Rāgānuga is not a thing of play (03/17/18)
Dear ________Swami,
All glories to Śrī Śrī Guru and Gaurāṅga.
I have received your email, basically a distress call from one godbrother to another, and have noted the limited contents carefully.
I distanced myself from the institution of iskcon in 1986 (32 years ago) of my own accord due to becoming aware of their numerous offenses to Śrīla Prabhupada’s godbrother and śikṣā–guru, Swami B.R. Śrīdhara Mahārāja of Navadvīpa. After leaving iskcon and taking shelter of the śikṣā of Śrīla Śrīdhara Mahārājā, I also gradually became aware of the numerous philosophical deviations iskcon was making from Gauḍīya siddhānta. So numerous were those deviations that in the present day there is not a single tattva of the Gauḍīya-siddhānta that members of iskcon, especially the leaders and so-called gurus, understand completely or correctly. And that includes jīva-tattva, guru-tattva, kṛṣṇa–tattva, Paṅca-tattva, nityānanda–tattva, rādha–tattva, rasa–tattva, mañjarī–tattva and so on. In every tattva they maintain an incomplete understanding, or a complete misunderstanding. So the question is, “How many apa–siddhāntas does it take to make an apa–sampradāya?”
Sadly, you have been a member of that institution and all the misconceptions it has to offer for far, far too long for a small jīva like me to be able to help. The only advice I can give to you is that you should remain humble and accept the authority and decisions of those who awarded you sannyāsa and made you guru in that institution in the first place. You want to leave iskcon because you are being reprimanded, but that is not a sufficient reason for you to leave. But if you were to leave because you find your present situation intolerable, you would be better off to gather your disciples together and continue your preaching according to the mandates laid down for us by Śrīla Prabhupāda.
As far as I have seen you are very sincere, highly intelligent, but grossly misled regarding rasa and other things of the higher dimension. The duty of the guru is to give shelter, protection and proper conception to his disciples. In that regard I am very protective about what influences my disciples and the members of my small mission and what they come in contact with. You may understand my position that given your situation it is not possible for me to invite you to join my mission, nor do I think Śrīla Prabhupāda or Lord Kṛṣṇa would be pleased by my doing so.
I wish you all success and bid you to surrender to your GBC authorities in iskcon with whom you have served since you were just a teenage kid. But I also bid you to please try to correct your many misunderstandings regarding rasa and rāgānuga–bhakti. It is not a thing of play to be made a public show. It is fit only for the most qualified souls who are free from all misgivings and fully surrendered at the lotus feet of their Divine Master.
Wishing you well,
Swami Narasiṅgha
