Varnasrama: independently of ISKCON?

[Guest guest]

Pancaratna Prabhu wrote on 4.06.99

 

>I find this thread to be very important. I would like to support Hare Krsna

>mataji's observations with a few points.

 

Sorry Pancaratna Prabhu, in my former comment to your nice text I assumed

the word thread to mean "threat" which would give the sentence another

meaning, so I my have constructed a wrong chain of arguments in this

conection. Hope you dont take it too personal, it was my fault, I must admit

it. English is not my mother language, I learnd it from the devotees.

Still I hope my coments have some value in this discussions about VAD.

 

> Thus for varnashrama to manifest it is not enough for each individual to

> act according to his or her prescribed duties if there is no connection to

> the rest of the social body. However, it is possible to be perfectly

> situated as a devotee if one performs these duties in pure Krishna

> consciousness. This, I believe, is one of the differences between

> bhakti-yoga and varnashram. Daivi - varnashram requires bhakti-yoga, but

> bhakti-yoga does not require varnashram, although it is very difficult for

> most people to practice without it.

 

I tend to agree with you in conection to someone who is living as a lifelong

brahmacari in the temple, but for a grhasta who has to maintain himself and

his family I would think the daiva varnashram structure of society would be

of great value in order to facilitate and strengten his practice of bhakti

yoga like you are saying:

 

> Varnashram helps us perform bhakti-yoga especially through the

> inter-connections of the varnas and ashrams. It facilitates our

< performance of sankirtan which we must do as a group.

 

> Ideally the relationships between the varnas is established through

> intimate connections in the context of rural, agrarian communities.

> However, as pointed out by Madhava Ghosh prabhu, it is possible to

> establish these connections in other ways, through trust funds for cow

> protection, guilds for crafts and trades, purchasing of goods made by

> devotees, establishing care and protection funds for devotees in distress,

> etc. Gradually as these links are developed, they can lead to actual

> communities.

 

I remember in this conection a text by Abhirama Prabhu from last year where

he writes:

 

"So it seems that we will have to tailer a system to our present strengths

weakness and overall circumstances, because there is no such system as a

`Vedic system` per se; it would be more acurate to talk about a system that

reflects our circumstances and has a `Vedic` objective.

Life comes from life and a living society needs a system that comes out of a

real response to it,s circumstances. There is no system that is always

corect.

An in depth study of Puranic history will reveal an incredible range of

different approaches to governance; from authoritarian monarchies to

republics with popular consensus (yes, even republics!) as well as every

flavour and variation in between. Some `Vedic` systems where patriarcial

some matriarcial. Most villages had theyr own councils and many regions had

one that combined representatives of numerous village councils. Remember

that Dasarath Maharaja `asked` for the blessings of his ministers to

coronate Ram, and they approved by siteing the popular wish of the people."

 

So in regard to varnasrama I think the popular wish of the devotees in

general might be also very important. And the way how such a society or

comunity should be organized might be different acording to the particular

wishes of the devotees in different parts of the world. In one point I must

agree with the opinion of a GBC with whom I discussed recently about VAD and

the dificulty to implement it within the framework of ISKCON. Namely it

would be not proper to vote and empower someone to be our king. He sad

no-one would take such a person seriously within the society of devotees and

he would also not have much autority in his position.

 

But on the other hand he had the opinion that varnasram is very much

related to the monarchy of the vedic times with its saintly kings. Something

which couldnot be reestablished nowadays, the times of the monarchies is

almost over, and even in countrys where there are still kings they dont have

much power anymore. He sad Prabhupad didn,t wanted that his devotees should

be involved in the political field, nor did he wanted that about his

movement. He had more the vision that devotees should preach to those in

government offices and if some become devotees they can spend theyr time by

speaking about the sunday feast or Krsna katha, and thus influence others in

this area to take up Krsna conciousness, and become devotees.

What to say, I dont have much knowledge about what where really Prabhupadas

intentions and wishes in this regard, maybe someone else can bring some

light into this.

 

 

> In my opinion, the effort needed to establish these connections cannot be

> managed by the ISKCON institution as it is constituted today. ISKCON

> should provide encouragement, spiritual guidance, and whatever facility it

> has, but the work is too big for ISKCON's Temple and GBC dominated

> framework.

 

I tend to agree with you, but on the other hand what will and should hapen

to the ISKCON Institution and its big projects when the devotees start more

and more to organize themselfs outside of it.

I give you an example. I visited recently the Nrsimhadeva farm project in

Germany. There where ones about 80 devotees living and serving Lord

Nrsimhadeva and Sri Sri Radha Madana Mohan. In the meantime many maried and

moved out of the project to other cities, and about 6 grhasta couples moved

and where building houses in the nearby village, where they are living with

theyr families. In the big Farm and temple project remaind a handfull of

devotees and bhaktas struggling like anything to maintane it on theyr own.

So for ISKCON and its projects to remane indipendantly situeted from the

outside grhasta comunity and the society or comunity they want to establish

acording to the VAD principles would mean that one day those projects would

be to difficult to maintaine and would have to be given up.

 

Therefore I think ISKCON and its projects in order to survive would have to

become integrated into the outside VAD comunity or society of devotees and a

strong feeling of alliance must be created and maintaint with it.

The grhasta comunity must have the posibility of identifying with its

`ISKCON temple` and the brahmacarys living in the temple must respect and

apreciate theyr contribution, and not just think that they are in maya

because they are living outside of the temple.

Of course the means how this should be done could be discused if it should

be acording to your proposal that:

 

> What ISKCON can do is to establish varnashram college to train people to

> carry out this work independently of ISKCON. At the same time, ISKCON must

> continue to provide facility for sankirtan yajna, Deity worship, and

> spiritual counselling, i.e. all the objects enshrined in ISKCON's charter.

 

> Here in Mayapur, a group of us are trying to pursue both the establishment

> of a full varnashrama college and the development of varnashram in the

> broader community. It is not an ISKCON only effort, but a partnership

> between ISKCON and other entities we have established to give it broader

> scope. We hope this will be a model for other efforts.

 

Sounds to be a way in the right direction. Progress through partnership.

 

ys

Harsi das