Dear Alex,
Quite by chance I was reading through this forum and your post got my attention, I too was impressed in my youth by the novel Lord of the Flies. On reading down your post I found this quote: "Kind of like that novel, Lord of the Flies, where children, finding themselves suddenly free of adult supervision, play at forming their own instinctive society. With nothing to check them, all becomes one big hunting game… "
Samll world, I wrote that passage! In context, I was speaking not about Iskcon, but about a group of ex-Iskcon members who, believing themselves now altogether free of their faith in Gaudiya Vaisnavism, nonetheless gather on the internet to discuss… Gaudiya Vaisnavism! In those discussions, with nearly anything anti-Hare Krsna permitted, any and all leader figures in the faith are fair game - current western gurus up to Sanatana Gosvami, all indiscriminately get the snipe-like treatment. While the discussions where justly exposing the absurdities commited in Iskcon in the name of bhakti, I thought the group had a very good point. But it was a comment which grossly downplayed the intellectual capacity of Sanatana Gosvami that opened my eyes and I realized there was something wrong with their reaction. That is when I compared their line of discussion to the atmosphere in Lord of the Flies.
But it is interesting that you thought I was referring to Iskcon leadership. As I said, yes, I agree that Iskcon-after-Prabhupada too took to running around brandishing conch and spears intermittently.
But Iskcon, and those of us outsiders who still keep some reverence for the Gosvamis, and for our line of acaryas, at least this we share, that there must be some hope. An attack on a personality such as Sanatana Gosvami on the other hand, without genuine intention of good will, is simply disastrous. …unsuccessfully try to govern themselves and consequently have disastrous results…
But more or less we all suffer from Lord of the Flies syndrome - who among us isn’t at the brink of disposing off others out of a sheer sense of entitlement? It’s a great danger we all face, as a faith, this turning against each other, risking thus our own survival. Like in the novel, we must cooperate to keep a fire burning. Luminaries such as the Gosvamis are that fire, our only chance of rescue. Alternatively, we can keep the hunting game and become subjects of The Lord. Some other kind of lord, that is.
