BY: ROCANA DASA
Jan 2, CANADA (SUN) — Studying Srila Prabhupada's conversations with ISKCON leaders.
Today's segment of Talks is inspired by Srila Prabhupada's lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.6.9 from December 11, 1975 in Vrindavan. You can listen to the audio or read the transcript here.
This sloka from Srimad-Bhagavatam strongly condemns attachment to the material world, which is directly correlated to householder life. In this lecture, Srila Prabhupada is very much the Sampradaya Acarya in the sense that there's absolutely no compromise or suggestion of making any material, practical arrangements to get out of the bondage of material existence. You must take to Krsna consciousness in an attempt to become detached from the material world. Of course, Srila Prabhupada condemns material civilization and those who are the high priests of material civilization - the scientists, philosophers, and politicians - because these people don't have a clue. The don't understand the basic principles of getting free. They promise peace and happiness to their followers, but they don't explain that this requires total detachment from the material world.
Srila Prabhupada very expertly presents the fact that our philosophy, our Vedic culture, is exactly the opposite from that. He explains that this is the Caitanya civilization, which is exemplified by Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu Himself, who had everything that any materialist could possibly want - a beautiful wife, a loving mother, a reputation as a great scholar and philosopher. Srila Prabhupada points out that Mahaprabhu could rally 10,000 people without any problem, and He did during His early years, to exemplify the point that even though He had all this, He gave it up and became a true sannyasi.
Srila Prabhupada also gives the example of Rupa and Sanatana Goswami, who had everything on the political level in terms of power, money and influence, yet they gave it up. He points to the verse written by Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya when describing who is Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and he explains that Lord Caitanya means vairagya-vidya, which means "detachment education", showing by example and by philosophy that you have to give up all these attachments. You cannot just say well, I'll use them all in Krsna's service -- you have to actually give them up.
Of course, we don't find that mood today amongst many of our so-called big renunciant sannyasis. Many have become rich and powerful politicians who get to live very comfortably. It's the householders who have to struggle and apply for loans, asking for financial help from the sannyasis and getting jobs in ISKCON based on their connections with powerful sannyasis. I don't know who the exceptions to this are - I'm sure there are some -- but from my vantage point it appears that many of the ISKCON sannyasis fall into this category.
In this verse, Srila Prabhupada completely condemns this state of affairs. In fact, he says that Europeans and Americans are so attached to so many things that Krsna consciousness is their only solution. He doesn't give any compromise in this regard. And in the days when Srila Prabhupada was preaching, in 1975 for example, it was a fact that most of the devotees were living extremely poorly. In Hari-sauri's Diary, he does a Satsvarupa-style presentation of Srila Prabhupada, saying that Srila Prabhupada was 'extremely poverty-stricken'. At the time he was giving this lecture, the Vrindavan temple had been finished and according to Hari-sauri, Srila Prabhupada had opulent facility compared to what he'd had prior to coming to America. But in retrospect, we can see that Srila Prabhupada's so-called opulent facility was fairly humble. In fact, it was almost an offense that near the end of his pastimes, the devotees kept him in such a humble kind of circumstance. It was dark and humid, and not a very healthy environment. Those who know the Vrindavan complex understand what I'm saying.
Srila Prabhupada points out here that in the previous ages, the rich would build beautiful, opulent temples with their money. In fact, he points out the Govindaji Temple in Vrindavan, which was very opulent before being partially demolished by the Muslims hundreds of years before. No one with any amount of money could duplicate that temple… it would be too expensive. So that's how money should be spent, and Srila Prabhupada really exemplified this principle. Beautiful temples were built by Srila Prabhupada in Vrindavan, Mayapur and Bombay, but in comparison, his own facilities in these temples was extremely humble. We can certainly see that this is not the situation in ISKCON today, however.
Another interesting example that Srila Prabhupada gives, which I find almost humorous, is that of Gargamuni. In the early days, Gargamuni and his brother, Brahmananda, first joined the New York temple. They were from a rich Jewish family and their father was upset, of course, that they had joined Krsna consciousness. He apparently disowned them or cut them out of the inheritance. But as Srila Prabhupada points out in this lecture, you have to be extremely vigilant and you have to follow this process very carefully if you hope to maintain the level of detachment that we had in those days, when Srila Prabhupada was present, bring yourself to the point where you'll never fall down from that level. But even when this lecture was given, what to speak of in the future, Gargamuni's nickname was "Garga-money", and all that he really thought about was money. He and his brother both used money for sense gratification, to the point that they both fell down. But due to the notoriety of being in Srila Prabhupada's original entourage, the devotees seemed to tolerate the fact that these two were always after money. Even to this day they're well known for pirating copyrighted materials from other devotees and selling them for profit.
Everything that Srila Prabhupada says here is just so intense, especially in retrospect. I say this because in the days, we would hear these kinds of lectures and assume that it didn't really apply to us - that we were already surrendered and we were protected from maya. We would never fall down. We thought that Srila Prabhupada wasn't directly referring to us, but rather to the mudhas and rascals in material society. But in fact, if you read this carefully, you'll see that he was directing it to us, warning us not to create individually and as a society the very situation we find so prevalent today.
Recently on Dandavats, Praghosa das, the editor and a GBC, wrote a feature article wherein he was actually encouraging the very thing that Srila Prabhupada warned us not to do, and which this verse from the Bhagavatam condemns. In other words, becoming attached to householder life. But our philosophy, Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu's philosophy, and therefore Srila Prabhupada's philosophy, is that there is no room to compromise. And if you do fall victim or you do succumb to this tendency, then according to our philosophy you should consider yourself fallen and a fool -- regardless if it makes you develop into an 'inferiority complex'. The fact is that the Sampradaya Acaryas say that we should kick all material things out and we should become mendicants. Period.
It's interesting that Srila Prabhupada brings up the position of the brahmans and how the brahmans really caused the falldown of the Vedic culture. Without living up to the brahminical standard they demanded the respect of a brahman. And as we know historically, this resulted in what is now known as the caste system. The caste system, as Srila Prabhupada has pointed out in other discussions, is primarily due to the so-called rascal brahmans. This resulted in so many Hindus converting into Muslims. It's also the reason the Sikh religion came about -- because they wanted to escape the suppressive, condescending system maintained and protected by the Brahmans.
In some respects we can see, especially in Pakistan and Bangladesh, how this is one of the root problems on the planet today. The areas in which we have the great impact from the caste system is today the very place where the terrorist movement is being fomented. Ultimately it's due to the fact that the brahmans instituted a hereditary system.
There are a lot of interesting parallels one can make between this and what's going on in ISKCON today. As soon as you get the status of being a sannyasi and a guru, regardless of whether you're following all the principles of that position according to sastra, you're never questioned. You're never called up on the fact that sannyasis don't act this way - gurus don't act this way - brahmans shouldn't call themselves brahmans if they're not actually mendicants.
If one honestly appraises Srila Prabhupada's life, even during his so-called "opulent period" in the ISKCON era, still Srila Prabhupada really acted like a renounced mendicant. He never used his money for his own personal needs, other than traveling, preaching, and printing his books and building temples. Even during his last period, when he was in poor health, he never spent money on medical facilities. Without pointing out the individual examples, of which there are so many in ISKCON, we see that today we have sannyasis who are GBC's, who are living off their parents, in inherited houses or on temple/asrama properties built with their parents' money. In fact, we saw in the recent GBC Resolutions that the GBC don't consider the money that these sannyasis inherit to even be part of Krsna's or Srila Prabhupada's money - instead it's considered to be their own money to retire and live comfortably on, and nobody says anything. Yet in this Bhagavatam class, Srila Prabhupada condemns this. He points out what is Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu's example in this regard, and this is what it means to be in the Krsna consciousness movement.
