Plea for defining terms: an ulterior motive to introduce

[Guest guest]

At 11:13 PM 1/11/99 +0000, COM: Krishna Kirti (das) HDG (Baltimore, MD - USA)

wrote:

Krishna Kirti

I find these posts silly and annoying, and I also find the practice of

insulting sincere devotees, including close friends, my wife, and above all my

guru, to be unethical. I also find that reposting illegally obtained

confidential texts (VAST posts are "confidential" in that they are part of

"loving exchanges" between devotees who are therefore free to express their

doubts) out of context, unethical. I find the practice of multiple postings to

conferences improper COM netiquette. And I find someone who presumes to speak

for Srila Prabhupada who exhibits such poor judgment, distasteful.

 

Please remove me from your mail list.

 

Bharatasrestha dasa

 

>[Text 2006905 from COM]

>

>>

>> >> > What do you mean by "DUTY* anyway? Define your terms.

>>

>> >COM: Krishna Kirti (das) HDG (Baltimore, MD - USA) wrote:

>> >> C'mon Prabhu, if you need THAT defined, we really can't discuss this

>> >> issue anymore.

>>

>> At 8:18 -0800 1/7/99, COM: Madhava Gosh (das) ACBSP (New Vrindavan - USA)

>> wrote:

>> >Actually, I think it is important to define terms. If we aren't

>> >talking about the same thing when we use a term, then even though we may

>> >be in agreement in principle, we may never see that we are because we

>> >are talking about different things when we use the same word.

>>

>> I agree and recall that we had a similar discussion earlier re

>> "protection", which was another term that Krsna Kirti Prabhu was unwilling

>> or unable to define. It's easy to throw out these terms and say they're

>> important and need to be followed. However, if they are so important to

>> the functioning of varnasrama, we need to first establish that we are

>> indeed talking about the same concept. It's also crucial that we

>> understand terms such as "duty", "protection", "surrender" etc. so we all

>> know exactly what is expected of us and can see how we are measuring up.

>>

>> Ys,

>> Madhusudani dasi

>

>We are not moved by the pleas of devotees, like Mataji, who repeatedly ask

>for terms to be defined when either they have already been discussed, or

>they are so central to the practice of our Krishna-consciousness that they

>should be understood. If we mention such basic things such as the 4

>regulative principles, they will complain that we have not defined them.

>

>Furthermore, we would add that the above correspondents are quite aware of

>the terms being discussed but are only trying to obfuscate matters in order

>to introduce ideas which are against the teachings of our acharyas, as given

>to us by Srila Prabhupada. In the excerpt below, one of the correspondents

>has suggested that Srila Prabhupada's books be changed:

>

>

>> Tue, 27 Jan 98 12:22 -0700

>> "COM: Madhusudani Radha JPS"

>> "COM: VAST (Vaishnava Advanced Studies)"

>> Women and intelligence [Text 1067751 from COM]

>>

>> This is obviously a very sensitive area, so I will try to be careful as I

>> further clarify my thoughts. Basically, it seems like we have three

>> options in terms of how to interpret Srila Prabhupada's statements about

>> women's intelligence: 1. Prabhupada meant spiritual intelligence I

>> don't think any of us on this conference are going to entertain this

>> possibility seriously, as spiritually, we are all equal, i.e. we are

>> neither men nor women. 2. Prabhupada meant material intelligence If

>> this is the case, it could be something he picked up from his college

>> professors or from the culture where he grew up. We know from other

>> writings that Prabhupada was more flexible on these topics and did not

>> present himself as an expert at all times. He even suggested to

>> disciples that they get advice elsewhere (as in when disciples asked him

>> for health advice and he told them not to ask him but to consult a

>> doctor). Since you gave some latitude in your text, Maharaja, regarding

>> people who have professional competency, I'm going to take you up on this.

>> Measurement of material intelligence is the subject matter of clinical and

>> educational psychologists. We spend many years in graduate school

>> learning about different tests, the administration, cultural factors,

>> scoring, ,interpretation and various controversies. I have probably

>> administered, scored and interpreted at least a hundred intelligence tests

>> during graduate school and following receipt of my PhD in clinical

>> psychology, so this is not just based on my personal views. The main

>> problem everyone runs into when discussing population differences in

>> intelligence is that there may be differences in means between groups, but

>> the distributions overlap to such a great extent that any such differences

>> are often meaningless. The issue of differences has, as you probably

>> already know, been a very hot topic in the area of race and ethnic

>> differences. Many biological, genetic and cultural differences have been

>> provided to explain why Asians typically score higher than Whites, who in

>> turn score higher than Latinos and African-Americans. Have the negative

>> statements in the SB about African Americans ever come up in your academic

>> environments? When it comes to gender differences on IQ tests, they are

>> really minute and can not be used to demonstrate the superiority of either

>> gender. We can not even use the test to show that the most intelligent

>> man has a higher IQ than the most intelligent woman. In fact, the person

>> who has the highest recorded score in the world is currently a woman. We

>> can of course debate forever what "real" intelligence is, its components,

>> and the relatively recent concept of emotional intelligence, but I would

>> caution against such a direction. What seems to have started this

>> discussion appears to be the fact that it says that women are less

>> intelligent in Prabhupada's books. Most people who react unfavorably to

>> these statements are going to interpret this as meaning that he is saying

>> that women have a lower IQ. That's why the turn away. This brings us to

>> the third option: 3. Prabhupada meant some other kind of intelligence

>> If Prabhupada was not referring to spiritual intelligence, or to what we

>> typically think of as material intelligence (IQ), then I can not comment

>> on whether he was right or wrong. However, if you really think this is

>> the case, I have one suggestion: Change the books. The way they are

>> currently written will be interpreted by the majority of people to mean

>> option #2 above. If this is not what we want them to say, we need to

>> indicate that very clearly. Otherwise we will lose many, many souls who

>> will have been unable to see beyond that miscommunication. Ys,

>> Madhusudani

>

>In the name of preaching, so many ideas which are ashastriya are being

>introduced. The idea discussed above seeks to bury forever Prabhupada's

>discussions about gender and substitue it with some other, more popular,

>idea of gender equality.

>

>When Prabhupada says "less intelligent", instead of using this as an

>opportunity to preach, which Prabhupada did, they instead wish to edit it

>out of Prabhupada's books. There is a term for this, it is called

>guru-mara-vidya, the intelligence of killing the guru.

>

>There is an effort to minimize the Vedic culture, and it is being carried on

>the name of non-discrimination, appealing to intellectuals, etc.:

>

>> Fri, 23 Jan 98 22:40 +0000

>> "COM: Hari (dd) HDG (Oxford Project)" <Hari.HDG (AT) com (DOT) bbt.se> To:

>> "COM: VAST (Vaishnava Advanced Studies)" <VAST (AT) com (DOT) bbt.se> Re:

>> postmodernism/feminism, etc

>>

>> [Text 1058050 from COM]

>>

>> > Adwaitaji states:

>> > > Covering the head--the example you note--may seem to be an

>> > >innocuous and harmless cultural trait, but it is not unconnected with

>> > >the essentialist idea that women are constitutionally nine times more

>> > >lusty than men and therefore need to appear chaste in public.

>>

>> > My comment is that it is to the contrary. The chastity point is that men

>> > are attracted to women and therefore chaste women help men control their

>> > senses. Furthermore, women also protect themselves this way. It

>> > certainly helps reduce the bodily concept.

>> > Comments from the women please.

>> >BT

>>

>> Personally, I go along with Advaita. My personal opinion of head-covering

>> is that it doesn't make a blind bit of difference. I think the real issue

>> of chastity is behaviour.

>>

>> 'it certainly helps reduce the bodily concept', well I for one am not so

>> certain. Is it that all women who falldown within ISKCON behave in an

>> overtly unchast way ? I don't think so, in fact I'd suggest quite the

>> opposite, more submissive, more vunerable, peering up from beneath one's

>> headpiece attracts many more 'eyes across the ghee lamp'.

>> ys hari dd

>

>Is not covering the head a part of chaste behaviour? If we want to say that

>women are not required to cover their heads in public, or that it doen't

>make a "blind bit of difference", then why don't we say that it doesn't make

>a difference whether preacher ladies wear miniskirts inside or outside the

>temple? Let men and women wear what they want, as they like. After all, we

>might get more followers that way.

>

>When Srila Prabhupada refered to the miniskirt once as "naked skirt", do we

>need to define these terms so that devotees can properly understand them?

>Or perhaps understand something that Srila Prabhupada never said, or

>understand it to be something Srila Prabhupada spoke out against.

>

>We hope this unfortunate situation can be soon rectified, before further

>damage to Srila Prabhupada's movement is done.

>

>Your servant, Krishna-kirti das

 

William G. Wall, Ph.D.

Professor of Vaisnava Literature and Theology

Insitute for Vaisnava Studies

1798 Scenic Ave.

Berkeley CA 94709

(510) 849-8280

[Guest guest]

At 11:13 PM 1/11/99 +0000, COM: Krishna Kirti (das) HDG (Baltimore, MD - USA)

wrote:

Krishna Kirti

I find these posts silly and annoying, and I also find the practice of

insulting sincere devotees, including close friends, my wife, and above all my

guru, to be unethical. I also find that reposting illegally obtained

confidential texts (VAST posts are "confidential" in that they are part of

"loving exchanges" between devotees who are therefore free to express their

doubts) out of context, unethical. I find the practice of multiple postings to

conferences improper COM netiquette. And I find someone who presumes to speak

for Srila Prabhupada who exhibits such poor judgment, distasteful.

 

Please remove me from your mail list.

 

Bharatasrestha dasa

 

>[Text 2006905 from COM]

>

>>

>> >> > What do you mean by "DUTY* anyway? Define your terms.

>>

>> >COM: Krishna Kirti (das) HDG (Baltimore, MD - USA) wrote:

>> >> C'mon Prabhu, if you need THAT defined, we really can't discuss this

>> >> issue anymore.

>>

>> At 8:18 -0800 1/7/99, COM: Madhava Gosh (das) ACBSP (New Vrindavan - USA)

>> wrote:

>> >Actually, I think it is important to define terms. If we aren't

>> >talking about the same thing when we use a term, then even though we may

>> >be in agreement in principle, we may never see that we are because we

>> >are talking about different things when we use the same word.

>>

>> I agree and recall that we had a similar discussion earlier re

>> "protection", which was another term that Krsna Kirti Prabhu was unwilling

>> or unable to define. It's easy to throw out these terms and say they're

>> important and need to be followed. However, if they are so important to

>> the functioning of varnasrama, we need to first establish that we are

>> indeed talking about the same concept. It's also crucial that we

>> understand terms such as "duty", "protection", "surrender" etc. so we all

>> know exactly what is expected of us and can see how we are measuring up.

>>

>> Ys,

>> Madhusudani dasi

>

>We are not moved by the pleas of devotees, like Mataji, who repeatedly ask

>for terms to be defined when either they have already been discussed, or

>they are so central to the practice of our Krishna-consciousness that they

>should be understood. If we mention such basic things such as the 4

>regulative principles, they will complain that we have not defined them.

>

>Furthermore, we would add that the above correspondents are quite aware of

>the terms being discussed but are only trying to obfuscate matters in order

>to introduce ideas which are against the teachings of our acharyas, as given

>to us by Srila Prabhupada. In the excerpt below, one of the correspondents

>has suggested that Srila Prabhupada's books be changed:

>

>

>> Tue, 27 Jan 98 12:22 -0700

>> "COM: Madhusudani Radha JPS"

>> "COM: VAST (Vaishnava Advanced Studies)"

>> Women and intelligence [Text 1067751 from COM]

>>

>> This is obviously a very sensitive area, so I will try to be careful as I

>> further clarify my thoughts. Basically, it seems like we have three

>> options in terms of how to interpret Srila Prabhupada's statements about

>> women's intelligence: 1. Prabhupada meant spiritual intelligence I

>> don't think any of us on this conference are going to entertain this

>> possibility seriously, as spiritually, we are all equal, i.e. we are

>> neither men nor women. 2. Prabhupada meant material intelligence If

>> this is the case, it could be something he picked up from his college

>> professors or from the culture where he grew up. We know from other

>> writings that Prabhupada was more flexible on these topics and did not

>> present himself as an expert at all times. He even suggested to

>> disciples that they get advice elsewhere (as in when disciples asked him

>> for health advice and he told them not to ask him but to consult a

>> doctor). Since you gave some latitude in your text, Maharaja, regarding

>> people who have professional competency, I'm going to take you up on this.

>> Measurement of material intelligence is the subject matter of clinical and

>> educational psychologists. We spend many years in graduate school

>> learning about different tests, the administration, cultural factors,

>> scoring, ,interpretation and various controversies. I have probably

>> administered, scored and interpreted at least a hundred intelligence tests

>> during graduate school and following receipt of my PhD in clinical

>> psychology, so this is not just based on my personal views. The main

>> problem everyone runs into when discussing population differences in

>> intelligence is that there may be differences in means between groups, but

>> the distributions overlap to such a great extent that any such differences

>> are often meaningless. The issue of differences has, as you probably

>> already know, been a very hot topic in the area of race and ethnic

>> differences. Many biological, genetic and cultural differences have been

>> provided to explain why Asians typically score higher than Whites, who in

>> turn score higher than Latinos and African-Americans. Have the negative

>> statements in the SB about African Americans ever come up in your academic

>> environments? When it comes to gender differences on IQ tests, they are

>> really minute and can not be used to demonstrate the superiority of either

>> gender. We can not even use the test to show that the most intelligent

>> man has a higher IQ than the most intelligent woman. In fact, the person

>> who has the highest recorded score in the world is currently a woman. We

>> can of course debate forever what "real" intelligence is, its components,

>> and the relatively recent concept of emotional intelligence, but I would

>> caution against such a direction. What seems to have started this

>> discussion appears to be the fact that it says that women are less

>> intelligent in Prabhupada's books. Most people who react unfavorably to

>> these statements are going to interpret this as meaning that he is saying

>> that women have a lower IQ. That's why the turn away. This brings us to

>> the third option: 3. Prabhupada meant some other kind of intelligence

>> If Prabhupada was not referring to spiritual intelligence, or to what we

>> typically think of as material intelligence (IQ), then I can not comment

>> on whether he was right or wrong. However, if you really think this is

>> the case, I have one suggestion: Change the books. The way they are

>> currently written will be interpreted by the majority of people to mean

>> option #2 above. If this is not what we want them to say, we need to

>> indicate that very clearly. Otherwise we will lose many, many souls who

>> will have been unable to see beyond that miscommunication. Ys,

>> Madhusudani

>

>In the name of preaching, so many ideas which are ashastriya are being

>introduced. The idea discussed above seeks to bury forever Prabhupada's

>discussions about gender and substitue it with some other, more popular,

>idea of gender equality.

>

>When Prabhupada says "less intelligent", instead of using this as an

>opportunity to preach, which Prabhupada did, they instead wish to edit it

>out of Prabhupada's books. There is a term for this, it is called

>guru-mara-vidya, the intelligence of killing the guru.

>

>There is an effort to minimize the Vedic culture, and it is being carried on

>the name of non-discrimination, appealing to intellectuals, etc.:

>

>> Fri, 23 Jan 98 22:40 +0000

>> "COM: Hari (dd) HDG (Oxford Project)" <Hari.HDG (AT) com (DOT) bbt.se> To:

>> "COM: VAST (Vaishnava Advanced Studies)" <VAST (AT) com (DOT) bbt.se> Re:

>> postmodernism/feminism, etc

>>

>> [Text 1058050 from COM]

>>

>> > Adwaitaji states:

>> > > Covering the head--the example you note--may seem to be an

>> > >innocuous and harmless cultural trait, but it is not unconnected with

>> > >the essentialist idea that women are constitutionally nine times more

>> > >lusty than men and therefore need to appear chaste in public.

>>

>> > My comment is that it is to the contrary. The chastity point is that men

>> > are attracted to women and therefore chaste women help men control their

>> > senses. Furthermore, women also protect themselves this way. It

>> > certainly helps reduce the bodily concept.

>> > Comments from the women please.

>> >BT

>>

>> Personally, I go along with Advaita. My personal opinion of head-covering

>> is that it doesn't make a blind bit of difference. I think the real issue

>> of chastity is behaviour.

>>

>> 'it certainly helps reduce the bodily concept', well I for one am not so

>> certain. Is it that all women who falldown within ISKCON behave in an

>> overtly unchast way ? I don't think so, in fact I'd suggest quite the

>> opposite, more submissive, more vunerable, peering up from beneath one's

>> headpiece attracts many more 'eyes across the ghee lamp'.

>> ys hari dd

>

>Is not covering the head a part of chaste behaviour? If we want to say that

>women are not required to cover their heads in public, or that it doen't

>make a "blind bit of difference", then why don't we say that it doesn't make

>a difference whether preacher ladies wear miniskirts inside or outside the

>temple? Let men and women wear what they want, as they like. After all, we

>might get more followers that way.

>

>When Srila Prabhupada refered to the miniskirt once as "naked skirt", do we

>need to define these terms so that devotees can properly understand them?

>Or perhaps understand something that Srila Prabhupada never said, or

>understand it to be something Srila Prabhupada spoke out against.

>

>We hope this unfortunate situation can be soon rectified, before further

>damage to Srila Prabhupada's movement is done.

>

>Your servant, Krishna-kirti das

 

William G. Wall, Ph.D.

Professor of Vaisnava Literature and Theology

Insitute for Vaisnava Studies

1798 Scenic Ave.

Berkeley CA 94709

(510) 849-8280