First IskCon rubberstamped female diksa guru, Urmila devi dasi
Urmila dd heads women’s guru committee

Women gurus in Kaliyuga – Part 2

(continued from Part 1: http://www.prabhupadanugas.eu/news/?p=31916)

By Govinda Dasi: First let me say I am writing my opinions on this issue only because of repeated emails and postings. Frankly, I had hoped to stay out of it, but since some postings have even taken the liberty of expressing my opinions at a time when there were none, I have decided I must say something. My first response to this issue was, with mild disbelief, “Why would any woman even want to become a guru?!”

“Why would anyone want to take on someone else’s karmas?”

So let me say early on, that I am in no way a contender for any such position, either in this life or the next. Frankly, I personally am much more interested in clearing my own remaining karmas and going back to Godhead than in taking on anyone else’s karmas. Regarding the issue, male vs. female: Such kinds of strong identification and attachment to the temporary male / female bodily identities are a great detriment to spiritual life. Srila Prabhupada taught us that this human life is very short, and so tiny and frail. We can be male today, female tomorrow, male again, female again, or even feline, canine or whatever. He never fostered the intense (and ridiculous) identification with gender that somehow grew up in the later years of Iskcon.

Srila Prabhupada, being a great saintly personality, saw with “equal vision” as so stated in the Gita. Thus he gave equal love, concern, respect, and often responsibilities to both his male and female disciples. Srila Prabhupada clearly saw the soul, and he based his dealings on that level. He wanted his female disciples protected, not exploited. And he wanted his male disciples to take up the yoke of responsibility he placed upon them.

We have to live in the times that we find ourselves placed, and do the best we can to spread Lord Chaitanya’s Sankirtan movement. We have to find a way to do this without getting too hung up or stuck in some temporary male/female, black/white, or green/pink identity. That is the crux of the matter. So the real issue is this: can this concept of female gurus be embraced by our spiritual lineage, and ordained by our line of Acharyas coming from Brahma? That is the important question. » Complete article here «

The following quotes from Srila Prabhupada’s letters and conversations seem to verify that it can indeed be supported by the Acharya. “If a woman is perfect in Krsna consciousness … Just like Jahnava devi, Lord Nityananda’s wife, she was acarya. She was acarya. She was controlling the whole Vaisnava community…. It is not that woman cannot be acarya.” (Conversation 6/29/72)

Prof. O’Connell: Is it possible, Swamiji, for a woman to be a guru in the line of disciplic succession?

Prabhupada: Yes. Jahnava-devi was Nityananda’s wife. She became. If she is able to go to the highest perfection of life, why it is not possible to become guru? But, not so many. Actually one who has attained the perfection, she can become guru. But man or woman, unless one has attained the perfection…. Yei krsna-tattva-vetta sei guru haya. The qualification of guru is that he must be fully cognizant of the science of Krsna. Then he or she can become guru. Yei krsna-tattva-vetta, sei guru haya. In our material world is it any prohibition that woman cannot become professor? If she is qualified, she can become professor. What is the wrong there? She must be qualified. That is the position. So similarly, if the woman understands Krsna consciousness perfectly, she can become guru.” (Conversation 6/18/76)

Affirmative Action Urmila

By: http://prabhupadavision.com/2012/11/affirmative-action/
Female Diksa-Guru Urmila dd

Nitai Dasa: Academically contrived Affirmative Action has raised its ugly face in our ISKCON society with the recent push by feminist women backed by the GBC and the Śāstric Advisory Council (SAC). The most earnest of these feminist activists, is Urmila Devī Dāsī who also happens to be a member of the SAC and who has submitted several applications for the position of a guru rejected by the GBC in the past.

Affirmative action – A policy designed to redress past discrimination against women and minority groups through measures to improve their economic and educational opportunities. Affirmative action has been extremely controversial and was challenged in 1978 in the Bakke decision. (Wordweb)

Affirmative action has also been widely criticized – Opponents of affirmative action such as George Sher believe that affirmative action devalues the accomplishments of people who are chosen based on the social group to which they belong rather than their qualifications, thus rendering affirmative action counterproductive. Opponents, who sometimes say that affirmative action is “reverse discrimination”, further claim that affirmative action has undesirable side-effects in addition to failing to achieve its goals. They argue that it hinders reconciliation, replaces old wrongs with new wrongs, undermines the achievements of minorities, and encourages individuals to identify themselves as disadvantaged, even if they are not. It may increase racial tension and benefit the more privileged people within minority groups at the expense of the least fortunate within majority groups (such as lower-class whites).{Wikipedia}

This issue within our ISKCON society can be seen from various angles of vision with the devotees who have dedicated their lives to serving Śrīla Prabhupāda and view it as yet another move to deviate away from the teachings of the previous Ācāryas (Parampara) by liberalizing and modernizing our ISKCON society, while the GBC and feminist/equalitist devotees see it as a natural evolution in bringing the Vaiṣṇava tradition into the 21^st century while keeping up with modern trends in the greater society.

This issue was very nicely explained by Kṛishṇa Devī Dāsī in her article posted here where she gives not only the events that have led to this issue becoming public but also cites examples from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s instructions and precepts.

So far the politically correct ‘affirmative action’ devotees in our ISKCON society are winning this battle with the main opponent being the Indian Bureau while the rest of the society, who are uneducated in the teachings and instructions of Śrīla Prabhupāda, are more or less left in the dark regarding this ‘backdoor’ move to institutionalize women gurus.

It was on the foundation of SAC politically motivated paper that the GBC passed the resolution approving the FDG post. (Rubber-stamped Feminist Diksa Guru)

The rationale why we term the SAC paper highly prejudiced is as follow:

“Firstly, Urmila claimed that as a member of SAC she was not involved in any capacity in procurement of this paper. Urmila devi dasi, who [in 2010 when this paper was written] was the woman to be nominated as a diksa-guru, and hence was the very reason that the SAC was asked to research the matter. However, since Mother Urmila was also a member of SAC, a very clear conflict of interest resulted, which is why the SAC stated:

“SAC members felt that the circumstances of the task were valid, and the topic interesting, and so accepted the task. Urmila-devi, however, being a SAC member involved in this case before the GBC, excused herself from the discussion and writing of this paper.”

Yet this turned out to be a false statement. On our inquiring about the veracity of this statement, two SAC members (HH Bhakti Rasamrta Swami and Sriman Mukunda Datta Prabhu) stated that while Mother Urmila did not participate in the actual writing of the paper, she was definitely involved in the discussions that constituted the substance of the document. To exactly what extent her involvement might have swayed the outcome of the SAC paper is conjectural, but the fact that the SAC chose to cover up her involvement is in itself troubling.

Secondly, the SAC wrote:

“Furthermore, in order to ensure that all sides of the topic were properly represented, SAC accepted a temporary member representing Vaisnavas raised in Bharata where one might question the propriety of female devotees as gurus due to cultural background.”

This statement is actually misleading. That sole member from Bharata, Devamrta Prabhu [now H.H. Bhakti Rasamrta Swami], explained that his involvement was very limited, and only in the initial stages:

“I was involved in the initial stages. I helped in the research with the Madhva sampradaya. But then since I was not able to cope with my heavy load of other services I withdrew myself from the SAC after speaking to the convener, Purnacandra Prabhu (now Goswami).”

While Devamrta Prabhu’s leaving was not the SAC’s fault, the SAC should have replaced him with someone else, or better still, with several others born in India. Not only did the SAC not do this, but it falsely stated that native-born Indians were actively involved and “properly represented.” Again, that simply was not true.

These two anomalies of obfuscating the truth are completely incongruent with brahminical behavior, which of course the SAC is supposed to embody. Besides damaging the credibility of the SAC, such a discrepancy sows doubt in the minds of the reader: Was the SAC paper fair and unbiased, or was it written from a strictly “Western-centric, modernist, feminist” position, with a predetermined conclusion already in place? This lack of transparency on the part of the SAC seriously undermines its credibility.” Krishna Devī dasi

Hence, we must pose the question; how can an individual like Urmila Devī Dāsī who is willing to lie, twist and misrepresent facts in order to realize her own agenda of “becoming an initiating guru”, be accepted as Brāhmaṇa, qualified to hold the esteemed role of a member of the SAC?

It is crystal clear that she is unable to exhibit even the basic quality of truthfulness, which is the fundamental prerequisite to be considered a brahmana in the first place?

Furthermore, how can a person who is not qualified to be a brahmana be considered in the role of an initiating spiritual master, regardless of gender?

What is even more troublesome is the fact that it is rumored that Urmila Devī Dasi is ‘allegedly’ already giving clandestine initiations (Diksa) secretly to ISKCON members, without the official approval of the GBC.

Furthermore the idea of a conditioned woman, fraught with materialistic ambition, becoming an initiating spiritual master in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s ISKCON society has no support in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s instructions and teachings (pramana).

The fact that Urmila Devī Dāsī and other ‘conditioned’ devotees in women’s bodies subjected to four defects, are desperately hankering after taking disciples and becoming official ISKCON gurus must never be taken lightly or condoned in our Vaiṣṇava society.

The role of an initiating spiritual master must never be denigrated to include ambitious conditioned souls who are ensnared in the bodily concept of life and the GBC should not be influenced by unqualified women desirous of equal status with men, who themselves, have already made a mockery of the initiation process and the esteemed position of an initiating spiritual master.

No devotee who has personal interest/ambition should be allowed to short track their way into the role of an initiating spiritual master by conducting clandestine initiations in an attempt to influence/blackmail ecclesiastical bodies such as the SAC and GBC into changing policy on guru tattva.

The fact that they can or did means that the GBC and SAC members are in themselves unqualified to hold such esteemed posts.

Affirmative Action – Revolution Against Hijackers of ISKCON!

BY: GOPAL DASA

Mar 01, INDIA (SUN) — It is all out in the open now. We know that ISKCON has been hijacked. Srila Prabhupada’s ISKCON has been turned into FISKCON, or Fraudulent ISKCON.

So what are we going to do about it? Nothing?

Oh yeah, we will shout about gay or women’s rights, or how badly we are being treated and not cared for, or we will shout how this person is nonsense and that persons is nonsense or this guru system is bogus. Even though so much is being said, no one does anything about it.

Why is this so?

Who cares about Narayana Maharaja and his stupid followers? Who cares about the fools masquerading as gurus? What do all these matter, when Srila Prabhuapada’s ISKCON has been intentionally ruined by these Hijackers!

The ISKCON that you stupidly think is ISKCON is not! It is FISKCON. This is not the ISKCON that we joined.

It is only in FISKCON that the pedophiles are given more support than the true followers of Prabhupada. It is in this FISKCON that Srila Prabhupada is the hired worker and his books changed. It is this FISKCON that does not care for us! It is this FISKCON that is selling us out to the Hindu bucks. It is this FISKCON that is selling our farms. This FISKCON that created all the schisms…

How stupid are we? The Sampradaya Sun is the real ISKCON newspaper. Dandavats and Charka are all propaganda machines for FISKCON. Not ISKCON.

News Flash!

admiration and followers, with the help of traitorous Prabhupada disciples…

its own people and blames it on Terrorists…

United Nations are at war against Afghanistan, Iraq & Palestine and they will soon try for Iran…

What do we humans do? Nothing!

We cannot help that the New World Order is managing the world, nor can we help that we are in the throes of the Third World War (under the guise of a ‘War on Terror’). But we can help that a small group of Hijackers have taken over ISKCON.

How can you just sit there and let this happen? What is wrong with us, that we are so impotent and weak? Why can’t we be loyal to Srila Prabhupada and stand up for him?

The hijackers “own” ISKCON now. They no longer need Srila Prabhupada or his ISKCON. They use him only as an advertising gimmick to get more followers. They only need our complicity by our stupidity. They are a power unto themselves now.

Our choice is whether we want to be part of their ISKCON or Srila Prabhupada’s? That is our choice. Your choice! And ‘YOU’ need to make one, and soon!

Srila Prabhupada chose to follow his Spiritual Master, and now so must you! We must openly revolt against this SHADOW ISKCON / FISKCON. We must find any way that we can to do this.

1. Stop listening to them.

2. Don’t support them or their projects.

3. Don’t, under any circumstance, give them any money.

4. Stop distributing their books and demand Srila Prabhupada’s.

5. Hold temple community meetings and vote the Temple Presidents out if they support FISKCON.

6. Vote for your own GBC Member.

7. If not initiated, then find a devotee in ISKCON who is qualified and take shelter of them.

The true power is with us, and not with them. You know in your hearts and your intelligence tells you that they are not advanced souls. They, like Satsvarup, blatantly flaunt this in our faces. They rub our noses in it. It is way past time that we stop taking this like the drooling idiots they think us to be.

So don’t let them treat you like this! Don’t let them get away with it. Don’t bend over and let them kick you on the ass like you are a stupid, dimwitted buffoon. For that is what they think of us!

So I call all true followers of Srila Prabhupada to make a stand and unite to fight against this evil empire that has arisen in our midst.

Stand up and vote against them. Or you can kiss your spiritual life goodbye!

P.S. Do you really think that Srila Prabhupada is going to be happy that you have done nothing to protect him and his movement? Do you think that he is proud of you?