Tuesday, April 29, 2008

An example of fanaticism

Hare Krishna everyone!!

Our Krishna Consciousness movement (or Hare Krishna movement) is a completely scientific and authorized movement. Srila Prabhupada, our beloved spiritual master, always used to say: "Religion without philosophy is simply sentiment and philosophy without religion is mental speculation." This Krishna Consciousness movement is the pinnacle of religion with an invincible philosophical background. The philosophy is invincible because it is received from the most perfect source, Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead in the line of disciplic succession of fully self-realized spiritual masters.

For the Hare Krishna movement, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is the initiating spiritual master. But some of his disciples took up the role of the-next-in-line without the least qualification and authorization. A portion of the mass of disciples of these so called gurus understood that they were bogus. But the rest of them are just fanatic about their guru.

Sentimentalism is uncritical devotion and fanaticism is intense sentimentalism. So here I'll be explaining an incident which exemplifies fanaticism. Infact, to speak the truth, I myself was shocked to witness it.

One devotee (name withheld) came to our temple and in the course of conversation with our temple President Sundar Gopal Prabhu, he was asked why he worshipped Jayapataka Swami (a bogus guru), who cannot even chant 16 rounds of the Hare Krishna mantra. Now, for those who are familiar with the movement, this is the most basic prerequisite to become a student. But here is a "GURU" who cannot chant the holy name.

His answer was breath taking: "He is so busy in spiritual duties that he has no time to chant 16 rounds." This means that the devotee is so obsessed with his "guru" that he goes to the extent of condoning his guru's inability of chanting Hare Krishna. This is fanaticism. He made this statement not once but repeated over and over again. Then he says, "He has no time to preach. He is so busy."

One who is even slightly educated in the philosophy of Krishna Consciousness will reject this so-called guru. What is he busy for? So in this way a lot of cheating is going on.

So we have to be very careful in practising our spiritual life. We have to accept three sources of authority to guide ourselves in the spiritual path. They are sadhu, sastra and guru. But sadhu and guru must be checked thoroughly by consulting sastra (as given to us by Srila Prabhupada). Guru and sadhu are, by definition, persons who never violate the injunctions of the sastra. So a so-called guru or sadhu talking or behaving against the injunctions of the sastra is not a guru or sadhu. He is nonsense.

So any way, we don't have to search for a pure devotee now. Srila Prabhupada has kindly spread his mercy all over the world. If everyone just surrenders to Srila Prabhupada by strictly following his instruction in cooperation with Vaisnavas, we will no more be subject to such gross illusion as above mentioned.

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