Changes in the Board Structure - Please read this before asking

CHANGES IN THE BOARD STRUCTURE

Having observed the development of Gaudiya Discussions over the past couple of months, I see that the forums have gone a bit astray from their original intent. I would like to bring the focus back to what it is supposed to be, namely Gaudiya Rupanuga.

While discussions on topics outside that are welcome and appreciated, they should not become predominant. As said in the board's statement of purpose, the forums were originally created "to serve the ever-growing audience of people who share an interest in the teachings and the tradition of Sri Caitanya, the Six Gosvamins and the subsequent great teachers, such as Narottama Das and Visvanatha Cakravartin."

With this objective in mind, the content is being restructured. Some topics will be moved to new locations. This will not be separately documented. Changes in categories and forums will be documented at the end of this post as they are implemented. Category names are written in bold capital letters, forum names are written in bold letters.

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- The MAIN DISCUSSIONS category has been renamed into GAUDIYA RUPANUGA DISCUSSIONS. The category is reserved for topic directly related with the mission statemet of the forums, as quoted earlier in this post.

- A new category called OTHER TRADITIONS has been opened. It has three forums, one for ISKCON / Gaudiya Matha, one for Academic / Controversial, and one for Other Vaishnava-traditions.

- Miscellaneous Discussions has been renamed into Other Topics and moved under OTHER DISCUSSIONS. Devotional Topics has been renamed into Miscellaneous Devotional Topics, its scope broadened a bit.

- The Moderation and Feedback forum has been renamed to Community, Moderation and Feedback, it's scope broadened.

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If you have any comments in this regard, please post them in. We will try to accommodate them within the scope of our original intent. I wish to reiterate that we welcome contributions from those not identifying themselves as Rupanuga, and we trust that they will understand our desire to keep the focus on that which we feel is of the essence to us. Therefore, we would appreciate if everyone paid attention to the genre of the section in which they post before commenting. I will include a synopsis of each section in a pinned topic later on today to help you understand the scope of each forum.

Dandavats. All glories to the Vaisnavas.

I agree with Madhava's assessment. I don't grasp why the site becomes inundated with talk of ISKCON/GM history/philosophy, etc. Of course most here have their feelings on this subject as ISKCON/GM were instrumental in our devotional lives at one point but why bring such talk here? There are plenty of other sites dedicated to such subjects and would be best served there. Not just because their sites are meant for that discussion but the perceptions will be markedly different as it will contain those with both positive and negative histories as well as an understanding of the more current events, moods, etc.

It is one thing to touch upon theological understandings taught within ISKCON/GM and quite another to discuss ISKCON/GM.

Aspiring to serve the Vaisnavas,
Rasaraja dasa

I do not do this with only the ISKCON/GM isue in mind. That, I feel, has been rather well confined into its own section. However, the site has become a bit rampant with various "going my own way" ideals, which I feel should not be amidst "straight" discussions on the topics this site was opened for.

Pardon me if threads are flying around a bit for a while now, I am sorting out the content to appropriate categories from some rather messy sections.

Where's my post? It's in the same place it's always been in, in the ISKCON/GM subforum. Just clean out the post above and post it in there yourself.

You can find all your posts by clicking on your name and then "Find all posts by this member" from the top left of the view.

If someone feels that there is a redundant forum which could be merged with another forum, or that there is a genre which isn't covered at all, please post in your valuable comments.

I personally feel that history might merit its own category. However, as it tends to be rather academic in nature, I suppose that section should do.

I'd like to say I think that we'll be able to control it, but I am not sure we can. The more people come, the more varieties of people will be there. I actually wish there were more senior people around who had sufficient depth of understanding in siddhanta to defend it.

Those who have differing ideas cannot be sent away, but we actually need people like Advaita to come forward and at least remind us of the base line.

You and I alone are limited in what we can do. We need more input from people with knowledge of Gaudiya siddhanta, who can fill in the gaps where we are perhaps unable, unwilling, or unavailable.

Anyway, I am not going to lament about Advaita. I don't think that we have done anything wrong where he is concerned, but there are few persons with his credentials around. I want to be free to disagree with him without being condemned, but I'd rather he were contributing his knowledge than carrying on a vendetta against us.

I agree that we need more people who are well-grounded in siddhanta. Where are they all, gone somewhere underground?

However, I honestly believe that we are able to bring focus to where we feel it belongs without alienating others with our disrespect. This, I hope, will lead to mutual respect and a relationship in which both the insider and the outsider may gain from each other and add something meaninful to their respective spiritual lives.

I am hoping that this revision will help us return the various themes of discussions into their rightful focuses, keeping them separate and preventing the forums from turning into a giant blender.

It's just that it can be very time consuming.

In my (more or less) spare time, I've been going through the old archives and moving in topics of particular interest. I've also cleaned up some pointless debates from some threads in hopes of making every older thread worth a read for anyone who comes over.

In the course of pouring over all those thousands of threads we have here, I realized we didn't have a specific category for devotional practices. That has now been put in place under Rupanuga Gaudiya section, particularly inspired by the recent topics on chanting. There is also a new section for history and traditions there since a while now.

In this vein, I would like to welcome all our members to help me out and PM me links of threads that clearly belong to another category.

I am hoping that this clear divison of content will help Gaudiya Discussion be, in addition to a lively discussion forum at the moment, a valuable archive of information for anyone interested in studying our tradition.

In this vein, I should note that some threads that have not been active for a good while, and that contain little that would be of interest for anyone after the discussion calms down, retire into a separate archival section in the forums. Mainly, heated debates that had little philosophical import to them and chats that didn't discuss much anything at all, tend to retire. Whoever wishes may PM me for access to the retired zone.

Hmmm, I hadn't realized that you had had such a problem with outsiders to your tradition kind of hijacking the topics (reading between the lines). I understand fully your desire to maintain the focus of your discussions. I can't say, in all honesty, that I presently identify as a Vaishnava. While there are several things about the tradition that I still believe and honor, there are just as many things that I have discarded. I actually gave away all but about 3 of my Vaishnava scriptures, so I won't be quoting much in the way of Sanskrit. I was more than a little surprised when Jagat asked me to check Gaudiya Discussions out, since I had been amazed that I was tolerated at Istagosthi. Come on, a bisexual pagan on a devotee forum? Yet somehow they welcomed me, much to my surprise.

What I do still accept and believe in are: that we are simultaneously one and different from God, that God is a person, that devotion to God is the ultimate goal, that transcendental sound vibration is non-diferent from God, that He can choose to enter into His image(s) for our worship, and that it is vital to be conscious of Him at the time of death. I choose to worship His feminine aspect for reasons relating to my feminism, and probably in reaction to the treatment of women in ISKCON. Call Him Krsna or Allah or Jehovah, which matters little to me.

I may disagree now with some of what my Guru Maharaja taught, but I still love him immensely for taking the great trouble to come and teach it. He offered the most valuable thing he had to offer when he could have remained in Vrndavana among his peers. His teaching does form the basis for my personal relationship with God and outlook on devotion, and I am forever indebted to him.

It's harder to state what I don't believe and accept as that is a longer list, but first of all is the notion that any one religion or succession of gurus and holy men, popes or bishops has a lock on the one and only absolute truth or one true way.
However, inherent in that is my ardent belief, along with the Universalists, that each person has the ultimate responsibility of deciding what they believe is the truth and no one has a right to condemn them for it. So my own belief is that it is my responsibility to respect every person's right to their truth and support them in following their path. Hence I do not proselytize. In fact, I've been very reticent to post on either forum any details of my own pagan practices or beliefs. I'm more likely to talk about the Buddhists I've been reading lately.

I also don't believe literally in the bulk of the stories of Bhagavatam, etc., the Vedic histories about the previous yugas.

I started out a very fundamentalist devotee, years ago, and would be one of the first people to complain that something wasn't "bona fide" so I do understand the need to do that on the part of some people.

In any event, these days I have studied many religious texts from different traditions both old and brand new, and the more I read the more they look the same. Underneath the apparently different terminology we are all talking about the same basic things, just with different names and faces and languages. I just can't be a purist anymore, and if some paragraph in a Buddhist text sends me into ecstacy as I relate it back to my personalist orientation, then why should I reject it? These days everything reminds me of God and I am grateful for inspiration wherever I find it. That is why I am here.

If you would prefer that I not post in the Rupanuga section, I will respect that and keep to other topics. I want to support you in having your space to explore your tradition.

Blessed Be--

Tapati

I'll leave that entirely to your discretion, but as noted, we are trying to keep postings in that section directly relevant to our tradition, its philosophy, practices and so forth. Though the cyberspace is filled with discussions (and valuable ones at that) on various topics, sanctuaries dedicated to discussions on the teachings of our dear predecessors seem few and far between. Hence we are fond of keeping that one section neatly on topic.

I'll be very conservative about posting there, then, and keep it to strictly KC terminology. I do sincerely support you in preserving your space.

Blessed Be