Back To Prabhupada, Issue 41, Autumn 2013
e document below GBC-elected guru hoaxer, HH Bhakti Charu Swami ("BCS"), claiming that Srila Prabhupada's teachings on education are a mistake. Therefore, not content with having replaced Srila Prabhupada as ISKCON's diksa guru, the hoaxers now also wish to supersede his teachings. All emphases below have been added.
Srila Prabhupada condemned schools as slaughterhouses:
"I have seen intelligent boys, they go to school and he is spoiled. [...] Simply slaughterhouse, this so-called school is called slaughterhouse. Yes, slaughterhouse."
(Srila Prabhupada Conversation, 9/7/73)
"The modern educational system without any knowledge of Bhagavan, I may tell you frankly, not only in India, everywhere, they are practically slaughterhouse."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 20/11/71)
However, BCS claims that condemning such schools as "slaughterhouses" was a "mistake":
"The outside world is the world of my. The other schools are the slaughterhouses. These were the expressions that we used. Everybody outside is a damned karmi. That was the way, that was a mistake."
(BCS Lecture, 5/8/2013)
Having condemned schools as slaughterhouses, Srila Prabhupada established an alternative "gurukula" system of education, in which material education was disregarded:
Jyotirmayi: "You were saying that the children should learn these three, geography and these things, and I wanted to know if they should also learn what they call biology, that is how the body is working, what are the bones and blood and..." [...]
Prabhupada: "Simply waste of time, simply waste of time. [...] But this biology and this "logy," they are useless. There is no necessity. [...] You follow that, brahmacari gurukula, that I've already explained. That should be done. Don't bring any new thing, imported ideas. That will not be helpful. It will be encumbrance. [...] Biologists, chemists, physicists, and mathematicians there are hundreds and thousands. We are not going to waste our time that Gurukula should produce a great grammarian, a great geologist, biologist, don't want that. There are many other educational institutions."
(Room Conversation, 31/7/1976)
This was done deliberately because gurukulas were only meant to produce Krsna conscious children, rather than persons qualified to get salaried jobs:
"And this material education...Of course, we are going to open the gurukula. Our aim is not how to make the students a big grammarian. No. That is not our purpose. How to make him fully Krsna conscious. That is the aim of this gurukula. In the gurukula description there is nothing, such thing as how to make the student a big grammarian or... [...] There is no question of economic problem, that one has to become learned to get some service in some big school or college and get some big salary. This is not our aim. Our only aim is how to mold the life of the children to become Krsna conscious."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 31/3/1976)
However, BCS states that Srila Prabhupada's establishing such gurukulas where material education was disregarded, was a "mistake", and therefore his disciple will be establishing schools that will not repeat this "mistake" made by Srila Prabhupada's gurukulas:
"You see, our...Naveen Krsna (BCS disciple) is now trying to establish the schools in India. [...] We are not going to disregard material education. That is the mistake we actually made in our gurukula system. In our gurukula system we completely disregarded the material side."
(BCS Lecture, 5/8/2013)
Thus, in summary we can see that BCS condemns Srila Prabhupada's essential teachings regarding education as being one big "mistake". However, in this same lecture where he disagrees with Srila Prabhupada's teachings, BCS claims he is communicating Srila Prabhupada's teachings:
"the spiritual master considers that it is his responsibility to bring up, train his disciples. [...] And how do we train you up? We train you up by communicating Srila Prabhupada's teachings to you and engaging you properly in ISKCON."
(BCS Lecture, 5/8/2013)
Therefore, not content with attacking Srila Prabhupada's teachings, BCS also tries to hide his actions by blatantly lying about what he is teaching. He has to engage in such lying because otherwise he would be exposing himself as a rascal and demon for rejecting Srila Prabhupada's teachings:
"A siksa-guru who instructs against the instruction of spiritual, he is not a siksa-guru. He is a demon. [...] siksa-guru does not mean he is speaking something against the teachings of the diksa-guru. He is not a siksa-guru. He is a rascal."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 4/7/1974)
We therefore have two opposing visions. A spiritual vision of education offered by Srila Prabhupada. And an opposing vision which states Srila Prabhupada's vision is a mistake, offered by BCS. This is not an isolated example of BCS attacking Srila Prabhupada and his teachings, but is part of a wider trend. For instance, we highlight more examples of these attacks in the Sixth chapter of our book 100 Contradictions, where BCS offends Srila Prabhupada by stating that Srila Prabhupada was only able to preach once he had renounced his household life; that the mentality of Srila Prabhupada being "dead and gone" is fine; that Srila Prabhupada's instructions were "vague"; that Srila Prabhupada was a "mere member of the GBC of ISKCON"; that Srila Prabhupada did not know the disciplic succession; and so on.
One therefore has to choose to follow either Srila Prabhupada or BCS. One cannot follow both.
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