"Suhotra Maharaja's Published Contradiction of Satswarupa"
gaura...@gmail.com
Lenny Sislac : Adilila, see below, working hard to enhance Suhotra's reputation. What he forgets to mention, is, that when Suhotra left Middle Europe to live like a VIP in ISKCON's Vrindavan Academy, all of Prabhupada's disciples in his zone were kicked out by him.
BY: ADI LILA DAS
Dec 02, USA (SUN) — Yesterday the Sampradaya Sun was kind enough to print our essay establishing that the sacred name of Suhotra Swami does not belong on the list of fallen gurus. Thank you, Rocana and Jahnava. You are brave and courageous souls and someday Srila Prabhupada will ask the GBC, "Why did you not defend me like the Sun editors?" And when your detractors explain to Prabhupada, "Well, they were malcontents." I can hear His Divine Grace thunder, "So you were contented?" And the problem is that they are…
In yesterday's article, "Why Suhotra Maharaja Does Not Belong on the List of Fallen Gurus, we demonstrated that when Suhotra changed his name to Tapovanachari (rather than Swami), he was actually sharing solidarity with ISKCON's disenfranchised members (like you and me). He was renouncing his position not as a sannyasi, but as a party line GBC and in-house swami of convenience at the beck and call of a governing body he called "the people I joined ISKCON to get away from." In this way, he was a real renunciate whose genuine sacrifice deserves recognition from genuine followers of Shrila Prabhupada.
Suhotra Swami joined Shrila Prabhupada's movement in Boston 1970 during the regime of Satsvarupa das Adhikary. Srila Prabhupada had arranged Sats' marriage to the artistic Jadurani, hence the "Adhikary" moniker. At one point, Suhotra admitted to being in awe of Satsvarupa for his voluminous writings—until he actually read them. In the following entry to his In2-MeC diaries (www.suhotraswami.net), Suhotra openly reveals his philosophical repugnance for Sats' perverse and mealy-mouthed glorification of a border-line psycho fictitious character from a karmi's novel. That Sats in real life would go the way of the made-up character he adores herein demonstrates the danger of misplaced affection. For a so-called sannyasi, such affection is disgusting and demeaning to the entire Society of devotees he still claims to lead.
It is true that in the following essay, Suhotra Swami tears Satsvarupa to pieces in a very respectful and civilized manner, a method that befits a genuine scholar who seeks to devour a poser as bloodlessly as possible. Nonetheless, Suhotra effectively shows that Satsvarupa hasn't a clue about what he's writing or what he's thinking, and that's the main point; he proves Sats has lost touch with reality. And it is important to note that Sats never responded to the following piece, though Suhotra revealed the gaping holes in the sub-literary drivel of a pen-happy pretender who claims to be paramhamsa acharya.
One may open the door to the hypocrite's bungalow with care, or one may throw it wide open to expose the naked charlatan hiding inside, but the main thing is that door must be opened so the ugliness hiding there can be revealed. And this is what Suhotra's essay succeeds at doing so brilliantly. In his words that follow, Suhotra contradicts his one-time fellow GBC member and reveals that Satsvarupa himself is as deluded as the fictitious character he so boastfully idolizes. Satswarupa's deluded affection for the unreal is a dangerous love to be sure, because in real life Satsvarupa displayed an intense allergy for his flesh and blood Godbrothers and -sisters who tried to serve their Guru Maharaja in a warm family atmosphere. He could not love them, but only exploit them; send them letters with his name as "Acharya" boldly printed thereupon, accept roses from them and give nothing in return. Nothing, that is but a hundred lousy books.
And,
incidentally, Sats O'Roopa is still at it, still writing inarticulate
drivel for the enlightenment of no one, but for the satisfaction of his
strange illness called CWD, Compulsive Writing Disorder. Just a few
weeks back he sent out invitations on Facebook to the book signing of
his latest non-seller at the Govinda's in Philadelphia. Here then, is
Suhotra's In2-MeC take on Sats' My Search Through Books.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2 June, 2003
I was just looking at HH Satsvarupa Maharaja's My Search Through Books. In Chapter 5 he reminisces about J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. If I am not mistaken, this book was first published in the year of my birth, 1950. Catcher in the Rye is a perennial favorite among American high school students. Satsvarupa Maharaja, writing about the main character, Holden Caulfield, states, "I would say that every devotee ought to aspire to be as honest and loving as Holden. We could use more Holdens in the world. I haven't renounced my affection for Catcher in the Rye. I think it is a wonderful book and J. D. Salinger must have received Krishna's mercy to write it. He must have been very sincere in his desires. "
I never opened Catcher in the Rye before I became a devotee. The reason, I suppose, was that it was a book that every American kid read when they turned sixteen or seventeen. I didn't much care for doing the same thing all the other kids did. Perhaps in that way I was like Holden myself. About a year ago I picked up a Progress paperback edition of Catcher in the Rye. It might have been during a visit to Prague. Progress was a Soviet publishing house that printed literary works from around the world, in their original languages. It appears that Progress chose the works of Western authors that depicted the dark side of life in capitalist countries. Anyway, when I sat down with the Progress edition of Catcher in the Rye, it was the first time I'd ever read the book. It's a very engaging read. After a few pages I was hooked. I finished the whole book in just one day.
But I got a rather different impression of Holden Caulfield than did Satsvarupa Maharaja. Holden seemed a very unhappy individual, alienated from the world around him to the point of borderline insanity. Indeed, at the end of the novel Holden is put into a mental institution. He's somewhat of a "beat" character. The Beats felt themselves beaten down by society; they didn't fit in, and they thought it was a "cool" inner adventure to be diagnosed insane and locked up in a psycho ward. A fledgling idealist, Holden sees no place in a materialistic society to spread his wings. But I wouldn't agree with Maharaja that he was very loving and very honest. To me he seemed selfish in a petty, juvenile way. It's true that many young people from a pampered middle-class background are in the same emotionally deprived boat. So Holden, though selfish, is not unsympathetic. You feel sorry for him. It is furthermore true that he does cherish a romantic notion to save others, especially other young people. But he can't even save himself. And that's the core of his dishonesty.
To be honest with yourself you have to be a little clear as to your actual position in life. Perhaps it is too harsh to rate Holden as consciously dishonest; but he is certainly too confused to see where he is really at. No later than quarter of the way through the book, he should have realized he had drifted into psychological and emotional storm waters.
But instead he just carries on following his increasingly ridiculous mental whims. Finally he cracks up. His "loving" nature? It seems to me whatever love he has is morbidly fixated on his younger sister Phoebe. Apart from that, my reading was that he really doesn't care much about anyone else. . . well, okay, maybe he cares about the ducks in the Central Park pond, about what happens to them in the winter. And there's some vague caring for unfortunate young folks like himself. But that's rather abstact. He certainly doesn't care for his friends at school. He doesn't care for his parents. And regarding his attachment for his sister, it is hard to say for sure, but there is a suggestion of something incestuous there. It does not seem normal.
About half way through the novel Holden hires a good-looking prostitute his same age, 18 years old. But he's a virgin as well as an idealist, so it turns out he is captivated by the mere idea of being with her. He uses up his allotted time just trying to talk to her. That is more intimacy than she, bored and jaded as she is, is willing to give. But still he has to pay. In 1950, this scene with the tart might have been a bit of a shocker to some people: "A woman so young already doing that?" But eight years before, Philip Wylie wrote in Generation of Vipers about what American girls much younger than this one were up to as troops were mustered at military bases across the nation at the start of World War Two.
Police began to notice, also, a curious phenomenon; late at night, and on into the early hours of the morning, swarms of school girls, some as young as twelve, were seen skulking about the edges of public parks. It was soon found that these children were prostituting themselves in large numbers to the soldiers and sailors--for very small sums of money.
Reading Salinger and Wylie now, it's fascinating to realize that the moral and psychological fiber of young people was not any better in the "good old days" fifty, sixty years ago. The difference is that today, degradation is more openly celebrated. If you're a young man who can somewhat articulate his psychosis, you start a rock band. If you're a young woman who can find nothing better to do with your life than to market your naked body, never mind skulking around public parks risking AIDS. There's the Internet for you.
No, I'm not telling you, "Every devotee ought to aspire to be as honest and loving as Holden. We could use more Holdens in the world." My plea would be, "Every Holden ought to aspire to be a devotee. We could use more devotees in the world." There are surely enough Holdens out there: misguided idealists, maybe suicidal, maybe even murderous. The young man who shot John Lennon did so in the name of Holden Caulfield. He was a great "devotee" of Salinger's book, and he believed that were Holden alive today, he would kill Lennon for being such a phoney. The young Saudi Arabians who flew the airliners into New York's World Trade Center probably never heard of Holden Caulfield. Yet they were nothing else than frustrated-idealistic youth in an extremist Islamic mold.
Even in the West, from the Fifties through the Nineties, we saw alientated youth mutate from Beats to hippies to ecological revolutionaries, from New Left radicals who demonstrated with signs to violent anarchists who exploded bombs, from rowdy drunken skinheads to brutal neo-Nazis. The trend gets uglier as Kali-yuga gets worse. I pray that Srila Prabhupada's mercy may penetrate the hearts of all the world's confused youth.
larry freeman p
Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2009 12:47:04 +0100
Subject: [Prabhupadanuga] "Suhotra Maharaja's Published Contradiction of Satswarupa"
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Pratyatosa Dasa (Howard Charles Best)
BTW, I read in one of Suhotra's books, "The Wright brothers flew a plane named the 'Kitty Hawk.'" Talk about ignorant!
Your servant, Pratyatosa Dasa (http://causelessmercy.com/ http://rtvik.com/ http://pratyatosa.com/ http://feedacow.com/ http://llbest.com/)
larry freeman p
From: praty...@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2009 19:55:39 -0500
Subject: Re: [Prabhupadanuga] "Suhotra Maharaja's Published Contradiction of Satswarupa"
To: istag...@googlegroups.com
Pratyatosa Dasa (Howard Charles Best)
Bin Laden, like Castro, is still alive because of American bungling and incompetence. Why should we be surprised? "If Krishna wants to save me, then no one can kill me; if Krishna wants to kill me, then no one can save me!" For His own unfathomable reasons, Krishna wanted Bin Laden and Castro to live, but He wanted JFK dead and gone.
The power of the entire US Government couldn't kill Bin Laden or Castro because Krishna wanted to save them. On the other hand, one lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, was able to gun down an American President with only 3 bullets, because Krishna wanted wanted him out of the picture!
Chalk all of these things up to national karma.
Pratyatosa Dasa (Howard Charles Best)
Bin Laden: Yes, I did it
where is it stated, that Osama Bin Laden himself claims that he was behind the 9-11 attacks?
I heard the exact opposite, namely that he always denied, that he was involved.
Pratyatosa Dasa (Howard Charles Best)
as Jesse said on Larry King a few days ago: the WTC buildings could NOT have gone down like the controlled demolition style they collapsed.
Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse?
This controlled demolition idea is the theory of self-motivated rascals. The US Government is not going to blow up a building containing thousands of her own citizens, including women and children! The Gov't may act like a bunch of goofballs at times, but that's all the more reason to believe that they could never pull off such an underhanded plot. A Gov't that is not even capable of assassinating Castro is definitely not capable of very much in the way of premeditated deception. Planted explosives would be extremely easy to prove after the fact. No such proof exists.
Will another skyscraper be built with the exact same design? Probably not.