Pure Devotion (?) In India

Nityanaanda Gauraanga Hare Krishna!

Jai Visnupada Srila Prabhupada!

Jai Swami Gaurangapada!

All glories to the Guru Sampradaya!

 Respected Swamiji and all Vaisnavas,

    I have heard about many many devotees, but I have some doubts after looking at their life histories and incidents.

First let me come to Pandharpur. There are many devotees starting from Jnaneswara till just before Tukaram, who have spread sankirtana while at the same time supporting advaita philosophy. They have incorportated some of these statements in their songs.

Then are they really pure devotees? So many miraculous stories are associated with their devotion? Or is it just that the Lord asked them to preach in that way just like Sankaracharya

Is Jnaneswara really an avatara?

 Mirabai is praised to be a devotee in Madhura rasa? What do the Gaudiya acaryas say? Is it proper rasa? Sridhar Maharaja says that she worshipped Krishna, but not his devotees at all. She even argued once with Jiva Gosvami. Gaura Govinda Swami said She worshipped Lord Krishna as if in madhura rasa , but she did not praise any devotees or Radharani and that she got Sayujya mukti by merging into Dwaraknatha. Doesn't Krishna say that my pure devotees find liberation as hell?

That was just one example. So many others are there. Sufficient to say that this is rampant all over the country.

Are the smarta Brahmanas in the south similar to the smartas in the North? They all say that Kabirdas and so many others like him, namely all the modern day philosophers whose names we will not mention, are devotees, etc.

Are so many composers who compose songs in apparently Madhura rasa treating Lord Krishna as their husband or lover authentic?

In the South, the festival of Radha Kalyanam (marriage of Radha and Krishna) is celebrated very often, during a discourse (called harikatha). At that time they sing Jayadeva’s astapathis. Are such things proper? And should confidential scriptures be sung publicly like that?

There seems to be a community within brahmanas in the South who worship Mahaprabhu as an incarnation of Krishna. This community seems to have branched off from a sect of brahmanans who were originally following Sankaracharya’s philosophy. This sect wears the tilaka of the Madhva sampradaya and accept tridandi sannyasa of the Sri Vaisnava school. This sect also accepts the love between Radha and Krishna is the greatest and all the Six Gosvamis. However they also “respect” Ramana Maharashi, Vivekananda, etc. This sect seems to have been influenced by Gaudiya Vaisnava Dharma and the other sampradayas – also say that nama sankirtana is the only way and that Krishna is Supreme? Currently in the South they are the only persons believing in Mahaprabhu and preaching that. Are they devotees or are they smartas or another apasampradaya??

Well these 'doubts' were only to express what is going on in the south. Some are so controversial that there are simply no answers. We are not being troubled by these 'doubts' but we just wanted to know the truth.

  Since some vestiges of the Vedic culture still survives here, it is still easier for Indian people to take to devotion. But the problem is preaching in this country is very complex because it is literally overrun with apasampradayas, and people are rigid and very narrow minded, or simply too dogmatic. The ISKCON is finding a very very difficult time in the South.

Ignorant fools,

Srinath and Venkat

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