Gaurahari Zodda and his conversion to Christianity

I don't know much about Gaurahari Das. I met him personally once in Mayapur a few years ago. I was told at the time that he was making disciples and trying to build a following. He had a nice face, a good smile, was generally polite and curious in conversation. If I formed any opinion then, it was that it was a little early for him to be acting as guru, but then that is so typical that I did not make much of it. Later on, I followed his career a little since I had had some personal contact with him. I noticed him go through a phase of supporting the ritvik philosophy. He was constantly making videos and trying so hard to reach a state of emotional bhakti, or bhava. Then he started watching videos of Christian preachers, televangelists of the Southern Baptist variety, miracle workers and Pentecostals. His sudden conversion to Christianity took us all by surprise, however. After all, most devotees recoil before a religion that condones meat-eating, what to speak of the crass commercialism and demigoguery of these slick preachers.

It seems to me that Gaurahari was attracted by the glitter and figures he can break into those circles and do the Elmer Gantry thing himself. At any rate, we exchanged some correspondence. Here is his announcement and my response.

I just want to let you know I have had a huge change of heart and what path I want to devote myself exclusively too. Recently I realized what it means practically to serve two masters. I was doing this and did not know it. One master was Krishna Consciousness and the other one was Jesus. I was thinking that they actually were the same Master involved. I thought the Vedas and the Bible were also teaching the same principals. The Love of God of the Christians and love of Krishna was also the same. Looking deeper into this I see they are most certainly not. They just appear to be related. I could not see this clearly and know one else has the light to see that one is actually serving two different masters. Rededicating my life to Jesus as my personal exclusive savior, reading the bible, and hearing those preachers who are genuinely empowered with the Holy Spirit is revealing this truth to me setting me free of some subtle illusions. There is more discussion on this in the videos I have been making if one is interested in testing the spirits and looking at the results of following both spirits and Krishna and his followers claiming they are the same and those who are truly filled with the light of the Holy Spirit see the subtle sham that is enslaving so many in very subtle deceitful ways. The new videos look deeply into all this.Sorry eman and others for all the work you put into serving but don't worry God is leading us all to know what is the real truth to set us free. 

By serving what is actually two masters in opposition to each other I could not see this. If anyone is interested, as part of my own clearing, deepening process I am still making videos and sharing my insights. I know this change appears to be abrupt and has happened before, still I have to follow what I believe is true. Each time on my particular path and what I have to encounter due to my own destiny is making everything more clear. My roots in the truth are going a little more deeper in the right soil. If you considered me like a teacher to you and don't like new direction of exclusive dedication to Jesus without mixing it with KC ( which I can understand) please feel free to proceed the way you are personally inspired to develop your spiritual life. Any questions feel free to call or write me. I am sorry if this is causing confusion for anyone but this just goes to show that that if one is serving the real father and Son of God and the holy spirit, then there will be no confusion or darkness in them. One distinction of how I see the KC path is no one gets the real spirit of God to dwell in them one becomes dependent o some charismatic human being who disappears and one is deflated again. Those who are true servants of Jesus who are filled with the Holy Spirit are not like this and work to impart that Holy Spirit to those who listen to the true doctrine of Jesus which saved them and only they themselves know by following the right way and getting the gift of the holy spirit to dwell within them.

This is my aim and goal and if I am called by the lead of the Holy Spirit to be some kind of teacher my goal will be to lead those who comes to a relationship with Jesus as their savior and pray that the Holy Spirit enters them and abides, teaches and comforts them forever. That's Gods real program! This is the real gift and truth that God wants to give everyone. Not when the Guru or teacher, who are actually just men, goes somewhere else or dies one is confused and has to run to another living man Guru who does not have the true spirit of Christ in them.. Those who have the true Holy Spirit pray for those who come to them to hear the real doctrine of the Savior to receive the Holy Spirit which guides, comforts, leads and teaches them all things. They never take the worship and give all credit to the real savior in Jesus name. KC teaches to worship and depend on a man to save them who cannot impart the Holy Spirit, and history of the gaudiya matha and SP movement everything falls apart when they leave. KC teaches others to chant for 50 years to free one from ones sins, when just by faith in Jesus that he paid the price on the cross blotting out all the sins of all who believe on him. The videos expose more of this in detail by testing and comparing the spirits fruits of KC and Jesus, anyone who is eager and wants to be really free and know about this watch my new videos. 

So this is the next step and final teaching that I will involve myself for the rest of my life and anyone who comes around, my intention will be for them to receive the true holy spirit to keep them safe from the clutches of the evil one forever.

But you are totally wrong. And it is quite unfortunate that you have misunderstood Krishna consciousness due to your exclusively depending on Srila Prabhupada for your knowledge. In the Bhagavad-gita Krishna says he dwells in the heart and gives intelligence. As a matter of fact, the whole Gita can be read as a way of understanding the voice of the Holy Spirit. The Guru is the facilitator.

Moreover saying that you have to chant for fifty years before the Name takes effect whereas just faith in Jesus frees you from sin. I must say, my dear, you really have not learned much about bhakti. I am very sorry to see that your understanding was so shallow.

But there you go. I can understand your frustration with current Gaudiya Vaishnava politics, but my Lord, has Christianity fared much better in its two thousand years? Its record is so bloody that it still drives people to atheism! To find anything comparable in Hinduism, one has to dig considerably. That such external matters have swayed your thinking is just another proof that your understanding was shallow, your sadhana so lacking in true intensity.

I am a little miffed because I complimented you recently. Evidently there was something else going on besides dancing in the street. You should have come to Rishikesh and we could have had a talk. Bhakta-sanga was missing. You set yourself up as a guru before you were ready. And now you want to be a teacher again.

At any rate, your choices are yours and I don't begrudge you the decision to follow your own inspiration. But in general I find it suspicious when people repudiate something that has been the channel of Grace and source of so much spiritual inspiration in their lives. It is always best to truly understand one's path before abandoning it. You will find that though the long and rich Christian tradition has its strengths, it also has the very same challenges as Vaishnavism, and in many cases has weaknesses where Vaishnavism has strengths. Service to one's guru does not mean rote following or blind obedience, but service to the underlying essence of the message.

Ultimately, you will indeed need to go to a level that incorporates ALL religious beliefs. That is the way that each of our religious traditions is benefited, by learning from each other and finding the universal.

You excoriate temple deity worship, calling them idols and images carved by human hands, as though this was not something that has been debated for a thousands of years in Hinduism! I am literally gobsmacked. But anyway, anyone whose faith is so shallowly conceived will not have much success in his new garb either, in my opinion.

What I see here, Gaurahariji, is that you are a zealot, not a philosopher. You lost your faith in Iskcon zealotry, so you tried the Prabhupadanugas for a while, this one and that one, but you could not put your whole heart into that old time Iskcon religion. There were a lot like you; some of them went to Narayan Maharaj and could jump up and down for a while, but you did not go that route, though it would have been far better to associate with him or Sridhar Maharaj to get a little perspective. So now, hungry for your adrenaline fix of fundamentalism, you have been watching some Christian preachers, some televangelist Elmer Gantrys, and you have fallen for them hook line and sinker.

And now you think, these guys have got something. I am going to go for that Bible-thumping message and get me a gig with the Evangelical crowd. Well good luck breaking in, my friend. You will no doubt do better than the handful of followers you got from the dregs of Iskcon.

I can see where this is going. You have now seen the light and you will be the poster boy for the converted back from the godforsaken new age and eastern heresies! What a sham!

Anyway, the Christian message is strong. I just wish that American evangelicals were not so right wing. If you must be a Christian, go for the St-Francis wing of the Church. Or try St John of the Cross, or Theresa of Avila, or Brother Lawrence, or Thomas a Kempis, or Thomas Merton. But modern Protestant evangelicals are certainly not my style.

You say Christianity is simple and Krishna bhakti is not. In many ways it is the exact same message! "Anyone who says just once, "I am yours" to him I give myself forever. This is my eternal promise." That is the bhakti message. Where have you been, Gaurahari?

And what do you think of babes like Dhruva, Prahlad and the four Kumaras? What to speak of Shukadeva and so many others? And what do you think is the message of the gopis, who without knowledge or learning attained the highest perfection, which was hidden to the Upanishads? Where have you been, Gaurahari? What were you doing all these years?

The problem arises when we are too literal. "Christ crucified" and the washing away of sins, etc. There is of course no need for any such thing. A powerful God can clear away all the sins of humanity in a moment. But there is a powerful symbol there, the son of God dying for our sins. We can say, "One repetition of God's name can destroy more sins that the greatest sinner could ever commit in a million lifetimes." Why not? Why do we need something so dramatic as well as improbable??

It is just a symbol. That's all. So you like one symbol more than another, that is all it is. But in neither case does it absolve you of the spiritual responsibility of Love. Of becoming a more perfect human being. Salvation is never a magic thing that happens just because you say "I am yours" as our scriptures say. It is true, because of Grace, but Grace is only the empowerment, i.e., the strength or faith to become a worthy servant of God. This is why Luther talks about justification by faith alone. It is not that something external proves your salvation, but without inner faith you will never be transformed, you will not have the energy or power to be transformed. But transformed you must be.

So the transforming Christ then is no longer the "crucified Son of God" but "the son of Man", "the perfect man," or the ideal to be followed. And the saints are also such ideals. And they exist in all traditions.

What Christians are discovering more and more, especially of course in the liberal churches, is that there is a necessity for introducing the divine feminine, and they are having a problem doing so with the limitations of their symbolic vocabulary, because the Judaic tradition eliminated the feminine from the Divine, as has been continued in the Islamic tradition. The evangelical Christians maintain the social model of male-female relations according to the patriarchal tradition.

Now what I say is that the culture of the human heart must be developed in the model of human love, shaped by the form of Radha and Krishna. When our hearts and minds take the shape of Radha and Krishna and we learned to absorb the feminine power into our spirituality and find union in love, then we become more perfect human beings in ways that simple individual salvation and individual grace cannot.