Transcription
Hello everybody. Uh, thanks for listening. I'm going to be responding here to a series of very heavy and fortunately extremely inaccurate uh accusations and criticisms coming from my dear god brother Koswami. And I'm going to respond to his uh at times uh very heavy criticisms of me uh simply by giving you objective information about myself, what I've been doing, and about what Vishnav culture actually is.
Uh, I see this as a uh an extraordinary opportunity coming from Krishna for me to clear up uh some false assumptions and beliefs about Vadic culture, which I feel are significantly weakening uh our outreach. And although Baktiv Kaswami sort of repeatedly claims that I have given up the fight to spread Krishna consciousness, I used to be a good preacher, but of course, those days are long gone. And now, rather than work sincerely to really, or through bold teaching, to spread Praopad's mission, I have uh sort of been mentally kidnapped by academia. In fact, he uses the term Stockholm syndrome, which means that someone is actually abusing you or harming you, but you come under their control. So, you actually see them as somehow your protectors or as people you should please. So, I'll try to do the best I can considering that I'm uh now suffering from Stockholm syndrome. And and I've sort of, sorry, but this stuff, you'll see as I get into it. It's just, I mean, it's amazing that I've come under the influence [clears throat] of uh atheists and materialist scholars. [snorts]
And so I'll just read one little quote here from Bak Kaswami. I'll I'll try to be, I mean, it is a serious thing, but uh the accusations, many of them are just so wild that uh and inaccurate that it's probably healthier to laugh at it than to get really angry or anything like that. So, quote from Baktvikaswami: "Most Vishnav devotees today, especially in the West, are as if captive in a culture that is hostile to the whole Vadic worldview in which Krishna consciousness exists."
Now, there's something really interesting here, and that is that the whole Vadic worldview. Now, that should refer to philosophy. In fact, in the Bhagavad Gita, chapter 18, texts 20-22, Krishna describes the three gunas, the gunas of knowledge, or awareness, or consciousness in the three modes. And it's clear if you read those verses that he's talking about worldview. And so, what's happened here, as I will show, is that Bakti Vikaswami uh seems to believe that the whole Vadic worldview, view, not exclusively, but often refers to external things, which Praupad directly said are superficial. But let's just get into this more. The whole Vadic worldview. My favorite book is the Bhagavad Gita, and also the Bhagavatam. I read them regularly, and I am on a daily basis absolutely inspired by Krishna's teachings. So, if I, if if that's the case, why am I doing such unnecessary things like trying to speak the language of academia? Not embrace the ideas, because Bakti Vikaswami has not given one example of actually embraced the ideas of materialistic philosophy, but the language. He mentions that I used to be kind of useful uh to Lord Caitanya's movement uh when I was just doing regular preaching like he does, but when I stopped being like him, uh, I guess my utility sort of really went down.
One interesting thing is actually, I mean, there's just so much to say. I just try to get it all in. I have never in my life been preaching, I would say, more boldly, with more enthusiasm, and with better results, which I can talk about later also. I mean, we're getting extraordinary results, which somehow have not come up on Baktivikaswami's radar. One reason is that so many leaders in ISKCON have been so insulting and critical, insulting and critical of Krishna West, and have done their best to trash it to other devotees, that basically I stopped trying to communicate with them, you know, with the movement, which um, in which so many leaders, not always as sort of, what's the word, insultingly, and as say, but I mean, so many leaders, because nowadays, almost everyone in ISKCON, or a strong majority of the devotees, are disciples of gurus who are servants of Praupad. The number, the percentage of active devotees, devotees who are actively preaching, the percentage of Praupad disciples, of course, is very small nowadays. There are great examples of of wonderful devotee Praupad disciples who are preaching, but they're a small minority now. And so, therefore, if ISKCON gurus, as I can't say most of them, but I strongly suspect most of them, either directly criticize Krishna West and often as irrationally as Baktivikaswami, which I'm going to demonstrate, by the way, uh, or some ISKCON leaders may not directly and sort of grossly uh criticize everything we're doing and misunderstand everything we're doing, but they'll just say, well, yeah, you don't need to do that. So, therefore, I can't really take advantage of all the facilities and resources of the Hari Krishna movement, even though I'm a loyal member of it, uh, because of all the, with all due respect, ignorant criticism of it coming from leaders who don't really understand it.
So, therefore, in in this talk right here, and of course, Bakti, I I'm really glad it's like a boil bursting, you know, I'm glad that Bakti Vikaswami sort of is the uh, brought up in a spectacular way, almost all of the misconceptions, misunderstandings, and even misinterpretations of what Vishnav culture is. They're all here in one place. So, I really consider this to be a great opportunity to respond to that. So, let's go on now.
He says that "some influential leaders of Vishnav society, I'm sure I'm a poster boy for that, are as if siding with their anti-Vishnav cultural capitals, anti-Vishnav culture. They're swept up uh in these secular ideas and progressive values." So, progressive has now become sort of a negative. "They're swept up in these secular ideas and progressive values and rhetoric. And those, although shastra teaches many ways opposite to what the predominant worldview of contemporary academia teaches, those who are supposed to be teaching shastra, in many cases, they teach against shastra, or they give the message of shastra warped." That's a negative. "Warped to fit into modern culture, trying to make it more palatable for themselves and for what they imagine will be more palatable for Western people in general." Well, that's a punamukha, which in Sanskrit would mean a mouthful. So, first of all, sorry, but it's uh, anyway, I'll, it's not that I'm not serious about this. Just these things are so wildly inaccurate that uh, you know, it is somewhat amusing.
First of all, why am I doing this at all? Why am I speaking academic language? Why am I taking the time and trouble to learn what the atheists or materialists are saying and to learn it at a somewhat sophisticated level so I can respond to it? Why? For the best of all possible reasons: because Praupad directly ordered me to do it. I can't imagine a better reason to do anything than the fact that Praupad ordered you to do it.
When I joined the Hari Krishna movement in 1969, uh, when I was even younger than now, I was a student at UC Berkeley, University of California in Berkeley, and I was living in the Berkeley Temple. In fact, I moved in just a few days before the semester was starting. And um, so I asked the temple president if I should stay in school or drop out and just, you know, sell incense on the streets and do other very revolutionary activities. And so the temple president said to me, "I don't know, ask the regional secretary." So I went to the regional secretary for the West Coast, who at that time was a brahmachari named Tamal Krishna. So I asked him, and he said, "I don't know, ask Praupad." >> [laughter] >> It just kept going up the food chain, so to speak. And then uh, and then I, so I wrote a letter to Praupad. And for me, it was like a, it was the most important thing I'd ever done in my life, the fact that I was going to write a letter to Praupad, because I knew that Praupad is seeing God at every moment, which just completely [clears throat] stunned and astonished me, that the fact that I could actually write a letter to someone who was seeing God. So, I, the temple president constituted, gave me sort of the whole morning off because it took me like, you know, an hour or two, just because I was trying so hard to be have the proper respect and devotion. So I finally finished the letter, and most of it was just praising Praupad, and then I guess a little section at the end saying, "Should I stay in school?" I mean, I made it very clear. I made it very clear. And Praupad wrote back to me promptly and said, "Yes, you should stay in, stay in the university." Why? He said, "Because in order for you to teach Krishna consciousness to intelligent, educated people." Precisely the kind of people Praupad came to recruit. Because don't forget that Praupad came to the West to re-establish, reconstitute a Brahmanical order, to put a head on the society. And just as Lord Chaitanya appeared at a time when there were certain norms, certain cultural expectations, requirements for a person to be recognized as qualified to be a teacher in society. And so Lord Chaitanya therefore took sannyas. First of all, he appeared as a scholar in a Brahman family. If you look at where in the social order Krishna appears in different incarnations, that should tip you off to something. So, it's just like, for example, Krishna appeared in a Kshatriya family, Vasudeva. Why? Because he was coming to get rid of the demons and save the devotees. And you could say, in his, not in Vrindavan, where you have the most intimate dealings with Krishna, but in terms of Krishna in his role to establish yoga dharma, [clears throat] right? It's amazing, I still remember that, considering how fallen I've become. So, top to bottom, Krishna comes. He says, "Because I want to um, because dharma has collapsed and adharma is rising, I have to reestablish it." To say, basically, "To save good people and to get rid of demonic people." And so he did that physically. He actually saved people and got rid of demons physically as Kshatriya. And therefore, in that mission of dharma-samsthāpana, establishing dharma, his most celebrated devotees were Kshatriyas like the Pandavas and the Yadus, especially the Pandavas and the Yadus. And we know, of course, Krishna's most intimate ecstatic pastimes are in Vrindavan, but in terms of establishing dharma and saving the world from adharma, his most important devotees were Kshatriyas. Similarly, Lord Chaitanya exhibited many very ecstatic, intimate pastimes. But in his role as the person who restores dharma, he did that as a scholar. Yeah. Lord Chaitanya debated with Prakashananda, who was a very influential scholar in Varanasi, a center of impersonalism, and of course, he converted uh, Trivikrama Pandit, who became an important member of his movement. So, he did that. And then, look who else he converted, so to speak. The Six Goswamis. These were all great intellectuals. They were scholars. They wrote books. They wrote very sophisticated books. So, that's how Lord Chaitanya established his movement. Of course, as we know, he did Harinam, you know, in the streets for the people in general. But in terms of the people who became his Acharyas, the Six Goswamis and uh, and others, they were great scholars. Lord Chaitanya was a great scholar.
So, here's the point. When we say "great scholar," you could say someone could argue falsely that, well, "great scholar" just means you're expert at the Vaishnav shastras, Bhagavatam, or Bhagavad Gita, and so on. But that's not the case. I mean, obviously, they were completely expert in those things. But if you read the commentaries of the Acharyas, Jiva Goswami, Santana Goswami, uh, Shridhar Swami, before Lord Chaitanya, but a person highly honored by Lord Chaitanya, Shridhar Swami, what you find is that Lord Chaitanya's most important direct disciples, at least for in the sense of, you know, because we're Rupanugas, after all, they were great scholars. And to be a great scholar then didn't mean only Vaishnav shastra. It meant you were expert in grammar, Panini's grammar. You knew all about, even like astronomy. You knew about poetics in Sanskrit called Kavya. And Lord Chaitanya showed that in his famous uh debate with the Keshava Kashmiri Pandit, where the, the devastating criticism Lord Chaitanya made, which humbled the Keshava Kashmiri Pandit, they were not from Vaishnav shastras. They were actually just from books, very sophisticated texts on poetics. Consider Rupa Goswami's "Nectar of Devotion," "Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu." The whole rasa vichar, rasa analysis, which he does so brilliantly, he didn't invent that. In fact, rasa vichar, sort of analyzing rasa and rasābhāsa and all that, that had been a really big deal among non-devotee scholars for centuries. So, what he did, in order to write the "Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu," Rupa Goswami had to master all these very sophisticated texts on rasa. I've read some of them. They're, believe me, they're not easy. They're sort of like, you know, like head-scratchers. I mean, they're really very sophisticated books. So, grammar, poetics, rasa theory, astronomy, and other things which I, you know, I'm just not mentioning now. In other words, they had to be thoroughly expert in "quote unquote" mundane scholarship. And then what they did is, in in in the mood of yuta-vairagya, using, in or engaging, using what is favorable for Krishna's service, they Krishnized all these things or used it for Krishna consciousness. That's exactly what Praupad told me to do. He didn't say, "You need to read Bhakti shastra." He said, because I wasn't going to learn much Bhakti shastra at the University of California in Berkeley in 1969, believe me, I wasn't. And if I would have taken a course in Hindu studies, it would have done, you know, just would have been an more of an attack on Vaishnavism than a uh support of it. So, and yet Praupad told me to stay there. He said, "Because I had to get that quote unquote mundane education in order to um persuade other intelligent people." And that's exactly what Lord Chaitanya did, and that's exactly what the Six Goswamis did. But as I'm going to show, there's a lot in this uh sort of this fiery critique of my life and my and my apparently false attempt to serve Praupad. uh there's just a lot of uh misunderstanding there. And when a senior leader in the movement sort of grossly misunderstands a lot of things, that's um, you know, that can lead to bad results. So, I'll go forward.
Um, well, I'll just say what I have done is for several years now, working with the great devotee from India, Prabhupada Prabhu, who's the last living active member of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, who was personally appointed by Praupad to that position. And so he's, you know, he has a genius for getting people to work together and encourage them. And I more or less have taken over the role of being the academic director. In fact, I'm the academic dean of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, which is Praupad's main academic project. And I have done a lot. I have uh strongly pushed the devotees not just to engage in, not that they were doing this, but not just to engage in sort of uh, you know, things that aren't directly directly promoting Praupad's great thesis of "Life Comes From Life." And I very much, you know, I I'm actually quite militant. In fact, not only am I not under the whammy of mundane scholars, the reason I did not myself pursue an academic career, which I haven't, is because I wanted to be free to speak openly Praupad's teachings. And just as I translated Praupad's books into Spanish and Portuguese, what I'm basically doing is translating Praupad's teachings into the language of academia. And if someone doesn't know that, unfortunately, what it shows is that they don't know much about contemporary scholarship. Because to say that I've lost my preaching spirit, it just means someone is sort of seriously unaware of what I'm saying. For example, we had a a conference several months ago on evolution. And if you listen to my talk, you'll see it's very, as they say in the Hari Krishna world, fired up, very powerfully defending our point of view.
In fact, one time I was walking with Praupad uh in Rancho Park in Los Angeles. Uh and um Praupad was in the mood. That's when he was doing "Life Comes From Life" debates, and he was kind of in the mood. He wanted to go at it. So, as we were walking, Praupad said, "You know, I want someone to take the part of the atheist. I want to have another debate." And no one volunteered. So finally, Karand, temple president, BBT trustee, at GBC there, he said, "Okay." So he started making some points. And at one point, he said, "Well," he said to Praupad, "You know, you said that Krishna..." And Praupad just cut him off. Praupad cut him off and said, "Do not bring in Krishna here. Never forget that I was standing right next to Praupad. Do not bring in Krishna here. First, we will talk about your point." By the way, what Praupad was doing there is the whole Vadic process. It's called purva paksha, which means, "What do your opponents say?" And Praupad was enunciating a principle which is very well known among those who sort of ruin their lives by, you know, studying scholarship, is that before you bring in your philosophy, you, in the most, I don't want to say generous way, but in in a very fair, in a very fair way, you present the opposing argument, then you defeat it. And so, if you don't know the opposing argument, if you're not educated in that particular area, you you're not very useful. And so, what I did at Harvard, or at the University of California in Los Angeles, before Harvard, was I was learning all I could so that I could translate Praupad's teachings into the meta-language, the special language of scholarship. That is exactly what Ramanuja did in his Vedanta commentary. That is exactly what uh Rupa Goswami did in "The Nectar of Devotion." That is exactly what Jiva Goswami did. You have to learn the language of the people you're communicating with. You have to understand their point of view. You have to present their point of view fairly. And then you have to show that, well, actually, there's something better than that, and there are weaknesses, if not direct contradictions. And that's exactly what I've done. I would say, I don't want to sound proud, although maybe that's artificial for me not to sound proud, but the fact is, it's, I think it's quite fair to say that no one in the Hari Krishna movement has come up with as many powerful arguments against atheism. And that's what I've been doing. And I have been faithfully showing how Krishna, his spiritual body, the philosophy of Bhagavad Gita are ultimately perfectly rational, and [clears throat] and and there are things that a truly intelligent person should accept. That's what I've been doing.
Uh, as I've said before, I think that I, maybe we should consider the possibility that uh Bakti Vikaswami and myself are actually in different, but parallel universes. Because the HD Goswami that he is so uh enthusiastically criticizing, uh definitely not the one on this planet. I don't know where he gets his information, actually. I think I do know. He quoted someone from Brazil. Now, what's interesting about Brazil is that there are literally many hundreds of people, perhaps thousands, of good, intelligent devotees in Brazil that will verify that I've actually been helping them in Krishna consciousness directly. But Dr. Vaswami, he's showing the incredible rigor of his methodology, has found one person who, I I think I know who is, and if it's that person, it's not very complimentary, has found one person out of hundreds and thousands uh that has a lot of bad things to say about me. And before publicly uh insulting and offending and criticizing in very gross ways a senior member of ISKCON, senior to himself, actually, if that's worth anything nowadays, all it takes is one person in Brazil, not the hundreds or perhaps thousands who would give a completely opposite picture of what's going on there, but just that one person. And then let's go public with this. Let's get, and you could say he posted on his website. Well, it's all over the world now. And so to publicly, all around the world, say these really horrible things about me that I'm brainwashed, that I used to be a good devotee, that I'm actually serving the demons, I mean, you know, in ISKCON's in lingo, uh, that's pretty bad. Fortunately, he hasn't accused me of eating onion and garlic uh yet. He hasn't accused me yet of that. So anyway, so that's what I'm doing. What I'm actually doing, number one, is what Praupad directly ordered me to do. And number two, it's what all the previous Acharyas did. Bhaktivinoda was very well-read. Bhakti Siddhanta was very well-read. And we get to the Goswamis, they were like super academics in their culture. So, I'm following Praupad's order, following in the footsteps of the previous Acharyas, which means that I'm really a bad person. So, let's go on here, because there's just so much to say.
"So, for many years," that's him talking about me, "he has hardly been involved in preaching to academia." Actually, what I have concluded is my mission, not to preach to academia, because first of all, uh, academia is sort of like a mafia, or has been for many years, in which if you don't take the proper materialistic viewpoint and politically woke viewpoint, it's, you know, you probably won't get a job. And so, therefore, it's kind of been a, there's been a purge, sort of a Soviet-style purge of people with other views. Now, of course, there are many scholars who are much more sympathetic to our point of view. There are many Catholic universities, there are Protestant universities, there are public universities where they've, you know, they actually, so there are a lot of good people out there doing scholarship. But I think a very strong majority, in fact, it's something like 30 to 1, a very strong majority is materialistic, atheistic, and frankly, not very bright, because there are no really good arguments for materialism anyway. So, that's what I've been doing. Somehow, uh, I'm not preaching. And this person from Brazil, maybe he's the one that tipped off Bakti Vikaswami that I'm not preaching. Although I've never made more good, intelligent disciples in my life than I'm than is happening now. We're actually making a lot of devotees who commit themselves to Praupad, to ISKCON. And so this idea that I used to preach is, um, like I said, best explanation I can think of is, well, there's two possibilities. Number one, uh, Bakti Vikaswami and myself are in parallel universes, sort of like string theory, or uh, he forgot to check his facts. So, it's one of those two.
So, this curious phenomenon of devotees going out for chanting the holy names in public in jeans and t-shirts. First of all, I've never asked anyone to do that. And from the very beginning of Krishna West, although I think there are worse things to do than going out in jeans and t-shirts, which I personally don't think are sinful. It's not very stylish, but it's not sinful. So, um, Praupad himself authorized devotees wearing Western clothes to sell his books. Uh, ironically, here's, I mean, there's so many cases where Bakti Vikaswami not only gets it wrong, it's like the very opposite of the truth. Because what I have been insisting on, and I don't know if you know, everyone in Krishna West follows it. I mean, Praupad couldn't get all his disciples to follow what he was saying either, read his books, or to follow the principles. But what I've been insisting on is that when you're representing Krishna, you should be dressed not like a bum, but you should be dressed in in a, you know, not formal. You don't have to wear like a tie and suit or something, but in a way that's respectable. In a way that's respectable. Jeans, I [clears throat] mean, I personally have not worn jeans in, I don't know, since I joined the Hari Krishna movement. So it's been well over half a century since I put on some jeans. But I have insisted that to the devotees that if you are, for example, going to a temple, if you're going to a temple, then dress respectfully. Unfortunately, some of these ultra-conservatives in ISKCON have not distinguished between two very different things. One is a cultural principle. Another is an ethnic detail. So, it's a cultural principle that if you were going to a house of God, if you're serving Krishna, try to dress in a way that's socially respectable. That's an that's a cultural principle. The ethnic detail, which I'm going to talk about, dhotis and saris, because I've actually done my homework on that too, and I'm going to talk to you about that. So, no, I've never asked anyone in my life. I never asked anyone to chant, do Harinam in jeans and t-shirts. Although, ironically, if you look at a t-shirt, let's say it's clean, it's not ragged, doesn't have a drooping collar, doesn't make you look like a bum. Let's say it's, you know, like a t-shirt. What's the difference between that and a kurta? Okay, what are the differences? A kurta has buttons. T-shirts don't have buttons. So, apparently, as Krishna says in the Gita, "Among shirts, I am shirts with buttons." I mean, it's just, I don't get it. Is it why is a kurta the only difference? It has buttons and it goes below the waist. So, if somehow a shirt going only to the waist, or maybe a little below the waist, maybe it's those extra inches below the waist that make it, you know, give it all its spiritual shakti. But in general, I mean, some people pay hundreds of dollars for jeans. I mean, there are jeans and jeans. Again, I never in my life asked anyone to dress like that. I don't wear jeans. But um, I think there, and it's not what I'd like, you know, I'd like them to dress a little more uh formally, but I don't think it's the end of the world, and I don't think it's a threat to Vadic civilization as we know it. Ironically, if you look at Lord Chaitanya, there's absolutely no evidence that Lord Chaitanya or his followers when they did Harinam were dressed differently than anyone else. They didn't have uniforms. They just dressed like everybody else. A lot of times they didn't wear shirts. So maybe wearing t-shirts is kind of conservative in that regard. So, if by doing this, he could actually make hundreds and thousands of Western devotees, that would be glorious. But it hasn't happened. So, boy, he really raised the bar on me, you know, at a time when, you know, practically Praupad's mission in almost every major Western city is overwhelmingly from people from a Hindu background, who, by the way, are wonderful people, and I'm not criticizing them. I I think it's important for me to keep [clears throat] saying this, because apparently a lot of things, unless I say it a thousand times, people, even if I do say it a thousand times, a lot of people think I never said it. My personal experience with ISKCON devotees from an Indian background is that they're really great people. They're really great people. With me, they've always, I say, almost all of them have been generous, hospitable, uh, eager to learn. They're some of the best people I've met. And so, I have absolutely nothing to criticize in our large Indian congregations all over the world, because most of them are really great people. What I'm criticizing is, where are the Western communities that Praupad created, and now are so severely diminished? So, no one is making hundreds and thousands of Western devotees. So, apparently, I have to do better than traditional, let's say, traditional temples. They brag if they make three or four devotees in a year. If I make 30, I'm a bum. So, I mean, do I really have to make thousands to show that what I'm doing is bonafide? What about dozens? I mean, how many Western projects are making dozens of devotees? And by that, I want to make a distinction, and this is not meant to criticize anyone, but it is a, you know, sociologically, I think a a valid distinction. We're not just talking about people who take a yoga class from an ISKCON devotee, or even go on a pilgrimage to India, which is really good. Not criticizing that. But what sociology shows is that a movement will really make it, a movement like ours, when you build your core. In other words, why don't we see how many Western devotees are being made by different projects? Devotees who actually will stand up and be counted in public. "I am a member of ISKCON. I'm not just interested in this or that sort of yogic type program offered by an ISKCON devotee, but I am an ISKCON devotee. I'm dedicating my life to Praupad's mission. I am a follower. They publicly declare, 'I am a follower of Praupad. He is my Founder-Acharya. I am trying to qualify myself for initiation.'" If we see how many Western devotees Krishna West is making who really become devotees of Praupad, followers of Praupad, aspiring for initiation, openly telling the world that "I'm a member of Praupad of ISKCON. I'm a follower of Praupad." I'd say we're probably in the top tier. Uh, and if Bakti Vikaswami would have asked me, I could have told him, but he didn't ask me. He asked, you know, one of the very few people in Brazil that, you know, thinks I'm a train wreck for ISKCON, whereas the, you know, the thousand devotees, hundreds and hundreds or thousands of devotees who think what I'm doing is really good for ISKCON, uh, he somehow didn't get around to those people. So, if we talk about making devotees who are, um, again, core devotees, not friends of the movement, core devotees, uh, I think we're one of the best Western preaching projects in ISKCON.
So, uh, then he says, "New Age creeped in in the form of so-called bridge preaching with physical." There's no one on this planet who has criticized bridge preaching as much as myself. And the reason is because, as I've said a thousand times, it tends to be foot-of-the-bridge preaching. It's like the old joke, you know, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" "To get to the other side." But there's a corollary here. "Why did the chicken cross the bridge?" And it's to get to the other side. So, I have emphasized, and you know, to what extent the people in Krishna West follow me. I mean, to what extent did everyone in ISKCON strictly follow everything that Praupad said, like, for example, "You should give second initiation to women." Uh, there's an example of Praupad personally stating something, doing it himself, but Bakti Vikaswami thinking that he knows better. Well, I don't think, I don't think I know better than Praupad. And what I will show, sorry, this going on forever, but everything I'm doing, I can trace back to a direct statement of Praupad, or many direct statements of Praupad strongly encouraging it.
So, bridge preaching, physical yoga. I, it's funny because I have many disciples that teach physical yoga, and of course, they're very good devotees, and I support them, and I, you know, I never say you can't do that. But what I've always emphasized is, uh, that's not the center. That can't, physical yoga cannot be the central outreach program for the simple reason that it limits you to a very small group of people. Uh, and I go into the whole sociological analysis, academic studies of who takes yoga, the fact that it's 80% women. If it was 80% men, it would be the same problem. And you know why people take so, anyway, to say that I'm sort of pushing ISKCON or devotees to do preach with physical yoga is like wildly inaccurate. It's, it's like it's kind of comically absurd. Although again, I I'm not, I don't criticize devotees that teach physical yoga because I know many of them are, you know, excellent devotees. It's just not something I have ever emphasized. Alternative theories, alternative therapies. I am, and I know many people will probably lose faith in me for saying this, but I'm kind of allopathic. So, mundane and bogus psychology. Well, we don't need mundane and bogus psychology because, uh, the Bhagavad Gita has the best psychology. Again, a devotee's letter that in Brazil, hey, guess what? IS IS is just saturated with astrology and Vastu Shastra and um, all this, you know, stuff. Praupad, I've been the biggest person, the person that's most pushing back. So, to say that I'm behind all this, whoever wrote, notice that he said, "a devotee's letters," one devotee, not the thousand who will say, "No, that's all nonsense," but the one. And I think I know who it is, and if it's the person I think it is, uh, so it's not, uh, someone that, uh, is going to make Bakti Vikaswami look good.
The letter writer also argues that "Brazil BBT has suffered both in quality and quantity of books. This is because HDG has lost faith in Srila Praupad's books and that's filtered into the BBT, who indirectly are discouraging their distribution." So, the BBT is discouraging distribution. Um, no, actually, despite what this fool said, and he is a fool, uh, I have not lost faith in Praupad's books. Uh, I read them regularly, and I say all the time to anyone who will listen is that no one can match Praupad's spiritual potency. There are no books anywhere in the world that are spiritually Krishna consciously powerful as Praupad's books. However, I also say that I see one of my services as being to bring people to Praupad's books. And that's exactly what my preaching has done, because every person that I initiate, or all the people who somehow follow me, um, understand that Praupad is the Founder-Acharya, and no one is on his level. His books are the most potent. We all understand that. One other point is that I have had nothing to do managerially with the Brazilian BBT in almost half a century, you know, 40 to 45 years. So maybe I'm also responsible if book distribution has declined in Bulgaria or Indonesia. That's probably my fault also. Um, but yeah, I do read Praupad's books myself. There's, and I, I say all the time, they are the most powerful spiritual books on this planet. And I see my job, what I'm doing is bringing people to Praupad and his books.
"No longer aligned with Guru, Sadhu, and Shastra." This ought to be good. Oh, get this. This is like, I mean, just for sheer entertainment value, these things are amazing. "I'm not aligned with Guru, Sadhu, and Shastra because the hand should be covered when chanting mantras." How unfortunate that no one told Praupad that, because we have all these pictures of Praupad with his uncovered hand chanting Gayatri mantra. Praupad said, "As far as be about to be quotes the Hari Bhakti Vilasa," which Praupad said is a book written for householders in India, hundreds of years ago. In other words, just as Rupa Goswami sort of took over the whole rasa vichar movement, which was a big deal back then among intellectuals analyzing rasa, and Rupa Goswami just powerfully Krishnized it. So he just sort of took over that whole domain. Similarly, India was very ritualistic at the time, and so the Hari Bhakti Vilasa, among many other things, sort of Krishnizes it. And Praupad said he placed three conditions on it: that it is for householders in India in that time. So, in other words, Praupad's personal example is not evidence, but a a book which deals with all kinds of ritual details is evidence, even though Praupad said it's not for this age, not for the Western world, and not for us. But that's more important than Praupad's own example. And yet, I'm being accused of not following Praupad. This is rich. I mean, this is, what can you say?
Then another point, uh, about stitched clothing. Quotes from the Srimad Bhagavatam purport: "A sannyasi or a person about to perform a ritualistic ceremony should not dress himself in clothing sewn with a needle." Praupad's quoting something, but he never followed it. He never followed it. Why? Because, as he explained to Allen Ginsberg in the famous long conversation they had, Praupad is just giving us a picture of this culture, but personally, he never followed that. We have many pictures of Praupad installing deities, you know, worshiping deities with stitched clothing. So, if Praupad mentions some ritual detail, I mean, mentions a lot of things. You can find Praupad, for example, translating verses in the Second Canto, other Cantos, that talk about very sophisticated, impossible yoga techniques where you're lifting, you know, the life air here and there, you shoot it out the head, and Praupad says that you should do this. So, you can find Praupad, you know, hundreds, if not thousands, of Praupad statements and purports with the word "should" in it, when he's just giving us a historical picture. He never taught it for ISKCON. He never said it should be taught in ISKCON. He never did it himself. But he's simply giving us a historical panorama of what this culture was. So, if we were required to follow every statement by Praupad that has the word "should" in it, like "you should do this," ISKCON would be absolutely unrecognizable, and it would be, it would anyway, it's a silly point. Praupad didn't follow that. Praupad didn't follow that, and he never asked us to follow. Here's one statement in a purport giving something from ancient history. Where's the letter from Praupad saying, "I don't want any of my disciples go on the altar with stitched clothing"? Do we have that? Do we have Praupad taking this ancient ritualistic detail and applying it to us, saying, "Now I want everyone, my disciples, to do that"? I don't think we do. Uh, I've argued against these practices on the basis they are unscientific or illogical. I have to admit, it is kind of, I mean, it's sort of a ritual thing that made sense to people at a certain time in history. Maybe they had a reason. We don't know the reason. Maybe there'll be a good reason. But, um, anyway, this, my attitude is quote unquote spiritually suicidal. I must, maybe I'm a ghost. Maybe I'm dead and don't know it, right? Like in those ghost movies where someone actually is dead but they don't know it. Then the people around me must be ghosts, because they actually hear what I'm saying and, uh, we communicate. So maybe they're all ghosts too. So this attitude, I I think that directly directly violating Praupad's standards in an area where he did say over and over that you should do this, such as giving second initiation to women, and then directly refusing to do what Praupad did, even though he did it and told us to do it. If you want to talk about something spiritually damaging, I think that might be a good candidate.