Taken from http://www.atmayogi.com/node/1205
My dear Sriman Bhaktivedanta Vaisnava Maharaja,
my heartly blessings are for you. All glories to Sri Sri Guru and Gauranga, all glories to Sri Sri Radha Vinode Bihariji.
I received your letter and became very happy to hear from you. I was remembering you during my visit to Guangzhou which was extremely successful. So many wonderful devotees assembled and heard Harikatha & received initiation. I am very pleased with your services.
In regard to the contents of your message, it is not described anywhere in our Vaisnava Sastra that men and ladies can live together and practice proper Vaisnava dharma. Only in the grhasta ashram husband and wife can live together and follow ideal grhasta life.
If it is bone fide and authorized for two men to live together or for 2 ladies to live together then it must be mentioned in Hari Bhakti Vilasa.
Our Acaryas have also never accepted this concept as authentic. Rather, this is the product of Kali Yuga only. In sastras it is mentioned that in Kali Yuga practically all are living a sinful life. The only hope and grace for the living entities is that they accept the process of Sankirtan as propagated by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and His bone fide followers. For this we have to give up sinful life and follow the ideal character of a devotee. For practicing and making progress in spiritual life, to encourage a life that is sinful is out of the question.
Your ever well-wisher,
Swami B.V. Narayan
That is a letter to BV Vaisnava Maharaja, who is a sannyasi disciple of BV Narayana Maharaja, and openly gay. Because of all of the recent hubbub among Prabhupada followers and in ISKCON over Hridayananda’s support of gay unions, Vaisnava Maharaja wanted to see what Narayana Maharaja had to say about it since he had never made any formal pronouncement on the topic.
Narayana Maharaja is supposedly all about raganuga bhakti in many people’s minds because he speaks a lot of rasa katha. But that is simply not the case. Narayana Maharaja consistently preaches to his followers about the absolute necessity of strictly following all the rules and regulations, he sees that as the proper path of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. He teaches that it is best to remain umarried and completely celibate your whole life, and that marriage is a “fall down”. He even gives sannyasa initiation to very young men in their early 20’s inspiring his followers to believe that total renunciation is essential to bhakti-yoga. The culture of Gaudiya Vaishnavism he presents is vaidhi bhakti, not raganuga, like many of his followers believe.
Therefore in the above letter explaining his position on gay people, he says what anyone who has heard from him for any length of time should have known was coming. Narayana Maharaja sees any type of sexual relationship as a fall down from grace. He teaches an extreme tyagi oriented version of bhakti-yoga. He teaches that bhakti-yoga needs to be all about renouncing everything, all desires and all activities, but service to a guru. In this way he is no different from Prabhupada.
Vaidhi-bhakti is bhakti that is dependent on following rules and regulations. Raganuga-bhakti is bhakti which is not dependent on following rules and regulations. So why do people think he is presenting raganuga-bhakti when he is very clearly presenting vaidhi-bhakti? Because he teaches his followers that he is bringing something higher than what Prabhupada taught.
He teaches his followers that Prabhupada brought “the A-B-C’s” and that he is bringing the graduate degree. But is this really true? To know this you first have to know what the “graduate degree” is. That is raganuga-bhakti. Does Narayana Maharaja present raganuga-bhakti? Absolutely not. His teachings focus exclusively on the insistence of the absolute necessity of following all the rules and regulations very strictly, and that any deviation is a serious fall down. So why do people believe he is teaching the “graduate degree” or raganuga-bhakti? Because he talks about one aspect of raganuga — cultivating the mood of the Vrajavasis, specifically manjari-bhava — as the essence of Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
But that is only a part of raganuga, and not really an accurate depiction of raganuga sadhana anyways. The rest of his teachings actively oppose raganuga-bhakti by teaching the absolute importance and necessity of the complete renunciation of any and all activities except for serving a guru while following all the rules and regulations of vaidhi-bhakti. How do we know his teachings are opposed to raganuga? This is how Mahaprabhu describes raganuga-bhakti
Śrī Caitanya Caritāmṛta Madhya 22.153
lobhe vraja-vāsīra bhāve kare anugati
śāstra-yukti nāhi māne — rāgānugāra prakṛtilobhe — in such covetousness; vraja-vāsīra bhāve — in the moods of the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana, Vraja; kare anugati — follows; śāstra-yukti — injunctions or reasonings of the śāstras; nāhi māne — does not abide by; rāgānugāra — of spontaneous love; prakṛti — the nature.
If one follows in the footsteps of the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana out of such transcendental covetousness, he does not care for the injunctions or reasonings of śāstra. That is the way of spontaneous love.
This is how Jiva Goswami describes raganuga-bhakti in his Bhakti Sandarbha
The Supreme Personality of Godhead declares (in Brahma-yamala, also quoted in texts 9 and 24 of this anuccheda):
“The Sruti and Smrti sastras are My commands. Therefore one who disobeys the scripture disobeys Me. Such a person hates Me. He may claim to be devoted to Me, but in truth he is not.”
These words do not apply to the devotees engaged in raganuga bhakti, for such devotees are already on the right path in spiritual life. Rather, this verse is addressed to they who follow the wrong paths, the paths of heretics and atheists like Buddha, Rsabhadeva, Dattatreya and others.
The scriptures declare:
“A heretic opposed to the religion of the Vedas may worship his own deity. However, he will go to hell until the time when the universe is destroyed by floods.”
Even though many Vedic rules are not followed in it, raganuga bhakti is not outside the path of the Vedas. Actually raganuga bhakti is the perfection of the religion described in the Vedas and the scriptures that explain the Vedas. This is so because raganuga bhakti makes one attracted (ruci) to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the Vedas are described many heretics and atheists, such as Buddha, who are opposed to the Vedas and thus are outside the sphere of Vedic religion. For example, in Srimad Bhagavatam (1.3.24) it is said:
“Then, in the beginning of Kali-yuga, the Lord will appear as Lord Buddha, the son of Anjana, in the province of Gaya, just for the purpose of deluding those who are envious of the faithful theist.”
Therefore raganuga bhakti is proper and correct. It is much better than vaidhi bhakti. The previously discussed rules of the scriptures are meant for [those who seek] merging into the existence of the Lord.
Narayana Maharaja is clearly not teaching like the above. His followers absorb and then preach his distorted version of raganuga-bhakti as well. For example here is a recent letter from BV Vaisnava Maharaja to the people on the GALVA website or forum explaining Narayana Maharaja’s position on gay unions:
Dandavats Dear Prabhus and Didis,
Sorry to be so long in writing on this issue but I’ve been busy the last few days.
I’m forwarding below the actual letter from my Gurudeva, Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayana Goswami on same sex marriage. I wrote asking for an official statement because I will be attending gay pride parades this summer in San Francisco, London and Amsterdam as part of a delegation of devotees from all sangas and thought the question might be presented then by devotees and new people we meet, including the media. I knew his response would not be unsupported by scripture and most likely conservative, but wanted to know his position exactly so I didn’t misrepresent him or “put words into his mouth.”
Nothing really is changed in our preaching to gay people however. We will continue to encourage everyone to do what is necessary for them individually to take up the chanting of the holy names and gradually become qualified to follow the rules and regulations, under the guidance of a bona-fide spiritual master. However, their marriages will not be blessed by him at this time. This does not mean they cannot legally marry or remain his disciples or that their service or sadhana is compromised or devalued.
The conclusion or pinnacle of sastra on achieving perfection is to be 100% free from material desires and attachments. Sex life is the most prominent of these and gets most of the attention. As we know Lord Krishna states in the Bhagavad Gita that the only sex life he condones is that for reproduction. Well, that’s not much fun for straight couples is it? Basically it means that every time they have sex there should be a child 9 months later or it’s illicit! I remember Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja said that when he was married he had sex 6 times and had 6 children, and that was the extent of his sex life. Guess that’s one reason Kali Yuga is the age of quarrel and hypocrisy – the standard is so high, beyond 99.9% of us, that hypocrisy is the result. That is why nama sankirtan is the only way, the only dharma for this age. What else can we do really, honestly?
Srila BV Narayana Maharaja has openly accepted everyone who comes to him, be they gay or straight. I have been honest with him about myself since I first came to know of him in 1997. He gave me responsible services and 2 years ago sannyas. He would send us other gay men from here and there in the world, to his math in Birmingham, England, for training and association in an environment where no one would be turned away who could follow the rules of the ashram. Many gay men have stayed and visited us while I was in charge there for 6 years. I say this to make it clear he is not opposed to gay people or homophobic. I would be hard pressed to stay for so long if I saw that he was.
I repeat my call to all gay devotees to think about opening our own centres or having home programmes where it is practicle for you. We will not be rejecting anyone in doing this but simply expanding the preaching movement of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. One of the main tennets of our faith is that we must have the association of like minded devotees who are more advanced than ourselves and affectionate to us. Like minded and affectionate – must!!! I’m very ready and willing to to do this right now. Anyone?
(…)
Vaisnava dasanudas,
BV Vaisnava
It’s this part which is a distortion and a commonly held belief among modern Gaudiya Vaishnavas due to bogus translations and exploitative teachings:
The conclusion or pinnacle of sastra on achieving perfection is to be 100% free from material desires and attachments.
Where in shastra is that taught? Nowhere, that’s where. That idea that a “perfect” person will have no “material desires” and no “attachments” is based solely upon the teachings of gurus looking to gain dedicated slavish followers. It’s not the actual shastric teaching, it’s based upon mistranslations. What is “material desire” anyways? If you ask Vaisnava Maharaja I would expect him to say something like:
“Any desire but the desire to please guru and Krishna”
If I ask him — why is it bad to have any desire but the desire to please guru and Krishna? What would he say? Maybe something like this:
“The conclusion or pinnacle of sastra on achieving perfection is to be 100% free from material desires and attachments”
There is no shastric basis of this widely held erroneous belief that a person cannot become self-realized and attain bhava and prema-bhakti if a person has any desire but the desire to “serve Krishna”. People are fooled into accepting that sadomasochistic bhava and rasa as being bona fide Gaudiya Vaishnavism. It’s not. I’ve written a lot on this topic on this blog:
Spiritual Intimidation
Sadomasochistic Religion
Unique to ISKCON?
Krishna’s Truth
Missionary Men
In the Land of the Blind, the One Eyed Man Is King
Slave Driver
The letter continues:
Sex life is the most prominent of these and gets most of the attention. As we know Lord Krishna states in the Bhagavad Gita that the only sex life he condones is that for reproduction.
Really? Where does Krishna state that? Nowhere. He is referring to this sloka:
Bhagavad-gītā As It Is 7.11
balaḿ balavatāḿ cāhaḿ
kāma-rāga-vivarjitam
dharmāviruddho bhūteṣu
kāmo ’smi bharatarṣabhaSYNONYMS
balam — strength; bala-vatām — of the strong; ca — and; aham — I am; kāma — passion; rāga — and attachment; vivarjitam — devoid of; dharma-aviruddhaḥ — not against religious principles; bhūteṣu — in all beings; kāmaḥ — sex life; asmi — I am; bharata-ṛṣabha — O lord of the Bhāratas.
TRANSLATION
I am the strength of the strong, devoid of passion and desire. I am sex life which is not contrary to religious principles, O lord of the Bhāratas.
That is Prabhupada’s translation, and it’s wrong. Kama doesn’t necessarily mean sex, the primary meaning of kama is desire. If Krishna meant to say sex, then he would have used a less ambiguous word, like maithuna or rati. Notice how the word kama is used twice in the sloka, the first time Prabhupada translates it as “desire”, then the second time as “sex life”. Krishna is really saying that “I am desire in harmony with dharma”.
Is sex desire inherently bad? If so, why? Among modern Gaudiya Vaishnavas we hear this conception commonly accepted as absolute truth:
“Sex is sinful except for procreative sex, and sexual desire is inherently bad and a sign of a lack of spiritual advancement. People who are spiritually advanced have no sex desire. If you desire sex you will have to remain in the material world undergoing samsara.”
That ideology is totally bogus. Shastra only recommends celibacy as a way to keep you from being distracted from sadhana. Because people tend to live their lives centered around sexuality, the shastra recommends breaking away from that so that you can focus on spiritual development. But it’s not that you have to live your entire life as a celibate. In shastra it’s during the student phase of your life where celibacy is especially recommended. That’s why brahmacharya is associated with youth, that was the time in Vedic society when people would take up intensive spiritual education. But if you have reached the stage of raganuga than the rules of shastra no longer apply. Because as Jiva Goswami mentions in the above — the rules and regulations have a sole purpose — to get you to the raganuga stage.
Once you are at that stage the rules and regulations serve no purpose anymore. It’s like telling a child he cannot cross the road by himself, but when he gets older such a rule is no longer applicable. The rules and regulations of shastra are solely for the purpose of bringing you to the stage of raganuga-bhakti — the stage of life where you desire to enter into a close relationship with Radha Krishna. The rules and regulations serve no other purpose and are not required to be followed once you attain that purpose. That is the authentic teaching of Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
That is also the sole purpose of the teachings on brahmacharya. Somehow that has been twisted by exploiters seeking to gain slavish followers dedicated to serving them, into the ideology where sex desire itself is inherently bad, and that if you spiritually progress you will lose the desire for sex. Since you will never lose the desire for sex, that keeps you thinking you are fallen and dependent on the guru.
In Gaudiya theology the highest goal is to enter into a romantic sexual relationship with God. Sex desire is not only natural it is something which is celebrated in the highest heaven as the perfection of life.
Hare Krishna!
Your case seems weakened by two things:
1. The people that you do accept as authorities in the Gaudiya Vaisnava line, and cite here, namely Krishnadas Kaviraja and Jiva Goswami were both celibate renunciants. In their personal behaviour they seem to demonstrate that cessation of “material desire” in the form of sexual activity *is* in fact an integral part of elevated spiritual realization.
2. I think you overstate your case with Srila Prabhupada’s motivation being simply to enslave people to serving him. Even if it were true that this were part of his motivation, it seems disingenuous to present that this was his exclusive, or even principle motivation. I’m sure you can find something else in there.
I’ve been thinking about this paragraph:
Once you are at that stage the rules and regulations serve no purpose anymore. It’s like telling a child he cannot cross the road by himself, but when he gets older such a rule is no longer applicable. The rules and regulations of shastra are solely for the purpose of bringing you to the stage of raganuga-bhakti — the stage of life where you desire to enter into a close relationship with Radha Krishna. The rules and regulations serve no other purpose and are not required to be followed once you attain that purpose. That is the authentic teaching of Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
It seems to me that in a sense you are criticising primary school teachers for teaching primary school syllabus to primary school children. If this is indeed the purpose of the rules and regulations (to bring you to a higher stage), then why the problem with teaching people that?
Also, my understanding is that rules and regulations exist to guide you until you begin to spontaneously act in such a way that rules and regulations are no longer necessary – just like a plant is guided by a stick until it becomes strong enough to grow without it. It’s not that the plant then grows in a completely different direction – it grows the same way, just without the necessity of the stick.
Returning to the personal example of Jiva Goswami, he seems to reinforce this interpretation – that the spontaneous behaviour of an elevated personality looks like the behaviour of a sadhaka following rules and regulations.
Sita-pati, you wrote:
This is what Jiva Goswami says in his Bhakti Sandarbha:
If a self-realized or raganuga devotee is asked by Krishna to teach by example how to follow vaidhi-bhakti then they may follow the rules and regulations to teach by example. They don’t need to follow for themselves, it is up to what Krishna wants of them. It is definitely not required for their spiritual development. Rules and regulations have the sole purpose of elevating people to raganuga. Once there they do not need to follow any rules or regulations because the rules and regulations only aid those who have not attained the stage of raganuga.
You may believe that “material desires” are what keeps people from knowing and entering into a relationship with God. But that is due to bogus teachings. What are “material desires” in the paradigm you believe in? According to Prabhupada or those who teach like him, material desires are any desire for “sense enjoyment”. His teaching is that the cause of your being a nitya-baddha jiva, and what keeps you from being with God — is the desire to enjoy. He mistranslates verses to back up that bogus ideology. For example: see http://harekrishnawomen.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/american-idiot/
In his teachings it is the desire to enjoy which is inherently sinful and the cause of your bondage because only Krishna is allowed to be “the enjoyer” — everyone else is supposed to only desire to be enjoyed. That is not the teachings of Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
The actual bona fide teaching is that attachment to material desires as the goal of life, or the desire to enjoy as the purpose of life, those things which cause you to ignore or fall away from bhakti-yoga, from sadhana, from doing what is necessary to become self-realized and develop your eternal relationship with God, those things are what keeps you from becoming self-realized. It isn’t the desire to enjoy what is inherently bad and the cause of bondage. Everyone naturally desires to enjoy because life is made for enjoyment. But for baddha jivas the desire to enjoy shouldn’t be the focus of your life. When you are liberated — then the exclusive focus of your life will be on enjoyment with God. Whereas the bogus teachings we find from Prabhupada and others is that Krishna is the only enjoyer, and that we need to develop the mood of a servant of Krishna’s enjoyment. That is 100% wrong.
The actual teaching is that we are supposed to develop a mood similar to the mood of the Vrajavasis. They do not see Krishna as-a-God-who-demands-that-we-must-renounce-all-desires-to-enjoy-in-order-to-serve-him. They see him as a friend, a son, a lover. Their rasa with Krishna is all about enjoying life together in the same way that a person seeks to enjoy life here with a friend, child or lover.
Prabhupada and others have changed that teaching to: we need to develop the mood of a menial servant renouncing any and all desire to do anything but serve Krishna, desires to enjoy our senses are inherently sinful and selfish. That’s not what Krishna asks of us, God does not demand that we give up the desire to enjoy and that only he is allowed the desire to enjoy in some perverted sadomasochistic rasa with us. But that is what Prabhupada and others teach to be the true teachings of Krishna.
Then you said:
I have never stated that: “Srila Prabhupada’s motivation being simply to enslave people to serving him”. I’ve said that I believe that he was sincere in his belief that what he taught was for the best. Even though there is no doubt that he also knew that what he taught — specifically his misrepresentation and mistranslations about the qualifications for raganuga bhakti and the cause of material bondage — were bogus and he knew it.
This is because he was a Bengali and there was no way he misunderstood what is taught in Caitanya Caritamrta about raganuga bhakti and the cause of samsara. He had to have knowingly mistranslated and changed the teachings because he wanted his followers to be focused on expanding ISKCON rather than spending their time trying to develop their relationship with Krishna.
There is no question that he purposely changed the focus of Gaudiya Vaishavism from self development to preaching, not just by mistranslating pertinent slokas, but also by his preaching that the most important aspect of bhakti-yoga was preaching, and that raganuga-bhakti was only for the highest level self-realized bhaktas who were in the last years of their lives.
He was also focused on teaching a conception of bhakti-yoga as being primarily about following cultural and social ideas he believed to be of “Vedic society”, which in reality has absolutely nothing to do with Mahaprabhu’s teachings. His preaching was centered around social and cultural critique, and his followers continue that trend. Gaudiya Vaishnavism had never been about social and cultural critique, what to speak of it being focused on the ideology that the sankirtan movement should be focused upon trying to convince people that the main purpose of Gaudiya Vaishnaivism is about trying to convince people to follow his ideas about “Vedic” society.
Gaudiya Vaishnavism has always been about yoga, bhakti-yoga, i.e. deveoping self-realization and prema-bhakti. He has convinced people that bhakti-yoga is primarily about renunciation of enjoyment as well as accepting so-called Vedic social/cultural issues, and that the actual yogic process of developing bhava (raganuga-bhakti) is for sahajiyas or demons. What to make of this?
My job is to try to set the record straight on what Gaudiya Vaishnavism is really supposed to be about. If some people can’t appreciate — that is their karma.
Thanks for clarifying those points. By the way , I’m a non-believer. I think about things and practice things, but I don’t “believe” anything.
This is interesting:
He was also focused on teaching a conception of bhakti-yoga as being primarily about following cultural and social ideas he believed to be of “Vedic society”, which in reality has absolutely nothing to do with Mahaprabhu’s teachings.
I presume when you say “Mahaprabhu’s teachings” you are referring to the theology of the Six Goswamis of Vrndavan, as expounded by Krishnadas Kaviraja in his hagiography Sri Caitanya-caritamrita.
Mahaprabhu’s teachings, like those of Jesus, are not directly accessible to us at this distance. The only thing that is directly attributed to him is the Siksastakam, which is hardly the comprehensive systematic theology of the Goswamis, who were Krishnadas’ mentors.
In Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s own personal behaviour, of which we have reasonably reliable records, he was a strict renunciant for most of his life, and demonstrated a very pronounced nivrtti approach to spiritual practice, leaving his wife and mother.
If the story of the banishment of Chota Haridas is accurate, then it indicates that Caitanya Mahaprabhu taught through his actions that there is an incompatibility between mundane sexual activity, even at the level of attraction, and spiritual realisation.
In terms of the presentation that Srila Prabhupada has made, I don’t see it as incompatible with the Goswamis. A particular interpretation of Prabhupada’s teachings could be made incompatible, but I think that Prabhupada was right in that preaching is the best form of sadhana intially for most people.
We can point out faults in implementation and interpretation of the material that Srila Prabhupada has presented, but even the fact that we’re doing that is a solid indicator of its efficacy – he made Hare Krishna a household word, and he created a class of people in the West who could have conversations like these.
In distributing Bhagavad-gita door-to-door I met one lady who told me that a particular edition of the Gita was the best. The reply I thought of (after she shut the door in my face) was that prior to Prabhupada’s Gita there were really no Krishna bhaktas in the West. Afterwards, there were thousands. I think that this says something of the efficacy and fidelity of Prabhupada’s presentation, and particularly its relevance to the audience.
As he himself said: “It is a qualification of the great thinkers to pick up the best even from the worst. It is said that the intelligent man should pick up nectar from a stock of poison, should accept gold even from a filthy place, should accept a good and qualified wife even from an obscure family and should accept a good lesson even from a man or from a teacher who comes from the untouchables….Our presenting this matter in adequate language, especially a foreign language, will certainly fail, and there will be so many literary discrepancies despite our honest attempt to present it in the proper way. But we are sure that with all our faults in this connection the seriousness of the subject matter will be taken into consideration, and the leaders of society will still accept this due to its being an honest attempt to glorify the Almighty God.”
In the life of a practitioner, at some point they have to give up the primary school lessons and start with the high school ones. However, they can’t start with the high school lessons.
I think that Swami B.V. Tripurari does a good job of indicating this without writing off Srila Prabhupada’s indispensible contribution.
This is because he was a Bengali and there was no way he misunderstood what is taught in Caitanya Caritamrta about raganuga bhakti and the cause of samsara. He had to have knowingly mistranslated and changed the teachings because he wanted his followers to be focused on expanding ISKCON rather than spending their time trying to develop their relationship with Krishna.
An alternative interpretation is that this is the best way for the majority of his audience to start off developing their relationship with Krishna.
Well written Vrajabhumi, good job :)
[...] is a reply to comment from Sita-pati das on the Sripad Narayana Maharaja: Gays are sinners [...]
There is an obvious problem with glorifying celibacy and making it a near-requirement.
We could ask the Shakers…I think there are a few still left.