cbrahma

too weird for me.

yeah but you and i can't enter into their imagination or their meditation.

it's what they believe.

maybe some of them believe their guru is a cow in the spiritual world:).

 

and what if their guru has passed on. would you then say their guru is then in a human form.... or not....

How do you know? What they make of the guru in their imagination doesn't change the fact that they're human.

i think vaisnavas meditate on their guru in a not-so-human form... like a cowherd boy or whatever

Ordinary, extraordinary - still human.

vaisnavas don't see a real guru as an ordinary hunman being, though.

 

btw. i like the medieval christian mystics. very high :pray:

What a contradiction in terms. The requirement of absolute 'surrender' is a requirement of complete control of the guru over the said disciple. There is an non-negotiable command for diksa initiation which establishes this absolute control. That's what all the controversy and corruption is about.

I will never surrender to another human being. That is diabolical and a very bizarre condition for linking up to a loving God.

 

 

Assuming Responsibility Of Being Guru

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well then he failed, because the history of ISKCON is a history of authoritarian abuse. I say this with authority because I experienced it first hand. So many child abuse law suits coming from so many different places attests to the dangers of the absolute authority these monsters exert over the innocent and trusting.

Kindly examine this statetment by His Divine Grae Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhuapsda. It is the second secondary reason for his preaching mission from his "l966 Constitution of Association"

 

". . . 2. To discharge as a matter of coures the vitiated system of supremacy of one man over another by false prestige of birthright or vested interests.

 

(*Note from Puru Das Adhikari - Please don't misunderstand "2." The New Webster's Dictionary definitions of discharge and vitiated are as follows:

 

discharge -.to unload, to discharge cargo,to absolve, free oneself from, to release (am arrow or bullet) to rid of an electrical charge, to dismiss etc. . . and

 

vitiated- spoiled ., made defective, corrupted (morals or taste), invalidated or made wholly or partly ineffective.)

Ok. But the biggest factor is the power control that these so-called vaisnavas want to exert on others. Its almost diabolical. It certainly is dark and frigthening. I can't believe it's of the Spirit of God.

I can understand that sentiment but even if I get sick of Vaisnavism I always end up coming back to the books sooner or later because to me they are just more fascinating than any books Christianity produced. I like the Urantia Book, it is very interesting but don't know if it is for real or just a hoax. Prabhupada is great just no getting around it in my opinion. One thing I have been doing is just try to keep it simple reading canto 5 and trusting this verse in Srimad Bhagavatam:

 

SB 5.14.46

 

Devotees interested in hearing and chanting [śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam] regularly discuss the pure characteristics of Bharata Mahārāja and praise his activities. If one submissively hears and chants about the all-auspicious Mahārāja Bharata, one’s life span and material opulences certainly increase. One can become very famous and easily attain promotion to the heavenly planets, or attain liberation by merging into the existence of the Lord. Whatever one desires can be attained simply by hearing, chanting and glorifying the activities of Mahārāja Bharata. In this way, one can fulfill all his material and spiritual desires. One does not have to ask anyone else for these things, for simply by studying the life of Mahārāja Bharata, one can attain all desirable things.

If so-called aparadha was sufficent to 'break' our position as disciples then most temples should have been vacated a long time ago. As it is, in my experience the most offensive and arrogant do very well in temple communities. They often rise to positions of authority.

So, according to Muralidhar das, real faith means to understand that Srila Prabhupada is an aparadhi, but we worship him anyway.

 

Blind faith is to worship Srila Prabhupada without thinking that he is an aparadhi.

 

I'll take blind faith any day of the week.

I'm going to continue with my Christian faith. There is still some corruption but it doesn't demand total subjugation of one person by another. Nobody should have that kind of power. And it's not so damn complicated.

Hopefully if I listen to my heart (Caitya guru) and use intelligence, I won't need luck.

I apologize if I offended you. Best of luck.

I believe the appeal from authority cannot be blind but must be threefold - guru sastra and sadhu. By guru I also include Caitya guru - Krsna in the heart. These must correspond and of course the conformity to simple provable fact before any acceptance is made. If somebody is going to go ballistic because you dared to question their guru -they don't care about Truth - just blind obedience. That is their ignorance. If they are authentic vaisnavas their first impulse should be to enlighten , not chastize. And by this i mean to enligthen with all the appeals possible to sastra and sadhu.

Any other approach is neophyte fanaticsm and not to be tolerated.

I'm not a ritvik. That has it's own set of problems. Of course there are groups of self-professed vaishanavas whose first priority is to acquire disciples and increase their ranks. This is not a spiritual goal but a material one. It is plain old-fashioned power-mongering a la Mussolini, Hitler (take your pick of despots). Please leave me out of such proselytizing. I'm just not that stupid.

I get the sense that many of the devotees I communicate with in this forum have no concept of any sort of association other than actual physical association. They keep calling me names like ritvik and stuff just because I pointed out the some of the same quotes you provided where it shows that Prabhupada time and time again that the devotee bhagavata are identical with the book bhagavata and physical presence isn't that important.

 

I even saw a quote where Prabhupada said he only saw his spiritual master a few times and only for a very short time and that it is better to serve the spiritual master in a mood of seperation than actually physically serve him as those too close to the spiritual master are prone to get envious and make offenses.

And how would you suggest we go about doing this? Starting up the whole bogus guru dominance process all over again.

We have to make a choice now ... we can either sepnd our time & energy trying to destroy those that we believe are the villains of the piece or we can use our time & energy to propagate Krishna conciousness.

 

Like someone pointed out in another thread, there are millions of suffering souls who don't give a damn which gurus fell down and why they fell down. There is an urgent need to give them a chance to receive the mercy of Harinaam. Our energy should be spent in useful ways.

I only learned about it the way most people did - through the media. By then it had already hit the courts. What I did about it was decry the hypocrisy of the so-called authorities who tried to cover it up. Now you must realize that I had to leave the temple in order to make such denouncement, because the temple authorities at the time were quite desperate and would physically attack and even kill any opposition. So spare me the moral indignation. There are still incidents reported as late as this year. What are you doing about it?

so what did you do to stop it? if nothing, than you share the burden for these sins. all of a sudden you turned crusader?

There are so many diksa initiated disciples of Prabhupada that opted not to exploit their Spritual Master's legacy and left in complete exasperation. Actually over 90 percent of them.

And spare me the rhetoric about 'spreading...the ....Mahaprabhu...Vaisnava..."

And every permuationa and combination of those 'hot button' words that when the rubber hits the road amount - to money, power and corruption.

I'm not speaking through my orifice either. I've had first hand experience having lived at New Dwarka in the eighties when all the child molestation was going down. I've recently revisited the temple and its now just a material religion with very little shakti to speak of. All they care about is money and subservience. Very ugly.

I am sorry you feel that way. I think there is still a lot of value in Iskcon but some things definitely should be reformed. Personally I am ready to cooperate with any Vaishnava group that actually engages in the spreading of Mahaprabhu's mission.

I wish ISKCON were gone. There is something that calls itself that using its buildings and a handful of old disciples to run it. It might be a mirage, but even mirages can be dangerous.

Forget ISKCON. It's GONE, going on 30 yrs. Discuss the principles and concepts.

The closing down of threads . Authoritarian exploitation. Strong arm tactics like this only confirm the corruption, the inability to account for one's policies and action.

good luck with the thread, prabhu. I just had mine closed over this very issue

Initiation is such a volatile topic and for good reason. ISKCON has produced so many bogus gurus and they're still falling down from last report. The importance of subjugating and exploiting people seems greater than helping them on the path of self-realization. If one must go through a formal diksa initiation for any spiritual advancement to be effective, then count me out. I will not have my mind enslaved by any 'appointed' guru just so I can qualify for spiritual advancement according to some institution that has no accountability. That is too dangerous. I've seen too many damaged people who have been duped by the lie that diksa is absolutely necessary. That is an institutional/political necessity, not a spiritual one.

Prabhupada spoke on the subject of 'living guru' and I quote

"

.690113LE.LA Lectures

...vani and vapu, and vapu means the physical body, and vani means the vibration. So we are not concerned about the physical body. Not concerned means... We are concerned, of course, because the spiritual master, those who are acaryas, their body is not considered as materiel. Arcye sila-dhir gurusu nara-matir. Just like the statue of Krsna, to consider that "This is a stone..." Similarly, arcye sila-dhir gurusu na... Gurusu means those who are acaryas, to accept their body as ordinary man's body, this is denied in the sastras. SO ALTHOUGH A PHYSICAL BODY IS NOT PRESENT, THE VIBRATION SHOULD BE ACCEPTED AS THE PRESENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL MASTER, VIBRATION. WHAT WE HAVE HEARD FROM THE SPIRITUAL MASTER, THAT IS LIVING. "

and again

74-11-22 Letter: Bahurupa

In my books the philosophy of Krishna Consciousness is EXPLAINED FULLY so if there is anything which you do not understand, then you simply have to read again and again. By reading daily THE KNOWLEDGE WILL BE REVEALED TO YOU AND BY THIS PROCESS YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE WILL DEVELOP.

75-03-14 Letter: Sivani

To take SHELTER of the Spiritual Master MEANS TO FOLLOW HIS INSTRUCTIONS.

SB 3.31.48

"one has to associate with liberated persons NOT DIRECTLY, PHYSICALLY, BUT BY UNDERSTANDING, THROUGH PHILOSOPHY AND LOGIC, THE PROBLEMS OF LIFE.

Good because all you've done is confuse and discourage me, ironically in the name of the spiritual master. Prabhpada in true Gaudiya tradition removed all ritual obstacles, allowing people to follow what they could. In fact so does Krsna in the Bhagavad-Gita offer so many alternatives and He is the Spiritual Master of all spiritual masters. There is no room for the smarta-brahmana self-righteousness which is so common in ISCKON. There you made me say it.

I am hereby requesting a cease fire agreement on this thread.

According to the teaching, there is harm in killing anything, including vegetables which BTW are also jiva souls. The understanding is that offering to Krsna removes all karmic reactions. Now I don't know about the commercial milk though I know for a fact devotees are buying their milk at markets. There is some link between that a cow slaughter.

hare krishnas offer all their food to krishna with prayers and maybe rituals. offering isn't just a prayer of thanks, like saying grace, it means they've cooked for krishna. then they eat the food as if they are eating krishna's left-overs. of course, because he's god, he can eat it and also leave it there for the devotee to eat.

 

so they only offer what he likes.

 

one way of deciding whether to offer and partake of milk products might be to think about krishna's compassion upon the poor little calves and their beautiful mothers, -- he might organise a better future incarnationa for them.

 

the milk from a happy cow in, say, vrindavan, is much nicer than the milk from an industrialised dairy.

 

no harm in killing vegetables, but perhaps the highest diet might be just fruit, nuts, and ahimsa milk. then you don't have to kill anything. very pure.

I've seen so much nonsense and rank corruption continue under cover of 'vaishanava aparadha'. If we are supposed to turn a blind eye to bogus gurus and criminal behavior under that rubric then it's no wonder ISKCON has managed to be as corrupt in a few decades as it took other religions like the Catholic Church centuries to accomplish.

I want to see the context of Prabhupada's exhortation that we should take sanyasa at 50. He also says you don't have to give up your job, that everything can be dovetailed.

The effects of Vaisnava aparadha directed against that sadhu. Although that aparadha is based on misconceptions, you are still getting the reaction.

 

The psychologists call it cognative dissonance, and it is manifesting as selective reading of Srila Prabhupada's books. What is your tactic when you come accross a purport where Srila Prabhupada says that one should take sannyasa at the age of 50? Block it out, skip the passage, pretend that you didn't see it? I'm in the same condition, but those purports should burn our hearts because despite hearing so many instructions on the matter we are attached to material things.

When Srila Prabhupada said, "my guru maharaja, he saved me", what was the context? The context was that his guru was coming to him in dreams and "forcing" him to come out of household life and take sannyasa. So we say at Vyasa Puja, "Prabhupada saved me", and then we go home and engage in sense gratification. Also Srila Narayana Maharaja played an integral part in the unfolding of Srila Prabhupada's sannyasa initiation lila and that is an historical fact. Srila Narayana Maharaja has been a sanyassi for almost 55 years. Yes, its very heavy and sometimes I also cannot tolerate my own fear of what I see as the burning fire of renunciation. But one should be honest and admit their own fallen position. Household life is a compromise, but not for older men. For older men it is abject degradation and spiritual failure. If we don't believe this then how will we ever get out of that deep dark well? Krsna is very tricky. I would be careful about what you say such as "I just get so discouraged and depressed that I wish I had never heard of Hare Krishna", just because a sadhu is preaching that this world is a cesspool and we should give it up as offering to Krsna. Remember that Krsna as paramatma is the "source of memory, knowledge and forgetfullness. Even the karmis know, "be careful what you ask for, you just might get it." Fools rush in (to Vaisnava aparadha) where angels fear to tread. Be an angel and have sweet dreams. "Be careful you are dealing with Krsna."

Thank you. Your response is very encouraging and lifts a burden from my spirit. I so want to chant the names of the Lord.

Srila Prabhupada writes in the Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya lila 25:9 Purport: