Help Me Retain My Faith in Srila Prabhupada: I'm Losing It

[Guest guest]

I just read the following quote from the "Memories" DVD series:

 

 

Revatinandan das: One of my god-brothers said, “Revatinandan, you know what Prabhupada said the other day?” I said, “What?” He said, “Prabhupada said that sometimes, even after going back to Godhead, a soul can fall again.” I said, “Are you sure?” (I knew that in the Gita Krishna says, “Having returned to My transcendental abode, one never again returns to this world of miseries.”) He said, “You can ask Prabhupada yourself, but that’s what he said.” When I got a chance, I asked Prabhupada, “Is it true that even after going back to Godhead, a soul sometimes falls again into the material energy?” Prabhupada said, “Yes.” I said, “How does that relate with the Gita’s statement?” With a wise, meditative smile Prabhupada said, “‘Never’ means ‘practically never.’ The soul is Krishna’s marginal energy, which means that the soul eternally has the capacity to turn away or to turn toward Krishna. Generally a soul does not fall, but if he did, he probably wouldn’t do it again. However, it is not inconceivable.”

 

People say that souls never fall from the spiritual world in the first place, that they fall from somewhere besides Krishna’s association. But Prabhupada was definitely speaking about being in Krishna’s abode as described in the Bhagavad-gita.

 

Before reading this quote, I always took for granted that all spiritual authorities agreed that once you enter the spiritual world, you never leave. The dispute was whether we fell from there, or whether we fell from elsewhere. Nobody ever said we could fall more than once.

 

Now that I see Prabhupada has taught differently, I am deeply discouraged. Eternity is a long time, so if I have fallen once, as the marginal energy, I will surely fall again. And again. If it is even remotely possible for me to fall, then in the remoteness of eternity I surely will. This means that no amount of effort or mercy can keep me in the spiritual world. Since I am no great soul, I know I'll just be coming and going from the spiritual world.

 

I wish I could believe Prabhupada was wrong about this, and that the many other Gaudiya authorities who teach differently are right. But I don't want to believe that Prabhupada was wrong. On the other hand, if Prabhupada knew better and was just lying to a disciple for his benefit, how many other teachings can/must I discard because they might be lies?

 

If I continue as a follower of Prabhupada, I will be constantly hopeless and discouraged. But if I follow another Gaudiya acarya who teaches that we stay permanently in the spiritual world, I can follow with hope and enthusiasm. But I will miss Prabhupada. What should I do?

[gHari 0]

What we see as forever here, as "nitya-baddha", is only the blink of an eye to our true self. How many times will we blink in that bigger Forever? Whether we do or whether we don't; whether we will or whether we won't; whether we did or whether we didn't; these things don't matter right now. Salvation is not the goal or motive we should run with - we should expect nothing in return for our love. We should not barter with Krsna. Nor Prabhupada.

 

"I know no one but Krsna as my Lord, and He shall remain so even if He handles me roughly by His embrace or makes me brokenhearted by not being present before me. He is completely free to do anything and everything, for He is always my worshipful Lord unconditionally".

 

Don't let the mind defeat your humility. None of us can even imagine the greatness of Srila Prabhupada. Let humility soothe the paradoxes the mind sends to test our hearts. Jaiva Dharma suggests not to worry, that the answer will become apparent when we are more familiar with that other world. Let Prabhupada take you there, then there will be no need to trust the fallible limited mind.

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna!

 

All glories to Srila Prabhupada! I offer my humble obeisance unto him!

 

Very nice answer G.Hari prabhu!

 

Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu prayed as such (iam paraphrasing)...."Let me always remember you (Krishna) life after life even if i was born as a worm in a stool"

 

In other words...our ULTIMATE goal as a DEVOTEE is to attain UNCONDITIONAL and UNALLOYED devotion to Krishna not stressing the importance of our own position be it material or spiritual.

 

Remember....like it or not...we have FREE WILL....and so even if we are with Krishna in HIS abode...if we choose to enjoy without KRISHNA...then Krishna will put us here. So free will is in our hands and not Krishna's and so by that logic....yes...it is theoritically possible to come back and suffer.

 

However......if we dovetail our free will with the will of Krishna and have UNCONDITIONAL LOVE for KRISHNA....then anywhere and anyplace is VAIKUNTA...why worry...!!??

 

So we should as devotees strive to attain that topmost PREMA for KRISHNA...for that is essence of every being...ofcourse living in Goloka will free us of all miseries....but more than that.....attaining unalloyed PREMA for Krishna is the topmost stage of Bhakti....so...that is what Srila Prabhupada tried to preach and to stay true to his words....he said exactly that...which is as marginal entity with free-will...we can choose to be wherever we want...material or spiritual and for that we should

 

ADMIRE and RESPECT Srila Prabhupada for presenting the Vedic Subject matter AS IT IS. It shows his greatness....

 

Haribol!

 

anand

[Jahnava Nitai Das 1]

Regarding the first post, you are taking someone's recollection of what he thinks Prabhupada had said to him more than 30 years ago and using that to overturn what Prabhupada has written in his own books. You may also want to ask whether this person is still a follower of Prabhupada, and whether he is in a position to properly represent Prabhupada.

 

Prabhupada's own standard is that if it isn't in writing, don't believe that he said it.

[Pankaja_Dasa 1]

That abode of Mine is not illumined by the sun or moon, nor by electricity. One who reaches it never returns to this material world. Bg.15.16

[theist 1]

 

What we see as forever here, as "nitya-baddha", is only the blink of an eye to our true self. How many times will we blink in that bigger Forever? Whether we do or whether we don't; whether we will or whether we won't; whether we did or whether we didn't; these things don't matter right now. Salvation is not the goal or motive we should run with - we should expect nothing in return for our love. We should not barter with Krsna. Nor Prabhupada.

 

"I know no one but Krsna as my Lord, and He shall remain so even if He handles me roughly by His embrace or makes me brokenhearted by not being present before me. He is completely free to do anything and everything, for He is always my worshipful Lord unconditionally".

 

Don't let the mind defeat your humility. None of us can even imagine the greatness of Srila Prabhupada. Let humility soothe the paradoxes the mind sends to test our hearts. Jaiva Dharma suggests not to worry, that the answer will become apparent when we are more familiar with that other world. Let Prabhupada take you there, then there will be no need to trust the fallible limited mind.

 

Amen to that.

 

Free will continues in the Spiritual World. Free will is actually the boundary between one living being and another and between us all and Krsna. If your free will goes into oblivion then you go into oblivion. Also without the free will to choose where to place our love we would be nothing more than transcendental robots. Now there is a real oxymoron.

 

There are other ways to lok at it. The best gHari has already given, but here are a couple ancillaries. Revatiananda was was only asking about a second fall and that was referred to as being so rare as to be considered to be "never". Nothing of "many many times, over and over" was discussed. We add that because we are thinking that nothing we have every done by our materially influenced free will in our memories has ever worked out and have only caused us misery. So we start to think of spiritual life as a state in which our fee will is done away with. This is wrong. It is a mayavadi thought process. Bhakti goes the other way. We want to keep our free will and have it dovetailed with Krsna's will so there will only be His influence on how we excercise that free will. The result is to use it in His loving service in anyway we choose. That is how Krsna receives pleasure in relation to us, by having loving exchanges freely offered based on our own free will.

 

'This may already be our second time', is another twist to gain enthusiasm back.

 

What is the alternative? To stay in birth and death forever and never return to the spiritual world?

 

The only solution to this is to accept the awesome responsibility of our own eternal free will and to decide to dovetail it in His service. This is not easy from our present material platform. Christ taught us this the night before his crucifixation. He prayed that this horrible burden be lifted from Him but ended His prayer by saying, "Not my will but Thine be done." What an incredible teaching by his words and life example.

 

Dovetail the free will and crucify the material influence over it in preference for His will being done.

 

He was able to do this because of his cent per cent loving attachment to Lord Krsna's will. Which is what we must cultivate.

 

So as marginal energy we must always have that option. I understand your feelings. After Revatiananda had that conversation with Srila Prabhupada he came to a temple which I sometimes attended and told me the same thing. He was still affected by this new knowledge. After he told me that he said it wasn't really to spread amongst the devotee because it would discourage them, I thought, "what about me?" And sure enough, in short order I developed much the same defeatist feelings as you have expressed here. The are the mind's assaults on your spiritual aspirations.

 

Ask the Lord to clear your doubts and just keep on chanting and praying.

 

Hare Krsna

[theist 1]

Many responses came in while I was composing mine. Sorry for going over the same territory.

[Kripamoya 0]

It seems that you are not alone in your diminshing faith in Srila Prabhupada.

 

It appears than many devotees who get involved with Narayana Maharaja start to lose their faith for Srila Prabhupada.

 

Devotees like Jadarani dasi even let Narayana Maharaja change her name from the name Srila Prabhupada gave her at initiation.

 

That is why I don't read most of the stuff, these long copy/paste efforts of Puru, because I don't want to hear so much from Narayana Maharaja that it starts to errode my faith like it is doing to you and so many others.

 

Like JN das has said already, you should not take these "Prabhupada said" quotes very seriously unless you can find it in the books.

 

If you want to start looking for some faults in Srila Prabhupada, then you can find these things that will encourage you to minimize the status of Srila Prabhupada.

 

Srila Prabhupada does not confirm what you have quoted in his books.

 

In the books, Srila Prabhupada says that the soul can never fall from Vaikuntha of Goloka.

[krsna 3]

"[...]It is a fact that no one falls from Vaikuntha.[...]Bhag. 7.1.35, purp. by Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada)

 

" [...]The nitya-siddha devotees never fall down to the region of the material atmosphere even though they sometimes come into the material plane to execute the mission of the Lord. [...]" (Bhag. 3.3.26, purp.)

 

"[...] a devotee in the transcendental abode of the Lord never falls.[...]" (Bhag. 3.15.48, purp.)

 

" [...]After finishing their mock fighting, both the devotee and the Lord are again associated in the spiritual planets. That is very explicitly explained here. The conclusion is that no one falls from the spiritual world or Vaikuntha planet, for it is the eternal abode. [...]"(Bhag. 3.16.26, purp.)

[Guest guest]

 

It seems that you are not alone in your diminshing faith in Srila Prabhupada.i have heard srila narayana maharaja say read and especially read bhagavad gita as it is and digest before reading his....

 

It appears than many devotees who get involved with Narayana Maharaja start to lose their faith for Srila Prabhupada.

 

Devotees like Jadarani dasi even let Narayana Maharaja change her name from the name Srila Prabhupada gave her at initiation.

 

That is why I don't read most of the stuff, these long copy/paste efforts of Puru, because I don't want to hear so much from Narayana Maharaja that it starts to errode my faith like it is doing to you and so many others.

 

Like JN das has said already, you should not take these "Prabhupada said" quotes very seriously unless you can find it in the books.

 

If you want to start looking for some faults in Srila Prabhupada, then you can find these things that will encourage you to minimize the status of Srila Prabhupada.

 

Srila Prabhupada does not confirm what you have quoted in his books.

 

In the books, Srila Prabhupada says that the soul can never fall from Vaikuntha of Goloka.

[theist 1]

The important point is not the issue of fall or no fall exactly, it is this persons struggle with doubt.

 

I would suggest not to even worry about the whole question. This question does not arise on the spiritual platform where they are just absorbed in loving relationship with Krsna.

 

Anyway this debate heats up, dies out and then heats up again and has for years.

 

It is a useless debate IMO. If you are still not sure of the answer at the moment of death it won't make any difference to your fate. It won't get you in and it won't keep you out.

[sanatan 0]

 

Regarding the first post, you are taking someone's recollection...

 

Prabhupada's own standard is that if it isn't in writing, don't believe that he said it.

 

Can you quote Srila Prabhupada on that?

[Kripamoya 0]

 

Can you quote Srila Prabhupada on that?

 

75-09-02.Omk Letter: Omkara

Please accept my blessings. I have seen your letter dated August 17, 1975 and have noted the contents. I never said there should be no more marriage. By all means legally you can get married. How can I object? They misunderstand me. Unless it is there from me in writing, there are so many things that "Prabhupada said."

[stonehearted 0]

Can you quote Srila Prabhupada on that?

I saw a an initiation letter to a Godbrother named Sadhanananda in which Srila Prabhupada wrote that all the "Prabhupada said" business is "another cheating." He further wrote, "If it is not in my books, I did not say it." No, this letter is not in the VedaBase. And yes, I see the irony: what he wrote in that letter is not "in [his] books." However, having seen it myself, having held the letter in my hands, it's evidence enough for me. Whether you accept it or not is your own business; there's no need to bother any of us with it.

[Guest guest]

No one can understand the mind of a pure devotee.

 

So we may not always understand, but....

 

"Jaya Prabhupada!"

[sanatan 0]

 

I saw a an initiation letter to a Godbrother named Sadhanananda in which Srila Prabhupada wrote that all the "Prabhupada said" business is "another cheating." He further wrote, "If it is not in my books, I did not say it." No, this letter is not in the VedaBase. And yes, I see the irony: what he wrote in that letter is not "in [his] books." However, having seen it myself, having held the letter in my hands, it's evidence enough for me. Whether you accept it or not is your own business; there's no need to bother any of us with it.

 

FYI, the initial question is not a personal issue with me, but it is an objective and legitimate question.

 

Sounds like you need to crank up your tolerance level, Prabhu...if you get "bothered" this easily.

[stonehearted 0]

 

Sounds like you need to crank up your tolerance level, Prabhu...if you get "bothered" this easily.

I wasn't "bothered" at all, but I accept your instruction on my head as I offer my apologies for my crankiness. Yesterday was a rather emotionally taxing day, and some of that seeped through into my response.

 

I suppose I was anticipating objections that the quotation cannot be verified by a VedaBase search and will be therefore be dismissed as apocryphal by many devotees. There is so much that's not in the VedaBase, and so many lectures, walks, and conversations that aren't in any of the audio collections I've encountered, that it's just ridiculous to make such availability the only acceptable evidence that Srila Prabhupada said something.

[sanatan 0]

 

I wasn't "bothered" at all, but I accept your instruction on my head as I offer my apologies for my crankiness. Yesterday was a rather emotionally taxing day, and some of that seeped through into my response.

 

I suppose I was anticipating objections that the quotation cannot be verified by a VedaBase search and will be therefore be dismissed as apocryphal by many devotees. There is so much that's not in the VedaBase, and so many lectures, walks, and conversations that aren't in any of the audio collections I've encountered, that it's just ridiculous to make such availability the only acceptable evidence that Srila Prabhupada said something.

 

Apologies readily accepted, please accept mine in turn...I've been ill, cranky as well, and normally would not reply in such a snappish way...I just now bit my wife's head off over zip .

 

As I said, it was not a personal-faith issue with me, more just an interesting point.

[Pankaja_Dasa 1]

Mmm, well.. when people say, Prabhupada didn't say everything or give everything, people jump up and down. But here it says, maybe Prabhupada did'nt say anything.

 

I come back later if anybody replies.

[Pankaja_Dasa 1]

What I mean is (man I should write properly). Stonehearted (Babhru p) said Prabhupada said many things that were not in Vedabase etc.

 

'mmm' (thats the only responce I have which descibes how I feel).

[theist 1]

We don't know all he said. That should be no mystery. Nor do we know what he thought and never put to words.

 

If I remember correctly the context was people were using the Prabhupada said,"......" as a way of trying to give authority to their own speculations. Not that it was even done consciously. Things just get changed when repeated over and over in ordinary dealings and even in a budding preaching mission on the scale Srila Prabhupada set up.

 

I happen to believe Revatinanda had such a conversation. He told me about it right afterward and he was still a little mind blown over it. It's not worth fussin' about. Prabhupada has placed everything needed to become a pure servant of the Lord in writing. But to think he never said anything beyond what is recorded or written is rather bizarre when you think about it.

 

The real point here is that someone has asked for help in clearing the doubts that are assualting his mind. Next to that all this off topic stuff is just so much coffee table chatter.

[Guest guest]

We have to have some common sense too. Not that we always have to find a quote for every thought or action in life. We'd go crazy - or at least I would - if we had to justify every little thing. We should be a little independently thoughtful. Life and life circumstances change, and we have to adapt - sometimes real fast. Time, place and circumstances, vijnana, etc., also must come into play. Just another thought. Thanks for listening. Hope this makes a little sense.

[Dwayne 0]

Where is the question of love without choice?

[Guest guest]

Dont worry,Prabupada was just like u and me,there r millions of preachers like him,he got lucky and with influence from Americans organised ISKCON,most of his disciples during those times were drug addicts and failures in material life so he became popular,moreover his was a jingoistic concept making other Hindu gods look like nothing in front of Krsna,so that made the western world take notice as they believe in one god theory.So if u looose faith in him isnt the end of world.U can still be religious.

[Pankaja_Dasa 1]

Ok thiest p point taken.

 

The original question was did Prabhupada really say the soul falls from Goloka, now and again? I think He was giving something little to His disicples, you can't give University education to everybody.

 

If I was a disciple back then, and i was explained about tatastha-shakti (which still confuces the hell out of me) I would have been more confuced then ever, and then preaching this to others? I never in my life told anybody I fell from Tatastha-shakti, because till this day I cannot figure it out! And I don't think many people can.