bibliography

[Guest guest]

D. Johnson, J. VanVonderen, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse.

Recognizing and Escaping Spiritual Manipulation and False Spiritual

Authority Within the Church, p.13. Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis,

Minnesota, 1991

 

K. M. Porterfield, Blind Faith. Recognizing and Recovering From

Dysfunctional Religious Groups, p.66. CompCare Publishers, Minneapolis,

Minnesota 1993

 

M. Linn, S. F. Linn, D. Linn, Healing Spiritual Abuse and Religious

Addiction, p.19. Paulist Press, New York/Mahwah, N.J., 1994

 

The terms phalgu vairagya and yukta vairagya are defined in Rupa Gosvami's

Bhakti Rasamrta Sindhu 2.258 and 2.255, respectively.

 

See, for example, Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.3.34 purport.

 

Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Putana. Essay printed in the January 1932 edition of

The Harmonist (English edition of Sri Sajjana Tosani); reprinted in Sri

Krsna Samhita, pp. 203-204. Vrajaraj Press, c/o ISKCON Vrndavan.

 

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, letter to Atreya Rsi, 4 February 1972.

 

D. Steindl-Rast, The Mystical Core of Organized Religion,

http://www.csp.orgdocs/steindl-mystical.html This author's insights are

particularly interesting for the Vaisnavas as followers of a tradition

renowned for its rich mysticism. He elucidates ways in which live doctrine,

morality, and ritual, born of the mystical experience, fossilize into

dogmatism, moralism and ritualism.

 

S. Gelberg (Subhananda dasa), On Leaving ISKCON,

http://www.trancenet.org/krishna/opinion/gelberg.shtml

 

Kundali dasa, Our Mission: Part Three, p. 45. Rekha Printers, India

(undated)

 

Judging from my, admittedly limited, counseling experience their numbers

might turn out to be significant if a way were found to obtain truthful

answers from a representative sample of devotees.

 

It is not my intention to argue here that the "sex only for procreation"

rule is unfair or impossible to follow. (There are brahmin communities in

India who follow it strictly to this day, as evidenced by testimonies of

their descendants who have joined ISKCON.) I wish to point out, however,

that for significant numbers of devotees this principle seems to function

as a built-in generator of guilt and shame, thus damaging their ability to

experience loving exchange with God, or even to aspire for such an exchange.

 

For example, the concept of the "four defects" (conditioned human beings

have imperfect senses, are prone to illusion, make mistakes and have a

tendency to cheat) was originally presented by Jiva Gosvami in the

Sarva-samvadini commentary on his Sandarbhas. Jiva used it to argue that

one cannot reach perfect knowledge about transcendent God without hearing

sabda-pramana, the Vedic revelation. There is a difference between this

claim and the claim that one cannot possibly know anything at all. In a

similar vein, devotees not infrequently stretch the traditional concept

of the superiority of sabda (Vedic evidence) over pratyaksa (direct

perception) and anumana (logical inference) to claim that pratyaksa and

anumana have no value at all. A useful reference in this connection is Srila

Prabhupada's lecture on Bhagavad-gita 2.8-12, Los Angeles, November 27,

1968.

 

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Bhagavad-gita as It Is, p. 312. The

Bhaktivedanta Book Trust 1986

 

ibid., pp. 313-314

 

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, lecture on Bhagavad-gita 15.15, Paris

1976

 

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, lecture on Bhagavad-gita 7.4, Bombay

February 18, 1974

 

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Srimad-Bhagavatam Canto Five, p.894.

The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust 1987

 

E. Friedman, Generation to Generation: Family process in church and

synagogue. New York: Guilford Press, 1985).

 

Facing one's feelings and emotional literacy are the topic of books such

as Emotional Intelligence (D. Goleman, Bantam Books, 1996) and Achieving

Emotional Literacy (C. Steiner with P. Perry, Bloomsbury, London 1997).

 

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Nectar of Instruction, Text 2

 

There are already groups of "Fundamentalists Anonymous" operating in the

United States. Folio contains all the books, lectures, plus almost all

conversations and letters by Srila Prabhupada in a digital form. It is not

unusual for the GBC members to search their laptops for Folio references

during plenary discussions.

 

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, conversation, 9 May 1975

 

Thakura Bhaktivinoda, The Bhagavata: Its Philosophy, Its Ethics, and Its

Theology, pp. 1, 28, 29. Collector's edition published by Guardian of

Devotion Press, San Jose, California. The Thakura's point beautifully agrees

with the Linn's assertion that "...a healthy relationship with

tradition is a conversation in which the dalogue enables both the individual

and the tradition to change and grow." (M. Linn, S.F. Linn, D. Linn,1993:14)

 

Thakura Bhaktivinoda, Sri Tattva-sutra, pp. 191-192. This reference has been

gleaned from the World Wide Web.

 

G. MacDonald, Disciple Abuse, in: Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2,1986

 

In a similar vein, other writers remark: "Looking carefully at a guru's

inner circle is extremely revealing. Those closest to him, his most

dedicated

students, display better than anything else where his teaching leads after

years of exposure. What is also displayed is who he prefers to have around

him: Are they strong and interesting in their own right, or are they boring

sycophants who continually feed his ego? Do disciples ever "graduate" and

become self-defining adults, or do they remain obedient and tied tothe guru?

It is also very enlightening to observe how gurus treat

and refer to those who leave their fold." (J. Kramer, D. Alstad, The Guru

Papers. Masks of Authoritarian Power, p. 90. Frog, Ltd. Berkeley,

California, 1993)

 

The description of codependency is based on several books on the topic,

primarily on: C. Steiner with P. Perry, Achieving Emotional Literacy.

Bloomsbury, London, 1997

 

Equity rescuing, a term originally used in economics, describes a

situation where more and more investments are made to justify and "rescue"

the investments already made. Investments can be money ("money pit" houses),

time, effort, emotional input and religious faith as well. The concept of

"equity rescuing" might be partially responsible for the fact that the most

senior ISKCON devotees are often seen as the ones most entrenched against

change and most motivated to "try harder the old way" instead.

 

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, conversation, Boston, Dec 23, 1969

 

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, lecture on Bhagavad-gita 4.34-35,

Los Angeles, January 12 1969

 

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada to Bali Mardana, 1974. This reference

is not to be found in Srila Prabhupada's collected works. Source: Ravindra

Svarupa dasa, personal communication

 

All of these narratives are found in the Srimad-Bhagavatam, with the

exception of the dialog between Arjuna and Krsna, which is the

Bhagavad-gita.

 

M. Langone, personal communication with the author. M. Langone's essay

detailing the MAID concept has been published in the Cultic Studies Journal,

Vol. 9, No. 2, 1992.

 

M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie. The Hope for Healing Human Evil, p. 162.

Published by Simon & Schuster, New York 1983

 

For example, was the gopis' lust material or spiritual? The Bhagavatam

text itself does not introduce a distinction between kama and prema; the

gopis are attracted to Krsna as a human lover. It's the later commentators

who emphasize that the gopis' feelings had nothing to do with kama, being

transcendental. The Bhagavatam says that meditating on the gopis' amorous

exchanges with Krsna is a way to transcend mundane lust. Then again, some

of the later Gaudiya Vaisnava acaryas warn that one should not meditate on

these pastimes unless one is already free from lust. This shift in under-

standing the nature of spiritual emotion has far-reaching implications.

 

(Personal communication with Tracy Coleman based on research for her PhD

dissertation in progress at Brown University. See also her Erotic Devotion,

Erotic Grace: Adoring Krishna's Body in the Bhagavata Purana. Unpublished

paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion,

Orlando, FL, November 1998)

 

The famous verse, yasyaham anugrhnami... comes to mind ("The Personality

of Godhead said: If I especially favor someone, I gradually deprive him of

his wealth. Then the relatives and friends of such a poverty-stricken man

abandon him. In this way he suffers one distress after unother.