Contempt - Can't help feeling it.

Dear ____________,

Thanks for writing. I am definitely in the hate-the-sin-not-the-sinner camp. People act under the control of material nature, under the impression that they are acting in their own self-interest. But they keep forgetting what their real self-interest is. This is only natural, since they have been caught in material nature since time immemorial. The path of spiritual life is full of obstacles, and even as one makes a little progress, labha, puja and pratishtha come along to disrupt spiritual advancement and make it corrupt in some way.

The point is that once you have "entered the stream," as the Buddhists say, you are eventually going to get washed down to the ocean, even if it takes many lifetimes. So we honor the desire, or the grace, that leads people to seek Krishna, even if it is only a spark.

It is quite natural to feel contempt. This contempt arises out of your own sincere desire to attain spiritual perfection and the encounter with failure. It is perhaps a result of an unawareness of how easy it is to fall into the hundreds of traps that lie in the way of attaining Krishna.

The way to overcome it is :

(1) Avoid bad association, so that you are not face to face with the troubling misbehavior, which will only increase the faultfinding tendency; avoiding bad association ultimately means avoiding those whose criticisms may be right (like Puranjan and Kundali), but whose spirit is not conducive to real openness of heart that is an essential part of Krishna consciousness.

(2) Cultivate an attitude of compassion towards failure. This is not to honor failure, but to recognize that only a few people achieve brilliant success in any field. Krishna consciousness is different from ordinary ambitions, and in sense, started from scratch. So to expect much more from this generation will be hard. Let's learn to pray to Mahaprabhu so that his mercy keeps shining on everyone who has come into contact with him and that the core value of his movement--prema--becomes manifest in everyone. At the same time we need to have faith that his mercy IS working like an underground stream that gradually erodes the ground in which it flows until it eventually comes back to the surface--over a period of "geological time."

This also means giving others the benefit of the doubt--as far as possible without become a party to their cheating tendencies. Because that's the problem with associating with those who have the appearance of Vaishnavas without the true spirit. Giving the benefit of the doubt means recognizing the limitations of your own knowledge, of motives, of facts. We are not always in possession of all the facts, so we are not in a position to judge. But be careful not to get caught up in someone else's powerful illusion.

You have basically two choices: Either uproot all the weeds of Krishna consciousness that have installed themselves in your heart and brain, or continue to cultivate them. The first we consider an ontological impossibility; they are like an insidious computer virus that can't be shaken. It does not always seem to be for the better, but the transformation process started the moment we chanted Hare Krishna favorably.

The second means that we take the requirements to be humbler than the straw in the street, etc., seriously, because we simply cannot perfect our chanting unless we do. Finding good association is a matter of great good fortune, so keep praying for that--with detachment and depending on Mahaprabhu.

But don't expect that your faultfinding tendencies will not accompany you to Radha Kund or anywhere else you choose to park your heart.



"There is fear even in the woods for one who is accompanied by the six enemies. What harm can householder life do to one who is awakened, has conquered the senses and loves the soul?" (5.1.17)

I hope this helps,

Jagat

wow.

They are right here.

If you were a bit more specific on what you wanted to know, you would certainly be informed. And the search is always your friend. If you sought for "lineage" or "parampara" (now there's that word again!), you would for example find this thread, and if you sought for "Gurus in Gaudiya Vaishnava Tradition", there'd even be a thread with that very name. Please do a bit more of your homework.

And let's remember that today is Janmashtami before we hit that "Add Reply" button, shall we?

It is an ontological impossibility only within a framework which includes acceptance of ideas such as the living entity being constitutionally a servant of KRSNa, etc. (Or do you have other arguments in mind?) As I see it, a deconstruction of this framework will effectively uproot the weeds of KRSNa consciousness.

Now that's a solution you've got there! For this, we give you the Nobel Price of Krishna Consciousness.

I can completely relate to this. I have an intense desire to move beyond seeing all these dualities, but it seems like a step backward to just ignore these dualities when they present themselves again and again and again. I want to actually cultivate some Krishna bhakti, but often times just having my head out of the sand exposes me to the opposite. Sentimentality is what got me in a lot of trouble in the beginning of my spiritual life. Should I enter back into it?

A sidenote: I disagree that Puranjana and Kundali are in the same category of "reform".

I did not mean it to sound that way. Kundali is evidently on a degree of intellectual depth that may take Puranjan several lifetimes to attain.

I agree with Kundali on a lot. Kundali puts all the emphasis on self-actualization and rather little on Krishna consciousness. Through the critique of social relations in Iskcon (dysfunction), Kundali does a very interesting and important service, but I get the impression that he does not have much respect for devotees who haven't read Erich Fromm.

Of course, one might get the same impression for me--as gopidust seems to have. Unfortunately, gopidust has a very superficial way of reading. Though I have addressed numerous posts directly to her, she has not read what I wrote here in the context of my other remarks to her.

One last word about Iskcon and the rest vis-à-vis raganuga bhakti. As long as the "gratitude deficit" is there, raganuga bhakti will, in my mind, be a sham. Read raganuga books translated by Iskcon or Gaudiya Math devotees who don't tell you where they got them from, as though they understood these works all on their little lonesome directly from Rupa Goswami without the aid of Bengali translations done by raganuga bhaktas, or read Bhaktivinoda Thakur's raganuga songs without recognizing his debt to Bipin Bihari Goswami, or adopt raganuga ideas from the past without honoring those who follow them today--that is the gratitude deficit.

So sure, you can have some feeling, some direct experience of Krishna or Radha. I have no problem with the transcendental gifts of the Holy Name, but you honor those gifts by honoring those through whom these gifts came. That goes for both the Western devotees who received Krishna from the Gaudiya Math, and the Gaudiya Math who received Krishna from the sampradaya.

If you believe in a doctrine of grace, how can you NOT believe in a response of gratitude? And where there is gratitude, there has to be forgiveness.

I think you're doing just fine there Ms. Dust ji...

Yes, Elpis sounds like Elvis. There has been a few remarks based on this on this site before. Incidentally, the man who created the phrase "Elvis has left the building" died last month, see here.

Regarding whether I have "left the building" in the sense of having abandoned the culture of KRSNa consciousness, then that is another story.

And drawing the line here is also an interesting question. When would one have left the culture of Krishna consciousness? (1) At the time of abandoning conviction in a/the recognized key doctrine(s) of the tradition, (2) After giving up an active desire for furthering Krishna consciousness, or (3) something else? One may do (1) while going on with (2), and also one may profess (1) without cultivating (2).

Do we need to label ourselves? Do we need to label others? Would drawing a clear line be beneficial in some regard?

There are two types of fault finding:

1. I don't like something that you do even though what you do does not affect me.
2. Why does something that I do bother you, even though it does not affect you?

Can't sacrifice this one in the name of weeding out anarthas !