Back To Prabhupada, Issue 68, Vol 1, 2021, Quotes, Notes & News
In BTP 59 article "Preaching About Krsna", we reported on GBC voted-in guru HH Sivarama Swami ("SRS")'s "non-Krsna" method of preaching, whereby he published vlogs of himself preaching about various mundane subject matters such as vegetarianism, plastics, guns, etc., without mention of Krsna, and we showed how Srila Prabhupada was against such preaching. SRS has now attempted to defend this unauthorised preaching method of his in a podcast published on his website on 19/12/20. SRS argues:
"Every conversation that Prabhupada has with a Christian, a priest, anyone who wants to come close to the Bible or Christianity, what does Prabhupada start talking about? Says though shalt not kill. Why do you eat meat? [...] Everywhere throughout Prabhupada's teachings and writings Prabhupada talks about the importance of a vegetarian lifestyle, in Bhagavad-gita [...] Srimad-Bhagavatam [...] we talk about these things because they're relevant to Krishna consciousness [...]"
However, even in conversations with Christians and those related to the Bible, Srila Prabhupada did not preach about vegetarianism in isolation of Krsna. For example, even in the famous conversation with Cardinal Danielou that appears in The Science of Self-Realization, Srila Prabhupada ties everything to Krsna:
"In preaching Krsna consciousness we ask people not to eat any kind of meat, and my disciples strictly follow this principle. [...] Krsna says, patram puspam phalam toyam [...] Our Bhagavad-gita [14.4] says sarva-yonisu, "In all species of life the soul exists." [...] Now either you accept Krsna's teachings..."
Not to speak of in the actual Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam, wherein Srila Prabhupada preaches about Krsna constantly. But in the BTP 59 article mentioned above, we showed how SRS did not make his preaching relevant to Krsna consciousness, since there was no mention of Krsna!
Srila Prabhupada taught that we must be vegetarian, but he did not authorise us to preach about vegetarianism (or other mundane subjects) in isolation, neither did he ever do so himself, as SRS has done. Thus, SRS's arguments attempting to defend his unauthorised preaching are invalid.
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