Fearful for the Future of ISKCON
BY: CHITRALEKHA DEVI DASI
Further discussion with Ajamila das on the issue of Female Diksa Gurus.
Dear Respected Ajamila Prabhu, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. My comments below. You wrote:
On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Ajamila (das) ACBSP (Goloka Books - UK) wrote:
Dear Citralekha d.d. Hare Krishna!! Jaya Srila Prabhupada!
Your letter is an eye opener for sure, showing the perspective from a woman as yourself that a man cannot so easily see, your summary said it all:
BY: CHITRALEKHA DEVI DASI
Further discussion with Ajamila das on the issue of Female Diksa Gurus.
Dear Respected Ajamila Prabhu, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. My comments below. You wrote:
On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Ajamila (das) ACBSP (Goloka Books - UK) wrote:
Dear Citralekha d.d. Hare Krishna!! Jaya Srila Prabhupada!
Your letter is an eye opener for sure, showing the perspective from a woman as yourself that a man cannot so easily see, your summary said it all:
>> To conclude, from this soul's (in a female body) point of view this whole
>> idea of female diksha guru is the essence of stupidity, a disaster for
>> ISKCON and Lord Caitanya's preaching mission.
I agree with you that female diksha gurus for ISKCON would be a disaster IF the wrong women are allowed to initiate. It appears you have not met any woman sufficiently qualified to be diksha guru, but have you met every woman in ISKCON?
I'm not going to name anyone but if betting was not against the regulative principles I would bet my bottom dollar that I could find at least a hand full in the big ISKCON world who would be sufficiently qualified and would honour ISKCON and Lord Chaitanya's preaching movement.
We don't need a Gangamata lime liberated soul, we only need a woman who has good sadhana, has attained nistha, is learned, a preacher, and can match in their own way what our existing male gurus in good standing are doing.
I find this disturbing. If Srila Prabhupada said it was a rare thing and that he had to strain his memory to come up with one example there must have been a reason for the rarity. And now we think that we know better that Bhaktisiddhanta who said we should not imitate exceptional cases. Now you want to ignore what Srila Prabhupada said. Why then for the last 500 plus years in bona fide sampradayas (not talking about sahajiya and apasampradayas who do all nonsense) have there been so few female diksha gurus. So few that HH Sridhar Svami said they could be counted on the fingers of one hand. And that these few female diksa gurus were actually exceptional. And why in our parampara (I don't care about other sahajiya apasampradayas) there are no female diksha gurus. There are none on the list of 32 published in Bhagavad Gita As It Is. Now you are saying we can just brush all this aside. This makes me very fearful for the future of ISKCON if we think we (who have so many scandals behind us) are wiser than our acaryas when in fact we are fools and ready to step into a minefield.
Another thing I find very strange is that the general body of devotees are not informed ahead of time as to who is being nominated to be a diksha guru unlike sannyasa candidates who are put on public waiting lists. I never knew till much later that Drutakarma and the late Purnachandra Goswami were diksha gurus till after they had started to initiate. Why all this secrecy?
I mention this because I just found out that the whole reason for this recent hue and cry about female diksha gurus was because another woman was secretly nominated. On inquiry I found it was Mother Narayani dd. This came as a real shock for me because just a few years ago when I was in Vrndavana the news was that Narayani mataji was totally desperate to get married and had even begged Kurma Rupa Prabhu (cow protection) to marry her. So how is it that a woman who is a desperado for male association is now fit to be a diksa guru? All I can say is this "Ladies you better lock up your husbands and sons when Narayani dd comes to town."
And if you don't think women can exploit their positions then here is another "eye opener" for you:
Boys on Street Sexually Exploited by Women
and female teachers who really love their students:
Female Pedophiles
Considering that some women are teaching the brahmacaris "Bhakti sastra" courses at the VIHE (reported to me by a brahmacari who was being taught by Prasanta dd in 2009) this can only lead to trouble. Or do you actually think that it is only men who have sex desires and we women never think of such things? As I said before "you men are such simple things." The fact that the leaders in ISKCON are not extra vigilant to protect our vital mission for the upliftment of humanity is really depressing.
Yours in the service of the Vaisnavas,
Citralekha dd
>> idea of female diksha guru is the essence of stupidity, a disaster for
>> ISKCON and Lord Caitanya's preaching mission.
I agree with you that female diksha gurus for ISKCON would be a disaster IF the wrong women are allowed to initiate. It appears you have not met any woman sufficiently qualified to be diksha guru, but have you met every woman in ISKCON?
I'm not going to name anyone but if betting was not against the regulative principles I would bet my bottom dollar that I could find at least a hand full in the big ISKCON world who would be sufficiently qualified and would honour ISKCON and Lord Chaitanya's preaching movement.
We don't need a Gangamata lime liberated soul, we only need a woman who has good sadhana, has attained nistha, is learned, a preacher, and can match in their own way what our existing male gurus in good standing are doing.
I find this disturbing. If Srila Prabhupada said it was a rare thing and that he had to strain his memory to come up with one example there must have been a reason for the rarity. And now we think that we know better that Bhaktisiddhanta who said we should not imitate exceptional cases. Now you want to ignore what Srila Prabhupada said. Why then for the last 500 plus years in bona fide sampradayas (not talking about sahajiya and apasampradayas who do all nonsense) have there been so few female diksha gurus. So few that HH Sridhar Svami said they could be counted on the fingers of one hand. And that these few female diksa gurus were actually exceptional. And why in our parampara (I don't care about other sahajiya apasampradayas) there are no female diksha gurus. There are none on the list of 32 published in Bhagavad Gita As It Is. Now you are saying we can just brush all this aside. This makes me very fearful for the future of ISKCON if we think we (who have so many scandals behind us) are wiser than our acaryas when in fact we are fools and ready to step into a minefield.
Another thing I find very strange is that the general body of devotees are not informed ahead of time as to who is being nominated to be a diksha guru unlike sannyasa candidates who are put on public waiting lists. I never knew till much later that Drutakarma and the late Purnachandra Goswami were diksha gurus till after they had started to initiate. Why all this secrecy?
I mention this because I just found out that the whole reason for this recent hue and cry about female diksha gurus was because another woman was secretly nominated. On inquiry I found it was Mother Narayani dd. This came as a real shock for me because just a few years ago when I was in Vrndavana the news was that Narayani mataji was totally desperate to get married and had even begged Kurma Rupa Prabhu (cow protection) to marry her. So how is it that a woman who is a desperado for male association is now fit to be a diksa guru? All I can say is this "Ladies you better lock up your husbands and sons when Narayani dd comes to town."
And if you don't think women can exploit their positions then here is another "eye opener" for you:
Boys on Street Sexually Exploited by Women
and female teachers who really love their students:
Female Pedophiles
Considering that some women are teaching the brahmacaris "Bhakti sastra" courses at the VIHE (reported to me by a brahmacari who was being taught by Prasanta dd in 2009) this can only lead to trouble. Or do you actually think that it is only men who have sex desires and we women never think of such things? As I said before "you men are such simple things." The fact that the leaders in ISKCON are not extra vigilant to protect our vital mission for the upliftment of humanity is really depressing.
Yours in the service of the Vaisnavas,
Citralekha dd
ALL GLORIES TO HIS DIVINE GRACE A.C.BHAKTIVEDANTA SWAMI SRILA PRABHUPADA! Thanks for the above article and especially for the link to 'Boys on street sexually exploited by women'.Wow--what an eye opener.I knew that lots and lots of women sexually molest children,but the website that I was directed to had such shocking statistics.I don't think I'll ever look at "the usual woman" the same way ever again.I would urge all Vaisnavas to check out this website. JAI RADHE!
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