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Nobody knew Krishna when Srila Prabhupada went to the West. And the amount of sectarianism that exists among the conditioned souls is amazing. Imagine, even in this century exist people who are called Vaisnavas, and think and preach that it is only their members who are saved. Like Middle age Catholicism. WVA is preaching against this. But in a certain form by inexplicable fears, or at least not transcendental fears, there are persons who are refractory to participate in the World Vaisnava Association. Not persons, it exists entire missions, and they do not realize that in the eyes of the world, this is quite ridiculous. Of course, if someone so called 'religious' or a 'Vaisnava', does not practice the principles of the religion, and exploiting abuse people, it is quite reasonable to be convinced that he does not achieve any success with this mentality. On the other hand, the inscription in the movement of the union of the religions, says: "Everyone who searches for the truth and does not harm anyone, is on the right way".
How can we think that a person, who has never heard of Lord Caitanya in this life, cannot receive the mercy of the paramatma who is the internal Master of each one? There are also some people even more fanatic who thinks that only their guru can save people, or there are others who think that their particular interpretation of Vaisnava mysticism has more importance than the mercy and the power of the holy name of Krishna. With other words, there exists a certain variety of disguised sectarianism that one has to recognize, the human sectarian weakness. It is one of many too common conditions on earth. What to say then about Kali yuga, where we see too much of persecuting and killing people in the name of some belief in this world.
I was very encouraged - especially with the participation of Srila B. Pramode Puri Maharaj - to revive Visva Vaisnava Raj Saba and its universal concept. I will continue to try to do it, because for the future and the position of Vaisnavism in the world, this forum of VVRJ is of great importance for Vaisnavism to gain credibility. In fact, this service is already accomplishing, because on the Internet it is very well represented, and it exists not one association of Vaisnavas in the world, that has rejected it in public or that has said no to be contacted among its members; what rather has been missing is the real participation. But you know that I even have to convince my own disciples to participate in the istagostis. All the same, I continue trying.
Personally, the childish sectarianism makes me a bit sad, and when devotees use the elevated philosophy to "justify" their sectarian mentality, or justify why they want to take devotees from another mission, minimizing the importance of the spiritual masters in the eyes of their disciples, it makes me remember what Srila Prabhupada taught us when he chocked us with the declaration: There are people who enter the Vaisnava movements who are not Vaisnava at all, but who are devotees of Kali, and they are very attached to power and money. Srila Prabhupada said this to a group of GBCs and senior devotees in Mayapur, telling them: "Among you there are people disguised as devotees, but who are not".
Now, do not make the mistake to think that this happened in the days of Srila Prabhupada, but not today. Particularly when there is something quite nice, demons will not be missing, disguised to find out what they can take. In South America we quite have a common experience that someone, presented as a devotee, ended up with robbing a temple. But the worst ones do not get away so easily; they stay until they get a position of power and from there they destroy something. Of course, when a humble devotee hears this description, he feels, "Huuuy, what a shame, they talk about me", whilst the rascal who hears it, thinks: "That's is good, with that I make politics with the good ones and scare them away from the service. Fortunately, though, Krishna is the Supreme Controller.
I hope that nobody was dismayed with this chat today. But there exist realities in life, which we have to face. When people come to notice that the Vaisnavas lead such a nice life, they will come straight, but their fatal mentality has not overcome. Now everything depends on the mercy of the devotee if they can be saved. Because of this, the istagostis are so important. There one has to see that each and everyone in the community is happy, and nobody has the right to make others sad. Everyone has the right to always be happily situated in the family of the Spiritual Master And when they are contributors and not parasites, there is space for all; in Krishna consciousness, nobody is superfluous - there are only missing more sincere devotees.
Back to sectarianism... What makes a Spiritual Master powerful and effective, in that case, is the power of Krishna. It is the power of the essence that he uses as His transparent medium, and only Krishna knows who will use it. Those who dare to search a Spiritual Master, should consider that any mistake that they make in this respect, can be fatal; because a vaisnava aparadha is fatal in spiritual life, so what to say about a devotee who has dedicated to the preaching of the Lord, this is the nama aparadha number one, and if someone commit it, he ruins the power of his own chanting of the holy names.
Nobody knows the plans of Krishna, and nobody can understand the acts of a pure devotee. Therefore, the WVA promote a great tolerance, a very open mind, and also a possibility that someone regret some mistake of his past. When Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur condemned many of the irregular practices in groups that at that time reclaimed to be the only representatives of Mahaprabhu, there was quite a lot of opposition against him. And even today one can perceive this opposition between various descendents from these groups.
But Srila Prabhupada with his revolutionary methodology, he redeemed this good image of the various Vaisnavas and managed through his disciples to carry Vaisnavism to each corner on the earth, and his work goes on in complete expansion. And more, many of the critical groups have revived, thanks to the remnants that came to them through the preaching of that great preacher. But maybe in some moment they could recognize their mistake and wish to consider that Lord Caitanya is not limited, neither obliged to act in a predestined way.
Other Vaisnavas from other sampradayas that are much older are moving between astonishment, admiration, incomprehension and certain envy; of course ther is everything, also nice things. Nimbarka sampradaya invited the representatives of WVA to their congress this year and the Ramanuya sampradaya united to our campaign against irreligiosity in the North American movies. Caitanya Mahaprabhu is becoming more famous, and in South America and South India, there are already dramas of the Gaura lila, giving recognition to Mahaprabhu as an avatar. Only in India one can see Rama lila drama, Krishna lila drama and now Goura lila drama.
The Vaisnava theism also is confronted with the great amount of persons who practice Yoga and other Vedic practices, but who do not believe that the Lord exists as an individual being. Even with this, we have to fight to overcome sectarianism. And at least the members of my family should make to sense this when they meet with Vaisnavas from other missions, let grow the faith of the others and strengthen their own faith. Those who instead weaken others' faith in their spiritual master, without any superior transcendental order, will come to weaken their own faith, because all action carries a reaction, and Krishna Himself will take care of to illuminate all sincere souls on this way.
Srila Prabhupada wrote me a letter: "All my disciples have to become spiritual masters, but sadly they are not qualified yet. This was the generous vision that Srila Prabhupada had for the world. Personally, I feel very disqualified to be called a Vaisnava, but the mission that my Spiritual Master gave to me, stays beyond any doubt. And I do not see who would have come to care for the details that Srila Prabhupada gave to Srila Harijan Maharaj and myself to take care of.
One can understand the need of many Spiritual Masters, when seeing the needs in the world; seeing how many people a spiritual master can take care of. Those who say: "It is only my spiritual master who can save or who can deliver the purest prema", etc., they condemn to failure or spiritual death, an infinite quantity of people, inclusive a lot of people that chant Hare Krishna and belong to other missions. Besides being ridiculous, it does not reflect even a drop of compassion. How can they portrait God so stingy with His mercy? Of course, a leader should be qualified to the maximum, no doubt about that. But only Krishna has the final word about success or failure of other Vaisnavas.
I always feel fortunate to be a disciple of Srila Prabhupada, but for that reason I do not feel that the value my Gurudev has for me, would be superior to the value another Guru would have for his disciple. As a disciple of Srila Prabhupada, I like to glorify my Guru disproportionately; it is rather that one cannot glorify Srila Prabhupada disproportionate. His glory is too much elevated. But if I glorify him to the cost of or diminishing other Vaisnavas, this would not be a glorification of Srila Prabhupada, but rather an insult to him. Not even with my Spiritual Master I consider this tolerable, then what to say with others who have come later in his shadow?
Therefore sectarianism is really something abominable! And let's hope that we can get out of it and become very humble devotees. Obviously we put a check on persons who believe in sectarian ideas or who use them to disturb the missions of others. You can have a copy of this chat to give them. This can have the good effect that they leave us in peace or maybe even change attitude. In the end, one who believes in Caitanya Mahaprabhu is a saint for us.
In Berlin it was incumbent to me to tell the disciples of Srila Narayan Maharaja that they can come to our temples but they cannot make a campaign to bring our visitors; after that they didn't even come back. We have fought for 10 years to establish the WVA together with many other Vaisnavas, and we are going onwards, that we owe to our ideals and our compromises to our spiritual masters and the image of the Vaisnavas in the world; the image of the Vaisnavas in the world is of fundamental importance, in case that the Vaisnavas are attacked in some moment by some groups as has happened in Chile, Argentina, Poland, Russia, etc.
Vaisnavism is very strong when we are united. Each group themselves, each guru and their disciples, can easily be accused to belong to person cult, to be an invented sect, but a big group of different missions with many different masters who all believe in the same fundaments and practice the same principles, immediately transform our image into an image of a world religion with the same image of a world religion and with the same roots of the Vedas. Of course, when some Vaisnava or some group is attacked, and we come to support them, we would have a lot of force with this integrity, the force of the credibility. This credibility diminishes in the same extent as our internal fights can be noticed. As Vaisnavas we have a lot in common, and we should put our good energy on fighting together for these common causes, to form a united voice, and if there were really important discrepancies, they could be talked about between the great wise, and you would do it in private to see if one could convince the other, but please, leave the poor new recruits in peace from these ambitions and competing that is scarcely transcendental. Rather, we should dedicate our energy to maintain our temples and dhamas clean, that we care for the people of Kali yuga before an increasing irreligiosity, before communication media, the destruction from the drugs and the suicide from the depressions. In synopsis, these are the proposition from the World Vaisnava Association, to which undoubtedly all sincere Vaisnavas belong to, as was the vision of Srila Jiva Goswami.
How good that this topic appeared today, because I had not planned to talk about it; it must have been Krishna's plan that this came up. And it is nice to talk about topics that can open our horizon.
In Mayapur and Vrindavan, where there are many Vaisnava missions, one beside the other, they already learned this quite nicely. Of course, also here there are those who think that they are unique, but this creates in the group of open Vaisnavas, just a compassionate exclamation like: "Pity for them". Srila Bhakti Pramode Puri Maharaja put much emphasis in his last years that "All Vaisnavas are equal". We chant the same mantra and we have the chance to receive the mercy.
Always your well-wisher,
B.A. Paramadvaiti Swami
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