PENNY: Tim, way back in 72 how did you even know who was who in the vast Gaudiya Math. Did the news paper tell the readers who the Gaudiya Math men were who had made the complaint.
[PD: Yes, it was Swami Yati maharaja, a disciple of BV Tirtha Maharaja as far as I recall.]
PENNY: You have to remember it must have been rather shocking for these men to see women and men together, yet they had vast kirtan full of old widows. The usual human hypocrisy .. Im just wondering how you pin pointed Narayan Maharaj in the complaints, since he always says he supported Prabhupada Swamiji as they called him.
[PD: You got it right from the start, they called him "swami maharaja" because they objected to his being called "Srila Prabhupada." Srila Prabhupada tried to pacify them for their objecting to his use of that title. Of course, they objected to everything he was doing, such as allowing women in the party and so forth.
So Srila Prabhupada called for a meeting of all the God brothers in Mayapura, including the worst objectors, to pacify them. I recall before the meeting Srila Prabhupada fell down and offered his obeisances, none of them offered back, that I recall anyway.
The mood was ugly, they were glaring at us. Narayana Maharaja was saying to the God brothers that no one should go to the meeting, he was trying to organize a boycott. That is what we heard at the time, but I did not want to make that public until it was confirmed.
And it was confirmed, I later saw a video of BV Puri where he confirms that Narayana Maharaja was one of the ring leaders of the boycott attempt (as we heard at the time). Narayana Maharaja was complaining about all the same things as the other God brothers, but notice, he was never able to get himself to call "Prabhupada" with that title, he used the same title the other God brothers used -- "swami maharaja."
At the meeting Madhava maharja was yelling at Prabhupada and pointing fingers in his face. We thought it was going to get violent. After the meeting they came and poured garbage on our land. Srila Prabhupada said we need to post a guard, my God brothers might try to harm me. I also made a video description of these events (see link below). Hope this helps. ys pd
Mayapura 1972: http://youtu.be/YqCFMHLisBI
you know, after hearing that story, I think Pratyatosa das might have a point that if anyone was masterminding a poison plot, it is MOST LIKELY to have been some one or more GM "godbrothers", who perhaps manipulated a disciple or two of Srila Prabhupada's.
ReplyDeleteAs opposed to the plot being hatched and masterminded by any of Srila Prabhupada's disciples on their own. Which of course is still possible, but it just seems more unlikely the more I learn about the context.