Points on Moral Choices *DELETED*

[ethos]

Post deleted by ethos

[Jagat]

As usual, one gets the impression from these dialectic spiritualism discussions that neither Syamasundar nor Prabhupad really understood what the philosopher himself was getting at. At any rate, Syamasundar has a hard time defending Kierkegaard's position.

 

The point, I believe, is that there is "real" and "false" knowledge. Just like there is in devotional service. What is the point of following externally rules and regulations, chanting, being a vegetarian, if it is all done superficially, without having made existentially significant commitment.

 

If one recognized that "leap of faith" and "surrender to Krishna" are the same, then one would bring Kierkegaard and Prabhupada closer to one another.

 

Of course, I don't know if Prabhupada would have agreed even if it had been presented in this way.

 

 

[Jagat]

As a matter of fact, I wish that someone would just burn "Dialectical Spiritualism." For the most part, it just makes Prabhupada look bad. I cringe almost every time I read a passage from this book.

 

It starts from the premise that Prabhupada is going to "defeat" all the materialistic empiric scholars, about whom he really knows little other than what he is fed by his somewhat sycophantic disciples.

 

Of course, neither Syamasundara or Hayagriva hung around much longer after they did these interviews with Prabhupada. Maybe they saw that he was being far from truly dialectic, which after all means engaging in some kind of dialogue, not just trying to beat the interlocutor into the ground with dogma.

 

You cannot engage in debate without understanding and even sympathizing with your "opponent." If you are both seeking the truth, then who is the "opponent" anyway?

 

This is the dogmatic Prabhupada that gave birth to a thousand Purus.

[ethos]

Jagat, Hare Krsna.

 

How interesting it is that you understand what Prabhupada couldn't.

 

I am transcribing the whole "Dialectic Spiritualism" book for my own purposes. I am simply sharing some of the highlights I come across.

 

The point of just doing prescribed activities is to "jump start" the soul. Just get the soul doing what it does naturally. Even if one chants offensively or hypocritically follows prescribed "principles of freedom," still any sincere effort will be to his credit. Practice makes perfect. Are you alluding to something like "Why bother running unless you can run like an Olympic champion?

 

One may not become vegetarian "cold turkey," but after many relapses with the will. Even accepting a standard without being able to follow it may be hypocritic, but it's better than not accepting the standard at all.

 

"Leap of faith" and "surrender to Krishna" are not the same. Materialistic scientists make a leap of faith in the other direction. It requires the same type of faith, but without the possibility of verification or any real existential advantage.

 

Surrender to Krishna is far beyond the faith stage, since it involves immediate reciprocal intimacy between two lovers.

 

You're not discerning the difference between dreams and reality.

[ethos]

Jagat seems to think his feelings are evidence.

 

Rather than stay on a philosophical platform, he resorts to slander and name-calling.

 

Prabhupada once said, "the problem with a fool is that he thinks everyone is like himself."

[Guest guest]

 

Prabhupada once said, "the problem with a fool is that he thinks everyone is like himself."

 

 

Another divine fool declares:

parivadatu jano yathA tathA vA

nanu mukharo na vayaM vicArayAmaH

hari rasa madirA madAtimattA

bhuvi viluThAmo naTAmo nirvizAmaH

[raga]

I can see you are irritated. However, please put a hat on and keep the lid on its place, don't boil over. Rather let us discuss the subject matter without starting to accuse others:

 

 

Jagat seems to think his feelings are evidence.

 

 

Where does he say so?

 

 

Rather than stay on a philosophical platform, he resorts to slander and name-calling.

 

 

Where does he slander or call someone names?

 

[Guest guest]

I am sorry. I sometimes forget how sensitive devotees are about Srila Prabhupada and I say things that offend their sensibilities.

 

DS is indeed helpful in some respects -- Syamasundara and Hayagriva often do a fairly good job of summarizing some of the philosophers, though they have their obvious biases.

 

Devotees in Krishna consciousness often prides themselves on having an "unbeatable" philosophy. It is this aggressive sectarian attitude that I find most disagreeable and when I see it in Prabhupada, I cannot say that I appreciate it greatly.

 

Looking back on it, when I joined the movement in 1970, I don't think that this pumped-up, "kick-in-the-face" chutzpah attitude was what attracted me to devotional service.

 

But perhaps you don't understand what I am getting at. Oh well.

 

One thing I would like to say about the above statement concerning ethics. I am fed up with this idea that devotees have that vegetarianism is the one and only ethical principle. It is ONE ethical principle and a good one, but it is very dangerous to think it is the only one that matters. How many times have I heard devotees say that because someone eats meat NOTHING he does or says can be of any value.

 

Read even the simple summary of Kierkegaard given by Syamasundar and you will see some ideas that closely parallel Krishna consciousness--indeed, the ethical platform seems to resemble the adherence to vidhi that you were talking about. But a higher platform is that of surrender, which like surrendering is a leap of faith. If you can't see the similarity, I am surprised.

 

As far as this nonsensical accusation that I think everyone is like me. The Gita tells us to be empathetic (atmaupamyena sarvatra...); therefore we should treat them kindly in the knowledge that we would not like to be treated otherwise ourselves. On the other hand, it is precisely because I know that other people are different that I think we should have respect for differences of opinion, knowing that everyone is ultimately on the same path--mama vartmanuvartante manuSyAH pArtha sarvazaH.

 

I have discussed the Atmavan manyate jagat verse and some others in the two articles and <a href=http://www.granthamandira.org/~jagat/articles/showarticle.php?id=10>http://www.granthamandira.org/~jagat/articles/showarticle.php?id=10. I hope you will read them.

 

I am a little time-challenged, but I will try to deal with the "chutzpah" problem in a separate article at some time in the future.

[Guest guest]

Sorry I wasn't logged in so I could not edit that post. There are some obvious errors.

 

I meant that Kierkegaard's religious platform is one of surrender. By the way, Kierkegaard was a committed Christian, even though his ideas influenced atheistic existentialists like Nietzsche and Sartre. There are a great many Christian existentialists who continue to be influenced by Kierkegaard's ideas.

 

 

[Guest guest]

Jai Sri Radhe!! You are a wonderful shadow to have. Keep following me. Your comments are always appreciated.

[Guest guest]

yo mAM pazyati sarvatra

sarvaM ca mayi pazyati,

tasyA 'haM na praNazyAmi

sa ca me na praNazyati.

 

[shvu]

 

 

Of course, neither Syamasundara or Hayagriva hung around much longer after they did these interviews with Prabhupada. Maybe they saw that he was being far from truly dialectic, which after all means engaging in some kind of dialogue, not just trying to beat the interlocutor into the ground with dogma.

 

 

Here is what Rajan Parrikar once wrote, based on his interactions with ISKCON folks.

 

Note: This is a general statement and *should not* be taken in a negative sense, to mean that all Hare Krishna's are this way. It only suggests some areas of improvement for certain types of individuals.

 

////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

Vidyasankar tries hard to shine some light into the singularity of

the collective Hare Krishna cranium and, not surprisingly, fails. The

HKs, in general, are not self-thinking individuals and they have very

little use for the methods of rational discourse. Their minds work

much like digital switches. They are either ON or OFF. Mostly, I

might add, OFF.

 

I knew the dudes for quite a few years in Boulder, Colorado and

have read their literature, interacted with them, seen their ways

and finally disagreed with them on many issues. In short, I know

what I am talking about when I speak of the Hare Krishnas.

 

Let me first list some of their virtues:

1) Nice, friendly, personable fellows.

 

2) They make excellent food and are enthusiastic about sharing it

with others; In particular, their semolina halva gets a solid A.

 

3) They sing besura bhajans and pronounce them as "baajaans."

 

They have only one vice: They don't know what the hell they're

talking about.

 

Of all the things that bothered me, none was as troubling as their

"our way is the only way and all others are wrong" rhetoric. This

attitude runs totally counter to the Hindu tradition of allowing for

a multiplicity of views and instead sounds more like the Christian

missionary or Islamic way of doing business.

 

I have respect for Prabhupada; however, he doesn't have the sole lock on

the truth as the HKs proclaim. But at least the fellow had some substance

to him (his sense of personal discipline etc). He also had an opinion on

everything ranging from sex to salvation to quarks to Begum Akhtar.

 

The organisation he founded is today a ragtag and bobtail outfit peopled

by a bunch of mostly unintelligent and supremely ignorant dummies.

Ignorance, per se, wouldn't be all that bad if only the Krishnas hadn't

their truckload of arrogance to go with it.

 

HK dudes, don't get hyper about all this. I have some words of advice

for you fellows. All for free!

Learn to countenance diverse viewpoints, debate them civilly and

rationally, read a book or two written by a non-Prabhupada:-), don't

pretend you know Sanskrit merely because you can read it in the

English transliteration, eschew your tendency to argue with the "mayavadis"

ad infinitum ad nauseum, before you criticise Sankara make sure you have

read AND UNDERSTOOD at least ONE LINE of his exegesis ("because Prabhupada

says so" type of argument will fetch you zero points), tone down the

sycophantic praise of Prabhupada, don't ambush people at airports with

your books, stop telling young Hindu couples to abstain from sex except

to conceive (remember how you have had your fun; let people have theirs),

before you preach your lofty stuff practice it yourself, learn to build

bridges of understanding, tear down the walls of your ignorance, cement

the bonds of love and compassion towards all, preach the gospel of love.

Finally, VERY IMPORTANT: Go easy on the ghee. I hate to run that extra mile

the next day to burn off the extra calories. Let us try and do things the

Sattvic way around here."

 

Hari bol!

 

////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

Cheers

[theist]

Critics are often great friends.They tell us things are so-called friends are afraid to say.Even though they may be filled to the brim with their own arrogance, that is not what we should focus on.If we don't get defensive and dispassionately consider what they tell us we will find a great oppurtunity for growth.

 

What is a stated goal of the Krsna conscious movement?Isn't it to become lower than the straw in the street?Krsna is so kind that he sends all sorts of people to help us achieve our stated goals.

 

Of course, when that criticism is directed personally towards one spiritual master or another of Krsna's devotee all bets are off and one should cover their ears and run shouting Krsna! Krsna!And if the offender gets blasted in the process, so be it.

 

Why should they be denied their lesson as well.Krsna is kind to all.But even if we can't give it to them know that Krsna will.

 

Let's look a the post put up by shvu and see if there is something there that will help us grow.

 

 

[bhaktajoy]

Spiritual master is as good as God himself.I don't know why Indians criticize their own spiritual culture.We all have forgotten our true nature as servants and lovers of God.Anyway all this is for our own growth as theist prabhuji mentioned.Its all krsna's mercy.If Prabhupada and God comes before me I will bow down before my spiritual master first,for he showed me the way to krsna.

[theist]

shvu's post:"Of all the things that bothered me, none was as troubling as their

"our way is the only way and all others are wrong" rhetoric. This

attitude runs totally counter to the Hindu tradition of allowing for

a multiplicity of views and instead sounds more like the Christian

missionary or Islamic way of doing business."

 

 

So what can we learn from this one part.One thing is Prabhupada wasn't trying to make everyone Hindus.It is also true that loving service to Krsna is uncompromisingly taught,as it should be.

 

How to maintain a straight forward uncompromising position on the goal of life without alienating those that we are trying to share that with can be tricky.

 

Here are afew questions I ask myself in this regard.

 

How do I view the person I am speaking to?Do I see that person as spiritsoul with Paramatma residing also within his heart, or am I just seeing that his views are ifferent then mine?If I just approach his views,ignoring the real person,then I may be just attempting to conquer his ego for the satisfaction of my own.That is not the Krsna consciousness movement.

 

I may be saying all the right words but is my motive sattvic?Do I really have that soul's best interest in mind?

 

You know in such a confrontation(which is what it really is)the person I am supposedly trying to help is sure to become defensive himself in response to my egos trying to conquer him.Now what good can be expected from such an interaction?

 

I should ask myself if I have taken the time to develop some genuine rapport with this other person.Afterall just because he holds a differing opinion doesn't make him an enemy.That rapport when developed makes it possible for the person we are speaking to to actually feel like they may want to listen to us and consider what we are saying.And if after doing so they still disagree, well that is their God given right.That rapport also makes them more likely to return to the temple,or wherever, for further interactions.

 

The focus should be on sharing the prasadam and chanting.Many people are not so philosphically inclined.Some are.But everyone likes a friend.I must remember that it is by the power of Krsna's attractive nature that anyone gets drawn in anyway,not my ability to dominate a conversation.

 

Please forgive any offenses here, I mean none.

 

 

[theist]

From shvu post:"The organisation he founded is today a ragtag and bobtail outfit peopled

by a bunch of mostly unintelligent and supremely ignorant dummies.

Ignorance, per se, wouldn't be all that bad if only the Krishnas hadn't

their truckload of arrogance to go with it."

 

This strikes me as a very ignorant and arrogant statement.In my experience I have found lots of characters in and around temples.I being one.

 

Yet,even the most excentric among them knows that he is not the body,that God is a Supreme Person and that the relationship between them and God is one of loving service.(couldn't resist ethos /ubbthreads/images/icons/wink.gif )

 

Now how do the big time phd's with their credentials match up against that?

 

[karthik_v]

Shvu,

 

 

stop telling young Hindu couples to abstain from sex except

to conceive (remember how you have had your fun; let people have theirs)

 

 

A good one you have quoted. May I add that HKs should also abstain from preaching mindless abstinence from sex to impressionable teenagers and college kids. Post-Islamic bhakti movement, as contrasted with the pre-Islamic, did indeed develop the terrible Muslim attitude towards sex. I would think that it all started with Tulsidas who ended up portraying Sita as the servile wife rather than the vivacious and warm companion of Rama that Valmiki portrayed her to be. Kambar continued Valmiki's tradition without attaching any sense of guilt or remorse to sex and approaching it with an open mind, as a thing to be relished and the memories of which are to be cherished. With the advent of the Victorian prudes, there also developed a fierce advocacy of abstinence from sex. And sex in itself became the B word.

 

I have never seen such abstinence work in anyone. Sex is not an evil you consciously kill. It is something which becomes irrelevant to you, if you transcend that, in which case you are one in a million. There is only one difference between the multitude who enjoy sex and those who force themselves to abstain from it. The former, coming to terms with it, enjoy it. As for the latter, it preys on their minds all the time, making abstinence an obsession in itself.

 

Bhaktajoy,

 

 

Spiritual master is as good as God himself.

 

 

Is there a shastric basis to this claim? I mean a basis in the shrutis or BG. God, by definition, is perfect. He is perfect in every sense. If a spiritual master has short comings, which you may brush aside as material short comings, would you still call him perfect? The only one who is perfect is He. Indeed He alone. I don't think that anybody here is deriding India's spiritual culture. What people are deriding is the tendency among HKs to deride many components of India's spiritual tradition, which includes Advaita.

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

 

May I add that HKs should also abstain from preaching mindless abstinence from sex to impressionable teenagers and college kids.

 

 

Actually, Hare Krishna's should preach their own beliefs, not beliefs forced down their throats by westernized Hindus who couldn't care less about their religious beliefs.

 

The beliefs of the Hare Krishna's are very clear and established by the founder of their organization. If you or anyone does not like those beliefs, then you are free to start your own organization that preaches the opposite, or whatever it is you want to preach.

 

It is stupid to demand others to preach your own beliefs simply because you disagree with theirs.

[Guest guest]

Bhaktajoy here.

 

>>Is there a shastric basis to this claim? I mean a basis in the shrutis or BG. God, by definition, is perfect. He is perfect in every sense. If a spiritual master has short comings, which you may brush aside as material short comings, would you still call him perfect? The only one who is perfect is He. Indeed He alone. I don't think that anybody here is deriding India's spiritual culture. What people are deriding is the tendency among HKs to deride many components of India's spiritual tradition, which includes Advaita.

 

I don't know about scriptural claims.Spiritual master is transparent via medium and you need to accept him perfect in order to have 100% faith in him.This is tradition so why bother.Nowdays I see hindus in America mostly manufacturing their own ideas.

 

 

[Guest guest]

karthik_v:

 

In the Srimad Bhagavatam, it is stated that the spiritual master is as good as God Himself.This is the reference:

 

acaryam mam vijaniyan

navamanyeta karhicit

na martya-buddhyasuyeta

sarva-devamayo guruh

 

"One should understand the spiritual master to be as good as I am," said the Blessed Lord. "Nobody should be jealous of the spiritual master or think of him as an ordinary man, because the spiritual master is the sum total of all demigods." (Srimad Bhagavatam 11.17.27)

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Already we are overburdened by so many anarthas.There is no gain in fault finding.Some may say Prabhupada used harsh words but it was just to teach us.He was always transcedentally situated...intense love that he felt towards Radhe-Krsna didn't go away even for a nano second.Remember only by spiritual master's divine grace that it is possible to advance in devotional service.

[karthik_v]

Dear Bhaktajoy,

 

I was expecting a reference to the shrutis that says that the spiritual master is perfect and as good as God. I am not even suspecting the devotion of SP for a moment. He displayed great piety towards Radha Krishna. But sycophancy is not needed in spiritual pursuit. Every time we claim that SP was perfect and flawless, naturally someone would point at the flaws in his decision. For example, many whom he initiated as disciples and sannyasis fell down and even committed sickening crimes against children and women in their trust. So, one can very well argue that these were erroneous judgements on the part of SP.

 

I am not a great follower of Mahatma Gandhi, but some of his thoughts have been profound. He said that if something in the scriptures goes against his humanistic approach, then he would reject that. He trusted the shrutis and accepted the smritis only in parts.

 

One of the key aspects of spiritual pursuit is that we don't become sectarian. Sadly, if we look at the abusive attacks on Adi Sankara in the writings of SP and ISKCON, then one doesn't feel that we are above sectarianism.

 

Still, none of this lowers my regard for SP. Just that I don't consider him to be perfect. I never did. I don't consider anyone I have known to be perfect either.

 

There are some humanistic values which none of us can let go off. This is where absolute surrender to the guru can be dangerous, especially when the guru cannot protect you. Is it not a fact that many female devotees were forced to have sex during the travelling women's party? Though SP was alive then, there was not much he could do to stop these acts. In fact, nobody can, if the family unit is weakened. The safest place for a child is in his/her family. Only when there is strong family unit, such abuses won't take place. Often, since the devotees engaged in evangelism and book distribution, the family unit was weakened in ISKCON and that was what led to all these abuses. A lot of the devotees who abandoned the family to distribute books did so because they thought the guru was perfect. Their faith was absolute. Many of them were abused. Had they firmly decided that the best place for their daughter was their own home and not some experimental gurukul or a mobile home, such acts wouldn't have happened. Honestly tell me if those abused devotees, who had unquestioningly accepted the words of the guru, progressed spiritually or got devastated even in the material life.

 

I don't believe there is an express elevator to Goloka. We will get there when we have progressed enough spiritually and it has to be gradual. Till then, be a good humanist, avoid sectarianism and take care of your family. Even if it means going against what the guru says.