To Jagat - Who's your daddy?

Jagat, just to let you know in both times of meeting you in person and in reading your books (currently I am reading Mystic Poetry) and your many postings and essays, I find you to be a deeply compassionate and insightful and beautiful person.

I can think of no greater boon as an infant or child to be exploring the world in childlike innoncence and wonder with you as a daddy and guide. With great toddler pride I would say your name when asked "Who's your daddy".

While even in your own words, you may have not have been the best parent and teacher at times, your owning your mistakes and thoughful presentations of your understandings is very helpful for next generations to not continue the sins of the past.

Speaking for what I believe is all of us here, I would find it painful to know if those personal attacks hurt you at all knowing all you have done and are doing to heal the world and make it a more loving place.

Thank you Jagat, Babu

Thank you, Babu! You already posted before I did.

This is what I was going to write:

I feel like appreciating Jagat the way he deals with these problematic issues in such an intelligent manner. It just shows his level of maturity and his experience through his journey. We all need to learn how to stay calm and deal with the situations.

We are so lucky to have him here. GD is surviving because of his enormous, tireless and selfless contributions in various topics in all these different threads. Since I have become a member to GD, the first thing I like to see what Jagat has posted. They all are so informative and inspiring. He is a teacher alright. Let us all take siksha from him.

I don’t think I can appreciate him enough what he does for us. He is the most compassionate and forgiving person I've ever met.

Dear Jagat,

I found your next to last post on "Jagat" to be right on (just as I find most of your posts to be). I totally agree that it is best for teachers to not pretend they are something they are not and to let their students know what a hard road it really is by sharing the ups and downs of one's own life as one struggles to follow one's own path. The path to Braja should not be unrealistic. If one does not allow oneself to be put on a pedestal, one cannot easily fall or be knocked down. By being vulnerable, one is able to be oneself and be free.

You attacted me to this GD and are one of my main sources of inspiration here. I appreciate the mood you help set along with the other moderators. I am in awe of your learning and prolific written output. I agree with the previous posts here. I am very glad to have you as my guru bhai.

I have also become fond of the association of other quality vaishnavas here. It is with excitement and enthusiasm that I visit this site a couple of times a day to have vaishnava sanga and inspiration. Thank you all.

Your servant,
Subal

This site has become my Vaishnava association as well.
I am very proud of the way Jagat deals with those who have attacked his character and understanding of Gaudiya Siddhanta.

Let it be a lesson for us all (especially me).

namaskar,

bangli

So Jagat you can definitely be my dad, but i prefer calling you my grandad.

Like Bhisma. ...and i like also one thing above of all things in you, beyond your academic knowledge, devotion, above all, you don't pretend that you are someone you are not, you are humble devotee and human being, and that makes you real person. Besides my Gurudeva and Madhava in the first place, you are the only person i will take seriously with every word written or said.
Thanks Jagat.....no words needed. My sincere namaskar to You.

I second Babu ji in his words.

Dear Jagat,

I have found your essay about ISKCON gurukulas some time ago, and have thought about it a lot. While reading all this things, I felt some unpleasantness... But after long deliberation I understood, that you overcame all this stuff long ago. I am very thankful to you and proud of you for your honesty and audacity for discussing such hard issues, personally concerning yourself. I want to say, that from all, that I've read or hear from you and about you, to date you are the best person I ever knew, by your personal qualities, by your encyclopaedic knowledge and by your attitude towards people.

I am not surprised this thread is here at all. I believe it is hard for any of us regulars at GD not to be moved to put a word in defense and praise of Jagadananda das. I too have noticed that his insights into world needs in general, and Gaudiya Vaisnavism in particular, are nothing short of brilliant, and therefore bound to leadership. And it is with heart and reason that he is leading us so.
Here’s to Jagat, the bhakta. Cheers.

Aw shucks, guys. I was afraid this might happen. That's why I closed the other thread. I got called away on other matters, and I come back here and there are a couple more appreciations.

What can I say? I appreciate tremendously your support and friendship. Both Madhava and I are delighted by the way GD has been working out in general. After many years of experience with other discussion boards, we came to the conclusion that we needed an atmosphere that was less angry and less confrontational, and at the same time preserved a spirit of freedom rather than one that was tightly restrictive.

[I started writing the following and then stopped, and then started again. Since we have had an influx of new members, mostly with IGM roots, I think that it merits saying, however, though our old-timers may find it repetitious.]

Neither Madhava and I are directly associated with IGM. Perhaps we copped out, or whatever, but our basic premise at GD was that IGM's battles are not ours, and that we neither can nor want to fix IGM.

At the same time, we took an approach that some of our compatriots in various traditonal lines found too compromising: we accept the central role the IGM has played in bringing Krishna consciousness to the world and we will never begrudge their acharyas or bhaktas. We sincerely honor them for their service to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and bow down unabashedly before them.

Nevertheless, in leaving IGM behind, we are leaving behind specifically a certain sectarian mentality. We respect Prabhupada, but we do not think that he is the "Seal of the Prophets." We are committed not to any specific acharyas, but to the source of this sampradaya, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself, and the teachings of his immediate associates. We believe in the plurality of gurus.

And we combine this with a modern, progressive attitude: Krishna consciousness has to work in the world of today.

So GD is about combining two sets of values: the freedom of expression, the humanistic value placed on the individual that we have come to accept as the norm in Western society, combined with the core spiritual and cultural (aesthetic rather than social) values of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, to which we have been attracted and by which we have been won over.

This is not something that has been accomplished, but is a work in progress. And GD is a small attempt to serve that progress.

I am honored that so many of you have overcome the challenges to your faith that your experiences in the real world of Gaudiya Vaishnavism have brought you. I am proud that you still see Radha and Krishna as the central orienting point of your spiritual quest.

Please excuse me if I am getting a little preachy. Thank you very much for your support. I think that Madhava deserves the real praise here. GD is very much his doing and I am only a supporting actor.

Jai Radhe,

Jagadananda Das.

Thanks Babu to start this thread!

I’m very happy that I had the opportunity to met Jagat and to get to know him a bit better in a real-time association.

In the last ECG, he start to talk about the therapeutic aspects of embracing each other. We got to that point and everyone had a chance to embrace Jagat. I think that same healing moment is now expanding and exploring the potency of sharing inner love.

Another great moment was when in the morning he song the melodies, which brajabasis sing on mangalarati at Sri Sri Radha-Kunda. That was an intense experiencing that probably I will never forget. The feelings that I had was if Jagat-ji was taking us into that realm of bhakti, which he had been sacredly keeping inside, but just like an unexpected thunderbolt, the sky wanted to hear his loudly call for prema, again!

Jagat is a great persona, with extraordinary capacity to help others, so I wish that more and more devotees could get the unique opportunity to meet that great bhakta within him, who is willing to share his knowledge with an oceanic smiling face.

Thanks for everything!

Hari Saran, Revati and Nimai

So very true. Madhavanda is the genius of GD. His prodigious mind and fixed dedication has moved many to awe and gratitude. Thanks Madhava, for everything. You're our hero.

Just yesterday we were talking with Baba, and he noted that "I think computer is a very powerful media", as many people had come to him who said that they had met Madhavananda, "no, not in person, by computer". "In just one second you can be all over world."

Anyhow, I mentioned how it was sad that some Vaishnava are so caught up in talking about the bad of IGM. Baba reminded that most people in the West are interested in materialism, and through ISKCON mandir they are coming and taking an interest in Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He added that they, too, are bhaktas and therefore should not be slandered, because Vaishnava-aparadha is very bad. He did add that they are serving out "very half package" as they are not teaching how Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Rupa Goswami have taught the bhajan-path. I do not think anyone, ISKCON included, would contest this, if carefully studied. But anyhow they are bhaktas and offending bhaktas can never be a good thing.

Speaking of Baba, he was asking about you (Jagat), "When coming?" Apparently the story is out that you are coming. And as I told about the programs you have been having, perhaps for the fifth time he told me fondly how you also used to be in India and "giving very good patha here and there in West Bengal, and even writing just like the Bengalis do".

I seem to be sticking in a lot of smilies over the last two days. That must be a good sign.

Dandavats. All glories to the Vaisnavas.

I would also like to put forward my appreciation for Jagat, Madhava, Malati and Braja, our dear moderators, as I owe a tremendous debt to their service and friendship. May all of the Vaisnavas think of them warmly and thus tender their hearts in the service of Swamini.

Aspiring to serve the Vaisnavas,
Rasaraja dasa

It is so nice to hear this. Just yesterday I was talking on the phone with a friend residing in Vrindavana and who is a sisya of a prominent GM guru. He expressed to me that from his guru he takes the essence, which, according to him, is the fact that his guru’s teachings point to Radha-Krishna bhakti. He expressed his view that since the approaching of Radha-Krishna devotion cannot afford the neglect (what to speak of slandering) of any bhakta, he takes that the main instruction for him to follow is to humbly respect and honor all Vaisnavas, from whichever line they may come. This instruction, he added, is for the mature disciple who will not “contradict the guru, even in apparent contradiction.”

I then made the point that to honor a vaisnava is to actually genuinely accept that he is on the path, with us or ahead of us, but at any rate potentially or consummately able to instruct us as well. He agreed and said that, yes, we should take instructions from the other camps too. And then he proceeded to telling me how funny it is that at his guru’s math, if only the westerners devotees could read Bengali, they would see that lots of the books on the preachers shelves’ there are actually publications of prominent leaders of other lines, quite a few from Radhakunda. “But then there are those at Radhakunda who are unfriendly towards Bhaktisidanta Sarasvati Thakur’s line”, he added. “That is the thorn on the rose, for us”, he said.

I then told him that there is, then, some maturing to be accomplished on the other side as well. And so it is, we concluded, that our garden of non sectarianism is a work in progress.

Jagadanada Prabhu is God-brother of my Guru ji.

Therefore and for many , many more other reasons I consider Jagadananda Prabhu my siksa-guru.

Jagadananda Prabhu Ki - Jaya!

I would like to thank Jagat for spreading the breadcrumbs that lured me over here.

I had read his apology to the Gurukula students before I ever saw his first post on that other forum, and I was amazed at his courage in standing up, admitting his previous behavior, and his willingness to do what is needed to make amends. That is all any of us can do when we have harmed another, whatever the reason that led to our behavior. It is a very important lesson that we can take responsibility and then proceed from there and continue on our spiritual path. I want to thank him for being a model of courage in that regard. It seems that he is still alone in admitting his role in Gurukula abuse; no one else has stepped up and taken responsibility that I know of.

As a parent myself I think it is our dirty little secret in this (U.S.) society that it is so stressful that we do come to the point of either hitting or nearly giving into the temptation to hit our children. Parents need greater supports to help them avoid crossing that line and teachers and child care workers need to have a schedule and teacher-child ratio that helps them maintain a proper standard of behavior. Without blaming the system for his actions, Jagat was correct in pointing out the systemic problems that contribute to abuse.

All that was many years ago and I know it was painful for him to revisit, yet he did so for the sake of the students. I'm sure it would have been easier to try to forget it. Jagat did not take the easy path.

While Jagat is not old enough to be my father, I am sure he would make a fine father and in fact he lends that fatherly energy to everyone on this forum. Speaking as a fatherless child, sometimes we sorely need that energy.

I see his generosity with his time and insight in posts scattered throughout this forum and appreciate them all.

Thank you, Jagat.

Blessed Be