Locan Ananda Dasa
Donald J. Trump is now the President-elect of the United States of America. Before he declared his candidacy on June 16, 2015, he had no experience running for office and he was not a polished politically correct speaker like the other sixteen Republican candidates he was running against. Somehow he was able to knock them off one by one until he was the last man standing. His popular support was proven by the record he set by amassing nearly 14 million votes in the Republican primaries.
The political world was prepared to coronate Hillary Clinton and the mainstream media did everything in its power to point out every defect in the Republican candidate, but the people were not as concerned with his inappropriate language as they were with Hillary's dishonesty and corruption. When the pundits said Donald Trump had no path to 270 electoral votes, Hillary's tribe began planning the celebration of her victory, but Trump proved everyone wrong. How did he do that? By never giving up.
I am most surprised by the attitude of devotees. They are repeating all of the same talking points that are endlessly repeated by mainstream media (MSM). Devotees should distinguish themselves by seeing this situation based on their understanding of how we are meant to spread Krishna consciousness. Donald Trump and his whole family are prime candidates for becoming God conscious. Srila Prabhupada wanted all intelligent people to receive, study and assimilate the teachings found in his books. All devotees with Sankirtana experience know not to judge who is fit and who is unfit to receive the blessings of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. It would be a great achievement to get Srila Prabhupada's books into the hands of the new President-elect or any of his sons or daughters.
I remember Srila Prabhupada commenting on how extraordinary it was that the daughter of the then current President received one of his books from the hand of a Sankirtana devotee. Prabhupada said the daughter would take the book home and show the President and First Lady, "Look at this beautiful book that someone gave me today."
There was a time when devotees were so well organized that they were giving out free prasadam to thousands of people daily. There were ecstatic kirtana parties going out daily in every major city in the world, and our books were being translated and distributed in all of the most widely spoken languages. But now, instead of seeing the preaching opportunity presented by having a President-elect who resides right on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, devotees are wasting their time finding fault in this conditioned soul who is hardly different in his habits than any of us were before becoming devotees. We should remember that the pure devotee is even kinder than Krishna because he knows Krishna's purpose. We should emulate the pure devotee and follow in his footsteps. We should remember that Caitanya Mahaprabhu, as patita-pavana, is the deliverer of the most fallen, and that He saves those who are most fallen first. How merciful!
Devotees are supposed to act as an extended limb of the Personality of Godhead. We are encouraged by our spiritual master to act as a touchstone that has the power to turn any object into gold. Just as the alchemist can turn iron into gold, by association and by fanning the spark of spiritual life, we can introduce the First Family to Krishna's pure devotee and guide them in the direction of the lotus feet of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna. If we simply criticize these special but fallen personalities and pile on just as the mundane media has been doing over the course of the entire campaign, it will show how we have lost our enthusiasm to preach to conditioned souls. The result will be withdrawing to an ordinary humdrum life that presents no challenge to save anyone, including ourselves.
Donald J. Trump is now the President-elect of the United States of America. Before he declared his candidacy on June 16, 2015, he had no experience running for office and he was not a polished politically correct speaker like the other sixteen Republican candidates he was running against. Somehow he was able to knock them off one by one until he was the last man standing. His popular support was proven by the record he set by amassing nearly 14 million votes in the Republican primaries.
The political world was prepared to coronate Hillary Clinton and the mainstream media did everything in its power to point out every defect in the Republican candidate, but the people were not as concerned with his inappropriate language as they were with Hillary's dishonesty and corruption. When the pundits said Donald Trump had no path to 270 electoral votes, Hillary's tribe began planning the celebration of her victory, but Trump proved everyone wrong. How did he do that? By never giving up.
I am most surprised by the attitude of devotees. They are repeating all of the same talking points that are endlessly repeated by mainstream media (MSM). Devotees should distinguish themselves by seeing this situation based on their understanding of how we are meant to spread Krishna consciousness. Donald Trump and his whole family are prime candidates for becoming God conscious. Srila Prabhupada wanted all intelligent people to receive, study and assimilate the teachings found in his books. All devotees with Sankirtana experience know not to judge who is fit and who is unfit to receive the blessings of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. It would be a great achievement to get Srila Prabhupada's books into the hands of the new President-elect or any of his sons or daughters.
I remember Srila Prabhupada commenting on how extraordinary it was that the daughter of the then current President received one of his books from the hand of a Sankirtana devotee. Prabhupada said the daughter would take the book home and show the President and First Lady, "Look at this beautiful book that someone gave me today."
There was a time when devotees were so well organized that they were giving out free prasadam to thousands of people daily. There were ecstatic kirtana parties going out daily in every major city in the world, and our books were being translated and distributed in all of the most widely spoken languages. But now, instead of seeing the preaching opportunity presented by having a President-elect who resides right on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, devotees are wasting their time finding fault in this conditioned soul who is hardly different in his habits than any of us were before becoming devotees. We should remember that the pure devotee is even kinder than Krishna because he knows Krishna's purpose. We should emulate the pure devotee and follow in his footsteps. We should remember that Caitanya Mahaprabhu, as patita-pavana, is the deliverer of the most fallen, and that He saves those who are most fallen first. How merciful!
Devotees are supposed to act as an extended limb of the Personality of Godhead. We are encouraged by our spiritual master to act as a touchstone that has the power to turn any object into gold. Just as the alchemist can turn iron into gold, by association and by fanning the spark of spiritual life, we can introduce the First Family to Krishna's pure devotee and guide them in the direction of the lotus feet of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna. If we simply criticize these special but fallen personalities and pile on just as the mundane media has been doing over the course of the entire campaign, it will show how we have lost our enthusiasm to preach to conditioned souls. The result will be withdrawing to an ordinary humdrum life that presents no challenge to save anyone, including ourselves.
[PADA: Right, some of the devotees have been obsessed with the faults or benefits of various folks involved the USA 2016 election, while they are not so obsessed with the problems created by the faults of the current crop of bogus spiritual masters in ISKCON. They seem to be somewhat oblivious to the problems in their own society while making extensive comments on the outside society.
OK we are not supposed to obsess with the material society, but get our own society functioning properly, and show the mundane society how a real society is supposed to work. That has not happened. I am actually a little amazed at how some devotees have sent me detailed analysis of the mundane election process while these same people cannot make a detailed analysis of the conditioned soul guru problem in ISKCON.
Anyway, Donald Trump is a conditioned soul. He will make some apparent good moves, some apparent bad moves, some problems will seem to get better, some will seem to get worse, but that is the nature of conditioned souls interacting with the material energy. Its not something we need to dwell on a whole lot, especially when our own so-called devotee society is involved in so many scandals and corruption -- that almost makes the materialistic folks look more like saints than our group.
As Jesus said, render unto Cesar what is his, and render unto God what is His, in sum, work along with the material system as best you can, but keep your focus on the higher platform. We simply cannot expect the material society to make big improvements if what is supposed to be Lord Chaitanya's movement is allowed to become corrupted, and many think its corrupted worse than the mundane society. Anyway, we might need to save ourselves first, then we can work on saving others. ys pd]
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