Removing Srila Prabhupada's Statements
Back To Prabhupada, Issue 69, Vol 2, 2021
It is being claimed that some of Srila Prabhupada's statements are hindering preaching, and therefore in the future they will end up being discarded altogether from his books. All comments in shaded boxes are taken from a podcast interview given by GBC voted-in guru HG Mahatma Dasa ("MAD") on 6/3/21. All emphases added.
MAD claims Srila Prabhupada's Gita is not being used at all in people's preaching because of Srila Prabhupada's statements regarding women. He then goes on to explain such behaviour:
MAD does not condemn such an action, even though he admits it sounds "heretical". Rather, he states that such actions simply reflect the "realities" as "we are preachers" and "are dealing with the world", and he states those who are doing such things are "Prabhupada men and Prabhupada women".
In the previous section, we saw MAD explain how, due to the need to be "dealing with the world", Srila Prabhupada's "controversial" statements had proved to be a hindrance to preaching. However, MAD praises the publication of books by Ramesvara – who at the time was acting as one of the original 11 "zonal acarya" guru hoaxers – as "he was really in touch with what was going on in the world". And therefore these books were "more in line with where people were thinking". MAD mentions books that were not authored by Srila Prabhupada, and thus MAD is saying that these books were "more in line" with people's thinking than Srila Prabhupada's books which had been printed previously. And to emphasise this point, MAD states that these books published by Ramesvara did not contain any "women are less intelligent" statements.
Earlier MAD claimed that ISKCON preachers are not using Srila Prabhupada's Bhagavad-gita in their preaching because if someone reads the book with its "controversial" statements about women then it will mean "we're going to lose them". He also states that in the future the books will be reprinted without such statements:
MAD claims Srila Prabhupada would also want such statements to be removed:
MAD argues that Srila Prabhupada would agree to such statements being removed from his books by further claiming:
However, MAD provides no evidence for this incident. He would need to provide 3 separate pieces of evidence:
1) The original statement printed in Srila Prabhupada's books.
2) Later printings with statement removed.
3) Recorded evidence that Srila Prabhupada asked Hayagriva to remove it.
However, MAD produces nothing. And without such evidence, MAD's claim that Srila Prabhupada supported the removal of "controversial" statements from his books is unsubstantiated.
Continuing with the theme of how certain statements in Srila Prabhupada's books supposedly hinder the preaching, MAD also claims that only hearing Srila Prabhupada's preaching or reading his books without personally witnessing how he "applied things", may lead one to not want to surrender to Srila Prabhupada. But most of Srila Prabhupada's pre-1978 disciples did not personally associate with him and see him apply things before getting initiated by him. Which means they only had the benefit of Srila Prabhupada's preachings and books before they surrendered to him. Thus, there is no evidence that Srila Prabhupada's statements were a hindrance to devotees joining the movement during his physical presence.
It is claimed that Srila Prabhupada's "controversial" statements hinder the preaching and that in the future these statements will be removed. Thus, we are now seeing a worrying lack of faith in ISKCON in Srila Prabhupada's teachings. This is because, unlike the IRM, which –
1) Preaches the complete supremacy of Srila Prabhupada's statements;
2) Promotes his primacy through the Prabhupada-Only Paradigm (POP);
3) Puts him front and centre without any "successors" in between;
– ISKCON does not do this. And the result is clear to see.
Return to Mahatma Dasa (“MAD”) Index
Return to "Srila Prabhupada's Books" Index
Please chant: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare,
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama, Rama, Hare, Hare. And be Happy!