What I Think of Narayana Maharaja - Part 2
BY: GEORGE A. SMITH
Jan 19, CALIFORNIA, USA (SUN) — More dangerous than “sly fox women” are wolves in sheep’s clothing. More dangerous than then ravenous wolves are poisonous serpents with jewels in their crowns.
“Your Prabhupada taught you all that one should not blindly accept someone as a spiritual master. My question is that when he taught you all these things had you blindly accepted him as a spiritual master?”
"The True Conception of Guru Tattva"
Bhakti Vidagdha Bhagavata
Although he was directing his challenge towards the ISKCON that had rejected Narayana Maharaja, Bhakti Vidagdha Maharaja's question can be addressed to us all. My answer to it from a personal perspective is an emphatic “No!”
I neither accepted Srila Prabhupada blindly nor have I rejected Narayana Maharaja blindly. That is beside the point, however. What gets me about the attitude of Narayana Maharaja’s followers and supporters is that they are the ones who have made themselves blind, while saying to those who have rejected Narayana Maharaja that they do not see.
The only important difference between myself and the blind faith followers of Narayana Maharaja is that I choose to see everything that is in front of my face, everything that Narayana Maharaja says -- not just the things that he says that I choose to select, to foster my own conceit.
It is not always an easy thing to do, and it goes against our inclinations to see, and is in fact contrary to our inclinations, which are, of course, to cheat and to accept the appearance of illusion for reality, to prefer the soothing darkness of our blindness instead of the painful light that must be forced into our opening eyes.
I have not rejected Narayana Maharaja because I believe that he is less than truthful and forthright. I know for a fact that Narayana Maharaja cannot be trusted, that he sees nothing at all wrong with lying to us in the service of his agenda, whatever he believes it to be. How do I know that Narayana Maharaja sees nothing wrong with being a manipulative liar as long as it gets him what he wants? Because Narayana Maharaja says so.
“Actually. he was really playing a trick. He is more tricky than Krsna because he is the disciple of Krsna. We cannot know how tricky and highly qualified he is. He will go to the East and say that he is going to the West.”
"Did Srila Prabhupada Know"
Narayana Maharaja
Whether Narayana Maharaja is qualified or not is not is more than revealed in this paper to my satisfaction, but that is not the point here. What is the point is that Narayana Maharaja is telling everyone that it’s ok for anyone attained to the position of devotional service that his followers blindly believe him to occupy, to lie and to otherwise misrepresent things in the service of what they consider to be the greater good. Narayana Maharaja is telling that he thinks it's ok to for anyone attained to the position that he imagines himself to occupy to lie whenever it suits them. What else? What else does Narayana Maharaja think it's ok to do?
From the same paper, speaking of the child rapes and abuses and seeking to portray Srila Prabhupada as being some kind of monster, being knowledgeable about them but doing nothing to stop them, because Krsna requires such things as the rapes and abuse of little children in order to bring success to His mission, Narayana Maharaja says:
“Everything that happened was okay, and it was for the gain of the whole universe.”
Adding insult to injury again, Narayana Maharaja’s followers put up this piece of dog shit on VNN and asked all the devotional world to admire it. Narayana Maharaja does not only think that it’s ok to be deceitful, but also that it’s ok to sit idly by while children are being beaten, raped and murdered, just so long as it is, in his words “For the good of the Universe.”
And not only does Narayana Maharaja think that its ok for him to sit idly by while little children are being beaten, raped and even murdered with his full knowledge that it is going on and that such things are necessary for the success of Krsna’s movement, he says that this is just what Srila Prabhupada did. The blasphemy he made in Holland was nothing compared to this.
If this is the type of spiritual master you have surrendered yourselves and your sons and daughters to, may God help you to come to your senses before your own sons and daughters need to be beaten, raped and even murdered in the service of this evil mad man’s mission.
I first encountered the Hare Krsnas in the late 1960’s when I was fourteen years old, while sitting at a restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard enjoying some french fries with my friend Mike. It was then that I saw three devotees through the window of the restaurant. I had no time to form any opinion of them that I might have based upon their unusual attire, etc., for as I watched them they set out upon a course of action that filled me with fear and great concern for their welfare.
Evidently they had decided that they wanted to get to the other side of the street and that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. So instead of going to the crosswalk or even looking to see if the way was clear, they set out not jay-walking, but jay dancing across the busy boulevard.
Motor traffic whizzing by all around them, several cars just barely missed them, but they were oblivious, singing and dancing as if they hadn’t the slightest care in the world for their safety or their lives, confidant perhaps that some great force that their chanting evoked watched over and would protect them.
About three quarters of the way across the street, just as I was hoping that they would soon get across safely and I could begin to breathe again, one of them lost his sandal and hopped back to get it, I almost died. Eventually all three of them made it across the boulevard safely, and my heart began to beat again.
Evidently whatever great force protected them was watching over them that day. Perhaps it even saw through the window glass into the busy restaurant, noted the concern on my face and looking deep into the core of my heart, understood that my concern for the welfare and safe progress of the devotees was genuine. Perhaps it even came to consider me, if not a devotee myself, then at least to be their friend.
At that time when I saw the three devotees jay-dancing across Hollywood Boulevard, I knew nothing about them, only the name "Krsna" I had noted in one of the columns of a table of correspondences in a book that was essential to my studies.
The city of Glendale in which I lived hadn’t any good bookstores, and Hollywood had both Gordon’s and Mr. Pickwick’s, which was then the largest bookstore on the West Coast. Both of these shops had a very good selection of books that catered to my peculiar interests, so once or twice a month, after I had saved up some money I would hop onto a bus with my friend Mike and go over the hill into Hollywood to get more books, more food for thought. Even at that young age the search for truth and personal transformation were primary focuses of my life, and I wasn’t just a “reader”
I was the youngest person in perhaps two thousand years to perform a ritual considered by authority to be the most powerful ritual extent from ancient Classical times. It’s purpose was singular, to awaken the sleeper and to awaken it to the teacher inside. Considering how badly I performed the Rite, without any of the proper safeguards, I was lucky I not only survived the evocation, I did not become psychotic (I’m not according to psychiatrists btw), but instead obtained some small degree of success. Something inside me had indeed awakened.
The next time I went over to Hollywood Boulevard, again with my friend Mike, I encountered the devotees again. This time, however, something inside of me was directing me to examine them, to test them, to see if they were the source of what I had been looking for but had been unable to find in the West. Again, I had no conscious realization of what I was doing at the time, I was just surrendering to the direction of something inside.
Upon this day as I heard the chanting party coming towards us down the avenue of the stars, and as my friend Mike cringed, shut his eyes, covered his ears as he ducked away, I did something, something that I did not know how to do, but seemed to know how to do anyway. Without any prior deliberation or any intellectual understanding of what I was doing, I assumed an attitude: one of eager, submissive and relevant enquiry. I stood there then, as the two lines of chanters parted and passed by on either side. As the names of Krsna washed over and through me, and as the last of them passed I looked into the chanters eyes, looking for something. I am confident to this day that whatever was directing me to do these things got more than it had bargained for.
They had been “The Children of a Lesser God,” they who in ancient times had devised the Rite that I had performed to awaken the soul to the teacher inside. And so this day it was as if a man had been seeking for just the slightest evidence, a single glimmer, the smallest spec of gold in a streambed had discovered the entire wealth of the universe, the greatest value to which human life could aspire to, and the source of that.
There was a flash of golden light. It was like an electric current had touched me, a cold fire that burned away the dross and purified me of countless lives. Though we were there upon the busy avenue of the stars they were elsewhere, beyond the farthest star, enveloped in spiritual consciousness so sublime and pleasurable that it was beyond imagining, and for a moment so was I.
And then they had passed me by and my friend came back into sight.
The consciousness of the fourteen year old boy reasserted itself. Lacking at the time the knowledge and intellectual maturity to interpret my experiences, I could not, and merely filed away in the back of my mind that I had discovered something that needed to be investigated more fully as time went by.
Whatever it was that had compelled me from inside to test the Hare Krsnas to see if they were bona fide was more than satisfied that it had found what it required of me to find, both for itself, its own purposes and mine. I had found what I had been sent out to look for. An intent was filed away in the back of my mind to investigate the Hare Krsnas further in the course of time. I had tested the movement to ascertain if it were bona fide and had discovered through its members that it was. But they were not conscious of me, not even really conscious of themselves, as they were. Further up the line there would have to be someone who could be, that would be, the person that I needed to find.
Something inside me bided its time.
This little excerpt that I have posted of my life is no exercise in created writing, it is no lie. but actually happened. The point of it is to illustrate that not everyone from the Western world accepted Krsna Consciousness or Srila Prabhupada blindly. in the way that Bhakti Vidagdha Bhagavata means it. Yes, I was inspired, but also I was conscious to some degree, and mine is just one of many other stories. So no, not all of us accepted Srila Prabhupada blindly. And not all of us have rejected Narayana blindly. The most important thing, however, is to realize that it doesn’t take being some type of psychic to see if someone is qualified. All you have to do is to open your eyes to everything, not just what you want to see. It is uncomfortable and may bring to your mind many challenging questions that you will need to ask, both of yourself and your prospective guru before you are satisfied as to his or your qualification. But if you avoid doing this, you may just find that you have entered into a society of the cheated and the cheat later on. Neither Sri Krsna nor Srila Prabhupada would want this. It's not for the good of anyone.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada,
Your well wisher,
George Smith
