HH Varshana Swami (part 2)

[Guest guest]

[continuation of HH Varshana Swami's class, New Vrindaban, June 16]

 

 

Question: In Bhagavatam when the personification of religion was hurt by

Kali and when Maharaj Pariksit came and asked who done it to you he wouldn't

say. Can you explain that if anybody start to follow that, job of ksatriyas

would become very difficult.

 

Varshana Maharaja: Why did Dharma not identify who his offender was? One

reason Srila Prabhupada gives is that Dharma knew that this was how Kali

entered his age and it was according to the plan of the Lord that Kali enter

at that time. So if Kali had been killed by Maharaja Pariksit, it would have

actually foiled the plan of the Lord that Kali-yuga begin at that time and

ultimately Lord Caitanya come. There were also many other reasons.

 

Dharma was being very brahminical and accepting that whatever reactions come

are due to my own actions, but it was also obvious who the offender was, he

was caught red-handed. So Dharma, in pursuance of his saintly demeanour, did

not have to identify who the offender was because it was obvious. There are

also a host of reasons given in the Bhagavatam and other verses why Dharma's

position is more fortified by not pointing to Kali because that would be

something like blaming and that would have minimized Dharma's saintliness.

But it wasn't thwarting the role of justice because it was obvious. Maharaja

Pariksit didn't really have to know who would inflict such misery because he

caught Kali red-handed. That is why everything has to be interpreted

according to time, place, and circ because it can be easily misinterpreted.

 

Kuvalesaya Das: I wasn't planning to come to class and I'm glad I did. There

is something I wanted to underline and see if there could be more

clarification. You said the desire of the senior Vaisnavas often express the

desire of the Lord. Recently there was a discussion on cooperation in the

local temple and one of the managers had expressed, because there are so

many different voices now calling for change or calling for accountability

within our Krsna consciousness movement, he said these people are actually

destroying Prabhupada's movement, but they're saying they want to restore

it. Because Prabhupada wanted us to cooperate.

 

I was jarred by that because the specific issue was the leadership being

accountable. The impression I got was that whoever is in charge is the

person who you should cooperate with.

 

Maharaja: Once again you brought up a lot of important points at the

beginning of your question or comment so let's see if we can remember what

they were. That Krsna expresses his will through the assembly of senior

Vaisnavas. You didn't' directly say it but you kind of eluded to the fact

that usually when you get an assembly of senior Vaisnavas together, they'll

probably have different ideas, so how will you know what is the will of

Krsna? But then you brought up the solution is cooperation. We have seen in

the history of our movement when the collective of senior Vaisnavas had an

opinion that was totally wrong.

 

Who is the senior Vaisnava? Srila Prabhupada said purity is the force. It is

not a matter of position or duration. We see historically that the

collective senior Vaisnavas may have had an opinion that was wrong, but if

the element of cooperation continues, it becomes right. Why? Because Krsna

rectifies. Where there is cooperation amongst senior Vaisnavas, Krsna

empowers their words, Krsna works through their actions, and Krsna rectifies

whatever mistakes they make if that element of cooperation is continually

honored.

 

And as we said, cooperation on this level isn't just working together.

That's part of it but there is something deeper that means forfeiting one's

own ego, one's own agenda, for a higher purpose. That's why Maharaja Prthu

keeps coming up because his agenda was most meritorious, but after numerous

tries-Krsna didn't say it initially-but after numerous thwarted sacrifices,

Krsna said this is creating problems, so just abandon your project because

it's creating friction. As an ideal king, he is demonstrating what it means

for us to cooperate. That means if it is seem that that agenda, that

aspiration, is perpetuating friction, then for the higher concept of

cooperation it has to be adjusted.

 

So since I've cut you off, is there anything else you wanted to comment.

 

Kuvalesaya Das: Something else I was startled by. In the purport to the song

"Gaura Pahu," Srila Prabhupada describes how he establishes the

International Society for Krishna Consciousness for people to have

association in Krsna consciousness. And he puts in a warning or concern to

the managers of our society that they should be very sincere. If they are

not and the people are coming forward on a voluntary basis, the movement

will not be effective.

 

I was hearing this and reading along in the song book, but this text is not

there. I was very horrified to find that Srila Prabhupada has given what we

need to regularly to contribute to the culture of Krsna consciousness, but

it was taken out, a whole paragraph of instruction. Who does this? Why? And

how can we mature as a society if we don't allow even our spiritual master

who is in the center to speak everything that he intends for us? I'm

startled by that. In the new edition it wasn't included. I was hoping when

the new volume came out because they made some adjustments, that would be

included.

 

Maharaja: Is the omitted section still existing someplace?

 

Kuvalesaya Das: It is in audio format. I don't know what to make of that.

Then another matter is that right now there is a disturbance by the suicide

of one gurukula boy that there is a strong movement to have his teacher step

down as a guru. . . . but from my understanding there is no GBC directive

that he ask for forgiveness. He was asked to leave the society for a certain

period of time that he could not initiate but the managers of the society

who Prabhupada is asking to be sincere they did not ask that he ask

forgiveness for what he had done. This is not being picked up by the rank

and file devotees. My sister lead the charge on VNN and Chakra. I see the

necessity, you're describing the culture of Krsna consciousness, but how do

we develop this culture?

 

Maharaja: Once again you have many crucial points. First point is that Srila

Prabhupada is emphasizing sincerity. This is the one thing I saw in Srila

Prabhupada that attracted me to him and which was conspicuous by its absence

in a lot of gurus I had met beforehand. Thereafter I noticed it was

something he heavily, repeatedly emphasized and if that section was omitted

from the songbook, if it is still available on video, it should be included.

 

Then the next issue was a matter where forgiveness was needed to be

expressed and the GBC did not directly mandate that. I don't know if

forgiveness can be directly mandated.

 

Then I don't know the circumstance but generally dialogue is essential

because it may be that the person made an effort at forgiveness that he

thought was appropriate while others who were contemporaries of the victim

interpreted that it was not sufficient. I don't know the circumstances, but

I know the patterns. If people get too riled up in their fury or whatever

then communication breaks down and problems get aggravated rather than

yielding results. Situations like that require sincere communication not

fault finding, attacking, because that just perpetuates the hurt and the

problem, but being respectful. Respectful does not mean that what you did

was OK, but that we want this resolved and what have you done? Because maybe

the person did everything he thought he should have or could have, but no,

from the perspective of this other, you need to do more.

 

That is the same thing as cooperation for a higher purpose. You know when

matters are heated and there is a lot of hurt and injury involved,

communication can become very distorted if not tempered by respect. And that

respect expresses that we want everyone's best interest. Maybe that best

interest means you sent the letter, but maybe you need to go in person. Then

when there has been an offence committed, and the person who is offended has

left this world then there is another dimension of forgiveness that needs to

be pursued and that is not unique in history. There are other examples where

someone committed an offence and the person who was offended left the world

before it could be corrected, but in Vaisnava relationships there is not

impediments of time and space, it can be corrected even after the demise.

 

There may be some penance and austerity and some serious demonstration of

sincerity to evoke the forgiveness and blessings of Krsna on behalf of

someone who has physically departed. But it should all be pursued,

demonstrated, and resolved in a way that is satisfying to sober devotees.

There is always going to be someone who is going to hold on to an agenda,

but respectful dialogue is required.

 

Like when Caitanya Mahaprabhu was leading the demonstration in Navadvipa, he

pretty much attacked the Chand Kazi's palace. They were ripping down the

walls. By then, all of the Chand Kazi's men had run for their lives, so he

was pretty much all alone. And Mahaprabhu was furious. But at a certain

point he said OK, there has been a breach of etiquette here, the Chand Kazi

did not come to receive his guests. He sent some respectable gentleman to

approach the Kazi and ask him to come out. I don't know if that's the exact

wording, but Srila Prabhupada made an issue of that that he chose those kind

of personalities to resolve the issue. Then the Chand Kazi came out and he

was very respectful, very repentant and the discussion ensued.

 

We have to be careful when things are not heeded, what to speak of death. We

have to be very careful and it takes that respectful gentleman sometimes

because there is a lot of hurt, fear, to open up the dialogue so Krsna's

voice and direction can actually be heard.

 

Vaiyasaki Das: Maharaja, you are speaking about respect and about abandoning

projects that create friction, so I'd like to address this point. We have on

tape lectures of Srila Prabhupada quoting tad viddhi pranipatena, referring

to the singular. In numerous editions, the meanings have been changed to

plural. So how is it that the second generation or any succeeding

generations will gain respect when we are changing so obviously the words of

Srila Prabhupada?

 

Maharaja: I heard that Jayadvaita Maharaja recently arrived in Alachua and

offered to speak either about vanaprastha asrama or changing the books and

those devotees chose to hear about vanaprastha asrama. I don't know the

exact situation, but I have heard the two sides that it shouldn't have been

changed and from His Holiness Jayadvaita Swami the reasons why they made the

changes. I think some respectful dialogue is needed.

 

 

[The remaining text below is partially paraphrased with some parts missing

due to exhaustion on the part of the typists!]

 

 

Jayadvaita Swami: I initiated the dialogue on revising the Gita before the

book was published and took whatever feedback there was, which wasn't much.

At the time it was the single most widely spread event to get input from all

the devotees in ISKCON in the absence of the Internet. So it was published

with that input and input of the GBC and the BBT trustees. Since then there

has been an open conference called Gita Revisions Discussed where anyone can

get an answer on why that verse, why that change. And anyone who writes gets

an answer, even the raving maniacs, even Madhu Pandit gets an answer. In

recent years, the dialogue has cut down due to websites where anyone can

jump up and down and rave. I had a conference in LA where many people who

jump up and down didn't come.

 

Apart from that, the BBT is doing what we call an edit trail project where

all the different stages of manuscript are recorded with the idea that you

can get it in the Vedabase format. So that people who have research

questions can get their questions answered which is more important than

answering all of the people's tirades. Answering people's tirades is a

public relations questions. Basically I ignore a lot of what goes on on the

internet because frankly it is, can I say it is stupid, because they say no

responsible publisher makes changes.

 

That is stupid because either the person doesn't know what academic

publishing is and aware that, for example, Harvard University Press does

that and American Library Press does that. You can pick up Lord of the Rings

and see why they did that. So to get up on the internet and make a statement

like that means you're stupid because number one you don't know what you're

talking about and still you're going to publish your opinion. It is really

hard for me to deal with that again and again and again.

 

Someone said these stupid university publishers may do it, but no one in our

sampradaya does it.

 

I gave him a pukka example of one of our topmost acarya who had done just

that and the answer was, you think you are on the level of that acarya?

 

I have some small contributions to make, and answering people to whom no

amount of evidence would be enough. The definition of fanatic is a person

for whom no amount of evidence would be sufficient to prove that he is

wrong. If his theory is that the world is produced of triangles, and you

prove it is square, he won't accept.

 

The first rule for dealing with a fanatic is don't waste your time. We have

people who want Prabhupada's pure words without interference. Anything less

is an offence to Prabhupada. They also want the 1972 Bhagavad-gita. They

hold both of these views although they are contrary. If they want what is

closer to Prabhupada's words, that is the 1983 edition.

 

So either it's closer to what Prabhupada said or it's the way we had it in

Prabhupada's time. So we're going to have the high ground both ways although

we can actually only have one position or another.

 

I'm on the side that says as close to what Prabhupada said as possible. If

you agree with that, you are with me with the 1983 edition. OK, I can

understand that there is a different position and that is entitled to be

heard. That does have arguments in its favor, but decide which side you're

on.

 

The 1983 edition doesn't match the 1972 edition, but it has an advantage, it

matches what Prabhupada said. You have to make a choice. So the BBT trustees

made a choice in consultation with as many members and leaders of ISKCON as

we could possibly get a hold of and we made a choice. If you want to go back

and revisit that choice, fine. First of all, know what you're talking about.

Dump this stuff about Prabhupada gave an order that after his disappearance

not a word of his books could be changed. Just get down to what you want.

"This was the book in Prabhupada's lifetimes and we don't think anything

should be changed. Even though we know verse 18 and 19 have been switched,

it's OK."

 

Just stand on that position and we'll talk about it. Or, we agree in

principle but we think you made a mistake on verse twenty four. Fine. Any

rational discourse is fine with me but irrational discourse is offensive,

silly, doesn't go anywhere, causes agitation in the minds of people who

don't know about the background. I've been open to rational discourse from

the get go and I'm still open to it.

 

One of our Godbrothers had just written a very heavy letter on the internet,

but when we went through it, we went through the introduction of

Bhagavad-gita where all the verses of Gita Mahatmaya have been left out,

because the tape is still available.

 

Then I showed him how our revisions have been depicted. You can see side by

side, not what these goofballs do, here's the first edition, here's the

second edition, here's the manuscript. So I ran that down with him, "Well,

that's all right." The same person who had just written a tirade about it.

 

So anyone who takes the trouble to write me a civil letter and says, "Well,

Maharaja, what's going on here?" will get an answer. You're entitled to an

opinion and maybe your opinion will open my eyes about it. We made mistakes

during Prabhupada's time. It's not that we suddenly got an immunity after

Prabhupada's time and we haven't made mistakes. Let's talk about it.

 

You know the level of discourse on the internet is just prajalpa plus.

 

Udayananda Das: Hare Krsna Maharaja. We've been friends for over thirty

years. I've always had the greatest admiration and respect for you. We've

had this conversation and pretty much you satisfied any kind of fear that I

had. However, this is the question I had today: Now that the corrections and

mistakes, etc. been made, will they now not change it again? My fear is that

the precedent has been set that there can be change and then they use this

time, place, and circumstance. So in a hundred years, I know you, you had so

much association with Prabhupada, I don't know the person in a hundred

years, like in the Bible. That is my fear.

 

The changes that have been made now are like, this was Prabhupada's words,

then I'm good, but the other point is Prabhupada did read the Bhagavatam, he

did read the Gita and said, yes, this I will accept. That is a little bit of

a fear in me. Prabhupada may have written the original manuscript like that.

 

Jayadvaita Swami: Let's deal with the second fear first. I ran across that

actually because a critic brought it up. There was a quotation from

Sruta-kirti where he made the observation that Prabhupada didn't read like

an editor because as an editor you read it a certain way, but when you are

relishing or teaching, you are reading a different way. So the assumption

would have to be whatever was printed Prabhupada approved of as God said in

the Bible, "Yes, it was good." It's not that Prabhupada scrutinized it and

approved it.

 

The example is Easy Journey to Other Planets. If you go by the argument that

if it was printed Prabhupada approved it, then Prabhupada approved of so

many things that were manifestly wrong.

 

I can say first of all I had that in mind, so we wouldn't have to do it

again, we've considered this, let's put a seal on the books: No more

changes. Here's the problem with that: devotees keep finding legitimate

errors in the books, especially the translators as you have think about

every word to put in your language, what part of speech it is, often the

grammar is much more precise than English.

 

Every now and then they bring us something that looks wrong, .the classic

example there's a story in the Krsna book that begins this way, "Once in the

city of Kashi, within the barricades of Varanasi," etc. It was this way for

years. The translator , I think she was the Polish, said, "What is this

within the barricades of Varanasi?" Especially since they are the same

place, Kasi and Varanasi. What's the sense of it? So she went back to the

production manager, Govinda Madhava. And ultimately we went back to the

original tapes. Sure enough it was supposed to be: "Once within the city of

Kasi, within brackets, Varanasi." It was really hard for the transcribers to

hear Prabhupada accent on those old tapes and they made errors like that.

 

There was another one about the city of Dvaraka being surrounded by cannons

and the translator couldn't figure it out. You mean like a medieval castle

surrounded by cannons? We found it was canals.

 

Every month or so we get a letter asking about something. That keeps telling

us that sealing it when there are still such errors doesn't make sense. The

BBT passed a resolution about this sealing in 1996, but in 2046 someone may

come along and say, "Scrap that!" They can overturn us anyway, we don't have

a nuclear key that they try to open the lock and they all die. I don't have

the expertise to do that. Even if we say seal it, it won't stay sealed, and

there are still errors. We think these should be corrected.

 

We've decided to have it all documented, and to institute or inculcate

within the BBT a strong tradition and training for the editors as Prabhupada

did that for ISKCON. Of course we can still blow it, but we have it drummed

it in our head to do it in principles. We don't have a right to mess with

Prabhupada or change his philosophy, mess with his words, or say women or

men or this should be this or that, but we do have the right to fix

editorial mistakes, switching of lines, things transcribers heard wrong. But

messing with the author, you can't.

 

There are followers of Tolkein who are as devoted to the Hobbit as we are to

the Bhagavatam, Hemingway, all the rest of these authors. To transgress

against the author is a sin but posthumous editing done responsibly is not a

sin. There have been whole books revolutionised as the publishers had

wrongly messed with the author's original manuscript.

 

Hare Krsna, I am available to talk about this and see more at my website

jswami.info.

 

Srila Prabhupada ki jai. Grantharaj Srimad-Bhagavatam ki jai.