Back To Prabhupada, Issue 69, Vol 2, 2021
It is being claimed that some of Srila Prabhupada's statements are hindering preaching, and therefore in the future they will end up being discarded altogether from his books. All comments in shaded boxes are taken from a podcast interview given by GBC voted-in guru HG Mahatma Dasa ("MAD") on 6/3/21. All emphases added.
"you know a big controversial statement [...] ‘women are less intelligent' [...] Already now people are not using Prabhupada's Gita in their preaching programs because of statements like that [...] like, ‘I don't want to give someone a Bhagavad-gita that says this about women because we're going to lose them'."
MAD claims Srila Prabhupada's Gita is not being used at all in people's preaching because of Srila Prabhupada's statements regarding women. He then goes on to explain such behaviour:
"So, you know, these are realities that, we are preachers, we're dealing with the world, I know many preaching programs that just feel that these people are not ready for Prabhupada's Gita. Now that sounds like a heretical statement. And these are done by Prabhupada men and Prabhupada women, it's just their experience."
MAD does not condemn such an action, even though he admits it sounds "heretical". Rather, he states that such actions simply reflect the "realities" as "we are preachers" and "are dealing with the world", and he states those who are doing such things are "Prabhupada men and Prabhupada women".
"When Ramesvara was in charge of BBT [...] he was really in touch with what was going on in the world. And he published those books [...] Higher Taste, Chant and Be Happy, to be more in line with where people were thinking, and there was no ‘women are less intelligent' in those books."
In the previous section, we saw MAD explain how, due to the need to be "dealing with the world", Srila Prabhupada's "controversial" statements had proved to be a hindrance to preaching. However, MAD praises the publication of books by Ramesvara – who at the time was acting as one of the original 11 "zonal acarya" guru hoaxers – as "he was really in touch with what was going on in the world". And therefore these books were "more in line with where people were thinking". MAD mentions books that were not authored by Srila Prabhupada, and thus MAD is saying that these books were "more in line" with people's thinking than Srila Prabhupada's books which had been printed previously. And to emphasise this point, MAD states that these books published by Ramesvara did not contain any "women are less intelligent" statements.
Earlier MAD claimed that ISKCON preachers are not using Srila Prabhupada's Bhagavad-gita in their preaching because if someone reads the book with its "controversial" statements about women then it will mean "we're going to lose them". He also states that in the future the books will be reprinted without such statements:
"you know a big controversial statement [...] ‘women are less intelligent' [...] So we recognize it's a problem and in my prediction [...] when the copyrights are over there will be republication of Prabhupada's books with chosen purports and sections left out. It's just going to happen, I know that, definitely, 100%."
MAD claims Srila Prabhupada would also want such statements to be removed:
"If I went to Prabhupada in 1976 and said [...] ‘I've been preaching for six years, and I have counted a hundred women who were about to become devotees who read that women are less intelligent and they left and we've never seen them again.' [...] My intuition is he would say, then take it out of the books"
MAD argues that Srila Prabhupada would agree to such statements being removed from his books by further claiming:
"I'll tell you why. [...] Hayagriva found something in the books and he said, Prabhupada [...] I think this will work against us, against our movement [...] and Prabhupada said take it out, based on that."
However, MAD provides no evidence for this incident. He would need to provide 3 separate pieces of evidence:
1) The original statement printed in Srila Prabhupada's books.
2) Later printings with statement removed.
3) Recorded evidence that Srila Prabhupada asked Hayagriva to remove it.
However, MAD produces nothing. And without such evidence, MAD's claim that Srila Prabhupada supported the removal of "controversial" statements from his books is unsubstantiated.
"as Prabhupada disciples, we got to see how he applied things and if you didn't see that and you just heard Prabhupada speaking or read his books, you might think, I don't know if I could surrender to this person."
Continuing with the theme of how certain statements in Srila Prabhupada's books supposedly hinder the preaching, MAD also claims that only hearing Srila Prabhupada's preaching or reading his books without personally witnessing how he "applied things", may lead one to not want to surrender to Srila Prabhupada. But most of Srila Prabhupada's pre-1978 disciples did not personally associate with him and see him apply things before getting initiated by him. Which means they only had the benefit of Srila Prabhupada's preachings and books before they surrendered to him. Thus, there is no evidence that Srila Prabhupada's statements were a hindrance to devotees joining the movement during his physical presence.
It is claimed that Srila Prabhupada's "controversial" statements hinder the preaching and that in the future these statements will be removed. Thus, we are now seeing a worrying lack of faith in ISKCON in Srila Prabhupada's teachings. This is because, unlike the IRM, which –
1) Preaches the complete supremacy of Srila Prabhupada's statements;
2) Promotes his primacy through the Prabhupada-Only Paradigm (POP);
3) Puts him front and centre without any "successors" in between;
– ISKCON does not do this. And the result is clear to see.
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