Lessons From Fallen Classrooms

[Guest guest]

Lessons From the Fallen Classrooms: An Open Letter to Jagadish Prabhu

By Niscala Devi Dasi

 

Dear Jagadish Prabhu, (Former Head of the Hare Krishna

Schools,Worldwide.)

 

I have only just read on CHAKRA your ABC interview, as I have been

offline for some months, due to attending the Mayapur festival. I

heard a lot of angry talk there, that you were laying the blame of

the gurukula abuse on Srila Prabhupada, and that you were not

accepting responsibility, but were preferring instead to condemn

Srila Prabhupada.

 

On reading your statements to the ABC however, it seems that this is

not the case. In fact, reading them made me feel that what we are

doing, is what we have done so often and so well- scapegoating. A

virulent strain we find particularly attractive, is to label someone

an envious demon, hateful of Srila Prabhupada, and then foam at the

mouth, thinking such foaming to be symptomatic of our love for Srila

Prabhupada. Meanwhile we neglect to learn a lesson from anything, -to

become sober, wise, and free from illusion, which is the purpose of

being Srila Prabhupada's follower. If for a moment we drop our

sahajiya tendency to mistake our material passion to be spiritual

attachment to the guru, and instead try to see what the guru is

saying, then we may actually learn from these valuable lessons

Krishna is sending.

 

What does Srila Prabhupada say about who is responsible?

 

SP: Even if there is duty, one has to see the effect of duty. Devotee

means that he is not blind.

 

Therefore, even if you were giving orders for the children to be

abused, which is not a fact, the responsibility is not totally yours.

We are each solely responsible for our own actions, it is not our

leaders responsibilty. We have to see whether their instruction

should be followed or not. This is clear from the above statement,

from the lesson of Bali Maharaja disobeying Sukracarya, as well as

from the following:

 

SP: In this connection (re: guru's orders, what to speak of other's)

blind following is condemned. SP: The Krishna consciousness movement

is for training men to be independently thoughtful in all departments

of knowledge and action.

 

It is as much a fallacy to think Srila Prabhupada is to blame, as to

think you are. When the masses foam at the mouth, they cover up all

glimmer of truth, and indulge in illusion, fantasy. The fantasy going

on in Mayapur was that you weren't taking any responsibility, but

from reading your words anyone can see that you feel very guilty and

responsible for playing a part in it, even though you personally

perpetrated no abuse on the children yourself. So I ask

them, "Where's the big demon?"

 

Personally, I am learning a lesson from all of this. It has been a

very hard lesson for me, learnt over many years, from making the same

mistake, and having to re-learn it many times. I hope that now I have

learnt it well:

 

To distrust the opinion of the masses.

 

Please pray for me that I will never forget it and join the masses in

the tamasic mode of scapegoating.

 

Are we foaming at your truthful statement: "He put an inexperienced

person, myself, in charge." It is a fact. You should however,

represent the whole truth, which you may in your bitterness of the

outcome, be overlooking, or in self-defense, be avoiding:

 

1. There was no trained, experienced headmaster that Srila Prabhupada

personally knew. Character is more important than training, and Srila

Prabhupada knew you well enough to trust you, so that was the basis

of his decision. He didn't just pick anyone, and he certainly wasn't

looking for inexperience. He chose you because he knew and trusted

your character.

 

2. He made repeated instruction to the teachers never to punish the

children, to treat them with love, never force them to chant, let

them have sufficient play, rest, nice prasadam, nice facility etc.

You even compiled these instructions into a book. In short, he wanted

to give them a wonderful childhood. One everyone would have been

envious of.

 

The kind of childhood that our BTG's presented our gurukulas were

actually providing, and thus perpetrated the illusion that all was

well. Which brings us to lesson 2 .Is Krishna consciousness about

developing character (cleansing the heart), or of image (what others

think of us)? Something to think about.

 

Yes, it is a fact that Srila Prabhupada put inexperienced people in

teaching positions, the reason obviously being there weren't

experienced ones available. However, it is not the whole

consideration for the outcome, which was children who were very under-

educated. I am an unqualified teacher and I have taught my kids at

home for years and they have kept up with their peers at school.

Other home-teachers who are more committed, have done better than me.

All inexperienced teachers. You learn as you go. One thing I have

learnt is that the right environment- loving and peaceful, makes up

for lack of a teacher's degree, provided of course one has textbooks

etc and uses them. If the children had had a peaceful, loving

environment as per the instructions of Srila Prabhupada, they

probably would have done better than their peers, an appalling number

of whom come out illiterate and addicted to drugs.

 

Lesson 3 follows along the lines of lesson 1- not following blindly.

SP: Use your intelligence. If you have none, then ask someone.

 

Krishna does not give us intelligence so we can forgo its use! He

speaks to us through it, and this we call the conscience: "I give

them the intelligence by which they can come to me." Even an

illiterate man has a conscience. No one is bereft.

 

When we replace this internal authority, Krishna, with following

blindly an external authority, then in the name of spiritual life, we

can perpetrate abuse of a type which is without a trace of guilt. A

frightening thing. Is that the lesson our predecessors set? Bali

Maharaja followed his conscience in surrendering to Vamanadeva, even

though the opposing authority was his guru. The reason is that

conscience puts the responsibility on us. No one else! It requires of

us compassion, honesty and courage. It demands we speak up when

Krishna conscious principles, such as human rights, are being

violated. Particularly on the helpless. No matter whom is the

violator. This is the lesson taught by Bhisma and Drona not speaking

up at the disrobing of Draupadi. They were held responsible for such

non-action.

 

The overall lesson is we are each responsible, not just for our own

actions, even in following guru's instructions, but for the actions

of the society as a whole, for the course we wish our society to

take. There is no such thing as group conscience. It is simply a

version of oneness, impersonalism. A group is only the sum total of

its components, who are people, each one of them with all the

responsibility that comes with having a conscience. Therefore it is

impossible for anyone to shirk responsibility.

 

If we understood that Krishna consciousness means this, than as many

who saw abuse, would have spoken up and it would have been nipped in

the bud. Stopped before it ever took hold. I am hoping we can learn

from this study of past, present and future which is a symptom of

sattva guna. It would be also sattva guna if we could forgo the dizzy

pleasure of scapegoating which brings only immediate relief by

blowing on our boil of shirking responsibility, and which only leads

to future distress in the form of never learning from our past

foolish errors. They are, after all, never our fault.

 

Lancing the boil is difficult and painful- to take personal

responsibility and act with knowledge, guided from within. This

requires the austerity of delaying the pleasure of relief of

scapegoating, and taking time by studying the situation with a cool

head. It requires refusing to succumb to group illusion, no matter

how seductive. And all this of course, takes courage, abhaya, coupled

with a personal commitment to be always guided from within. but all

this is very desirable.

 

If we allow these hardships to shape us in this way, rather than

wishing they had never happened, then they actually become part of a

highly valuable lesson. Even if temples are lost, it is valuable

because our movement is not one of buildings, but of personalities,

individuals who are meant to become free from illusion, and guided in

every action by the Lord within. Even if one person becomes totally

so, the Srila Prabhupada's mission is a success, which means he will

be undoubtedly pleased. When we see beyond calamity, the hand of the

Lord guiding us, then we become part of that success.

 

© CHAKRA 18 April 2001