“Respect must be given, not taken, and certainly cannot be demanded. These principles are certainly violated in all forms of abuse, and all forms of abuse can be summarized as simply abuse of power.”

Dear CHAKRA, 

Please accept my humble obeisance’s. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Having read about the issue concerning the defiance of the New Delhi temple to comply to the GBC standards for dealings with ISKCON guru’s etc., I am convinced that the heart of the issue is one of respect. As the GBC is largely made up of ISKCON guru’s, is it surprising that they would be concerned with their own treatment? I raise this point only because these are questions, which naturally go through the mind of the average individual. Living in a society which favors the elite wealthy and powerful (symptomatic of Kali-yuga), which considers wealth and power as signs of greatness, is it surprising that when such tendencies appear to infiltrate ISKCON, that many who are possibly aware of such things might be defiant of demands for submission and loyalty etc.? No, it’s not. It’s natural, as no individual likes to have their basic rights violated, and (especially in Krishna consciousness) prefers to choose whom they place their trust and respect with, asserting their basic right to choose based on their minute free-will. We all have this right, and to violate this is certainly contrary to the principles of Krishna consciousness and devotional service. Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur has written (in 1896): “One must be utterly humble in oneself, bearing all difficulties of life with heroism, and not bragging of any degree of goodness or grandeur. One must thereby treat everyone with the respect due to them as the Lord’s eternal parts and parcels.” Respect must be given, not taken, and certainly cannot be demanded. These principles are certainly violated in all forms of abuse, and all forms of abuse can be summarized as simply abuse of power.

Srila Prabhupada has said: “So you must be Vaisnava. Otherwise why they will offer you respect? Respect cannot be demanded. It must be commanded. By seeing you, they will give you respect. Then dhiradhira-jana-priyau. This is gosvami. Automatically they’ll offer respect. So unless you become perfectly clean and Vaisnava, pure Vaisnava... Automatically they’ll give you respect. You haven’t got to... Just like sometimes we see a person, by seeing us, they chant Hare Krsna. It is not that at the spot we are asking them to chant Hare Krsna. But automatically they are chanting. So that means we have to keep ourself so clean, nice Vaisnava, gosvami, that people will offer you respect.” (Srimad Bhagavatam lecture (SB:1.16.26-30) given in Hawaii on January 23rd, 1974.) This should be the mood of the GBC. Hare Krishna!

A servant of the servants, Bhaktavatsala dasa (NZ)

© CHAKRA 9th-Oct-1999

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