ISKCON's New Intellectuals: Faecal Matter or
Grey Matter?
BY: ADI LILA DAS
Jan 23, 2011 — EUROPE (SUN) —
"You give up Krishna consciousness, I say. That is my advice."
-Srila Prabhupada
Christians call them "Doubting Thomases." Let's call them "Doubting Ravanas." Srila Prabhupada has stated in a purport of Chaitanya-caritamrita that there are many demons living within ISKCON. In its day, the Gaudiya Math suffered similarly, causing Srila Prabhupada to note that many demonic personalities donned the robes of Gaudiya Vaishnavas for the sake of imagined power and glory.
That trend continues. A common practice amongst such silver-tongued pseudo-Vaishnavas is, while speaking in the smoothest of language, they cast oblique doubts in the direction of the Spiritual Master and his literary contributions. Since the tendency is there to cause misgivings in the tender faith of newer devotees, it is foreseeable that in a few short years, outright criticism of Srila Prabhupada will be a vogue. Many play with such fire even today. Needless to say, forty years ago such blasphemy would not have been tolerated for ten seconds in any ISKCON ashram, but today such demons are actually showcased on the GBC website, www.dandavats.com and given comfy positions.
These Doubting Ravanas like to call themselves "intellectuals." By that, they infer that the devotees -- the ones who actually accept Prabhupada's words as they are -- are nothing but mere simpletons who do not know the art of thinking for themselves. Srila Prabhupada's definition of intellectual was "a qualified brahmana." That means one who accepts verbatim the sastras as presented by Vyasadeva through the unbreakable chain of disciplic succession. ISKCON's Doubting Ravanas have changed the definition of "intellectual" to one who does not accept the wisdom of the pure devotee. Why then are they here? Only a fool joins an organization which he considers was created by someone who is intellectually his inferior. Or do they have darker motives?
These modern foolish intellectuals are like donkeys all dressed up in a cap and gown. They are like the wannabe high school jock who claims to be the sexiest stud on campus, but who actually settles his prurience with the vibrations of his right hand each night. Today's mental masturbators who enjoy being celebrated as "thinkers," actually do no good whatsoever for the world, but only clear the path to hell for the fools that follow them.
What the world today worships as intellectuals are Kali Yuga demons who faked the Moon launch with their televised trickery. They scribe useless, senseless drivel in hopes of getting the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize. Many work for huge demonic corporations by creating weapons of mass destruction so that they can call other people terrorists. They are the great economists who call worthless paper as money, while the government they apologize for purloins the people's gold reserves. They are the political diplomats who divide vulnerable nations and sell arms to both sides. They are the followers of Darwin who say we were born from monkeys, and the educated abortionists who seek to end the right to be born. They are the professors who teach their students to sit idly for years in hopes of a diploma that entitles them to go out and beg for work door to door like dogs. They are the scientists with the huge mega-food corporations that genetically engineer seeds so that the genuinely useful people -- like the farmers who feed us -- are put out of business. What these "intellectuals" all have in common is that they are all demons.
Generally ISKCON's Doubting Ravanas pop up on Dandavats.com now and then in the comment section, vociferously objecting to articles that too strongly support Srila Prabhupada's absolute tenor. But recently, thanks to Mr. Pra-gauche, the GBC editor-in-chief, such atheistic views are popping up as articles. Why some demon would join an organization only to criticize the philosophy of the founder of that organization, like some septic-tank-skull intellectual, is beyond me. But the handwriting is on the wall at the GBC website, which leans over backwards to patronize and flaunt Doubting Ravanas who dress as devotees, but who genuflect before the complexities of mammon.
Unbelievable as it seems, here is an actual self-glorifying quote from an article called "Intellectual Simplicity" by Keshava Krishna dasa. Here is a luster-less intellectual who dares to openly criticize the Bhagavat's shastric version on Dandavats.com. And while bathing in the tyranny of his own imagined mental superiority, he takes a back-handed swipe at ISKCON's few remaining genuine devotees, who Mr. Intellectual obvious considers his inferiors. Here goes:
"It can sometimes be tough being an intellectual in ISKCON. The tendency to keep one foot in the empirical camp and the other in the devotional arena can cause incompatibilities of faith, especially when continuing to grapple with ‘oddities' like elephant sized mangoes, airborne mountains, talking hyenas and bodily exuded cosmic bubbles. Almost everything is interesting for an intellectual. How things work, or don't. Statistics and comparisons, complex and more complicated, beyond comprehension and ridiculously out of bounds, all can pose challenges when faced with the ‘simplicity' of Krishna consciousness. And more so when fantastic and marvelous Vedic accounts remains fabulously beyond belief."
Who are the milk-watering "gurus" who initiate and support such walking outhouses with their "incompatibilities of faith"???
And because the mass of devotees are intimidated into not speaking up against these forms of philosophical despotism, ISKCON's Doubting Ravanas appear to be winning their long-fought campaign. We know that a silvery-tongued serpent adorned with a jewel is more dangerous than a bare-naked snake. In a Bhagavad-gita lecture delivered in Ahmedabad, on 14 December 1972, Srila Prabhupada said:
"Sanatana Gosvami gives the example sarpocchistha-payo yatha…Just like milk, everyone knows, a very nice food, most nutritious food, but if it is touched by the life of a serpent, immediately spoiled. Immediately. Another place, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says, mayavadi-bhasya sunile haya sarva nasa. If we hear mayavadi-bhasya, commentaries by the mayavadis, those who do not accept the Personality of Godhead... They are called mayavadis. Mayavadi means they see everythingmaya. Even Krishna is maya. That is called mayavadi. "
The philosophy of mayavada while dressed as pseudo-renunciation actually gives impetus for unbridled passions. Sri Padma Purana, as quoted by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, (C.c. Madhya 6.181) states:
"Addressing Lord Siva, the Supreme Personality of Godhead said, "Please make the general populace averse to Me by imagining your own interpretation of the Vedas. Also, cover Me in such a way that people will take more interest in advancing material civilization just to propagate a population bereft of spiritual knowledge."
Whereas mayavada gives impetus towards unbridled sense indulgence, submissively understanding the bona fide scriptures through the infallible parampara actually demolishes lusty desires. In Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead (Ch. 32) Srila Prabhupada writes:
"Sukadeva Gosvami concludes this episode of rasa-lila by pointing out that if a person hears from the right source of the pastimes of Krishna, who is Vishnu Himself, and the gopis, who are expansions of His energy, then he will be relieved of the most dangerous type of disease, namely lust. If one actually hears rasa-lila, he will become completely freed from the lusty desire of sex life and elevated to the highest level of spiritual understanding. Generally, because they hear from mayavadis and they themselves are mayavadis, people become more and more implicated in sex life. The conditioned soul should hear the rasa-lila dance from an authorized spiritual master and be trained by him so that he can understand the whole situation; thus one can be elevated to the highest standard of spiritual life, otherwise one will be implicated. Material lust is a kind of heart disease, and to cure the material heart disease of the conditioned soul, it is recommended that one should hear, but not from the impersonalist rascals."
What did Srila Prabhupada do when His Divine Grace came face to face with such faithless nonsense? I'm talking about the increasingly common creeping Mayavadism that we see regularly on Dandavats.com or printed in books, even BBT publications. Srila Prabhupada would issue walking papers to such pasandis, offenders, in short order. You don't believe me? He was a boiler of milk, and never one to water it.
So go ahead and have a read of how Prabhupada handled "intellectuals" Jamadagneya das and Kanupriya das in June of 1975, in Los Angeles:
Jamadagneya: [In the Krishna book there is a statement] that King Ugrasena had four billion personal servants. Now, we have gone and tried to spread to the scientific community. And if we say to them, "There was a king whose name was Ugrasena. He had four billion personal servants," they laugh and say, "What did they do for toilets? What did they do for food? Where did they live?"
Prabhupada: So you want to preach this particular portion and no other portion?
Kanupriya: No. We want to... We want to know if the story has an allegorical meaning rather than a literal translation, or that King Ugrasena who was a man who lived five thousand years ago and had four billion bodyguards, or whether the stories within the Bhagavatam, apart from some of them being actual, are allegorical stories. Such as the story of Krishna and Balarama chopping off the eighty-eight...
Prabhupada: All right. You can give up that portion. You can take other portion.
Kanupriya: But then because so many things they have to accept on faith without knowing, it then weakens their faith as to what they should accept and why should they accept Krishna, who they can't see any more than King Ugrasena's four billion bodyguards.
Prabhupada: Don't accept. Don't accept.
Jamadagneya: But we want them to accept. The point is, if we say to a scientific man, "There was four billion," and if our statement is wrong...
Prabhupada: But our position is that if some portion we cannot understand, it is our incapability.
Jamadagneya: That is all right. But since we are...
Prabhupada: That's all. Unless we have got this faith we cannot use these Puranas. In the Puranas there are many such statements.
Jamadagneya: Yes, but we just want to understand.
Prabhupada: Therefore many people, they do not accept Puranas. So what can be done?
Jamadagneya: We're just trying to understand it because we've never dealt with Puranas before. We have been your disciples. But when we present this to the scientific community, because you have said that if one word is wrong, the whole philosophy is wrong, so they will say to us...
Prabhupada: So let them take it and throw out, don't read it. That's all.
Prabhupada: I say you don't believe, you don't take it. Why you are insisting on that point? If you don't believe, you don't take it. If you don't believe the whole book or the whole society, then who forbids you?
Jamadagneya: We were hoping that there are some things which can be improved, because they have not been set up by you.
Prabhupada: No. You cannot improve. Whatever we are, we are.
Jamadagneya: Why can we not improve it?
Prabhupada: No. There is no possibility.
Jamadagneya: Then what is the use of action?
Prabhupada: Action, whatever action we can do by chanting Hare Krishna, that's all.
Jamadagneya: But we also have to make varnasrama society or farms or businesses.
Prabhupada: That, when we shall do, we shall see to it.
Jamadagneya: But we are doing it. We are.
Kanupriya: We are doing it now, and that's the question...
Prabhupada: So do it in your own way.
Jamadagneya: We don't want to. We want to do everything Krishna's way.
Prabhupada: Stop it. Stop it. I say stop it. You have come to me for my advice. I say you stop it.
Jamadagneya: Then, we say, what should we do?
Prabhupada: You should do your business. That's all. Earn money and enjoy.
Jamadagneya: No, I mean what should we do Krishna consciously?
Prabhupada: You give up Krishna consciousness, I say. That is my advice.
Jamadagneya: Why should we do that?
Prabhupada: Then that I cannot say.
Kanupriya: Isn't there a middle of the road?
Prabhupada: If you are finding so many faults, you give it up.
Prabhupada: You are not following strictly. You cannot ask why.
Jamadagneya: We could not ask why when we were following strictly either, Prabhupada. So I'm sorry that it has to be this way.
Prabhupada: No, our thing is that we have got some principles. If anyone cannot follow, then we don't accept him.
Kanupriya: Then what do you do with the rest of the world, except for the few people who...
Prabhupada: So what I can do I am doing. Therefore you have no right to ask me. What is possible by me I am doing. And those who are able to follow, they are following. That's all.
Soon after this, Jamadagneya changed his name to Indra Armstrong because -- as quoted by another Godbrother -- "if you want to have a lot of sex, Prabhupada says worship Indra, the king of heaven." For a while he became a self-styled guru and taught the "three regulative principles." Resigning from being a guru, he became an active sex therapist. Today he is a new age counselor, astrologer and tantra advisor. On his website you can get a taste of his profound word jugglery: www.jeffreyarmstrong.com. His book, God the Astrologer, which openly contradicts many scriptural points, was printed by Torchlight Press run by ISKCON devotee, Adwaita Acharya.
So-called members of ISKCON who think that they are getting away with writing poisonous accounts that plant seeds of doubt do not know that the displeasure of the Spiritual Master will burn them life after life. Guru is all-powerful. These false "intellectuals" are asara, or useless members, like a limb with gangrene that requires amputation. The various sastric statements are tests of the Bhagavat, and as we progress through the cantos faithfully we become ready for understanding the very pastimes of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Sri Krishna by the grace of His pure devotee. Those Mayavadis who are envious of Krishna and who doubt His powers in this world will never see Him in the next life. Sri Krishna takes it very seriously when His pure devotee is offended. As Srila Prabhupada used to say, "Be very careful, you are dealing with Krishna."
