The High Price of Sentiment
BY: ROCANA DASA
Mar 09, CANADA (SUN) — This article will address the issue of myth-making, which has recently been exemplified by HH Bhakti Caru Swami's classes in Mayapur, in glorification of HH Bhakti Tirtha Swami and HH Tamal Krishna Goswami. Bhakti Caru Swami is renowned for his sweetie-pie persona. He's the swami that everybody has a hard time disliking because his nature is such that he doesn't appear to offend anybody. He doesn't have a harsh bone in his body.
When he first became a devotee in the 1970's, Bhakti Caru was taken under the wing of Tamal Krishna Goswami, and he was groomed and encouraged to take sannyasa. Tamal Krishna Goswami was his mentor. During the time Srila Prabhupada was in his final lila period, in late 1977, Bhakti Caru Swami was there in attendance along with Tamal Krishna and Bhavananda. Because he's Bengali, Bhakti Caru Swami was not only able to assist in caring for Srila Prabhupada, but he was also there to do Bengali translations when necessary.
Right after Srila Prabhupada's disappearance, Tamal Krishna Goswami along with 10 of his friends became the instant acaryas, presenting themselves as maha-bhagavats. They took over, and Bhakti Caru Swami was given a golden ride to various important positions within ISKCON. Although he was renowned for being a poor manager, his sweet disposition helped pave the way.
This pleasing nature of Bhakti Caru's is undoubtedly one of the factors that led to his recent speculative glorification of Tamal Krishna Goswami and Bhakti Tirtha Swami at the Mayapur Festival. I'm not sure what his history with Bhakti Tirtha Swami was, but the two had similar personalities. This sweet mood was certainly evident during Maharaja's recent Mayapur classes.
Rather than give a philosophical class, as would Srila Prabhupada or our other great acaryas, Bhakti Caru Swami simply wanted to please the audience. Whether it's Bhakti Caru addressing his normal audience of disciples and congregational members in his India temples, or other leading ISKCON preachers, the obvious trend these days is to do not as Srila Prabhupada did when giving class, on Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Srimad Bhagavatam or Caitanya-caritamrta, but rather to tell entertaining stories. We don't hear ISKCON preachers do much preaching like Srila Prabhupada anymore, giving his purports and arguments regardless of whether the audience is going to like what they say or not. Instead, every effort is made to please. They just tell stories and entertain the audience with sweet talks, making them smile and laugh and feel good about themselves. And of course, the members of the audience will feel good about the person who's speaking so nicely. This, of course, leads to ongoing glorification of the guru or leader who's speaking, and encourages people to support them in the future. In that regard, it's a very effective method.
Srila Prabhupada did not entertain this kind of speaking, however, and neither does sastra or the previous Sampradaya Acaryas. In all of Srila Prabhupada's recorded classes and conversations, we never hear him speaking in the same way Bhakti Caru Swami just did, speculating about his godbrothers when they departed. Of course, this is not new. This type of talk and attitude is very prevalent in Indian culture, particularly with swamis from other traditions, who are basically professional swamis. It is reminiscent of the Dalai Llama, or Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, but not of Vaisnava preachers representing the Gaudiya Sampradaya.
Another aspect of this is that there seems to be no consciousness or realization on Bhakti Caru Swami's part of what the results of this sort of preaching will be -- how it's going to adversely affect the movement historically, not just the audience in front of him today. He seems oblivious of the fact that he's setting a certain standard. He's basically saying that there are "special devotees", more important disciples of Srila Prabhupada. The ones who helped Srila Prabhupada in the very beginning, or gained a very large following, or had certain charismatic features -- these persons should be given a special position within our society.
Of course, in the case of Tamal Krishna Goswami and Bhakti Tirtha Swami, and others who have departed and been given samadhi status within Mayapur, they have a following of disciples themselves. So their disciples will certainly appreciate and digest this glorification from Bhakti Caru Swami. The disciples are naturally going to feel superior themselves – that their guru was more advanced, more potent than others, which de facto makes them superior to the devotees of 'lesser gurus'. Unfortunately, this is not going to help their spiritual lives.
Then we have the problem that in both cases, Bhakti Tirtha Swami and Tamal Krishna Goswami were very controversial personalities. In fact, an inordinate number of their activities were highly controversial. In the case of Tamal Krishna Goswami, he was a very political figure and in all honesty, he offended many, many of his godbrothers. He is believed by many to have been the architect of the Zonal Acarya system, one of the most serious siddhantic deviations in ISKCON's history. And as we know, he also became very wealthy and lived in great opulence -- as a sannyasi. His wealth enabled him to attend one of the most expensive educational institutions in the world, and one of the most prestigious -- Oxford University. And just as he was getting his Ph.D, after years of this activity, just as he prepared to publish his Thesis, he died in a very inauspicious way. In all honesty, this was the case. Of course, Bhakti Caru Swami and his friends are now making a great effort to put a spin on the circumstances of his death. They would like to convince the devotees that the car accident was actually auspicious, when in reality that's not the case. I recently heard a lecture wherein Srila Prabhupada said that if you die in such an accident, suddenly and violently, then chances are you may become a ghost.
Aside from all of Bhakti Tirtha Swami's controversial activities, his departure was also inauspicious. The disease that he died from was not something that could be construed as auspicious. It was painful, and it was premature. Bhakti Tirtha Swami also created his own whole unique perspective on Vaisnavism, in the things he wrote, activities he engaged in, the clothes he wore, and the whole lifestyle that he adopted.
What is inevitably going to happen as a result of the type of glorification coming from Bhakti Caru Swami is that the controversial activities of these two personalities will be condoned and encouraged. Bhakti Caru Swami is essentially saying that their activities were exemplary – and what great men do, common men should follow. The activities of these great maha-devotees, as they are depicted by Bhakti Caru Swami, are ok for all ISKCON swamis to engage in: they can all feel free to live opulent lives, gather private wealth, become politicians, go to prestigious universities, write mundane books, etc. All their controversial activities are now condoned and enshrined in ISKCON history, because leaders like Bhakti Caru Swami are saying these things with such great authority. And these statements will be repeated and repeated, over and over again, probably amplified as time goes on, which is the nature of this material world.
Godbrothers like Nrsimhananda das have pointed out the very important aspects of this situation, noting that it is basically a spiral down into religiosity for ISKCON. As Nrsimhananda das pointed out in his recent articles, "Myth Creation Begun" and "Myth Making - on a Roll", this is similar to how the Christian churches have made saints out of their past leaders. They canonize them and set them apart, and in that way authorize their pastimes and teachings as examples the regular followers of the religion should admire and emulate.
So in this way, Bhakti Caru Swami and other ISKCON leaders are doing exactly what the Acaryas did not want to have happen – they are turning Krsna Consciousness into a religion. This situation with Bhakti Caru Swami is just one of many examples of this phenomenon taking place. Religiosity is seeping in and contaminating the pure Sankirtana movement set down by the Acaryas. It has no place in our lifestyle or philosophy. We are simply supposed to repeat…
This myth-making trend is indicative of what it means when Srila Prabhupada says that we simply have to repeat what we have heard from the Sampradaya Acaryas, from the truly great devotees. We have no other business but to repeat. We are not supposed to invent, add new twists or a new mood, or roll in the dust telling highly dramatized and embellished stories, like Radhanath Swami. This is a new way of engaging in Krsna Consciousness that is not condoned by the Gaudiya Vaisnava Sampradaya Acaryas. It is a contrivance.
Bhakti Caru Swami has simply given us glorifications of persons who can be seen by their pastimes, activities and persona to have not been very advanced devotees at all. They did not follow Srila Prabhupada, in so many ways, and neither is Bhakti Caru Swami following in his myth-making activities.
These devotees now enshrined in Mayapur samadhis did not contribute great things to advance the Sankirtana movement. After how many years now, we don't see great results coming from their quarters as a result of their advanced or unique efforts to preach. In the case of Tamal Krishna Goswami, after so much money spent, we find that his thesis has never been released. We have no idea what he was really thinking, or what his ideas were about Krsna Consciousness, Srila Prabhupada and the movement, as they are enshrined in his Ph.D thesis. But because it hasn't been released, we can only imagine that it doesn't contain anything exemplary. In fact, there are suspicions that it's exactly the opposite, and from the introductory document that has been circulated, there appears to be serious cause for concern on that front.
So let's look at this activity of Bhakti Caru Swami's for what it really is. It is a sentimental devotee trying to please his audience by saying things that have no real basis in truth or fact, no sastric references, no examples of previous Acaryas. It is nothing more than the mundane opinions of a person who is succumbing to his own nature, not controlling his mind and senses, and not following the Acaryas. Just speaking off the top of his head, he is saying things that are going to do long term harm to individuals and the society as a whole.
