Some Thoughts on Oppressive Preaching and Abusive Guru-Disciple Relationships

[krsna]

 

by Bhakti Ananda Goswami

 

HARE KRISHNA !

SRI SRI GURU and GAURANGA Ki Jaya!

 

Dear Friends,

 

Please accept my humble obeisances.

 

Anyone who has been around the Movement for the last 10, 20, or 30 + years probably has heard cynical and bitter diatribes about the falsity of love and friendship among selfish materialists in this world. All relationships have been routinely condemned as mere material attachment, and this has led to a profound impersonalism in the Movement masquerading as spiritual detachment, or 'transcendence'.

 

However if we actually THINK ABOUT the exemplary relationships of the Lord, great devotees and spiritually advanced souls, we can see that They are NEVER IMPERSONAL and express GREAT ATTACHMENT. Their family, friendly and conjugal relationships are passionate, deep, rich and full of transcendental OTHER-CENTERED (NEVER SELF-CENTERED) flavor. Our Tradition is BHAKTI YOGA. But, instead of focusing on seeing KRISHNA and His beloved and loving devotees everywhere, some persons have developed the Mayavadi inclination to see only MAYA everywhere, and NOT YOGA MAYA EITHER.

 

Gurus who specialize in this aversion-therapy kind of preaching designed to disgust people with the mundane world may be necessary for some of the people some of the time. However, aversion therapy or purging the heart and mind of evil contents is not the same as filling them up with the love, beauty and Godness of Godhead !

 

Eloquent but bitter-sounding posts on LOVE and FRIENDSHIP which assert that THERE IS NO LOVE IN THIS WORLD are rather typical of this kind of seeing and preaching. I don't know that this has ever made one person a better lover of GOD or of anyone. One result of this approach is to disgust and detach people from the falsities / illusions of selfish 'love', so that they can experience REAL LOVE. However, if people never move on from the vision of hell, they cannot experience the Beatific Vision of Godhead. It is not spiritually healthy to have 'maya consciousness' instead of Krishna Consciousness. In The Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna how TO SEE HIM EVERYWHERE. So here we have a little opportunity to share our glimpses of Him everywhere. Anti-maya consciousness is still maya consciousness. We must MOVE ON from the 'maya consciousness' anti-incarnational and impersonal negativity of our past, into a body-positive HEALTHY INCARNATIONAL REALIZATION OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE KRISHNA CONSCIOUS. But to do this, we need to learn some things about what has gone wrong in our lives and in the Hare Krishna Movement.

 

It is not enough to read and repeat the standard matter-is-evil neo-gnosticism of the past. There are numerous sites where one can do it, and it is expected and welcome. There are also many sites where specific complaints against specific 'gurus' are being aired. Here I don't want to do more of that. I don't want to foster personal attacks or vendettas (justified or not) on this thread. That is not the mood that I want to foster here. Instead I would like us to analyze what is good and what is dangerous about guru-disciple relationships, how to recognize problems and how to remedy them. Abusive gurus are not just an ISKCON or Hare Krishna Movement problem ! Deceptive and dangerous mentors can be found in all areas of life. How can we find a legitimately qualified guru / mentor or intercessor-savior and inter into a proper relationship with them ? How can we avoid duplicitous control-freaks and spiritual charlatans ? What are the symptoms of a saint ?

 

Can one legitimately use their own brain after 'surrendering' ??? How can we be obedient and avoid being abused at the same time ? Let us discuss these things for the benefit of all.

 

A Few More Thoughts on Purgative or Negative Preaching

Please allow me to clarify a little what I mean about negative aversion-therapy preaching. People should consume what is healthy for them. Generally that means sattvic nourishing food. Sometimes, however, if someone has consumed something poisonous, in the emergency room they will be given a drug called Ipecac, which makes them vomit to get rid of the poison. The parallel to this is the heavy preaching against selfish materialistic life that is commonly found in ascetic religious or 'spiritual' disciplines. A detailed analysis of what is wrong everywhere, is presented to create AVERSION to 'worldliness' in the spiritual aspirant. This is like administering Ipecac to get the body to reject what it has consumed. It may be an aid to health by expelling the poison, but there is no nourishment in Ipecac, and one cannot live on a diet of it.

 

It is dwelling on SRI KRISHNA the TRUE, the GOOD, the BEAUTIFUL, the SWEET, the COMPASSIONATE, the FORGIVING, the PLAYFUL...and on His activities with His associates, and even with His adversaries, that is the nourishment we need for the revival of our souls.

 

I have been on the Internet almost a year now, and have read scores of devotee sites, and have seen that forums are often dominated by those whose heavy preaching is aggressively 'maya conscious', in the sense that they dwell on what is wrong, and see maya and evil everywhere and never seem to recognize where KRISHNA IS. They have relegated Him to some remote place in time, or the far-off Spiritual Sky, and cannot seem to experience His Presence in the incarnate here and now. This emphasis has not come from Srila Prabhupada or our Sampradaya which has traditionally focused on nectar distribution. However, there has been a need to confront the evils of modern Godless society, so our acharyas have strongly done this. However they remained first and foremost founts of the nectar of Divine Love. They ‘practiced the Presence of God,’ and thus did actually experience Him everywhere ! Sri Krishna is present here and now, and His presence is what CAN make us more true, good, sweet, benevolent, compassionate etc. but we must EXPERIENCE HIS PRESENCE TO BENEFIT FROM IT. WE CANNOT BE NOURISHED BY FOOD IF WE ONLY LOOK AT IT. We must 'take' it in and make it part of our being, for it to have its life-giving effect.

 

In the Hare Krishna Movement, some people have been reading Srila Prabhupada's books and performing sadhana for years, and have remained bitter, cold, and even cruel people. This means that they have not replaced the poison that was in them with the sweetness of real Krishna Consciousness.

 

The constant bitter 'maya consciousness' preaching and attacking mood on so many devotee forums shows that this being stuck in aversion-mode is a wide-spread problem. Devotees have also fanatically defended their abusive 'gurus' and have lived in continual denial while aiding and abetting the crimes of these self-deluded and deluding men. The result of all this dishonesty, pride and religious posturing has been devastating. Although I mainly like to focus on presenting my historical and theological research information, sometimes it is necessary to deal with the problems in our Movement. While we should definitely be trying to move beyond the anti-materialism aversion-therapy phase of spiritual development / preaching, to a focus on WHERE KRISHNA IS, INSTEAD OF WHERE HE IS NOT, sometimes it is really necessary to confront a serious problem. So below I would like to share some thoughts on this subject of gurus, their abuse of authority, and what authorities and non-authorities can do to stop abuse.

 

More Thoughts on Abusive Hell-Fire-and-Damnation Preaching

There is anti-materialism and there is positive personalism. These are not the same thing. The kind of anti-materialism preaching which focuses on sinfulness and what is wrong, without moving on to a focus on GRACE, is like the hell-fire-and-damnation preaching of certain Protestant Fundamentalists. It may be effective to empty people of materialistic desires, but it does not feed their souls in a positive, personally healing way. Such Protestant preaching typically focuses on human guilt instead of divine grace. Many persons brow-beaten and overcome with guilt and self-loathing never get past it to the message of salvation in Godhead's Grace. Many souls just go away in despair as a result of such preaching. They may even decide that God, if He does exist is not a nice person and is certainly not worthy of being loved or worshiped ! Thus a preaching focus on hell-fire and damnation actually creates an AVERSION TO GOD AS A COMPASSIONLESS LOVELESS DESPOT IN MANY PEOPLE.

 

What does attract and revitalize souls is the gospel of GOD'S GRACE and CHARISMA (COGNATE WITH KRISHNA !). Srila Prabhupada certainly warned us about all the falsities of the material world, but he went way beyond anti-materialism, all the way to Goloka Vrindavana, to introduce us to Sri Sri Radha-Krishna, The Loving and Grace-Filled Source of All Being, The Beautiful, The Sweet, The Eternally and Infinitely Playful, etc.

 

If we cultivate KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS we can learn to recognize Krishna's Presence in the way that He instructed His confidential Friend Arjuna to understand His Presence everywhere. Krishna's lesson for Arjuna in the Great I Am verses of the Bhagavad-Gita was a form of positive personalism. Krishna emphasized over and over how to see where HE IS. He did not emphasize the neti neti or via negativa path, which is not Bhakti Yoga. The negative path is one of aversion, not attraction. Sri Krishna is the ALL ATTRACTIVE ONE, and His path of Bhakti Yoga is the path of personalism, of attraction, of sweetness and many other flavors of TRUE LOVE. All that is beautiful, good and true, all that is spiritually attractive and desirable, springs from but a spark of Krishna's Splendor.

 

Holy Love in the flavor of friendship is one of Sri Krishna's manifestations of beauty, truth and goodness. It is only accessible to us through the CAUSELESS MERCY AND GRACE OF SRI BALADEVA AND SRIMATI RADHARANI. Krishna pours His Grace out to us through Balarama and Radha Rani, and in this world, the Spiritual Master mediates Their Grace to us.

 

It is certainly a mercy that the Spiritual Master destroys our illusions about the false attractions of materialism, but even the impersonal Mayavadi, voidist Buddhist and Protestant Fundamentalist preachers can be expert at doing that. Bhakti Yoga must take us beyond anti-materialism to an actual experience of THE ALL ATTRACTIVE PERSONALITY OF GODHEAD THROUGH DIVINE GRACE. Srila Prabhupada has left us an inexhaustible treasure-trove of KRISHNA'S LOVE AND LOVE OF KRISHNA, plundered from the storehouse of the Holy Name by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Sri Nityananda Balarama. In fact, all the authentic Bhakti Traditions are an unlimited source of the Grace of Guru and Godhead. There is no lack of GRACE for our salvation, or lack of nectarean information about the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His Associates, and Their loving affairs. There is no lack of people with whom to share the Grace and Love of Guru and God. We don't have to find exalted beings with all good qualities, who are free of all material illusions and desires, to share God's Love, and the Love of God with. The more 'fallen' souls are, the greater is the Grace, the Causeless Mercy of Sri Guru and GodEss to save them.

 

It is THIS GRACE that I want to concentrate on in my own sadhana and preaching...the Grace of Krishna that would cause Him to descend to this world in the Person / Purusha of Lord Baladeva / Jesus to save ALL beings. In our own immediate historical experience He sent His Saint, Srila Prabhupada to very sinful, fallen souls, with the REVELATION OF HIS MOST INTIMATE PERSONAL BEING. Not caring about our rejection of HIM, the Lord comes here and individually searches us out, to attract, invite and carry us back to home, back to Godhead. THIS is God's unconditional love FOR us, that "WHILE we were yet in our sins" He has come TO us, to purify us BY HIS LOVE OF US, THROUGH and IN His Grace, and WITH all His Saints, He WILL bring us all back to home, back to His Land of True Love, for eternity.

 

It is GOD'S LOVE that saves us. He 'carries what we lack'. Bhakti Yoga is about His Causeless Gracious Love, which is the prerequisite for our ever developing any mature love for Him. He has first loved us. That is GRACE. As we grow through HIS GRACE, we can learn how to love Him back, reciprocating in infinite flavors of Divine Love.

 

Abusive preaching can certainly be purgative, but it can also ruin our capacity for love and trust. So Let us share about God's Friendship with us, and how a true Guru, through, with, in and by the mercy of lord Baladeva, is our Advocate with God and thus our most dear Friend. Let us speak of the Holy Spirit, Paramatma, Who is Krishna-Balarama as the Guru seated in everyone's heart. Let us contemplate the gift of true friendship in the Saints and the souls who surround us. God is inspiring every experience of real love in this world. This experience of LOVE is our greatest teacher ! GURU IS ONE IN THE DIVINE 'ECONOMY OF SALVATION'. Every act of true love is a little bit of His Presence breaking through the 'maya' of our separation to reunite us with Him and His community of all the Blessed in this and every other world.

 

Let us abandon the preaching of hell-fire-and-damnation which sends souls in fear fleeing from Godhead, and let us raise our thought, our contemplation up to the lord's Love, and Learn to See Krishna and His devotees everywhere ! This is my request.

 

When is a Guru an Overflowing Giver of Divine Love, or a Needy Person Draining the Love Out of His Followers?

Please share your thoughts on the guru as a receiver and giver of Divine Love and compassion with us. This is the kind of 'revealing our hearts' that devotees should be encouraged to do, and which I have prayed that we could do on various forums.

 

Devotees write to me personally and usually don't post on groups to me about their realizations of Krishna's Love, and Loving Krishna and His creatures and associates. They are afraid to honestly discuss how they have been and are still being emotionally and physically abused by some of what I call NEEDY gurus. This is because they have been oppressed so long by the powers of false renunciation and impersonal love-lessness in the Name of Guru and Gauranga, that they are afraid to even discuss real love and its abuse publicly.

 

'Love' has been made a dirty word to them. They have been told "You are in maya, Prabhu !" about 'love' so many times, or seen this blanket damnation inflicted on others so much, that they are actually afraid to deal with their own authentic God-given feelings of love, what to speak of sharing those feelings with others. Thus it now takes a brave soul to speak up about LOVE in a Vaishnava forum where they are likely to be attacked.

 

'Love' has been wielded like a weapon by sexist men to condemn loving men and women as foolish sentimentalists in the Movement. Women, knowing that children raised without spontaneous natural HOLY human love grow up to be disordered and even dangerous people, have been fighting the battle against love-lessness in the Hare Krishna Movement for decades. Recently I have been accused of being 'politically correct' by appealing to the sentimentality of women and 'weak-minded' men because I preach about LOVE. It is a fact that on the subject of LOVE, I am definitely on the side of naturally and spontaneously affectionate and compassionate men, women and children. I think that impersonal lovelessness and thus a lack of true compassion has severely injured many souls who have come to Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai for shelter. How has such a thing happened ?

 

Thoughts on the Pathology of Lovelessness in Religious Movements

Let us consider the basic pathology behind this. Why have some FALSE religious leaders (NOT JUST IN THE HARE KRISHNA MOVEMENT, BUT MANY 'CULT' LEADERS) trained their disciples to root-out or deny all of their feelings of love and compassion for OTHER persons in this world ? At the same time they say love is only from and for God, or Sri Krishna, WHICH IS TRUE, but they say that THEY are ( in this world), the SOLE REPRESENTATIVES or founts of such love, and the only proper focus of such love. This means that their disciples will withdraw from all un-guru-controlled loving exchanges with parents, spouses, siblings, children, friends...in short, their disciples will focus all their need to love, and to be loved on the guru and his agents alone. Thus the needy guru desires the exclusive devotion of his / her disciple not for / on behalf of the Lord, but rather to fulfill his own insatiable appetite for 'love' in the form of service, name, fame and adoration etc.

 

The pathologically controlling false gurus will allow 'love' as defined and controlled by them alone. Such Love will be in books and Murti worship, in guru seva (service) and slavish master/servant-rasa guru worship, but nowhere else where it may actually threaten their own exclusive control and service. In this way, false gurus consume and control the love of their disciples OUT OF ENVY OF GOD'S RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER BEINGS, AND GODLY LOVING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN OTHER BEINGS.

 

A real guru is not envious, and therefore does not need to consume and control all the love of his / her disciples. Such a non-envious guru is not threatened by 'losing' disciples to marriage, or other family or educational or career needs, but rather sees that KRISHNA IS ATTRACTING VARIOUS PERSONS TO SERVE HIM IN VARIOUS WAYS. The real guru WANTS TO SERVE HIS/HER DISCIPLES, not to consume them.

 

However, the false guru will 'spiritually' intimidate and manipulate his /her disciples into focusing all their love and service on himself / herself as the 'via media' of God. They may do this directly, or may even live vicariously off of the service and love given to God in "THEIR TEMPLES" or under their direction. The true guru however IS a via media of God, but is atma-rama / self-satisfied and thus non-envious of God and His other devotees. The false guru is expert at the emotional / affective control of others, and can't stand for anyone to have relationships outside of his / her control. The true guru wants to encourage and actually EMPOWER love among all beings !

 

The false guru is a glutton whose insatiable appetite to consume the lives, love and energies of others compels him to commit spiritual blackmail and protection racketeering. Under threat of 'aparadha' and separation from God (or hell-fire and damnation) the false guru frightens devotees into unnatural impersonal behavior and even adharmic and sinful acts, like abandoning their wives and children. Such gurus play the protection racket by promising salvation or spiritual (and emotional and material) shelter for the devotees and/or their families. In this way the false gurus get absolute control over the affective and moral lives of their disciples. Devotees trained by such persons may eventually become isolated from their non-guru-controlled families and friends and increasingly affectively and morally confused and then anesthetized and cold-hearted themselves.

 

Since the real gurus are not envious of the relationship between Krishna and other beings, they don't feel compelled to either enjoy or control everyone else's relationships. Real gurus are not threatened by love focused somewhere else than themselves (directly or indirectly / vicariously). Thus they are not forced to deny or diabolize it.

 

I have been getting some negative feedback about my 'sentimental love preaching' on various forums, but many other devotees have privately written to express their great appreciation for what they rightly perceive as my effort to liberate the real, spontaneous love that has been long stifled in the lives of many Vaishnavas, due to the envious abusive preaching and example of some of these false leaders. To me it is as though a great fire of God's Love, and Love-of-God was kindled by Srila Prabhupada, and then some love-less autistic ego-centrists came along and tried to put that fire out. They tried to collect all the devotees’ love for themselves and covered their impersonalism with false renunciation. They put out the fire of love with the fire-fighting foam of technical shastra-ism and pseudo-religiosity, and tried to smother real love for God and anyone else (Krishna's beloved beings in this world and elsewhere) out of the hearts of the devotees under their control.

 

These people could see no love anywhere, because they were devoid of the desire to truly love. Misery loving company. They tried to teach their own love-less-ness to others under the guise of holy detachment and a perverse 'spiritual' superiority. This left many devotees deeply confused about their relationship to Krishna and other beings. The deeply pathological over-control of the unqualified 'gurus' in the Movement has caused grave harm to many souls. This control has not prevented evils, but has instead fostered evils in the Name of Guru and Gauranga. It has taken away the healthy affective and moral responsiveness of devotees, and replaced these with cold-hearted blind following.

 

For a long time the cold-hearted reciters of scriptures have told us that there is no love or compassion here, and that all is reducible to materially motivated attachment and sentimentality. These cold-hearted persons can go from worshiping GURU, TULASI and SRI MURTI and CHANTING ROUNDS, giving great classes, and reading about the loving pastimes of the Lord's compassionate devotees, to the most cruel mistreatment of real-live human beings and other creatures 'in a heartbeat'. I have seen this many times, and have met many devotees who have left the movement because of these heartless experts of 'Bhakti Yoga', who foolishly imagine that it IS POSSIBLE to love GOD without loving anyone else.

 

They cannot stand to hear the word 'love' used in the context of family or friends or pets or anywhere except in books or other places WHERE IT DOES NOT THREATEN THEM. These people have all but destroyed the Hare Krishna Movement by hijacking and consuming all the love of 'their' devotees for decades. It is my conviction that devotees under this spell must be liberated to love again, and that such empowerment will unleash a conflagration of divine love that will sweep over the face of the Earth, burning-up all forms of loveless impersonalism and voidism in its path.

 

This revival of our ability to love must begin in our own lives. We must refuse to be controlled by envious self-centered persons masquerading as spiritual authorities. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s NON-SECTARIAN MISSION is not meant to enslave humankind, but to free humanity from slavery to the false gods of the loveless, envious world ! Let us take hold of this mercy to love and be loved through, with, in, and by the Love and Compassion of Sri Sri Guru and Gauranga, and in doing so, let us then go out and liberate all others whose love has been hijacked by the envious false-gods of 'the world'!

 

The Love of many devotees has been hidden like a shameful thing in the closet of 'spiritual' denial since our LOVING AND NON ENVIOUS GURUDEVA SRILA PRABHUPADA DISAPPEARED. Let these devotees 'come out' and express their love to each other and all creatures ! Krishna is not envious, the true gurus cannot be offended, and WANT US TO INCREASE OUR LOVE FOR SRI KRISHNA AND ALL BEINGS. So let REAL SPONTANEOUS LOVE flow in all its flavors.....it is from Sri Sri Radha-Krishna and Baladeva and Their Associates, and THEY WANT US TO SHARE IT WITH EACH OTHER, OFFERING IT BACK TO THEM THROUGH OUR PRACTICE OF BHAKTI YOGA.

 

May we all become fearless in loving today, and grow in the perfection of Godhead's Love at every moment ! Amen Aum and Hare Krishna !

 

aspiring to love all souls in the Divine Love of Sri Sri Guru and Gauranga,

 

your aspiring servant, Bhakti Ananda Goswami

 

[Kulapavana]

I agree with his views for the most part, but I dont think he is going far enough in his conclusions.

 

---------------------

"I have been on the Internet almost a year now, and have read scores of devotee sites, and have seen that forums are often dominated by those whose heavy preaching is aggressively 'maya conscious', in the sense that they dwell on what is wrong, and see maya and evil everywhere and never seem to recognize where KRISHNA IS. They have relegated Him to some remote place in time, or the far-off Spiritual Sky, and cannot seem to experience His Presence in the incarnate here and now. This emphasis has not come from Srila Prabhupada or our Sampradaya which has traditionally focused on nectar distribution."

--------------------------

 

that is only partly true. SP was always very heavy in his criticism of the material world - but he also gave people Krishna. His disciples simply imitate the criticism part, while unable to deliver Krishna consciousness. BA Goswami wants to change that, but without addressing this issue his analysis is incomplete.

[Guest guest]

"We do not wish to be estranged from the material world. That is another nonsense. We have to deal with persons in the society & perhaps we are the only community in the world which can render the best service possible to the society."

 

Letter from Srila Prabhupada, 17/10/67

[Kulapavana]

if you read the early writings of SP (including those from pre-NY times), you will see a very sober approach to society and our role in it.

[som]

Srila Prabhupada's lectures books etc. is the perfect example of developing positive Krishna consciousness and removing the negative maya consciousness simultaneously.

 

Better to stress on the positive side rather than on the negative side - The best example Srila Prabhupada chanting 'Hare Krishna' Mahaamantra first and asking people to do the same.

 

Later when the people were ready he asked them to give up the negative Maayaa consciousness.

 

As Krishna says: Param Drshtva Nivartate!

[Guest guest]

Remember Prabhupada's letter to Lynne Ludwig ("Protecting Oneself from Illusion")? He asked Ms. Ludwig to please forgive his disciples' immaturity.

 

"The devotee whose life is surrendered to Krsna is always enjoying 'great satisfaction and bliss,' and he is constantly enlightened, always positive, not negative, as you say."

 

It's a beautiful letter and very instructive. I'm always negative, so I have nothing to say; but the ideal devotee is full of love and compassion.

[Kulapavana]

"Remember Prabhupada's letter to Lynne Ludwig ("Protecting Oneself from Illusion")? He asked Ms. Ludwig to please forgive his disciples' immaturity."

 

after almost 40 years that excuse should no longer be allowed to float around... /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Guest guest]

I'll NEVER get out of Maya. There's no hope. Please bless me.

[Kulapavana]

don't try to be funny /images/graemlins/wink.gif

... we are talking about the leaders of this movement here (see top of the thread) acting in the position of gurus. you cant be accepting disciples and still use the immaturity excuse for yourself. this excuse is reserved for schmucks like me, fighting maya in the mud of the trenches of every day life... from leaders, we expect maturity, clear vision and exemplary life.

[Guest guest]

That is why I always wonder why people hate the ritviks so much. Even though I am not a Hare Krishna I don't see what is so big a deal about the ritviks if in the Kali-yuga it is best not to accept disciples. Seems like the ritvik situation is nice solution when so many of the gurus have problems.

 

 

- D.B. Cooper Jr.

[Kulapavana]

...are not solutions. unqualified ritvik gurus are just as bad as unqualified regular gurus. you think being called a ritvik-guru would have stopped Kirtanananda's delusions? such arguments are bogus.

 

lately, Gaudiyas placed too much emphasis on the tantric side of guru-tattva (mystical connection and mystical power), and nowhere near enough emphasis on the vedic side (knowledge, discipline, austerity). out of such imbalance troubles are guaranteed to arise...

[Guest guest]

At least that Kirtananda character wouldn't have been put on the same platform as Srila Prabhupada. Probably wouldn't have stopped the sheep from following him so you are right the damage would have been done one way or another.

 

 

- D.B. Cooper Jr.