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

What a disappointment! What a let-down! What a
treachery! What a sham! If after so much canvassing, if after
answering to so much flute-calling (transcendental book
distribution), the excited vraja-sundaris (bhakta-gana) find, to
their disillusionment, upon arriving at rasa-mandala (the Hare
Krishna movement), no rasa-lila festival (invigorating, publicly
demonstrated hari-nama-sankirtana)! If, upon reading the
advertisements (books) and expectantly joining Lord Caitanya’s
hari-nama-sankirtana movement, having been philosophically
persuaded to faithfully surrender to the idea of prosecuting the
yuga-dharma, hari-nama-sankirtana, one chances to notice a
pitiful dearth of hari-nama-sankirtana painfully persisting among
the vast majority of the movement’s members in most corners
of the world, would one not wonder as to whether one had in
fact actually found Lord Caitanya’s sankirtana movement of the
Holy Name? Was it false advertising, or what? The vraja-gopis
were not satiated by rasa dancing for the duration of an entire
night of Brahma. Similarly, anyone who has gained a grain of


regard for kali-yuga-dharma hari-nama-sankirtana would not
very much appreciate the extent to which hari-nama-sankirtana
has been side-lined and so irresponsibly de-emphasized over the
years in Lord Caitanya’s hari-nama-sankirtana movement.
Advertising and advertising . . . but what are we advertising? Do
we have any idea? Have we actually understood? Chanting,
dancing, feasting, and philosophy. The philosophy in the books
is basically to convince us to chant and dance. Feasting is to
energize our chanting and dancing. Chanting and dancing is
required for getting a taste for chanting and dancing. Chanting
and dancing with a taste for chanting and dancing is actually
required to progress to the position of chanting and dancing on
the stage of preliminary love of Godhead, bhava-siddhi. And
chanting and dancing in spontaneous devotional ecstasy on the
stage of bhava-siddhi is an absolute prerequisite for chanting
and dancing in Lord Caitanya’s eternal prema-sankirtana-lilas in
the spiritual sky.

The current bustle about writing, publishing, distributing,
and reading transcendental literatures expounding the science
of Krishna consciousness, though brilliantly facilitating the
widespread inculcation of spiritual values upon the ignorant
populace, is nonetheless a temporarily manifested, externally
oriented phenomenon. Yet, it unquestionably finds its internal
original timeless counterpart in the messenger services and
nama-rupa-guna-lila-katha done by Shri Shri Radha-Krishna’s
nitya-parikara gopa and gopi associates of Goloka Vrindavana.
We must always remember that the real purpose of the
scriptures’ outreach is to advance a purified raga-mayi inreach
in both the receptive reader and the progressive preacher. The
printing press can be considered a raga-marga implement only
to the extent that whatever is printed by the press actually
promotes attraction to and deep attachment for the principles
of vraja-bhakti-bhajana. A printing press in and of itself is not a
brihat-mridanga. If the press is hijacked by materialistic
entrepreneurs to produce volumes and volumes of crow-
infested-garbage-dump-like mundane novels, poetries, and porn,
are we to laud the printing press as a brihat-mridanga? Would it
be at all unreasonable to suggest that the status of the printing


press actually depends on the quality of the service rendered –
the purpose for which the thing is being used? Human life is
meant for purposefulness. Krishna consciousness is like a
razor’s edge. If a razor is utilized as an instrument for shaving,
then it serves its true purpose and may rightly be called a razor.
If it is purposely used to slash another’s jugular vein, however,
one might call it a razor, but in effect it is actually a lethal
weapon. A mridanga exists to enhance the kirtana of the Lord’s
Holy Names. If the mridanga is used to enhance mundane
cinema songs, is it still to be deemed a mridanga? It may look
like a mridanga, it may sound like a mridanga, but is it truly a
mridanga? It is a mridanga in name only. Similarly, if the
“preachers” of the Krishna consciousness movement use the
printing press to present volumes and volumes of articles
exclusively moralizing on the all-importance of varnashrama and
vaidha-marga correctitudes, while evading, suspending,
suppressing, disparaging, or altogether denouncing topics
regarding the practical implementation of the principles of raga-
marga-sadhana, is their printing press still to be deemed an
implement of raga-bhakti? What makes using the genuine brihat-
mridanga printing press a part of the raga-marga process of
devotional service is its use as a tool to propagate the principles
of raga-bhakti. If the press were to be used exclusively for the
purpose of extolling the importance of vaidhi bhakti, without
emphasizing vidhi’s role in the evolvement of raga, it would no
longer boast its pride of place on the path of raga. Preaching can
only be considered a symphonious feature of raga-marga-
bhajana if the aim of one’s preaching is to progressively awaken
a resolute greed for the ultimate attainment of raga-maya-prema
in the hearts of those to whom one preaches. Are there not
innumerable “preachers” of various sectarian denominations
tirelessly “preaching” their wearisome religio-moralistic dogmas
dismally devoid of the slightest scent of even the least of
Vrindavana’s flowers? Are their preach-preachidy-preachments
to be regarded as raga-marga-bhakti? Alternatively, there are
others, well equipped with esoteric shastric data, who
fraudulently make a show of preaching raga-marga-bhakti in the
world to satisfy their self-establishing lust for labha, puja, and


pratistha. Is their preaching to be regarded as instrumental to
anyone’s raga-marga-bhajana? Once again, we scrutinize the
mind-set that backs our activities in “Krishna consciousness.”

In truth, no external action – preaching, book publication,
book distribution, nama-sankirtana, nama-japa, sadhu-sanga,
vrindavana-vasa, arcana, prasada-seva, pot-washing, or
whatever – can be considered an aspect of either ajata-ruci- or
jata-ruci-raganuga-sadhana if it is not prompted by a greed to
attain the perfection of one’s abhista-bhava. If one does not
recognize within oneself a specific attraction to any one of
Krishna’s nitya-parikara vraja-bhava exemplars – if one does not
have a desired bhava – then there is no question of one’s
external engagements in devotional service being prompted by
lobha. Hence, one’s devotional activities can never be accepted
as nija-abhista-bhava-maya, -sambandhi, -anukula, -aviruddha, or
even for that matter -viruddha, simply because there is no nija-
abhista-bhava reference point involved to merit the
consideration of such judgements. If one has neither the
prerequisite lobha nor the inclination toward relevant internal
devotional absorption, the very substance that establishes one’s
eligibility to pursue the path of raga, and if one feels no urgency,
on the basis of such lobha, to propagate raga-marga-bhakti in
the world as per the will of the Lord, then one may preachidy-
preach till one is blue in the face or distribute innumerable
volumes and volumes of transcendental literatures till the cows
come home and still one’s actions will never be deemed any sort
of raga-marga-sadhana nor engender raga-marga-bhava as their
direct outcome. One could hardly expect to gain the outcome of
raganuga-sadhana on the strength of one’s external devotional
engagements if the inward and outward features of one’s
devotional performances do not assume raga-marga
characteristics. If a sadhaka’s action is prompted merely by
shastra-vidhi and guru’s order, then such action is relegated to a
status no loftier than vaidha-marga-sadhana, ropa-siddha-
bhakti, or perhaps niskama- or even sakama-karma-yoga,
depending on the quality of the motivation. For the deserving
lobha-maya-sadhaka, however, who unpretentiously endeavors
to conscionably cultivate the moods of Vraja, differentiating


between favorable and unfavorable practices while inwardly
musing upon the eternal vraja-lila archetype features of all
culturally transfigured varieties of external devotional
engagements, practically anything done as well as any
apparatus employed to internally or externally advance Lord
Gauranga’s mission to flood the world with vraja-bhakti-rasa can
be accepted as part and parcel of the raga-marga dimension.

Much of the paraphernalia diversely utilized in “modern-
world” Krishna consciousness (automobiles, jet airplanes,
amplifiers, computers, cameras, printing presses, cell phones,
audio/video recording and broadcasting devices, refrigerators,
gas burners, electric blenders, neon lights, singing alarm clocks,
disposable diapers, etc., etc.) may be circumstantially accepted
in the attempt to facilitate or expedite the solid external
preaching progress of the Krishna consciousness movement,
but in the end it would be preposterous to think that we could
take these temporarily useful accoutrements with us when we
go to the spiritual world. No doubt, as long as the present-day
oil-based techno-industrial “civilization” holds up, we really
ought to take full advantage of all these gorgeous Kali-yuga
arrangements as far as possible. We must, however,
scrupulously avoid the inanity of becoming unnecessarily
attached to or reliant upon the service methodologies and
preaching paradigms generated by the inclusion of these
various external trappings, to the point of spinelessly minimizing
or even blindly excluding the essential internal culture of radha-
Krishna-prema-bhakti-rasa through the eternally viable process
of nama-sankirtana. Although we should doubtlessly make our
lifelong plans for disseminating Krishna consciousness though
the medium of transcendental book distribution, we should not
naively overlook the inevitability of various God-sanctioned
upheavals in material nature. The sudden demise of our
demonic technologically “advanced” “civilization” is not a
karmic impossibility. If such were to occur at any time, we
would hardly expect to see the continued feasibility of mass
book distribution as we know it today. Will we be left with our
gas-tanks empty, our book-bags empty, our piggy banks empty,
our minds empty, our hearts empty, our lives empty, and our


mouths empty – having never gained a tangible taste or
attachment for the congregational chanting of the Holy Name?
Will such a fate ever force us to finally acknowledge (by default)
the sublime shelter of hari-nama-sankirtana? All of our
computers will have long since crashed. No more e-mail! No
more Internet! No more television! No more printing press! No
more newspapers! Damn, man. None of our mp3 players and
iPods will sing for us any more! You mean we’ll have to do it
ourselves? We may have to close the temples. We may lose our
cozy ashrama habitats. We may have to live – and die – under
the trees! But despite the extreme miseries of life, we must
never desist from our determination to chant the Holy Name of
Krishna, though we are hardly able.

Anyway, as you ramble on through life, dear reader,
whatever fancy be your goal, keep your eyes upon the
doughnut and not upon the hole! Kali-yuga is an ocean of
innumerable hole-like faults. Yet, there is one tremendous
redeeming doughnut-like quality – sankirtana of the Holy Name
of Krishna. The Holy Name is the emporium of all rasas. “There
is nothing to be had in the fourteen worlds but the Holy Name.”
Don’t think these words to be mere cliche or sampradayic
platitudinous mumbo-jumbo. “Don’t think this chanting and
dancing will not lead to the desired goal. It will!” I speak the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me
Krishna! . . . so help me Gaura! . . . so help me Srila Prabhupada!