Dogs and Caravans
BY: CANDRABHANU DAS (ACBSP)
Oct 30, USA (SUN) — Why does the Sampradaya Sun traffic in Vaisnava aparadha? Free speech is a cherished principle of civilization, but even in non-devotee society, hate language and slander are criminal offenses. In Vaisnava circles it is also regarded as punishable to speak or even to hear blasphemy towards a saintly person. It would seem wise therefore to apply a generous degree of censorship regarding libelous remarks toward Vaisnava.
In the 265th anuccheda of his Bhakti-sandarbha, in explaining the ten offenses against the Holy Name, Srila Jiva Goswami quotes a verse from the Skanda Purana, delineating varieties of unbefitting acts in relation with a Vaisnava.
satam ninda ity anena himsadinam vacanagocaratvam darsitam
nindadayas tu yatha skande sri-markandeya-bhagIratha-samvade
nindam kurvanti ye mudha vaisnavanam mahatmanam
patanti pitrbhih sardham maharaurava-samjJite
hanti nindanti vai dvesti vaisnavan nabhinandati
krudhyate yati no harsam darsane patanani sat iti
"Defamation of the saints, as violence and so forth, as well as verbal, is now presented. Blasphemy and so forth are presented in the Skanda in the discourse of Sri Markandeya and Bhagiratha:
'The fools who defame Vaishnava-mahatmas fall into a place known as Maharaurava along with their ancestors. The six degrading acts against Vaishnava are (1) killing him, (2) blaspheming him, (3) being envious of, or hating him, (4) not glorifying him, (5) being angry at him, and (6) not being happy upon seeing him.'"
According to Sri Jiva it is also not acceptable to witness one, or several among the aforementioned degrading acts of defamation. The place known as Maharaurava is described in the fifth skandha of the Bhagavata (5.26.12) as follows:
evam eva maharauravo yatra nipatitam purusam kravyada nama ruravas tam
kravyena ghatayanti yah kevalam dehambharah.
"Thus certainly a person who is exclusively absorbed in nourishing his body will be thrown to Maharaurava, where blood-thirsty hounds will devour his flesh and torment him."
That being said, let us examine the six kinds of degrading deeds.
1.To kill. This is obviously a heinous act bound to destroy the creeper of devotion. Under this heading, any and all acts of physical violence are also included.
2. To blaspheme. All verbal acts of defamation come under this category. Calling a Vaishnava names, speaking harshly to him or about him, speaking lies of him and so forth are considered blasphemy.
3. To be envious or hateful. To be envious of a Vaishnava, to wish for his demise or suffering and to act towards this goal, and other thoughts, speech and deeds prompted by a feeling of malice towards a Vaishnava come under this heading.
4. To not glorify. All Vaishnavas are worthy of respect. To not respect a Vaishnava in accordance with his qualification, or to refuse from recognizing a particular good quality or deed of a Vaishnava, is unbefitting. Everyone is to be given all the respect they deserve, regardless of their having different opinions from ours.
5. To be angry. Whatever a Vaishnava does, we are not to display an outburst of anger towards him. It is permitted to display anger towards someone who is hateful towards the bhaktas, but this, too, is to be done in a civil, constructive way for the rectification of the wrong-doer.
6. To not be happy upon seeing. Whoever has accepted the holy names of Krishna is a blessing to the world. To not feel happiness upon meeting a soul who has chosen to approach the Lord, regardless of his defects, is inappropriate. [1]
I hesitate to dignify the recent attacks upon HH Hrdayananda Goswami with any response, thus giving them even a modicum of credibility or weight. One reckless bhakta hurls a stone and a dozen aparadhis crawl out of the woodwork to pile on. Your good readers, however, should not remain dangerously uninformed, being seduced by sensational headlines to absorb damaging untruths and mischaracterizations from armchair faultfinders with various hidden agendas, be they political, ideological, or personal. For the sake of the innocent, offensive remarks, even ones as foolish as these, should not go unchecked.
A thoughtful person understands the injustice of judging any soul and particularly the dangers of judging a Vaisnava without a deep and comprehensive understanding of that person's motives and character. Judging upon external appearances, as we all know, is a textbook form of bigotry.
Our sampradaya is rife with examples of the bold actions of great leaders taken outside the strict definitions of shastra or tradition. The list is too numerous to elaborate upon, but we know that for preaching Srila Prabhupada suspended many, many traditional injunctions, upon doing which his godbrothers always waxed apoplectic. Why must such disquieting history repeat itself whenever any innovation or alternative preaching style emerges?
At this point I would like to quote a section of a very nice article written last year by Niscala devi dasi for Chakra. Hopefully she won't mind my referencing her salient observations:
"When shastric injunctions are favorable for devotional service, they should be accepted, but at such times when they become unfavorable, they should be rejected. Doing so requires a huge amount of courage, as it very often means parting with what is acceptable among those who are very strict, religiously speaking. Lord Chaitanya had to do it, Bhaktisiddhanta had to do it, Jesus had to do it, Prabhupada had to do it, we also have to do it, at least at some point.
Lord Chaitanya was criticized and opposed for singing, for giving mantras to lower castes, and for honouring (impossibly) large quantities of prasadam so as to avoid offending his hosts. Bhatisiddhanta was slandered for traveling in vehicles, for initiating lower castes and for associating with rich people. Jesus was treated as a blasphemer by the rabbis, simply for preaching guru tattva. Prabhupada broke many rules, from keeping his vegetables in an unclean refrigerator to associating with materialists, to even, as discussed before, instructing his disciple to eat meat if necessary, in order to break the stranglehold of Russian atheism. Thus we have a lineage of rule breakers and we glorify them for that. The brahman who was meditating on cooking sweet rice for the Lord, to test the temperature, put his finger in it. Did the Lord say "OOH, your muchi fingernail touched it before offering! How can I accept it?" If that brahmana had focused on rules, even in his mind, he would not have done such a thing. Instead his focus was Krishna's pleasure.
Last but not least, there is the example of the famously infamous rule breakers, the gopis, who bore the burden of the incessant torrent of sharp criticism and snide remarks from their relatives. Love sometimes necessitates breaking away from scriptural and societal norms. Are we a society that is learning to see people according to their motives- to go behind the actions, or do we simply judge according to external rigidity? To the extent that we ignore this question, to that extent we will stay deeply rooted in vaidhi sadhana. Furthermore, due to inability to recognize who is actually advanced, it may not be only vaidhi bhakti that we cannot go beyond, but the modes of material nature!"
HDG has formidable personal reasons for his attire, his use or non-use of devotional accessories and his relationship as guru to his male and female disciples. Anyone who is an honest, sincere and truly inquisitive person will ask him ingenuously for his explanations after which s/he will probably be quite satisfied that here is a genuine, exalted disciple of Srila Prabhupada and an intrepid, masterful, selfless proponent for Krishna Consciousness on the tumultuous stage of Kali Yuga. It is an absurd, misleading and grossly offensive implication that he has any motivation to refute the siddhanta of our Founder-Acarya. He has submitted extensive expositions on the subject of fidelity and loyalty to Srila Prabhupada which are at once profound and illuminating and which put to shame the pedestrian moralities of shallow, rote-like neophytes barely conversant with pratyaksa or what to speak of the higher forms of knowledge.
I should not have to mention the tremendous success HDG has encountered in his 40+ years as one of this movement's foremost preachers and educators. Nor that as a sannyasi for 35 years he has never even had a brush with falldown. Nor that the role of guru may at times preclude some of the injunctions of the sannyasa order. Nor that his spiritual bank account is vast enough to buy and sell all his critics hundreds of times over. But the pauper will try to convince us that the billionaire does not know how to accumulate wealth, or that perhaps he is still not rich enough.
Dogs may bark but the caravan moves on.
Every society has an avant-garde segment, where certain advanced thinkers and enlightened members push the boundaries of social advancement. These special members are generally criticized, even ostracized during their lifetime due to their sometimes non-conformist lifestyles, thought, and bodies of work. Later on, often posthumously, such pioneers are recognized for their revolutionary or evolutionary efforts on behalf of society; shrines and entire history books are subsequently dedicated to them. We have a number of such special spiritual iconoclasts in our midst at the present time, devotees who are inspired and empowered to spread Krishna Consciousness in unique and wonderful ways. Keep your eyes peeled for them. But rather than reacting with apprehension or negativity to what appears a bit different, take a closer look. Open your hearts and minds to them, and you will be pleasantly surprised.
Your servant,
Candrabhanu das (ACBSP)
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[1] Madhavananda das; Gaudiya Discussions; Nov. 2002
[2] Niscala d.d.; Chakra Feb 2008
