Letters Prabhupada Did Not Write: Washington DC ISKCON
BY: HASYA MUKHI DEVI DASI
Please take advantage of your birth by taking unlimitedly more births
May 22, 2012 — USA (SUN) —
My dear Disciples at Washington, DC ISKCON,
May the divine shower of light continue to shine upon you and bathe you with the joy of eternal spiritual oneness. It is with great pleasure that I have heard that you are inviting the Hugging Mother for a homa to your center on June 24. There are many appearance days of Gaudiya Acaryas during that week. If observing them gets in the way of receiving the Hugging Mother, then please cancel them, since the $ponsorship of her homa is the best means of invoking auspiciousn$$. Thank you for understanding this hidden me$$age.
Realisations of the Community President of ISKCON DC can be found here
As you have so expertly realized, the spiritual master speaks many things, but his or her instructions are always open to the interpretation and convenient adjustment of intelligent disciples like all of you. Actually, a spiritual master never really instructs. He only suggests various ideas for your due consideration. That is because in the ocean of oneness it is for each disciple to swim on his own in order to discover the current of truth that will carry him to shore. It is up to the genuine disciple to change, hammer, bend and twist whatever novel meaning he can screw from the instructions of the Guru. This is the hidden secret of Hinduism.
The Holy Mother takes many forms and represents many truths
To quote a great authority on this subject, Cher, “You can do whatever you want and be whatever you want to be.” She spoke these words of eternal wisdom for an TV advertisement for a chemical sugar substitute, but the universal meaning has been revealed to disciples like you. You disciples at our Washington center have now come to the point of Mother Cher consciousness and this is very much required. You have realized that you are who you are and whatever that is must be divine, because we are all emanations from the One Motherhood. As The Hugging Mother implies in the above quote, you are lucky to be alive on this earth and to helplessly experience birth and death in millions of insignificant species forever. Truths spoken from different Divine Manifestations, whether from Cher or the Hugging Mother, are all one.
It is my wish that such Cher or Hugging Mother Consciousness as you have exemplified will spread throughout the Movement for generations to come. After all, your center is in the capital city of the most powerful nation on earth, so it is obvious that others will follow your bold lead and soon forget whatever has been written (or suggested) in Bhagavad-gita As It Is.
Let me make a proposal for the little party you will be having for the Hugging Mother. I am aware of course that you diciples may have some superior truths that I should learn from.
(r) Photo of Shrila Krishna pada from Wikipedia
First, it would be nice if His Holiness Giriraja Maharaja could read the chapter on Bhakti Tirtha Swami from his new best seller, Many Moons. As Radhanath says, “This will be the most beloved book in ISKCON.” Bhakti Tirtha also made many adaptions to the sampradaya since he was the first sannyasi to dress as an Afircan potentate. Therefore it would be nice if all the devotees could dress as African royalty and also to spend their sankirtan collections on gold necklaces like the one Bhakti Tirtha used to wear, just to receive the Hugging Mother nicely.
At the event, Satyaraja could also sell his biography of Bhakti Tirtha, Black Lotus the Spiritual Journey of an Urban Mystic . This holy scripture is such a labor of love that Bhakti Tirtha, out of ecstatic devotion, was impelled to pay Satyaraja several thousand dollars to write it. And on top of that, since it is a biography of an “African American Guru” it was actually released during Black History Month, adding to its authenticity. This bodily, racial consciousness is required. As another polite suggestion, perhaps you Washington devotees can talk to President Obama about having a National Holy Mother Month in the name of peace, harmony, unity and the other values of Interfaith we encompass.
Spiritual qualifications are practically demonstrated by whoever receives the most worship from blind followers. Some conservative devotees may criticize that ascending to the platform of being worshipped by stepping on the heads of other devotees requires some degree of compromise. In this regard, we may make the comparison to a circus. Remember when you were children, who did you like best in the circus? The clowns of course. In this way, ISKCON has become a circus with so many clown gurus and politicians. And a homa by the Hugging Mother will certainly add to the new three-ring circus atmosphere message that you have concocted there at your center.
Also, it goes without saying that there must be many lonely devotees who will like the comfort and reassurance that only a hug from Mother will bring. Don’t forget to give your dandavats and offer puja to her when she sits on the Vyasa Asan, since Hugging Mothers are meant for more than just hugs.
