More on Gandhi
BY: GAURAV MITTAL
Sep 17, USA (SUN) — I have heard many lectures when devotees criticized Mahatma Gandhi and Hanuman Prasad Poddar of Gita press Gorakhpur using Srila Prabhupada. With my own personal understanding which is based on realization, I have deep respect from them. Generally, I used to ignore criticisms by ISKCON devotees. When I moved to San Jose, in the first lecture Sri Hanumatpresak Swami asked how many people knew Hanuman Prasad Poddar. I was shocked and internally prayed to Krishna that I have not come hear again to hear criticisms. Fortunately, Sri Hanumatpresak Swami spent whole lecture describing the meeting of Srila Prabhupada with Hanuman Prasad Poddar and explained how Srila Prabhupada deeply respected him.
Srila Prabhupada was with him a day before he died and went into trance while singing Radha-Madhava in Gorakhpura after meeting Hanuman Prasad Poddar. Radha-Madhava was the beloved diety of Hanuman Prasad Poddar and Sri Hanumatpresak Swami attributed Srila Prabhupada going into trance to meeting with Hanuman prasad Poddar.
Similarly, Sri Hanumatpresak Swami explained how Srila Prabhupada deeply respected Mahatma Gandhi and one day he walked much farther to offer obiesances to Mahatma Gandhi. He narrated many incidences which showed how much Srila Prabhupada respected Gandhi.
I respect your views and it would be good if you could do some more personal research on Gandhi. You can say that you are repeating the message of Srila Prabhupada but unfortunately, we do our own filtering when we try to understand Srila Prabhupada's teaching. Sometimes, we do great disservice by repeating statements of guru without understanding them. You need to understand the audience to whom Srila Prabhupada was speaking. His followers were hippies who came from broken families and many were emotionally unstable. Even though Srila Prabhupada P externally showed respect to Mahammed and Jesus, he criticized almost all Indian devotees like his own Godbrothers and other contemporary Gaudiya Vaishnavas, Tulsi das, Hanuman Prasad Poddar, Mahatma Gandhi etc. The reason was that he did not want his disciples to be distracted by other Hindu philosophies as they lacked discrimination to accept right philosophy and also, lacked deep understanding of philosophy. As his disciples had already rejected Christianity or Islam by joining him, he did not feel need to protect his disciples from those religions, as they were not being followed by his disciples. Even Srila Prabhupada did not want his disciples to read Bhaktivinod Thakur and other acaryas books as he was presenting them philosophy according to their level.
Gandhi especially spent last 15 years of his life chanting the name Ram and publicly asking people to chant Ram. He also opened ayurvedic and naturopathic clinic where chanting Ram was main part of healing. During his last 15-20 years, he developed extreme faith in holy name Ram and this was exhibited during his death when he chanted Ram before dying.
It is important to tell the truth but when we tell one-sided truth, then it is not correct. Even though you are doing great service of cleaning house of ISKCON, I would request you to follow following instruction by Srila Prabhupada.
SB 4.4.12:
Twice-born Daksa, a man like you can simply find fault in the qualities of others. Lord Siva, however, not only finds no faults with others' qualities, but if someone has a little good quality, he magnifies it greatly. Unfortunately, you have found fault with such a great soul.
PURPORT
King Daksa is addressed here by his daughter Sati as dvija, twice-born. Twice-born refers to the higher classes of men, namely the brahmanas, ksatriyas and vaisyas. ln other words, a dvija is not an ordinary man but one who has studied the Vedic literature from a spiritual master and can discriminate between good and bad. Therefore it is supposed that he understands logic and philosophy. Sati, Daksa's daughter, put before him sound arguments. There are some highly qualified persons who accept only the good qualities of others. Just as a bee is always interested in the honey in the flower and does not consider the thorns and colors, highly qualified persons, who are uncommon, accept only the good qualities of others, not considering their bad qualities, whereas the common man can judge what are good qualities and what are bad qualities.
Among the uncommonly good souls there are still gradations, and the best good soul is one who accepts an insignificant asset of a person and magnifies that good quality. Lord Siva is also called Asutosa, which refers to one who is satisfied very easily and who offers to any person the highest level of benediction. For example, once a devotee of Lord Siva wanted the benediction that whenever he touched someone on the head, that person's head would at once be separated from his trunk. Lord Siva agreed. Although the benediction asked was not very commendable because the devotee wanted to kill his enemy, Lord Siva considered the devotee's good quality in worshiping and satisfying him and granted the benediction. Thus Lord Siva accepted his bad qualities as magnificently good qualities. But Sati accused her father, "You are just the opposite. Although Lord Siva has so many good qualities and no bad qualities at all, you have accepted him as bad and found fault with him. Because of your accepting his good qualities to be bad, instead of your becoming the most exalted soul you have become the most fallen. A man becomes the greatest soul by accepting the goodness of others' qualities, but by unnecessarily considering others' good qualities to be bad, you have become the lowest of the fallen souls."
We should also read a previous Chakra article on the subject, and:
PRABHUPADA: Mahatma Gandhi was actually a great personality. There is no doubt about it. So far as Bhagavad gita is concerned, he did not know anything. But from his behavior, we can see that at heart he was a devotee. Yes, at heart he was a devotee, because he was chanting... (Room Conversation Stockholm, 5 September 1973)
PRABHUPADA: Because he was chanting raghupati raghava raja rama, that has produced its effect...He did not know anything about Rama, but the name Rama is so powerful that it was effective. Gandhi may not know the purpose of Bhagavad gita, but as he chanted "Rama," that has been effective. (Room Conversation London, 2 September 1973)
With good wishes for your advancement,
Gaurav Mittal
