06/16/98 - 1873

Reply to Visvambhar Prabhu

USA (VNN) - by Agrahya das

Dear Visvambhar Prabhu,

Please accept my dandavat pranams. All glories to Sri Guru and Gauranga. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Recently I happened across your open letter to Sri Srimad Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja, describing what seems to be an unfortunate encounter you had some time last year. This caught my eye in particular because my first encounters with his disciples seemed very strongly to indicate that he was teaching something different from Srila Prabhupada, though nothing could be further from the truth. I received harinama initiation from Srila Prabhupada in 1976 but unlike yourself have never done any significant service within Iskcon. I was also attracted by the tone of your letter. While it does present only one side of the encounter it was not presented in a vindictive manner.

As I say I only know your side of the encounter. Experience has taught me there are always two sides. I cannot therefore accurately judge to what degree Srila Maharaja was misrepresented, and to what degree you may have misunderstood what Ramavijaya Prabhu said. But from my own association with Srila Narayana Maharaja I will assert most emphatically that he is not presenting a different philosophy, as many have blandly asserted, sometimes with distorted accounts. Neither is he giving a "different emphasis" or advocating "premature raganuga" or any other such thing. These are entirely the misperceptions of conditioned souls, and I will reserve my opinions about their possible motives in propagating such misconceptions.

Now I cannot properly respond to your letter as it was addressed to Srila Maharaja, not to me. However, I take your letter as addressed to the entire Vaishnava community, as it has been presented on the Chakra website. I would very much like to see my response presented there as well but experience leads me to believe this is wishful thinking. I think that to have some dialog on these issues would be quite helpful, but this brings us to a problem.

My experience has led me to believe that as soon as any person hears enough from Srila Narayana Maharaja to be sufficiently well-informed to have their own opinion, and if that opinion is that he is in fact a pure and bonafide representative of our disciplic succession, there are a number of phenomena which seem to take place almost simultaneously:

1. If that person has made a habit of careful and systematic study of Srila Prabhupada's books, they appreciate Srila Maharaja's alignment with the siddhanta given by our Srila Prabhupada.

2. If that person has previously been exposed to the numerous false statements about Srila Maharaja circulating within Iskcon and the ritvik communities, they naturally feel some reaction to the dichotomy between truth and reality. I have seen this manifest in varying degrees from forgiveness and rationalization to disgust and rage. Certainly those who take Srila Maharaja's instructions and examples to heart will do their best to forgive though they may not so easily forget.

3. If that person has previously had any connection with Iskcon where they received any benefit, even if it is the benefit of being considered a devotee in good standing, within anywhere from 24 hours to 6 months they find those benefits withdrawn. Again, I wish to forego the details including my own history, and to be fair, I can think of one or two exceptions.

Now as you can imagine the above three events in combination can produce quite a broad range of reactions. It is a sad fact that not everyone has systematically studied Srila Prabhupada's books. This is true amongst leaders as well as rank and file devotees. It is also a sad fact that while many devotees have taken great inspiration from Srila Maharaja's association, many of them are not yet able to articulate their realizations within the context of the teachings in Srila Prabhupada's books. It is also a sad fact that many persons have taken quotes from Srila Prabhupada's books out of context in order to create various artificial emphases such as:

A. The concept that the primary reason for Lord Caitanya's advent is to spread the sankirtana movement (see Adi lila chapters 3 and 4 for Srila Prabhupada's version).

B. Vraja-bhakti or raganuga-bhakti will arise *automatically* by following the regulative principles of vaidhi-bhakti. See Madhya-lila vol. 3, the conversations between the Lord and Ramananda Raya, for a very clear refutation of this. There is a very specific statement by Srila Krishnadas Kaviraja Goswami about vaidhi-bhakti.

C. One must become free from all material desires before engaging in the practice of raganuga-bhakti. Some take this to the extreme of saying that no one should hear about rasa-lila without having become completely free from sex desire. See Srila Prabhupada's introduction to Krishna book and especially the place in Krishna book where he explains the well-known verse spoken by Sukadeva Goswami beginning vikriditam vraja-vadhubhir idam ca visnoh. For specific discussions of raganuga-bhakti please see Sri Upadesamrita, The Nectar of Instruction.

On this last point, when should one engage in raganuga-bhakti, there are many points to be considered. It is entirely out of the scope of a single hastily-composed letter written on the Internet. But in brief, to say that Srila Narayana Maharaja is advocating premature raganuga-bhakti is totally false. To understand the purchase price or qualification for raganuga-bhakti one need merely examine the verse by Srila Rupa Goswami from which Srila Prabhupada took the phrase "krsna-bhakti-rasa-bhavita-matih" and coined the English phrase "Krishna Consciousness." But if we have laulyam or spiritual greed, we will practice the basics of saranagati enthusiastically.

This is *exactly* Srila Maharaja's emphasis: don't remain kanistha-adhikari forever. Continue to make progress in Krishna Consciousness or else you may fall down. There is no stasis in the war against maya.

Please forgive me, I am a conditioned soul and do not do a good job of representing my siksa-guru or my diksa-guru Srila Prabhupada, but I am quite emphatic that this is what he is emphasizing: Don't remain static, continue to cultivate bhakti by hearing and chanting in the association of single-pointed devotees. Anyone who interprets this as "premature emphasis on raganuga" is not being honest.

We should certainly focus on the process of hearing and chanting, which is the means by which we will achieve the ultimate goal of prema-bhakti. We should not think that we will attain that goal by our own endeavor or by some shortcut of imitation. But without understanding the goal it is not only possible but quite easy to deviate even from the royal road. Therefore even in the beginning stages we should be pointed in the right direction, and as we progress that ultimate goal will be resolved more and more clearly by the grace of Hari, guru, and the Vaishnavas. The ultimate goal should not remain forever fuzzy; at least, this did not seem to be Srila Prabhupada's intention in giving us literature such as Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu (Nectar of Devotion) and Sri Caitanya Caritamrita.

I would like very much to have some further dialog on this and other subjects related to Srila Maharaja's preaching. I have certainly experienced firsthand that some sincere devotees have put their own "spin" on Maharaja's preaching. Perhaps I am doing this myself, and I am honest in admitting my own shortcomings, but I think you are an intelligent person and can judge for yourself. What Maharaja speaks resonates deeply on what I have read and what little I have understood in Srila Prabhupada's books. And as I re-read the same books by Srila Prabhupada that I have re-read in the past, I find that I am able to put more pieces together in my understanding and appreciation of Krishna Consciousness and what is the mission of His Divine Grace Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja Prabhupada.

As I mentioned the only problem is how to have such a dialog. Probably like yourself I am forced to work for a living and am not very much free to travel. But I would like to help in any small way to bring understanding and unity, at least in spirit if not in fact. Certainly there are many quite negative points I could have brought up here but I would much rather focus on Srila Prabhupada's teachings and how I am increasing my appreciation of them as a direct result of association with Srila Maharaja.

I recommend reading a paper by our Godbrother Jnanadas Prabhu which cites numerous quotations from Srila Prabhupada's books on the topic of spontaneous devotional service. It can be viewed at http://hgsoft.com/~jnanadas.

As far as Maharaja accepting the absolute authority of the GBC, I think that is another topic for discussion, also in fact whether the GBC is a body for cooperative management of a mission or an absolute and infallible authority. Were the GBC to pass a resolution against one of the four regulative principles or against chanting 16 rounds minimum, it would be quite easy to make a judgement call. But nothing is quite so easy. However, there are some points of serious difference regarding the Gaudiya Vaishnava siddhanta as represented in the books of the Founder-Acarya of Iskcon, Srila Prabhupada. I personally have always made the choice to stick with the Srila Prabhupada I know from his books rather than to try to view the GBC as a surrogate Prabhupada. Perhaps this is also how you feel, but in any case I would welcome your response on this.

In closing I would like to narrate a short account based on true circumstances. There was a householder devotee who tried to work within his guru's mission for many years. He tried to cooperate with the GBC, but they would not facilitate him in any way, demanding only that he surrender to the institution. He ended up staying with a rebel group that had broken off from the main mission and their GBC. He found friendship and support for his mission to carry out the orders of his Guru Maharaja, and also became one of the founding signatories when the rebel group became formally established. Even after he left that group and went elsewhere on his mission, his friends supported him. When he returned with his first disciples, he was welcomed and his disciples were treated as Vaishnavas, though others would not even accept prasad cooked by them. Some of his Godbrothers, especially certain GBC members, remained critical of him even as his mission became hugely successful. Other Godbrothers remained appreciative and supportive. Admittedly many of the new disciples did not do a good job of representing their guru. He had complete faith that by chanting the Holy Name and associating with devotees they would become purified.

The point of this utterly true story is that things are not always black and white. Just as one disciple may have misrepresented Srila Maharaja, is it possible that any of us in the past or present have misrepresented Srila Prabhupada?

To clarify, let me spell out some of the identities in this anecdote:

Householder devotee: Abhaya Caranaravinda, later Bhaktisiddhanta das, later Bhaktivedanta Prabhu, later A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja, later Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acarya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

His guru's mission: the Gaudiya Math. Yes, the Gaudiya Math did have a GBC, which continued for some time. Our Srila Prabhupada had some dealings with the GBC which remained with Sri Caitanya Math in Mayapur, which is one of the two branches the main mission split into.

Rebel group: the preaching mission of Srila Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Maharaja, Srila Prabhupada's sannyasa guru. Srila Prabhupada instructed in 1968 that a painting of him should be hung in all Iskcon centers. This group was viewed as a rebel group by the mainstream Gaudiya Math. This preaching mission later became known as Gaudiya Vedanta Samiti, which has been preaching vigorously since around 1945 and is very much a current and vibrant mission. Srila Narayana Maharaja has always worked within the mission of his Guru Maharaja, and has only interacted with Iskcon devotees in the context of fulfilling a specific request made to him by Srila Prabhupada: that he should help Srila Prabhupada's Western disciples.

Please forgive me for any offenses I have committed. Also again let me emphasize that I am a conditioned soul and my realization is incomplete. Therefore I cannot claim to properly represent Srila Maharaja. In fact I cannot properly claim to represent Srila Prabhupada. One devotee recently remarked that he didn't want to have anything to do with me because I'm not "a 100% Prabhupada man." He is quite right. I am not and will not be a 100% Prabhupada man until and unless I am 100% Krishna Conscious. Otherwise how can I follow in his footsteps and do credit to his mission?

Please forgive me and give me credit for the effort and your good wishes that I may better follow in the footsteps of Srila Prabhupada.

Vaishnava dasanudas (servant of the servant of the Vaishnavas), Agrahya das http://hgsoft.com/~agrahya