Dr Mabbett, India October, and Māyāvād Tendencies
Dear Maharaja,
Pamho agtsp
Thank you for you reply to my previous letter. At the time of sending, I didn't realise that you were still in South America mid-sankirtan trip. I have made note to myself to be more aware of that. I apologise for any disturbance cause.
HpS - No problem. We talked with The Atul Krsna Das yesterday and both agreed that you are an interesting fellow, a little odd, but interesting, potential to make people laugh and forget their problems. Wake back up!
Education and the Sacred
Dr Mabbett has agreed to meet with me for an interview. We have scheduled an interview for the 9th of August 2019, close to his home in Victoria.
India visit October
Yes, Maharaja, really I just need your association – guidance, mercy – so, I am considering the first half of October, and I would love to be able to assist you in some way with the hope of collecting some dust from your wake (speedboat). Maybe I could present an idea which might get bhakti-shastri into the palms of thousands.
HpS - Our calendar is in the Kapi dhvaja Calendar link. See what you think of that. Basically Govardhana Eco village and Noida temple. You can contact them for a hole in the wall to stuff your sack. Others are coming so maybe we can work out two sacks in each room.
Māyāvād Tendencies
It is often difficult to find devotees to speak to about challenging philosophical concepts. Many devotees who arrive at Sri Caitanya’s movement have already lived lifetimes as jnanis and yogis, and now they simply want to engage in seva. Your holiness, through your body of work, has helped me understand and overcome many roadblocks on my path to Krsna. For that, I am eternally in debt. I apologise for the times when my queries lengthen towards showboating. Your replies allow me to stop and think more deeply.
"We are our spiritual bodies... see Krsna by learning how to steal butter for Him without getting caught... Just got to get the rocks of your head one mantra at a time... one day it will hit you like a furniture van hits a skunk."
Shortly after receiving your reply I was listening to HG Mother Yamuna’s audiobook while doing some paraphernalia room seva, and she recalls Srila Prabhupada addressing māyāvād philosophy with two very simple yet brilliant examples:
1. The body is the clothes of the soul. The body has form because the soul has form.
2. Consciousness is to the soul what light is to the sun.
Srila Prabhupada is excellent at packaging the purport of the entire Vedas in simple phrases. It is I, totally covered by ignorance, that has to become qualified before I can begin to understand, the depth, the beauty, the truth, delivered through his simplicity.
Through the contemplation of these statements, it occurred to me that māyāvādīs get caught in their experience of their consciousness instead of themselves and that’s why they think that ultimately spirit is formless. If we are to take the example given by Srila Prabhupada, that our consciousness is to the soul what light is to the sun, the māyāvād conception is to consider oneself the light instead of the sun. Another way to describe it would be the with the analogy of the seer and the act of seeing; Seeing can only be done by a seer. In this example, the māyāvādīs seem to be stuck in the act of seeing alone.
Furthermore, I joined the gotomeeting sanga for the first time live, and it was wonderful! The very scholarly HG Srinivasacharya Prabhu, gave the class. He was able to show how a section of the Srimad Bhagavatam, which some may consider “boring” and tend to skip or speed through, is actually full of gems. One gem that I noticed during his reading of prior verses from the chapter was Sb 9.13.9, where it is said:
“Mahārāja Nimi continued: Māyāvādīs generally want freedom from accepting a material body because they fear to have to give it up again. But devotees whose intelligence is always filled with the service of the Lord are unafraid. Indeed, they take advantage of the body to render transcendental loving service.” https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/9/13/9/
This verse struck me because it reveals why one would have māyāvādīs tendencies. It is a kind of bitterness towards the fact of their existence, and the fact that material pleasure is constantly ending.
Taking to heart Srila Prabhupada's words, the fact is we exist, and in order to have a material form – the body – it must be cloaked upon something integral – the soul. The soul’s constitution is seva to the Supreme Person. Because many jivas in the material condition (me) are envious of Him, they (I) don’t want to serve Krsna. But we also don’t our material "pleasures" to end, and we don't want to suffer, so we seek to hide in that transparent layer of consciousness emanating from our soul. It is the ultimately sour grapes archetype playing out. We then conclude that ultimately spirit has no form. Our arrogance gives us the confidence to claim that if we are formless, and ultimately spirit is qualitatively one, then God must also formless. Furthermore, if God and I are qualitative the same, with no forms to separate us as boundaries, then… “I must be God.” This, I suppose, is that last snare of illusion that we are warned about.
So, it appears to me that māyāvād tendencies are a result of trying to avoid material suffering and service to God. Devotees accept that they are the soul which exists eternally as a servant of Krsna, and that their personhood manifests in different dresses depending on their qualifications and seva; their relationships. For the devotees, whatever clothes they have wrapped on the body of the soul – their body – they simply dance for the Lord, in whichever way that pleases Him.
Are you pleased with my progress on this, Maharaja?
Your servant
Dhruvānanda Das
(Dhruva)
"Crikey"
HpS - I do meet Mayavadi professors with some education in Vedanta but it does not seem that they contact with any real Sampradaya considerations. Citing lots of Sastic evidence.
Citing Sastra is done by a person.
Preaching a philosophy is done by a person.
I was trying to understand their philosophy and then read that Srila Prabhupada said that it is incomprehensible. Oof. That is what I was experiencing! If you really are a Mayavadi then you should commit suicide of your body, words, mind. We don}t see that, no?
Give 'em all Prasadam!
