I have been listenening to your broadcast over few months now. very enlivenening. Shows the depth of your knowledge and realization. Do not misunderstand me. Here are my questions. I grew up in a gaudiya vaishnava family in Calcutta and hence the questions keep coming to my mind.
Thank you very much for your appreciation. It encourages me. And lucky you for having been born into such a family and getting the opportunity you did! Perhaps this is why you are such a clear headed person who did not get involved with the usual diversions of youth. But your questions are very direct and hard to avoid. I usually like to avoid confrontations. However, out of respect for you, and out of a greater desire to not allow you to be involved with a person you might not want to be involved with were you to be clear about what he thinks and feels, I shall take a risk and answer you honestly.
Where do you see yourself in the gaudiya sampradaya lineage? Do you consider yourself as a vaishnava? If yes, do you fall under any particular sampradaya?
I do not see myself in the lineage at present although I did previously. I do not consider myself a vaisnava, neither falling under any particular sampradaya although I did previously. Having said that, I do consider myself a devotee of Their Lordships, Sri Sri Radhe Syama, Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityananda, Lord Nrsinghadeva, Lord Siva, Goddess Parvati, and their talented and powerful family, and I am ready to serve Them all at any moment. If you were to ask for my philosophical leaning, and thus place me within some ‘school’ of thought (although the founder of the school might shudder at the thought ':lol:') I am comfortable with the integrative philosophy of Sri Ramanuja and try to apply the principles of the marvelously integrative ideal of purified oneness in everything I say. But then again, I would not label myself as a Sri Vaisnava since I do not purport to follow something but am endeavoring to uncover the depths of my own existence in the context of the present.
What is your understanding of Srila Prabhupada and his mission ( do not consider ISKCON now, since i, we and all know how watered down they are and self motivated) ?
I love Prabhupada as my spiritual father who took care of me in my youth and nothing can change that, neither do I feel anything should, regardless of how others react to that statement. His mood, his idealism, his personal spiritual energy resonated well with me and I suppose if I can stop being upset (a feeling which is gradually numbing over time), might comfortably resonate with me in the future too. I honestly say I am not a follower. There are many who pledge allegiance, yet do not follow all the (hundreds of) different instructions he gave (some of which when not followed literally were enough to seemingly place one in a disadvantageous position spiritually) but will insist they are his dedicated follower. I do not follow all the things he said and I do not even worry about following. I do what I know to be right for me in my heart and make each decision based on what I think is right without attempting to see if it fits within his idea of what I should do or be. Therefore I do not say I am a follower. I cannot say that I was not influenced by him or that I am not influenced by him now in some way, but I do not identify or create myself in relation to him. I also do not identify myself by rebelling from him, criticizing him or what he has done, or by taking turkey shots at the movement he created. I have removed negative references to him on this site and I must admit it bothered me more than I imagined it would when someone wrote some nasty things about him. You see, love works in strange ways. I insist on my freedom to love and express myself according to what I feel is best for me and how I choose to express what I feel is best to those around me.
It is amazing how some will become furious when they hear such an explanation for they cannot deal with me unless I pledge allegiance. Since their personal relationships all revolve around the guru and God, any direct reference between people without that "absolute" reference point is immediately shunned as maya and rejected. I do not feel like that and do not see any use for others to think that way (including those who think themselves followers) unless they need some excuse to avoid taking personal responsibility for feeling and for manifesting feelings towards others in a personal, face to face and heart to heart way.
I do not accept the value structures which manifested within ISKCON and which transformed that originally wonderful ideal that attracted me in the first place. There are many reasons for this and some are directly related to the way in which the original structure was created, the expectations held towards the members, the values which created the social relationships between men and women, and thus the most important persons of all, the children. I do not agree with the statements on educating children, how people should relate to each other, the attempt to create a cohesive social situation while restricting the basis of society,the family, and other significant ideas that relate to one’s own self-worth and conception. But I do not dwell on this and only bring it up when I see a person could be benefited by seeing their lives in another way.
I do accept that he did what he thought best at the time he did it. I do accept that he did what he thought best very well and with great sacrifice and energy. I do not say there were negative motivations involved but there were significant misunderstandings of what was best for everyone concerned.
I don’t want to get further involved in such a detailed discussion for there is no use. Each person who had contact with him, or with those who contacted him, has a different and personally unique set of reasons for being attracted, following or even for rejecting it all. I try to maintain at all times a clear and neutral vision of what happened and why without judging, condemning or attempting to resolve the problems that manifested and continue to manifest in the product of Prabhupada’s endeavors, ISKCON. I cannot say I always did that in the recent past, especially in 1998, but such are the mysteries of life.
I don’t see a value in being forced to refer our understanding of the present to the past and to a set of limited statements, frozen in time and not specifically relevant to the questions that confront us now. One should have complete and unencumbered freedom to do what is right according to our understanding of the present so that we take full and complete responsibility for what we are doing now without avoiding it by quoting, "Prabhupada said." I know this is hard to accept, but this is how I feel.
We who live in the present are a sum total of all our experiences throughout time and therefore naturally we will reference, as we see fit, those principles, concepts, and experiences we have had in the past and utilize them within our intellectual struggle to do what is right. We utilize our memory as a resource to resolving confusion in the present.
What is your message to some of your students who still wants to follow the vaishnava tradition?
For example : myself. I never got into anything but Vaishnavism. runs in our family for generation and my faith and belief is very strong in Vaishnavism.
I do not have any students, per se. I am simply offering my assistance to whoever wants it without requiring overtly or covertly that anyone be my ‘student.’ In fact, I do not want you or anyone to be my student but to take everything I say with a grain of salt and to examine it carefully with your own heart, mind and intelligence to see if it resonates harmoniously with you. If it does, take from it what you want as you want and when you want. I am not attached to being right, I do not guarantee the correctness of anything I say, and I do not want you to manifest your future according to what I think. Although I will always try to express myself in the most responsible and proper manner I can, the whole point of my message is that you are the captain of your destiny while I attempt to be of service by giving you the tools which I feel will help you steer your ship to its harbor. You decide.
To answer your question: If you feel good about your tradition (as I am sure you do) then why would you take anything I say as an indication you should change that? Why should anyone? Those who feel good about being Vaisnavas, who find that this ideal gives them structure or direction or helps them in some way, should not use anything I say as a reason to change how they think or feel in an attempt to conform to my words. You cannot live another’s life; you can only live your own. Didn’t Krsna say something similar in the Bhagavad-gita: To perish in the performance of another’s duty is dangerous? Perhaps the essence of that statement was, "Live your own life, for to live the life of another is nothing but an active illusion that can destroy your endeavors and bring grief." Or perhaps not.
I always wanted to ask but never got an opportunity. But through this open forum, it is lot easier.
Hmmmph, easier for you!
