This is a response to a comment from ccc on the Gimme Shelter post.
why are there so many bad sanskrit translations, it is difficult? exists good translations?
I’ve heard that the Gita Press is a good source for translation into English and a variety of Indian dialects. Also various publications from various Gaudiya Matha related organizations and other Gaudiya authors (Like Satya Narayana Das and Haridas Shastri) have published lots of books in English and other languages. I’ve not read many of them, so I can’t say how good or bad they are.
Some people who have an agenda to push forth a certain ideology which is different from what is presented in a book, see an opportunity to take advantage of other people’s ignorance by mistranslating on purpose, or they may push their own vision by adding additional commentary posing as part of the verse. Also some people are interested in getting out a lot of output in a short amount of time, and they may not be very well up to the task of accurate translations in such a short time frame. And other people may simply not be professional Sanskritists or expert in the language they are attempting to translate Sanskrit into, and therefore their translation work reflects that.
I think all 5 problems exist with Prabhupada’s books and lectures to one degree or another, except of course with his Bengali translations, which are mainly plagued by his agenda to get people to become slave like members of ISKCON.
Most of his followers believe Prabhupada was empowered and therefore they see him like A Vyasadeva. Even when you show them his obvious mistranslations or his additional commentary posing as the verse which changes the meaning of the verse, they are so conditioned to be fearful of not seeing Prabhupada like a God, that they will go into denial mode and look for any excuse they can find rather than face the truth — they can’t handle the truth — because they are afraid of being offensive.
They are afraid that if they are not worshipful of Prabhupada that they will lose any spiritual benefit they have accrued and will likely be punished by God. Why do they believe that? Because Prabhupada convinced them that he was a “bona fide spiritual master”, and that shastra teaches that the bona fide guru should be seen to be as good as God — and to criticize that guru is the greatest offense.
That is not the actual intent of the teaching of the shastra on how to treat a guru. Nowhere does it teach blind acceptance and obedience to a guru. Nowhere does it say that if a person is acting in the role of a guru but is changing the teachings of shastra that you are offensive if you believe that or point that out. But that is how Prabhupada conditions his followers, i.e. his books and lectures are manipulative in that they seek to fulfill his agenda of expanding his influence by forsaking accuracy, wholesomeness, and honesty whenever he believed it suited his purpose of gaining slave like followers dedicated to expanding his influence.
His teachings try to make you fearful of not becoming a slave to a guru, specifically to him, and also fearful of being critical of a guru, and especially him. And because most of the people who read his books or hear his lectures are not well educated in Gaudiya Vaisnavism, if at all, they simply accept Prabhupada as an expert and empowered by God as a bona fide spiritual master simply because of the success of ISKCON. But his devoted followers may argue and say:
“That isn’t true, I know Prabhupada was a bona fide guru and empowered by Krishna because when I read his books I became convinced of the truths of Krishna consciousness”.
Not all of his translations are bad and a lot of his translations were copied from other books. A lot of his purports were copied as well from previous acharyas commenting on the same verses. What you get when reading Prabhupada’s books is a mixed bag of good and bad, the amount of good is good enough to make someone convinced of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. But that good stuff is the authentic teachings of the sampradaya which Prabhupada simply repeated. It wasn’t his personal potency that affected you, it was the potency of the teachings which he repeated.
Just like some people believe that certain people have more spiritual potency than others based upon their experience of being in a kirtan where certain people were leading kirtans. The experience of kirtan is subjective, one person may feel something very profound while other people in the same kirtan may not feel anything. It’s not the person leading the kirtan that determines how it affects you, the affect is given by Krishna from within, not by the person leading the kirtan. When I was a new devotee in ISKCON I noticed that when some people led kirtans they were usually more ecstatic for me than when other people led kirtans. I thought the potency was coming from those people. But as it turned out most of those people turned out to be egotistic jerks, some rejected Gaudiya Vaishnavism, or had any number of less than perfected qualities about them that were plainly evident.
For example — Guru Krpa was famous for his kirtans, but he was also famous for being very egotistic and abusive with other devotees. Harikesa was also known for kirtans and lectures, but he ended up rejecting Gaudiya Vaishnavism altogether, now he is on some ego trip where he preaches the gospel according to him to his small following. The point is that the potency of a kirtan leader or of a person’s teaching — is not the potency of that person. It’s Krishna’s potency which is given to you from within. The person who is singing or writing or speaking may be good or bad, or good and bad, what you think you experience from them — is experienced within your mind — which is controlled by Antaryami Paramatma. Whatever spiritual potency you experience is always subjective and therefore always caused by Krishna from within by giving you that experience and or understanding.
I read a lot of different translations and one thing I appreciate about BBT translations is their transliteration word for word break down.
Even if the transliteration is inaccurate and even if you don’t know Sanskrit, with a Sanskrit to English dictionary and “teach yourself X language” books, you can easily figure out the verse.
Not many other books have this. Gita Press certainly does not.
When I read, I want to see the actually sanskrit words rather than just an english translation alone. It makes it so much easier to determine inaccurasies and come up with a more accurate translation or word meaning if neccessary.
[...] is a reply to Books who made a comment on the Look into my eyes, look into the eyes, not around the eyes… post. Books wrote: I read a lot [...]
Vrajabhumi,
This is a very nice statement you made:
“the affect is given by Krishna from within, not by the person leading the kirtan.”
You seem to understand profound meaning behind “Hare Krishna”.
Keep up the good work of your blog.
-Sujathan
“What is stopping you from Chanting Hare Krishna?”.
Interesting….
Vrajabhumi, I’ll wait till you find statements from shastra that says something like this:
“My commander-in-chief devotee [senapati bhakta] will come, preach in distant countries, and flood the world with the chanting of Hare Kåñëa. But, his books and lectures are manipulative in that they seek to fulfill his agenda of expanding his influence by forsaking accuracy, wholesomeness, and honesty whenever he believed it suited his purpose of gaining slave like followers dedicated to expanding his influence.”
Before you can find such verses, I’ll keep enjoying whatever increased happiness comes by serving his mission… ^_^
Sanjaya
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ssws_living-colour-cult-of-personality_music
Yes…
yasya deve para bhaktir
yatha deve tatha gurau
tasyaite kathita hy arthah
prakasante mahatmanah
Isn’t it..?
suddha-bhakata- carana-renu,
bhajana-anukula
bhakata-seva, parama-siddhi,
prema-latikara mula
Dust from the lotus feet of pure devotees is conducive to devotional service, while service to the Vaisnavas is itself the supreme perfection as well as the root of the tender creeper of divine love.
Saranagati, Svikara, song 3, By Bhaktivinoda Thakura.
Sanjaya
You wrote:
There is no doubt that what Bhaktivinoda says in the above is true, but modern exploitative gurus take advantage of neophytes using the above type of writings. Instead of service to the Vaishnavas meaning something personal and friendly — like say how friends serve each other in their relationships — exploiters try to teach a mood of slavish total submission to a guru as the import of the above types of teachings. Plus times have changed, no longer are people dependent on the personal association of Vaishnavas or gurus in order for them to receive a proper spiritual education, which really was the main purpose of the above types of teachings from the past. I’ve written a lot on this topic previously:
http://harekrishnawomen.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/limitless-undying-love-which-shines-around-me-like-a-million-suns/
http://harekrishnawomen.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/look-for-signs-and-portents/
http://harekrishnawomen.wordpress.com/2009/02/14/iskcon-girls-make-me-sing-and-shout/
http://harekrishnawomen.wordpress.com/2008/07/15/guru-inc/
http://harekrishnawomen.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/in-the-land-of-the-blind-the-one-eyed-man-is-king/
http://harekrishnawomen.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/i-should-have-known-better/
http://harekrishnawomen.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/tricky-diksha/
http://harekrishnawomen.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/long-distance-runaround/
Ok. Thanks.
“but modern exploitative gurus take advantage of neophytes”
True. Agree. I have read and learned about that much in internet.
But, I haven’t yet experienced it first hand.
“exploiters try to teach a mood of slavish total submission to a guru”
That’s not necessarily bad, since it’s probably shows an extreme compassion in the part of the true guru to the mostly-independent-then-exploited mind of Kaliyuga.
Sanjaya
You’re right, it is “extreme compassion in the part of the true guru ” to teach that unless you become his slave you will go to hell. Lucky for everyone there are so many “true gurus” around these days to save us by allowing us to serve them. Such mercy!
“unless you become his slave you will go to hell”
Which guru? gurus?
Who judged?
Kaliyug gurus are into worship. But true guru never ask us to worship his body. When saint dies, his body has no existence. One becomes saint when one removes his relationship with body. If we worship his body, then we have not understand basic truths.
Our basic teaching is that our self is not body, mind and intellect. True self due to ignorance associates with body, mind and intelligence. Our true self is full of eternity (sat), knowledge or consicousness (cid) and happiness (anand). Inert matter like body are not us. Once our body is destroyed, it goes back to inert matter and it has no existence.
These days I read and follow Swami Ramsukhdas (the editor of Gitapress Gorakhpur) who left this world few years ago. He did not let anyone take his picture and never accepted any worship of his body. He said that we should have sradha over eternal principle and not on perishable body or name. Sradha on perishable body or name results in illusion. When this illusion takes form of sradha, it creates disaster. Apart from worshipping eternal, divine and spiritual form of Bhagavan and remembrance of His eternal names, giving importance to perishable bodies and names wastes our life and is like cheating our own self.
Our body is made of stool, urine etc. Even if we feed Bhagavan’s prasad or ganga water, it is excreted as stood or urine. When conscious entity leaves the body, it becomes source of germs etc and sastra enjoins us to take shower after touching dead body. We cannot take picture of conscious entity within the body. One becomes saint when one removes his relationship with body. Saint people don’t give importance to their own body as they realize their self as completely different from body.
One can question that we worship Gods like Ram, Krishna etc. Why we cannot worship perishable body?
Swami Ramsukhdas explains that Ram, Krishna and other avatar’s body is not made of inert matter. Their body is sat chid ananda. Their body is not like us. Also, Bhagavan is everywhere and therefore, He is in the picture also. So, picture or diety of Bhagavan can be worshiped. Beauty of Ram defies description. Even countless cupids cannot equal Ram. Why? Because it is not made of matter. So, anything made of matter cannot equal that which is beyond it.
Bhagvan is omnicient. Omnicience of saints comes under omnicience of Bhagavan. Saints become omnicient when they dissociate their self from body. Worshipping Bhagavan includes worshipping saints.