Sit Properly

For the past several weeks, I’ve been giving quite a lot of thought to a few things that Srila Prabhupada has said that could be seen (by pretty much anyone) as controversial. Over the next week, I am planning on reviewing these statements.

There’s been quite a bit of talk about this already, but much of that, in my opinion, is made of either excuses or anger. Neither will be here. I’m in no position to make excuses for Srila Prabhupada and I really have no time or patience for anger, especially about spiritual matters.

I plan on simply being fair. I am pretty good at not taking things out of context, but also not allowing the context to be used as a free pass.

While these topics have been discussed, ISKCON has not really addressed them. They almost did when the whole “footnotes” thing came up, but it quickly died down.

And actually, the “footnotes” thing is what originally got me thinking about this. Some devotees wanted to add footnotes to some of Srila Prabhupada’s books in order to explain some of the controversial things he had written. Those footnotes never came to be.

My take on that was that I didn’t believe that Srila Prabhupada’s books should be changed in any capacity. They are his books (for better or worse). Just as I’d be against changing Stephen King’s books or Mark Twain’s books, I’m against changing Srila Prabhupada’s books. Basically, if you want the books to say something they didn’t say, write your own book and say it yourself – that’s the tradition in our line (and in the real world too!).

Anyway, my soul searching on this issue has very little to do with book changes. It has everything to do with my own reconciliation with some statements made by Srila Prabhupada.

Until this point, I basically ignored it. I knew that he said some controversial things – hell, I even knew what most of them were – but I excused all of them with the “he’s from a different generation in a different culture” pass. While that is most certainly true and does, in my opinion, explain some, it does not explain all.

Mostly, those are the ones that I’ll be exploring.

I won’t be hitting upon the spiritual differences between Srila Prabhupada’s teachings and other Gaudia-Vaisnava groups. I’m not qualified to do that. So things like “origin of the jiva,” etc won’t be touched here.

What I’ll be posting will definitely not be everyone’s cup of tea. But it’s my promise that it will be devoid of anger (because I’m not angry) and fair/balanced (but not in a Fox News sort of way). Much of what has been written about this is long, ranty and often boring. I’ll try to be brief, to the point and hopefully not boring.

At this point, I don’t really have an opinion. I have some thoughts, but I don’t know where I stand (or, in some cases, where to stand). And if it’s also fair and without anger, I would very much enjoy feedback on this from anyone. Angry stuff and long rants will be deleted no matter which side you’re on.

All of this said, no matter how this turns out, it will not waver my faith in Gaudia-Vaisnavaism even a little bit. Quite to the contrary, it will strengthen it.

Again, help is always welcome. And if there be questions, feel free to ask.