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Our Original Position Śrīla Prabhupāda and the Vaiṣṇava Siddhānta
<< Purpose of this Book >>
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| This publication is a philosophical treatise written in pursuance of an ancient dictum: “All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.” Herein is sustained the Vaiṣṇava siddhānta that Śrīla Prabhupāda unambiguously presented, just as he received it from his spiritual master. Herein also imaginative interpretations are abstained from.
| | svataḥ-pramāṇa veda satya yei kaya
'lakṣaṇā' karile svataḥ-prāmāṇya-hāni haya
| | "The Vedic statements are self-evident. Whatever is stated there must be accepted. If we interpret according to our own imagination, the authority of the Vedas is immediately lost."
(Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya 6.137)
| | The issue at hand has, in the recent history of ISKCON. proven itself a fertile ground for imaginative interpretation. It is referred to as the origin of the jiva, or the bondage of the jiva, or the fall/no-fall—of the jiva. The last therm seems to cover the problem most aptly in the fewest words. Did the jiva soul, the eternal living entity, fall from a personal relationship with Krishna in the spiritual realm into the material world of repeated birth and death? Or is there no fall of the jiva, since souls are either eternally bound or eternally liberated, with the proviso that the bound souls can be freed by the grace of the Lord?
| | Other questions then proceed from these. A particularly difficult one is, What does “eternal” mean when applied to the existence of the souls in this material world? Actually, this question can be traced through many centuries of philosophical writings from the West as well as the East(1), So there can be not wonder that controversies about eternal liberation, eternal bondage, and beginningless karma have arisen in ISKCON, the movement that best nourishement to philosophical minds.
| | Most of us believe Śrīla Prabhupāda answered these questions. He did. But only recently where all the exstant references from Śrīla Prabhupāda's books, lectures, letters and conversations compiled and made available. And, as the subject matter is beyond the reach of the material mind, the task of fitting all his answers together coherently proved daunting. After several years of comparison and discussion, two prevailing view-points on the evidence have emerged. One holds that whenever Śrīla Prabhupāda was directly asked, “Did we fall from kṛṣṇa-līlā?”, he gave a consistent affirmative. Direct answers from the Founder-ācārya must eternally guide all other principles in ISKCON. The other viewpoint holds that Śrīla Prabhupāda's direct answers on this question are not eternal. They were given according to time, place and circumstances. The real answers are to be found only in Prabhupāda's books, but ISKCON devotees need to be educated in what those real answers are by further leaves of commentaries.
| | Such divergence of views on siddhānta is also not new. A similar one is noted in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-līlā, Chapter Seven. There, a scholar named Vallabha Bhaṭṭa, taking much pride in his scholarship, rejected as “inconsistent” (eka-vākyatā nāhi) the commentary on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam by Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, “Whatever Śrīdhara Svāmī reads he explains according to the circumstances.” In Vallabha Bhaṭṭa’s view, the apparent inconsistencies in the Ācārya’s writings overturned his authority (tāte 'svāmī' nāhi māni), leaving a gap that Vallabha himself proposed to fill. But this attitude was not approved by Lord Caitanya, who commented, svāmī nā māne yei jana veśyāra bhitare tāre kariye gaṇana: “One who does not accept the svāmī as an authority I consider a prostitute.”
| | The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu, the endless ocean of śastric knowledge and logical acumen, instructed the whole world in the essence of Vaiṣṇavism with these words: guru more mūrkha dekhi. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains this statement in his introduction to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
| | =The Lord thus represented Himself as one of the numberless fools of this age who are absolutely incapable of studying the Vedanta philosophy. The fools' indulgence in the study Vedanta has caused so much havoc in society. The Lord thus continued: 'And because I am a great fool, My spiritual master forbade Me from play with Vedanta philosophy. He said that it is better that I chant the holy name of the Lord, for that would deliver Me from material bondage.'”
| | We belive that this statement is the real siddhānta on the fall/no-fall controversy. And so, once more, the purpose of this publication is to sustain the siddhānta given us by Śrīla Prabhupāda and abstain from speculative pretentions that simply create an uproar. But lovers of deep considerations of Śrīla Prabhupāda's books will not be discouraged by this work. Nor will lovers of the writings of previous ācāryas, nor lovers of verses drawn from the a wide range of Vedic sources, nor lovers of logic based on the śāstric-based logic. All thrse are abundant whitin— to gentli but firmly remind us that we are all fools before Śrīla Prabhupāda's accomplished Vedic authority.
| | "Vede gāya yāhāra carita, Not that I am talking something nonsense. It is because: śruti-pramāṇam. Whatever we talk. it must be supported by the Vedic injunction. Then it is right. Just like we sometimes challenge these big, big scientists and others, and what is our strength? I am not a scientist, but how I can challenge? The Veda gāya. We have got evidence from the Vedas. Just like so many people are thinking that the moon planet is first. We are challenging, 'No, moon planet is second.' What is the strength? The strength is Vedic knowledge."
(Śrīla Prabhupāda in New York, July 11, 1976)"
| | It was not by making a diplomatic adjustment in his preaching that Śrīla Prabhupāda was empowered to defeat all the prevailing philosophies of the modern world. Nor was it by dry logic and academic scolarship. No tactic or sophistry yields the power of Vedic knowledge. That power is received, not acquired. Who may receive it is explained by Vāc, the goddess of the Vedas herself.
| | yaṁ kāmaye taṁ-tam ugram kṛṇomi
taṁ brāhmaṇam tam ṛṣiṁ taṁ sumedhām
| | "He whom I love, that one I make terribly powerful, that one I make a brāhmaṇa, that once a ṛṣi, that one a wise sage."
(Ṛg Veda 10.125.5)
| | The means to receive such power is explained by Śrīla Prahlāda Mahārāja in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.15.45. He says, dhatte gariṣṭha-caraṇārcanayā niśātam jñānāsim acyuta-balo dadhad asta-śatruḥ, that to have the infallible strength to wield the sharp weapon of Vedic knowledge and defeat the enemy, one must have the lotus feet of his spiritual master and worship them. Śrīla Prabhupāda showed us how this is it to be done.
| | "I am successful only because I am following strictly the orders of my Guru Maharaja and do not deviate. Therefore people respect what I am saying and they listen because I do not say one thing and do another."
(Carta, 16-6-72)
| | The compilers humbly offer this publication to the lotus feet of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Svāmī Prabhupāda in this auspicious Centennial Year. We pray that he mercifully bless all the members of his great movement, ISKCON, with the living knowledge of pure spiritual realization, Kṛṣṇa consciousness; May his followers be unshakable in the conviction that they has received the rarest and most profound power of transcendental illumination from his spiritual master, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, and that this illumination pervades his books, lectures, conversations and letters. May those who faithfully serve the lotus feet of their spiritual master see all demonlike doubts in the hear destroyed by that amazing power of Śrīla Prabhupāda's Vedic knowledge. May Srila Prabhupada, the brilliant full moon in a sky of pinpoints of opinion, shine eternally in the hearts of his sincere followers and dispel the darkness of the Kali Age for the next ten thousand years.
Suhotra Svāmī
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NOTAS
| 1 | | Western Philosophy: From an introduction to the fifth century of the Christian era. Classical Latin: "God, in Whom there is no past or future, but only present tense, is eternal, while the world which reaches only endless series of moments, each lost as soon as it is reached is merely perpetual" (VE Watts, Introduction to The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, 480-525 of the Christian era, p 27).
Eastern Philosophy: From a treatise on Vedānta commentaries thousands of years ago: "He is the first Vedantic thinker who connects anādi-karma-vaicitrya [varieties of karma without beginning] where it must be connected-with anādi-svarupa-yogyata [the spiritual forms without beginning] to the individual ones ". (B.N.K. Sharma, The Brahmasutras and Their Main Commentaries, 1986, vol.1, p.409). |
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