Basu Ghosh / ISKCON India Advisory Board v.s Malati (PAMHO)

Text PAMHO:31806124 (187 lines) From: Basu Ghosh (das) ACBSP (Baroda - IN) Date: 07-Dec-19 23:51 -0600 Reference: 

Text PAMHO:31802441 by Malati (dd) ACBSP (GBC) (New Vrindavan/Columbus - USA) 

To: "Malati Mataji" <Malatidevi@aol.com> (sent: 08-Dec-19 06:54 +0100) 

Cc: Anuttama (das) ACBSP (IC N.America) [203744] (forwarded: 08-Dec-19 07:00 +0100), Kalakantha (das) ACBSP (Gainesville, FL - US) [169031] (received: 08-Dec-19 08:37 -0500), "Krishna Kirti Prabhu @ New Delhi" <krishnakirti@gmail.com> (sent: 08-Dec-19 06:53 +0100), "NAleadergroup" <naleadergroup@googlegroups.com> (sent: 08-Dec-19 06:53 +0100), "Sriman Damodar Das BVKS" <damodara.bvks@gmail.com> (sent: 08-Dec-19 06:53 +0100), ICC (Indian Continental Committee) [9197], IIAC (ISKCON India Advisory Committee) [6257], ISKCON (India) Bureau Discussions [3904], ISKCON India (news & discussion) [10980], NAGBC (north American GBC) [364] 

Subject: Re: ISKCON India Bureau resolution on female diksha gurus ------------

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Home Base: ISKCON Baroda Camp: 

Frisco, Texas, USA 

Dear Malati Mataji, Namonamaha. 

Jaya Srila Prabhupada! 

Received your message in response to my response to Kalakantha Prabhu, and it's copied herein below. Krishna Kirti Prabhu provided an apropos response to most of what you wrote. 

Particularly: "Nonetheless, this attitude that women in ISKCON have somehow left their feminine nature behind is widespread, and faulty. Radha Dasi succinctly sums up this attitude in her Marxist-influenced paper, "Participation, Protection and Patriarchy: An International Model for the Role of Women in ISKCON." 

May I add that changing the nomenclature to "vaishnavi" does not, in and of itself bestow some sort of divinity, and "status on a higher platform", i.e. the attainment of "bhava" and "prema". There is an article found in the Gaudiya magazine, published during the time of Srila Bhaktisiddhata Saraswati Thakur back during 1931, that supports what Krishna Kirti Prabhu wrote, and is apropos to the discussion: 

'Gaudiya', Vol. 9, #42, p.698, (06.06.1931): "Question: Are women qualified like men to engage in Bhagavad-bhakti or nor? If they are, then what if some woman by her good fortune becomes a devotee of the Lord (acting according to the dharma of the pure vaisnavas) and wants to serve the Lord and to reside in some Ksetra or Matha, having renounced everything, can she do that or not? 

And if some woman by such an activity becomes pure vaisnavi, then is it proper for a detached person or a pure vaisnava to receive her association in order to get spiritual instructions? 

Answer: Sriman Mahaprabhu taught: "bhaktau nr-matrasyadhikarita" - Any human is automatically qualified for bhagavad-bhakti, that means (in metaphorical expression) any conscious or living being. A woman, a man, a child, an old man, an animal, a bird, a blade of grass, a bush or a creeper - all these are descriptions related to the body. Bhakti is not an activity of a gross or a subtle body. That pure jivatma which is transcendental to the gross or subtle body, has a natural and eternal function - "bhakti". 

Therefore being jiva is the only qualification for bhakti. Some jiva externally dressed as a woman by her good fortune can take shelter of bhagavad-bhakti and become an advanced devotee (parama-bhaktimati), still a man and a woman who are both inclined towards bhagavad-bhakti, should be very careful in their dealings, because the possibility of falldown is inherent in jiva's svarupa.  

In Kali-yuga women's qualification for renouncing the family is very rare, even if we say that it is completely absent that would not be an exaggeration. There are hardly one or two (kvacit dui ekti) examples of especially qualified women like Gangamata, whose qualification for grha-tyaga and ksetra-sannyasa etc. was always perfect (nitya-siddha), if we accept their capability as a general rule a great disaster will come upon the world. 

Women should perform hari-bhajana without duplicity while staying at home. In many holy places women develop different anarthas being driven by very strong desires (vasana) that consist of other intentions (anyabhilasa) and that are manifested as grha-tyaga etc. Although everyone is eligible for hari-bhajana, nevertheless everyone should perform hari-bhajana according to one's own qualification remaining in one's own position." 

You also wrote something that Krishna Kirti Prabhu did not address in his response: 

> No one from the favorable side is posting anything around the Internet or 

> to various Leadership Conferences, is, “ramming anything down anyone 

> throats.” It is only you, it seems, who is doing that.  

That no one from the so-called "favorable side" - the pro-female diksha guru side - is posting anything "around the internet" is just not the fact of the matter. Maybe you don't look at Facebook, but if you did, you would see plenty of pro-FDG postings!

[PADA: This all started when Gopal Krishna and Svarupa Damodara complained that there were no "India bodied" members of the GBC's guru circle, just a monopoly of a bunch of white guys. So they were made "India bodied gurus" to appease the idea that there was "a Western body monopoly." 

Now women are complaining there is only a male bodied monopoly. Meanwhile no one seems to notice that conditioned souls cannot liberate other conditioned souls as their diksha gurus. Malati in particular has a very troubled past when she ran off with her then mate, ex-Prithu Putra maharaja, to start what appears to be a Satanic cult.

http://krishna1008.blogspot.com/2018/02/prithu-putra-and-malati-dasi-melanie.html

Not sure why the GBC considers Malati, co-founder of some sort of Satan cult, to be the Lord's "shakshat hari tvena" (good as God) acharya material? Or is it just that hardly no one else is signing up to be the ISKCON GBC's next messiah, so the GBC just has to get whomever they can find to volunteer to be the next messiah of the jagat? Enter Malati! 

Did I forget to mention another Female Diksha Guru candidate Urmila, was recently involved in a polygamy promoting scandal?]  

As for "various leadership conferences", well, the ISKCON India leadership has expressed itself loud and clear. Yes, we resent this imposition: something Srila Prabhupada did NOT teach, nor institute. It is you, the members of the GBC, who voted and passed this appasiddhantic resolution, and who have thus imposed this upon us - and the entire ISKCON society. 

[PADA: OK so the GBC is composed of acharyas, and acharyas are making bogus and apa-siddhantic resolutions. Why does Basu Ghosh and others keep saying acharyas are deviants? And! If they are deviants, they are not acharyas. And why is it that when we peons say acharyas are not promoting apa-siddhanta, we are banned and removed. Is this not hypocrisy?]

It's a clever attempt to discredit the mass of ISKCON India's leaders by alleging that we are the ones forcing something upon you! The opposite is the truth! It's just a further sign of this age, that shastra pramanas - evidence from shastras - as the basis of our ideology and philosophy are being discarded by disputation based on wrangling, cavil, quibble, and fallacy of a principle!

[PADA: Yet Basu Ghosh is operating on the principle that acharyas make bogus and apa-siddhanta resolutions, as he has just stated herein?] 

The GBC attempt to satisfy the modern, liberal, egalitarian demands of gender equality fly in the face of Prabhupada's rejection of this outlook, based on the teachings of shastras. When Prabhupada calls the Manu Samhita the "lawbook for humanity" in his purport of Bhagavad-gita 16.7, and the cites the example of women therein, he did not make an exception for "vaishnavis"! 

Consider this (although it will strike a stake right into the heart of anyone who champions "gender quality): from CC Adi 10.137: 

madhavi-devi — shikhi-mahitira bhagini sri-radhara dasi-madhye yanra nama gani 

Translation Madhavidevi, the seventeenth of the prominent devotees, was the younger sister of Shikhi Mahiti. She is considered to have formerly been a maidservant of Srimati Radharani. 

Purport:  

In the Antya-lila of Chaitanya-charitamrta, chapter two, verses 104-106, there is a description of Madhavidevi. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu considered her one of the maidservants of Srimati Radharani. Within this world, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had three and a half very confidential devotees. The three were Svarupa Gosani, Sri Ramananda Raya and Sikhi Mahiti, and Sikhi Mahiti’s sister, Madhavidevi, being a woman, was considered the half. 

Thus it is known that Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu had three and a half confidential devotees. 

----------------- Was Srila Prabhupada somehow being offensive here by referring to Madhavidevi, one of the most confidential associates of Mahaprabhu as: a. "a woman" and not a "vaishnavi"? b. "being a woman, was considered" only half of a man? What is your answer here? Of course I am being rhetorical! 

[PADA: Of course that is another problem, when various women reported child molesting and other crimes they were suppressed, banned, removed, exiled and so forth, on the plea that they have no proper discrimination. OK and that is why ISKCON was then sued for $400M for child molesting, these "men leaders" ignored various women's complaints at their peril. And they are still minimizing women, after ignoring them bankrupted ISKCON?]

The answer was given precisely by Krishna Kirti Prabhu in his response to you, earlier. And that is that unless a woman has totally transcended the modes of nature, she must follow her "stri-dharma", the rules for feminine behavior in society as set down in vedic shastras! 

[Sure we have "high ideals". My understanding is that Prabhupada did NOT change the ideals, nor change the shastras, but made certain concessions due only to time and circumstance]. 

These are only a few of the quotations that are evidence to prove that Srila Prabhupada, his teachings, and vedic shastras do NOT support gender equality, that you are trying to establish by instituting female diksha gurus. In fact, a fully considered study of shastras teaches that gender distinction would be observed even by devotees on the highest level of bhakti. Thanks for your consideration of the actual facts. Hope you will change your mistaken views. Hope does "spring eternal"! Hoping this meets you well. dasanudas, 

Basu Ghosh Das Facebook: 

Basu Ghosh Das Skype: Basu Ghosh Das WhatsApp: +91-94260-54308 

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Malati responds:

> > > Dandavat pranams:
> > > 

> > > On Dec 5, 2019, at 2:00 PM, Basu Ghosh (das) ACBSP (Baroda - IN) 

> <Basu.Ghosh.ACBSP@pamho.net> wrote: 

> > > Aren't you and other pro-FDG devotees ... 

> Right there is part of the problem: You are seeing Vaishnavi’s as women, 

> not as devotees. It is NOT FDG. It is VDG: Vaishnavi Diksha Guru. BIG 

> difference. 

> > > the ones who are indeed ramming this 

> > down the throats of the leadership of ISKCON India? 

> No one from the favorable side is posting anything around the Internet or 

> to various Leadership Conferences, is, “ramming anything down anyone 

> throats.” It is only you, it seems, who is doing that. You may like to 

> conjure women as being “less intelligent,” but at least we are smart 

> enough to not to fall into that trap. 

> > Shanti. Yr servant Malati devi dasi (Text PAMHO:31806124) --------------------------------------
[PADA: Yep, lets make Devil worshiper Prithu Putra's former mistress the next messiah of the jagat, that will fix all of ISKCON problems! Sign me up! Hee hee! ys pd]