Paramadvaiti Swami "A Shell of His Former Self" (Update)

I won't fall into the honey trap,

like all the other fools!

Because, I am a resident of Krishna loka!

OK, not so fast there little cricket!

https://krishna1008.blogspot.com/2018/10/paramadvaiti-swami-alleged-sexual.html

https://krishna1008.blogspot.com/2019/08/petition-to-remove-paramadvaiti-swami.html

https://paramadvaiti.wordpress.com/tag/falldown/

JD: A couple of months ago, a group of Paramadvaiti Maharaj's brahmachari disciples approached me to ask for Sanskrit lessons. Naturally I discussed with them the current situation at Vrinda Kunj and Yamuna Kunj where they stay and understood that they are still Paramadvaiti loyalists. Not that this had anything to do with my accepting their request. 

I am hungry enough for eager students that I would happily accept one from any quarter. Here were four men, all still young and vigorous, with adequate intelligence and discipline to stick to it, with an esprit de corps, all to be applied to to learning Sanskrit. I would not have said no.

Now I live here in Jiva Institute near one of Maharaj's fiercest opponents who has feelings towards him that could only be described as hatred. So I have been exposed to his worst misdeeds and to the pain and suffering of his victims. Nevertheless, since I judge everyone by the extent to which they love Sanskrit, I worried rather that Paramdvaiti's tendency to discourage education in favor of institution building might interfere with my new students' ability to remain steady in their study.

At around Dol Purnima time I found out that Paramdvaiti Maharaj was here, and when I heard that he was only staying for a few days, would be leaving on Monday for Haridwar and the Kumbh and then would be going back to Germany shortly after that. So I decided to go and visit him. He has been a friend. His disciples came to me because they knew me through the environmentalist days and Vrindavan Today and all that, when I had frequent meetings with Maharaj.

Maharaj is, as expected, something of a shadow of himself. Much chastened by events, which it seems have not yet left him, though much of the dust has settled. Naturally, the deflation of ego that results from such a "shitstorm" as he himself called it, takes time to adjust. But he has come to the point of seeing where the path forward lies.

[PADA: We heard this from other folks "he is a shell of his former self." Well yep, he was exposed as a fraud and now he knows, we all know he is a fraud etc. So he will have a hard time cheating more people now, and this has discouraged him. As it should ...]

He was quite open about the events, though it wasn't the kind of blood and guts confession that people seem to want these days as a catharsis. From what I could gather, circumstances were making it impossible for him to stay in Vrindavan. Nevertheless, he is not relinquishing his connection to Vrinda, even though much of Vrinda has relinquished its connection to him.

At the same time, he still has young men of quality as disciples there at Yamuna Kunj, several more than the quartet who came to me. I have always held a certain precarious pride in the fact that I have been given shelter in the Dham. I thought that this is the center of our universe and so, sooner or later, the world will come to me. This is the place of final attainment, and what I have to give should be for those who have given themselves to coming there.

But who is sowing the seeds that brings such people here from afar? Maharaj said to me that when his 40-year partner Atulananda, whom he had given sannyasa only a short while before, cut himself off entirely from Vrinda, even though Paramadvaiti had offered him sole acharyaship over the entire organization. 

[PADA: Right, when we have a problem with someone, we offer to make them Krishna's successor acharya. That is the whole problem with the Sridhara Maharaja group, they think they can give people acharya status by their rubber stamp. The acharya is empowered by Krishna and not their rubber stamp of approval.]

So nobody seemed able to take a leadership position, which made many of them turn to him again. But the situation made him assess how to reorganize things with himself out of the picture. As though dead, but alive somewhere. This is, as I recall, something like what I asked him to do in my letter when the shit first hit the fan.

[PADA: We cannot re-organize the mission unless we re-focus the worship on the acharya. People seem to miss that part of the process left, right and center.]

As many of you know, Paramadvaiti Maharaj had become a friend of the indigenous peoples of South America, especially those from the Shamanistic Ayahuasca-using nations. He was especially impressed by how many of their beliefs corresponded to those of Sanatan Dharma. One thing is that he has, through his own disciples, established congregations in remote, heavily indigenous places like Bolivia. 

He was saying, these people are poor, they will likely never have enough money to come to Vrindavan. How do we take care of them? So he has given many of the preachers in these areas the responsibility of initiating, thereby taking himself out of the picture.

[PADA: OK so we are going to make a second wave of acharyas, and hand out acharya certificates to all sorts of people now, to compensate for the failure of the first wave. How can the bogus first wave certify the second wave?]

Well, I expect that people will think I am being a bit soft on him. He says he had become lax in following the rules of sannyas and associating with women. I have my views on the problems of sannyas, and this was by the way another thing I wrote to him in one of my letters that was made public. Anyway, if there is one falldown that I "get" as it were is that of a sannyasi with women disciples. He said how much he loved them. I can just imagine.

With his disciples, my students, I sense that they feel a bit of freedom and independence also, even in his presence. They have a reverence for him because he truly has been their guru. He is the one who brought them to Vrindavan, so they have decided to stick it out with him. But they are determined to pursue the path of bhakti and get the most out of their Brajavas. I believe that is why they came to me.

But I want to assure not only Maharaj and his disciples and devotees everywhere, that my interest and area of primary expertise for which I have some qualification is in Sanskrit. There is a very strong correlation between Sanskrit and Indian culture, in which Gaudiya Vaishnavism, by the grace of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and the Six Goswamis and others, take part.

Without Sanskrit, the Holy Name will create colonies and offshoots everywhere, cultural versions that take on wider and wider differences as the years go by. Reading the same books, but taking on and creating new cultural forms. Perhaps in the modern interconnected world it will be more homogenous than it would be if we all lived in isolated villages in the Bolivian Andes. 

But Sanskrit, like Vrindavan, will always be the sun at the center of the solar system. After lunch he invited me to a dip in Yamuna Kund, a little square pool in the back of Yamuna Kunj. Maybe two meters across, with two or three steps going down, made of white Rajasthani marble. He talked me into it. The water was cold and even though the heat has come, it still hasn't touched me and I felt little pleasure in the fresh water. 

Maharaj usually goes for morning bath in the Yamuna, which is just in front of the door, across the Parikrama Marg and fifty meters of sand. He takes a group of five or six brahmacharis to mangal arati at one of the Gaudiya Maths in Seva Kunj, or to one of the main temples, but I think that Covid restrictions have been kept in place there. Don't quote me on that.

So to put a conclusion to all this, let me say that I do not think Paramadwaiti Maharaj is a crocodile. Jai Sri Radhe.

[PADA: Well, these people are going to be lucky when they finally take birth as a crocodile in our opinion. His victims are very upset still, well the whole world is his victim, he helped ruin the movement that was meant to save the whole world. There is no end to the numbers of victims of these frauds. ys pd]

============================

RKD: (Quoting) "Whatever I´ve said is because I acknowledge that Paramadvaiti did many nice things. But if on top of that you do many nasty things and do not properly respond to that, unfortunately, the nice things you did will be somehow lost in the way. And I don´t want that, and that´s why I´m saying what I´m saying."

And yes, there are many details you are unaware of, and I would humbly invite you to further research, since you are a respected public sadhu, and your opinion weighs heavily on those who follow you so that demands sober objectivity in topics like this.

And yes, I acknowledge the complexities of the sannyasa asrama in modern times and Western countries, but I would insist that Paramadvaiti´s problems were not only sexual, but due to an "intoxication of vatsalya" in the words of Srila Sridhara Maharaja: only listening to his children (disciples in this case) saying to him "you are the best dad / guru in the world!" and not being open to receiving advice from seniors or, even worse, peers.

Apart from this, unfortunately, he neglected his sadhana for decades, almost not chanting one single round any day, and his katha was generally full of misconception and relative topics. You can have a look at his presentation even nowadays.

But I would say the most delicate things of all have not been his papa (sinful actions) but the aparadha (offenses) he engaged in trying to justify his papa: he has publicly criticized many exalted sadhus who did not agree with his stance and were insisting that he may take a different turn (and what to speak of the abused Vaisnavis who were clearly offended by him!). 

This happened even to very sincere and surrendered devotees of him, whom Paramadvaiti started to present his enemies -- in front of his disciples -- because he saw them as potentially threatening to his own ideas. Sad to say the least. I think that´s why Dasa Goswami prevents about papa in his Manah-siksa: although that´s not directly affecting our bhakti, it can lead to aparadha if we apply our krodha, matsarya, lobha and what not in our relationship with the Vaisnavas.

You say that you got the impression that he has reduced his activities and you are right, but this happened by force and not by his own will I would say since almost 75% of his mission left him and many of his asramas were closed. Even many of his disciples in India remain in the asramas for the sake of comfort and not necessarily due to gurunistha. But although his activities were reduced by force, he nonetheless is preaching publicly on a daily basis. You can see his lectures here:

https://www.facebook.com/GurudevaLIVE

So yes, I agree that if a sannyasi and guru have such an embarrassing chapter in his life, he should totally disappear from the public sphere and get immersed in bhajan in the spirit of purification and repentance. He said he would do that at one point, but that didn´t happen till now, and sadly, for me, that speaks about his present condition: not having a taste for deep bhajana, and still mostly interested in popularity and relative issues. You can have a look at the topic he still speaks about in his present lectures.

You say in one of your messages, "Everybody seems to think everything is so easy." Well, I would apply that same quote to those who do not take the time and commitment to be empathic with each of the ladies abused by Paramadvaiti, to each of the disciples that have their faith affected, and so on. I am not promoting victim consciousness here at all, simply objective and compassionate viewpoints, hopefully.

[PADA: Yep, my friends from down there told me -- no one dares to speak out against Paramadvaiti. You will have the sh*t kicked out of you. He is a giant goonda and so are a number of his followers. And that is why his misbehaviors have gone on unchecked for such a long time. People are afraid of him and his vicious cult. And he will identify opponents by name in his lectures ... so that means you now had better watch your back ... they are coming for you. It is the same way the GBC operates ... which is why he is welcomed at their programs and temples.]