Re: Diary of chanting aspirant

"Independently Thoughtful" And Anti-Hagiography
By Bhaktiratna Sadhu Swami.
January 10, 2003.

Apart from the pure bhakti movement of accepting all the activities of our pure Acharyas as fully transcendental, there have arisen two speculated and greatly dangerous schools of thought when it comes to analysing the life and behaviours of our Acharyas. One school believes in hagiographical aspect of the saints, in seeing only their divine aspects (which means that they have a doubt that there is a non-divine aspect too but ignore it), while other school believe in seeing the bonafide Acharyas especially their writings and activities sometimes from a mundane perspective, seeing them as human in some ways, with all the human characteristics with all its imperfections. In a sense they say that the great Acharyas are not always perfect, and may sometimes make mistakes, or have the same troubles that we, the conditioned living entities have.

This is actually the greatest danger, and many older devotees are falling into this trap. Sometimes it goes on under the name "Independently Thoughful." Shrila Prabhupada's words "independently thoughtful" are being to justify the discussion of seeing some faults in Shrila Prabhupada himself or the previous acharyas. This will invite total disaster. One book was published recently depicting the life and teachings of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, but from a total mundane perspective. Thus the Acharya was sometimes seen as someone who would or had engaged in sinful activities before he attained his saintlyhood. This is the greatest offense.

Just like the glorification and worship of the pure devotee Acharyas is advocated by the Lord even before His own worship, the belittlement of the glories of the Acharyas even if in very subtle ways is even more harmful and deleterious for the human society than the direct criticism of the Lord.

If the human society or any society for that matter allows or does not stop the public offenses towards the great self-realized Acharyas, that society will be totally and disastrously ruined due to the wrath of the Lord Himself.

mahantera apamana ye desa-grame haya eka janara dose saba desa ujadaya (Cc Antya 3.165)

"Wherever an pure self-realized devotee is insulted, minimized or belittled, for one man's fault the entire town, city, country or place is ruined and destroyed."

prabhu bale, vaisnava nindaye yei jana
kustharoga kon tara shatiye likhana
apatatah sastri kichu haiyache matra
ara kata ache yama-yatanara patra
caurasi sahasra yama-yatana pratyekse
punah punah kari" bunje vaisnava-nindake

Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu said, "It is written that one who blasphemes, criticizes, minimizes or belittles the pure Vaishnavas will suffer from leprosy, after which he will be punished by the agents of Yamaraja again and again, and after which he will suffer tremendous tribulation while accepting thousands of births in the 8.4 million species of life. (Cb. Madhya 4.375-377)

bhrama, pramada, vipralipsa, karanapatava
arsa-vijna-vakye nahi dosa ei saba (Cc Adi 2.86)

"Mistakes, illusions, cheating and defective perception never occur in the sayings and activities of the self-realized authoritative sages even in their normal behaviour.(everything they do is perfect)"

Even the very thought about the idea of such a mundane perpective about a pure devotee is the beginning of total ruination in spiritual life. It is a very vicious anartha which can totally destroy the bhakti-lata-bija. It is an offense of trying to bring the maha-bhagavata down to one's own level of conditioned life.

Shrila Jiva Goswami explains in the Sandarbhas that the aging, disappearance apparent limitations or troubles in the life of a pure devotee are simply illusory tricks conjured by Maya to bewilder others from receiving the mercy of the pure devotees and facilitate others to go to hell by committing offenses against the pure devotees. It is just an external display of the illusory energy because the bodies of the acharyas and eternal associates of the Lord are full transcendental as they have descended directly from the Lord's lila to fulfill His mission in the material world and thus there is no question of any kind of limitations or four kinds of the above defects in them like we see in the life of the nitya-baddha conditioned souls.

Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada says in some place that it is an offense not to accept a nitya-siddha as a nitya-siddha or to accept a nitya-siddha as a sadhana-siddha or to accept a sadhana-siddha as a nitya-siddha.

Some Prabhupada's quotes:

gaurangera sangi-gane, nitya-siddha kari' mane,
se yaya vrajendra-suta pasa

"One who accepts the associates of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu as nitya-siddhas is certain to be elevated to the spiritual kingdom to become an associate of the Supreme Lord."

"One who is intelligent understands that all the personal associates and devotees of Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu are ever liberated. This means that because they are always engaged in the devotional service of the Lord, they do not belong to this material world. One who is engaged in the Lord's devotional service twenty-four hours daily and never forgets the Lord is called nitya-siddha."

"This is the position of nitya-siddha associates. Sri Narottama dasa Thakura therefore sings: gaurangera sangi-gane nitya-siddha kari mane. Every devotee should know that all the associates of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu-His family members, friends and other associates-were all nitya-siddhas. A nitya-siddha never forgets the service of the Lord. He is always engaged, even from childhood, in worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead."

>One school beleives in hagiographical aspect of the saints, in seeing only >their divine aspects,

Even the first school is quite off the mark because there is nothing except full divinity in the life and pastimes of the nitya-siddha devotees.

Even a least bit of doubt about the full divinity of the maha-bhagavatas can create an avalanche of doubts and confusions among the followers. If one cannot understand some points in the Acharya's books, one should go and understand it personally from an advanced devotee who has implicit faith in the words of the Acharyas. Such a devotee will surely be able to give an explanation to our doubts because simply by implicit faith in Guru and Gauranga all the imports of the Veidc scriptures are automatically revealed.

That is why even if such doubts arise in the minds of some sadhakas due to lack of proper sadhana or advancement they should be addressed and solved by personal and private counselling with advanced devotees rather then venting them out publicly and creating total chaos in the lives of the simple, sincere and faithful devotees in the name of so-called bogus independent thinking.

If so-called independent thoughtfulness is the cause for creating doubts in our minds and hearts about the great nitya-siddhas, then such independent thoughtfulness is the greatest obstacle and anartha and has to be immediately rejected to save us from elongating our miserable journey in the 8.4 million species of life. Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu said that if someone maintains even a drop of doubt about Lord Nityananda or Lord Advaita, such a person will never get My mercy. This also applies to Lord Gauranga's pure devotees who have come down to accomplish His mission in this world.

It is better if atleast the word "human-like" is used in place of "human" to describe the activities of the Acharyas also, just like we do for Krishna's or Gauranga's lila. Because a pure devotee's body is spiritual and all of the activities of the great Acharyas are never human at all as per the Padma Purana and Shrimad-Bhagavatam.

na karma-bandhanam janma vaisnavanam ca vidyate
visnur anucaratvam hi moksam ahur manisinah

"A Vaisnava does not take birth under the jurisdiction of karmic law. His birth and disappearance are transcendental. The wise have declared that the pure servants of Lord Krishna are eternally engaged in the liberated service of the Lord and hence are free from the laws of material nature." (Hari-Bhakti-Vilasa, 10,113, quoted from Padma Purana)

acaryam mam vijaniyan navanmanyeta karhicit
na martya-buddhyasuyeta sarva-deva-mayo guruh

"One should verily know the Acharya as Myself and never disrespect him in any way. One should not envy him, thinking him as an human being of this material world (martya), for he is the representative of all the demigods." (SB 11.17.27)

The word whimsical has the following meanings as per the AHD:

1. Appealing to fancy:
a. fantastic
b. imaginative
c. fancy
d. fanciful

2. Determined or marked by whim or caprice rather than reason:
a. random
b. arbitrary
c. capricious
d. chance
e. willful

3. Following no predictable pattern:
a. variable
b. uncertain
c. unstable
d. changeable
e. inconsistent
f. volatile
g. erratic
h. unpredictable
i. unsteady
j. capricious
k. fickle
l. freakish
m. mercurial
n. inconstant
o. temperamental

Most of it's meanings (if not all of them) are in a derogatory sense.

My opinion is that if a word can be used in a derogatory sense it should never be used to describe a pure devotee because if people take it in that sense they are doomed.

Also what does one mean when one says "Acharya's humanness"? Does one mean that the acharya has some incompleteness or imperfection? Because humanness is normally associated in most cases with tendency to err and make mistakes.

(to err is human) The point is one should be very careful what impression we give to the readers especially while describing a pure devotee. It is a heavy responsibility on our part.

If one makes an argument that words have double meanings and some derogatory words may actually words of praise, then if that was the case I can use any kinds of words for the Lord and His pure devotees and get away with it. When the brahmana from Varanasi composed the verse apparently glorifying Lord Gauranga but which had bhakti-viruddha-siddhantas in the use if it's words, he was first heavily chastised by Shrila Svarupa Damodara Goswami for being offensive and then at the end he took the positive side of it too just to not humiliate the brahmana completely and give him a chance to engage in Gauranga-bhajana.

The word "rigid hagiography" is used sometimes. Hagiography means a worshipful or idealizing biography or narration. Everything about a pure devotee is always rigidly ideal so there is no other option but to be use rigid hagiography to describe him. It may appear to our material vision sometimes not ideal but that is our fallacy due to the imperfectness of our material vision and senses. Even a slight doubt that all of his activities and writings are not rigidly ideal is quite dangerous for everyone (writer, reader, listener etc) in my view point which is based on the scriptures.

That is why it is normally said that one should read and understand the Bhagavata and the books of the Acharyas under the guidance of an advanced living devotee follower of those teachings who has implicit faith in them and in all the previous acharyas. Then all our doubts are cleared.

Doubts raised for further knowledge are quite necessary. Doubts raised in a challenging manner are not recommended in the Bg. and are best handled one on one. This is true; at the same time, there is a proper way of expressing a doubt, and an improper way of expressing a doubt. And unless you ask questions or make points that could be construed as blasphemous, it is likely that you will not get a complete understanding of a subject matter infact you will bewilder others too. However, there is a proper way of expressing such doubts, even those that are blasphemous and that is privately or personally approaching an advanced devotee.

And if one is not fully convinced even after humble inquiry from a qualified devotee(s), it is better for our ownselves that we keep it to ourselves and think that it because of our own inperfectness and conditioned nature that we are not able to understand some of the writings and activities of the pure devotees and pray and beg to the Acharyas and Lords Nityananda-Gauranga to gradually give us the qualification that we can understand one day rather than making a big propoganda about it and trying spread one's own faulty and limited understanding to other devotees. There is a saying in English: "It takes one to know one." In such cases we should constantly remember the above verse from Shri Chaitanya-Charitamrita Cc. Madhya 23.39:

yanra citte krsna-prema karaye udaya
tanra vakya, kriya, mudra vijneha na bujhaya

"Even the most learned or advanced or elevated person may not be able to understand fully or even partially the transcendental words, activities, symptoms and characteristics of a great pure devotee acharya situated constantly in pure love for Lord Krishna and Lord Gauranga."

Thus my proposition is also that saintly persons should themselves be very very careful when they specially describe the characteristics of pure devotee Acharyas (nitya-siddhas or maha-bhagavatas) and not give a chance to people to misunderstand in any way whatsoever. If they can't do that due to a lack of implicit faith then they should desist from describing or talking about a pure devotee. That is what makes their own saintliness.

Daaso'smi, Swami Gaurangapada.

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