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| EDITORIAL December 4, 1998 VNN2617 Community Resolves Differences BY RAGHUNATHA EDITORIAL, Dec 4 (VNN) — VARNASRAM - Community, Automatically Resolves Differences. The following is correspondence between Mayersvara and myself. You should find it relevant since he is trying to make amends between the two 'guru' camps of devotees. I offer a recommendation how to do so in my response to his letter to me. This may help the discussion. Ragunatha, Pamho. AgtSP. I don't know why it is even relevant who the other devotee is that I was writing to. What I am saying is what Krishna says regardless of which devotee I am addressing. Do you disagree with that? Ragunatha I am very aware of some of the horrible and ugly things that were thrust upon the Gurukula children and I stand behind all efforts to remove and even prosecute, where relevant, perpetrators of cruel and sinful actions on children. But the point that Krishna is making is actually for the healing of the Vaishnava Youth to understand. The only way to really become free from the emotional hurt and violation that many Vaishnava Youth had to suffer is to move from anger, revenge, hatred, etc. to forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean you approve or condone what has happened, it means you realize the reality of the way things are and you release it... instead of carrying it with you for the rest of your life crippling yourself further. I know it may sound harsh, even hard to do, but being a little older than you, and having worked with so many people, I am speaking from personal observation. I have met people who are still grumbling and complaining about things that happened to them as children. Their whole life has become consumed by an unfortunate event they had little or no control over! Yet they are obsessed by those events. These are usually the hardest people to work with and the ones with the least friends and the most screwed up relationships. So I as you to consider what KRISHNA is saying in that context. His advice not only happens to be the foundation for all spiritual growth but strangely enough it is also the core principal behind psychological healing. I think you know these things deep in your heart, that is why I don't understand how knowing who in particular I am talking about really would change anything. I am simply addressing a concept that applies throughout our entire movement... especially right now. We are about to destroy everything Srila Prabhupada entrusted us to preserve because there are so many devotees who are absolutely convinced they alone understand exactly what Srila Prabhupada wants and everyone who disagrees with them is in maya, nonsense, bogus, envious, etc. To even think that about a devotee who has clearly committed his live to Krishna Consciousness is very offensive and detrimental. It is a screaming demonstration of one's own failure to practice what Srila Prabhupada was trying to teach us. Your friend and servant Mayesvara dasa Dear Mayesvara It is amusing when people assume they know me or other 2nd generation friends because often, they hardly have a clear understanding. Therefore, their advice though both well intentioned and applicable to a small area of our life, prove to miss the mark almost entirely. You assume my life is consumed by hang ups from my childhood's. This is true, but you fail to recognize that much of that childhood was Krsna Consciousness, travel, cultural adventure and yes a great deal of abuse. Asking us to ignore one part of our childhood - the abuse, and not the other - the Krsna Consciousness, is a double standard. More importantly, both have created the complete person that we are today. The cultural, devotional, philosophical versatility we have from our childhood's is matched by our skepticism and eye for bull crafted from our childhood abuses. Part of that bull is the excuses made for past abuses whether in the name of Krsna Consciousness or in the name of forgiveness for our apparent "healing." This may sound new and revolutionary for you, but its old mantra to us. My preaching like, Bhakta ROOPA, is pursued with the same passion as the reform of our movement such as in childcare. You should read Bhakta ROOOPA to have a clearer picture of my preaching. Devotees more often then not are not interested in these positive efforts. Given that Bhakta ROOPA does not condemn another devotee, fewer devotees are likely to read it. Yet, my efforts concerning past abuses is also an extension of my "preaching." If you would afford the time to read my essay "Prabhupada's Magic, Cure for ISKCON Child Abuse" you could better appreciate this. (I will be sending the essay to VNN within the month. Waiting for ISKCON Communications Journal to print it.) You should read these essays I sent you before you assume to know me and my "grumbling" on the past. A better example is the ISKCON Youth Veterans Newsletters and reunions. When I first started them, most devotees assumed they knew what we were up to. They thought it little more then illicit association, babbling of adolescence or at best a cathartic in-house group counseling. Though partially true, it was so much more then this. Therefore, these efforts produced so much more then party animals. It created a renewed commitment within the 2nd generation as devotees as well as parents, lovers, friends and maturing adults. It could do this because these activities helped to define so many areas of our lives with a new and much needed perspective on the strengths and glory, liabilities and shame of both our adulthood as well as childhood's. In short, we created our own community to extend each other the love and affection we needed and the respect due one of such experience as ours. We created a new, powerful sense of community between ourselves just when most all other areas of our movement was disintegrating as a community. Only then, did the older devotees begin to look at our "hang ups on the past" with a sense of respect that we had in fact found something of a magic formula. That formula is recognizing the full picture of our past present and future that naturally comes when we deal with each other out of true affection. I refer to this as Prabhupada's Magic. Read the essay. You will see what I'm talking about. (Yadubar wrote an essay called Prabhupada's Magic II in response to it.) You need to understand this process and this basic principle before you can try to fully understand us well enough to begin making recommendations of what we "need." Thought there is some truth to what you say, it fails to represent the heart of the mater. The point is the process of creating a community of well-wishers that will extend the help we may need as an individual - what ever that maybe, emotional or otherwise. Create this for the older devotees and all these other differences that you are trying to rectify will automatically be attended to. Krsna refers to this as varna asrama dharma which in a nut shell means a community that accounts and facilitates for all members psycho-physical requirements. This "instruction" from Krsna automatically accounts for the process of "forgiveness" along with all other spiritual and material developments. This is what we have tapped as guru-kulis to some small degree and what the older devotees just can't seem to partake in no mater their seeming brilliance and understanding. When you introduce this infrastructure of community, you will automatically have the means to resolve your differences and find your common ground - the basis of all your efforts. Both my essay, Bhakta ROOPA and Prabhupada's Magic will help you understand this varna asrama dharma community. I hope you take the time to finally read them. Raghunatha Anudasa@aol.com This story URL: http://vnn.org/editorials/ET9812/ET04-2617.html NEWS DESK | EDITORIALS | TOP |
