Divine Slavery and the myth of free will

[Guruvani]

there must be some word censor thing preventing a post I have been trying post all day.

Otherwise, I don't have a clue why this one copy/paste post I have been trying to post won't go through.

[Guruvani]

It appears to me Srila Prabhupada, being the great world acharya he was, also had to be part psychologist, part socialogist and part babysitter.

As I quoted before, Srila Prabhupada even wrote in his purport that he was somtetimes perplexed about exactly how to preach Krishna conciousness on a world scale.

 

 

 

So, I see in Srila Prabhupada's approach to preaching a sort of mayavada defense mechanism in his parakosha method of analogous examples.

 

He appeared to worry that the actual Gaudiya siddhanta could get misunderstood and butchered by neophyte western devotees if he was too straight forward and open about the actual connection between the jiva and it's brahmajyoti origins.

He does explain the situation if some parts of his books but in most of his letters and conversations he seemed to dance around the issue and avoid such direct and open explanations.

 

So, as a spiritual pshycologist, Srila Prabhupada approached preaching about origins and the fall of the jiva with a extreme measure of tact so as to hopefully prevent upstart western devotees from misunderstanding the siddhanta and using it to justify some jnana-misra bhakti and an over-infatuation with the brahman aspect of Krishna.

 

Sometimes I refer to this as fairytale telling.

Srila Prabhupada felt that kind of preaching was necessary.

I personally prefer the straight on siddhanta.

I don't think I needed to be spoonfed some watered-down siddhanta.

Maybe Srila Prabhupada felt that most western people did.

 

So, I see a certain measure of psychological programming built into the preaching of Srila Prabhupada.

I don't see his message as some raw version of Gaudiya siddhanta.

I see some embellishments that Srila Prabhupada added because he felt the need as he admitted to being perplexed sometimes about exactly how to push forward the KC movement on a global scale.

 

However, if we venture into the actual Gaudiya texts and writings of the previous acharyas we will find that there is much less of this psychology added to the siddhanta and the shastra.

 

I certainly don't fault Srila Prabhupada for the way he preached.

I am not so sure I agree that western people really needed to hear it that way, but Srila Prabhupada obviously felt they did.

He was an Indian guru and I am an American, so our perspectives on that issue are very different.

 

In the end I think the preventative measures might have become an issue.

Not that the fall-from-goloka fairytale really hurts anyone, while the Mayavada contamination would.

 

Personally, I don't think that the raw Gaudiya siddhanta at all nurtures any Mayavada tendencies and I personally don't really see that the "fairytale" was necessary.

Srila Prabhupada did not exactly tell the fairytale, but it is seen that from his preaching the fairytale was able to be extrapolated.

 

So, it is not really that Srila Prabhupada diverged from the Gaudiya siddhanta.

He just approached his world mission with a certain approach to the psychology that he thought was necessary for western people.

 

I am not so sure that Srila Prabhupada really understood the mind of western people.

I think western people could have been given the raw siddhanta without making a mess out of it.

What has been made a mess of is his "origins" theory and his paroksha method of preaching by analogy.

The analogies have been taken too literally and some philosophical confusion has taken root in ISKCON.

[Guruvani]

something is weird.

I removed a quote from post and it went through.

I was linked to Vedabase.net.

I don't know what is up but something is.

[theist]

 

 

I have been having trouble posting to this topic.

I have been trying all day but it never goes through.

I don't know what the problem is.

 

Divine intervention maybe?

[Guruvani]

 

Divine intervention maybe?

I would be flattered if the divine payed that much attention to me.

I think it was just a technical glitch that came with the forum upgrades and possibly some new blocks against linking or the word censors.

[suchandra]

Prabhupada always stressed the point that guru means to speak the truth and never leave people confused about what is right and wrong. Prabhupada spoke quite often according western etiquette so disrespectful for example about politicians and scientists, why he should have been suddenly considerate of Western way of thinking and say things which are untrue? He might have preached in a way to make people join, but never to change the truth in such a way, what he used to point out as cheating rascal policy of false gurus.

 

Indian man (7): Gurudeva, the question I wish to ask is: whence did we come, why are we here, and what is the true reason for our existence, and where are we going?

 

Pusta Krishna: The question is from where did we come, why are we here, and where are we going?

 

Prabhupada: Wherefrom just now you are coming? (laughter) Hm? Tell me wherefrom you are coming. You cannot say? Who can say wherefrom he is coming. Huh? Wherefrom you are coming? You cannot say? Hm? You cannot say wherefrom you are coming just now?

 

Indian man (7): That is what I would like to know.

 

Prabhupada: First of all say.

 

Indian man (7): What is true reason for our existence and where are we going?

 

Prabhupada: You are coming from home. (laughter) So this is our temporary home. We have got real home. That is the kingdom of God. We are coming from there. Just like you have come from India, or your forefathers have come from India. Now you have made this country as your home. Similarly, we have come from the spiritual world. Now we have made this material world as our home. So here, struggling for existence… It is said in the Bhagavad-gītā,

 

mamaivāmśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtah sanātanah manah sasthānīndriyāni prakriti-sthāni karsati [bg. 15.7]

 

“These living entities, they are My part and parcel, or they are as good as I am, part and parcel.”

 

 

 

Bhagavad-gītā 7.1

by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Durban, October 9, 1975

[theist]

 

So, I see in Srila Prabhupada's approach to preaching a sort of mayavada defense mechanism in his parakosha method of analogous examples.

 

 

Huh???

[sevabhakta]

 

It appears to me Srila Prabhupada, being the great world acharya he was, also had to be part psychologist, part socialogist and part babysitter.

As I quoted before, Srila Prabhupada even wrote in his purport that he was somtetimes perplexed about exactly how to preach Krishna conciousness on a world scale.

 

 

 

So, I see in Srila Prabhupada's approach to preaching a sort of mayavada defense mechanism in his parakosha method of analogous examples.

 

He appeared to worry that the actual Gaudiya siddhanta could get misunderstood and butchered by neophyte western devotees if he was too straight forward and open about the actual connection between the jiva and it's brahmajyoti origins.

He does explain the situation if some parts of his books but in most of his letters and conversations he seemed to dance around the issue and avoid such direct and open explanations.

 

So, as a spiritual pshycologist, Srila Prabhupada approached preaching about origins and the fall of the jiva with a extreme measure of tact so as to hopefully prevent upstart western devotees from misunderstanding the siddhanta and using it to justify some jnana-misra bhakti and an over-infatuation with the brahman aspect of Krishna.

 

Sometimes I refer to this as fairytale telling.

Srila Prabhupada felt that kind of preaching was necessary.

I personally prefer the straight on siddhanta.

I don't think I needed to be spoonfed some watered-down siddhanta.

Maybe Srila Prabhupada felt that most western people did.

 

So, I see a certain measure of psychological programming built into the preaching of Srila Prabhupada.

I don't see his message as some raw version of Gaudiya siddhanta.

I see some embellishments that Srila Prabhupada added because he felt the need as he admitted to being perplexed sometimes about exactly how to push forward the KC movement on a global scale.

 

However, if we venture into the actual Gaudiya texts and writings of the previous acharyas we will find that there is much less of this psychology added to the siddhanta and the shastra.

 

I certainly don't fault Srila Prabhupada for the way he preached.

I am not so sure I agree that western people really needed to hear it that way, but Srila Prabhupada obviously felt they did.

He was an Indian guru and I am an American, so our perspectives on that issue are very different.

 

In the end I think the preventative measures might have become an issue.

Not that the fall-from-goloka fairytale really hurts anyone, while the Mayavada contamination would.

 

Personally, I don't think that the raw Gaudiya siddhanta at all nurtures any Mayavada tendencies and I personally don't really see that the "fairytale" was necessary.

Srila Prabhupada did not exactly tell the fairytale, but it is seen that from his preaching the fairytale was able to be extrapolated.

 

So, it is not really that Srila Prabhupada diverged from the Gaudiya siddhanta.

He just approached his world mission with a certain approach to the psychology that he thought was necessary for western people.

 

I am not so sure that Srila Prabhupada really understood the mind of western people.

I think western people could have been given the raw siddhanta without making a mess out of it.

What has been made a mess of is his "origins" theory and his paroksha method of preaching by analogy.

The analogies have been taken too literally and some philosophical confusion has taken root in ISKCON.

 

I perceive much of the same, and reiterate that part of Lord Krsna's desires to be fulfilled, one of his goals, was to lay down the complete skeleton for Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur's vision of Daivi varnasrama on earth.

 

So Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada acted as the Cheif instructing Brahmana for his fledgling society, and used the present understandings and capacities of those members of the civilized and orderly Anglo Saxon society in America who came to him, and his goal was to dovetail them from their present evolutionary moment of consciousness by just adding Krsna in the right dose, at the right time, for the right person.

 

As he was at the time the only one qualified to act as the King of Ksyatrias in his society, another role he had demanded that he protect his more ignorant citizens from themselves, and give them what they really wanted, gross material desires and all, if they showed an inkling of submission his way and might someday want all that he really had to give.

 

He was like the most Extraordinary and Exquisite Diamond radiating colors as yet unforseen in this Universe and we became his rays when surrendered to his Divine will.

 

But only by the mercy received commensurate to surrender does one receive the eyes to harmonize seemingly contradicting statements, and those eyes come from hearing one's Acarya's purport to Sastra (from his lips or his pen) and regularly associating and consulting with whoever else represents the acarya in Sankirtana Yajna and is conversant in the Science of Krsna consciousness in one's locality.

 

Divine slavery to such an acarya is certain to result in a loss of ones will to ever do anything but fulfill their most selfish desire of all, which is to always find a way to fulfill either Krsna's or one's spiritual master's desires, no matter how they treat you.

 

Thus the myth of free will indeed.

 

Hare Krsna

[Guruvani]

 

Huh???

 

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

But, the horse is not really a horse and water is not really water.

 

Hence:sleep: Birth of sleepervada.

[sevabhakta]

I like that.

 

A mayavada defense mechanism.

 

Do you realize how cryptically mystical that is, for as we can see it works perfectly as it never interrupts their slumber.

 

Jaya Prabhupada

[Beggar]

 

Sometimes I refer to this as fairytale telling.

Srila Prabhupada felt that kind of preaching was necessary.

I personally prefer the straight on siddhanta.

I don't think I needed to be spoonfed some watered-down siddhanta.

Maybe Srila Prabhupada felt that most modern people did.

 

One of Prabhupada's secretaries, who left the movement during that later part of Prabhupada's lila (to return many years later), who will go un-named here, would insist that Prabhupada did not have much faith in the intelligence of the Western devotees. His opinion at the time was that Prabhupada underestimated their intelligence. Yet, if you look closely at some of the current Gaudiya Math off-shoot sects you will see some Western devotees taking license with the "straight siddhanta". This often appears as minimizing the practices of following the regulative principles and chanting a minimum number of rounds of japa. Yet, there is almost no confusion over Vaisnava personalism and Mayavada. If there is, then it is very isolated and not any more prevelent than it is amongst current new ISKCON devotees who are "spoonfed" the Gaudiya Siddhanta. Prabhupada was a revolutionary preacher, he once referred to his school projects as, "our gurukula experiment". In many ways, I believe that was his approach. His approach was novel, experimental and apparently limited by a short time frame. Yet, we must remember that we never would have even heard of Gaudiya Vaisnavism if it wasn't for him.

[Guruvani]

 

Yet, we must remember that we never would have even heard of Gaudiya Vaisnavism if it wasn't for him.

 

In many ways, Srila Prabhupada lived a sheltered life of strictly conservative Indian society.

He was raised in a very conservative Vaishnava family and then came in contact with the Lion Acharya who elevated his Vaishnava conservatism to an even higher level.

 

Western people grow up in abject materialism and sense gratification.

I guess Srila Prabhupada considered that we were incapable of grasping the minute details of Gaudiya siddhanta because of our dull senses that are jaded from a life of wanton lust.

Even we can look back at the questions that his "disciples" were putting to him and see that in fact they were not grasping what he was writing in the books.

In the early years there were not even that many books.

 

But, even after writing something in his books that his disciples were supposed to be reading and understanding, Srila Prabhupada appears to have gotten the impression that they weren't actually grasping the details and were still coming to him with questions that had already been addressed in his books.

 

It appears that Srila Prabhupada just felt that modern people had to be taught some remedial substitute for the Gaudiya siddhanta on the actual facts of the origins and the fall of the jiva.

He didn't explicity teach the fall-from-goloka theory, but he did seem to sort of steer his students toward deriving that conception from his rather elusive statements on the origin and fall of the jiva.

 

It has been shown though that western people's intelligence might surpass their religiousity.

As such, the fall-from-goloka fairytale has been undermined by extensive study and research of the Gaudiya texts.

 

I am a good example.

I am not very intelligent, but what paltry intelligence I have certainly surpasses my religiousity.

 

In my case, curiosity has killed the cat of the fall-from-goloka fairytale, though my devotional life has much to be desired.

[Beggar]

Swami B. G. Narasingha Maharaja:

(This is basically a paraphrase presentation of Srila Sridhar Maharaja's conception on this topic)

The imitationist schools have been disqualified because they do not want to pay the price that Sri Chaitanya has insisted upon. Sri Chaitanya has said,

 

upajiya bade lata ''brahmanda'bhedi'yaya

'viraja"brahmaloka'bhedi"para-vyoma'paya

tabe yaya tad-upari 'goloka vrndavana'

'krsna-carana'-kalpa-vrkse kare arohana

 

 

 

The creeper of devotion is born and grows to pierce the wall of the universe. It crosses the Viraja river and the

Brahman

plane and reaches to the Vaikuntha plane. Then it grows further up to Goloka Vrndavana, finally reaching to embrace the wish-yielding tree of Krsna's lotus feet. (C.c. Mad.19.153-154)

 

The imitationists ignore this statement of Sri Chaitanya and take the whole process very cheaply. From the

brahmanda

the physical and mental plane, the imitators try to speculate their way into Goloka Vrndavana. They do not care to purify themselves or elevate themselves beyond the scope of matter. They must cross the Viraja,

Brahman,

and even Vaikuntha conceptions before they can reach Goloka Vrndavana. But they are not ready to pay the price of surrender and purification first. In the words of Bhaktivinoda Thakura, "The imitators want the fruits without taking the trouble to climb the tree, so what sort of fruits can be expected? Their so-called progress is imaginary -- a sort of self-deception." Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura has written a poem called

Prakrta-rasa sata-dusini

in which he has given one hundred defects in the imitationists' conception. Their defects are numerous, but Saraswati Thakura has listed only one hundred.

 

 

 

If A + B and B = C, Then A = C. Consequenty it seems logical to conclude that Sleeper-Vadis and their Fall-Vadi bretheren are a form of Sahajiyas or Imitationists. What else can we conclude?

 

 

[Guruvani]

 

 

 

If A + B and B = C, Then A = C. Consequenty it seems logical to conclude that Sleeper-Vadis and their Fall-Vadi bretheren are a form of Sahajiyas or Imitationists. What else can we conclude?

 

 

 

The sleepervadi conception proposes that magically and mysteriously we will all wake up someday in Goloka.

They don't even understand what Mahaprabhu has instructed about taking birth in a material universe where the pastimes of Krishna are manifesting and taking birth in the womb of a gopi to go through a natural sequence of establishing our relationship/rasa and spiritual form there first and then going to Goloka from Vrajabhumi.

They don't see a need for raganuga bhakti either because they think they are already there and already have their spiritual body waiting for them if they can just wake-up from the dream they are having from Goloka.

 

The sleepervadi concept is a cheating process.

It makes things very cheap.

It is just a matter of snapping out of a dream they are having in Goloka.

It also introduces imperfection into the Goloka realm by saying that falling down from eternal life is a common occurance that oocurs on a scale that is unimaginable.

 

I know Kailasa Chandra das has a website where he preaches the same thing.

I don't know if Sarva Gattah is Kailasa Chandra, but they sure have the same sleepervadi philosophy and they both have a rotten attitude towards most all Gaudiyas outside of ISKCON.

 

They probably aren't the same person, but Kailasa Chandra is very active on the web with his own similar campaign to preach the fall-from-vaikuntha nonsense.

[theist]

"If Prabhupada traught something that we don't agree with then he didn't really mean what he said. He really wanted to teach what we believe but couldn't because no one would understand."

[Guruvani]

 

"If Prabhupada traught something that we don't agree with then he didn't really mean what he said. He really wanted to teach what we believe but couldn't because no one would understand."

 

Obviously, many western people like yourself wanted to hear the fairytale version, so Srila Prabhupada tried to encourage you by letting you believe that fairytale.

[Beggar]

Kailasa Candra wrote on his website:

 

If a teacher gives a student full knowledge, and the student still chooses wrongly, then the student is at fault, not the teacher. If God originally made the jiva nothing more than an impersonal spark in the brahmajyoti, how is it that that spark’s "equilibrium somehow became disturbed"? How could such a falldown be the jiva’s responsibility? It would be God’s responsibility if that were the case, and the so-called free will of the jiva would be a hoax.

 

 

If a teacher gives a student full knowledge, and the student still chooses wrongly, then the student is at fault, not the teacher.

This assumes that the jiva is actually qualatatively sat-cit-ananda when he fell. This is wrong for only the potential is there.

 

 

If God originally made the jiva nothing more than an impersonal spark in the brahmajyoti, how is it that that spark’s "equilibrium somehow became disturbed"?

Acintya beda [a]bheda tattva, the "sparks" are alway simultaneously persons although their personhood is being manifest in a latent form in the brahmajyoti. The process of awakening from a deep slumber is described by Sridhar Maharaja as that, the "equilibrium somehow became disturbed".

 

 

How could such a falldown be the jiva’s responsibility? It would be God’s responsibility if that were the case, and the so-called free will of the jiva would be a hoax.

This is why Srila Prabhupada described the jiva's free will as being "minute". If the jiva is infinitesimal, could it's free will be also infinitesimal? One from one angle the jiva's free will is very real, but from another angle of vision such free will is so small that it becomes like a myth or a "hoax".

 

 

[The jiva's falldown]It would be God’s responsibility

 

From a certain angle of vision is would be "God's responsibility" because in a sense the creation of the jivas who have the potential to fall from their tathasta origins and the material world itself ARE a lila or pastime of the Lord. It seems that Prabhupada wanted to keep such a conception in the background and emphasize the free will conception, keeping it in the foreground to encourage his fledgling neophytes to endeavor in their sadhana and service. Thus it appears that Kailas Candra and the Fall-Vadis are pure dualists and not followers of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's doctrine of simultaneous oneness and difference. It is imitation Gaudiya Saraswat siddhanta and mood.

[theist]

 

Obviously, many western people like yourself wanted to hear the fairytale version, so Srila Prabhupada tried to encourage you by letting you believe that fairytale.

 

Prabhupada spoke straight. The only fairytale is in your head.

[Guruvani]

 

Prabhupada spoke straight. The only fairytale is in your head.

 

I think that he saw that most of us were too proud and puffed-up to accept that we are just a spark from the brahmajyoti that got snagged in the Maha-tattva and fell in love with Maya devi and wanted to date the shakti of Lord Siva.

So, because western, modern people have such huge egos and no humility he sort of told a little fairytale to get them by till they were spiritually advanced enough to read the books and find out the truth.

 

Actually, we are here imitating Lord Siva, not Krishna.

Krishna doesn't consort with Maya.

Lord Siva does that.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

"Infinitessimal free will" means so limited as to be virtually nonexistent.

 

We're talking about the limit as N approaches zero.

[theist]

 

"Infinitessimal free will" means so limited as to be virtually nonexistent.

 

We're talking about the limit as N approaches zero.

 

No it is not virtually nonexistent. BR Sidhar Maharaja has taught the free will is the boundary between one self and another. Without that boundary there is only the mayavada conception.

[Guruvani]

 

No it is not virtually nonexistent. BR Sidhar Maharaja has taught the free will is the boundary between one self and another. Without that boundary there is only the mayavada conception.

 

Can you present the actual reference?

I would like to study it.

[theist]

I think you are more familar with his books. It is one of the long released ones not a transcrit or anything It really stuck with me when I read it sorry I can't remember where.