Sep 04, 2016 — MULBERRY, TENNESSEE, USA (SUN) —
First allow me to put forth this proclamation… it is in itself a fulfillment of the loyalty oath pledge… it really goes to the essence of loyalty… love and trust… Love and trust in Srila Prabhupada, love and trust in all the acaryas , love and trust in the Holy Names, and love and trust in the Divine Couple.
On taking full responsibility …………(signing the loyalty pledge)…..for the 40+ years of offences to NitaiGaurachandra ~ Gadidas Aug, 2016
I believe that most rightly I am the one who shoulders all the reactions to my Lordships mistreatments…Sri Sri Nitai Gaurachandra… It is only logical that it falls on me…and I willfully submit myself to take all of the offences of the past present and future…, that is offences to the deities of Nitai Gaurachandra. Offences which occurred over the past 40 years, …for everyone…that would include the offences that occurred here regarding vast segments of time with no care, child abuse, child sexual abuse, and cow slaughter, and numerous other offences perpetrated by who knows who.. I accept all of that on behalf of Them, Sri Nitai and Gaura.. As They were the presiding deities when all this occurred. Everyone, and anyone who feels bound by or frightened by those offences, as far as I am concerned, can now consider themselves free .. Now it is on me. After all, I purchased them on my own, and brought Them here on my own. It only seems fitting that I should pay the price… certainly no society is to blame and certainly Srila Prabhupada is not to blame. Thus I have made this statement to all the Vaisnavas of the world.
I have but one hope: that the Holy Name of Krishna can purify the whole affair… otherwise I'm sunk. So with as much faith as this unfortunate soul can muster, do I put in the Name of Krishna. After all, this is not the age of deIty worship, and for obvious good reasons. So my only hope is the Holy name of Krishna… Please offer your good wishes to me if you feel so inclined… or your sympathies… Hare Krishna. Nasteva, nasteva, nasteva… my only hope…
I am confident that this document (above), can and should fulfill the loyalty pledge requirement for my leading this small chapter of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness called Murari Sevaka… I am staking my all and everything on it.
And now on to the essay: The profound choice… a loyalty oath to Prabhupada based on love and trust, or a loyalty oath originating in lack of trust, (signing on the dotted line)… Which would Prabhupada prefer…? Since his higher aspiration was for his disciples to coexist in love and trust, in a society free from envy..…then why would he create the loyalty document?
A lasting Vaisnava society must be based in love and trust.
A person of some fame once said…"the only way to learn if you can trust someone, is to trust them". This is most true. We must open our hearts repeatedly to find out if a person in our association is worthy of our trust… to do this we must trust them. This is not always easy, as many times it leads to disappointment. But nonetheless, we must.
There was a story, I believe it was at Bury place… Srila Prabhupada wanted to see the treasurer of the temple… the temple president was embarrassed, and told Prabhupada… "he blooped, and stole all the money"… Prabhupada's response… "That rascal!.....but I love that rascal…"
Love and trust is obviously the highest and most desired way to manage a Vaisnava society. The question is, can we operate on this principle so much desired by Prabhupada… or are we just too deficient in proper human relationships and normal human honesty. Thus we are channeled into a legal document to try and make a semblance of organizational security… an effort to secure the loyalty of those managing our temples simply because of the lack of the higher principle… love and trust… Perhaps this is how Prabhupada reasoned… seeing our deficiency, he resigned himself and our society to a legal document… So sadly it seems that we cannot operate with love and trust.
We have to trust to find trust… we have to love to find love. The whole pure Vaisnava culture is based on these simple precepts, centered of course, the pure principles of bhakti. When we trust and love, we may go through many painful episodes in this world, but by and by the stock of trustworthy and loving, like-minded persons will grow. Then you have a core of sincere bhaktas… ready to sacrifice everything to protect "love and trust" principle. The bond is lifelong, and the rewards and accomplishments are solid and reliable.
There is no need to enact more and more laws and make documents which proclaim ones allegiance to an organization or a leader… such a practice is for those who are not trustworthy… and scarcely know the meaning of trust or love. Such practice will not make a crooked person trustworthy… At some point they will be exposed, if not to the world, certainly to Krishna, who does not miss a trick, so to speak.
The enactment of state laws cannot make a person honest… or trustworthy. This is only tested by giving love and trust… by no amount of legal maneuvers can you produce real love and trust in another individual. In fact, by requiring that such documents be signed, you are starting out with an obvious lack of trust in the person. This is blatantly obvious to the person signing such documents… and he begins his relationship thinking that the persons in charge don't trust me. Where can such a beginning go? Nowhere… that's where… certainly not to a spiritual level.
Perhaps Srila Prabhupada saw that we low born Yavanas could not behave nicely as he was hoping and writing about… like love and trust… Always fighting, with no sense of real cooperation. Since my spiritual master is obviously concerned with the reputation and integrity of our sampradaya, he perhaps was trying to legalize the loyalty of those in charge of his temples etc. around the world, simply seeing that the higher principle of love and trust has not really manifest. So now there is a document, that in essence, is an effort to enforce loyalty… but of course, this is not foolproof, because unless the leader truly understands the higher principle of love and trust, there are no guarantees of compliance to such a document. In fact, it creates a mood of mistrust, therefore anyone who signs it may very well not be trustworthy at all, but will sign it because it is required.
Prabhupada himself operated primarily with love and trust… and was many times disappointed, but this never really caused him to change his strategy. This loyalty pledge is something that he deemed necessary because, as time went by, and he was going to depart, it was important to make legal what he was trying to teach us through love and trust. That's why he emphatically stated that each center is independent, and the temple president is never under the control of higher stations, like GBC or Gurus, etc. Each temple president has to be trusted… whether or not he fills the bill is to be seen. By exerting control over each center, by adding amendments to his document, and creating pages and pages more, you remove any possibility of creating love and trust. The GBC must trust and love the center leaders, this will foster trust …and eventually love.
Making them sign a yearly trust pledge simply fosters more mistrust. It only indicates that the persons selected to run our temples are untrustworthy… It's like signing a pre-nuptial agreement… How much love and trust could there really be if that is necessary… So if the present temple managers are not trustworthy, it's time to replace them and get our temples back, and operate them the simple way that Prabhupada showed. Sign the pledge once… and then morph into the higher principle of love and trust… and then trust that person.
We have moved too far into the legal mood, and have diminished the higher principle. So we must acknowledge Srila Prabhupada's higher aspirations, trusting and loving each other. Then we will have real temples, Vaikuntha… attracting real people, coming for the real purpose of being attracted to Krishna, through the principle of love and trust. Then our countrymen will be served properly. But of course, since the atmosphere has gone cold, how to find leaders that operate on love and trust? …And so, "where are we going?" as one GBC whose name starts with a B asks. Yes, where is this going indeed… to total corporate mediocrity perhaps? To complete irrelevancy perhaps… or just another church on the block?
These legal maneuvers can never produce love and trust, and will only further the opposite. If you would like to see how this principle of love and trust works, then visit Murari… (a little tease there)… or you can wait for the "Essence Drinker" to arrive… he's coming, and will provide essential effervescent essences for you spiritual life…. like "why love and trust are essential for a lasting Vaisnava revolution".
So perhaps this whole idea could be re-thought… perhaps a new approach to this whole thing could be offered. A little more love and trust, and a little less legality….
I've typed enough now… think about this stuff above, and why you wanted to leave the material world to begin with…. You wanted to be loved and you wanted to be trusted… and live in a spiritual environment. It can still happen… you can still have those wishes fulfilled…
And by the way…
I signed my pledge to Srila Prabhupada 45 years ago, and to this day he has never asked me to sign it again…
Your servant because of his mercy only… Gadidas
Always on call… gadi@pamho.net
murarisevaka.com
