It’s hard to run with the weight of gold

Recently there has been a ridiculously long online debate between the Tripurari Swami sangha versus various other people (in and out of ISKCON) on the question of Prabhupada’s eternal sthayi-bhava (type of relationship, e.g. boyfriend, girlfriend, parent) in Krishna lila. I might as well toss a bit of sanity into the madness soup and see what happens.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

One day Sripad Sridhar Maharaja was asked by some Prabhupada disciples who had become his followers what he thought about Prabhupada’s eternal bhava in Krishna lila. He thought about it and gave a handful of reasons on why he thought Prabhupada secretly revealed that he was in sakyha-bhava – a male friend of Krishna. That was that for that…or so everyone thought. Years later after Narayana Maharaja had expanded his organization outside of India and had become popular among ex-ISKCON members, the same question was put to him. He disagreed with Sridhar Maharaja and gave various reasons as to why he thought Prabhupada is a sakhi, a girlfriend of Radha and Krishna, specifically in manjari-bhava — a young girl aged around 12 or 13 years old. Radha and Krishna and the sakhis are said to be eternally around 15 or 16 at the oldest in Vraja lila (Krishna’s pastimes before he left Vrindavan). Manjaris are said to be younger girls who aid the older sakhis in their pastimes with Krishna and his cowherd boyfriends.

Why did Narayana Maharaja decide to create a controversy by essentially saying Sridhar Maharaja didn’t know what he was talking about? Surely such a move would cause Sridhar Maharaja’s followers some degree of disturbance — and it did. But that was nothing new between the 2 camps. For that story we have to go further back in time…

It is a period of civil war.
Rebel spaceships, striking
from a hidden base, have won
their first victory against
the evil Galactic Empire.

Back in the day there was a squabble between Sridhar Maharaja and Narayana Maharaja over — of all things — the propriety of holding a Ratha Yatra festival in Nabadwip. Sridhar Maharaja was against it for some reason or another, and Narayana Maharaja was for it for some reason or another. Really this squabble had it’s roots in the break-up of the Gaudiya Math into different organizations. I don’t think the root of their squabble really had anything to do with Ratha Yatra — it’s underlying cause was probably competition between Sridhar Maharaja and his organization versus Narayana Maharaja and his organization for who was more “bona fide”; and therefore deserving of more respect as acharya. Ever since there has been bad blood between the 2 groups. Narayana Maharaja made disparaging remarks about Sridhar Maharaja, and Sridhar’s sangha is fond of referring to Narayana Maharaja as some type of sahajiya who has deviated from the path laid out by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati. Go here http://www.gosai.com/krishna-talk/ratha-yatra.html if you feel like reading about some of the details of the squabble (from a follower of Sridhar Maharaja).

During the battle, Rebel
spies managed to steal secret
plans to the Empire’s
ultimate weapon, the DEATH
STAR, an armored space
station with enough power
to destroy an entire planet

Years later after Narayana Maharaja gave his opinion about Prabhupada’s bhava and reason for it (his main claim is that all Gaudiya Vaishnava acharyas are manjaris — therefore Prabhupada is a manjari) Tripurari Swami then brought the debate out onto the “World Wide Porn Web” (AKA teh internets) on a long deefunkt website called VNN.org (a “news site” run by and for Gaudiya Vaishnavas averse to ISKCON) back in 2000 — the year the world was supposed to be destroyed by killer maniac robots controlled by the matrix after teh internets were supposed to become self-aware and develop omnipotent artificial intelligence — all because Bill Gates forgot to hit his alarm clock one morning after a hard night of being a ruthless nerd.

What happened was that Tripurari offhandedly made a claim in one of his special sermons (where he answers questions from “letters”) that there was a good chance that Prabhupada is in sakhya-bhava, a male friend of Krishna. Why did he bring that up?

He had to know that Narayana Maharaja had spoken against the idea of Prabhupada being anything but a manjari. Maybe because of a competitive spirit he saw it as a good idea to speak out in favor of Sridhar Maharaja’s position — after all: he claims to be a siksa disciple of Sridhar Maharaja, and he is always striving to enlarge his own following of disciples. Sridhar Maharaja was gone and the remaining competition for followers outside of ISKCON was mainly from Narayana Maharaja. Maybe Tripurari saw it as a smart tactic to not so subtly claim a superior understanding to that of Narayana Maharaja. Or maybe he wasn’t motivated by anything other than the desire to spread enlightenment to everyone on an important theological point. Either way, his article caught the attention of one of Narayana Maharaja’s most important followers.

Pursued by the Empire’s
sinister agents, Princess
Leia races home aboard her
starship, custodian of the
stolen plans that can save her
people and restore
freedom to the galaxy….

Jadurani devi dasi, queen mother of the Narayana Maharaja sangha, was not pleased with the perceived belittlement of her beloved gurudeva. So she wrote a rebuttal argument to the same website, saying:

“Who does Tripurari Swami think he is? He’s just some glorified door to door encyclopedia salesmen who used to eat bacon cheesburgers wrapped in veal while grabassing young boys in an orgy drunk on LSD while living in a dirty hippie commune; whereas Narayana Maharaja spent his whole long life of purity storing his precious sperm in a Himalayan cave in order to gain superpowers so he could save the universe! Tripurari can bite me, and he should bow down and kiss Narayana Maharaja’s pope ring — or else that sumbitch is gonna get it and get it good” or something like that.

Tripurari then responded with: “Suck it ho” or something like that.

Years later, after one of Sridhar Maharaja’s sannyasi disciples turned into a guruacharyaparamahamsa — because, why not? Just say it’s so and it’s so — wrote (while in a trance) with the help of Tripurari Swami, a comedy in glorification of Prabhupada, wherein he seemingly reveals something about Prabhupada’s eternal bhava. Here is the funniest part from his Srila Prabhupada-Lila-Smarana-Mangala-Stotram:

sat jana vandita mama cira vanchita
prabhupada-padme sukha-seva
tava seva parasade purila se hrdi sadhe
tava guna-sobha mana-lobha

The blissful service of the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada is glorified by the topmost saints and devotees. To obtain the unalloyed service of his lotus feet is the only cherishable goal of my life. That eternal desire is always being fulfilled by the nectar of His Divine Grace and therefore the beauty of his unlimited transcendental qualities continually charms my heart. Now my dear devotees please hear with great care and attention the narration of Srila Prabhupada-Lila-Smarana-Mangala-Stotram, the transcendental qualities and pastimes of His Divine Grace, the topmost servant of Srimati Radharani .

(3)

sri nandotsava-dine nija sakhi-gana-sane
premananda-nimagna sri radhe
sukha iccha parakasi daki nija priya dasa
kahilena “pura ei sadhe”

On the day when the grand festival of Sri Nanda Maharaja, celebrating the birth of Lord Krishna was being held, Srimati Radharani accompanied by Her sakhis, who were all deeply absorbed in the bliss of krsna-prema, called for one of Her dearmost servants. Srimati Radharani , the Absolute Queen of Vrindavana, spoke thus revealing Her happy thoughts, “You must fulfill one desire of mine.”

(4)

aji subha divasete mama krpasisa sathe
avatirne hao dharanite
sri kamala-dhani tatha tava gaura-seva-katha
pracarila bhavisya-vanite

On this auspicious day you must incarnate on the earth along with my blessings and spread Krishna consciousness in every town and village of the world . My very dear Sri Kamala (another name of Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura) has already announced your coming and she has also predicted your devotional service unto My Lord Gauranga.

(5)

ista-devi-pade-nami tabe he sri krsna-premi
e dharara kroda dhanya-kore
avatirna hoile nami sri vaisnava grha swami
sri gaura-mohana-paribare

That unalloyed servant of Sri Krishna (later to be known as A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada), who’s heart was filled with the most inconcievable love of Godhead, paying obeisances and offering countless prayers at the lotus feet of the Supremely Worshipable Goddess of Fortune then appeared on the earth in the renowned Vaishnava family, headed by Sri Gaura Mahan.

Well, that settles that! Prabhupada was ordered by Sri Radha to incarnate himself to save the world! It doesn’t matter who was right — Sridhar Maharaja, Narayana Maharaja, Queen Jadurani…meh meh meh. Narasingha Maharaja was granted divine eyes to see the truth, his truth was worth much more (on the open market) than the minor quibbling over Prabhupada’s eternal bhava! He was granted x-ray vision and therefore we should really accept him as the one true holy moly thingy or whatevahs!

Eventually Tripurari realized he had been played for a sucker. Narasingha Swami get’s invited to join the Green Lantern Corps and gets a power ring for being the one to reveal the ultimate truth about Prabhupada. He’s chillin and surfin in South India, hangin out in his cool little cult compound where HEISGOD — and doesn’t need any competion thank you very much. Tripurari get’s thanked “for a job well done now see ya wouldn’t want to be ya and don’t let the door hit ya in the butt on the way out.”

Luke Skywalker has returned to
his home planet of Tatooine in
an attempt to rescue his
friend Han Solo from the
clutches of the vile gangster
Jabba the Hutt.

One of Tripurari Swami’s followers/godbrother by the name of Bababhruie has just recently reanimated the corpse of the old debate about: “Who is the bestest guru in the world by dint of knowing who Srila Prabhupada is in Krishna lila.” Like a zombie – it just won’t die, prolly ’cause it’s already dead, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Bababhruie has supposedly written the ultimate idiots guide to just who the frak is Prabhupada anyways? I know — super important stuff right? Well, o.k. not to normal people, but at the least it’s important to the opposing factions in the Guru Wars. Of course, no one believes that Bababrubu really wrote the thing by himself, seeing as he’s very close to Tripurari, even living with him. Of course the entire thing is really an attempt to prove what Tripurari had said earlier in agreement with Sridhar Maharaja in the battle for the Guru World Heavyweight Crown against Narayana Maharaja and his peeps. In Narayana Maharaja’s corner, to the rescue is…Dhanurdhara Swami! Huh? He wrote a lengthy rebuttal claming Bababooie was half a tard and probably a gay. And then of course Tripurari and his fantards rebutted his ass right back (tey iz teh ghey) Well, now Tripurari didn’t take too kindly to that kind of back talk and plan-screwingupedness from someone he used to play scratch and tickle with. On Tripurari’s new website in the comments to his rebuttal he gets snippy and basically says to Dhanurdhara: stfu you mouth breather Narayanafag!

Little does Luke know that the
GALACTIC EMPIRE has secretly
begun construction on a new
armored space station even
more powerful than the first
dreaded Death Star.

All of their speculations are moot anyways. Their underlying thesis is that Prabhupada knew his bhava and revealed it at various times — directly and in clues. The antithesis to that is that Prabhupada was too ignorant and racist and stupid to know his eternal bhava. Thesis plus antithesis = synthesis. The synthesis is: we should first find out if Prabhupada actually knew his bhava using rational means of investigative deduction.

When completed, this ultimate
weapon will spell certain doom
for the small band of rebels
struggling to restore freedom
to the galaxy…

What type of person knows his eternal bhava? According to Gaudiya theology one’s bhava is directly revealed at the stage of…bhava-bhakti. What are the symptoms of bhava-bhakti? The only relevant one for our purposes is this one mentioned at the end of Madhurya Kadambini by Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura:

At the stage of bhajana kriya, meditation on the Lord is mixed with other topics and is temporary. At the stage of nistha, meditation on the Lord has a trace of other topics. At the stage of ruci, other topics are absent and the meditation is long lasting. At the stage of asakti, meditation becomes deep. During bhava, by meditation, the Lord appears in the mind. Achieving prema, along with the appearance of the Lord in the mind, there is direct association with the Lord.

At the stage of bhava-bhakti Krishna appears in the mind. At that stage you are able to speak with Krishna and your eternal bhava is revealed to you:

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 3.26.28

yad vidur hy aniruddhākhyaḿ
hṛṣīkāṇām adhīśvaram
śāradendīvara-śyāmaḿ
saḿrādhyaḿ yogibhiḥ śanaiḥ

yat — which mind; viduḥ — is known; hi — indeed; aniruddha-ākhyam — by the name Aniruddha; hṛṣīkāṇām — of the senses; adhīśvaram — the supreme ruler; śārada — autumnal; indīvara — like a blue lotus; śyāmam — bluish; saḿrādhyam — who is found; yogibhiḥ — by the yogīs; śanaiḥ — gradually.

The mind of the living entity is known by the name of Lord Aniruddha, the supreme ruler of the senses. He possesses a bluish-black form resembling a lotus flower growing in the autumn. He is found slowly by the yogīs.

It’s not so much that Krishna “appears in the mind” as much as it is that Krishna “reveals himself as the mind”.

Srimad Bhagavatam 3.28.35-36

muktasrayam yarhi nirvisayam viraktam
nirvanam rcchati manah sahasa yatharcih
atmanam atra puruso ‘vyavadhanam ekam
anviksate pratinivrtta-guna-pravahah

mukta-asrayam — situated in liberation; yarhi — at which time; nirvisayam — detached from sense objects; viraktam — indifferent; nirvanam — extinction; rcchati — obtains; manah — the mind; sahasa — immediately; yatha — like; arcih — the flame; atmanam — the mind; atra — at this time; purusah — a person; avyavadhanam — without separation; ekam — one; anviksate — experiences; pratinivrtta — freed; guna-pravahah — from the flow of material qualities.

When the mind is thus completely freed from all material contamination and detached from material objectives, it is just like the flame of a lamp. At that time the mind is actually dovetailed with that of the Supreme Lord and is experienced as one with Him because it is freed from the interactive flow of the material qualities.

so ‘py etaya caramaya manaso nivrttya
tasmin mahimny avasitah sukha-duhkha-bahye
hetutvam apy asati kartari duhkhayor yat
svatman vidhatta upalabdha-paratma-kasthah

sah — the yogi; api — moreover; etaya — by this; caramaya — ultimate; manasah — of the mind; nivrttya — by cessation of material reaction; tasmin — in his; mahimni — ultimate glory; avasitah — situated; sukha-duhkha-bahye — outside of happiness and distress; hetutvam — the cause; api — indeed; asati — a product of ignorance; kartari — in the false ego; duhkhayoh — of pleasure and pain; yat — which; sva-atman — to his own self; vidhatte — he attributes; upalabdha — realized; para-atma — of the Personality of Godhead; kasthah — the highest truth.

Thus situated in the highest transcendental stage, the mind ceases from all material reaction and becomes situated in its own glory, transcendental to all material conceptions of happiness and distress. At that time the yogi realizes the truth of his relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He discovers that pleasure and pain as well as their interactions, which he attributed to his own self, are actually due to the false ego, which is a product of ignorance.

So, if Prabhupada was on speaking terms with Krishna, how do you explain this:

He made Kirtanananda, Hansadutta, Ramesvara, Bhavananda, Guru Krpa, Jayatirtha, Satsvarupa, etc, his proxy leaders of ISKCON, and he told his disciples that they were to be obeyed and seen as good as him (in a room conversation) — but he banned from ISKCON and harshly denigrated all of his godbrothers?

He insisted everyone send their children to the gurukulas but didn’t implement enough oversight to make sure everything was properly run. When a parent complained about abuse he told them to put the child back in the gurukula.

He didn’t want the children in the gurukula to learn from anything but his books. When a devotee created a semi-standard curriculum incorporating Prabupada’s books, he was insulted and harshly denigrated in front of his peers by Prabhupada for doing so, even though he was asked by Prabhupada to do so.

He claimed that people of black African descent should be forced into slavery — and they would be satisfied with a little cloth and food!

He made crude antisemitic slurs, like this one:

“Yes. They have got money. The Jews have got money. They want to invest and get some profit. Their only interest is how to get money, no nationalism, no religion, nothing of the sort. Therefore it is not now; long, long ago… Therefore Shakespeare wrote “Shylock, the Jew.”

He insisted women were “less intelligent” than men because of their smaller brain size. Even though Bhagavat theology teaches that intelligence has nothing to do with physical matter; the mind and intellect is immaterial and is not caused nor enhanced by brain size. We are taught by Krishna that intelligence comes from him as Paramatma.

He claimed that women liked to be raped — mentioning at the same time he meant real rape, not just an aggressive lover as some apologists speculate he meant.

He insisted that the moon landing had to be faked because it’s impossible for humans to step foot on the moon — unless they are karmically qualified and have astral bodies. If so then the demigods who guard the moon will let you there, otherwise no one can go to the moon. Therefore the moon landing had to be faked.

He insisted the sun was closer to the earth than the moon.

He insisted that all the stars in the sky were planets whose light was reflected from our sun — the only sun in the universe! This was due to his insistence that Puranic cosmology must be taken literally. He claimed that any other cosmology was bogus. The problem with that is that he misunderstood Puranic cosmology anyways. A brahmanda is commonly misinterpreted as universe, a brahmanda actually corresponds with our solar system — one sun where all the planets reflect light and look like stars from earth.

He insisted that the world of Bhu-mandala was a literal accurate description of our world. See how some of his leading disciples tried to process this information:

Bhu-mandala Diagram Discussion, Vrindavana, 07/02/1977

Tamala Krishna: It says here, “There is thick dust covering and no evidence to suggest that the moon has ever supported life.” In that newspaper article the man who is exposing them said—because they say it is covered by dust — “How is it that no dust is shown on the astronauts’ suits when they walked around?” He says, “If there’s such a thick dust, then, when the rocket landed, it would have made a pocket within that dust.” He says, “But there’s no crater around the rocket. Then how it is possible that these things are like that?” ‘Cause actually they forgot. When they were making the stage setting in Arizona, they forgot these things.

Yasoda-nandana: One argument Your Divine Grace gave in 1971 was that if they went to the moon and they found it was rock, how do they explain the moon is so shiny and gives such a cooling effect? They cannot explain that.

Tamala Krishna: Look at the earth. Now, this is a real question that we still have to answer. They picture the earth round, and we say, no. Bhu-mandala is like a lotus, like this, and the earth is only one part of one island in Bhu-mandala, and it’s not, you know, it’s not round(?). It doesn’t look like that. And all the pictures they take of the earth when they go up in their satellites show round. And we’re going to tell them that it’s not. This is a very tricky question. In other words, if this is the picture of the world, like this, and we say that… If we take an airplane from here, from Los Angeles. Now, supposing we go to India, which is here. So there’s two ways to go. One way, you can go like this, and the other way, you can go like that. But if the earth is not a round globe, then how is it sometimes people go from Los Angeles via Hawaii to Japan and then India? So we can’t figure this out. We have experience, those of us who have flown, that actually the plane went from Los Angeles to Hawaii to Tokyo to Hong Kong and then to India. So it doesn’t work out in our maps so far, right? We can’t figure it out. This thing has to be very complete in its answers. Otherwise everyone will laugh at us. We can’t leave any loopholes.

Prabhupada insisted that the moon was a paradise with vegetation. He argued that if the moon was just dust and rocks that they would get very hot in the direct sunlight and therefore moon rays wouldn’t be pleasing. So why are moon rays pleasing rascal scientists?!!

He said: how can there be no life on the moon when moon rays give life to vegetation!

He was adamant that his cosmological views were superior to any others and absolutely correct; and that any contradictory cosmology was insane; and that people were “fools, rascals, and mudhas (stupified)” if they didn’t agree with him.

He taught that you could fall down from your eternal position in Goloka lila — directly contradicting one of the most important of Krishna’s teachings.

He claimed that we became envious of Krishna’s position as the enjoyer and therefore we were sent to the material world to try to be the enjoyer, and that we will be punished until we give up the desire to enjoy. That is not the teaching of Krishna or any Vedic scripture. It is nothing more than a concocted exploitative dogma created for the sole purpose of gaining slavish followers.

He taught that raganuga sadhana was only for “liberated, self-realized, pure devotees”, and anyone else is a sahajiya or a demon if they think they are qualified to take up raganuga. He distorted and misquoted Rupa Goswami and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu whenever he wrote or spoke about raganuga bhakti in order to make people believe that they shouldn’t take an interest in raganuga — directly misleading people on purpose.

I could go on, but I think the point is well made. At the stage of bhava-bhakti your eternal bhava is revealed to you because at that stage you are able to speak with Krishna in your mind. But, it’s not that Krishna pops in once or twice, gives some instruction and then leaves. As Kapiladev says in the above – the devotee realizes that the mind is one with Krishna and then Krishna reveals his presence as the mind. Krishna is always there for the bhava-bhakta to speak to. Krishna is always within all of us ready to speak with us. We just need to want to.

The point I am making is: why wouldn’t Krishna let Prabhupada in on the truth about the problems with the gurukula, or his crazy cosmology, or correct his racism and sexism, or have him see the real character of the people he chose to be leaders of ISKCON? Or correct his mis-characterizations and contradictions and concocted made up theology? Is Krishna there just to shoot the breeze with Prabhupada while letting him make a fool out of himself and his followers to the world at large in Krishna’s name?

What is it about Prabhupada that makes you believe he was always speaking with Krishna? From all indications he wasn’t. The only reason people believe he was is either because they equate preaching success with spiritual advancement, or they equate scholarly ability with advancement. Neither is true. Sun Myung Moon is far more successful than Prabhupada from his preaching, so is Satya Sai Baba, will you accept them as being on the highest level of God consciousness? Scholarship also does not equate with spiritual advancement. There are many Sanskrit experts and educated scholars who are simply intellectually inclined, but not necessarily advanced in spiritual realization and Krishna consciousness. Reading and memorization is different from internalization and realization.

But will these obvious points make any difference to people who lead their lives with blinders on when it comes to Prabhupada? Probably not. They have been so thoroughly indoctrinated into fearing offense if they don’t see Prabhupada as perfect, or if they see him critically; that even the most insane and vile or bogus things out of Prabhupada’s mouth will be ignored as if it never happened — or as if it has no bearing on his level of spiritual advancement and realization. He has a perpetual get-out-of-jail-free card to many people. In that way self-deception rules their lives. They cannot advance on the path of self-realization because they cannot even see the truth about their own inability to accept reality, i.e. the fact that Prabhupada was not what they believed him to be even though the truth is right in front of their faces.

To make it even worse for most people is that there are countless bogus exploiter gurus who constantly glorify Prabhupada as the greatest person ever because they are using him as a means for their own exploitation. They’re trying to convince people that they are Prabhupada’s successors, they’re trying to ride his coattails to gain wealth, fame and followers. Therefore they can’t tell the truth about Prabhupada and will attack anyone who does.