Суд над Бхагавад-гитой / Attempt to ban Bhagavad-gita

44. HOW SEXYASIS RATIONALIZE IT

But ISKCON's gurus have an open policy that behavior is not so important as being appointed "guru." Being appointed does not at all mean being qualified. It almost always means political considerations-power politics. Kirtanananda exposed the official GBC position in this matter in a lecture in Bombay just after Jayatirtha's departure. He said, " In pure devotional service, there is no duality, see, therefore even when they say, 'O, these GBCs, they can make mistakes, that does not matter. Even our mistakes are spiritual. That is a fact. Because why? They are a product of our serving Krsna. Whatever we do in this connection to Krsna, that is spiritual... In the spiritual world also there appears to be mistakes, but there are no mistakes. Thatt is also perfect. There is no duality, there is no good, no bad. But still all these things are existing in perfection."

In other words, he is saying "We 'gurus' can do any abominable thing we like and still be considered saintly, because our inner motive is ultimately to serve Krsna." This philosophy is very common. Prabhupada spoke about it often. In the West these men are called hippies. In India they are called sahajiyas. In essence, sahajiya means "cheap," or, no discipline. The first principle of discipline for a real sannyasi is absolutely no connection with women. The fact is, a sannyasi, unless he is actually on the level of Haridasa Thakura, or Srila Prabhupada, shouldn't even talk to women, look at women, or think of women. That is extremely sinful as Lord Caitanya himself demonstrated by banning Chota Haridasa from His association. ISKCON's sexyasi // gurus" are nothing but pure, unalloyed sahajiyas. In many situations they are acting exactly like pimps.

This next section is just to give a little idea of some of the principles on how to find and keep a spouse. In the complete book, this subject will be fully explained giving thousands of references from all of Prabhupada's teachings and Vedic texts. Since this book may not be complete for up to a year, we are giving some basic ideas here so devotees can avoid some of the more common pitfalls.

45. HOW TO FIND A REAL HUSBAND

So now that we've determined that women are meant to be married, they are meant to devote themselves cent percent" to their sincere devotee husbands, and that they are never meant to think of any other men, especially a sexyasi, the next question is, where is such a devotee husband to be found? Is it even possible to find one in this day and age?

46. KNOWING HOW TO LOOK

Since this section is primarily meant for devotees who have a basic understanding of karma, we are not going to go into detail here to explain these intricacies. The idea is that if one is sincere, then Krsna will send the bona fide guru, and if one is sincere Krsna will send the bona fide spouse. But this does not mean that we don'thavetomakeanyefforttounderstandwhatisthebonafideguru,andwhatisthebonafidespouse."God helps those who help themselves." So the first qualification for getting a bona fide mater is to carefully study the philosophy and have a good idea of what real spiritual life means. There are many bogus men posing as sincere but who have ulterior motives, and you must be able to spot them. There are ways to tell. A history of the persons past is usually a very good indicator. Fools try to say that a person's past does not matter for devotees, but that refers to the devotees who are strictly on the path without deviation. Most devotees are in the neophyte stage. That means they have bad tendencies and qualities that have not gone away yet.

47. SACRIFICE AND PRAYER

So the first prerequisite is to know exactly what qualifications to look for in a spouse, and the second thing is to qualify for Krsna's mercy. That means sacrifice. We have to prove our sincerity by performing sacrifice. The sacrifice for this age is chanting Hare Krsna. In Vedic culture there are other demigods one prays to for a good spouse, but since we are only interested in Krsna, we should pray to Krsna. There is no harm in praying to goddess Katyayani for a good husband to help in achieving Krsna, but generally we should just chant Hare Krsna as attentively as possible. The prayer should be something like this: "My dear Lord, please give me a husband that I can help in his service to You. That way, I can also serve You directly through him, and go back to You in the end. I promise to serve him faithfully and never disturb his mind over petty squabbles that mean nothing. I don't care for my personal happiness since, I know that my serving a good husband is my religious duty, and will award me the perfection of life." For the men, they can pray to this effect, "My dear Lord, please send me a faithful wife so that I can better engage in your loving service. I cannot make it alone, and so need the help of a faithful companion to get me over these youthful years. I promise to engage in your service more and more as the years progress and I come closer to sannyasa. Then I will be able to fully engage in your loving service. In the meantime, I will take very good care of the woman you send me to take charge of, and I promise to never misuse or exploit her in any way. I will do my very best to take us both back home to You after this very life."

48. PREPARING FOR YOUR MATE

These two sacrifices, chanting Hare Krsna attentively, and studying carefully the philosophy, are essential. Then there are other sacrifices that must be performed. If you want a brahmin for a husband, then the woman will have to give up any habits that a brahmin husband will not allow, such as using bad language, eating indiscriminately, getting intoxicated, associating with persons who do the above things, talking frivolously, listening to low class music, etc. She must make an altar and perform daily puja-her future husband will be expecting that of her. She must offer all of her food first. She must be very chaste and not flirt with men. There is no need of thinking that a woman must flirt to meet a perspective husband. When Krsna sees she is sincere in her sacrifices, He will arrange a suitable husband for her. When this happens she will know it from within.

If the woman is not inclined to this strict lifestyle then maybe she is not meant to have a brahmin for a husband. She has to make the decision of how strict she wants to live with her husband and she has to live that strictly herself. If she wants to live a life full of sense gratification, then she should pray for a husband who will also be a sense gratifier, but who wig be able to give it up in time. It all boils down to sincere prayer and sacrifice.

48. REMOVING BAD QUALITIES

If one has bad qualities that are a serious disqualification for getting a good husband then one has to sacrifice some time to remove those habits. There are many ways of changing one's conditioning. If a woman has some bad habits that she wants to purify before meeting a husband, then she can sacrifice some time every morning and evening to praying for help in removing those bad qualities. For example, if a woman has the bad habit of being rebellious toward following instructions, then she can write out a long prayer on all the reasons why she has that terrible quality, and all the good reasons why she should give it up. Every morning and evening she should recite that prayer with full attention. This is a sacrifice. The more sacrifice one performs, the better the chances of getting a good mate. One has to have complete faith that Krsna will send the perfect husband/wife when the time is right. One must be patient. There is never any loss in performing sacrifice.

49. HOW TO RECOGNIZE YOUR ETERNAL COMPANION

A time will come when a man is presented before you. The question wig naturally be, "Is this the man Krsna wants me to marry or is it Maya coming to trick me?" There are different symptoms to look for in making that decision. What were the circumstances of meeting the man? Were they auspicious? Were you chanting Hare Krsna when you first heard his name, or were you having a bad day and your mind was disturbed? First impressions are very important. Who introduced you? Was it a devotee you respect, or was it in the line to a movie. At present we don't know of any astrologers who know the science well enough to trust with such an important decision, so the best way to see if there is compatibility is to perform an in-depth personality test. He should write out all the things he likes to do and not do, and you should to the same. A mature third party can examine them. Do they match well? Are there similar interests? Only if everything seems very auspicious would we recommend that you associate together, and that also depends on your status. If you are a divorcee looking for a second husband, then it is not as dangerous to associate as it would be if you have never been with a man before. In the latter case your father or a close, but mature, devotee friend should carefully try and see if the two personalities are compatible. Many devotees are studying astrology, and some claim that their predictions are accurate for marriage, but again, we have not seen anyone yet with a record that we would trust with such an important decision. We don't even recommend that one consult an astrologer until they are more organized and have a better track record. Srila Prabhupada condemned that method in several letters. The best method is clearly, sincere prayer, lots of study, and careful consideration with the guidance of a mature and knowledgeable householder. You should know the philosophy inside and out. In our book we will have a questionnaire on marriage that every devotee should be able to pass before getting married.

These are just some of the ideas we will go into in great depth in our upcoming book on Vedic marriage. This book is primarily meant to stop these bogus "gurus" from destroying any more marriages and to give the general idea of what a Krsna conscious marriage is all about.

50. ALREADY BEEN BURNED: WHAT TO DO?

This brings us to the last section of this chapter. At this point we know what caused our marriage to fail. In many cases it will be clear that it was the direct interference of a sexyasi or a temple authority who felt it his right to interfere in your marriage. If that is the case, then we recommend the following action: Put your entire story in writing and send it to the address below. There will be many instances where such testimony may be useful in filing lawsuits against these men. Class action lawsuits are being organized against some of the "gurus." Many of them have amassed rather large sums of money from their "guru" business, and if we can successfully prove that they deliberately and maliciously interfered in these marriages, it is very possible tat you may be awarded some money. That will help compensate for the pain you have had to suffer at the hands of these raksasas. In any case you will be exposing them for what they are, and that will help prevent others from being exploited in the same way.

51. CONCLUSION

This is only a rough outline of how to avoid this major pitfall in marriages today. In our book we will explain in detail all the different types of devotees, their varnas (occupational duties) in life, the rules and regulations for that particular vama, and how to practically implement that vama in these Western countries. This requires a great deal of research. The strict rules for a brahmin in India may not be possible for a brahmin in America. Pious vaisyas in India can more easily follow the regulative principles than the brahminically inclined devotees here in the West. All these considerations have to be carefully weighed before it wig be possible to organize real Vedic communities. The important thing is to "fill in the spaces with good taste." Prabhupada expected his disciples to do this work and the time is now. There are many books of reference in Indian libraries with which to gain knowledge from and there are many devotees willing to do this work. We humbly request those of you seriously interested in to contact DAS and we will go from there. Good luck. Hare Krsna.

Inquiries, comments, or donations toward this book, may be sent to Steve Bryant (Sulocana dasa), 2124 Kittredge #32, Berkeley, CA, 94704.