Gurukula - did or will it päst the test.....?

[Guest guest]

"That you have to test. Now I have given you this one formula. By

following any guru or any principle, if you actually develop your love of

God, then it is nice. Otherwise it is useless waste of time. That is the

test."

(SP. conversation, Boston, Dec 23, 1969)

 

.............................................................................

 

 

Hare Krishna,

 

I think that's more on target. But I'm still a bit confused about who

would take our obvious past and present failings and extol them as a model,

absolute or not, for the future.

 

Some of us have a lot of faith in Srila Prabhupada's vision and some of

us clearly have doubts. Others have gone way past the point of doubt and are

heading out into an unknown direction. In one sense, it's a matter of faith;

and in another way, our faith means little. For example, we hear all the

time, "I don't believe in God. That is a matter of faith." Or, "There's no

such thing as karma or hell." The fact is, it doesn't really matter what you

believe -- after death, you will find out if you were right or not.

 

Will the future show Prabhupada's model to be correct or fatally flawed?

At some point, possibly not within our lifetimes, some devotees will tire of

negative effects from educational models that make unnecessary compromises

with materialistic theories of education. Devotees will again wish to try

implementing Srila Prabhupada's model. Let us pray that the second time

around we will meet with more success in all respects.

 

Please don't take this as a suggestion we should prematurely jump back

into situations where the same mistakes are likely to be repeated. An

education system takes a tremendous amount of resources, manpower, and

commitment that ISKCON does not currently have at it's disposal. For the

foreseeable future, local communities will have to work out their own

programs for educating the children. Ultimately, the decision-making power

lies with parents. Devotees who live in cultures that still respect the

parent's right to determine the nature of their child's, should consider

themselves fortunate.

 

Your servant,

Sri Rama das

 

[srirama (AT) bbt (DOT) se], or

[srirama (AT) jps (DOT) net]

 

 

 

"COM: Srirama (das) ACBSP" wrote:

 

> [Text 2866831 from COM]

>

> Who is "they"? "They" is a very inclusive word.

 

Point taken. I am refering to those who take the relative example of the

gurukula that evolved in ISKCON as an absolute model. I am trying to say,

first small scale successful models, and not keep trying to drive the

failed

manifestation that we can judge by it's fruit - almost an entire generation

of

gurukulis who didn't turn out the way it was thoguht they would.