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Swami Iconoclast
16 January 2010, 06:20 PM
On June 26, 1975, when His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada was in Los Angeles, he had an interesting conversation with two men who claimed to be his disciples. The two men were asking Srila Prabhupada some questions and he expertly defeated them. I have written a philosophical analysis (http://prabhupadaconsciousness.blogspot.com/2010/01/there-is-no-why.html) of this conversation on my blog and would love to share it with the assembled devotees.

Eastern Mind
19 January 2010, 08:00 AM
Namaste SI: Welcome to the forums. I hope you share and learn a lot.

Aum

sambya
24 January 2010, 06:48 AM
well, the post in your blog has been an interesting read for many reasons .

im not a iskcon followers nor do i beleive in all words of srila prabhupada , but i do regard him as a sincere soul with genuine well wishes for mankind .

however this blog entry raises some important questions not just in relevence with srila prabhupada and iskcon but to any guru shishya relationship or in life of any spiritual aspirant . this is why i felt the need of posting this ...


faith , we all know , is the essential prerequisite of venturing forth in spiritual life . this faith originates from sadhu sanga , and obviously as a result of some good samskars . words of guru and shastra instills this much needed faith . and shastras also forbid dishonour and show disrespect towards bhaktas and sadhus .

so far so good ..

but the question is , to what extent can our free logic be applied while approaching a guru . if we r not to apply logic then we are nothing but idiots , specially true in todays context of bogus guru-dom . but if our logics are resulting in endless arguments and futile debates then it is useless logic .

so the first question is to what extent can logic and free reasoning be applied ?

you said that it was necessary for the two devotees to accept prabhupada(lets say any other guru) and tune our understanding with that of prabhupada. that means you r sugesting to accept the authority of a guru .

now where is this authority stemming from ?

shastras say to examine and reexamine a guru for days on , before finally accepting him , because once done , there's no looking back . this period of examination is also a period of reinstating your beliefs and deepening your convictions . after the desired guru 'passes' through all these tests he slowly earns the love of the disciple . and this love becomes his authority . it is this selfless love that allows the guru to chastise a shaishya or a shisya to bear the humiliation .

but what happens till this deep love is born ? . are we meant to be devoid of logic and reasoning ?


i believe that free resoaning and a self evaluatory critical approach is an ansolute necessary in the world of spirituality . this is what is called as viveka-positive discrimination . while searching for your own path and guru constant cross analayzations are needed till we are satisfied with our ideal .
but this discrimination must be in a positive way . and there should be another watchman-discrimination presiding over all other discriminations to see that we are not being dragged into hypocrisy by not following what we profess to follow.

and finally what is the easiest means to know if our discrimination is being positive ?
......if we find selfless values , universal love and thirst and hunger for god growing with a proportional increase in disspassion for worldly engagements and attachments . there is no better proof than this !

jai radhe .........