Important

[Guest guest]

>>Still, I apologize to you if I've caused you any difficulty. My intention

was to inform the ISKCON leaders (and as of now you have NOT resigned as a

GBC - so you ARE still one our respected leaders [who I continue to strongly

support]) of "the other side of the story" regarding the ongoing controversy

on an incident that happened recently in Vrindavan & that is getting undue

and onesided coverage on the CHAKRA website on the internet.<<

 

The whole *subject* of this controversy is "rights", right? There's been

some back-and-forth about the appropriate *adjective*--"equal" or

"perferential"--but the basic subject is clearly...RIGHTS.

 

Well, there can be no rights without some measure of freedom. Rights are

at issue in human society and not animal society because human beings by

nature exhibit a higher order of individual freedom or independence than

the animals. This truth is basic to political science, both Vedic and

Western. The American "Founding Father" John Adams wrote:

 

Liberty, according to my metaphysics...is a self-determining

power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and

choice and power.

 

No argument with that. But the Vedic version is that *abstract liberty*

(for example, "absolute liberty"), like other mere abstractions, cannot

be practically achieved in this world. The *factual liberty* of the

individual is minute. That minute liberty practically appears only within

the definitions of sastra. Any other appearance of human liberty or rights

is just an abstraction, a chimera, a will-o-the-wisp: in short, maya.

The aim of sastra is to lead every man and woman from minute human liberty

(which is the merest suggestion of the liberated state) to transcendental

liberation in Krsna consciousness. When that ruling principle of ultimate

liberation is shut out of the discussion, all talk of rights--whether

"absolute", "equal" or "preferential"--is mere abstraction; in other words,

it is so much mundane politics.

 

All this is just to introduce the one point I hope to make here. Mundane

politicians are all "liberals" in the classical sense. I do not mean the

Vedic sense taught by Srila Prabhupada--"*Krpana* means 'miser' and

*brahmana* refers to a liberal, broad-minded person"--I mean in the

classical Greek sense (modern democracy was born in ancient Greece).

A classical "liberal politician" is one who believes that his abstract

model of human rights encompasses all human beings. *That's* a liberal.

Think about it. This definition includes the "libertarians,conservatives,"

"socialists", "fascists"...the whole range of today's speculative social

systems. Every political party claims "We have the only answer for the

ills of the people. More and more people are joining our side. Vote for

us now, or when we take power, you'll be nowhere."

 

There's a videotape of Srila Prabhupada in which he gives the main symptoms

of the Age of Kali as "unnecessary talks and fighting." That's politics:

"I know what's best for this society!" "No you don't: *I* know what's

best! Bla bla bla..." And in the midst of this quarrel, the real human

right--i.e. the right to liberation in Krsna consciousness--disappears,

because our energy is fully expended on barking like dogs over whose

abstract, conditioned political model is the best.

 

When someone tells me that because I have some temporary designation--

"ISKCON leader" for example, but it might as well be "man" or "woman"--

therefore I am obliged by his abstract political conception to relinquish

my freedom from the kind of unnecessary talks and fighting that are

so prominent on COM these days...and therefore I am obliged to stay in tune

with every new controversy coming down the cathode ray tube...and to get all

worked up over those phosphorescent letters dancing across my display

screen...and to TAKE A STAND...and to MARCH BEHIND THE BANNER...and to SHOUT

SLOGANS...and to DO IT FOR ISKCON...and FOR PRABHUPADA...and all that bla

bla bla...well, I consider that an attack on my own natural right of human

liberty, which I am by God's law supposed to exercise toward liberation by

keeping my hearing, reading and speaking fixed upon transcendental topics.