George A. Smith, Jun 07 2009, California, USA: The first lesson that I was taught about myself when I came to the Krsna consciousness movement was the same lesson that everyone else was taught, which formed the foundation upon which all subsequent lessons would be built. It is the same lesson, I believe, that everyone else was offered but which one of us at least seems to have missed, or rejected, or never understood.
Kshamabuddi das seems to have forgotten this most important lesson which is that “I am a fool and a rascal and I am fool number one.”
Kshamabuddhi’s foolishness knows no bounds and he has elevated his rascaldom to heights unimaginable. Impervious to all reason and common sense he parades himself as an authority on whatever you name. Knowing nothing and not what to does he performs the action that Srila Prabhupada told us was the indication of the least intelligence and the worst kind of foolishness. Kshamabuddi das, not knowing what to do, does something anyway.
Were it only foolishness that compelled him it would be one thing, but he knows very well that he is not an authority on anything, but is posing as an authority on everything, thus he shows us that that he has never accepted Srila Prabhupada as his teacher, but has attached himself to the Krsna consciousness movement and to Srila Prabhupada like some parasite, to drain it’s life and suck it’s blood and ultimately to bring about it’s destruction. Then it will move on to some other religion where it will repeat its behavior.
Kshamabuddi isn’t a devotee. He is a virus. He is like a wounded snake that you feeling compassionate for, have taken into your house and nursed back to all of its venomous strength.
In his recent strike at the Krsna consciousness movement, Kshamabuddi makes it seem that Srila Prabhupada advocated the murdering of Christians. As in every other thing that he tells about, Kshamabuddi doesn’t know what he is talking about but not everyone will know that and not everyone will care, they will simply hear what they want to hear, which is that the Hare Krsnas and the founder of their movement advocate the killing of Christians.
In India and in other parts of the world today into which they go to convert others to their faith, Christians are still being murdered today by Hindus, Moslems, you name it, so it is not such a far-fetched consideration that some Christian watch group might take the idiot Kshamabuddhi’s assertions seriously, and a war against Christianity is a war against the West. How long before some Christian group contacts their representatives in Congress and asks them to check the International Society of Krsna Consciousness out, and to pay very close attention to what groups some of its members express sympathy towards or associates with? How long before someone discovers that such sympathies and associations include some terrorist group, and the International Society of Krsna Consciousness finds its own name added to the list of Terrorist groups? It could happen, but even if it doesn’t, how long until some nutcase incited by some other nut case (Kshamabuddi) goes out and murders some Christian and when asked why they did it, points to The Sampradaya Sun and to Kshamabuddhis’ article upon it and claims that he is only following the order of his spiritual master. “You see? Right there. Prabhupada said.”
It could happen, and by not sufficiently stomping Kshamabuddi into the dust and disassociating him from yourselves completely you are gambling with Srila Prabhupada’s movement and with the health, welfare and even freedom of innumerable devotees all over the world, and it is not a safe bet because what Kshamabuddi is giving is exactly what some want to see, all the evidence that they need not to hang Christians, but to hang Hare Krsnas.
In his recent article that called for Christians to be hung, the devotee who has been keen to stir up sectarian animosity leading to violence against the Christians has tried to portray Srila Prabhupada as being a bloodthirsty sectarian advocating violence against the Christians.
As proof that this is what Srila Prabhupada wanted, he included in his article a room conversation between Srila Prabhupada and some of his disciples. He interpreted some of Srila Prabhupada’s statements in this article as calling for death of Christians. If we look at Srila Prabhupada’s statements and think carefully about them however, or just happen to notice the obvious intent we can see that Srila Prabhupada isn’t speaking at all about the members of any one group or religion.
Prabhupada: Nonsense rascals. These people should be immediately hanged. “Our religion is very good.” What is that? “We cannot stop acting sinfully, and Christ has taken contract. He will save us.”
Srila Prabhupada isn’t talking about just people who may happen to be Christians. He is talking about a type of person that may be Christian, Moslem, Jewish or even a Hare Krsna, or who mightn’t be any religion at all, He is talking about a person with a particular type of mentality, a type of criminal who knows that he can get someone else to suffer the consequences of his crimes, not once, but over and over again, and who has no concern about either the victims of his criminal actions or for the one who is going to have to suffer the punishment for his crime, not once, but over and over again. Meanwhile the criminal goes on enjoying his crime spree, perfectly confident that he can go on killing forever, because someone else will be suffering the consequences of his sins. Is there any doubt in the minds of anyone that this is what Srila Prabhupada is talking about — a type of person rather than any member of any particular religious tradition?
To me it seems obvious. To me, the fact that the conversation had been about Christianity was just happenstance, the point that Srila Prabhupada was making was that any member of any spiritual group who acts in this way should be taken out and hung, and that some people who have this mentality just happened to be Christians was happenstance.
There were many other errors in Kshamabuddhi’s article, as indeed there are in all of his articles. Starting from the top, he shows that he hasn’t the foggiest clue about what he is talking about. He says that nowhere in the Vedic literatures is Jesus Christ mentioned by name as being an avatar and thus, it is a great mystery how it is that Srila Prabhupada considered Jesus Christ to be a Shaktyavesh avatar.
“Whenever the Lord is present in someone by portions of His various potencies, the living entity representing the Lord is called a saktyavesa-avatara – that is, an incarnation invested with special power.”[1]
There are different types of avatars, not all of which are mentioned by name in the Vedic literatures for the simple fact that the specific type of incarnation of Lord Krsna known as Shaktyavesh are innumerable.
Caitanya-caritamrta Madhya 20.367:
“There are unlimited saktyavesa-avatara of Lord Krsna. Let Me describe the chief among them.”
Kshamabuddi das shows himself to be astonishingly ignorant, but the most amazing thing is that he obviously has come under his own spell and believes that he knows everything there is to be known about the subject, without even bothering to check the resources at his disposal.
Srila Prabhupada accepted Jesus Christ as a Saktyavesa avatar, as being an incarnation invested with a special power. Just what that special power is was revealed by Jesus himself. Jesus said: “I have come to destroy the sacrifices (animal slaughter).”
After the Sun published my last article promoting religious tolerance I felt a bit happy and optimistic, but not altogether satisfied, for I knew that I was glossing over something, something that I had been avoiding for quite some time — the simple fact that I knew the Bible a bit better than most of the Hare Krsnas did and because of this, I had some doubt. It was fear of the recognition of this doubt that I was glossing over, for to admit such a doubt threatened to bring my universe crashing down upon my head, to end my existence. The doubt that I had was as to whether Srila Prabhupada knew what he was talking about.
I should have absolute faith in Srila Prabhupada, for I tested him the first day that I came to the temple of Lord Jagannatha on Capitol Hill in Seattle and he, consenting to be tested, proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was a transparent via medium between myself and what must surely be the Godhead. He proved this by his activities. This and so many other miracles offered me convincement beyond even that which the scientific method could avail me of, but here I was again, doubting Srila Prabhupada who had done so much for me, who I loved dearly, but who also I was afraid of and who also sometimes I think I even envied.
I knew at times the things that he said angered me, so many of them conflicted with the things that I had learned, so many ran so contrary to my own beliefs that I simply was incapable of believing in them being as I am a product of my conditioning. I had felt this way whenever the topic of Christianity came up and Srila Prabhupada’s claim that Christians were not following the teachings of Jesus Christ, that they weren’t true Christians because they were killing animals and Jesus Christ had told them not to kill them.
The next day when the Sun posted another article corroborating more or less the same positions that I had made in my article, what should have made me happier and more satisfied however didn’t, for I recognized a thing that some of you might have missed in the discussion between Srila Prabhupada and Father Emmanuel in “Understanding Krsna and Christ”, which was that the Catholic Priest never conceded the point that Srila Prabhupada had made when he had claimed that Jesus had said, “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” instead of what the Priest maintained that Christ had said which was, “Thou shalt not murder.”
Father Emmanuel never conceded the point because Jesus didn’t say what Srila Prabhupada said that he had said, not in the Bible anyway, and not within earshot of anyone who was in earshot and who happened to write it down for us to read, scratch our heads and then say? “Wow, Srila Prabhupada’s right.”
In the Bible, Jesus used the same word that his father had used in the 6th Commandment, he had used the word ‘murder’, the Hebrew word Ratsah, not the word ‘kill’, the Hebrew word Harag, and the word murder applied only to other human beings, not to animals. The Catholic priest knew this, I knew this, and I knew and he knew what Srila Prabhupada and all of his disciples did not seem to know, which was that based upon the strength of the Bible that the point would never be conceded, that as long as the Bible was accepted by the Christians as the word of God they could go on eating prime rib and pork chops from here unto eternity and not incur a single drop of sin for all of the oceans of animal blood they had shed.
Srila Prabhupada knew something else, something that hadn’t been apparent to me long ago when first I read the article. He was behaving as he often had, as if he were a normal man. His disciples had seen him behave like this many times, many times like a normal man. Cut him and he bled, keep him virtually a prisoner in a little room that would make a healthy animal sick while you plot and scheme how to “remove” him he seemed to be fearful and to plead for his life, poison him and he would die, just like a normal man, but he wasn’t.
Like a normal man, he sometimes appeared not to know something, appeared to not know what he was talking about.
Both Jehovah’s commandment and Jesus’ repetition of it in Matthew used the word ‘murder’, not ‘kill’, and only the word ‘kill’ applied itself to any living entity. I had learned this back in college when I found myself attempting to convert Christians and Jews to Vegetarianism on the strength of the same misimpression that Srila Prabhupada seemed to me to be exhibiting. It didn’t work, because they knew that the Bible didn’t support Srila Prabhupada’s claims. What they did not know was something that I knew but did not think that Srila Prabhupada knew. See, there it is. Fool number one again.
So when the Sun posted up again the article, “Understanding Krsna and Christ”, the old dread that I had kept buried so long inside of me, the doubts I had threatened to resurface and I felt fear again. The weakness of my faith was inadequate to maintain me but I could no longer shy away from the doubts that terrified me, expecting full well that I should be overcome and destroyed by them.
It was a very dark night before the dawn.
Godhead is light, darkness take flight.
Saved again by a strength that is not in me, by the causeless mercy of Krsna’s pure devotee. By a faith that never wavers, by a sight that always sees. I felt ashamed at my weakness of faith, my utter wretchedness, and yet I was so very happy. Perhaps it was nearing the time.
As I read again the same article, the things that I had not seen before became obvious to me. Before, I had thought that Srila Prabhupada had not known what the priest did not know, but then I saw that he did and that he was like John the Baptist, he was preparing the way.
What is important for us to all understand is that neither Christians nor Jews nor Moslems are committing a sin in the eyes of either God or in the eyes of Jesus as God, and Jesus are presented to them by the Bible, much less a crime and surely not a capital offence. Nor are they at all engaging in any hypocritical behavior by claiming to be Jew, Christians or Moslems while at the same time killing and eating animals, and although there are certain animals that they are forbidden to eat, the cow is not among them.
Srila Prabhupada knew this and furthermore, he knew that some of his disciples knew this, but that they remained silent. He seemed to them to be some little old Indian gentleman with scant familiarity with the Christian religion and with such a poor fund of knowledge that it led to him making claims that wouldn’t be taken seriously by any actual authority on the Christian religion.
They knew this and remained silent, and in so doing they failed a test. They were not yet ready and although he could have commanded the very stones to do his bidding, surrender had to be voluntary or it was worth nothing. Although he could have summoned the angels themselves to bring to him the words that confirmed the truth that he spoke and the Holy Order to open the grave and relinquish it to them, he did not, because you did not as yet live for the truth with every breath He gave.
I saw then when I read what I’d missed so long before.
Srila Prabhupada: “We are not concerned with this or that testament but only with the words used in the commandments. If you want to interpret these words, that is something else. We understand the direct meaning. “Thou shalt not kill” means, “The Christians should not kill.” You may put forth interpretations in order to continue the present way of action, but we understand very clearly that there is no need for interpretation. Interpretation is necessary if things are not clear. But here the meaning is clear. “Thou shalt not kill” is a clear instruction. Why should we interpret it?”
He knew. He knew that Jesus has been misrepresented, interpreted. If Jesus was against the killing of animals but that had never been included in the Bible this meant only one thing — that someone had been interpreting Jesus and his mission before the books of the Bible were ever put altogether into the one book, the Bible, possibly before they were even written, before Christianity as we know it today even began. He knew it. He knew further that the Bible, the New Testament particularly was a Yavana or Hellenist presentation, and that just by this so being ran completely contradictory to what must have been Jesus’ actual presentation. He knew, he did not think or believe that Jesus did not eat flesh. He knew this:
Jesus asked them his disciples: “Have I desired meat with desire to eat this Passover with you?” (Panarion 30.22.4).
That Jesus was a vegetarian.
And this:
“He [Elxai] bans burnt offerings and sacrifices as something foreign to God and never offered to him on the authority of the fathers and Law.”
That God was a vegetarian also.
Who could have done such a thing as to misrepresent Jesus and his teachings and more importantly, what had happened to Jesus’ real teachings and his actual following? It struggled on until roughly around the 12th or 13th century at which point it was finally exterminated.
Christian knights coming to the Holy land found some trace of it in their excavations. Behold the light he gave. They became powerful by the strength of the fear it gave. Unfortunately they made a mistake by thinking that that which beseeched them, that they should wait and let them reveal the truth gradually so as not to destroy the world, had any intention of doing anything other than they had ever done, which was to reach towards the light only to extinguish it. They too were then exterminated. And that which they had found which threatened so the establish order, when sought for so that it could be erased, had vanished. Only hinds of what the knights had found remained. This:
“I have come to destroy the sacrifices (animal slaughter)”” (Panarion 30.16.5)
From the Gospel of the Ebonites, quoted by Epiphanius.
What else they had found?
“Our master told us that except to save a human life that we shall not eat animals, neither shall we slaughter them, nor raise them for slaughter, nor buy, nor sell their flesh to be eaten, nor set down to dine with those who eat of their flesh, lest we defile ourselves with the sin of murder, for they are living souls, as are we.”
From the Gospel of the Ebonites
And what else?
What remains of the beloved?
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Hari Bol
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