BY: ROCANA DASA
Oct 17, CANADA (SUN) — Studying Srila Prabhupada's conversations with ISKCON leaders.
Today's Talks is inspired by Srila Prabhupada's room conversation of January 16, 1976 in Mayapur. You can listen to the audio or read the transcript here.
This is a relatively short room conversation that Srila Prabhupada's having with his disciples just prior to getting ready for the journey to Mayapur, for the Festival. Although the Vedabase citation places the conversation in Mayapur, according to Hari-sauri's Diary, it took place beforehand.
As always, Srila Prabhupada took every opportunity to educate his disciples in how to preach, and the knowledge he conveys is equally applicable to them, even though in their minds Srila Prabhupada was talking about the materialists or the scientists. They had the mood that they were on the winning team, which of course they were, although it didn't exempt them from needing to get the same lessons as those who were 'not on the team'. As a Sampradaya Acarya, Srila Prabhupada was surely 'the winning team' for everyone on the planet, including his disciples. All were conditioned souls and when Srila Prabhupada preached, he preached to everyone and described the material world and everyone in it, from his vantage point, which was far above and beyond everyone else's circumstance.
Srila Prabhupada started by referring to leaders, and he said that unless they're preaching or teaching Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam, then they're giving everyone the wrong direction, spoiling their lives as well as their own. Then he gave the basics of knowledge, listing all the different aspects of the material world, 26 all together, starting with the mind and senses.
Srila Prabhupada was encouraging his disciples to teach this science to the western people, especially, and he explained that he doesn't want them teaching religious classes -- he wants them to teach strictly Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam. He said that the western people are not fools, they're simply misguided and they require this knowledge. And when they are informed of this knowledge and trained up, they'll reform the rest of the world's society and will stop doing all these sinful activities, beginning with abortion, killing the cows, and so on, because they're doing this based on the principle that there's no soul.
Srila Prabhupada explains that a rascal means that he is representing himself as someone who has knowledge when in fact he doesn't have knowledge, and that's basically what's going on in the West. Of course, it was also going on in ISKCON. The disciples, especially the ones surrounding Srila Prabhupada, were presenting themselves to the rest of the society as being far more advanced then they actually were, in the realization department as well as in the actual jnana department. Essentially, they were deceiving themselves and those around them.
When you hear Srila Prabhupada preach, especially if you carefully read the transcriptions of lectures, conversations, and so on, you soon conclude that Srila Prabhupada had instant recall in this philosophy. He could back it up with sastric quotes and direct applications far beyond anyone that I've ever heard, even to this very day. The so-called big devotees have had 30 years of constant preaching and opportunities to understand this philosophy, but to this day they can't come anywhere close to Srila Prabhupada's level. In fact, on hearing some of my godbrothers who are sannyasis, gurus and leaders, I'm astounded by how little they still know, and how neophyte they actually are, what to speak of a comparison to Srila Prabhupada.
Srila Prabhupada in this conversation again refers to Hiranyakasipu, and he's going to be preaching on the Srimad-Bhagavatam and the pastimes of Prahlad Maharaja throughout his entire stay in Mayapur during the Festival. Of course, Hiranyakasipu thought he could cheat Krsna, but Krsna easily cheated him. Even though he tried to use the most advanced Vaisnava in the universe, Lord Brahma, to gain his benedictions, he was still cheated by Krsna. Srila Prabhupada mentions that Krsna told Brahma not to do this again, because it caused such a big disturbance.
Srila Prabhupada compares Hiranyakasipu to a big lawyer, who's always trying to find loopholes in the law - this is Srila Prabhupada's own lawyer joke. He says right here in this lecture that people are not only trying to cheat Krsna, they're trying to cheat and deceive the Spiritual Master. But what they don't realize is that just like a common thief thinks he can cheat the government, the government has so many agent and he's eventually going to be caught. Of course, in reality this is what most of the devotees surrounding Srila Prabhupada at that time thought -- that they could cheat Srila Prabhupada and Krsna by presenting themselves as Zonal Acarya equals to Srila Prabhupada. We see by the results that they were all cheated, even though they thought they had actually cheated all the devotees because the pure devotee wasn't there to stop them.
If you study Srila Prabhupada's pastimes and hear his lectures, you can understand that this whole idea some of the Rtviks are presenting about how Srila Prabhupada is still present and never dies, and so on, is ridiculous. It is an idea borne of sentiment, but it is not a sentiment Srila Prabhupada taught us to express. Srila Prabhupada did not hesitate to mention the departure of his Spiritual Master. He did not mince words, saying that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati lived on forever, and had never disappeared, just to create some false sentimental appearance of understanding that the Spiritual Master lives on in his instructions. Instead, he called a spade a spade when referring to the fact that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta had departed. So this Rtvik conception that it is blasphemy to say Srila Prabhupada has departed is simply nonsense.
When Srila Prabhupada was physically manifest, he was on top of everything going on in the movement from a managerial perspective. He was daily correcting all sorts of deviations, big and small. Nowadays the GBC are trying to convince the devotees that they are collectively the equivalent of the present Acarya, and they can act in a similar manner -- in other words, stop any nonsense that might take place and keep the devotees motivated in the way that Srila Prabhupada did. Of course, this is completely absurd. In a sense, they are cheaters too because they refuse to admit that we are now living in an era wherein a Sampradaya Acarya is not physically present. We should simply accept that and act accordingly rather than trying to convince ourselves and those around us that it's anything other than that. And until we do that, we'll constantly be doing the wrong thing. Those who foster this conception are really trying to deceive Krsna, just like Hiranyakasipu tried to convince everyone that he was God.
Of course, it's heresy within ISKCON to make these statements. The Lilamrta, Hari-sauri's Diary, and similar literature prop up the idea that the devotees who were around Srila Prabhupada, who accepted sannyasa and were GBC's, that they were exceptionally advanced or big spiritual leaders, or they had special benediction to have the close association with Srila Prabhupada. This is all basically myth-making. Real devotees are humble and they admit that they know nothing, especially in comparison to Sampradaya Acaryas of Srila Prabhupada's stature. In reality, they should be taking advice from everyone because as soon as one becomes puffed up with false pride, their spiritual life is virtually finished.
Srila Prabhupada, throughout all his lectures, room conversations and morning walks is trying to get this point across to his disciples. For the most part, it went over their heads. They could not really hear what Srila Prabhupada was saying and apply it to themselves, to ISKCON, and to the future. And from what we now know of the past, we see that's absolutely true, because they've proven it to be true.
