Re: Devotees do not eat bhoga even if the pujari is in maya, why then should the sincere follower not go back to Godhead just because his guru is in maya?

[Patrick Hedemark]

Prabhu I would be happy to suggest you revisit SP's Nectar of Instruction and carefully read his purports to Texts 5 & 6. Ruminate carefully upon each sentence. I find reading them out loud is very helpful. Then after that - go back and read over this letter you have written. I believe you will be quite capable of answering your own queries yourself. These two purports are absolutely wonderful!


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On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 12:45 AM EDT Charlene Darleen wrote:

>Hare Krishna Prabhus,
>
>Do not ask me where this quote is from but I was told this story. One time
>a devotee asked Srila Prabhupada what happens if, for example, a pujari is
>in maya when he makes an offering, or perhaps the cook, or somebody else,
>and Lord Krishna does not accept it for that reason. What happens to the
>devotees, do they end up eating bhoga? And Srila Prabhupada said no, they
>won't have to eat bhoga, Lord Krishna will accept it for the sake of His
>devotees.
>
>In the same way there is something known as causeless mercy. Someone might
>have a guru, and the guru might not appear to be an uttama adhikari, or
>even that strict of a devotee. Perhaps it is even seen he does not become
>very strict until the end of his life. But he has many disciples. Do the
>disciples all have to take another birth because they got cheated by their
>guru? Not if Lord Krishna grants some causeless mercy to them. Srila
>Prabhupada said if we follow the four regulative principles and chant
>sixteen rounds we will see Lord Krishna face to face at the end of this
>lifetime. Or maybe he said in this very lifetime I don't recall. But we
>will see Him.
>
>One time a devotee asked Srila Prabhupada "What if you have one material
>desire when you die, will that stop you from going back to Godhead and make
>you take another birth?" and Srila Prabhupada said, "No, Lord Krishna can
>manifest in your mind out of His own Causeless mercy.". These are all
>quotations I have heard since I became a devotee. They might not be right
>word for word but devotees in here who are more scholarly than I should be
>able to find them.
>
>If, in the Nectar of Instruction, it says a neophyte devotee can bring his
>disciples back to Godhead, which it does, and if that devotee is following
>the four regs and chanting sixteen rounds then who are we to criticize
>Srila Prabhupada and say he is wrong? That would be like saying Prabhupada
>doesn't know what to eat on Ekadasi. Or Prabhupada doesn't know as much
>about the Moon landing as we do, because we saw it on tv and analyzed it,
>and it is true. Prabhupada is wrong.
>
>When some people read how a neophyte can take his disciples back to Godhead
>they cut that part out and say "One should be careful to accept only an
>uttama adhikari as a spiritual master so I am choosing Srila Prabhupada".
>But this is not the law of disciplic succession. Srila Prabhupada explained
>what he called the law of disciplic succession. It goes like this: one does
>not become a guru until his guru has left, then he can become guru. So
>where does the idea come from that one can choose someone for their guru
>who isn't here? It comes from taking Prabhupada's letters and making them
>into laws for the next ten thousand years.
>
>Prabhupada said in his letters and his books that the spiritual master's
>vani, instructions, are more important than his vapu, or form. But does
>that signify anyone for the next ten thousand years can claim they are
>Prabhupada's initiated disciples just because they want to? Such an
>instruction is not in Prabhupada's letters, that "after I am gone let one
>and all claim I am their guru for the next ten thousand years.". That is
>not in his letters and that is not an instruction in his books. The fact
>that he told his disciples his instructions are more important than his
>form has nothing to do with choosing him as a guru. It was an instruction
>written for his disciples.
>
>There are some devotees who have no faith in any followers of Srila
>Prabhupada. Jayananda Prabhu, for example, went back to Godhead. But what
>if he didn't yet? Would anyone accept he was worth following among the
>anti-ISKCON groups? Or would they criticizingly say "Oh, look at Jayananda,
>serving Prabhupada in ISKCON. He should reject Srila Prabhupada's movement
>and become like us! No one is qualified to become guru, even though Srila
>Prabhupada did not say that. WE say that, and we know, because WE aren't
>qualifed, so we know no one else can be either! That was a statement Nori
>might remember on the back of ISKCON World number 2 spoken so eloquently by
>H, H. Hrdayananda Maharaja. It was supposed to answer a big question
>devotees had about why there were only 11 gurus when Srila Prabhupada said
>they could add more. So the answer they came up with was since none of us
>are qualified we know no one else can be qualified to be guru either, that
>is why we are still not going to allow anyone but ourselves to become
>gurus, because even we aren't qualified. Right after that paper came out a
>couple of devotees left. They were Prabhupada disciples and they knew about
>all the falldowns that were happening but were being kept from me, and they
>said they couldn't take it anymore. One of them asked me if I really wanted
>to know the truth of what was going on around here and tried to tell me but
>was threatened that they had to leave right away or else. So they left in
>frustration and I remained in the dark, as usual. One by one all the
>devotees left, and I stayed, wondering why?
>
>Yes injustices were done, but causeless mercy is still there. I have heard
>stories of pujaris breaking the principles who were going on the altar. I
>have heard stories about the cooks as well. Still we offer bhoga to the
>Deities and pray they will accept it. Sometimes the prasadam appears
>especially nice, and we think the cook or pujari or both must be in good
>consciousness. That is the way prasadam is supposed to be. But we are in
>the line of disciplic succession. If we were to leave and start our own
>movement out of frustration would we still have the same link to our
>spiritual master? LEAVE ISKCON AND BLASPHEME IT AND ALL IT'S DEVOTEES and
>still think we are pleasing to Krishna and to Srila Prabhupada? Isn't that
>what ritviks do? I am not using the name as a swear word I am using it as
>they do. A term that distinguishes them from ISKCON. In fact it is those
>who have left ISKCON that come up with blasphemous terminology such as
>"its-a-con" and dozens of other names, that was just the first one I heard
>of I can't remember any of the others right now.
>
>No I can't remember an example from the sastras of a devotee who went back
>to Godhead despite having a somewhat fallen guru so I cannot cite any
>sastra in this regard right now but maybe someone out there can. Are there
>any cases of a devotee who was fallen and went back to Godhead? We all know
>of one case, Ajamila. Was his guru an uttama adhikari or just a kanistha?
>Is it mentioned in the Bhagavatam? Does it matter? Or is what counted the
>most in his case chanting the name of the Lord by Lord Narayana's mercy?
>
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[rammohan das]

Dear Prabhus, dear Charlene,
pamho all glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Who didn't think like Charlene? Year after year we thought - thanks to God, now it's over, this was the last false guru falling down (natural selection), those who are left are the right ones.  Once and for all! Now things go on without any scandal, tragedy and immoral slip. Nothing of this sort anymore.

Whenever a longer span of time has passed without any ISKCON guru falling down our thinking switches over into what the heck, it's over, it won't happen again. Didn't we all think like Charlene? Yes, of course. :-)

What at one point happened was not our fault but "out of a sudden" another guru falling down, and another.
And this went on year after year. Then documents appeared  signed by Prabhupada where he states that he follows his guru's example and he would not appoint any successor. Like that.

Dear Charlene, if you realy believe that there are some ISKCON gurus who are bona fide and pure why don't they again fill up Prabhupada's empty temples all over Europe and North America? Is this demanded too much? Are people having no right to have their war-torn confidence restored?   

On travelling Sankirtan we used to read from Prabhupada's books, one should not become a spiritual master unless he has attained the platform of uttama-adhikara. Being situated in his original Krishna conscious position, a pure devotee does not identify with the body. If you believe and this is what you believe that some or all ISKCON gurus have attained that state of pure consciousness then this is like sunshine, there is no need of torchlight to see the sunshine.

These devotees would automatically turn this planet into Vaikuntha. Yet we find all over Europe/NA hundreds of temples empty/mortgaged/sold. Any idea?

 ys
rmd

[Charlene Darleen]

Dear RMH Prabhu,

you ask who didn't think like this, that the falldowns are now over? I would say almost all of the Prabhupada disciples and older grand disciples. Did we ever actually believe for one moment the original 11 were pure, when, for example, in my case, I heard they were NOT on the level of Srila Prabhupada before I even joined? Did we believe they were all pure when we heard some of them had already FALLEN before we joined? Did we fall for the temple president's advice that now your guru is fallen, but this other one, a member of the terrific 11 who still hasn't been caught yet in our zone, he is not, so take him? Then six months later he is caught too?

No. I saw the writing on the wall. I saw those gurus myself, all of them. And I heard and saw some things they said and did that were completely wrong. I saw Jayatirtha turn his back on Sri Sri Rukmini and Dwarkadish and chant to all the women, "giving them his mercy" until Ramesvara heard me asking about it and told him to "turn around, you are disturbing the minds of the bramacaris.". What disturbed me was how bogus he was. And if he was bogus I knew Ramesvara was too for covering up for him, as the word got spread around that "He was in so much ecstacy he forgot he was in the temple.". We were told blatant lies like, "All of the original 11 gurus were naistika bramacaris" only to later find out, very shortly later, that THAT was a bunch of lies.

These "documents" signed by Prabhupada were letters. Letters containing instructions according to time place and circumstances. At one time he wrote how pleased he was with devotees going out chanting every day. Later he changed his program more toward selling books. He banned marriages in one letter, banned sannyasa in another, banned K. Swami in several letters, was pleased with K. Swami in another letter after he came back. Can we pick up a letter from when K. Swami was banned and kick him out of the temple with it when it has been rescinded by Srila Prabhupada later on? The cheating of course was when K. Swami, in conjunction with Satsvarupa, BURNED ALL THE LETTERS so there would be no proof of this and then he could spread the lies that he was the first initiated disciple of Srila Prabhupada's when if you read the actual letters K. Swami was in Belleville insane asylum during the first initiation ceremony! That isn't what he told his disciples.

What about the letters? The devotee who was accused of starting the fire that day was pointed out to me at Gita Nagari. This was much later but they told me he was seen running out of the barn the letters were stored in very quickly without looking and someone had seen him, one of the women. Then she saw the smoke coming out and realized the place was on fire. Some of the letters were burned but if she hadn't been there many more would have been.

One time I was at Gita Nagari and it was in Satsvarupa's zone. He was coming to give class. A devotee, now I know her as the one who was ultimately caught with him, told me he had been having an affair with her for years. She asked me if I would confront him about it. I believed her completely since she was so serious about it. So when he asked for questions I asked him, "How come there is a devotee lady outside (I think I said her name) who says you have been having an  affair with her for years? She's married now and she's really tired of it and she wants it to stop! She wants all this information to come out". He just sat there. Then he said he would deal with this later and announced they were going to have written questions now. So I wrote a question along with all the rest of the devotees, figuring he would not know my writing. I don't remember the question but it was something he had written about Srila Prabhupada in the Lilamrta. Sometimes he would apparently speculate about what Prabhupada was thinking alone in a taxi and things like that. I wanted to know if he was later on told these things by Srila Prabhupada or if he was just speculating. A devotee was just picking the notes at random and handed him mine.

"WHO WROTE THIS QUESTION?" he barked, after reading it as challengingly and snearingly as he could. All the devotees started looking around. Some of them said not me, not me. So he finally decided to "answer" the question unsatisfactorily then announced there would be no more questions. No, I didn't get fooled that they were all pure devotees.

But what should he have done? Gotten himself married. Instead of meditating on that devotee's body for how many years, 20? 25? I forgot.

A guru does not have to be a sannyasi. Lord Krishna's guru was not. The wife of the guru is mentioned in the Vedas. Imagine getting Prabhupada as a guru when he was a grhastha. Who would criticize him for being married? Would a ritvik of today look at the Srila Prabhupada of the 40's and 50's and say to themselves, "He is a householder, therefore he cannot be an uttama adhikari. He is bogus."? We cannot recognize an uttama adhikari.

Srila Vamsidasa Babaji Maharaja was known to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta. He was an avadhuta. One day he was chastising his Deities for some reason so he tied them with a rope and put them in the river and placed his foot on the rope? At that time Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Maharaja stopped sending him temple prasadam as was his usual habit. Devotees speculated "Srila Bhaktisiddhanta was wrong. He used to think Vamsidas was pure but now that Vamsidas is offending his Deities he has stopped sending him prasadam". Srila Bhaktisiddhanta called for his disciples. "The reason I have stopped sending prasadam is because Srila Vamsidasa Babaji Maharaja is an avadhuta, and I knew devotees would commit offenses if they saw what he is doing. THAT is the reason, you cannot understand his level of advancement.".

It is sad that devotees took quotes such as that and applied it to themselves when they weren't qualified. By pretending to be on a higher platform than they were, they fell down.

So why don't the devotees who are recommended by me automatically turn this planet into Vaikuntha? Why don't they fill the temples all over North America and Europe? Do I have any idea? Yes. I am not claiming they are uttama adhikaris. Just gurus. Generally I think of devotees as neophytes until the end. "Work now, samadhi later.". If you serve Krishna your whole life He will manifest to you at the end of your life because of your being so sincere throughout your life." "Follow the regs and chant 16 rounds and you will see Lord Krishna face to face at the end of this life."  Gurus generally are not uttama adhikaris throughout their entire lives. Only the most prominent acharyas. That is why they are prominent, and listed in the Bhagavad Gita as it is. Most devotees are neophyte, face it. Therefore most gurus are as well. It is no big secret outside of ISKCON. But we in ISKCON are still struggling with the legacy left to us by the original 11, "The guru must be an uttama adhikari.". This was propagated in order to cheat the newcomers. Why must we follow in these cheaters footsteps? We all know they cheated us.

So find a guru who is not falling down. Someone who goes to the programs. Does service. Chants 16 rounds. Who's life is an open book, so you can see if he is following the 4 regulative principles. One time I was at a temple and a Prabhupada disciple moved there. He gave classes and the temple authorities glorified what a great devotee he was. Within weeks a mataji came up to me and told me, "I don't know why everyone is glorifying him three of us have had illicit sex with him already.". "What?" I asked her. "You heard me" she said, "I had sex with him, as well as (she mentioned two other female devotees names). What do you think we should do about him?" Later, some devotees complained to a devotee who was living in a van outside the temple. The devotee invited me into his van. He told me he was into the temple but not part of the temple, and that was why he was living in his van. It was something they allowed him to do. So the devotee told me something about the same devotee. He said he had raped some gurukulis when they were younger and now that they were older they were upset he was being glorified too! He kept getting away with things by just moving away whenever he got caught but sooner or later he was going to run out of places to go to and they wanted to expose him then and there. He asked me if I had any ideas how to do it?

I told him about the 3 devotee women he had slept with since coming to the temple and he said he did not know about that yet. Then I asked him if the gurukulis would be willing to take a risk. They would have to pick a time and place to print up enough flyers to put on every apartment door in the temple compound, and all of them could do this at the same time, saturating the devotees with information about this devotee and what he had done, who he had done it to, when and where, etc. He said it was a great idea and to keep it a secret. Some time later that is exactly what happened. He had actually helped orchestrate it the most. Later on I actually got ahold of one of the flyers but a ksatriya devotee grabbed it out of my hand the second I looked at it. A devotee had put it in my hand so fast I didn't even know who it was. This devotee didn't last long after that, he left in a very sad state.

Here is how the devotees I think of as good act. They constantly go around doing things to stay busy in devotional service. They protect their disciples from other devotees, from their own minds, and from their own senses. They are always thinking of helping others. They are great devotees who ask for nothing of their own. They are fixed up and are friends with fixed up devotees, and while I might never have seen them struggling themselves with any difficulty if such an occasion were to arise Lord Krishna would help them somehow or other, by sending them good association, by their sincere chanting, sincere service, reading, etc. One time one of these gurus confessed to me that, like Srila Prabhupada, he was hearing a couple of devotees having sex at night through the walls. In the early days Srila Prabhupada heard some devotees having sex at night through the walls. So he told them to get married to each other. Similarly this guru told me he was hearing a devotee couple, and I know who they are, having sex at night, that were already married. He asked me what he should do to stop it. It never occured to me that he might have been disturbed by them himself. But who knows maybe? But that doesn't mean he acted on anything. He said he had already spoken to the man who then denied it. Then I told them if they do it again to bang on the wall while they are doing it and I think he even reported to me later that he did it and it worked. So that was nice, he confided in me and not only that he let me know what happened later on. I really appreciated it and I never even spoke about it until now. So naturally I am not going to name who he is or the other devotees involved it doesn't really matter the story is just as good without having to know who the devotees all were.

When you meet such a devotee who is so fixed up and understand how much more advanced they are than, in my case, I am, it just makes you appreciate them very much. The platform they are on. The service they are doing. The realizations that they have. They might not have uttama adhikari realizations yet but who cares? At least they are qualified to be gurus. What they are good at is boiling the milk. And making devotees too. No they might not have the platform of Srila Prabhupada but we want to stay in Prabhupada's movement. I joined because of Prabhupada's books and his devotees. Not because of cheaters. So I don't want to look for a more advanced devotee outside of Prabhupada's movement. If he had told us to look for someone outside of ISKCON who was more advanced than his disciples after he left then that is what I would be doing. But he didn't. He wanted us to serve in ISKCON. So if we are loyal to him that is what we should do, down to the last devotee. Whether their name is Charlene Darleen or Bhakta Bill or anyone else.

[rainer hahn]

dear Charlene Darleen,

thanks for your reply!

From your description it seems there are parts of the world where Prabhupada disciples are treated more respectfully. In Europe we had kind of clear-cutting, all of us were put on the street.

I am a type of person who would feel bad when being a singular case to go it alone. Except a handful functionaries nobody remained on board the ISKCON ship. Now you say, plz rejoin. Actually one long-serving godbrother recently tried to rejoin.

They gave him a 50 pages GBC law catalog to sign and when going through all these points what he is allowed to do and not to do he felt so embarrassed that he said, I just couldn't sign that, this is no more Prabhupada's movement. Any idea?

Temples all over Europe - London might be an exception - remain closed weekdays. Devotees live in rented flats and each district is under control of a particular ISKCON guru. Do those ISKCON gurus invite their godbrothers / godsisters / lost sheep? Quite the contrary, just like at any matha controlled by one guru there is no space for godbrothers of this guru and only new disciple candidates are welcomed.  Understandably from their point of view, for us Prabhupada disciples a letter of refusal.

Agreed, Prabhupada stated under no circumstance to never leave his movement.

There are now many Prabhupada disciples living in rented flats nearby of large temples like Krishna Balarama Mandir, Chandradaya Mandir, ISKCON LA, ISKCON London. And visiting the temple like guests who are told to leave after dropping a ten dollar bill into the temple offertory box.

Again thanks for your openness, I'll let sink in your words and man proposes, God disposes.

ys

rmd