Krishna’s Truth

On Pandu’s blog I saw a comment by Praghosa Das, not the GBC, the famous book distributor, about this blog. He writes:

When I heard of all the dust up generated by one simple brahmacari’s maintaining a website to discuss the perils of womanly association and sex life by citing Srila Prabhupada’s counsel on all that – and that a segment of matajis actually objected to this – I could only think that all the statements Srila Prabhupada had made regarding the deficient long term intelligence of the fair sex – were once again being proven to be “Totally True” by a small but radically vocal group of women who assumed that their objections and complaints would be valued by women who were indeed valued as wives, daughters and mothers! They went public with their complaints – and openly decried the teachings and guidance of Srila Prabhupada on these particular matters – expecting the avid support of the above “protected” women. But all they have accomplished is to identify themselves as unfit for marriage and motherhood and will find themselves forced to find employement of some kind in the world – slaving in the service of profit seeking business owners – or they will become profit seeking businesswomen themselves – able perhaps to “make groceries” but will grow old without family about them.

This guy is a laugh riot. His logical reasoning is that if a woman disagrees with Prabhupada’s statement that women are less intelligent than men (due to smaller brain) that that disagreement with Prabhupada proves Prabhupada is right. How about our disagreement with Prabhupada that there are many actual women scientists, mathematicians, philosophers – when he says there isn’t a single one? What does that prove in Praghosa logical theory?

He also claims that if women disagree with Prabhupada that they are unfit to be married and have children and will end up alone, slaving for money and growing old without any family!

This is the kind of lunacy that can happen to devotees when they accept Prabhupada as infallible and that any disagreement with Prabhupada will cause God to punish you. Praghosa is so delusional that he doesn’t stop to realize that over 99% of the women in the world do not accept Prabhupada as authoritative. Many of them seem to be living comfortable lives with husbands and plenty of children and family support. Nor does he realize that in India where many people do have the same views as Prabhupada – women are on the average much worse off than the average women in the west or far east who do not accept Prabhupada’s views on a woman’s place. Where is it better to be a widow? Where are women better taken care of by society in general? The further you get away from Prabhupada’s views on women in a society the better off women are in society. This is simply an indisputable fact. Women are far better off in Europe, North America, and Japan than the rest of the world. Those places are where women are least like what Prabhupada demands women to be like. The place where women are most like what Prabhupada wants – Islamic countries and India – the women there are far less protected and far more in danger than in those countries which reject Prabhupada’s teachings on women the most.

Praghosa then wrote;

Debating the veracity or relevance of Lord Krsna’s referring to all of us – Kali Yuga Sudras, Women or Merchants – as “papa yoni” – Lower Born – instead of HEARING AS TOTALLY TRUE HIS most elegant and encouraging announcement – “O son of Prtha, those who take shelter in Me, though they be of lower birth–women, vaisyas [merchants], as well as sudras [workers]–can approach the supreme destination” is just the most obvious demonstration of the ill-effects of that sinful birth – obscuring the true point of the Lord making the statement in the first place!

Anyone – woman or man – if they had ANY piety at all – would see EXACTLY what the Lord is glorifying in the above verse – the effect of devotional service and its universal availability to everyone – man – woman – child – “even a dog can take part”.

Krishna isn’t referring to everyone as papa-yoni. He is saying that those of low birth (outside of varnashrama), sudras, vaisyas, and women are able to attain Him. In the next verse Krishna says “How much (more so) for brahmanas, saintly devotees and saintly kings”. The point he is making is that anyone can attain moksa by taking up Krishna bhakti. During that time usually women, vaisyas, sudras, and those outside the varnasrama system (papa-yoni), didn’t spend the same amount of time in spiritual education and practice as did the brahmins, kshatriyas, or rajarshis. Women had to raise families and take care of the household, vaisyas were busy learning a trade and then working, sudras were busy learning crafts and labor and working for vaisyas or others. They didn’t have lots of time to go live in an ashram and learn scriptures or yoga for years at a stretch. The brahmins, rishis, and ksatriyas did have that time and education.

So Krishna’s point was that it doesn’t take a lot of time and energy and scholarship to attain moksa, you don’t have to go live in an ashram for years to learn the Vedas or all about yajnas, all you have to do is follow what he is speaking in the Gita. He is not saying that women, vaisyas, sudras, or those outside of varnasrama are “less intelligent”. Prabhupada claimed that everyone but male brahmins and ksatriyas are “less intelligent” and papa-yoni. Sripad Narayana Maharaja claimed that that is a false teaching; he blamed the editors of Srila Prabhupada’s books for those places where it states that everyone is “less intelligent” and papa-yoni but brahmins and ksatriyas. I have shown that to be not true. Sripad Narayana Maharaja was unaware of Prabhupada saying the same things in many recorded lectures and talks.

Then Praghosa says:

Srila Prabhupada’s appearance in this world is every bit as rare and myseriously wonderful as the Lord’s!

Here we see what I have been talking about: the deification of Prabhupada. Prabhupada taking birth, according to Praghosa, is

“every bit as rare and myseriously [sic] wonderful as the Lord’s!”

He tells us

“Lord Krsna appears in this world – once every 8,600,000,000 years! And once in a cycle of 28 such periods – Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu likewise makes his transcendental appearance.”

To Praghosa and many others Srila Prabhupada is really no different than God. He then writes:

We all have somehow or other – come to find ourselves – HEARING FROM HIM – the Truth as it pertains to all the five important topics of the Bhagavad
Gita; Isvara(the Lord)Atma(the Jiva)Prakriti(Nature)Kala(time) and finally (Karma). So “PRAKRITI” nature in all its endlessly immutable and perplexing mysterious ways – is also to some degree explained by his Divine Grace. Those explanations included TOTALLY TRUE explanations of the confounding nature of women and sex.

Those instructions are in fact meant primarily – for men. Women can know what men are instructed – but materialistic women – will come to view the Truth about women that Lord Chaitanya taught us – as interfering with their desire for all they dream for in this world. They will come to view His teachings – as ANTIWOMAN. And indeed – at their core – they are not anti woman – they are anti material world – BUT the door to this material world and all the ambition needed to succeed within it – TRULY commences – through the door called “yosita sangi sangam” – the door to the hellish well of grhamedhi life – finding money, spending money, sleeping and occasionally delighting in a warm, wet women – who appears so eager to please

Here we see a real basic paradigm that many if not most devotees learn from Prabhupada when it comes to women, sex, and this world. First is the idea that “Those instructions are in fact meant primarily – for men”. This is the idea that it is men whose spiritual life God is especially concerned with, and that it is women who are the stumbling blocks for God’s chosen favorites. In reality what the sastra teaches is that it is lust, in the form of a woman for a man and in the form of a man for a woman, that can be a major cause of materialistic life because unbridled lust leads one away from spiritual pursuits. Not that women are the devil and lead God’s chosen favorites – men – down the primrose path. Which is what many devotees believe. It is unbridled lust, which can cause people to abandon spiritual pursuits and ethics and morality. Not that all association with the opposite sex outside of family members is necessarily harmful, not that all sex outside of procreation is necessarily harmful. It is lust that is left without restraint which is harmful. Life lived in rajo-guna or tama-guna is harmful.

We can see how Prabhupada changed this teaching of Krishna in the Gita.

Bhagavad-gītā As It Is 3.37

śrī-bhagavān uvāca
kāma eṣa krodha eṣa
rajo-guṇa-samudbhavaḥ
mahāśano mahā-pāpmā
viddhy enam iha vairiṇam

SYNONYMS

śri-bhagavān uvāca — the Personality of Godhead said; kāmaḥ — lust; eṣaḥ — this; krodhaḥ — wrath; eṣaḥ — this; rajaḥ-guṇa — the mode of passion; samudbhavaḥ — born of; mahā-aśanaḥ — all-devouring; mahā-pāpmā — greatly sinful; viddhi — know; enam — this; iha — in the material world; vairiṇam — greatest enemy.

TRANSLATION

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material mode of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring sinful enemy of this world.

The sloka actually says:

The Lord said: Know this lust, this anger, born from rajo-guna, to be the great sinful all devouring enemy in this world.

Krishna isn’t saying “It is lust only, born of contact with the material mode of passion and later transformed into wrath” which is the enemy. The words ‘only’ and ‘later transformed’ are not there in the sanskrit. Adding those words changes the meaning of the sloka. Krishna is saying that the lust which is born of rajo-guna, and the anger which is born of rajo-guna, these are enemies. All lust isn’t bad. All lust isn’t born from rajo-guna. Lust isn’t always bad and sinful. Although in Prabhupada’s teachings lust of any kind is what causes material life and suffering. This is actually a Buddhist and Advaitin teaching, it is not the teaching of Krishna. Lust can be in sattva-guna, rajo-guna, or tama-guna, or there can be transcendental lust. If you lust after some delicious prasadam is that the sinful all devouring enemy of the world? All lust is not the same. In the 3rd chapter of the Gita Arjuna asks Krishna

“Arjuna said: O descendant of Vrsni, by what is one impelled to sinful acts, even unwillingly, as if engaged by force?”

It is then that Krishna speaks the sloka about lust born from rajo-guna, cited above. All the slokas after that are referring to that sloka, to the lust born of rajo-guna. In ISKCON and in other gaudiya groups, and in Buddhism, it is taught that any desire for enjoyment, or lust, is bad, and a sign of a lack of spiritual consciousness and advancement. That teaching is bogus. Why is desire for enjoyment bad? It makes no sense because it is a misunderstanding of the actual teachings of Krishna and the Bhagavatam. It is the wrong kind of desire for enjoyment that is a sign of a lack of spiritual awareness and advancement. In Krishna lila do you think that no one but Krishna desires to enjoy? Do you think Krishna is the only one who desires to enjoy swimming, or dancing, or eating, or romance and sex, or any type of pleasure, and that everyone else has no desire to enjoy anything? No desire to do anything other than serving Radha-Krishna’s enjoyment? I know many of you will say yes. But that is because you have been misinformed and miseducated to see any type of desire to enjoy as a sign of gross materialism, selfishness and spiritual death.

Why is it all right for God to desire enjoyment but not for anyone else? You cannot help but to desire enjoyment. It is why Radha-Krishna made us like Her/Him. We desire to enjoy because we are given minds, bodies and senses made for enjoyment. The human form is designed to enjoy more than any other body. We have very sensitive senses for the purpose of maximum enjoyment. Our bodies are meant for enjoyment by design. How can we then be told that if we desire to enjoy that we are spiritually devolved, that it is the desire to enjoy that keeps us separated from God?

It’s simply false to think that the desire to enjoy is sinful or wrong. It is the desires born from the modes of passion and ignorance, which are harmful and unspiritual. By mode of passion it is meant – desire which seeks to be fulfilled no matter what the cost or consequence to yourself or others. It doesn’t mean passionate in the sense of enthusiastic. You can be passionate without being in rajo-guna.

Praghosa then wrote:

Lord Chaitanya had this counsel for his men:
Lord Caitanya said, “For a sannyasi or anyone who is aspiring to get out of the clutches of material nature and trying to elevate himself to the spiritual nature and go back home, back to Godhead, for him, looking toward material possessions and women for sense gratification–not even enjoying them, but just looking toward them with such a propensity–is so condemned that he had better commit suicide before experiencing such illicit desires.”

The most important part of this statement is this: “anyone who is aspiring to get out of the clutches of material nature and trying to elevate himself to the spiritual nature and go back home, back to Godhead, for him” – FOR HIM – if he wants to get out of the clutches of the material nature – he must heed the words of Lord Chaitanya.

He quotes Prabhupada from a purport in the Gita. But the quote is false. Mahaprabhu didn’t say that. Then Praghosa highlights what he considers to be “the most important part of that statement” – which turns out to be in fact the part which is bogus. That quote from Prabhupada is referring to the Chota (Junior) Haridasa incident. Mahaprabhu was being very strict with his followers who had taken sannyasa. He didn’t want to have his movement be ridiculed in public for being comprised of fakes. His movement was brand new and he and his followers were being labeled as sentimentalists by the more established Vedic traditions. This was because of their rejection of the Advaita doctrine and their promotion of Harinam sankirtan as all that was necessary for spiritual enlightenment. Mahaprabhu and his followers were scoffed at as being emotional and naive sentimentalists who couldn’t appreciate and understand the refined higher teachings of Sankara’s Vedanta. So Mahaprabhu was very strict about the behavior of his sannyasa followers. He was trying to establish his movement as an authentic sampradaya, meant to be taken as authentic as the Advaitins and other sampradayas by the other sampradayas and the public in general.

Chota Haridasa had been sent to ask for some rice for a meal to be cooked for Mahaprabhu at a home where he received rice from a woman who was alone. Even though the woman was elderly and one of the closest associates of Mahaprabhu (she was considered to previously having been one of Sri Radha’s associates), when Mahaprabhu found out that Chota Haridas had been alone with the woman he would no longer have anything to do with Chota Haridas. He said that he couldn’t tolerate seeing the face of a sannyasi who goes to speak with a woman intimately. He said:

“There are many persons with little in their possession who accept the renounced order of life like monkeys. They go here and there engaging in sense gratification and speaking intimately with women.”

Because of Chota Haridas not being allowed to see Mahaprabhu he started to fast. The devotees became distressed and asked Mahaprabhu to show him some mercy and to forgive him. But it was no use. Mahaprabhu was making a point for the rest of his followers who had or were planning on taking sannyasa. It was all about his reputation and that of his movement and teachings. He didn’t want to give the mainstream Hindu leaders ammunition to teach to the public that his movement was not authentic in any way. So he made an extreme point, but that was all it was, a point about how his representatives who had taken sannyasa, in that culture, at that time, were to behave so as not to harm the establishment of his new sampradaya.

Then Praghosa says:

Materialistic women take such statements as “hatred” of women. They are no such thing. They are merely the Lord – “setting the price” for our Liberation.

Or maybe when looked at from another perspective we can find that it is not disagreeing with Prabhupada that makes someone a “materialistic woman”. Maybe it is the so-called “perfect” teachings that are not so perfect and not supported by Krishna which are actually materialistic. Maybe the “price” for liberation isn’t accepting a woman’s place and influence as Prabhupada would have it be, maybe the “price” of our liberation is awakening to our eternal relationship with the Lord – rather than acceptance of materialistic causes.

Praghosa finishes with:

Anyone who professes to be a disciple of Srila Prabhupada – cannot challenge this. If they do – they are no longer disciples. They are once again “seekers” of guru and we can only pray for their swift and complete restoration of their faith and gratitude to Lord Krsna for His mercifully sending us Srila Prabhupada to give us the Truth – no matter how difficult it is to accept

He may have a point that if you reject anything Prabhupada taught then you cannot be considered his disciple. He may be wrong on that point as well. Maybe there is a compromise position. Everyone can decide for themselves according to the direction of Paramatma. I disagree that we need his prayers to enable us to a:

“swift and complete restoration of their faith and gratitude to Lord Krsna for His mercifully sending us Srila Prabhupada to give us the Truth – no matter how difficult it is to accept”

He assumes that if you disagree with a devotee on one or more points, even if it is a famous or pure devotee, then you do not have faith and gratitude for Krishna giving us his teachings through that devotee. That is a convoluted form of logic meant to imply that if we disagree with Prabhupada then we are offensive to Krishna. I don’t believe Krishna’s truth is difficult to accept. Krishna is sat-cit-ananda. Therefore His teachings will be blissful. If some “Truth”, as in “absolute spiritual truth”, is difficult to accept and not making you blissful; then I would suggest to you that maybe that is because it isn’t “Krishna’s Truth”.