In your attempt at sarcasm you reveal the truth you don’t think you are revealing. You think that your attempt at sarcasm will show that since I post videos meant for entertainment – that my critique of Prabhupada and ISKCON leads to the neglecting of the all important non-stop meditation on “Krishna-Katha” for the essentially evil pursuit of “sense gratification” (Even though it is my experience that many, or really most devotees, especially ISKCON types, rarely talk about Radha-Krishna, and in fact pursue “sense gratification” regularly, but are quick to become hypocrites when it comes to judging others)

In reality what you say is literally true, the sarcastic intent is typical ISKCON propaganda. People should be free from the fear of enjoyment. Enjoying the music or comedy videos I have posted does not lead you to “maya” and it doesn’t anger God. In fact if you learned anything from Gaudiya Vaisnavism then you should be reminded of and see Radha-Krishna in those videos. Who do you think supplies inspiration and ability? A person actually educated – by the Bhagavatam or by a bona fide guru – will know that everything is a manifestation of Radha-Krishna’s design, control, and purpose.

Srimad Bhagavatam 11.13.24

manasa vacasa drstya
grhyate ‘nyair apindriyaih
aham eva na matto ‘nyad
iti budhyadhvam anjasa

SYNONYMS

manasa — by the mind; vacasa — by speech; drstya — by sight; grhyate — is perceived and thus accepted; anyaih — by others; api — even; indriyaih — senses; aham — I; eva — indeed; na — not; mattah — besides Me; anyat — anything else; iti — thus; budhyadhvam — you should all understand; anjasa — by straightforward analysis of the facts.

TRANSLATION

Within this world, whatever is perceived by the mind, speech, eyes or other senses is Me alone and nothing besides Me. All of you please understand this by a straightforward analysis of the facts

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.28.6-7

ātmaiva tad idam viśvam
srijyate srijati prabhuh
trāyate trāti viśvātmā
hriyate haratīśvarah
tasmān na hy ātmano ‘nyasmād
anyo bhāvo nirūpitah
nirūpite ‘yam tri-vidhā
nirmūla bhātir ātmani
idam guna-mayam viddhi
tri-vidham māyayā kritam

SYNONYMS

ātmā — the Supreme Soul; eva — alone; tat idam — this; viśvam — universe; srijyate — is created; srijati — and creates; prabhuh — the Supreme Lord; trāyate — is protected; trāti — protects; viśva-ātmā — the Soul of all that be; hriyate — is withdrawn; harati — withdraws; īśvarah — the supreme controller; tasmāt — than Him; na — no; hi — indeed; ātmanah — than the Soul; anyasmāt — who is distinct; anyah — other; bhāvah — entity; nirūpitah — is ascertained; nirūpite — thus established; ayam — this; tri-vidhā — threefold; nirmūlā — without basis; bhātih — appearance; ātmani — within the Supersoul; idam — this; guna-mayam — consisting of the modes of nature; viddhi — you should know; tri-vidham — threefold; māyayā — by the illusory energy; kritam — created.

TRANSLATION

The Supersoul alone is the ultimate controller and creator of this world, and thus He alone is also the created. Similarly, the Soul of all existence Himself both maintains and is maintained, withdraws and is withdrawn. No other entity can be properly ascertained as separate from Him, the Supreme Soul, who nonetheless is distinct from everything and everyone else. The appearance of the threefold material nature, which is perceived within Him, has no actual basis. Rather, you should understand that this material nature, composed of the three modes, is simply the product of His illusory potency.

I meant in terms of Gaudiya theology i.e. they are held in the highest esteem. Obviously I don’t mean class in the context of the current Hindu caste system. In the authentic vaisnava dharma based culture a person is not supposed to be judged as high class or low class based upon that person’s occupation, nor by birth. Vaisnava culture is supposed to be a classless culture where everyone is respected as equal in the eyes of God. In Gaudiya theology the gopis are a manifestation of women’s roles in the perfect society i.e. the topmost Vaikuntha society. My point was that if ISKCON devotees walked into Vraja without knowing where they were, the gopis would be seen as low class and prostitutes, that is “Vedic truth” according to ISKCON dogma about women’s roles in society. They judge women not according to actual Vedic standards, they judge women according to muslim influenced bogus standards.

Highest class as in “first class”? LOL.

What exactly do you mean by “class” here?

I don’t know if they had a “class” system in India back then, but the caste system existed and the gopis, being cowherds, being vaisyas, were not of the highest caste.

The lives are cowherds are still quite rustic. I imagine back then it would have been somewhat rustic as well.

I also came to similar conclusion.

Padma Puran states –

Smartavyah satatam visnur
Vismartavyo na jatucit
Sarve vidhi nisedhah syur
Etayor eva kinkarah

Vishnu should always be remembered and never forgotten at any moment. All the rules (actions to be performed) and prohibitions (actions not to be performed) should be the servants of these two principles. (Padma Purana)

I rejected teachings of Prabhupada which decreased my remembrance of Krishna. What I found was that Iskcon devotees lectures & preachings mainly contains topics which are not good for my bhakti.

Position of women, moon controversy, guru controversy, SP as infallible, more focus on worshiping jivas than Krishna, forcing Prabhupada mistranslations and wrong statements as truth, insistence on 16 rounds and 4 regs, criticisms of other philosophies etc were not conducive for my bhakti. So, I rejected those principles and focused on what is good for my bhakti.

Devotee is very humble. He does not want any honor and worship. He respects others. If we accept Vedic books, then Hanuman, Vyas etc are still on earth planet.

SB 12.2.37-38: Devāpi, the brother of Mahārāja Śāntanu, and Maru, the descendant of Ikṣvāku, both possess great mystic strength and are living even now in the village of Kalāpa. At the end of the age of Kali, these two kings will return to human society and reestablish the eternal religion of man, characterized by the divisions of varṇa and āśrama, just as it was before.

Devapa and Maru who will be kings in the future are still there. Why they don’t come and preach Bhagavatam? They don’t do it because Bhagavat dharma is not missionary dharma. It is more personal.

Prabhupada did not act as pure devotee. He accepted worship, honor and fame which are against the principles of bhakti. He may be internally pure and his actions are not example of great devotee. He was successful in conversion of Western people to his principles. But Christians are even more successful than him. Even in India, Christianity is growing at a very high pace than membership of Iskcon.

Ability to convert others or other external features are not measure of our devotion. Our internal consciousness is measure of our devotion. This basic concept is very clearly explained in Gita which focuses more on internal consciousness of surrender and equanimity instead of external actions of killing.

FYI: I have been reading Swami Ramsukh Das. According to him, papa-yoni does not refer to women and vaisya. Your understanding of papa-yoni not referring to women is correct.

Swami Ramsukh das never made any disciple. He did not allow any to worship his body. No one could take any photo of him. No one could even touch his feet. He did not take single penny from any person. He did not form any organization. I see these as representative qualities of exalted devotee in sannyas ashrama.

He said that we should accept good teaching from everyone. He wrote a book “can one get mukhi without guru”. In this books, he emphasizes that in Kali-yuga, we should accept Krishna as guru and He will guide us from within. We should associate with devotees and accept good instructions and ignore bad. He clearly said that in Kali-yuga, no person is perfect. He never claimed himself as perfect. He requested audience to hear his viewpoints with humility and respect. Therefore, he never made any disciple. He was also against organized religion.

He also made comments about women etc which don’t seem appropriate. But as he said himself, I do not find anything wrong in rejecting those comments with which internal guru or consciousness doesn’t agree.

Similarly, I don’t agree with statements made by Gosvami Tulsi Das (author of Ram Charit Manas) about caste system and women. But again in the beginning Tulsi Das states that he and his book have infinite faults. He says that he is very fallen. But his book has the name and lila of Ram. Intelligent people will nectar of Ram naam and Ram’s pastimes from Ram Charit Manas and they will ignore the faults. So in spirit of author, I enjoy pastimes of Ram and ignore statements about caste system and women. They might have been even added by other people and Tulsi das might not have even written them.

My disagreement with Tulsi Das and Ramsukh Das does not diminish my bhakti and it is not anyway negative towards them. It even makes it sweeter. When I came in touch with Iskcon, I will feel very uncomfortable when foolish Iskcon devotee will keep on criticizing Tulsi Das etc. But later on, I thought that Tulsi Das has criticized himself even more than what this foolish devotee is criticizing. So, if Tulsi Das was here, he would have agreed with him. Who am I to disagree? Tulsi das wants me to become devotee of Ram. Currently, this devotee may help me. So, I continued associating with that preacher even though he was offensive to the person who gave me seed of bhakti.

Imagine this with Praphupada follower. Will he/she hear lectures and associate with a person who is critical of Prabhupada? Never. Most probably, he will start fighting and create more chaos. Why? They don’t know the basics of bhakti.

Vedic culture can be read about in the Mahabharata or similar books, although you have to be careful, if something doesn’t sound right, if it goes against principles of justice and freedom, then interpolation is possible. What Prabhupada described as Vedic culture can be shown to be not factual. He had the idea that Vedic society was led by a Rajarshi who acted like a dictator, who controlled all aspects of society, enforcing Prabhupada’s theological and social vision on everyone by threat of violence or death (like slavery for black people). He often would use stories from the Bhagavatam or other sastra to prove that his vision of Vedic culture was authentic. But when looked at closely, you can see that usually the translations have been altered to support his vision i.e. either the translations don’t match the word for word synonyms, or the word for word synonyms from sanskrit into english are not accurate.

For Prabhupada, ISKCON is Vedic culture, but not as strict or controlling or racist or sexist as he would really like, he made “concessions” for the “fallen westerners”. Everyone has to follow his “4 regulative principles” or they are liable to be punished or ostracized. There would be no entertainment (music, theatre, etc) allowed if it wasn’t directly and explicitly bhakti related (like in officially sanctioned ISKCON temple society and culture). He taught that in Vedic culture women are fully covered by saris with their head covered, and that “high class” women usually lived in harem type environments their whole lives where they wouldn’t be seen by anyone outside of their family. In actual Vedic society saris didn’t exist (there is no depiction of modern saris in Indian art or culture until long after the muslim conquests) and women were usually scantily clad at best, unless it was cold. The gopis are the highest class women yet what was their life like?

Prabhupada was trying to create a dedicated missionary force who were 100% sold out to expanding his mission. So he mischaracterized whatever would aid in that agenda as “Vedic culture” e.g. women are kept covered and in the background, family life is taught as a dark well one falls into, children are treated like soldiers in the army during war time, all activities not directly serving the expansion of ISKCON are sinful and will cause you to “fall into maya”, etc. etc. etc. The idea was to keep everyone afraid of doing anything but serving Prabhupada’s agenda of expanding ISKCON with 100% of their time and energy.

Prabhupada considered Indian or Hindu culture to be totally bogus if it in any way deviated from his teaching and ISKCON culture (unless it was more racist or sexist).

This is from Bhaktivinoda Thakura:

We Must Think for Ourselves

The Bhagavata teaches us that God gives us truth as He gave it to Vyasa: when we earnestly seek for it.

Truth is eternal and unexhausted. The soul receives a revelation when anxious for it. The souls of the great thinkers of the bygone ages, who now live spiritually, often approach our inquiring spirit and assist in its development. Thus Vyasa was assisted by Narada and Brahma.

Our Shastras, or in other words, books of thought, do not contain all that we could get from the infinite Father.

No book is without its errors.

God’s revelation is absolute truth, but it is scarcely received and preserved in its natural purity. We have been advised in the 14th Chapter of 11th Skandha of the Bhagavata to believe that truth when revealed is absolute, but it gets the tincture of the nature of the receiver in course of time and is converted into error by continual exchange of hands from age to age. New revelations, therefore, are continually necessary in order to keep truth in its original purity. We are thus warned to be careful in our studies of old authors, however wise they are reputed to be.

Here we have full liberty to reject the wrong idea, which is not sanctioned by the peace of conscience. Vyasa was not satisfied with what he collected in the Vedas, arranged in the Puranas and composed in the Mahabharata. The peace of his conscience did not sanction his labors. It told him from within, “No, Vyasa! You cannot rest contented with the erroneous picture of truth which was necessarily presented to you by the sages of bygone days. You must yourself knock at the door of the inexhaustible store of truth from which the former ages drew their wealth. Go, go up to the fountainhead of truth, where no pilgrim meets with disappointment of any kind.” Vyasa did it and obtained what he wanted. We have been all advised to do so.

Liberty then is the principle which we must consider as the most valuable gift of God. We must not allow ourselves to be led by those who lived and thought before us. We must think for ourselves and try to get further truths which are still undiscovered. In the Bhagavata we have been advised to take the spirit of the Shastras and not the words. The Bhagavata is therefore a religion of liberty, unmixed truth and absolute love.

In Western world, women can easily travel at night safely. It wouldn’t have been possible without cars. Since they are in car, they are safe. But if they are supposed to walk a mile or two at night, their safety can be in danger.

I agree with this comment – “Take all these modern technologies away and women are at a disadvantage in society.”

I have a request. I see mixed view expressed by Vrajabhumi. She has regard for Vedic culture and at the same time, disagrees with modern concepts of Vedic culture. My question is –

– How was Vedic culture?
– How it was different from what Swami Prabhupada presented?

Can you give detailed answers?