The following attack on Srila Prabhupada is found on the B.I.F. website of the madman Saksi G
opal, and approved of by Puranjana dasa. He is trying to enrage the world against Srila Prabhupada and our movement. He has also contacted huge powerful Hindu organizations calling for an actual physical attack on the devotees in India to drive them out. His deviations down to the level of dangerous and violence against devotees promoting insanity can be viewed at the b.i.f. website.
ORTHOPRAXY over ORTHODOXY
The spiritual vehicle driving Indian belief was assembled by God Himself. All attempts by historians to trace its origins have fallen short. When Persian invaders confronted the vehicle for the first time, they were confounded in that although Indians were devout, the vehicle and its passengers had no particular name. Reasons were as obvious then as they are today: because of the vast range of traditions and practices, arriving at a single definition was not possible. Although there were similarities in beliefs, e.g. reincarnation, karma, mukti, etc., there was no single system of soteriology, nor was there a centralized authority or bureaucratic structure. So it was that the Persians, monotheists by tradition, encountering for the first time a polytheistic civilization unified in diversity, decided to give the beliefs and practitioners a collective appellation for purpose of identification. Using geographical location as identity, Persians called the people "Hindu," because they were domiciled beyond the Indus River (Indu, taken from Sanskrit- Sindhu.) To define the belief structures and rituals in one word, in 1830 the "ism" was added. Indians, opposed by foreign invaders and armies in occupation, appropriated the appellation to establish a national identity.
So where does the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) fit in with Hinduism? To understand the history of this recently founded sect, we present a parabola: God made a vehicle for His people. Its engine comprised powers of His manifestation in various parts. The vehicle serviced people of Bharatvarsh then, as it does today. Amazed at the proficiency of the vehicle in its diverse application, foreigners gave it a name- "Hindu." One group of Bharatvarsh citizens, inspired by plans to capture shares in a free market, took a single aspect of the original engine, and attempted designing their own vehicle. In an atmosphere of liberality, the group was given all facility to advance the model. The model was named "Gaudiya." After centuries of trial and error, the enterprise did not find a market even in its home of manufacture, and the venture fragmented. Unphased by demise of the group, one of its entrepreneurs translated manuals of the Gaudiya model and marketed it in foreign lands. The enterprise attracted foreign investment, and with its success the vehicle was renamed- "ISKCON." Now if we were to leave the story here, no one would need bother further. But that just isn't the case. There is a great deal of botheration, so we will continue.
With success of the new enterprise, and remembering well failure and loss of the project in its homeland, the entrepreneur (now titled- Founder,) released a tirade of animadversions against his countrymen. So upset was he with the earlier lack of support, he claimed the engine driving ISKCON was not Hindu due to the fact it existed before Persians named the engine. And further, the name itself was not synonymous with the engine because it identified a geographical location and people domiciled therein. In spite of filling the ISKCON vehicle with a fuel unique to the Hindu engine, the founder of new ISKCON wrote: "There is a misconception that the Krishna conscious movement represents the Hindu religion. Sometimes Indians both inside and outside of India think that we are preaching the Hindu religion, but actually we are not.....[...]....The Krishna consciousness movement has nothing to do with the Hindu religion or any system of religion...One should clearly understand the Krishna consciousness movement is not preaching the so-called Hindu religion." (Science of Self Realization.)
The statement proved a conundrum for Hindus. After all, the new sect was celebrating Hindu festivals, they dressed like Hindus, had Hindu names, sang bhajans, worshipped with Hindu rituals, visited Hindu pilgrimage sites in India, cooked Hindu recipes, had Hindu style temples with deities that were worshipped for millennia by Hindus, chanted from Hindu scriptures, and even spoke with phoney Hindu accents. On reading the statement many Indians shook their heads in wonderment. If it speaks like a....dances like a....eats like a...it must be a....? Being how they are tolerant of all things religious, and also because the statement (above) was made by an elderly Indian holy-man, the Hindus chose to smile and continued to offer support. Behavior takes precedence over belief—orthopraxy over orthodoxy. Indians have been raised to never gainsay a holy man no matter what his sect; a trait that leaves them open to exploitation.
To further distance the new enterprise from its Hindu roots A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami wrote: Regarding the Hindu community: Don't expect anything very wonderful from them, as we have got experience in Montreal—they have come in the foreign countries to earn money. As such, you cannot expect any cultural contribution. So you will tactfully deal with them, and whenever possible, vehemently protest against their foolish ideas. But you should try to support your statements on the strength of Bhagavatam and Bhagavad-gita. Best thing will be to avoid them as far as possible. I am concerned to preach this gospel amongst the Europeans and Americans, and I am not at all interested to preach amongst the Indians, because they have now become hodge-podge, due to so many years of subjugation by foreigners, and having lost their own culture. (Letter to Gurudas '68.)
Pupilliary succession is an extremely important process in all branches of Hinduism. This was also imbibed, and even emphasized to extremes in the indoctrination of the new investors in the newly modeled ISKCON vehicle. What resulted was a superiority complex demonstrated by the cult's members to this day. With a total disregard for historical fact, or for the hurt being caused to Hindus who had never even heard of the Gaudiya Math and its failure, the Hindu bashing began in earnest.
To begin with, a concerted effort was launched to separate the deity Krishna from those who had worshipped and preserved bhakti rituals since time immemorial. Students of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, felt the need to advocate their master's breakaway from all things Hindu. To do this, they followed in the footsteps of the founder by targeting the origins of the word- 'Hindu.' Reasoning that if it could be proven no such word existed, then how could there be a Hindu people making claims to a Hindu deity named Krishna? A strategy was crafted and promoted in public talks and whenever the new cult's origins and beliefs were questioned. Here it is:
"The name "Hindu" is not a sanskrit derived word [bereft of sanskrit etymology]. The term "Hindu" is from external cultures used in recent antiquity as broad sweeping catch-all name for the Culture of Peoples living beyond the Indus Valley and Sindhu River."
Actually the word Hindu does have its roots in the Sanskrit word 'Sindhu,' but more importantly, historical research using methods to go as far back in time as possible, have recorded these findings: "Worship of a deity of Krishna, in the form of Vasudeva, Bala Krishna or Gopala, can be traced to as early as 4th century BC. Worship of Krishna as svayam bhagavan, or the Supreme Being, known as Krishnaism, arose in the Middle Ages in the context of the bhakti movement." (Hein, Norvin. "A Revolution in K???aism.) There is no record of any "Gaudiya" or "ISKCON" cult recorded in the 4th century BC., so we must conclude that the bhakti cult being referred to by historians were the later denominated Hindus of Bharatvarsh. Ergo we can understand that the Gaudiya cult had taken a product that was already on the market, hammered it out of shape, and tried flogging it for a profit. No one sued for copyright but the venture still went bust. Which brings us back to ISKCON.
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