Ah, again there is trouble in paradise

Almost two hundred years ago the Queen of Manipur married the King of the neighbouring state of Tripura. The King was an exalted Vaishnava. He came to Vrindavan and built a temple for the people of his kingdom. It was named Tripura-kunja. After the marriage, the Queen of Manipur said to him, "You have your kunja, but I don't have my own. I also want to have my kunja. When my people will come to Vrindavan, where will they stay? Where will they meet?" The king replied, " My dear, your wish will be fulfilled. Nearby Tripura-kunja we will have your Kunja, the Manipuri-rani-kunj." The place was named Rani-kunja. Rani means Queen. Therein the deities of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Giriraj Govardhan and Sri Sri Radha-Vrajamohan were duly installed. In this way a nice temple was established there. The Arati was first offered at Tripura-kunja and then at Rani-kunja. The Queen lived for a long time in a room near the Deities'room and performed her bhajan there.

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I am cleaning up a few subjects that have come up during my stay in Canada. Just as with my previous post, I have been letting this one mature in my mind so that I could come to a conclusion that I would be satisfied with. The last article I posted has helped me to draw those conclusions. Part of it comes from watching lectures in Hindi by various Vrindavan speakers, in particular Malook Peethadhish Rajendra Das Maharaj, Hit Govinda Premananda Maharaj, and of course Vinod Bihari Baba, all of whom in my opinion reflect the pure Vrindavan mood.

Anyway, the story is that after I posted this article and linked to Facebook. I got a lot of negative reaction from critics of Bhakti Aloka Paramadvaiti Maharaj (BAP), due to scandals surrounding him about sexual improprieties. I had written to him privately twice in October last year, the second time when I was afraid that he was going to follow the usual playbook of deny, blame the victim, gaslight, deny the significance of the offenses in light of one's great achievements, call accusers envious and motivated, etc. It seems that these accusations are multiplying and one of the letters I wrote last year was leaked. Since, as they say, everything is eternal on the internet, one can go look for it, but I am not eager to rehash the matter on this blog.

Trying to be non-judgmental

As I focus on Vṛndāvana-mahimāmṛta, I am neither inclined to speak of others, nor even speak confessionally about myself, as I have in the past.

When will I become dumb,
incapable of speaking words that are hurtful to others,
even if only spoken in jest?
When will I become deaf,
incapable of hearing others' faults,
and blind to seeing them?
When will I become as inactive as a clod of earth,
incapable of any movement that brings others
even the slightest pain?
When will I thus reside in this Vrindavan forest,
which is so dear to Lord Hari? (VMA 2.16)

Last year, I myself had a bit of a difficult experience with public criticism, though it was no doubt a minor matter compared to what Maharaj has done to himself. Nevertheless I know a little about the kind of turmoil that sets in when one has sabotaged one's own reputation and thereby the positive projects that one has attempted to realize. I was just reminded of it recently when I went to an ISKCON temple and a Prabhupada disciple flung a list of my sins at me with suppressed rage.

I am not in a position to judge, to condemn or exonerate anyone. As Lord Jesus said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Judge not that ye be not judged. Remove the mote from your own eye before trying to remove the log from another's eye." But of course, the "truth tellers" demand action and see not getting on the bandwagon of condemnation is a moral failure.

On the whole it means that people remember the scandals and often forget the positive contributions that persons like BAP have made. This is the basic thrust of the material world. It is something to do with the way intelligence and the mind seek out the errors and flaws as an evolutionary survival mechanism. We always ask, "What is wrong with this picture?" And there is something about our conditioned state that makes us happy when the great fall. There is nothing in this world that is not mixed. All endeavors are covered by fault, says the Gita. We must push on despite our failings.

At any rate, I am not different, and I have spent a goodly part of my life thinking about what goes wrong with spiritual leaders, especially ones who have built up a stock of charisma, and its relation to sexuality. Do charismatic leaders have an excessive stock of testosterone? Like Kissenger is reputed to have said, "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."

And the idea that profit, adoration and prestige are also sex substitutes or "subtle sex" is something that appears to be true. Some of the articles I have written on the subject are here:

• Prabhhavishnu's fall from sannyas
• Henri Jolicoeur and some ISKCON homosexuals
• Is Kripalu the incarnation of the Sahajiya bogeyman?
• Antinomianism and the Hare Krishna Movement: A cautionary tale from history.
• Sleazy Sadhus (1) and (2)

I have been around long enough to have seen a hundred scandals. Nothing surprises me. I expect people to be imperfect.. There is nothing better for humility than a good fall-down. I have personal experience of this. Sometimes success in preaching is the biggest obstacle to prema. So the best thing for one to do is to embrace ones imperfections, one's shadow as the Jungians say, and learn to be humble. It helps one's chanting. Anyway, I have decided that I have explored the issue adequately.

As to BAP, I am reminded of Krishna's warning to Arjuna,

akīrtiṁ cāpi bhūtāni kathayiṣyanti te’vyayām
saṁbhāvitasya cākīrtir maraṇād atiricyate

Should you abandon your duty, all will speak endlessly of your shameful deed.
And for one who has been honored, infamy is worse than death. [Gītā 2. 34]

At any rate, at this point all I have to say is that I hope Paramadvaiti Maharaj takes shelter of the Dham and reforms himself. I believe that he is a sincere devotee and disciple of his guru, who has unfortunately allowed himself to succumb to temptation. But he has taken the responsibility for many seekers of Krishna prema and he needs to live up to it.

As for his victims, there is little succor that anyone can give them. I don't believe that revenge will be particularly helpful, nor will harboring resentment. The purpose of the karma doctrine is to remind us all that we have accumulated birth after birth of actions to which we now are experiencing the reaction. External justice can never bring us spiritual satisfaction. Somehow we have to find the strength to accept that just as the perpetrator has to deal with the consequences alone, so do the victims. I know this is not a pleasant thing to hear but I cannot think of a better way to respond to it.

History is Bunk

Contrary to my Shakespeare reference above, a few years ago I wrote an article "History is Bunk" which was about the fact that history is written by those who are able to control the message. In my article about Kripalu I also remarked that over time it is not the evil that men do that lives after them, but the good -- at least the good propaganda. With religion, it seems that the die-hard disciples are often the ones who are able to carry the positive side of their guru's reputation.

At the same time I do believe that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children. What I mean is that there is a subtle consequence of offenses that remains baked into the DNA of a tradition which affect its adherents and can only be removed with extreme difficulty, whether disciples are conscious of them or not.

Honest appraisals of history are fraught with troublesome consequences and it is often in the interests of peace that we paper over them. It is necessary to be able to recognize that failures due to the deeply ingrained nature of human weakness are a permanent feature of this world. It is one of the features of acintya-bhedābheda thinking that we are able to recognize both the divinity present in everyone alongside with human frailty.

We have nothing but the Holy Name and humility to help us get through. Only Brahman is entirely without blemish.

So I have decided to concentrate on the positive side of Paramadvaiti Maharaj's career as a servant of his guru-varga and pray that he and that those people who have been hurt by his actions will make it through this period of difficulty. I believe in the power of Sri Guru, the Dham and the Holy Name to reform any sinner and to correct them from within. May Radharani and the Dham take recognition of the way Paramadvaiti Maharaj has served them sincerely and also engaged so many disciples in such service. May the pure devotees have compassion on them all.

daviṣṭhe yas tiṣṭhed atikukṛti-niṣṭhaḥ kuviṣaye
sakṛd vṛndāṭavyās tṛṇakam api vandeta sukṛtī |
sa tat-prāṇasyocchṛṅkhala-nikhila-śakteḥ karuṇayā
dhruvaṁ dehasyānte hari-padam alabhyaṁ ca labhate ||

Should a person devoted to extremely wicked acts
be situated in a terrible country, far, far away,
if he should offer respects to even
the smallest blade of grass in Vrindavan, he becomes pious
and by the mercy of him who is the life and soul of that blade of grass,
who has all power to unshackle everyone from material bondage,
at the time of death, certainly attains
the otherwise unattainable feet of Lord Hari.

Alam ativistarena.