© 1998 VNN
| EDITORIAL December 2, 1998 VNN2600 See Related VNN Stories Innocent As Bhishmadeva? BY HARE KRSNA DASI (FROM COM) EDITORIAL, Dec 2 (VNN) — Basu Ghosh wrote: "But we were "censured" in the words of a Mataji who has assumed the "moral high ground" and have indeed been condemned by several, without anything more then their subjective opinions." Hare Krsna dasi notes: Here is the response from Bir Krsna Maharaja, posted on Chakra: "It seems that VNN is falsely publishing some statement that the NA GBC has censured members of the GHQ conference. The NA GBC has not censured anyone. Our only statement was the one you already published that abhorred some of the comments on the conference that were derogatory towards women. No one was specifically pointed out." "There are many innocent members of that conference who have no fault. So please clear this up. I am not able to sign onto the web right now as I am traveling, so if you could check out VNN to see what nonsense they published and deal with it, I would be most grateful." Hare Krsna dasi comments: First of all, VNN may have its own faults, but it was I who posted the statement on our conferences with the header "GBC Censures GHQ conference." So if that is a blame-able offense, then I should take the blame, not the VNN. But secondly, I must admit that I am puzzled by the statement: "There are many innocent members of that conference [GHQ] who have no fault." 1. According to the Vaisnava standards taught to use by Srila Prabhupada, women should always be protected -- but here we have a group of men obviously conspiring to ruin the reputations of a group of women. And so far as we know, not one single member stepped forward to say, "Prabhus! Stop! It is wrong to conspire to attack these women in this way. This is not proper Vaisnava behavior." 2. According to the standards we have been taught by Srila Prabhupada the first offense of the Holy Name is to blaspheme the devotees who have dedicated their lives to propagating the Holy Names of the Lord all over the world. If one hears a devotee being blasphemed, there are several choices: to defeat the blasphemer with strong arguments, to leave such association, or to commit suicide. It is striking that among all those listed as participants of the GHQ conference, including 5 ISKCON sannyasis, only one person, Danavir Maharaja, has strongly dissociated himself from them *and* condemned their mood. As far as we can tell *no other member of that conference* defeated the blasphemers, or left their association in a timely manner (or killed themselves, which of course we would not expect). THEREFORE: My question is: In what way are many of the members of the GHQ conference innocent? See Related VNN Stories This story URL: http://vnn.org/editorials/ET9812/ET02-2600.html NEWS DESK | EDITORIALS | TOP |
