Evil Doers, Wicked Persons, & Demons

SAHAJIYĀ SPIRITUAL-LIFE MASS MURDER

Prabhupāda: These sahajiyās will come out of so many devotees. What can be done? From my Guru Mahārāja’s disciples, so many sahajiyās came. These are called sahajiyās. Very easily they capture thing. So my Guru Mahārāja used to say, “When my disciples will be sahajiyā, it will be more dangerous.”

“A class of so-called devotees known as prākṛta-sahajiyās sometimes display devotional symptoms to exhibit their good fortune.  It is not advisable to equate the prākṛta-sahajiyās with pure devotees. When one is actually advanced in ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa, he does not try to advertise himself. Instead, he endeavors more and more to render service to the Lord.”

Evil Doers, Wicked Persons, & Demons.
By Upendranath Dāsa

Let’s Look at the Definition of the Word’s “Evil” and “Wicked”.

Wicked means: “Evil by nature and in practice.:

Evil means: “Morally bad or wrong, wicked, causing ruin, injury, pain or harm, and those that cause harm, misfortune, destruction, or cause suffering.”

Hence, the word “wicked” is basically specifying an “evil” person.  These two words are just the two sides of a horrible coin.

Therefore, I posit that the two types of preachers, that I have described, are sahajiyās, because they are preaching a process of Krishna consciousness that, consciously or unconsciously, instils in the minds of their followers, that devotional service and the attainment of the ultimate goal in life is “easy”.

And to take it to another level, I posit that these preachers are “Evil” & “Wicked”,  or they are just plain “Fools”. These kinds of preachers are harmful, for they are causing the “Ruin” and “Destruction”, of the spiritual lives of those that believe them or those who follow them.  It is not a matter of just one or two devotees either.  In other words they are committing,

ISKCON “Spiritual-Life Mass Murder”.

Any form of sahajiyaism will kill one’s spiritual life.  Prabhupāda said that sahajiyaism was one of the three things that would destroy ISKCON from within.  ISKCON is a society of persons.  If you destroy the spiritual life of the persons in ISKCON, then you destroy ISKCON in the process.  It is time that we understand that sahajiyaism is not just limited to the false preachers of rasika, or the most abominable, let’s have a rāsa-līlā sex orgy clubs.  It also includes, any type of preaching, that presents attainment of the ultimate abode, as an easy process, either openly or disguised.  Therefore, just as personal ambition is deeply rooted in ISKCON, sahajiyaism is also deeply rooted, not only in the various rasika camps of Gauḍīya Vaishnavism, but also in the ISKCON camp as well.

Many times the word “evil” or “wicked” has been used to label mass murderers, like Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden and even Satan, and many other similar personalities.  Are the two types of preachers of Krishna consciousness as mentioned above, evil or wicked like just Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, or Satan?

They’re such highly charged terms: “evil” & “wicked”; and so is my proposition that these preachers I have mentioned are wicked “evil ones” and “evildoers”, or at best “fool number one”.  That does not mean “evil” is a useless term.  It can specify something important, but we should know what it is specifying, because tossing the term around indiscriminately, can devalue it, rob it of its very specific substance.  There is evil and there is evil.  The word has hierarchies, and degrees,  and distinctions, to be drawn, and commonalties to be sought, when making comparisons between individuals who may qualify as “evil” or “wicked”.

One of the curious, paradoxical things I have discovered during the many times I contemplated the ways in which these preachers’ crimes have been explained, was the reluctance to apply the words “evil” or “wicked” to them.  Sometimes I have read or heard them being called “fools”, “idiots”, or “twits”, but not “evil’ or “wicked”.  When a prospective devotee’s spiritual life is ruined, destroyed, thus causing him to experience repeated birth and death, that will result in continuing suffering and pain, under the 3 modes of material nature, then what does that say about the perpetrator?  If they are wicked, is this wickedness any different than the wickedness of the mass murderer “evildoers” like Hitler, Stalin, or Bin Laden?

Some may argue, that it wasn’t Hitler who was responsible for Nazi crimes, but the forces of history that he embodied.  Blame them. Or it was not Hitler himself, so much as the irresistible pressure of a distorted ideology.  Blame that.

Or, from the viewpoint of Freudian psycho historians, it was not Hitler, it was his unconscious drive.  Blaming Hitler, attributing his crimes to him personally, to his conscious agency has not been a very popular view in some intellectual circles.

Can the same be said about those who preach the two types of sahajiyaism?  For their crime of “spiritual-life mass murder”, are we to blame some forces within Vaishnava culture, or more specifically, forces within ISKCON politics, blame the irresistible pressure of their distorted ideology, or blame their unconscious drives instead of attributing their crime of sahajiyaism to them personally, to their own consciousness?

Considering an expanded definition of evil, one will discover not a single, all-encompassing evil, but hierarchies and degrees, that distinguish natural evils (“acts of God” in the theological and insurance-company vocabularies), from man-made evils (anthrax attacks, crashing airplanes into office buildings).

And among man-made evils, one finds distinctions between the mindset of the perpetrator, who does evil, under the illusion that he is doing good.

And the mindset of the perpetrator, who does evil, and who knows He is committing a crime.

The latter falls into a more rarefied category of “wickedness” which itself can be divided into “ordinary wickedness”, “selfish wickedness”, “conscientious wickedness”, “just-following-orders wickedness”, and the highest (or lowest) degree, “malignant wickedness”, doing evil for evil’s sake.  Even self-professed Satanists can be exempted from the latter category, because they believe that Lucifer deserves to be God.  Satan is the good guy; there has, just been a big mistake.

There are two crucial variables in defining degrees of evil.

1. The first variable is the perpetrator’s consciousness of his crimes.
2. The other variable is the scale of the crime.

At what point does an order of magnitude, in the number of murders, or spiritual murders; matter?

The difference between, say, six million and six thousand, or between six thousand and six.  Which one makes a difference, in the order of magnitude of evil attributable to the perpetrator?

Consider the uneasiness, of some over the discrepancy, between the universally reported September 11^th  6,000 and the newer number now believed to be closer to 4,000.  At what point do numbers matter?

Most people, but not all, would agree, that a difference in degree between six million and six could be discerned, if not precisely defined.  But defining degrees of evil involves calculations of both mindset and magnitude, whereby a lower body count, might in some cases, represent a greater degree of evi,l or a higher body count as less.  Stalin’s body count, for instance, is now generally considered greater than Hitler’s; depending on who is counting.  Yet some modern Marxists, still argue that there is a “qualitative” difference, between Stalin’s murders, and Hitler’s.  That Stalinism was a lesser evil than Hitlerism, because Soviet communism was originally, they say, motivated by “Utopian Idealism”,  rather than Hitlerian “Race Hatred”, and the tens of millions of murders were an unfortunate, but really an unrelated “side effect”.

“What is More Evil or Wicked?
Physical Life Mass Murder or Spritual Life Mass Murder?”

Of the Perpetrators of Spiritual Life Mass Murder, Who is the Greater or Who is the Lesser Wicked or Evil Preacher?”

ISKCON-type sahajiyaism, or Gopi-Bhava-Club-type sahajiyaism?  Is there a qualitative difference to be argued on the behalf on either side?  Both are definitely motivated by the utopian spiritual life idealism of an “easy” passage to Krishna-loka.   Do calculations of the body count, make a difference in either case?

Of course, neither of them will not admit nor recognize that they are committing spiritual life mass murder.  On the other hand, both parties boast, and cheer about their preaching, and they are praised by others from within their respective camps.  At the same time, they continue to add to the body count.

Does the mindset of either group make one group less evil or eviler?  Because they may think and believe that they are doing the Lord’s work, and what they preach is good and will benefit the living entities; does that excuse them from being labeled “evil” or “wicked”?

Nevertheless, the fact remains, that numerous people’s spiritual lives are being murdered.  This brings us to an even for controversial question.

What is more “evil” or more “wicked”, physical life mass murder or spiritual life mass murder?

Assume for the moment that Hitler or Bin Laden, was indeed convinced of his own moral righteousness in committing mass murder.  This view is unsatisfying to many, because it suggests a lesser degree of evil than if Hitler and bin Laden had been convinced of their criminality.  Once I remember reading somewhere, that people do wrong only if they are deluded into thinking they are doing right, or if they are rendered incapable, by reason of ignorance or mental defect, of not knowing right from wrong. i.e., the “moral imbecility” of a fool.  It is a fact that those preaching sahajiyaism will never understand nor admit, even though some have the capacity to understand, right from wrong, that they are committing spiritual life mass murder.

Therefore they must be deluded into thinking they are doing right and totally unaware of their spiritual crime.  In this case I would conclude they are “wicked”, and “evil”.

If for some reason they are incapable, by reason of ignorance or mental defect, of knowing right from wrong, then I conclude that they are moral imbeciles or as Bhaktivinoda said, “fools”.

Assigning different degrees of evil to different quantities ,and qualities, of murder may seem at first to be an angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin matter.  But it is something we the people routinely engage in when, as juries, we decide the difference between first and second-degree murder, between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, very often according to calculations of mindset.

Some people believe, that Hitler was sincerely, if mistakenly convinced that the Jews were out to destroy the master race, and thus must be eliminated for the good of humanity.

And Bin Laden, was sincerely, if mistakenly convinced, that he had to murder innocents, to defend Islam.

Similarly, I can see the preachers of ISKCON-type sahajiyaism, or the Gopi-Bhava-Club-type sahajiyaism come off as sincerely, but mistakenly, convinced that they are doing the Lord’s work for the benefit of humanity.

At what point, at what order of magnitude, does the number of dead override the moral righteousness rationale?

If one “sincerely, if mistakenly” kills six?  Six thousand?  Six million?  Does a holy crusade justify killing an unlimited number of infidels if one “sincerely” believes that he is carrying out God’s will, to rescue humanity from evil?

Could a single person therefore justify killing everyone else, and still be thought to be convinced of his own moral righteousness, if he believed it was for the greater glory of God?

Common sense suggests that at some point, even the most oblivious mass murderer ,recognizes that he or she, has crossed a border, and gone beyond sincere idealism.  But who says common sense rules in such cases?

Thinking of Hitler and Bin Laden, as true believers, unaware that they are perpetrating evil does not necessarily excuse their crimes, but it does avoid acknowledging an almost unbearable possibility: that human beings are capable of committing mass murder not with an “idealistic” rationale, but for self-advancement or self-aggrandizement.  This type of person is described in the Bhagavad-gītā as being possessed by a “demoniac” mind.  In other words a “Demon”.

Similarly, thinking of those who preach any form of sahajiyaism as true believers unaware that they are perpetrating evil/wickedness/foolishness, does not excuse them of their spiritual crimes, but it does avoid acknowledging the other, and again, a very unbearable possibility,

“That they are preaching in this way not because they have an idealistic rationale, but because they are after self-advancement, or self-aggrandizement.  Therefore if this is the case, then we are talking about DEMONS and not devotees.”

“Srila Prabhupāda Gave Many Warnings For Us to be Aware Of.”

At the top of this list, there is the mother of all warnings, comprising of three viruses, that he most feared would invade the body of ISKCON.  He warned us that ISKCON could only be “ruined/destroyed”, from within, and that there were three conditions that could cause this; of which, anyone, could ruin or destroy ISKCON, what to speak-of, if more than one:

1. Personal ambition,
2. Sahajiyaism,
3. And Impersonalisum.

Kuṇḍali Dāsa, has written extensively on the state of affairs in ISKCON, what happened, what went wrong, and even gave many presentations on how it could be healed.  He also presented very nicely how these three viruses have invaded the body of ISKCON, especially personal ambition.  Even before he came to Vrindavana to live in the 1990’s, he wrote a Śrīla Prabhupada-Vyasa-puja offering, warning the leader of the pitfalls of Personal-Ambition. This article is posted on this website.

In this essay, I would like to take a closer look at sahajiyaism.  While any one of these diseases could in itself destroy ISKCON, I sincerely believe that all three have contributed to its degradation.  Is it possible that sahajiyaism has taken deeper root in ISKCON than we normally acknowledge, or even think about?  I think so.

Many persons think that “sahajiyā” is a term applied to those who pervert the sexual context of a conjugal relationship with Lord Krishna, and use it for their personal sense gratification.  While these deviants can rightly be called sahajiyās, the literal meaning of this Sanskrit word is “easy.”  Therefore this word has a much broader implication, and needs to be looked at with this in mind for this is the most insidious way that it invades one spiritual life.

Anyone who preaches in a way that presents Krishna consciousness as an “easy” process can be understood as preaching sahajiyaism, knowingly or unknowingly. This website will have none of this, if that is what you are looking for.   This aspect has in the past been looked at, only from the viewpoint of the victim.  We would normally say that such a devotee is committing spiritual-life suicide if they are a sahajiyā.  This lets the preachers, who taught him/her this notion, off the hook.  Is it possible that the preachers are guilty of spiritual-life murder?  Instead of the victim committing spiritual-life suicide?  I certainly think so, and you can take that to the bank.

In this regard Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, has written about such a person who preaches like that.  It is commonly known, that the rasika teacher that Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura is referring to believes that he is doing no wrong to teach rasika openly, and without discrimination.  He does not feel that he is “evil”, “wicked”, or “foolish.”  I heard one story, when I lived in Vrindavan in the 1990 decade, which illustrates an extreme episode of such a thing:

“One well-known rasika guru in Vrindavana, who is luring away many ISKCON devotees to his camp by such rasika preaching, was riding in a car with a female person, who had only been involved in the Krishna conscious philosophy for a few months.  This guru asked her if she was initiated yet.  When she said no, the rasika guru, said something about how she was a special soul, and other flattering comments.  And without hesitating, he immediately initiated her on the spot.  He gave her a mañjarī name, and revealed to her, that it was her spiritual identity, and that she should now meditate on walking along the Yamunā River, and on the other side she would see Rādhā and Krishna, and that she should meditate on serving them.”

This is a par-excellent example of spiritual-life murder.

On the other hand, some persons preach in a way that causes those to whom they preach, to have a purely sentimental understanding of the process of devotional service.  When placed under the microscope of our overall philosophy, we see that these devotees’ understanding and belie,f is consistent with sahajiyaism. They simply think that it is an “easy” process.  Just join ISKCON, and follow their programs, and you will AUTOMICTICALLY get a FREE ticket to Vaikuṇṭha.  That it is “easy” to achieve the ultimate abode, Vaikuṇṭha.  They preach some mechanical or sentimental, just do this and just do that, just stay in our institution, have hari-nāma kīrtan at your deathbed, and you will go back to the spiritual world in your next life, no problems.  The ISKCON gurus, when one of their disciples dies, they reinforce this, by telling their other disciples, that the disciple that just died, went back to the spiritual world, and is now with Krishna. I kind you not; I heard them preach and talk like this.

What baffles my mind, is that this kind of preacher does not feel that he is “evil”, “wicked”, or “foolish”.  These preachers who create this sentimental view of Krishna-consciousness, do not feel that they are presenting an easy process for attaining the ultimate abode.  These persons may actually believe they are right, and are not doing anything wrong.  What a pity!

“Hence, Some Questions Naturally Come to Mind.”

Do they actually believe that it is that easy?

I have observed that in ISKCON, many devotees have such sentimental and “easy” beliefs.  It is a common understanding, by so many in ISKCON, that one is beyond the “Three Modes of Material Nature”, by dint of being initiated into the ISKCON society.  They are being taught not to discriminate, for they may commit Vaishnava-aparadha.  Even though it is clearly stated by Prabhupāda, and shastra, that the main symptom of a madhyama-adhikārī is discrimination, and by Bhaktivinoda Thakur when he said,

“That one must continuously scrutinize the people one associates with.”

This type of false preaching dooms a devotee to remain a neophyte kaniṣṭha-adhikārī.

How can a person make spiritual-life advancement without discrimination?

Is this person who was preached to like this, is he/her committing “spiritual-life suicide”, or is the preacher, who preached this non-sense, guilty of “spiritual-life murder?”

Do the preachers who put these “easy” beliefs and ideas, in the devotee’s mind, and those who reinforce these “easy” beliefs and ideas, know the harm they are doing? Are they conscious of their crime of spiritual-life murder or are they simply convinced of their own moral righteousness believing it is for the greater glory of God?

I know of one so-called devotee victim, who has been involved in Krishna-consciousness for over 20 years.  He currently lives in a farm community of devotees.  He has a guru, and has personally argued to me, that he is going to the spiritual world, and will be with Krishna when he dies.  He actually believes that if you just read the Bhagavad-Gītā, you automatically will go back to spiritual world at the time of death.  He even believes that by just observing all the Ekādaśī fasts, then that will also guaranty, for sure, that he will go back to the spiritual world at the time of his death.  He actually believes, that if he remains in the institution that he belongs to (ISKCON), then this for sure, is his guaranteed ticket.  And in the meantime, he is a connoisseur of pornography, and a practicing bi-sexual with an inclination towards older men.

Dude’s and Duette’s, thig poor moron, imbecile, is so tightly bound by the mode of passion and ignorance, he cannot even think straight.  After 20 years, who has brainwashed him with these sentimental “easy” beliefs and ideas?  Who has taught him that in order to attain the ultimate abode, it is that “easy”?   Now I a not afraid to tell you who.  It was his ISKCON Rubber-stamped gueu, who also was one of the 11 unscrupulous who hi-jacked ISKCON for their own Personal-Ambition; and who by the way is a practicing homo-sexual, even while Śrīla Prabhupāda was still with us.  Truly  a “wicket” and “evil” person, if you knew of his action, which are to gross and evil to recount in this essay, while he resided in Vrindavana, and in these actions in Śrīla Prabhupāda personal quarters as well.