Page 35 - SBV (English)

Apologia xxxiii

there might have been some occasional disagreements between
them, it is not our business to analyze such matters. Whatever
they may have done or said, we must consider them perfect
and worshipable because they are situated at Çréla Sarasvaté
Öhäkura’s lotus feet. Indeed, the less such controversial and
potentially dangerous matters are quoted and discussed, the
more peace and stability this would bring to Gauòéya Vaiñëava
society and to the devotional lives of its members.

I replied that to withhold information of certain less relishable activities
performed by disciples of Çréla Bhaktisiddhänta Sarasvaté might serve an
apparently noble purpose but would simultaneously obscure significant aspects
of reality from which important lessons can be derived. Later I further ruminated
that for our elucidation Çréla Vedavyäsa did not refrain from disclosing some
seemingly abominable acts of personages as venerable as Brahmä and Båhaspati,
or of the self-destruction of the Yadu dynasty (comparable to the Gauòéya Maöha
brouhaha), despite the possibility that such narrations would be difficult for some
to digest—particularly novices, whose fragile faith is easily shattered—and could
spark envious detractors to attack the very validity of Hari-bhakti. Besides, my
own guru-mahäräja thought the disintegration of the Gauòéya Maöha important
enough to explicitly mention it in his books, to which he ascribed the highest
authority. If he deemed to criticize anyone, surely it was not without reason.
Although some argue that his barbs about particular godbrothers were meant for
a specific time and circumstance that is now moot, I surmise that he did not want
the history of the Gauòéya Maöha to be idealized almost to the point of fiction.

Anyone who joins the Särasvata paramparä will before long learn that
Çréla Sarasvaté Öhäkura’s institution became divided and subdivided by internal
conflict, with the resulting diaspora remaining factious and fissiparous. We might
better serve our äcäryas by acknowledging and accommodating such unpalatable
facts rather than dressing them as lélä or pretending that they never happened.
One way or another, newcomers soon learn not only of our hardly flawless past,
but also of present-day misadventures. So perhaps it is circumspect to train
beginners to adjust to experiential reality without losing faith in the essence and
ideal, just as many devotees continue to serve in an ISKCON whose downsides and
failings are not only obvious but widely broadcast to the world. To pretend that
anomalies cannot occur within Vaiñëava society would be an injustice to truth.
Notwithstanding that Vaiñëava culture prescribes deep respect for elders,
if applied blindly or merely euphemistically such protocol is surely unrealistic and