Innocence is No Excuse - 2

Back To Prabhupada, Issue 62, Vol 2, 2019

"Hare Krsna, _Prabhu_! In _BTP_ Issue 55, under "[Innocence Is No Excuse](/docs/webpages/btp55-Srila-Prabhupada-Innocence.html)", you wrote:_ "Thus, any participation in the guru hoax cannot be excused for any reason whatsoever. This is why the work the IRM is doing is so essential, as it prevents devotees from being misled, and their efforts going to waste." _While any participation in the guru hoax cannot be excused, shouldn't we excuse the devotees after they corrected themselves from being misled by the IRM's essential work? Or does this uniquely apply only to the Bangalore folks? Your servant," \- R. Ganesh Raj, Seremban, Malaysia

Editor replies:

There are two activities which you speak of:

1. Participation in the guru hoax.
2. Non-participation in the guru hoax, after one has left the guru hoax.

Activity 1, you have stated, "cannot be excused".
Activity 2, however, does not require any actions to be excused, as long as one is not doing anything wrong.

Nor, is there any question of activity 1 being excused simply because one may now be engaging in activity 2 ⁠— because, as you have said, "any participation in the guru hoax cannot be excused". In the article you have quoted, we presented quotes from Srila Prabhupada which make it clear that simply coming into knowledge of the fact that one has been misled, does not lead to one being automatically excused for having previously been misled. For example:

"If you say that "Somebody misled me to go to the left side" in the court, oh, that does not mean that you will be saved from the fine. [...] Why do you agree to be misled? Then you must agree to take the punishment also."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 23/6/68)

Srila Prabhupada states that the person who is now in knowledge, and realises he was "misled", will still not be saved from the fine. Thus, we have not presented our understanding, but just repeated what Srila Prabhupada states. If you believe what BTP 55 stated is incorrect, simply present Srila Prabhupada countering it and we will immediately accept it.

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