01/16/98-1507

Letter from Nikhilananda dasa

USA (VNN) -by Nikhilananda dasa (see also VNN stroy #1490, 1505, 1390)

Adding remarks/corrections regarding his article "new age" published by VNN (#1490)

All glories to Srila Prabhupada !

Dear editors of VNN,

Regarding my letter on new age quacks and psychiatric therapy, it was unfortunately published without my permission.

Since it was written in a fast way for a private circle of friends I had no time or intention to work it over for the public and due to English being not my native language the letter did not represent my intentions well.

The interpretation given by your commentator that the term "prolonged psychiatric treatment" implies methods used by brutal communist systems to torture their opponents is a distortion of what I wanted to say in my letter, which becomes clear when reading the rest of it.

I certainly did not recommend transferral of critical devotees to mental hospitals. This is a gross distortion. In the eighties I dedicated a full two years in campaigning for the release of Krishna devotees and Christians who were at that time kept in Russian mental hospitals and tortured there for their belief. At that time I went on a two week hunger strike to protest pschiatric abuse by totalitarian regimes, so it pains me to see that I am almost suspected of supporting such injustice which goes against all of my beliefs and definitely also against the beliefs of those who carry on iskcon, Srila Prabhupada s heritage.

The main intent of my letter was to warn from finding easy solutions to personal problems by resorting to new age quacks and charlatans.

What I wanted to recommend was to help those with psychological problems and conflicts, by encouraging the taking of help of private professional counselling, as it is practiced by expert psychologists and psychiatrists. In such cases the devotees need our support and friendship even more. Also, when personal conflicts in any community escalate, it helps sometimes to understand that we bring in many emotional problems from our personal past, so it would help to prevent overly intense conflicts if at an early stage it could be recognized and a more caring, open friendship could be extended by the devotees for the person who undergoes a crisis, instead of resorting to mysticism or to rejection. The problem is probably reckognizing a crisis as such.

Most devotees ( and that is probably why someone spread my private letter ) considered my text as an appeal for more rationality and a rejection of mystified superstition like new age doctoring, which often serves more to escape the underlying personal problems and can bear risks.

One paragraph which was omitted in your publication of my article also recommended that iskcon leaders should try to talk again to those who have started agressive campaigns against iskcon and find out the original pain behind the sometimes seemingly unfair attacks. I recommended in particular that one of the iskcon GBCs should apologize to Puranjana for some of the insensitivity which I believe he experienced from devotees when he was in an emotional crisis. I wrote that this is the least we can do to start going in a constructive direction. And that this is would be a reasonable and desirable display of Vaishnava humility. At the same time I do not know much about the story, so it may only be my limited, personal perception.

My letter was one intended as constructive criticism and not meant to put anyone down. I am sorry for mentioning names. Often I find it difficult to get the right message over in a foreign language. I still hope that we all, the members of iskcon, the friends and also those who are Vaishnavas outside of iskcon, can overcome our communicational and emotional problems and serve as a prototype to the world, how dissensions and quarrels can be overcome by the power of love, through the mercy of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

I therefore appeal to all my God brothers and the others to desist from throwing polemics at each other and distorting each other s good intentions. Let us think of ways to defuse the conflict and take out some of the tension. The world is big and there is enough place for billions of Vaishnavas and non-Vaishnavas to live together peacefully and tolerate each other s differences.

Our differences can only be overcome when we stop hurting each other and start building new trust. And by finding the mistakes in our own selves more than in others. And by realizing the need for integrity, honesty and fairness. In a battle of egos everyone is the loser. What we need is a battle of love and appreciation. I believe it is possible, by Sri Caitanya s extraordinary grace.

In a loving mood of humility in which the possibility is admitted that we may always be wrong in our understanding, there is hope that we can learn from each other, by opening up.

Furthermore please allow me to point out that I am personally not a member of the Chakra team as was stated erranously both on Internet news as on the VNN, but that I am merely a frequent contributor to the Chakra web page, as I have also contributed articles to the Vada and the VNN.

As far as possible I would like to maintain a neutral position, as a free householder who like most of us simply considers himself to be the servant of the servants of Krishna, aspiring for the dust of the Vaishnava s feet.

It gives pain to my heart to see those blasphemed who have dedicated their lives to the sankirtan mission of the Lord and I apologize to all those who suffered from imperfections which most of us bring into the sankirtan movement from our previous past, and that includes obviosuly myself, with all of my mistakes.

Hare Krishna ! Nikhilananda Dasa


VNN Comment:
The above mentioned article (VNN stroy #1490) was obtained from ISKCON's VAST (Vaishnava Advanced Studies Forum) COM forum, which was not private mail at that point, and was published by VNN in its entirety. VNN also stated correctly in the article that Nikhilananda das was a member of the COM's Wstrat conference (WEBSTRATEGY) (see VNN story #1390) which conceived CHAKRA.