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EDITORIAL February 21, 1999 VNN3119 See Related VNN Stories Notes From A Think Tank BY GHQ EDITORIAL, Feb 21 (VNN) —
Section 5Favorable Comments about Mother Malati dd Excluded by "Ardhabuddhi Dasa" & Why We Want to Speak Nicely _______________________________________________ Months before the GHQ forum started members were already concerned about using imflammatory language. Letter COM:1516991 (46 lines) already had second thoughts about it which is why I posted inquires about objections. Such words simply indicate anger. There is a lot to be angry about, it is difficult to see the philosophy twisted by junior devotees. But simply to be angry is not enough. Anger begets anger. There will not be understanding through anger so I decided to drop it of my own accord. Of course that doesn't mean I going to be a milk-toast. I try to present this clearly and to the point, and as penetratingly as possible. Unfortunately I am going to have to leave the forum because I am simply overworked with other projects. > I also had one other question regarding you being an astrologer: Do you > currently still do that for devotees and is there some sort of charge? > Forgive my utter ignorance, I know nothing about it. Please let me know if > you have an opportunity. Thank you and Hare Krsna. > > your servant, > xyz I have attached some files which give more information about Vedic Astrology. It includes my devotee prices (karmis have different rates so if you tell a karmi don't quote them the same prices), and two essays on the subject, one for the GBC the other for consumers. Let me know what you think. yhs shyama (Text COM:1516991) ----------------------------------------- 5.2 HH Bhakti Vikasa Swami's comments on Mother Malati dd Note that in the very beginning, four days before the GHQ forum was even created, Maharaja guides us to higher consciousness--not for some strategic reason, as "Ardhabuddhi Dasa" claims, but because that is his sattvic nature. Maharja advised us to control our speech because it is natural for saintly persons to give such sage advice. Some GHQ members were not always able to act upon that advice, but since it was in fact our objective, we often reminded each other to adhere to higher principles. Please see Basu Ghosh Prabhu's comments, agreeing with Maharaja's points. Letter COM:1711502 (13 lines) Letter COM:1715657 (28 lines) Letter COM:1714326 (27 lines) That is why it will be important for devotees like BVS to read our material before it is presented. For a start we should simply call the other side "our opponents" or use the Sanskrit term "purvapashin", that is, those who present the antithesis. That will help to keep us more dignified. They are not our enemies, after all, when this is over we will have to work with them. (Text COM:1714326) ----------------------------------------- Letter COM:1714977 (38 lines) > backwards, women-hating, oppressive people who give ISKCON a bad name. > I've engaged in too many discussions with them already. > Tired of it. Sick of it. We can deduce from this that they don't want to discuss, no doubt because they are exposed each time. Thus the obfuscatory invectives. GHQ needs to present a comprehensive, balanced presentation that answers every claim of the feminazis with ample evidence from guru (Srila Prabhupada), sadhu and shastra. Let the feminazis know that we want to respect them as our worshipable mothers, but that they cannot expect or demand respect if they insist on taking the role of prostitutes. From the story of Mohini murti we find that even the demons did not want to enter into stri-vivada (argument with a woman). Might it not be better to discuss with the husbands of these women (if they have husbands, or even if they are on their fourth husband)? (Text COM:1714977) ----------------------------------------- Letter COM:1715993 (87 lines) > I'm not suggesting that our presentation should not be strong. I didn't think you were. I'm not prepared to back down an inch. But I do want to be as effective as possible so I agree that a dignified presentation is the way to go. Strong but dignified. >But the sastric quotes are in themselves so heavy that we hardly need to >add our own expletives. Why try to hold a candle to the Sun? > For instance, using Srila Prabhupada's definition of a prostitute, we can (in > polite terms) question the status of re-married Iskcon women. This is > certain to get the feminazis highly riled, as they are mostly remarried > divorcees, but we can simply cooly again present the Prabhupada quote to > them, and not allow them to obfuscate the point with their name-calling. > > Here's an example of what kind of response we can expect (Mad Radha re > Basu Ghosh): > > > I want nothing to do with these over-zealous, arch conservative, > > backwards, women-hating, oppressive people who give ISKCON a bad > > name. I've engaged in too many discussions with them already. > > Tired of it. Sick of it. > > We can deduce from this that they don't want to discuss, no doubt because > they are exposed each time. Thus the obfuscatory invectives. Again our real audience I believe will be the GBC and general devotees so if they see something nice it will give many devotees ammunition to fight the feminazis. > GHQ needs to present a comprehensive, balanced presentation that answers > every claim of the feminazis with ample evidence from guru (Srila > Prabhupada), sadhu and shastra. I believe that Jivan Mukta and Sita have compiled all the claims and theories of the purvapakshins, at least I hope they have. We can then use that as a departure point. > Let the feminazis know that we want to respect them as our worshipable > mothers, but that they cannot expect or demand respect if they insist on > taking the role of prostitutes. > > From the story of Mohini murti we find that even the demons did not want > to enter into stri-vivada (argument with a woman). Might it not be better > to discuss with the husbands of these women (if they have husbands, or > even if they are on their fourth husband)? I don't that is possible, we have to deal with them. I am just wondering why it is taking so long to set up the forum? Both Sitaji and I have emailed Raktambara but gotten no response. I am a little worried. I recently got an email from a HK disciple in Korsnas who described that scene in very dreary terms. The devotees are very depressed, I wonder how that will effect those that operate COM? What would happen if COM went down permenently because the sysops were disillusioned?? (Text COM:1715993) ----------------------------------------- Letter COM:1719236 (49 lines) > GHQ needs to present a comprehensive, balanced presentation that answers > every claim of the feminazis with ample evidence from guru (Srila > Prabhupada), sadhu and shastra. Let the feminazis know that we want to > respect them as our worshipable mothers, but that they cannot expect or > demand respect if they insist on taking the role of prostitutes. Yes. > From the story of Mohini murti we find that even the demons did not want > to enter into stri-vivada (argument with a woman). Might it not be better > to discuss with the husbands of these women (if they have husbands, or > even if they are on their fourth husband)? Hypothetical. Otherwise there wouldn't be an ISKCON Women's convention at Alachua. (Text COM:1719236) ----------------------------------------- Text COM:1732526 (7 lines) feminists are NOT the people we are arguing with. They are unarguable with because their minds are closed. Our pitch is towards those in the middle, and especially Iskcon leaders in the middle. (Text COM:1732526) ----------------------------------------- Note that only three days after the GHQ conference starts, one member is admonishing the others not to use certain words. Thus, such words were banned practically from the beginning: Text COM:1737230 (15 lines) (Text COM:1737230) ----------------------------------------- 5.10 Meaning of the word "purvapakshin" Text COM:1738358 (39 lines) (4) Synthesis or right conclusion or Siddhanta, and (5) lastly Sangati or agreement of the proposition with other parts of the Sastra. Sangati or consistency shows that there is no conflict in what proceeds and what follows. It is of three sorts:- (1) Consistency with the scripture called Sastra Sangati, (2) consistency with the whole book or Adhyaya Sangati, (3) consistency with the whole chapter or Pada, called Pada Sangati. Thus in the whole book of the Vedanta-sutras Brahman is its main theme, it is the subject matter of discussion. Therefore, an interpretation of any passage, in order to fulfill the condition of Sastra Sangati, must not go away from the subject matter of Brahman. Secondarily, with the Adhyaya or portion of the book of the Vedanta-sutras, each Adhyaya has a particular topic of its own and a passage must be interpreted consistently with the topic of that Adhyaya. Similar is the case with Pada Sangati. Besides these three sorts of Sangatis, there is a certain relation between Adhikaranas themselves. One Adhikarana leads to another through some particular association of ideas. In a Pada there are many Adhikaranas and they are not put together at haphazard. The Sangati which binds one Adhikarana with another is of six sorts:- (1) Akshepa Sangati or objection, (2) Drishtanta or illustration, (3) Prati Drishtanta or counter-illustration, (4) Prasanga Sangati or incidental illustration, (5) Utpatti Sangati or introduction, (6) Apavada Sangati or exception. All these various kinds will be shown in there proper place in explaining these Sutras. An Adhikarana or topic is also called Nyaya." (Text COM:1738358) ----------------------------------------- 5.11 Bhaktin Casey: Follower of Mother Malati dd Text COM:1743213 (125 lines) > feminists). they'd go nuts over it. there are some things we simply don't > say to non-devotees. some of the things on your page are the equivalent of > going up to a member of the christian coalition and saying, "sir, lord > brahma, the creator of this world, has four heads, kindly take to chanting > the maha-mantra." it's just too much. > > ... i'm in dc after three years of living in new vrindaban. before that I was > in the columbus ladies' asrama, under malati devi's care. > -bhaktin casey Here this bhaktin admits that she is recruiting members from among the 'roit grrl movement,' what ever that is... which she herself defines as Radical Young Feminists. I told her she should start a whole new radical wave and introduce the idea of chastity... Yes, if a radical feminist read what I (not me, Prabhupada) says, I agree, they will have a field day. And if they run the other way? Well, do we really want such people to become devotees? (Can such people become 'devotees'?) Here these women, trained by mother Malati, are out there recruiting radical feminists to join ISKCON, and the recruiters of these feminists don't want any of us 'loose canons' to go around repeating what Srila Prabhupada taught regarding women and men's roles in society. How dare we even try to preach publicly that a wife should be 'submissive' to her husband. This is a 'shock' to them, they are appalled by it. But do we want such people as members of ISKCON ? Of course, we want that everyone be a devotee - but, they must take up the philosophy. If one wants to live in Prabhupad's ashrams and call him/her self a follower and members of ISKCON then he must accept our philosophy. It is no different that allowing a Shivite to come and allow him to go on preaching that Shiva is God, and in the name of ISKCON recruits many Sivites to come and join. So, what happens when these radical feminists become bhaktin, brahmacarinis? Eventually some young brahmacari will want to marry them. May God have Mercy on his on soul...He reads how in KC the wife is to be submissive and he sees this nice brahmacarini and asks to marry her, looking forward to a peaceful KC married life. We saw once such brahmacarini several years ago in LA. She came to help my wife baby sit for a few days. The girl was talking about taking initiation, so my wife asked what about getting married. I then mentioned how she may want to read what I have written about training for marriage and learning to become a submissive wife. What? Did I say something wrong? 'Submissive' Wife??? She laughed. No way was she going to be submissive to any man. No way. He had better be submissive to her if he knew what was good for him....and so on. Then a week later we heard she and one brahmacari announced plans to marry. I met this this poor guy and warned him NOT to do it. I told him it will be hell for him. He didn't want to hear it, he was convinced she could be changed....Fortunately she was the one who got cold feet and called it off. But, by not training such girls and allowing such girls to be full time members we are creating the foundation for more broken families, more disruption in our society. If ISKCON's policy is strong and bold and public, that women who join are to be trained how to be submissive wives, then those who agree to join will be of a more agreeable nature. But, if we allow Radical Feminists to join and NOT try to convince them to give up their maya, then all we are going to do is open the door wide to continued social disruption, continued divorce,continued broken families, abused children (abused by living through broken families). --- ys ameyatma das ameyatma@iname.com Chk out my web page at: http://home.earthlink.net/~kgrafx (Text COM:1743213) ----------------------------------------- Text COM:1743214 (51 lines) dogs if you want to go visit their home/office. Anyway, my book contained many quotes regarding the roles of men and women, etc. A few days after submitting the request for a review I had to go over there for some other reason and I was handed back the review copy of the Kanya-Daya and told that IWR would not do a review. Her and her husband considered my book to represent everything that was wrong with the 'old school of thought' in ISKCON. That is how they refered to it, as the 'old school or thought'. They told me that the IWR wanted to project the new and modern face of Krsna Consciousness - namely that men and women should be treated equally. I mentioned that I would still like to place an ad, and although I was not directly told they would not publish such an ad, their response was a lecture about the need to emphasize women's equal rights in ISKCON. SarvaSatya told me that when he read what I was saying how women are to become submissive to their husband's, etc, that Srila Prabhupad was only talking about the old days in India, and that those 'few' quotes were not the real message Prabhupad was teaching. After all, this is a spiritual movement and spiritually we are all equal. To discriminate between men and women is on the bodily platform. And it wasn't just a cordial discussion of differing views, but got emotional about it. Although they did not tell me verbatum that they would not accept my ad for my book, after this I just dropped the idea and never tried to promote it. I felt there had to be some favorable climate first. However, if these publications act as official representations of ISKCON, shouldn't they also precisely represent what Srila Prabhupada actually taught? --- ys ameyatma das ameyatma@iname.com Chk out my web page at: http://home.earthlink.net/~kgrafx (Text COM:1743214) ----------------------------------------- Text COM:1746067 (12 lines) Text COM:1746699 (34 lines) instituting a "5th column" within our own ranks. > Here these women, trained by mother Malati, are out there recruiting > radical feminsts to join ISKCON, and the recruiters of these feminsts don't > want any of us 'loose canons' to go around repeating what Srila Prabhupad > taught regarding women and men's roles in society. How dare we even try > to preach publicly that a wife should be 'submissive' to her husband. > This is a 'shock' to them, they are appalled by it. > >This is the result of Malati's guidance!! (Text COM:1746699) ----------------------------------------- In the following text,Guru-Krsna Dasa expresses concern about unseemly behavior of some GHQ members on other forums, where some wrangling was going on with feminists: Text COM:1751883 (39 lines) From: Guru-Krsna (das) HDG (Alachua, FL - USA) Date: 07-Oct-98 13:48 To: GHQ [251] Comment: Text COM:1752084 by Internet: Jivan Mukta Dasa Subject: DIS Keeping cool ------------------------------------------------------------ I humbly submit and agree that we DO need to keep cool-headed at all times. If we are not careful to avoid Vaisnava-apradha, then we are likely to be destroyed in our attempts to cause positive reform in ISKCON. We cannot afford to lose our few fighting soldiers to the clutches of *maya* in the form of unecessary, exaggerated, blanket, or false criticism of the purvapakshins. Personally, I don't know how much we should even expect to change the minds of the purvapakshins, nor do I know how much we can expect our pro-Vedic allies in leadership to be able to influence them. That is a wonder. We know that Vedic culture is the ONLY culture and must be established. We and the purvapakshins know that Western non-culture is the one within which SP originally and successfully introduced Kc and that that non-culture is the increasingly predominating influence in the world today. The purvapakshins say that we have to make Kc attractive to the people of today, just as SP made adjustments for time and circumstance. We say that Kc is all-attractive and should be presented more and more as it actually is, not less and less so according to the decreasing ability of the increasingly degraded populace to understand or appreciate it. But the atmosphere is steeped in ignorance. Most devotees are neophyte and often self-complacent. Their idea of preaching is to bring non-devotees to the same platform of self-complacency that they have achieved by their neophyte application of the principles of Kc (is this correct?) My simple understanding is that only by our collectively pure and best intelligence, by which we appeal to the intelligence and good intentions of our leaders, do we have any hope to succeed in our endeavor. Short of success, we on GHQ may each benefit from our collective association and information exchange--for that, we are already successful. But for the purpose of achieving our shared goals, perhaps all of us would rather meet with success than failure. To that end, I humbly submit that we remain very CAREFUL to avoid Vaisnava-apradha and unecessary criticisms and unecessary entanglements with the purvapakshins, all of which will cause havoc or destruction to our own spiritual lives. In humble service mood, GKd (Text COM:1751883) ----------------------------------------- Text COM:1756624 (26 lines) to read what is being told about MMalati. I consider her a good vaisnavi. I lived in New Vrndavana for some time as sankirtana leader (about two years ago) and I had some exchanges with her and due to circunstances I had to visited her ashram. I have to tell you that I was always pleased by visiting her ashram. I appreciated the training that she gave to her girls. They were relating with me in a chaste and polite way. There is a chance that I was bewildered by their way, but I do not believe so. Of course, considering all this points do not make me supportive of the idea of women managing our society. I suggest that we gain victory on this issue without the need of personal criticism. We should benefit ourselves by sharing our realizations in sastra and Prabhupada's behaviour and words. Hoping you are well, your servant, Rasananda Swami (Text COM:1756624) ----------------------------------------- Text COM:1762456 (79 lines) occasions - both those within & without the sampradaya. There are several examples: the famous "I will kick him on his face" comment about "Guru Maharaj Ji" (known here in India as "Bal Yogeshwar") & his calling many of his godbrothers "envious". Harsh language sometimes is employed when persons, even after hearing well presented and documented arguments, simply *do not accept*. This seems to be the case developing here regarding the position of women in Vedic culture. In the name of "equality" "abuse" and any other number of pejorative words are being employed by a number of lady devotees in ISKCON to literally "change the vedic outlook", that is so clearly established in vedic literatures such as the Srimad-Bhavagatam, Valmiki Ramayana, etc. and also which has been accepted tradition among cultured Hindu families here in India. You seem to be writing from Jaipur, in the heart of one of India's most "proud" & tradition bound states, Rajasthan. There, ladies cultivated extreme shyness & devotion to the family and household - never venturing in public with faces exposed, for any task. It is called "ghoonghat" in Rajasthani bhasa. So I am surprised that you appear to be like the lotus flower there! Living in the middle of the water, but "untouched". If you, like myself, are of "western" or more accurately, non-Hindu origins, then that explains it. Or is it a background in the "modern", "westernized" educational system prevalant here in India that has made it easier to forget about Vedic/Hindu/vaishnava/Indian traditions & become worried about the language employed by Jivan Mukta Prabhu rather than the concepts that are being discussed by him - without deviating from SP's & the vedic view? As in a joke a devotee sent me (in an e-mail) some time ago: either you (meaning, generally a woman, not in your specific case, [seriously]) are pregnant or not! The meaning is; that either we must accept the conclusions of vedic literature or reject them. There is no middle ground. (a woman is either pregnant or not; not just "a little pregnant"). Yes, "utility is the principle"; but in the name of that, we cannot alter the vedic concept of life! I pray, in all seriousness, that you understand. dasabhas, Basu Ghosh Das (Text COM:1762229) ----------------------------------------- (Text COM:1762456) ----------------------------------------- Letter COM:1859186 (29 lines) But IMHO we ought to keep it as gentlemanly as possible (guess I'm preaching to myself here as much as to you!) Malati is doing 1000 times more service for ISKCON than *** (who is doing precious NOTHING) & ***, etc. Seems to me that Srila Prabhupada would've taken cognizance of that - I speak with reference to the actual history. dasabhas, Basu Ghosh Das (Text COM:1859186) ----------------------------------------- See Related VNN Stories | Comment on this Story This story URL: http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET9902/ET21-3119.html
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