“Much of the ranting and raving (though not all) I've seen on the CHAKRA web site would be time better spent chanting Hare Krishna or reading Prabhupada's books.”

Better Chant Hare Krishna
By Bhakta Rowland

Dear Prabhus,

Hare Krishna. Please accept my full dandavats. All glories to Srila Prabupada.

I have struggled for years to be Krishna conscious and Maya is winning. In all the years I have not seen a forum such as CHAKRA. As healthy and helpful as it could be, I have one observation to make. And that is this: Maya is the master of distraction. The biggest trick the Devil ever pulled was to convince the world that he doesn't exist. All the child molesters, drug dealers, murderers, etc, in the world cannot stop this movement if it is genuinely of God. I have my doubts these days. But it is because my sadhana is weak, which is personal responsibility, not because of all these fools and rascals who are distracting all of us who want to be distracted.

Prabhupada said that human life alone is a life of responsibility. It is possible that the political machine that ISKCON has become is not the best climate to practice genuine Krsna consciousness. A sincere sweeper in the street is better situated than the charlatan meditator who meditates simply to make a living. Or puff up his or her false ego in the Eastern version of the Western evangelist.

I have personally been guilty of many of the mistakes, sins, and fall downs of the leaders. So finger-pointing is absurd in my case. The difference is I have not pushed my way to the front of everyone's attention by claiming to be this or that, or by "preaching."

I will say this as an obscure aspiring devotee: Krishna will reveal the shortcomings and character defects of these impostors in ways that we cannot conceive. I have had intuitive gut wrenching feelings about many of the leaders and gurus, but due to the overzealous misuse of the idea of "offenses,” I have usually kept these to myself. They have thus far almost always panned out, i.e. the "suspect' is usually caught at something he has been preaching strongly against.

I have come to many realizations, most as a matter of fact, the hard way, down the road of less intelligence. In many years in and out of the movement I have found the most repressed hypocritical human beings on the planet in the Hare Krishna movement. It's hard to see the forest for the trees when one is hiding behind the fact that he or she is "not the body" while having no practical realization of this fact.

Birth, death, old age and disease are sobering facts of life, whether one is a devotee of Krishna, a Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, or whatever. Much of the ranting and raving (though not all) I've seen on the CHAKRA web site would be time better spent chanting Hare Krishna or reading Prabhupada's books.

An insignificant fool,
Bhakta Rowland
New Pani Hati Dhama
Atlanta, Ga. September 2000

© CHAKRA 20-September-2000

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