A karmic network -- senior & junior devotees

December 13, 1999

>Practical experience has taught that incompetent authority figures will

>seldom take counsel from junior devotees, if ever. [...] So, taking shelter

>of Krishna is real intelligence and common

>sense. After all this is the process of self-realization, therefore it is

>said that the highest realization is to save yourself first.

[...]

> I beleive that the junior devotees best just get on with

>their own purification and, as Prabhupada instructed, they are thus rightly

>situated.

What, precisely, is "taking shelter of Krsna" -- according to time, place,

protagonists, antagonists, social and cultural status, spiritual

realization, etc.?

Of course the starting point in any lasting enterprise is to strive for

self-awareness and to take care of one's needs. No one can give anything

unless they have something.

That's just the (right) starting point, though.

>From Prabhupada's teachings as well as from the experience of many devotees

and a wannabe devotee, I gather that ISKCON -- the whole set of Prabhupada

followers, rather, regardless camps -- is not only a spiritual network but

also a karmic network. And any network of people is characterized by unity

in diversity, bhedabheda.

I have observed, furthermore, that karmic networks function, or are

designed by Yama and other cosmic managers (following Krsna's desires),

according to the principle of homology (similarity: as you may know, Greek

*homo-* is a cognate of Sanskrit *sama* and English *same*). Thus people

with similar karmic background and similar karmic propensities are placed

together -- i.e. they share a family, a group, a society, a varna, a

country, a planet. And within a karmic network, since victims are also

perpetrators and perpetrators are also victims, people will exchange roles

as circumstances permit. Role performance is done "karmanaa, manasaa,

giraa" (by action, mind, word).

Disregarding for analytical purposes the spiritual network, which

undoubtedly is also there, Prabhupada's followers form a karmic network.

Every individual therein has their own samsaric evolution, karmic

background, and consequently their own samsaric or karmic propensities. By

homology, what one individual in the network does, could theoretically have

been done by any other individual in the same network, given suitable

circumstances.

In other words, what senior devotees do, in their specific individual and

collective circumstances, could theoretically have been done by juniors,

had the juniors found themselves in the same circumstances.

In conclusion, I tend to see events in ISKCON as a karmic movie, dream,

omen one may watch for individual and collective awareness.

Just as every time I do something (with actions, words, thoughts) I am

realizing or enacting my karmic, samsaric propensities -- unless I was a

pure devotee, which I am not -- so what Prabhupada's followers do could

have also been done by me in the appropriate circumstances. I could have

whipped (down to death or short of death) the brahmacaris in the

Sri-Mayapura-dhama asram; I could have engaged in a gender-based boxing

match in front of the Deities in Sri-Vrindavana-dhama; I could have raped

children in gurukulas; I could have forced people to offer me obeisances,

apologies, donations, living quarters.

By Krsna's mercy, I did not actually do all that myself, but I keep

watching the karmic movie, dream or omen, and keep telling myself "watch

out!"

So, again, what, precisely, is "taking shelter of Krsna" -- according to

time, place, protagonists, antagonists, social and cultural status,

spiritual realization, etc.?

What is a non-senior devotee to do -- with actions, words, thoughts --

within the (spiritual and karmic) Prabhupada network?

your servant,

Kunti-Devi dasi

December 13, 1999