vijay

"According to this conclusions we have to think Prabhupada like Lord Jesus christ. " No if someone holds a special position for srila prabhupada it is not NECCESARILY something like jesus. Madhva's hold special position for madhavacarya, we in the line of rupa goswami hold a special position for rupa goswami (rupanugas), A founder of an institution GM in which bhaktisidhanta swami also holds a special position, therefore the fulfiler of chaitanya mahaprabhus prediction of spreading krishna conciousness around the world and founder of an international society thus he also holds a special position. An empowered vaishnava should be recognised as an empowered vaishnava there is no fault in this. Yes I agree if people concoct and it becomes only srila prabhupada or nothing then this is a transgression of what the philosophy teaches.

His Holiness Sivarama swami has written a small paper regarding siksa outside ISKCON, for those of you interested please read it to expand your minds and take in to consideration a vaild perspective. I can post a few excerpts if interested but need to read it in context to gain the most out of it.

Thank you prabhuji, I will soon be posting something which may answer most of the questions posed to me about whether srila prabhupada wanted his diciples to have regular siksa outside of ISKCON it nicely explains everything in a clear logical fashion.

Hare Krsna Thank you for the information, Personally I regard srila prabhupada as the founder acarya of the "institution" Iskcon as he regarded himself. He is the pre-eminant siksa guru for all in ISKCON, he laid down the 7 rules for ISKCON the mood of ISKCON just as bsst laid down the mood and "institution" of gaudiya matha. Prabhupada emphasised co-orperation in ISKCON and he asked his disciples to maintain the "Institution" thats how we can show him our love. Now as my pre-eminent siksa guru I will only accept teachings from other gurus as long as they are in line with what prabhupada has taught, if any teachings of any other siksa/diksa guru are against are not compatible with his teachings, mood and instructions then I will be inclined to listen to someone who imbibes srila prabhupadas mood as his mission. As other gurus outside ISKCON are not bound by prabhupada's instructions concerning his institution and may also have philosophical differences as well as the mood, I choose to stay clear of this and endeavour to find a pure devotee who has accepted srila prabhupada as the final authority and fully involved in maintaing what he has set up and instructed those in ISKCON to do. I choose to follow the mood and mission that srila prabhupada set up and asked us to be apart of. I follow those that are dedicated to this mission as I am eternally indebted to srila prabhupada I am dedicated to maintaing what he has set up. I do believe there are pure devotees in and outside ISKCON i choose to follow those that accept srila prabhupada as the founder acarya and the final athority as a siksa disciple I have my first allegiance to him. Im sure as some have quoted prabhupada, that there are many societys where pure devotees can be found for me this includes Iskcon too. Just as you wouldnt of expected diciples of BSST to go to babajis even if uttama adhikari or someone outside the mission of BSST even if pure as the may not share the goals that BSST established for his mission nor the mood nor the same philosophical understanding.

I believe the main thing he wanted was co-operation by his diciples, as he said you can show your love for me by co-operating with each other, you can say this means co-operate with self effulgent acaryas outside of ISKCON but I can also give you loads of quotes where he says stay away from them, if they say something different you will be confused, they are like this and that. It depends on what you choose to emphasis by using prabhupadas words. The ritvics on one end will give endless quotes by prabhupada on how we should only stick to prabhupada and shouldnt even have other gurus, and the gm will give endless quotes on how actually prabhupada wanted us to take siksha and even have gm gurus as acarya's of iskcon. (As well as anyone else considered self effulgent)

"Yes.it will be like Krsnianity, where the letter of the ISKCON Law will be scrupulously adhered to over and above the spirit of Mahaprabhu's teachings which advocate Sri Krsna sankirtanam . " Okay your not satisfied with iskcon well go somewhere where you think you can reach krishna, displaying your dissatisfaction in unconstructive comments as above with iskcon isnt going to help anyone (not saying that was you but this is my point), rejecting things not favaroble to krishna conciousness is what rupa goswami advices unconstructive critism is rubbish and not favourable to anything except our egos. Anyway not going to try and stress this simple point anymore

That link about kristianity, i think its not very accurate it interprets "one moon" as prabhupad's desire for one acarya, when there are many quotes against this and prabhupda even critices his god brothers harshly for trying to install one acarya. You are right about Sridhara Maharaja's genuineness. But in my opinion he is the best of the lot. He is my old friend, at least he executes the regulative principles of devotional service. I do not wish to discuss about activities of my Godbrothers but it is a fact they have no life for preaching work. All are satisfied with a place for residence in the name of a temple, they engage disciples to get foodstuff by transcendental devices and eat and sleep. They have no idea or brain how to broacast the cult of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. My Guru Maharaja used to lament many times for this reason and he thought if one man at least had understood the principle of preaching then his mission would achieve success. In the latter days of my Guru Maharaja he was very disgusted. Actually, he left this world earlier, otherwise he would have continued to live for more years. Still he requested his disciples to form a strong Governing body for preaching the cult of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He never recommended anyone to be acarya of the Gaudiya Math. But Sridhara Maharaja is responsible for disobeying this order of Guru Maharaja, and he and others who are already dead unnecessarily thought that there must be one acarya. If Guru Maharaja could have seen someone who was qualified at that time to be acarya he would have mentioned. Because on the night before he passed away he talked of so many things, but never mentioned an acarya. His idea was acarya was not to be nominated amongst the governing body. He said openly you make a GBC and conduct the mission. So his idea was amongst the members of GBC who would come out successful and self effulgent acarya would be automatically selected. So Sridhara Maharaja and his two associate gentlemen unauthorizedly selected one acarya and later it proved a failure. The result is now everyone is claiming to be acarya even though they may be kanistha adhikari with no ability to preach. In some of the camps the acarya is being changed three times a year. Therefore we may not commit the same mistake in our ISKCON camp. Actually amongst my Godbrothers no one is qualified to become acarya. So it is better not to mix with my Godbrothers very intimately because instead of inspiring our students and disciples they may sometimes pollute them. This attempt was made previously by them, especially Madhava Maharaja and Tirtha Maharaja and Bon Maharaja but somehow or other I saved the situation. This is going on. We shall be very careful about them and not mix with them. This is my instruction to you all. They cannot help us in our movement, but they are very competent to harm our natural progress. So we must be very careful about them HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada So prabhpada commiting offences against guru's then? he isnt allowing his diciples to associate closely with his god brothers isnt that offencive shouldnt you guys speak out on that? You are after all defenders of pure devotees? I dont understand why in an organisation its not good to have gurus athorised to iniate? Its not suppose to be a declaration that this is a uttama adhikari (as it was in the past) The system avoids a free for all, the gay guys recognise a 'pure devotee' who says gays are okay or something on those lines, the feminists find a guru who adjusts for time place circumstance over riding what prabhupada said, so the system stops a free for all where anyone who thinks they recognise a guru when clearly not being allowed to initiate under iskcon. In a large society people may not be so educated to recognise self effulgence so athoristion acts like a minimum safety check. Or am i being naive? Anyway im not going to get in to this debate again yes iskcon has made mistakes so have gaudiya math gurus, I hope you advance well in your krishna conciousness.

Heres something thats helped me alot recently and i know alot of other people, Its indirectly related to this. Thank you very much Jndas prabhuji letter on chanting and sadhana... Today I came across a letter I had written to someone last year and thought it may be fitting to post here. Dear ..., Hare Krishna. Dandavats. Jaya Srila Prabhupada. quote: -- Actually seven years back when i came in contact with ISKCON i took up KRISHNA CONCIOUSNESS very seriously and i was even chanting 16 rounds then. Through time one thing i have noticed is this that maintaining stability in KC is very tough and that there are no immediate results when one takes up chanting seriously. -- My experience is that when one first starts chanting Hare Krishna he feels very happy, and is very fired up to chant. As time goes on his enthusiasm dies down, along with the happiness he experiences from it. Eventually chanting becomes a chore, where one must work hard to chant without actually enjoying it. Without experiencing happiness when chanting Hare Krishna, one's entire spiritual life becomes dull. Again, from my experience, this loss of enthusiasm and happiness is due to a number of things, but most importantly our cynicism and criticism of other devotees. Once we begin to advance a very little in spiritual life we unfortunately develop pride. Either we think we are very advanced, very pure, or very knowledgeable, and others just don't match up to us. When we first take to spiritual life we are very humble, and we automatically accept other devotees as very advanced. This is mostly due to ignorance of what advancement is, but in this case our ignorance actually helps us progress in spiritual life. As we develop knowledge and discrimination, we lose respect for those general devotees, who are actually sadhakas, and think that we are further along on the path of advancement then them. Actually what we have mostly gained is academic knowledge, not spiritual advancement. We can test this practically by seeing how much our mind is controlled. See how long we can sit quietly alone in a room. Just sit quietly, even without meditation! This is like kindergarten level that we are talking about, but we fail. Try spending one day observing mauna vrata, don't speak to anyone or make noise for one single day. If we try these simple exercises we will realize how entrapped in the material consciousness we are, and how uncontrolled our minds really are. Yet, in such a pitiful state, we thought small of every single soul who attempted spiritual life. They may have even been less advanced then us, but we failed to realize they were sadhakas, lost souls attempting spiritual life. It must be expected that they will have some flaws and faults. Out of millions of people, there is hardly one sadhaka - so even with all of his flaws and faults he is great. From Krishna's view, when he looks upon all of us, he doesn't see the flaws, because the flaws are the standard in the material world. He sees the exceptional quality, that we have attempted something. But from our perspective, when we see other devotees, we see the flaws. "Oh that person is a devotee but still he is like this, still he did that. Devotees are supposed to have all good qualities, but he is acting worse than a nondevotee." Our mistake was that we failed to see him as a sadhaka, and instead tried to compare him to the standard of bhakta. Bhakta is a very advanced stage. just like we say "Bhakta Prahlada". It refers to the pure devotee. Srila Prabhupada had us call all new devotees as "bhakta" so that we would be offering respect to them, and they would feel themselves as servants of Krishna. He wanted to protect us from criticizing the sadhakas. We should respect the new sadhaka as a bhakta, but we should not try to measure him to the standard of a bhakta, for a true bhakta is a liberated soul. To further protect us from this most common block on the spiritual path, Srila Prabhupada instructed us to offer obeisances to each devotee every morning when we first see them. But such practices have either stopped or become mere rituals. The use of the words "bhakta" and "prabhu" have become meaningless. Bhakta is now a term used to refer to an inferior class of devotee, and prabhu is just a word we use to address each other. Humility is the only qualification to advance in spiritual life, but it is the most difficult quality to develop. As we become knowledgeable we begin to think we are advanced. As a result we pose as teachers, gurus, and ever-well wishers. We begin accepting people's obeisances instead of returning obeisances. We should note that the great saint Srila Bhakti Pramode Puri Maharaja, godbrother of Srila Prabhupada, would many times offer obeisances to the new devotees who would come to see him, despite himself being over 100 years old, and he would request them for blessings! This is the sign of advancement. The rest of us, who try to pose ourselves as knowledgeable and advanced, actually lack true devotional substance and practice. We may speak like eloquent scholars, but we are as lost as the rest of the outside world. Still, an intelligent sadhaka will not even criticize us! The truly advancing sadhaka must be able to analyse the situation in truth and realize that those posing as advanced are also sadhakas stuck on their own level. They must be glorified for being sadhakas, and their faults should be seen as a natural product of this material world. We are all coming out of the gutter, naturally there will be dirt on us. We cannot be criticized for being dirty, rather we should be glorified for choosing to climb out of the gutter. At the same time, the intelligent sadhaka must relate to each person according to their true level of advancement. He shouldn't blindly follow others despite knowing their aproximate level of advancement. We must adopt a standard of respecting all while following none. Of course this is a very crude way of explaining it. In other words, we must follow the exemplary saints whose life style is perfectly in accordance with the scriptures. Srila prabhupada is our own perfect example, whom we can internally compare others to. This comparison is not to criticize or to belittle, but to analyze. If someone falls short of the comparison, we offer them all respects and in our heart consider them to be a more advanced sadhaka on the spiritual path. But sadhakas should not follow sadhakas! A sadhaka needs a saint, this is the order given in the Nectar of Instruction. We may recieve some comfort and advice from other sadhakas, both beginners and advanced. But true absolute guidance can come only from a saint. In the Shikshashtakam Sri Chaitanya says: trnad api sunicena taror api sahisnuna amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih If you want to chant Hare Krishna constantly you must become tolerant like a tree. Why a tree? Because everyone is offending the tree. Someone is snatching its fruit, someone is pulling its leaves, someone is breaking its branches, someone is taking its flowers. Now we may say, "How can I allow people to walk on top of me like this?" The point is if you want to chant constantly (kirtaniyah sada harih) then you must be on this platform, like Haridas Thakur. He allowed people to beat him with sticks. After beating him, they were unable to kill him, so they requested to him, "You please die, otherwise the king will punish us." So to satisfy them he died, and later came back to life. This is tolerant like a tree. Such a person can chant 24 hours a day. Artificially we cannot become so tolerant, but according to our level of tolerance we will be able to chant. If someone is only a little tolerant, he will only be able to chant a little bit. If he tries to chant more he will find it too difficult to chant. So we must increase our tolerance and humility, not artificially but naturally and slowly. Once the humility is increased, then we will see that it becomes easier to chant. In the beginning of spiritual life we have no pride, and due to ignorance we offer all respects to other devotees thinking everyone to be a saint. Thus we have no impediments in chanting. But as we increase in knowledge, our humility decreases and we begin to judge devotees, forgetting that they are in reality sadhakas. At that time we are suddenly faced with a block, it becomes difficult to chant Hare Krishna. Only when we bring our self back to our original level of humility, accepting everyone as more advanced then ourselves, will our chanting again become pure. Devotees are always looking for the 'good old days' of ISKCON, but they fail to understand what made those days good. It wasn't a time period, it wasn't just the presence of the Founder-Acharya, it was our own humility and respect for all. As soons as there is pride, one loses the spiritual taste, and the 'good old days' are gone. Yours in service, J.N.Das

The people critisisng iskcon for being (or will be) too kristian or dampening mahaprabhu's mood, are pretty westernised in the way they critisise thier, thought process, is not at all vaishnav, a vaishnav has compassion trys to enthuse and inspire fellow devotees a karmi/neophyte always sees the negative and tries to rubbish efforts made by other devotees (whenever its not up to the neophytes idealistic standard). Unconstructive critisism is purely a boost to the neophtes ego. Sorry to go on, but i find it offensive to all those devotees that are trying their utmost best to preach and have been very succesful like radhanatha swmai, indrayumna maharaj, devotees i personally know preaching in middle east and china risking thier lives who are also under the banner of iskcon to be rubbished constantly under one brush stroke named iskcon. Yes alot may be wrong with the way iskcon is managed and yes they may not be living up to the potential they have, yet there are plenty of devotees serving krishna with enthusiasm dedicating their lives fully, in so many fields around the world. The minds full of rubbish will only see the rubbish and will love talking about rubish constantly, the mind full of devotion will see devotion in others and try to enthuse it, knowing that once this is rekindled all other things will follow.

Whats with all the Iskcon bashing on this forum?? If you dont like it then do something about, if you dont find life with the devotees in iskcon (I find loads of enthusiasm in my area) then enthuse devotees, you guys are so educated that critise the instituion then lovingly educate them. Else buzz off cause your not helping by your rants and remarks. (-:

http://www.shikshapatri.org.uk/~imagedb/hms/mss_browse.php?expand=638,639&act=chtrans&trans=4 Even the shikshapatri your own scripture written by swaminarayan says krishna is parabramhan and SOURCE OF INCARNATIONS verse 108 That Ishwara is Lord Shree Krishna: Parabrahman, Bhagawan, Purushottam, our beloved deity and cherished God. He is worthy of worship and devotion by all, and is the source of all incarnations. I see only 2 ways you can explain this. Either krishna is avtari parabramhan or swaminarayan is a liar thus info contained in the shikshapatri is not worth reading.

Thanks for the story I heard it years ago, it only came back to me when you told it, if only i could take the essence of that story

Even 50% after all your expences would be surrender, Ive also heard that giving 50% could mean looking after your dieties at home providing them good shelter and using your home as a namahata that would be more like giving everything to krishna if everything is spent with that goal then 100% is given to krishna. Theres always ways to define things so we try and keep as much for our selves, but our goal should be whatever situation we are in we try and use that for krishna. If we are paying a morgage for a house then use the house for krishna if you buy food offer it to krishna and the devotees. Any surplus laxmi can be given to your local temples or projects. Its all about our determination and sincerity.

Its nice to have these verses but devotees should be wary in what context they were spoken, many quotes like by prabhupada are cited out of context by both pro-traditionalists and feminist/liberal devotees. Jay

Thanks for the link, got me thinking about the futility of my life again, may be it wasnt true but sounded similar to what ive read before, anyway certainly puts things in to perspective. Jai

This post is similar to what ive posted somewhere else proably to u. "A person who is liberated acharya and guru cannot commit any mistake, but there are persons WHO ARE LESS QUALIFIED or NOT LIBERATED, but STILL CAN ACT AS GURU and acharya by STRICTLY FOLLOWING the DISCIPLIC SUCCESSION. It is the injunction of the sastras that anyone who sees the Deity in the Temple as made of wood or stone, or considers the acaryas and gurus as ordinary common men, and discriminates Vaisnavas or devotees as belonging to a certain group or caste, are called hellish." Okay let me explain again you are saying you have to be liberated to follow strictly. You say "...again... who is strictly following is liberated, you cannot follow strictly if you are not liberated... strictly means purely, so if one's is a strict devotee, he's a pure devotee" Look at what prabhupada says its very clear if you look and understand please try once more if you dont accept prabhupada and have your own version then thats fair enough. "..but there are persons WHO ARE LESS QUALIFIED or NOT LIBERATED, but STILL CAN ACT AS GURU and acharya by STRICTLY FOLLOWING the DISCIPLIC SUCCESSION." see... "NOT LIBERATED.. but STILL CAN ACT AS GURU and acharya by STRICTLY FOLLOWING the DISCIPLIC SUCCESSION." See my friend NOT LIBERATED but still STRICTLY FOLLOWING the DISCIPLIC SUCCESSION = guru & acarya Not your definition that to be follwing strictly you have to be liberated thus guru has to be liberated. Maybe you just dont want to see thats fair enough. Can it be any clearer? "as i have already said the instruction that you are quoting is for judging the purity of devotees by sadhana and not for other reasons" I think what prabhupada is saying is clear and dont need an interpretation from you why he is saying it, thank you anyway. Anyway like theist im signing off this discussion. Hope you well in your spirtual life. Haribol

"....mmh.. it seems that you think that the best is basically to follow an organization, then there's to have some formal accepting and naming from a someone recommended by them. In my opinion, basically, for iskcon devotees, the guru is ikscon and the real thing is prabhupada... but he's not present in this world so one has to arrange with someone else" No i didnt say one should follow an organisation or see an organisation as guru, i said we should take instruction from someone we consider a bonifide guru. For devotees that want to follow prabhupada they will follow someone who they think is following prabhupada and is self-realised if not they will get cheated. simple. "A devotee a little more expert, but not fully realized, and not accepted by us as absolute, who gives to us some advice..... he is not a guru, is a senior brother, a friend.. not a guru" If you take a look at what prabhupada has said below ive posted this somewhere else aswell remember im NOT saying we should take a less qualified guru but he can still be guru. You say "but not fully realized" .. "not a guru" Prabhupada clearly says "WHO ARE LESS QUALIFIED or NOT LIBERATED... STILL CAN ACT AS GURU and acharya ... by STRICTLY FOLLOWING the DISCIPLIC SUCCESSION full quote "A person who is liberated acharya and guru cannot commit any mistake, but there are persons WHO ARE LESS QUALIFIED or NOT LIBERATED, but STILL CAN ACT AS GURU and acharya by STRICTLY FOLLOWING the DISCIPLIC SUCCESSION. It is the injunction of the sastras that anyone who sees the Deity in the Temple as made of wood or stone, or considers the acaryas and gurus as ordinary common men, and discriminates Vaisnavas or devotees as belonging to a certain group or caste, are called hellish." Hope that helps somewhat.

"A person who is liberated acharya and guru cannot commit any mistake, but there are persons WHO ARE LESS QUALIFIED or NOT LIBERATED, but STILL CAN ACT AS GURU and acharya by STRICTLY FOLLOWING the DISCIPLIC SUCCESSION. It is the injunction of the sastras that anyone who sees the Deity in the Temple as made of wood or stone, or considers the acaryas and gurus as ordinary common men, and discriminates Vaisnavas or devotees as belonging to a certain group or caste, are called hellish." THE POINT: A DEVOTEE NOT LIBERATED CAN ACT AS GURU. THEREFORE AVOID CALLING NON LIBERATED GURUS "cheaters" *IF* they are following disciplic succession. Hare Krishna

There are regular kirtans here a few times a week around london and central london. By both bramhacharis and grhstras

"...if one acts as liberated he's actually liberated, and to thinking at the guru as one who is not intrinsecally liberated makes all the relationship useless.. " Read the quote again prabhupada says a non liberated devotee following strictly is still considered guru. You guys are saying if a guru isnt liberated he is a "cheater", prabhupada is saying no he can still be guru although less qualified. Very simple. "A person who is liberated acharya and guru cannot commit any mistake, but there are persons WHO ARE LESS QUALIFIED or NOT LIBERATED, but STILL CAN ACT AS GURU and acharya by strictly following the disciplic succession. It is the injunction of the sastras that anyone who sees the Deity in the Temple as made of wood or stone, or considers the acaryas and gurus as ordinary common men, and discriminates Vaisnavas or devotees as belonging to a certain group or caste, are called hellish." Haribol "What kind of 'guru' and what kind of 'acharya' can act if he or she is not able to even follow the 4 basic regulative principles of human life ??? " I dont know where this is coming from when did i say someone who isnt following diciplic succession can be guru? Its a very simple point i think you have many other thoughts running around in your mind.

The point of my post is that please be careful in calling gurus who are following their spirtual master "cheaters". There are different levels of gurus, and yes we should always try to find a liberated guru, but please be careful as i wouldnt want any of you guys spending many lives in this material world stunnted by vaishnav apharad.

"A person who is liberated acharya and guru cannot commit any mistake, but there are persons who are less qualified or not liberated, but still can act as guru and acharya by strictly following the disciplic succession. It is the injunction of the sastras that anyone who sees the Deity in the Temple as made of wood or stone, or considers the acaryas and gurus as ordinary common men, and discriminates Vaisnavas or devotees as belonging to a certain group or caste, are called hellish." (Letter to Janardana, 26 April, 1968, New York). They may give prabhupada (diciplic succession) by following his example and teachings although not liberated. I wouldnt call that cheating niether does prabhupada.

Glorification of a devotee is never condemened even if the devotee has some defects it should be understood he is on the way to krishna, ive never heard of a devotee that has suffered for glorifying a devotee infact the opposite, vaishnava apharada is condemened by all, even if one feels he is justified, he does it unknowingly or knowingly. Before we start making many judgements on the name of showing people the right way we have to cleanse ourselves first then as you said krishna will show us the right way with out doubt, It seems most people that are less advanced (these are found in all organisations/unorgaisations and make up the majority) try to convert people to thier organisation thier gurus etc through ridiculing other gurus systems etc. The more advanced devotees dont care for this and attract people by speaking about krishna and trying geniunely to help the aspiring devotees keeping them away from politics and on the way back home.

I know what you mean i'm not initiated myself but went through a period due to certain factors where i thought all the ISKCON gurus are fallen, gaudiya math are iffy etc. Not seeing things in context due to assocation of immature devotees who thought all gurus are pure these guys are bad etc. But i do think slowly some maurity is coming back and people are begining to see things as they are, as cow dung has hit the fan a few times people hope fully should wake up and smell the barley cup

I agree if someone isnt fully relised then he isnt going to take you there. And yes i agree diksha is in this day and age is an over rated thing. Shiksha is the most important aspect. Shiksha should be taken form someone you think is high up. I think where we disagree is "give up all involvement" in the "initiating guru game". These devotees give diksha they're diciples can have different shiksha gurus i know many instances where this happens, and its up to the diciple to choose a guru who they feel will take them to krishna (again this is done by shiksha and not diksha). I persnolly feel there are pure devotees in iskcon and some so called gurus in in the "initiating guru game" can take you back to krishna as well as those not in the "initiating guru game". Anyway everyone will have thier different ways of looking at things, i know my opinions are flawed i dont have full knowlede or sincerity, but i hope i can learn from other sincere souls on this bored, i just get annoyed at those who have an agenda and tend to critise only, il have to work on my tolerance levels. Hare Krishna