Truth wins Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> it is your karma, you have to surrender more, you
> have to chant more, it is Maya.

Surrender more? Can't surrender more. According to the teachings, it is not a question of own will (if we stay only within the teachings...).

And so on...

One can "surrender" to the whims of leaders ...

> For example they hide for the longest time that Wailana is the wife.

"Siddha is the son" much longer...



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2021 02:06AM by DaWatcher.

What is chastisement in reality in the SOI=
GLORIFIED ABUSE

Please do not underestimate the damage they are creating on a soul level.

It is time for the followers to stop fooling themselves and put a big picture of Butt (ler) in the middle instead of the deities.
This has become a butler worship cult.
The level of power that he has over the followers is much greater than the power of so-called God (s).
He has gone way beyond his role of middleman and he has become the center man.
Unless God is an abuser, I am not sure how his will equals the will of butter.
I think that even when he finally graces us with his departure from this realm, people will hold on to the fear that he is watching from Krishna Loka.
Imgine the nightmare of having an eternal relationship with such an entity.

RUN_FOREST_RUN Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They conveniently mix and match assorted indian
> philosophies, scriptures and stamp it all as some
> singular "eternal truth" that is over 5000 years
> old. They throw in Jesus and buddha in there for
> good measure and pretend like it all make sense
> and belongs together. Find me a Christian who
> agrees. Butler devotees adopted Jesus into their
> pantheon because it made for an easy sell when
> they preach their mumbo jumbo. Just like ISKCON
> devotees would dress as Buddhist monks to collect
> alms in the streets of southeast Asian countries.
> Basically, they will do anything (by hook or by
> crook as the swami loved saying) to try to appeal
> to anybody. As DeWatcher has pointed out many
> times the underhanded methods they use to appeal
> to new recruits: Yoga, vege cooking, yoga-nidra,
> jesus, mantra/kirtan retreats and much more. You
> in fact will not hear about the true message of
> their religion (to realize your true form as a
> 12-year-old gopi girl servant of the erotic
> playboy god and his girlfriend) till much much
> later once they have their hooks in you with all
> the other ideas. They real you in and create a
> tight cocoon and web of ideas, half-truths,
> rituals and beliefs and paint a picture of peace
> love and happiness that is near impossible to
> extricate yourself from at a certain point. Your
> mind gets so scrambled you can barely hold a
> rational conversation with anyone or even be
> friends with anyone other than people in the
> group. And that is ultimately the goal. To create
> a bubble and insulated culture of a bunch of
> people who believe in one single idea and truth,
> against all odds. To question it is blasphemy, to
> point out blunt flaws and problems is taboo and
> everything is swept under the rug of
> "chant-and-be-happy pleasantries (when we all know
> it's not that simple), until it starts to fester
> and show its ugly side, once again. In most cases,
> by then, leaving thousands of followers confused,
> paranoid, stressed, anxious, and the opposite of
> what it claimed to be offering them. No wonder
> when all is said and done the average devotee will
> want to shut themselves in a bhajan kutir and
> chant themsleves to oblivion...

This is the best writing on the topic of ISKCON and its failings that I have ever come across in my (ten-plus) years of following this thread. In ISKCON, you are taught that ISKCON is Prabhupada's body, just as the Bible teaches that Christendom is the Body of Christ. This makes criticism of ISKCON, as an institution, sinful at best and unthinkable at worst. One is taught to keep their head in the sand and their hand in the bead bag, and to pretend as if everything is just fine. RUN_FOREST_RUN, you have gotten through to me. I am now ready to sever my few remaining ties to the organization known as ISKCON (the corrupt tree from which the toxic fruit known as SOIF fell). Thank you for your writings here.

Truth wins Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What is chastisement in reality in the SOI=
> GLORIFIED ABUSE
>
> Please do not underestimate the damage they are
> creating on a soul level.

ISKCON is the exact same way, only worse. But don't call it abuse, since (according to your karma) you're only getting what you deserve. ISKCON says that whatever bad things befall you in life, are your own damn fault. No matter what happens, you always are getting what you deserve.

And they teach that crap to abused kids?! How do they tell that to kids who were abused in their schools?! How can somebody tell a little who as raped when he was very young, that he deserved it whether he realizes it or not?! What?!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/2021 07:03AM by The Whirlwind.

DaWatcher Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> RUN_FOREST_RUN Wrote:
> -------------------------------------------------------
> >  When you're talking about the Lord in the
> heart,
> > DaWatcher, are you referring to the 4 armed
> blue
> > God who is speculated as somehow sitting in the
> > heart organ?
>
> Personally or as a former member of SIF?
>
> > Next to the spirit soul? And when you
> > refer to the scriptures as a method of
> > verification of people's "purity", what
> specific
> > scriptures are you referring to?
>
> Staying only within the Vaishnava scriptures - for
> example "Nectar of Instruction". I think it's
> enough.
>
>

Quote

Text One: A sober person who can tolerate
> the urge to speak, the mind’s demands, the actions
> of anger and the urges of the tongue, belly and
> genitals is qualified to make disciples all over
> the world.

>
>

Quote

Text Two: One’s devotional service is
> spoiled when he becomes too entangled in the
> following six activities: (1) eating more than
> necessary or collecting more funds than required;
> (2) over-endeavoring for mundane things that
> are very difficult to obtain; (3) talking
> unnecessarily about mundane subject matters; (4)
> practicing the scriptural rules and regulations
> only for the sake of following them and not for
> the sake of spiritual advancement, or rejecting
> the rules and regulations of the scriptures and
> working independently or whimsically; (5)
> associating with worldly-minded persons who are
> not interested in Krsna consciousness; and (6)
> being greedy for mundane achievements.

>
> Politics?
>
> [vedabase.io]


DwWatcher,

Thank you for your quote from the works of the goswamis to support who in your mind is qualified to make disciples all over the world.

First off, the work in question, Nectar of Instruction/Devotion and other works of the goswamis like the Tattva sandharba are hinged on the premise that the Bhagavatam is a vedic scripture. It is not. Nor are any of the Puranas or upanishads. Works like the upanishads (the real ones) deal mainly with Atman and Brhaman theories and try to explain the largely unintelligible vedas. The Puranas are through and through books of fictional parables and epics—many naively written by modern literary standards. Claiming the superiority and rationale for a religious belief system based on the flimsy rhetoric of it belonging to the "vedas", and the vedas somehow being abstractly accepted as "revelation" and a top authority is false and flawed (fraudulent). All religions claim such sources of authority. Quoting other Puranas as proof of the Puranas being part of the vedas does not make it so. It's akin to a coffee shop claiming they serve the best coffee in the world because they got written up in a local newspaper.

The verses you quote from these works of commentary on the bhagavata purana are ambiguous at best. Stating abstract ideas that someone is qualified to accept disciples all over the world if they don't eat too much and don't associate with mundane people and engage in mundane pursuits or collect more funds than required pretty disqualifies all modern guru's (one need no more than a loincloth and a handful of nuts to survive and live, if too many funds and food are such an issue). There are many people who fit the bill of controlling their tongue, belly, genitals anger and urge to speak. Should they all go on to make disciples all over the place? Let alone thousands who they will never meet or have any meaningful instructive relationship with (ritvik anyone?). It's a very impersonal teaching method for something as personal and subjective as a spiritual journey/pursuit.

The rules and regulations described in vaishnava texts are varied and broad. it starts with 4 regulative principles but quickly one realizes that there is some rule and regulation for just about everything including wiping your ass with your left hand and not touching your japa beads with your pointer finger cause its "impure". There are 10 offenses against the name of god. And even though the holy name is touted as all-powerful, it is made clear that its power is dependant on the purity of the person from whose lips you hear the holy name. In fact rules and regulations abound for how big your sikha should be, how many times your neck beads are to go aroudn your neck, how big those are, how many rounds to chant, when to fast from grains, not to eat garlic or onions or chocolate or coffee etc etc. All in a so-called attempt to keep you in a "mode of goodness". One has to circumambulate the tulsi pant 3 times, clockwise, chant various bhajans in order etc. The average sadhaka and even hardcore disciples hardly follow a fraction of these—and when they do—trust me, it's simply for the sake of following them because the guru says so and not because they know what the hell they are doing it all for. As pointed out in my previous post where I mention the astoundingly silly rationale for keeping a sikha. As a brahmin initiate, I had to recite a specific verse for each tilak marking I applied on my body, invoking a specific diety associate with that part of my body. The brahma gayatri was to be chanted by wrapping my thread 3 times around my thumb, cupping it with my other hand and counting "rounds" on my finger joints while making sure to not "jump" certain joints. And the famous "don't hop the head bead" rule when chanting on japa beads. Please shoot me now.

The fact is that all religious texts have these types of open-ended stipulations for what constitutes purity, or in this case, give one the right to initiate a bunch of mindless disciples.

The puranas and vedas are full of stories of 4-headed Lord Brahma (the head of the Sampradya) and Shiva losing themselves in bouts of anger, lust etc. What to speak of Prabhupada, his guru and schmucks like Butler. They are always mildly angry and there are many private lectures wherein they are speaking to their intimate servants about any manner of mundane topics.

And on the matter of association with mundane people and being greedy for mundane achievements. What does this even mean? Unless one is living in an ashram or does not have a job, life stipulates that we engage with the outside world and make a living in some way. This necessitates some conversation with people uninterested in krishna talk.In fact the luxury of not engaging in any way with the outside world is probably only the domain of the guru. There is no way to avoid this otherwise.

The guru maintains his lifestyle because his disciples are willing to engage with the outside world and work and make money. They frame this as "karma yoga". But in reality, the guru will not be able to maintain his lifestyle with this, so it is to his benefit ultimately that people remain engaged in the so-called lowly task of engaging in mundane endeavors to make money. The alternative is to hoodwink people into giving you money in the street on the pretext of feeding starving bengali children. And even that necessitates engaging with mundane people uninterested in krishna talk.

The fact is that no one has a right to make disciples all over the world and one's devotional service (whatever the heck that is—is it working for Wailana or Tulsi campaign these days? I forget...) is bound to be spoiled unless one locks themselves on a varnashrama farm community—and we all know how that turned out.

If I could get served my favorite meals every day, massaged, praised and worshiped because I tell people stories, I would. No, wait, I wouldn't, because that's egotistical and selfish and creates an artificial hierarchy. Accepting worship, people bowing to you, fanning you, offering you flowers and food and at your beck and call like a kind is narcissistic. No matter how "humble" you portray yourself, it's an oxymoron, a visible contradiction and perpetuates cognitive dissonance in the follower's psyche.

How many times have we seen this then applied to the general devotee community wherein devotees will address each other as Prabhu or say PAMHO AGTSP followed by some critique or chastisement?

Creating personality cults surrounding these people is basically saying that they have an elite status that can never be achieved. This negates the need for following them. If a teacher can never raise you to their level or be proud when you exceed them in theirs, it's a useless relationship. You are no longer worshipping potential and simply a form, a vessel—not it's content.

This is evident in the practice of Samadhi's and murits in Vaishnavism. In a culture that burns everyone else when they die, the form of the holy man is somehow "maintained" and preserved. This negates the very idea and foundational statement of Atman and the "you're not the body" rhetoric. Gaudy plastic murtis of bhaktivedanta are found in many ISKCON temples. For a newcomer this is usually very jarring to see: A plastic replica of an old Indian man being fanned and adorned with garlands and food offered to it. It promotes childlike sentimentalism wherein old-timer devotees get frozen in an infantile-like stage in their spiritual journey. Butler's group does the same thing. Most of Butler's centers around the world feature pictures of him from the 80s as an otherwise young, handsome guy. This perpetuates a type of naive sentimentalism based on image and personality.

Ultimately, no one is qualified to make disciples all over the world. As Oscar Wilde says, nothing worth knowing can be taught. These guru's make a career pretending that they are giving people some sublime secret. But the secret is already in you and unfolding uniquely within the authentic context of your experience and awareness. All that the best of "gurus" can do is re-orient you in the general direction you are already heading. If Butler or the Swami did that for you in your life, bravo, but chances are you have parked your ego firmly in their parking lot and not left or gone anywhere worthwhile in a very long time. It's like those teenagers who get stuck going to the mall. At first, it feels novel and new and "free". But then, eventually, it's a royal waste of time to spend all your time in such a place while life passes you by. But that is exactly what many devotees do. Sunday temple feast/gathering, yearly excursions to stinky India (suffering all manner of discomfort to claim they visited some sacred place) and mantra on repeat. Every thought of "what the fuck am I doing??!!" is immediately viewed by the average devotee as an intrusive and offensive idea, rather than the natural result of a mind stressed by sheer boredom. Instinct is a teacher in and of itself. Yet most devotees ignore instinct and unabashedly label it "false ego". Never mind they spent the better half of their life artificially imposing some transplanted cultural-religious ideas into their head. No, that's totally natural and OK. Come on. Give me a break. No wonder most devotees who bloop go from zero to 60 in a few seconds. There are literally years worth of pent-up and subdued needs, feelings, and emotions (all labeled false and maya—but boy are they so very real when you actually face them—and they're not going away until you do—no matter how much you chant). When they come out all at once, that can't be good. And as we see, in some cases it results in suicide or leaves devotees hopping from one cult to another or taking shelter in some conspiracy theories and whatever ideology that feels most akin to the hare Krishna crap they believed in for the past 20-40 years. Learned helplessness.

Run comrades!

RUN_FOREST_RUN Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Ultimately, no one is qualified to make disciples
> all over the world. As Oscar Wilde says, nothing
> worth knowing can be taught. These guru's make a
> career pretending that they are giving people some
> sublime secret. But the secret is already in you
> and unfolding uniquely within the authentic
> context of your experience and awareness. All that
> the best of "gurus" can do is re-orient you in the
> general direction you are already heading. If
> Butler or the Swami did that for you in your life,
> bravo, but chances are you have parked your ego
> firmly in their parking lot and not left or gone
> anywhere worthwhile in a very long time. It's like
> those teenagers who get stuck going to the mall.
> At first, it feels novel and new and "free". But
> then, eventually, it's a royal waste of time to
> spend all your time in such a place while life
> passes you by. But that is exactly what many
> devotees do. Sunday temple feast/gathering, yearly
> excursions to stinky India (suffering all manner
> of discomfort to claim they visited some sacred
> place) and mantra on repeat. Every thought of
> "what the fuck am I doing??!!" is immediately
> viewed by the average devotee as an intrusive and
> offensive idea, rather than the natural result of
> a mind stressed by sheer boredom. Instinct is a
> teacher in and of itself. Yet most devotees ignore
> instinct and unabashedly label it "false ego".
> Never mind they spent the better half of their
> life artificially imposing some transplanted
> cultural-religious ideas into their head. No,
> that's totally natural and OK. Come on. Give me a
> break. No wonder most devotees who bloop go from
> zero to 60 in a few seconds. There are literally
> years worth of pent-up and subdued needs,
> feelings, and emotions (all labeled false and
> maya—but boy are they so very real when you
> actually face them—and they're not going away
> until you do—no matter how much you chant). When
> they come out all at once, that can't be good. And
> as we see, in some cases it results in suicide or
> leaves devotees hopping from one cult to another
> or taking shelter in some conspiracy theories and
> whatever ideology that feels most akin to the hare
> Krishna crap they believed in for the past 20-40
> years. Learned helplessness.
>
> Run comrades!


This is excellent. You are right. I WILL run.

I'm happy I made some sense to you, Whirlwind. It's a charade and there are more meaningful things to do with one's time on this planet. Does that mean one has to abandon a spiritual life or trying to search for deeper meaning and purpose? Of course not, if anything, it frees you up to pursue things that are more authentic to your personal realizations and experiences—not something that is spoonfed to you as "the way". This tends to be the ultimate trap for any type of spiritual endeavor_to hang ones coat up on the religion that claims to "know it all". And the Hare Krishna religion does just that.

I recall when I started as a devotee it was always claimed that the living entity is sick—like a jaundiced patient—and that initially, Krishnaism tastes bitter, but over time, as we "purify" (get brainwashed) we feel it is sweet. This type of rhetoric asks us to ignore our intiution. In my time as a krishna devotee I met many people while preaching who were simply not attracted to the "all-attractive". So which is it? Is he "all-attractive" or an acquired taste? The hare krishna religion is full of confirmation bias.

I recently read a so-called Gaudiya refutation to the very logical question of the Puranas not beibg part of the vedas in any way shape and form as there is no mention of them in the original vedic works. It was not until the Upanishads and and even later that there is even a mention of a so-called purana being accepted as part of the vedas. The refutation of the vedas being a part fo the puranas thatw as explained, needless to say, used quotes from the puranas to establish the Puranas as "vedic". That's completely laughable of course by any standard of debate, but the hare krishna faith is full of such rhetoric. You cannot establish the authority and superiority of a text, based on its own proclaimed merit. It's like those coffee shops that say "Best Coffee in the World!". Yeah? By what measure and standard? Have you read the vedas? It's 50% unintelligable ramblings of ancient Haraapan priests high on Soma juice. The remaning "insightful verses" are often paradoxical, offering open-ended ideas and cyclical infinite regression propositions. There is some basic pantheon of nature gods and a shot-glass mention of Vishnu as a side deity. The Puranas, established time and again to be wirtten between 1200 AD and even more recent, never mind the propaganda-like versions of ISKCON, are full of FANTASTICAL myths. Many bluntly regurgitated from greek and roman tales. This is all woven together with really cheesy and naive stories by any modern standard. Obviously they are wonderul little tales and epics (even more so in a time before the average perosn could read and write), but that is all they are. No perosnality mentioned in these books actually walked the earth.

There is a good version of the gita called Gita As It Was. [www.amazon.com] It posits that much of these texts were heavily interpolated based on analasis of verse styles, lingusitics etc. There are MANY books like this as well as exposes on the bhakti cults of Inida, the history of Vashnavism and so forth. All of these clearly show an evolution rather than the dogmatic "5000 years old; a unbroken line, starting from lord brahma himself!" line that we are fed over and over.

Anyway, these are my personal reflections/realizations and what helped me get over this cult. I'm not saying there is no good in it. Certainly it works and has some value for some. Or perhaps works for some, for some time. At the end of the day, we are all offering some alternative views on what made sense to us and when it stopped making sense and what it was that no longer made sense. What makes sense to each person is based on their experiences and unique approach. I know many stalwart Hindus who do not approach their scriptures with literal interpretation. I also know that as far as Indian philosophy goes, there are more heretic schools and other approaches to a spiritual life that don't rely on utter fantasy. Rejection of the vedas as an authority is as old as the vedas. There were always those who opposed the ideas of the vedas and those leaving the cult should know there are many options to continue to explore oneself, purpose and meaning and even metaphysics for that matter. Ways that are more firmly rooted in the tangible. And I wish everyone here to find their own way and not just download some templated version and expect the software to work seamlessly in your specific operating system, as it were.

May I please level with you about something, RUN_FOREST_RUN?

Here it is: on the one hand: I believe that ISKCON is a cult. No question of it.

But on the other hand: In my heart, I honestly do not believe that Prabhupada was a bad guy, so to speak.

And I feel this conflict, a cognitive dissonance over this. What is your counsel, please? Do you think that Prabhupada was a bad guy?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/2021 10:15AM by The Whirlwind.

Say that somebody hits you hard in the face, and knocks you down. You are stunned for a while, and you struggle to get back on your feet. When you do get back on your feet, the person who hit you tells you that it was your karma in the first place and he'd done nothing wrong in striking you, since you deserved it (karmically speaking). So you hit him back and he falls the ground, stunned. You tell him that that was HIS karma and you'd done nothing wrong in striking him since he deserved it (karmically speaking). But he will not hear it and tells you that you are a terrible person for hitting him back, or even voicing your displeasure or doing anything about it whatsoever. That's very much what life in ISKCON is like, in my experience.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/2021 11:07AM by The Whirlwind.