March 31 2009

This is from Susila dasi:

Hare Krishna! Please accept my obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
We have an argument with devotees regarding matajis serving on the altar. Should Matajis do pujas during aratis. What was Srila Prabhupada’s opinion in this regard?
Thank you.

Answer:

From the very beginning of Deity worship in ISKCON Srila Prabhupada encouraged the women to do the puja, aratis, dressing, cooking etc. There is no question of women not being allowed.

Indeed, Srila Prabhupada personally trained an older lady disciple, Shilavati dasi, how to worship Radha Krsna deities to the right standard. Shilavati was then sent to other temples to train other pujaris, or other pujaris were sent to Los Angeles to be trained by Shilavati.

Letter to: Hladini  —  Surat 29 December, 1970

My Dear Hladini devi,
“Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your very nice letter dated 28th November. I am glad to learn that the Deities are being cared for there in Chicago so nicely by your good self. I personally gave instruction to Silavati how to care for the Deities properly when I was in Los Angeles and you were trained up by her. So I am confident that everything is going on nicely.
Proper Deity worship, with all attention to cleanliness, is of the utmost importance. If you can please the Deity by your sincere service, then your temple will flourish. To be able to personally serve the Deity is a great privilege and such a person is very fortunate indeed. So you continue in this way and Krishna will surely bless you.”

Here’s a letter from Srila Prabhupada to Rukmini dasi:

Letter to: Rukmini  —  Los Angeles 20 March, 1970
“Deity worship means to be very, very clean. You should try to bathe twice daily. The Deities should never be approached without having bathed first and changed to clean cloths after passing stool, etc. Keep teeth brushed after each meal, fingernails clean and trim. Be sure that your hands are clean before touching anything on the altar or the Deities. And cleanse the Deity room, altar and floor daily thoroughly. Shine the various Aratrik paraphernalia after Aratrik. This is described in the booklet for pujaris written by Silavati Dasi. The idea is summit cleanliness — that will satisfy Krsna.”

In this letter to Kancanbala  —  Los Angeles 20 April, 1970 Srila Prabhupada advises her to consult with three other women to learn Deity worship:

“I am very glad also to know that you are engaged as Pujari there. Try to learn this art of Arcana very nicely. You can consult in this connection Himavati, Yamuna and also Silavati. I wish that all our girl devotees be expert in the matter of Arcana and cooking. The temple and altar should always be very clean and decorated with flowers and incense. We shall touch the Deity altar and Deity in very clean condition, after taking bath and washing mouth nicely. Practice washing hands after eating and wash with soap and water after toilet. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, so this point should be very carefully observed, then you will advance very quickly to the perfectional stage of Krishna Consciousness.”

And in this letter Srila Prabhupada instructs one of his male GBCs to learn from Silavati:

Letter to: Jagadisa  —  Calcutta 17 September, 1970 

“If you a have got sufficient devotees to take care of the Deities as you have seen how in the Los Angeles Temple, take instruction from Yamuna and Silavati how they are worshiping and the installation procedure is given on a separate sheet.”

Finally, in this letter to Karandhara dasa on 19 September, 1970 Srila Prabhupada praises his women disciples for their expertise in Deity worship:

“Regarding Deity worship, Silavati and Yamuna Devi may be considered expert, so if some new hands come and take their help, that is a good proposition. Once established, however, Deities should not be removed. We should treat the Deities as the Personality of Godhead, and to invite Him to come to your home you must worship regularly. You cannot remove. If there is scarcity of pujaris, then Deities should not be installed, only pictures of Guru and Gauranga should be worshiped. Irregularity in worshiping Guru and Gauranga can be tolerated, as they are always kind and forgiving, but irregularity in worshiping Lord Jagannatha and Sri Sri Radha Krishna is not good.”

There are more, but I think the point is established.

The only places where there was some restriction was Vrndavana, and possibly Mayapur. This was due to Srila Prabhupada’s sensitivity to local caste sensitivities. Because the caste goswamis would not have accepted women on the altar doing arati, Srila Prabhupada restricted his women disciples from doing this. However, he did allow them to do the behind-the-scenes pujari work in Vrndavana, including the dressing of the Deities, when there was a shortage of male pujaris.

In Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta and other ISKCON temples in India, women were doing all the pujari work same as the men.

Your humble servant,

Hari-sauri dasa

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March 31 2009

I recently received nine questions from devotees in the CIS so one by one I will post them with my replies.

Here’s number one from Bhakta Iskatel (Seeker)

“In Tamal Krsna Goswami’s Diary about the last days of Prabhupada

there is a passage dated 4 September 1977 which reads:

Prabhupada announced, “As soon as I get green card, I will go to New York.”
“How long will you stay there?” I asked.
“As long as you like.”
“Srila Prabhupada, you are just like a cow.  You will go wherever we lead you, but you never stop giving milk.”
“That is because I am a surabhi cow. …”

“My question is: can we take this last phrase of Srila Prabhupada as his revelation of his svarup – original form in the spiritual world?”

Answer:

No. Because a disciple was using the cow as a comparison to Srila Prabhupada‘s work of preaching Krsna consciousness all over the world Srila Prabhupada agreed with the comparison, but made it more specifically spiritual by saying “That’s because I am a surabhi cow.” This statement has nothing to do with Srila Prabhupada’s svarupa.

There are different opinions about Srila Prabhupada’s svarupa but noone can say for sure because Srila Prabhupada did not specifically say what his svarup is.

One female disciple called Harsharani dasi in the late 1960s once wrote a poem about Srila Prabhupada which was published in BTG. Apparently Srila Prabhupada heard the poem and liked it. Both Govinda dasi and Malati dasi recall Srila Prabhupada’s response to the poem. He said of the author, Harsharani, “She has become advanced.” And he ordered that the poem be published in Back to Godhead, which it was.

Here’s the poem:

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March 14 2009

The true bliss of kirtana

Here’s a question I just got from my godsister Urmila dasi:

I just got a letter from a devotee as follows and wondered if you had any experience of this happening in Prabhupada’s presence and, if so, how he reacted.

Your servant, Urmila devi dasi

Here is the letter
Question – was leading bh’jan Gaura P. night someone went weird – he started making bharat natyam ish poses, made pranams, fell on floor, started to to shake. got back up carried on in similar way. i arranged for him to be taken out side. they tried to communicate but he was in own world.
Next day spoke to him- he said he sat down for while then went to friends house embarrased.
Its happened few times here with him – says especially when he focuses deeply on H. Name
I asked if if he had ever seen any senior devotee do that – or S.P. – no of course.
He says he feel it start but can usually control. i said if u feel start – MUST leave temp room.
and told him to ask a senior dev about it.
I hated it mother it messed up the mood of the kirtan I felt I had to stop the Kirtan, we were on web cam. lots of the Mataji’s felt very awkward. it was I felt really uneasy and annoyed. when confronted him bout it I wanted to smash him – “what d’you think your doin your just taking ecstacy and being an idiot but did’nt feel confident I was100% correct so we just had a friendly caring but serious talk.
I definately want to stamp this out if it is maya so how should I proceed from here?

My answer:

Hm. Definitely something to be wary of.

I do remember an incident when I was temple commander in Vrndavana, around Janmastami time 1975. There was one American devotee who was part of the temple–let’s call him ‘Krishna Das’. One night a large group of villagers came. Remember that at that time the Krishna Balaram mandir had only just been opened some months before so most people didn’t know us, nor did we get large crowds.

During the Janmastami period we started getting large groups of people from various villages coming and checking us out. So evening aratis were usually very ecstatic, almost all the devotees were western and we would really rack it up during Gaura arati. It was a big attraction for the local villagers.

So this particular night, one young village man in his early 20s, started dancing with us. He got more and more exhuberant, starting spinning around on the spot and finally fell to the floor in a dead faint (apparently). We had never seen anything like it before and didn’t really know how to deal with it. So we just shrugged and kept on with the kirtan, figuring eventually he would just get up when he realized noone was taking any notice of him, and go on his way.

Good old Krishna Das however had different ideas. He steps forward to the prostrate body of the boy, peers right over his face, steps back — and kicks him right in the head! — several times! Then he grabs the boy by the arm and starts dragging him out the temple through the door just next to the altars, on the guest house side.

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March 15 2009

kalah kalayatam aham
“Of subduers I am Time.”
Lord Krsna [Bg 10.30]

Astrology, or Jyotish, is one of the tools given to us by Krsna for understanding the progress of our lives. Although it is largely dismissed by ‘educated’ modern man, its use is gaining in popularity even in such areas as the economy.

Here’s an article I fished out of my 2008 emails about the use of astrology to predict financial markets. Makes interesting reading considering the current turmoil. According to this, just wait till 2012:
Paranormal & Unexplained,
Written by Danny Penman

Christeen Skinner blinks at the screen of her computer and takes another slurp of coffee. It’s half past seven in the morning and she’s preparing for a crucial meeting with the chief executive of the High and Mighty fashion chain.

Apart from the black cat dozing on her lap, the only clue to Christeen’s occupation as a 21st century astrologer is a copy of an Ephemeris that lies open at a page marked “Mercury March 25th”.

“The financial crisis has ensured that I’m busier than ever,” says Christeen. “People in the City need to know what is just around the corner. I can help with that.”

Christeen is one of a growing, albeit secretive, network of astrologers who work for seemingly conservative British institutions such as high street banks, City investment funds and retailers. Desperate to avoid financial meltdown in the ongoing ‘credit crunch’ and to spot fashions and consumer trends before they start, these institutions have turned to the stars to divine the future.

“Most academics distrust astrology and regard it as mumbo-jumbo,” she says. “The thing is, it works. Nobody’s sure how it works but it does. Most of my clients are businesspeople who are very canny. If it didn’t work for them, then why
would they use  it?”

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