VAISNAVI
Hare Krsna! "Monkey", Bhakta Tom, asked us to post the following for comments:
VAISNAVI
We have been little confused by what seems to be the introduction of the term “Vaisnavi” into our ISKCON culture. We never heard it much and then it was becoming very prominent and a political slogan.
The position of women, the position of Sannyasis, the position of chocolate, in ISKCON are all topics that are important for creating the proper ambience for Bhagavata Dharma, sravanam, kirtanam et al and we are certainly willing to discuss our opinions on the topics as it is profitable.
Our primary discomfort with the term Vaisnavi has been that it seems to put a bodily conception on the Vaisnava. It seems to be degrading the Vaisnava from pure spirit soul using a material designation, to one actually determined by that designation. It is offensive to see the Spiritual Master, the Deity in the Temple or a Devotee from a materialistic point of view, no?
We have been sitting on these inquietudes with our tail tucked away for a long time trying to understand them, and have seen very exalted Matajis have the same comprehension that they also feel that the term puts a material conception on their right to be Vaisnavas, as if we would say Atma and Atmi.
Well, by golly, we looked up the term on Vedabase.com and it is cited variously in Prabhupada’s books, but the majority of cases it comes back as a name for goddess Durga.
There seem to be only three other cases where Prabhupada uses it: For the prostitute who tried to seduce Hari Dasa Thakura and then became a Vaisnavi, for Diti who tried to murder her sister’s babies and them became a Vaisnavi and Prabhupada’s own sister.
These are all elevated souls. We should be so lucky to achieve their positions, but is there some material conception still lingering in their realization? Maybe yes, maybe no.
Prabhupada appears to have unlimited affection for his very, very esteemed sister, but the general ambience is there that other family members still retained some flavor of material conception in their worship of Visnu, and therefore do we think of them as mildly materially tinged Vaisnavas and Vaisnavis such as Maitreya Muni before he met Krsna with Uddhava et al.
Well, we asked HpSwami to post this so that people could give us there opinions. There are like 9-more things that we could say about this but then we would not be able to get to Sannyasa and Chocolate, so we will stop here.
