining stagnant within the realms of our pioneering immaturity years
HARE KRSNA
Last edited by Vigraha; 05-13-2008 at 01:28 PM.
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