Do I believe in Srila Prabhupada?

A question I often get asked is, "Do you still believe in Srila Prabhupada?" Or some variation of this question. This was most recently asked by someone who had just read the article About Jagat, where I have tried to summarize the major events in my life.

This question often puts me off my guard a little, as I suspect that the questioner has a very naive understanding of guru-tattva or is out to entrap me by getting me to submit to a kind of loyalty test.

To make a succinct statement, I will just paraphrase what I wrote yesterday in my article Anti-intellectualism and Anti-Semitism join forces in the Krishna consciousness movement:

I have been out of ISKCON for more than 30 years and have developed a way of thinking that I see as being at least three steps removed from it as a result of my contacts with (1) traditional orthodox Gaudiya and rasika Vrindavan Vaishnavism; (2) with Sahajiya Vaishnavism; and (3) with the Western academic study of religion, all three of which have altered my understanding of spiritual life considerably. But none of these influences has altered my self-identification as a Vaishnava for which I pay my undying obeisance of gratitude to Srila Prabhupada.

Perhaps this will satisfy my questioner. But what does "believing in Srila Prabhupada" mean? Judging by the kinds of rigid ideas that some Prabhupadanugas have, you practically have to live in a mental straightjacket to "believe in Srila Prabhupada." And I once again point to the above article.

What I believe is that the gurus give us their ucchishta, their remnants. They set us on the road to discovery, but they can never answer all our questions. Most of the time, our questions don't come until long after they are gone.

For each disciple, according to their understanding, the guru's remnants are different. Just as on the guru's plate, there may be rice, chapati or sabji or something else remaining, so different disciples see a particular aspect of the guru's mission as being their own field of work, the area in which they can complete the work of the spiritual master.

This means that for some, who are actively inclined, the mission is to spread the message as they have received it, without any changes, without any question, and through the implicit faith that they have in the guru and the tradition, to bring Krishna consciousness to those who have never heard the message.

For others it may be an attempt to rigidify the guru's tradition and to be absolutely faithful to the letter of the guru's law.

For others, the goal might be to try to go deeper into understanding the message, into clarifying what is there, into validating logically and experientially the essence of the tradition and teaching.

For me, the guru's remnants has meant that we have to really find out the answers in this way – through combined study and practice -- in order to keep the tradition alive, to make it meaningful.

Therefore I feel that simply lip service to Srila Prabhupada becomes "idol worship" in the true sense. Everyone is held to a standard of faithfulness toward a figure from the past. People who can claim they were personal servants, or who have some "Prabhupada nectar" to tell, are exalted above all others.

Prabhupadanugas spend all their time knocking ISKCON for not following Prabhupada faithfully and spend all their time condemning innovations or for "thinking themselves to be equal to or better than Srila Prabhupada."

In my opinion, this is all idolatry and saps the very life out of Krishna consciousness. Krishna consciousness, as Bhaktivinoda Thakur said, is progressive. That means that as human understanding and experience expand, our understanding of religious and spiritual phenomena can also expand. We have more tools for understanding spirituality, mythology, ritual and religious practice today than we did a century or five centuries ago.

But this does not mean, as Bhaktivinoda Thakur so correctly pointed out, that we deny the legacy of the past. As Newton said, "If I saw far, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants."

Somehow, our task is to combine the experience and insights of the past with the experiences and insights of the present. Putting old wine into new bottles means this. It means repackaging the essence of spiritual practice into terms that modern man can understand and find meaningful. Without this, faithfulness to a mythology or to a tradition becomes artificial and dry, an empty shell. Strangely enough, we end up with an old bottle and no wine.

We live in a different world from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Bhaktivinoda Thakur, and even from the world of the 60's when Srila Prabhupada started his teaching. We must recognize the particular world we live in and bring Krishna consciousness alive in that world.

You cannot simply promote escapism and denial of the world we live in. Mere promotion of a return to some imaginary "Vedic culture" is a pipe dream that has failed several times. Unless we reimagine these things according to modern sensibilities, there is no way that we can make Krishna consciousness real for the people of today.

But let me make it perfectly clear that Srila Prabhupada set into motion something that appears to be very powerful, and despite all the negative things that have happened, a wide variety of manifestations of the bhakti movement appear to be growing in many parts of the world. I recognize that all these manifestations have their value and purpose, even those I oppose.

So I am happy to be a part of this world-wide phenomenon and recognize with gratitude my debt to him as the original source of what has become my own life's central theme.


evaṁ janaṁ nipatitaṁ prabhavāhi-kūpe
kāmābhikāmam anu yaḥ prapatan prasaṅgāt |
kṛtvātmasāt surarṣiṇā bhagavan gṛhītaḥ
so’haṁ kathaṁ nu visṛje tava bhṛtya-sevām ||

I was fallen into the darkened well of material life, where I was engaged in seeking sense enjoyment after sense enjoyment in bad association. The rishi of the gods, Narada, took me, O Lord, and made me his own. So how could I ever abandon the service of your servant? (Prahlad to Nrisingha, 7.9.28)

Truly, everything I do is a service to Srila Prabhupada and not a day goes by when I do not remember him. And, as I tried to show in my "About Jagat" article, I also feel that everything that has happened to me since his departure, beginning with my going to Lalita Prasad Thakur, was also by his grace -- even when it appeared to be against his written or spoken instructions.

And though I believe in each manifestation of the guru that has appeared subsequently, it would be dishonest for me to deny the importance of the one who set me on the path that I still follow.

At the same time, all external gurus are manifestations of the internal guru. And, ultimately, it is that guru in the heart that we must "believe" in. It may be the hardest lesson of all that the caittya-guru trumps all manifestation of the external guru.