ISKCON's Female Guru Defenders Crumbling

Is the Female Diksha Guru issue

a smokescreen to hide the real issue?

---------- Forwarded Message ----------

Subject: Brilliant rebuttal of Narayani Devi Dasi's false concepts by Sitalatma Das
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Sitalatma Das Prabhu wrote the following comments on the "Bhakti Kids Sangha Podcast Special", seen on the YouTube link herein below at the end. They are well thought out. Well worth reading!

Also, I edited what he wrote for English usage (it seems he is not a "native English speaker") and clarity. The unedited original essay can be seen on his FB page, by clicking on the link, herein below:

https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=sitalatma%20das

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I just listened to this interview with Mother Narayani and it was the first time I heard her side of the story on the matter of FDG and women roles in ISKCON in general.

Before this I only listened to her Gita and Bhagavatam classes where she had to talk on topic at hand. So this talk was eye-opening. She fully buys into the "women's liberation narrative" which I don't want to repeat. Everyone reading this would know it already.

This was presented with the advice that devotees should "know ISKCON's history". This entire narrative is a history re-write, however.

They don't mean know ISKCON history from Srila Prabhupada's books, from Lilamrita, from countless memoirs, from thousands and thousands of anecdotes, from thousands and thousands of lectures by Srila Prabhupada's disciples etc - the way devotees naturally piece it together.

No, they mean to know the history as re-told by "women voices in ISKCON", which assumes that all those above mentioned sources don't exist, nobody is aware of them, no one knows anything, and it paints the new narrative on a
blank canvas.

As I said, I don't to refute it here but I do note how they presume their
opponents to be woefully ignorant, and this attitude shined all through the interview, on any topic they picked - their opponents don't know history, their opponents don't know shastra, their opponents don't know varnasrama, their opponents don't know anything.

And women like Mother Narayani are here to educate us.

Btw, this talk about how women did all kinds of services in the early days naturally compells Mother Narayani talk up her own contributions, too. I don't want to diminish them but self-glorification doesn't look good for a vaishnava. [Note: it's called "narcissist"].

Mother Narayani quoted a few passages in support of FDG and it made a huge impression on the host, who then concluded that shastra settled it!

None of these quotes stands a real test of shastric scrutiny, however, as has been demonstrated by scholarly devotees years and years ago, but it seems even Mother Narayani is not aware of that and is living in blissful ignorance where no legitimate opinions other than her own exist.

For example, she started [her presentation of evidence in favor of FDG] with a letter [of Srila Prabhupada's] to Hansadutta. There are many arguments why this letter should not be taken as conclusive evidence. My favorite one is it being a letter no one heard of until twenty years [or more] after Srila Prabhupada's departure.

The counter quote from the "Suniti purport" [Srila Prabhupada's purport to Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 4, Chapter 12, text 32] was not mentioned, of course. But it's interesting for another reason. All through this interview Mother Narayani stressed how she is widely accepted in India and how everyone there respects her as a mother.

In fact, it was one of her parting messages to Indian devotees - continue to respect women as mothers and as "spiritual mothers", she said. This is a phrase that she repeated seven times in this talk - "spiritual mothers". Okay, no arguments against that, but in the Suniti purport [SB 4.12.32,
cited above] Srila Prabhupada presented two clear disqualificaitons that prohibited Suniti from becoming a diksha guru. One is that she was a woman and the other "a mother"!

Usually we concentrate on the word "woman", but here Narayani Mataji insists that she should be seen as a mother, which makes her doubly disqualified, and disqualified by her own argument at that! Of course she has the luxury of ignoring the Suniti purport [to Srimad Bhagavatam 4.12.32] when she preaches (from shastra, allegedly) on the validity of FDG to a rather clueless audience.

But that wasn't all. When I read the open letter on FDG I had a doubt that they meant Jayshree Devi Goswamini as a legitimate Gaudiya Math guru, but Mother Narayani cleared it - it's exactly who they meant as she cited her in this talk and read out her titles from the same website that describes how the founder of this ashram left the Gaudiya Math and started her own institution.

[PADA: Yep, when in doubt, cite the Gaudiya Matha as an example of how things are done. Wait? Srila Prabhupada said, amongst my God Brothers -- no one is qualified to be acharya, male or female is not the issue. And yes, some woman who abandoned the Gaudiya Matha and self-appointed herself as a guru is also not even an example of the Gaudiiya Matha. They are fishing for excuses. 

Of course the India GBC / ICC folks say that we mlechhas are not following the Vedic standards of worshiping homosexual pedophiles in samadhis in the dham. As soon as the India ICC folks see a nice homosexual pedophile who is having oral sex with young men in his motorhome, they fall off their seats and bow down, thinking they have met a resident of Vaikuntha, who needs a samadhi in Krishna's birth place. 

One of my friends was taking photos of the Kirtanananda samadhi, and some of his followers were there and they looked very menacing, and so the friend's associate told him -- "we better get out of here, it is not safe." So the ICC people (like Gopal Krishna) have helped established a violent support regime of their pedophile worshiping process. And since we mlecchas are not violently menacing their pedophile worship process, we are not following the Vedas. Shouldn't they be fixing their pedophile samadhi problem before they worry about female diksha gurus?]

Did she not read that? And did she not read that this Jyotirmata is a female sannyasi? Or is it another thing that could be left out from presentation to less discerning devotees? Or did she read that but it didn't register as she wanted to establish the legitimacy of FDG and her inherent bias blinded her intelligence?

She also mentioned the example of Jadurani who initiates many Indian men as an acceptable practice in the Gaudiya Math.

[PADA: A friend of Jadurani told me that she is qualified to be a diksha guru and accept sins from other conditioned souls "because she is a good devotee." OK but a "good devotee" would follow the instructions of their guru and not take karma from others. 

She is a good devotee, because she thinks she is another Jesus reincarnated and she can absorb sins like Jesus. None of this makes any sense. A good devotee does not assume they are as good as Jesus, nor do they violate the orders of their acharya to not take sins. Nor do all of the Narayan Maharaja followers support the idea that Jadurani is a diksha guru. Nor are we supposed to cite Narayan Maharaja's program as the standard for ISKCON in any case.] 

This could be legit, though in the Gaudiya Math she is not known as
Jadurani but as Shyamarani, after accepting [the late B.V.] Narayan Maharaj
as her new guru, and I have no idea how much legitimacy she is actually given in the Gaudiya Math.

[PADA: Correct, many Gaudiya Math do not accept BV Narayan Maharaj. For example BV Puri said BV Narayan Maharaj is "worse than any sahajiya" for giving Gopi Rasika to the (pedophile messiahs club of the) GBC.] 

Narayan Maharaj himself was preaching things incompatible with [the teachings of] Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati, things [ideas/concept] he took from Vrindavan [and Radhakund] babajis.

Ravindra Swarupa wrote about that long time ago, so I'm stating this on his authority. Never mind that Mother Narayani gives an example of a disciple who left Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON and took shelter of a new guru and assumes it's legitimate. These are the footsteps our new initiating guru, Mother Narayani, is teaching us to follow?

Seriously?

A couple of times Mother Narayani also mentioned how there are many female gurus in Vrindavan and they are also a good example for ISKCON to follow. She conveniently didn't mention that all of her examples should be classified as bogus by Srila Prabhupada's standards.

This isn't the first time when various deviants are cited as legitimate for our own FDG practice either. Ten years ago they started with giving us jati-gosai apasampradayas as legitimate precedents. 

[PADA: Same thing the India GBC / ICC tells PADA, there are no precedents of anyone worshiping pure devotees in the shastra, they have to worship our pedophile messiahs like Lokanath, and our dead pedophiles in samadhi.]  

Yes, they had a lot of female gurus in their lineages, but they don't tell us that this guruship was passed from mother to daughter in a bloodline, and they are called apasampradayas [by Srila Prabhupada, and before him Srila Siddhanta Saraswati] for a reason.

I was also surprised to learn from Mother Narayani that devotees like Bhakti Vikasa Swami and Basu Ghosh Prabhu are preaching asuric varnashrama. She didn't say it outright, of course, but I don't know if her descriptions of the opposition views on varnashrama can be ascribed to anyone else. Who else could she have been talking about? And she made sure that her opponents want asuric varnashrama.

[PADA: Yep, Bhakti Vikas swami followers tell me we need to establish Varnasrama, by supporting the mass molesting Mayapur project.] 

I couldn't find the definition of daivi varnashrama that she gave in the
[Srila Prabhupada's database] Folio, but there was nothing wrong with it,
it's the same as the one used by BVKS and others.

Though it did have one interesting point - she read out about daivi-vanrashrama that "it's inclusive, it expands Krishna Consciousness to those who can't follow the rules."

This is true under BVKS definition, too but the practical implementation is strikingly different - Mother Narayani thinks that by becoming "transcendental to brahminical culture", as she read from the purport to SB 2.4.18, one can do any service he likes, including that of a diksha guru but the opponents would say that this is nuts.

She gave an example of the wives of Vedic brahmanas and how their husbands, who followed varnashrama, eventually agreed that they neglected Krishna but striclly following their rules and that they accepted their wives as gurus.

Okay, that happened, but that's not how the story ends and "accepted as gurus" didn't mean they got diksa from their wives, and Krishna didn't accept their wives offer of service either but sent them back to follow their prescribed duties, serving their husbands under varnashrama rules!

How convenient for Mother Narayani to omit this ending.

And it also makes her look like she is talking from shastra [when in fact, she is contradicting shastra. Read Chapter 23 of Krishna book to see Prabhupada's comments in this regard]. Btw, the purport to Srimad Bhagavatam, 2.4.18 talked about *accepting* disciples from any social class to make them into pure transcendental vaishnavas, not about making diksha gurus out of those who "can't follow the rules".

There was a subtle substitution there - everybody that has a chance to become a pure vaishnava is not the same as everybody has a right to become a diksha guru. I should mention that our understanding of diksha guru is confusing, too. If we mean someone who connects one to Krishna and to our guru parampara it's one thing, but in practice diksha gurus play an important social role [in ISKCON] and for that they have to be qualified by social standards of behavior.

It's an old problem that we all seem to ignore. We assume that when one becomes a sannyasi he is automatically qualified to accept disciples, he'd just need a few formalities to follow, but in Vedic tradition diksha is given by grihasthas, not sannyasis!

The idea was to make householders qualified to worship the Deities and perform daily sacrifices, and sannyasis don't do any of that. In fact, in Bhagavad-gita Lord Krishna mentiones sannyasi as the one who doesn't light fire - sannyasis don't offer daily oblations into sacrificial fire (and they also don't cook, but that's another matter).

In any case, to become a diksha guru in ISKCON one must conform to a whole list of requirements (and even that list is not sufficient, if you ask me), but simply connecting one to parampara doesn't really need any of that.

Srila Gaurakishora Dasa Babaji probably wouldn't qualify by our current rules, for example - because they regulate social behavior of our gurus, and *social behavior is dictated by varnashrama*. This is an important point. Even devotees who argue for FDG need social recognition in the form of GBC approval and acceptance by others, but this must be regulated by social norms and therefore by varnashrama.

So... where was i? Ah, yes - I sense Mother Narayani's understanding of daivi varnashrama and being transcendental means one can do whatever he wants instead of whatever is required.

How does that understanding comply with chapter 3 of Bhagavad- gita where
Lord Krishna says again and again that one must follow his prescribed duties even if he is transcendental and does not depend on them.

"Prescribed duties", I must stress, not just any service that pops into your head. And "prescribed" means prescribed by varnashrama dharma. And yes, varnashrama is very inclusive and it accommodates all kinds of deviations (meat eating, for example) but it doesn't mean we have to push our desires forward and forward and demand varnashrama to catch up and accommodate [modern egalitarian thought].

Being unable to restrain one's desires and being unsatisfied with "what comes naturally" are not symptoms of successful transcendentalists. They probably shouldn't become gurus either. But if it's what they want they'd demand everyone to accept and accommodate, and that's what we are dealing with now, in my opinion.

People want to become gurus, so we need to find an arrangement where the cheaters and the cheated can find each other.

P.S. That last sentence might appear too harsh (the part about people wanting to become gurus), but Mother Narayani herself conflated her strong desire to teach with the right to become a guru, she didn't separate them.

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The above is a comment on the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylYBKt3B52M

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[PADA: Ok so we have a lot of "senior Vaishnavi women" who are tooting their horns for building up ISKCON. Then some of them ran off to the 1936 bi-sexual deviants messiahs club of Sridhara Maharaja. Ooops, he also supported the 1978 GBC's homosexual and pedophile messiah's club, which bans, beats, molests, sues and kills Vaishnavas. And Sridhara says "none should protest." You, and your kids just got to take his jack boots stomping on your head punishment and not complain. 

Then, many other senior Vaishnavi women went off to BV Narayan Maharaja, Tamal's main bucket boy, who was in Texas propping up the Tamal homosexual pedophile messiah's club, when I was in Texas organizing having Tamal sued for mass child abuse. Now we are citing the biggest cheer leaders of the illicit sex with men, women and children acharya's program, as our authority? And we are going to have neophytes accepting sins like Jesus, based on their authority? 

*** We accept Sridhara Maharaja as an authority, never mind in 1982 he was banned from ISKCON.

*** We accept Narayan Maharaja as an authority, because he was the main defender of Tamal's homosexual and pedophile acharya's club.

*** Jaduarani is an example of a woman guru, except she was told not to pretend to be another Jesus and take sins, but thanks to Narayan Maharaja's making a pile of under-qualified if not molesters and deviants into gurus, she is now a guru in that club. 

*** Why not cite the smartas and jati-Goswamis as authority while we are at it?

*** And lets not forget, we need a guru certificate from the GBC's illicit sex with men, women and children's guru parampara.

*** Oh yeah, there are hardly any senior Vaishnavis left remaining in ISKCON, or maybe even remaining alive, and that is how we are going to revive ISKCON, by resurrecting this lot! We are going to bring ISKCON out of the grave by forwarding people who already have one foot in the grave.

Where do I sign up! Sounds reasonable to me. Sorry, I got to go grab my percodans now, my head is exploding. Hee hee!

ys pd] angel108b@yahoo.com