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EDITORIAL October 14, 1999 VNN4934 Comment on this story The Ugly Face Of A Disunited Vaisnava Society BY DEVARSIRAT DAS EDITORIAL, Oct 14 (VNN) — Dear assembled Vaisnavas. My dandavats to all of you. All glories to Sri Guru and Gauranga. I am writing on behalf of all the suffering spiritual souls on this tiny planet Earth, who are bereft of the association of the pure devotee of the Supreme Lord. They are already bewildered because there are so many different religions. There is also atheism, Satanism, Voodoo, Spiritualism, New age, Mayavadis, and so many other different ideas, and philosophies that it becomes an absolute jungle for someone to know what is the right path to take. There is also the incredible amount and huge variations of sense pleasure on offer acting like an ever-increasing whirlpool into which the spiritual soul is helplessly sucked into. There the forgetful Jiva is enticed into performing many Countless pious and impious karmic activities, which result in a never-ending experience of great suffering and hardship or short term happiness. The greatest problem however the helpless spiritual soul is facing, is a completely disunited vaisnava community. We are united only within our own branches of Krishna Consciousness, yet we are totally disunited when it comes to the other branches. I know for sure that when I have introduced a new person into Krishna consciousness and represented Him with my understanding of the philosophy, based on the teachings of Srila Prabhupada and also introduce Him to Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja my siksa guru, that upon meeting a Ritvik devotee or an Iskcon devotee, that He will hear something negative about Narayana Maharaja and straight away he will be introduced with the arguing and politics we are all so expert in. Everyone, including the disciples of Srila Sridhar Maharaja, Srila Narayana Maharaja and Srila Gaura Govinda Swami is at times faced with having to make comments and suggestions, which will lead the new person away from the association of the other Vaisnava societies. From the very start a new devotee will be implanted with Iskcon, Gaudiya Math conceptions of each other. The new person (upon his disturbed inquiry as to the nature of our fighting) will be inevitably manipulated by fanatics, with propaganda and mostly miss conceptions against any other vaisnava group and individual, not directly connected with his group. At the same time he is made welcome in his group and everything is done to create in him the conviction that this is the only group, its all the others that have to be avoided. This creates the perfect kanistha adhikari, a person, who unless he can see trough all this and escapes and takes proper association, will end up 15 years later exactly where he started and will realize with a little luck, that he has made not much advancement and that he has stood still in reality, because of blind following, pretending and false positions. There are so many cases, which proof this point. It is the most unfortunate and stupid thing in the world, that ones a person has come in contact with one group, that upon meeting a member of any the other groups he/she might not even stay as a member, but soon ends up bewildered and disillusioned and what has started with enthusiasm and relieve from finally finding what they where looking for, might soon end up in depression, distress and bewilderment. There are innumerable cases, which proof this point as well. Since most persons look for peace and happiness, everyone can be forgiven for thinking, that we are the last people on earth who can provide anyone with any genuine understanding of the Absolute Truth, and I really wonder, how many seekers have already turned away from the great Krishna Consciousness Movement of Lord Caitanya Maha Prabhu, thinking that we are nothing else then a bunch of bickering strange looking people. We seem to think, that we are not far away from being a world religion? There is no way this could happen at present, not even soon. With the way things are at present we are nothing else then children playing and fighting in sandbox thinking we are like adults. With other words we are naive and ignorant fools, fighting for becoming the dominant vaisnava group. How powerful would we all be, if we just could forget our differences and follow into Lord Caitanya's footsteps and try to bring all of our brothers and sisters, vaisnava or just beginning, to Srimati Radharani's and Lord Krsna's Lotus Feet At the moment, we are not doing anything, we do not attract anyone with our quarreling, quotes and counter quotes, we just help to confuse the spiritual soul even further and disturb each other. Like in the case of one Guru whose character association attempt against Srila Narayana Maharaja on "a certain website" was not only totally a-vaisnava but also must have disturbed many of the sincere followers of Srila Narayana Maharaja in a big way. As such his absolutely non-vaisnava behavior has made history, showing everyone how not to behave, especially as a so-called spiritual master. Srila Prabhupada was always happy to see new devotees and He was the personified encouragement for all of us, but here we have the example of a Guru who actively tries to discourage new devotees by openly putting their chosen spiritual master down. No proof, no nothing, just words, designed to create confusion between the followers of Narayana Maharaja and readers. Instead of helping others and totally forgetting that not only devotees read Chakra or VNN, this Guru paints the worst possible picture of a very supremely advanced Vaisnava and presents this to the world. In reality he has painted the worst possible picture of himself, because according to scripture an advanced Uttama adhikari is totally free from the tendency of criticizing others, especially devotees. The point is that if the "as good as god" spiritual master openly spits bullets and poison at others in a less then ethical letter, which is then published in His societies website, it does not say much about the rest of his society and this display of anti vaisnava behavior will push new people away from Krishna Consciousness instead of attracting them. All of us claim to represent Krishna and Srila Prabhupada correctly, yet all of us are engaged in the great dispute of who is right and who is wrong. We are forgetting our brothers and sisters the other jivas, which are still to come and out there waiting to enter a proper vaisnava society as described in the Srimad Bhagavatam. I feel sorry for the spiritual soul who got stuck in between and my advice to him/her is, to become 1000 % sincere and despite all the chaos surrounding us, to try to develop Faith in Lord Krishna, that He will fulfill the promise He mad in the Bhagavad Gita, that His devotee will never perish, ever. In faith so many things will be revealed and the more faith we have, the more we will understand. You do not need to concern your selves with the different politics of others, I made the mistake in the past. We need to be prepared to let go and give up our personal ideas of right and wrong and surrender in full to Krishna and ask Him for proper and truthful guidance on these matters. He will let us know. If we do not do this and just follow blindly and act like fanatics, then we are nothing else then politicians and we all know they can not be trusted. Krishna will not let anyone down, if our prayers are sincere, why should He lead us the wrong way? That is why we need to learn how to approach Krishna and what to ask for and when we ask for guidance our hearts should be free from any preconceptions. We should be prepared to accept that wherever Krishna leads us we will go. Not that " but I wanted this, I really hoped that..." We have to be able to accept that we might have been wrong all along. Krishna will show us the way from within, but our request must be for the truth and nothing else, our search for the truth must be pure. We can understand that our vision can be filtered by our misconceptions and Immature understanding of our philosophy or from accepting false accusations and rumors and we can easily project this unto the pure devotees and other vaisnava societies which are here on this planet at present. The only solution to these problems is to ask Krishna with deep faith and sincerity to protect us from any misunderstanding and help us to find the proper way. We need to absorb our selves in praying just for that and soon we will understand, the answers will come from within and everything will become very clear. I know for sure, that there is real purity and harmony to be found, even so it might not appear so at the first look. If the truth is what we deeply desire, then Krishna will lead us out of this confusion and we become happy. Devarsirat das blissful@bigfoot.com Comment on this story  Contact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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