Why Therapy and Other Self-Empowerment Initiatives are Bad for Devotees

[krsna]

 

[This was written at the behest of a devotee who asked for an executive summary as to why the Life Skills / Personal Transformation Seminars, conducted by Dhira Govinda Prabhu and associates, are not good for devotees. This response has been edited and updated.]

 

Let me begin by saying that this critique in no way is an attack on the character and motives of Dhira Govinda Prabhu. My knowledge of his writing and knowledge of his service in ISKCON, especially with the CPO, distinguishes him as a devotee who is ethical, sincere, professional, and committed to the future success of ISKCON and the welfare of all of ISKCON’s devotees.

 

Good character, sincerity, and commitment are all characteristics a person needs to truly do good for others and for Krishna’s service as well, but these characteristics alone are insufficient to insure the service is both favorable and appropriate. One also has to sufficiently know right from wrong, truth from untruth, from the perspective of the parampara. Otherwise, without this Krishna conscious perspective, our efforts to help others will at best be ineffectual if not harmful. In this regard, Srila Rupa Goswami says, sruti-smriti-puranadi-pancaratra-vidhim vina, aikantiki harer bhaktir upataiyaiva kalpate, “Devotional service performed without reference to the Vedas, Puranas, Pancaratras, etc., must be considered sentimentalism, and it causes nothing but disturbance to society.” (BRS 1.2.101)

 

Trying to help others without having a clear view from this perspective would be something like a man without medical training at the scene of a car accident carrying on his shoulders victims who have broken backs. The man’s intentions were noble, but his “assistance,” which induced spinal injuries, ended up paralyzing the victims. The Life Skills / Personal Transformation Seminars, like the untrained man who ended up further hurting rather than helping victims, are premised on ideas based modern psychological principles but from a Krishna conscious perspective are, nevertheless, misunderstandings. A short list of these misunderstandings is presented here.

 

This list, with its explanations, is by no means comprehensive, but these are some of the most important reasons why the Vaishnava Life Skills / Personal Transformation Seminars (VLSPTS - and other programs like it) are categorically harmful for spiritual life:

 

 

The courses are billed as being able to help us identify weeds in our heart that we somehow missed while doing all the right things in our sadhana.

 

The courses reinforce a conception of our own selves that is opposed to the Krishna conscious conception of the self.

 

The solutions proposed through the courses lead us away from Krishna conscious solutions, not toward them.

 

The first point involves a fundamental misunderstanding of how we acquire knowledge in Krishna consciousness, and the VLSPT courses rely heavily on this misunderstanding. In an essay explaining how therapy can help us in our Krishna consciousness, Dhira Govinda Prabhu writes: (bolding added)

 

“A common dynamic is that, when the process of Krsna consciousness reveals weeds, we will deny they are there, because such adulterations do not conform with an image of ourselves as advanced and humble devotees, respectable members of the Vaisnava community, etc.” (Dhira Govinda)

This statement violates the rules of logic. If the weeds were actually revealed, then how is that we don't recognize them for what they are? Revelation is a complete package, which necessarily includes acceptance. By properly performing our sadhana, not only do we discover our weeds but we also accept that they are there once they are discovered. Even Plato, in his epistemology, insisted that acceptance is a necessary condition for true knowledge. The process of sadhana bhakti is self-sufficient and does not require or benefit from the use of psychotherapy, however benign and well-intentioned its application might be.

 

The second point is about understanding conditioned, human nature: Krishna consciousness and psychology differ on many important points as to what is conditioned, human nature and what is the self. As I demonstrated in my essay "The Essentials of Reform in ISKCON: An Examination of Psychotherapy and its Compatibility with Krishna Consciousness," the kind of therapy employed by the VLSPTS is of the humanistic (existentialist) approach, and it is this approach that most strongly asserted that any psychology must proceed from an assumed understanding of human nature--an understanding that has no proof but has to be accepted "as is." (Please see the essay for exact references.) In a nutshell the differences are that KC has a significantly darker view of conditioned human nature than that of humanistic psychology’s view of human nature.

 

The implications of this difference are that some relationships and behaviors are considered unethical from a Krishna conscious point of view before they become unethical from a psychological point of view. This in turn leads to interpersonal situations that get out of control before psychology would recognize that they are out of control.

 

This is something like motorist who regularly breaks speed limits. One can go over the speed limit on any given street and not be involved in an accident, yet the chances of an accident happening are nevertheless increased. On account of its fundamental assumptions about human nature, psychology, in its ethics, places the "speed limit" for some interpersonal relationships (like opposite sex relationships) quite a bit higher than where a Krishna conscious world view would place it. The fall down of Satsvarupa Maharaja with a god-sister acting in the role of his therapist is a classic example. It is conceivable that they could have gotten through therapy without having had a fall down, just as most speeders don’t have accidents. Yet from a Krishna conscious point of view, from the start the relationship itself was too risky. Obviously, they evaluated the relationship from the ethical point of view offered by psychology instead of the ethical point of view offered by Krishna consciousness, and in due course of time their misjudgment became apparent.

 

An example of this difference in views of human nature between psychology and Krishna consciousness can be found in the Vaishnava Life Skills/Personal Transformation seminars. Dhira Govinda Prabhu has this to say about interpersonal relationships as regulated in his seminars: (bolding added)

 

“Having both genders represented has been very valuable for students, enabling men to learn from women and vice versa. Life involves interaction of genders, and thus the courses characterize a realistic environment. That said, there may be advantages to conduct a course with only one gender, because for some persons such an environment may support them in feeling safer to do the transformational work they want to do.” (Dhira Govinda)

Important here is the subjective assessment of when the interaction of genders is problematic: when separation of the sexes makes some people feel safer. The Krishna conscious assessment is that people are safer in same sex environments, and that assessment does not depend on how people feel. In other words, the psychological view, as represented above, is a subjective assessment—reality as perceived—whereas the Krishna conscious view is an objective assessment—this is reality, no matter how we perceive it. That’s a big difference, with big consequences.

 

In the matter of overcoming personal difficulty, psychology ascribes to the individual more ability to solve his or her personal problems than the individual actually has. For example, feelings of loneliness and isolation from others are considered psychological problems treatable by a therapist. Yet feelings of isolation and loneliness are fostered by the kind of society many of us live in. In a highly mobile society, people have to drive long distances to their workplace, and their friends and family are scattered around the area, the country, or the world. Communications technology does little to mitigate this isolation. Having close relationships with coworkers, friends, and family are stymied by physical distances. These are things that psychology says it can help the individual cope with, but what will really help is actually solving the problem at the societal level, not the individual level. No amount of positive thinking on the part of an individual can correct this.

 

Another example of problems beyond the reach of individuals to correct arises from the kind of economy one has to earn a living in. In an industrial economy or a service economy (post-industrial), children are heavy expenses. That they are heavy expenses suppresses the natural urge to have children but does suppress the urge to have sex. People put off having children because of the financial burden that comes with having children, and the felt need to avoid that burden creates a demand for efficient birth control, contraception, abortion, etc. In an agrarian economy, however, not only are children economic assets (because they help in generating family income), but housework also has economic value. Mother Yashoda wasn't just cooking and washing the dishes; she was churning butter and providing valuable help that contributed to the family welfare. Young Krishna Himself took care of the calves—also something of economic value (what to speak of transcendentally blissful). In the modern economic context, however, the devaluation of housework has caused deep tensions between husband and wife—tensions, arguments, and breakups that legions of marriage counselors have more or less been unsuccessfully in containing.

 

Self-help and self-empowerment movements are based in large part on humanistic psychology, and thus they inherit this fault of overestimating the power an individual has to correct its own problems and circumstances.

 

To explain the third point, as to how psychology leads us away from Krishna instead of towards Him, psychology does not have any theistic presuppositions, and so when we come to rely on the non-theistic premises of psychology, there is no need to come to Krishna. There are four kinds of people who approach Krishna, and one kind is those who approach Krishna to relieve their distress. But psychology also holds out the hope of relieving distress, so if people can get that without going through Krishna, then why bother with Krishna at all? According to the Nectar of Devotion, even in approaching Krishna, those who approach Him to mitigate their distress are among the first to fall away from Krishna consciousness. After all, once they have what they want, then their relationship with Krishna becomes unnecessary. But an important difference between psychology and Krishna consciousness is that in Krishna consciousness there is a chance that the person who approaches Krishna will come to a higher understanding, but through psychotherapy getting that higher understanding is not possible.

 

Psychology leads us away from Krishna conscious solutions in two ways: a) psychology and Krishna consciousness propose solutions to the same problems, and those solutions in many cases differ; and b) the chance for transcending material miseries once and for all is offered by the Krishna conscious process whereas transcendence is not possible through psychology.

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Dhira Govinda Das (David B. Wolf, Ph. D.). “Vaisnava Life Skills/Personal Transformation Seminars and the Process of Krsna Consciousness.” 23 Sep 2003. Jagannatha’s Chakra. 20 Dec 2005. <http://www.chakra.org/announcements/eventsSep23_03.html>