Aug 18, 2013 — JAIPUR, RAJASTHAN (SUN) — In recent weeks the flag's been raised about how dangerous it is to live at Radha Kunda in a neophyte stage, and how hazardous it can be associating with babajis. We've been warned and received pertinent instructions from His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada and now from our grandfather guru as well.
"Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati generally forbid his disciples to read books describing intimate lilas, and thus they majority of Gaudiya Matha members had never even seen works such as Gita-govinda and Govinda-lilamrta. Even those sections of Sri Caitanya-caritamrta describing the intimate feelings of Radharani for Krsna were forbidden. He wanted his disciples to come to the stage of being qualified to study these works, but the qualification was high.
He prognosed that a lopsided tendency toward topics of and attempted enjoyment of rasa, without comprehensive training in the vast philosophy underlying it, was the latent cause of the perverting of Gaudiya Vaisnava dharma. Yet he also restricted disciples access to advanced philosophical treatises such as Sat-sandarbha and Govinda-bhasya, considering perusal of such works superfluous for all except the most philosophically astute and well read, who if they were to go through them, should do so not merely our of intellectual curiosity but with a specific purpose connected to the preaching mission. Furthermore, he banned almost all his disciples from reading anything from the camps of the apa-sampradayas. Although certain caste Goswamis, babajis, and their followers presented accurately and convincingly much of the Gaudiya position, and cited the same sources as did the Gaudiya Matha, that they inevitably upheld misconceptions made their persuasiveness dangerous."
(Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Vaibhava by Bhakti Vikasa Swami, Vol. I, p. 282)
If Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura warned his disciples, who were not coming from meat eating, sex addicted, hippie dullard backgrounds, not to associate with babajis, then what in the world are the disciples of Srila Prabhupada thinking, starting up a consortium with elder Indian gentlemen with beards? They would have to be insane, intoxicated, in need of money or puffed up by their supposed advancement in spiritual knowledge.
As events keep unfolding and demonstrating how devotees' mentalities are changing into sahajiyaism, it becomes clear that what Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said about the babajis 80 years ago is still relevant in the year 2013.
Srila Prabhupada gave very firm instructions not to associate with any of the babajis of Vraja what to speak of Radhakunda. Here is a letter that he wrote to our god brother Nitai das, who Srila Prabhupada later kicked out of ISKCON for disobeying these instructions.
"Please accept my blessings. I have received information that some of our devotees are mixing with the babajis in Vrindaban. This has produced so many problems amongst our men and women who visit Vrindaban. Here in Los Angeles, we have found that there is a group of about 40 devotees who privately meet to discuss the intimate pastimes artificially thinking that they can enter into the understanding of the gopis prematurely. This will create havoc in our society, and the result will be that if this is allowed to go on, our preaching work will be greatly hampered. This premature desire to understand the lila of Krishna is due to mundane sex-life desire as we have seen amongst many of the babajis and sahajiyas in Vrindaban. Our Jagannatha das came back from Vrindaban asking me that he had heard some babaji speaking about siddha-deha and he also was listening to these babajis. So I want this immediately stopped. If it continues, this mixing with the babajis, then it will mean spoiling. In many cases, these babajis keep 2 or 3 women. Asatsanga tyagi. Their association is to be avoided and prohibited amongst all of our devotees who visit Vrindaban.
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami"
(Letter to: Nitāi, June 7, 1976, Los Angeles)
In this letter Srila Prabhupada explains about the babajis of Vrindavan and how he knew some of his disciples were going around visiting anyone they thought was a senior Vaisnava when they visited Vṛndavana. Even today, devotees still go and see and take re-initiation from some of these babajis of Vrindavan.
In Vrndavan many visiting devotees stay with a former ISKCON devotee named Satyanarayana babaji, not knowing the history of his leaving ISKCON and taking initiation into the babaji line by Sanskrit scholar, Haridas Shastri. Satyanarayana runs the Jiva Institute which rents rooms and apartments to visiting devotees who have not been educated as to the history of the line that he now belongs. Devotees attend his lectures and the Ayurvedic/Massage clinic he runs as a business enterprise.
Surprisingly, many of our godbrothers also remain his friends and listen to his classes… which is rather disappointing given that Srila Prabhupada has instructed them not to associate with these babajis. But mundane friendship and ignorance is stronger that the instructions of the Acharya.
It must also be understood that many of our godbrothers see that it is better to mix/associate with other so-called Gaudiya Vaisnavas as being a sign of open mindedness or being non-dogmatic, which is really saying that Srila Prabhupada was dogmatic and closed-minded. This liberalist view is getting stronger within our ISKCON society and the consequence is that that we weaken in our practice of devotional service and fall prey to maya in the form of breaking the four regulative principles.
It is well known, or at least it should be well known that Vrindavan has many different sampradayas supposedly coming in the Gaudiya Vaishnava line, but they are considered apasampradays, or un-bonafide lines. The lines of babajis like Bhakti Shastri of Vrindavan and Ananta Das Babaji, the now Mahanta of Radha Kunda belong in this category.
ISKCON devotees have no idea the history of these babajis and their relationship to our line and so they go along to listen to them, unaware that they are in danger of polluting their consciousness and committing offenses to our Vaisnava parampara.
ISKCON Vrindavana has no local mature qualified leadership/management who knows the history of our sampradaya and its relationship with the babajis of the Dham, and so they are unable to teach and enforce the standard set by Srila Prabhupada, and this interfaith mingling remains unchecked.
The GBC also has not bothered with correcting the many Sannyasis/Gurus who take siksha from these babajis, as attested by the latest fiasco of a certain swami or babaji... This is mainly due to the fact that they themselves either go to take shelter of these babajis or they are too interested in their bank balances to speak up.
This latest incident needs to seen as a dire warning that our ISKCON leadership needs to begin to educate the general devotees and enforce the standards set by Srila Prabhupada, or we will lose more and more devotees to these sahajiya sects and end up diluting our own society and the preaching mission will stop.
Devotees must also see the perils of taking association of so-called senior ISKCON devotees who have been disloyal to Srila Prabhupada and have intentionally sought out these Babas as so-called siksha and diksha gurus.
