Judge for yourself

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At 1:53 PM +0530 11/18/99, COM: Bhadra Balaram (das) JPS (Mayapur - IN) wrote:

 

>one must not tolerate such nonsense.

>

>again, i am afraid to comment more on this without seeing the original text

>by dkdd but if what is said above is true, even in part, then let me say

>it's a plain nonsense coming from a non-devotional, kali-influenced,

>agitated mind. The writer needs to immediately give up all other activities

>and surrnder to chanting his/her minimum 16 rounds. It will surely help.

>

>Let me proudly say I love to see how Srila Prabhupada was so sure of

>himself! It was simply natural for a senapati bhakta of lord Sri Chaitanya

>Mahaprabhu. Non devotees feel envious of such an exaulted personality. They

>can't even take when Lord Krishna says "bhoktaham yajya tapasam sarvaloka

>mahesvaram". Does it make any change in the reality?

>

>ys, bb

 

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Tue, 19 Oct 99 11:41 +0200

"COM: Dhyanakunda (dd) KKD (NE-BBT, Almvik - S)"

<Dhyanakunda.KKD (AT) bbt (DOT) se>

Topical Discussions <topical.discussions (AT) bbt (DOT) se>

Contradictions in Prabhupada's words?

 

Dear Nayan Prabhu,

 

Please accept my humble obeisances.

 

>So far as my own reading of Srila Prabhupada's books is concerned over

>many years now, I >have never *EVER* found him to contradict himself! He

>might have given what to us >would seem to be opposing instructions to

>different persons at times, but that was >according to the recepient, the

>time and the circumstance. With a little intelligence, it is >always easy

>to judge what he meant in such instances and to understand it in the right

>>context.

 

I wondered whether I should post here examples of contradictions. They

would let everyone judge for themselves. But I don't want to overload the

conference. Also, reading a *text* which proves how two other *texts*

contradict each other is extremely tiring. Things get hopelessly ensnarled

and texts get intolerably long.

 

I have chosen a middle approach. Just a few examples plus general comments.

 

There are various kinds of contradictions. Not all are easy to show when

one wants to keep the post short. The easiest ones are when Prabhupada

contradicts himself, or when he contradicts reality. These do not bother me

so much, precisely because they are easy to sort out.

 

More difficult ones are where Prabhupada's statement, or its logical

consequence, contradicts another of his statements or their consequences.

These you will generally only catch when you are either translating a text

or searching to form an overall picture of Prabhupada's views on a specific

subject. I don't have these kinds of examples at my fingertips, but I and

the other BBT translators have seen them (and despaired over them) a lot.

 

To avoid misunderstandings: when a quote is presented where SP contradicts

himself or makes a controversial statement, devotees usually find ways of

reconciling the problem, and these ways are often valid. This also holds

true for some of the contradictions I will post here. So let us not waste

time showing how "here he meant this, and there he meant that, therefore

what he said makes perfect sense." I know it does. There was always a

rationale behind what he said. And even when we cannot figure out what the

rationale was, we can always resort to explanations like "acintya,meant

to teach us a lesson,meant to bewilder the asuras," or, like in a recent

post here, when an argument was made that Prabhupada gave

Sannyas to his young ksatriya-like disciples, which caused so many

falldowns, another member reconciled the problem by proposing that:

 

>Sometimes doing the right thing is not to give an example, but to speed up

>the process of >things happening. When Narada muni told Kamsa about Krsna

>taking birth, was it to give >an example on how to act correctly? No, it

>was done to speed up the process.

 

So one can always say, in the worst case, that SP did the wrong thing on

purpose, to speed things up. There are always ways and means, even though

Ockham's razor would probably cut many of them.

 

But this is not my point. Since you state that Srila Prabhupada never

contradicts himself, all I want to show is that he does. I will choose the

short and easy examples, even if they are not the ones with most important

implications for our lives.

 

Examples will come in the next two texts under the same header, with some

general observations. Those who do not wish to read them can skip them.

 

Your servant,

Dhyana-kunda dasi