asa[e] epistemology; guru mukhya padma vakhya
Hare Krsna, gurudev!!! Please accept my respectful obeisances, and all glories to Srila Prabhupada and to you. I hope you are very well, recovered from your Ayurvedic treatment.
HpS/ASA - AgtSP. So, so, very nice to hear from you! Next we hear from each other in our next bodies in Nabadvipa with Nimai???
Ayur veda, pancha karma, is to uncover the water and air bodies, no? Then we can recover them with water and earth bodies of a better type than before. Not to purify the body and then rebuild it with the same old stupid, inferior habits. 😆 Vaidya Anantesvara Das (AED) gave us a BIG bottle of customized Churna (Gooseberry Jam etc) to take in the morning and evening.
We are trying to get better programs of Sadhana Bhakti to keep our instrument fit for a few more years.
Rejuvenate your old car.
I want to share with you part of a transcript of a video that was recorded for the culmination of the Bhakti Vaibhava on Prabhu Param Padam das’s educational platform.
Two female devotees were invited by Param Padam das to give a brief presentation about the Srimad Bhagavatam. This event was in person at Radha Krsna Mandir, in Traslasierra, Córdoba province, Argentina.
This was some months ago; I was not at that event, and recently I saw the video on YouTube, where it is still available so that anyone can see it.
https://www.youtube.com/live/LAPoJLMP9PY
I am sending you a Word document with the extensive transcript with most of the things expressed by the devotee Maha Vidya dd.
I copy below some paragraphs, the ones that seemed most notable to me.
The devotee Maha Vidya dd expresses that she was working on the “sensitive” topics of the Srimad Bhagavatam and regarding women.
Param Padam asks her: Param Padam das: “Do you want to say something about those sensitive topics?”
And these are some textual sayings, I repeat, taken literally from the transcript of the video on YT.
“So, I develop some of those topics that in turn have a relationship with sensitive topics of Canto Four, especially the topic of rape, that famous rape text where, well, there are unfortunate quotes from Prabhupada. I make an exploration from intellectual honesty, recognizing that Srila Prabhupada did not necessarily have to have said what they say he said. That is also a possibility that we contemplate.”
“So, there is also a possibility that he did not say what is in the text. And also the approach from absolute hermeneutics, because without hermeneutics one cannot interpret Srila Prabhupada’s message from the ascetic, right? Because Prabhupada, a person, an ascetic basically transmitting an urgent message.”
“So, with a language that was not his native language.”
“So, they are topics that can be approached in order to understand them from different angles. And I try to touch at least the cultural aspect of Prabhupada.”
“So, for that one has to demystify quite a lot the whole topic that the guru is infallible, that the guru always speaks the truth as siddhanta.”
“When Prabhupada gives an opinion about how to grow geraniums, we also have to understand that that is the truth. And well, in fact they are not like that, right? When Prabhupada speaks about, I don’t know, the trip to the moon, about things like that the woman’s brain weighed less and that as a symptom of lesser intelligence, for example, which I also do another work on, one must understand that, as Prabhupada himself said, I can have errors.” “So, from there also the approach of understanding that when Prabhupada speaks, it is not that everything he says must be taken as siddhanta, because many times they are interpretations, descriptions, and sometimes they are siddhanta, let’s say an absolute truth, but one must always be very attentive to where Prabhupada is speaking from, the context in which he speaks it, and above all in this work I base myself a lot on the experiences of Srila Prabhupada’s devotees, where they have a somewhat experiential experience with Prabhupada from another level.”
“So, listening to them, especially to Malati Prabhu, who was here recently, one realizes that Prabhupada, if he said that which he said about, for example, that a woman likes to be raped, I personally do not believe that he said it; he was not understanding well the scope of the words, right?”
“Many things like that, that from associating with Prabhupada’s female disciples we can understand the humor and that we stay more with that loving part of Prabhupada and not so much with what we doubt today whether he really said it. So, I also address points of, for example, drastically modifying those sayings, removing them, removing it from the books, taking into account that this knowledge is for the next 10,000 years. So, if we are already in the 21st century and we have so much resistance to accepting those sayings that are really violent, we are not contributing to the spirit that these scriptures last for the next 10,000 years, because in the 21st century this is already not accepted. So, evaluating cost-benefit, sometimes it is better for the original scripture to remain in a museum.”
“...that last night, speaking with Pancha, she told us that the Bhagavad Gita alone had about 5,000 changes, right? Yes. So the changes were already made opportunely, for good or for bad, we don’t know.”
“So, why not work on changes to these sayings that are so sensitive, that hurt, and that a woman is not going to come closer if she reads this, especially now in this historical context of Iran and all this, no? That the world is taking a turn with all this and we have gained a lot of ground in this of advancing in equality before God, that woman and man. So, what I also propose in one of those works, I wrote manuals and PowerPoints so that someone can give the PowerPoint with the manual and know where to stop, the inflection points, the hermeneutic analyses and everything, right? so that if someone comes to ask us, we have a tool...”
“So, uh, evaluating, removing that would not be a crazy possibility, but really something concrete to defend this for the next 10,000 years and keep these writings as they are now, unfortunately, in a museum, in a place where only those who want to go deeper to that level of saying minutely each concept, each word, can access.”
Gurudev, is this criticizing Srila Prabhupada? Discrediting him, undermining his authority? Is it an offense? Is this type of topic, with this disposition, what is studied in a Bhakti Vaibhava course where Srila Prabhupada’s books are studied officially?
Gurudev, what should my position be regarding this?
I send this letter as sadhana because I do not know what the characteristics of options A and B of your letters are.
Hare Krsna gurudev, thank you very much for all your mercy.
Your disciple and well-wisher, Mother Campa Kalata dd.
HpS/ASA 3:37pm
Thank you so much.
Category A is for things that can go into the Kapi Dhvaja each Full Moon day and Category B is for things that go into the more permanent ASA Encyclopedia, so we put this as Category B.
First, I would say that Mataji's comments would seem to be O.K. within the context of a presentation for Bhakti vaibhava, if they are presented as subject to comment and correction by teacher and fellow students.
The points she makes seem to be exactly the same points that I have heard senior most devotees in ISKCON make as one approach to accepting and editing Srila Prabhupada's books.
Others are very strict that not even a single "." period should be changed.
It is a big topic.
Basically we understand, and again, we want to develop our idea based upon the ideas of other devotees (NoI 4, 5 and 6).
That the fundamental points are touched by SP and the Acharyas again and again and again. So those are clear, from many angles, and cannot be changed.
Krsna is God. We are his servants.
Bhakti yoga is the only way to know Him in truth...
Then Srila Prabhupada gives details that are very nice when we deal with detailed situations. It is so nice to read all his books. Hear these big points again and again, and then pick up more and more details.
Eg. Is Radharani's hari curley or straight?
He says in the instructions of Narada to Vyasadeva in the first canto that there are bound to be errors in his presentation because English is not his native language.
Sometimes we read his first edition of SB and even though his diction is not perfect, the way he expresses it is more intense than the later edition he asked to be corrected for publication.
So, that is our general idea.
Once, Prabhupada says that the B'caris can do this, the Sannyasis can do this, and the Ghrhastas can sell something.
TKG [?] says, that they should sell SP's books, that Srila Prabhupada said that they should sell his books.
SP says, that that is his idea, they may have some other idea of what they want to sell.
Is O.K?
Some basic ideas.
The specific point that materialistic women are very fond of men who are expert at rape, seems to be taken out of 99.999% of other statements about sattvik, chaste, devotee, women by demons who want to find some, reason for people to not take to KC.
- Materialistic women.
- Expert.
- Yes, in the context of Srila Prabhupada's early 20th century idiom, the word rape, as far as we know, did not mean violation. It meant more to sweep a women off her feet. Birds like hawks are called raptors. They rape other birds, snakes, etc. They carry them away. I saw the Boss making love to his secretary when I entered the office. In early 20th century English that would mean that he was talking coquetishly to her. Now it means gross physical contact. One lady devotee commented that in the proper context what Srila Prabhupada says, is completely true. She said that if you look at the section of cheap paperback novels in the super market, where common women are looking for a good story, many of them have a picture of a women on the cover of a handsome, rich, man on a horse, sweeping a women in a beautiful gown off her feet while she say, "No, no!". Of course, it he said, "Oh, o.k.", and put her down she would be furious at him.
So that is how I understand the context and meaning of that phrase. I think it should be left in for the next 10,000 years, but if it is necessary, then the editors should be allowed to make a footnote with such and explanation as above for any particular edition noted as and editorial comment.
3.59PM
59
-37
=22 minutes. 😆
Tom Brown charges $5.75/minute.
O.K.??
