Govinda Dasi on Tulsi Gabbard

GOVINDA DASI SPEAKS ON TULSI GABBARD

Tulsi is not a member of any "Krishna West." She grew up as a devotee long before any such thing existed. Her father (a state senator) is a devotee and also her mother. She was a fortunate second generation devotee who grew up safe from the ravages of the Kali chelas who destroyed many of the children in Iskcon. She is a member of the original Iskcon, Prabhupada's Iskcon, reading Prabhupada's original books from her very childhood.

Tulsi Gabbard is a great soul who has taken birth in this age to do the work of spreading Lord Chaitanya's mission. She is also an excellent Kshatriya woman, a fighter, and one with great integrity. Just as there were great Kshatriya kings as well as queens in times past.

It is unfortunate that there are such weird attitudes in Iskcon about women. But these attitudes will die off with the men who created them. And we are seeing the future of Lord Chaitanya's movement in the widespread understanding of the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, through the eyes of those who are highly elevated. Srila Prabhupada's gifts will bear fruit more and more as the third generation comes in. I have that faith because Srila Prabhupada predicted it, and he has the "Vakh siddhi" that whatever he says, it will come true.

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[PADA: As one of my friends in Hawaii says, some of the disciples of Siddha Swarupa like Tulsi Gabbard, Radha Mitchell and others are able to get ahead in this world because, for starters, they treat others nicely, maturely and respectfully. Whereas, many of the "devotees" of so-called ISKCON have a reputation for being just a little hot headed, if not fanatical and mean spirited -- simply stated -- they have a reputation of -- mistreating others.  

In sum, we are not going to make much progress if we are not treating others well, and that means, we can learn a lot from the people who are making progress by treating others well. Yes, there are many critics of Tulsi Gabbard, critics of PADA, critics of Bangalore and so on, but these critics are not able to get much done, because their technique, whatever it is, its not working very much. 

Srila Prabhupada said we can even learn how to manage things by looking at the model of the Rama Krishna mission, that means, we should try to figure out why others are making progress and ISKCON, ok, its not doing so swell. 

I think Govinda Dasi is on to something here in this respect, ISKCON will evolve into a much wider grass roots program and not so much the narrow institution as we move forward. And this also means if people do not like what Tulsi Gabbard, PADA, Bangalore and others are doing, they'll have to do better, or be lost in the dust. ys pd]