Perpetuate Harmony, Not Piracy

July 5, 2003

A Reply to "Why Perpetuate The Grief?"

Bhima you have asked me a lot of questions but they are obviously rhetorical questions. Part of me would like to lash back at you with rhetoric of my own, but I believe that would not help any of us make spiritual progress. I have never met you face to face, but you are a devotee of Krishna and are therefore worthy of my respect.

I am sorry your feelings are hurt. You obviously have a great deal of faith in Hansadutta, and I do admire your loyalty in spite of all he has gone through these last 25 years. However, if you really care about Hansadutta, you should not encourage him to continue his mistakes and his campaigns to make schisms within Srila Prabhupada's society.

You ask about my motives. The fact is that Hansadutta wrote some false things on VNN which needed to be corrected. I felt the devotees should know the truth, and should not be misled by Hansadutta's indefensible call to violate the BBT's copyrights. What I wrote is the truth, and I am glad I did so.

I suppose it is clear that neither side can claim victory in the lawsuit, which resulted in a compromise settlement. After all, your side (Hansadutta and your wife and Bhagavan and Veda Guhya) did abandon their false claim to be BBT Trustees. I can only reiterate that I really do believe the if the case went to trial the Court would have seen through the falsity of that claim, but trial would entail further expense, and at least a small risk.

The potential outcome of having the BBT taken over by Hansadutta et al. was evidently a risk the real BBT Trustees were unwilling to take.

You might feel that the victory was yours because the very claim that Hansadutta et al. were actually in charge of the BBT was so outlandish that no one ever really imagined it could prevail. I guess that is probably what Gupta means when he declares that he was the "winning litigator," although his clients ultimately abandoned any claim to be BBT Trustees. They were able to use that false, hideous claim to extract concessions from the real BBT, but personally I would not think it anything to gloat about.

I am sorry if you really could not get the Chinese Bhagavad Gita any other way, but that does not excuse the piracy and the false claims that you and Hansadutta made in court.

Our duty to Srila Prabhupada requires that we somehow learn to cooperate in service to his mission, and treat each other with the respect due to all devotees. We have to learn this important part of the science of devotional service, or our society of devotees cannot fully succeed as we are meant to do. This lesson is bigger and more important than which version of the books gets published, or most of the other differences that threaten to divide Srila Prabhupada's followers.

If the society of devotees is beset with fanatical splinter groups whose faith is invested in making war with other groups of devotees, that appears to reflect poorly on our ideology, the ideology of Krishna consciousness expressed in Srimad Bhagavatam. As Srila Prabhupada points out in his wonderful Preface, in this age of quarrel, Srimad Bhagavatam is needed to help humanity become one in peace and prosperity with a common cause. "The need is felt by great thinkers to make this a successful ideology."

The GBC and other ISKCON leadership have not always gotten things right, but for the sake of Srila Prabhupada's order we must try to learn to cooperate with ISKCON's leadership and make Srila Prabhupada's vision successful. It is, after all, Srila Prabhupada's transcendental strategy for saving the world.

And of course the ISKCON and BBT leadership also have to be humble and sensitive and responsive to the concerns of devotees. Cooperation is a two way street. I think the Movement's leadership has been making progress in that regard. Even in a transcendental society of devotees, there is room for a "loyal opposition."

I agree that pre-1977 versions of Srila Prabhupada's books should be available for those few devotees who really cannot see eye-to-eye with the BBT on the editing controversy. As far as I know, such "Classic" versions are available from legitimate sources.

I also think the editing controversy should be thoughtfully and politely discussed by devotees with a view toward resolving differences, as far as possible. I do not want to delve into that lengthy topic in this article, but I encourage those who are interested to read the BBT's pamphlet entitled "Responsible Publishing."

My main point recently has been to try to steer the discussion into a careful analysis of specific changes, with a view to understanding Srila Prabhupada's actual intentions in each case. My hope is that such a content-specific discussion would encourage the participants to study Srila Prabhupada's books more closely, focus attention on mutually understanding Srila Prabhupada's message, and discourage the chest-beating, divisive tone of the debate. That is why I challenged Hansadutta to give specific examples of why he thinks Srila Prabhupada's original intentions have been tampered with. If I taunted him with a little chest beating of my own, I apologize.

Hansadutta's swashbuckling call for devotees to become copyright "pirates" may sound attractive to some, as his "black sheep,holy gangster" nonsense in the 1980s was undoubtedly attractive to you and other former disciples.

However, our duty to Srila Prabhupada's preaching mission in this world requires us to put aside such picaresque excesses and to become sober and morally upright people. Srila Prabhupada liked us to take bold risks for preaching, but he never wanted us to become immoral outlaws. Yes, the "lawless" love of the gopis is the highest pinnacle of spiritual perfection, but if we think we can imitate that we will ruin everything. That "lawlessness" and Hansadutta's "lawlessness" are completely different in quality, and are polar opposites.

At least amongst the devotees, we must be very careful and respectful in our dealings. If we make war on other devotees, how can we expect to enter the spiritual world together? The Vaikuntha atmosphere is one where everyone is competing to be the servant of the servant of each other.