Offence–The Blazing Sun Which Dries the Heart,How to harmonize the babaji and GM View

[Ramananda]

Ecstasy Matrix: Chapter 10.

 

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I started praying and chanting. I had to reconcile the differences between Prabhuji and

Maharaja, the philosophies of the Gaudiya Math and the ‘babajis’. Just as one may say that the sun

moves from East to West, they may also say that it is static and the Earth moves around the sun. It

moves and it doesn’t move. I knew there was some explanation for the differences and that they were

only external and apparent. I chanted and answers came.

Why did Prabhupada’s guru change so many things? He gave Brah min initiation to people

not even born within the caste system, and Brahmins wore red cloth instead of white. He even

changed the mantras from those of the original lineage. My mind raced to what Maha raja had said to

a Canadian devotee who complained that his preaching wasn’t working because people in the west

wanted something external to feel they were performing devotional service. In essence, bhakti is just

a change in consciousness and needs no external indication to anyone else. It is difficult to accept

something so simple, people want to enter spiritual life and have something to show for it. Maharaja

recommended to his disciple that he should give some mantras of Krsna’s name, and then when he

comes to India in the future, and has deeper faith, he can receive the correct mantras and guidance.

The devotee was shocked.

“How can I give some false mantras?” he asked.

“If you don’t, then people will go to someone else giving false mantras.”

Better he comes to the right path doing the wrong thing, was Maharaja’s message.

It occurred to me how brilliant Prabhupada and his guru were, creating the whole organized

bid to attract worldly people to spiritual life. If it meant stepping away from the standard rituals of

Gaudiya Vaisnavism then it was only for the benefit of bringing people to that path. Prabhupada set

up hundreds of temples and attracted thousands to Vaisnavism. One may argue that most give up the

path, or even end up being a disturbance to society. If one is going to disturb society he will disturb

in robes or jeans. They have not understood Prabhupada so he is not to be blamed. However, there

are devotees who are now advancing on the path of bhakti. Those people are the ones who caught the

essence of what Prabhupada preached. Many will cling to form. The majority always does.

Another doubt became erased as I chanted.

 

Why are there mistakes in Prabhupada’s books?

Comparing them with Jiva Gosvami’s works, there are undoubtedly errors. Should people

reject Prabhupada on this count? Many have. Again, though, my mind recalled an example to reconcile

this.

There was a saint called Sridhara Swami who lived before Lord Chaitanya’s time. He took

initiation in the Mayavadi line of impersonalist philosophy, yet Chaitanya accepted him to Vaisnavism.

Sridhara Svami’s writings are mixed between the two schools of thoughts. His conclusions are not

completely in line with the conclusions of Gaudiya Vaisnavism. Yet if anyone criticized him, Chaitanya

would become irate. What Sridhara Swami did was attract and allure imper sonalists to the much

sweeter personalist thought by mixing personalism with what they already accepted. In other words,

for them to be able to accept the food of Vaisnavism, he first had to mix it in with the food they were

used to. When they got a taste for sweet rice, they were given it without mixing it with the leafy

vegetables that they once preferred.

Jiva Gosvami himself is also an example of this tactic. He wrote books glo rifying the conception

that Krsna was married to the gopis and later Visvanatha Cakravati Thakur revealed and established

the confidential truth about Krsna’s extramarital affairs with the gopis. Jiva Gosvami and Visvanatha

Cakravati Thakur differ in their writings on this subject, yet both are in the same line of thought.

Prabhupada taught that the individual soul used to be in the spiritual world with Krsna, but

turned his head away from the Lord, desiring to separately enjoy, and thus came to this world. The

truth is that we have always been in the material world. Our being here is ‘anadi’, (there are four

words for eternal in Sanskrit; anadi means without beginning but ends). Therefore our existence here

can end but it never began by falling from any spiritual world. Once you are in the spiritual world

you cannot fall. Only love exists there. There is no scope for forgetting Radha and Krsna, the divine

lovers. The three modes of nature don’t touch that place. It is super-soaked with love. If you could

fall from the topmost place, if you could desire to do something but love in the planet of love, then it

would be imperfect.

Another perceived problem with Iskcon is the chain of gurus, the param para. It seems that

there is no real link between guru and disciple. The mantras are supposed to be passed down in an

unbroken chain. If there is a break in a flow of water between point A and E at C, then it cannot start

again at D. Having accepted that Prabhupada and his guru had altered some practices and given

watered-down philosophy for preaching sake, it was easy for me to accept that there was some hidden

aspect about the parampara too.

 

In my heart I knew they were bona fide, pure devotees. And to give logic to faith, I had tasted

sweet water at point E, so there must be a stream running from point A. Spiritual life is nothing

without sweet taste. An American devotee wrote a paper condemning the parampara of the Gaudiya

Math. He had interviewed a number of old Vaisnavas, asking about the relationships in Vrindavan in

the early 1900’s. He was given information and acted according to that.

I thought to myself, ‘What if somebody asks about me in the future. Most devotees will call

me an offender to Prabhuji, and Prabhuji himself will also call me an offender. Why should he reveal

the sweetness of our relationship to some nosy reporter? A reporter can never understand the mood of

the person he interviews. Only a lover can know the heart of a lover.

Another question: Why, if there were no differences between the great Vaisnavas I had met,

were they rebuking one another openly?

When one becomes wiser and reaches a certain level, he sees no difference and can reconcile

all apparent arguments. The truth is that a young spiritualist needs reigns. Some gurus are giving

lectures on advanced subjects that would bewilder the baby practitioner. For the baby to hear such

lectures could damage their faith in their own guru and Krsna. Just as a mother punishes her teen age

boy in front of her younger son after the teenager had tried to tell the youngster about sex. The mother

calls the teenage son a rascal and then tells the young son the stork story. The young son, feeling the

affectionate embrace of the mother, is confident that the teenage boy has got it all wrong. The teenage

boy however, real izes his mother’s chastisement is to protect his brother, so he is not concerned with

it.

The spiritualist who sees above contradictions needs no reigns. He can assimilate everything

in his broad understanding and he can accept the abuse of his guru when other younger spiritualists

are around who need the reigns. In spiritual life, one-pointedness to one’s guru is a necessity. When

love is there this is natural, but before the faith and love are strong, the guru warns against other

gurus, other wise the baby practitioner will wander around from guru to guru and not attain deep

love for any of them. If deep love is there then a guru may even send you to another guru to learn a

particular aspect of devotion!

There seems to be so much difference in some of the different Vaisnava groups, let alone

religions of the world, but these differences are only apparent. Some Vaisnavas emphasize one aspect

of bhakti and some emphasize another. Some, out of individual mood, are attracted to different types

of service. Spiritual life is multi-dimensional. Everyone is individual and consciousness cannot be

chained to a list of rules.

 

At this time I felt for sure that Maharaja and Prabhuji were connected on a level that the

common man could not perceive or understand. I felt that there was no difference in them. I felt the

desire to go and see my Prabhuji again and beg forgive ness.

I stopped by at the Institute in Vrindavan the next day. Outside the door I found lying on the

ground a small altar picture of Prabhupada, his guru Bhak tisiddhanta, and the two gurus preceding

them. I knew it was for me, from them. I placed it upright and paid ‘full obeisance’, lying on the floor

stretched out with my hands folded. This was only an external offering. Inside was most important.

I prayed forgiveness for losing my faith in them and at one time thinking they were against the real

flow of devotion.

I had learned the direct way what not to do in spiritual life. I had learned. I turned the negative

into a positive. I now knew where the trap was, and realized now that the trees in the spiritual forest

around me were looking dry. The rain had stopped. I wanted it to rain again. I wanted it to pour down

relent lessly on my head.

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[bhaktacat]

radhe radhe! :-)

 

Ramananda, I have just registered here so I can speak to you, but then I cannot send PM without first making 10 posts. :-/ Can we find some other way? - I will try at unity.lightflower.org/

[Ramananda]

 

radhe radhe! :-)

 

Ramananda, I have just registered here so I can speak to you, but then I cannot send PM without first making 10 posts. :-/ Can we find some other way? - I will try at unity.lightflower.org/

You can send me a email at ishvarananda@[dot]com[dot]br

 

Love and unity!