The long-standing critical problem can be solved within a fraction of second, if you can realize the heart of Srila Baba Maharaja

The long-standing critical problem can be solved within a fraction of second, if you can realize the heart of Srila Baba Maharaja

All glories to Śrī Śrī Guru-Gaurāṅga

Date: 15.04.25

Yes, Śrīla Bābā Mahārāja addressed everything already. You are not bringing any new information or facts with your arguments. We ourselves have already asked all these questions and gone through his articles and Harikathās to try to understand all these intricacies.

Śrīla Bābā Mahārāja never said that Svāmī Mahārāja Ji didn't do anything. On the contrary, he said that we will never be able to repay all the hard work he has done. But, during the last years of his life, he unfortunately offended his godbrothers, these offenses are still in circulation, and therefore they must be removed because they are being perpetuated in books and other media – educating negatively and polluting the minds of new generations of devotees. We honestly cannot understand why it is so difficult to accept such a simple point. We cannot overlook the offenses or pretend that they are not there (or even worse, to try to advocate in favor of them as being a 'strategy of preaching') just because Svāmī Mahārāja has put many efforts to bring Kṛṣṇa consciousness to foreign countries. This has nothing to do with ingratitude – it is about preserving the pure flow of Bhakti Siddhānta Vānī:

prabhu kahe, — pūrṇa yaiche dugdhera kalasa

surā-bindu-pāte keha nā kare paraśa

(C.C. Madhya-līlā 12.53)

Śrīman Mahāprabhu then said, — “There may be a big pot full of milk, but if it is contaminated by a drop of liquor, then it becomes untouchable."

śūlapāṇi-sama yadi vaiṣṇavere ninde

tathāpiha nāśa paya—kahe śāstra -vṛnde

(CB Madhya 22.56)

"Even if someone of the level of the supremely powerful devotee and gunāvatara Lord Śīva blasphemes a devotee, he will soon be destroyed. This is the verdict of all the scriptures."

ihā nā māniyā ye sujana nindā kare mad

janme janme se pāpiṣṭha daive dose mare

(57)

"Sinful people who ignore the above fact and criticize devotees suffer the heaviest of all punishment of providence birth and birth."

anyera ki dayā gaura-siṁhera jananī

tāṅhāre o vaishnavaparadha kari gani

(58)

"What to speak of others, even the supreme mother of the Supreme Lord Himself Gaura Simha was not exempt from being considered an offender of a Vaiṣṇava."

prabhu bale – upadeśa kahite se pāri

vaishnava aparadha āmi khaṇḍāite nāri

(32)

"Lord Gaurāṅga Himself replied— 'I can give instructions how to eliminate the aparādha (like in the case of Durvāsā and Ambarīṣa), but I Myself even though being the Supreme Lord am unable to destroy an offense against a Vaiṣṇava.'"

Śrīla Bābā Mahārāja is only defending our Gauḍīya Guruvarga from those offenses, but you are calling him the offender. One of the symptoms of someone who commits Vaiṣṇava-aparādha (aside of his complete destruction) is that the offender totally loses the capacity to speak Harikathā, and some complete random siddhānta starts to come out of his mouth during his speeches (we have seen it happening with some ācāryas). In regards to Śrīla Bābā Mahārāja, he continues to happily deliver overflowing Harikathās, sometimes speaking for 6-8 hours in a day, in 3 different languages – all being recorded by video and published without editing. During periods like kārtika month, he speaks for 8 hours every day, for 30 straight days. And so far, nobody could ever point out one single wrong siddhānta spoken by him. How wonderful is that? Still, people cannot accept him, which is quite natural. Somebody put the following question in front of Śrīla Prabhupāda— “Are genuine saints (sādhus) respected in this world?”. The answer by Śrīla Prabhupāda was that— “In such a world which is full of duplicity only duplicitous persons are honoured. Genuine saints (sādhus), who don’t lead the masses along the wrong path, are not respected in this world. In modern times people are simply getting cheated by those who mislead the masses throughout a pretentious form of spiritual discourse has somehow emerged as the religion of the age (yuga-dharma). And because the true saints (sādhus) wish to expose wicked and unholy persons (asādhus) those same unholy cheaters bewilder the masses by condemning the true saints (sādhus) as unholy, duplicitous and thieves themselves in a plot to secure their escape. The illusory potency of the Lord, Māyā, never allows the jīvās to be sincere (niṣkapaṭa) and to that end she has been depriving the jīvās of the association of genuine saints (sādhus).”

Perhaps you have never gone through Śrīla Bhakti Pramoda Purī Gosvāmī Mahārāja’s book ‘The Heart of Kṛṣṇa’, otherwise you would not be able to misunderstand him. He was so strict on the topic of Vaiṣṇava aparādha. He was never seen angry, but one day, when a driver spoke ill of Śrīla Bhakti Dayita Mādhava Gosvāmī Mahārāja, Śrīla Bhakti Pramoda Purī Gosvāmī Mahārāja immediately roared like a lion—leaving everyone around astonished, as they had never witnessed such a mood from him.

All these offenses done by Svāmī Mahārāja were not publicly spread and known previously. There were only some comments printed in Caitanya Caritāmrta (which were brought to the attention of some of our Guruvarga, like Śrīdhara Mahārāja, who pleaded GBC to remove them), but there was no information about all his private letters and speeches with heavy insults until recent time. The online archive containing all his letters and speeches was publicly launched in 2008 and since then, material has been continuously added over the years. Śrīla Bhakti Pramoda Purī Gosvāmī Mahārāja left his divine body in 1999. Among those remarks, we find Svāmī Mahārāja saying that Śrīla Bhakti Dayita Mādhava Gosvāmī Mahārāja (the same Mādhava Mahārāja that Śrīla Purī Mahārāja himself defended in this driver occasion) was not interested at all in preaching – but rather in collecting material gain, reputation, and adoration. So, if he knew about everything, he would most definitely protest. In this we have firm faith, because his position as a pure devotee and embodiment of all perfect siddhānta is unquestionable.

Śrīla Prabhupāda used to say that— “to get rid of history and allegory is called actual hari-bhajana.” We are not interested in random arguments such as “he said this, he said that”, we want to hear siddhānta with sāstric pramāṇa. Nārada Jī Mahārāja has convinced Kaṃsa to kill all other sons of Vasudeva and Devakī, stating to Kaṃsa that he did not know how the demigods were supposed to count who would be the 8th born son. They could count in reverse order, or play any kind of tricks, so he should kill them all to avoid being cheated. Why would Nārada Ji Mahārāja speak against the interest of the highly exalted devotees Vasudeva and Devakī? Why would he be in favor of the murder of all of their babies? The answer is: to expedite the destruction of Kaṃsa, by significantly increasing his sinful activities. Sometimes Guru-Vaiṣṇava say things which seem difficult to reconcile, sometimes they cheat us, sometimes they purposely give honor to fallen souls, and they act according to time, place, and circumstance, but we cannot understand their mood. This is why we need to get back to the śāstras all the time, under the guidance of pure Guru-Vaiṣṇava, to be able to understand what is right and what is wrong:

tasmāc chāstraṁ pramāṇaṁ te

kāryākārya-vyavasthitau

jñātvā śāstra-vidhānoktaṁ

karma kartum ihārhasi

(B.G. 16.24)

“One should therefore understand what is duty and what is not duty by the regulations of the scriptures. Knowing such rules and regulations, one should act so that he may gradually be elevated.”

bhajanorjjita-sajjana-sangha-patim

patitadhika-karunikaika-gatim

gati-vanchita-vanchakachintya-padam

pranamami sada prabhupada-padam

(Śrīla Prabhupāda Padma Stavakah, sloka 2)

“He is the leader of the assembly of saints who are powerful in bhajana. He is most compassionate to the fallen, as he is their sole refuge. His inconceivable feet deceive the cheaters. I forever offer praṇāma unto the feet of Śrīla Prabhupāda.”

We think it is pointless to keep engaging in this endless conversation, unless we seek to find a solution. We will try to summarize our options down below:

If your desire is just to stop the publications of Śrīla Bābā Mahārāja against those offenses, then you have the following 2 options:

1 - You can kindly approach ISKCON GBC and ask them to remove all offenses from circulation in all books, internet, and other medias; or

2 - You can collect the signatures of all ācāryas requesting Śrīla Bābā Mahārāja to stop this sevā and free him from this responsibility. Śrīla Bābā Mahārāja was in Vṛndāvana doing his own bhajana when he was ordered to do this sevā, and now he is only discharging the duty. So, he also needs to receive a request to drop it.

On the other hand, if your desire is to try to prove Śrīla Bābā Mahārāja wrong, then you have other 2 options at your disposal:

3 - Bring any scriptural evidence in favor of your argument that Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja Ji only offended everyone for the higher sake of preaching, and that there is no fault in doing that. You can quote ślokas from any authentic scripture which supports this argument that it is ok to offend Vaiṣṇavas, in certain circumstances, for certain personalities. And you also have to prove that Śrīla Bābā Mahārāja is envious and jealous of Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja Ji (because that is the root cause of criticism). So, please also prove that he is criticizing by pointing out what he is trying to get from that (money? He is a beggar. Followers/disciples? He is always sending everyone away. Worship? He does not even accept garlands from anyone. Foreign trips and western luxuries? He has never left India, even after receiving many invitations and requests); or

4 - If you are not able to bring any scriptural evidence as stated in option number 3 above, but you still are so strongly convinced that your position is right, then Bābā has invited you and any other devotees to go with him to Nṛsiṃha-Pallī. There, you can reaffirm all your claims that Bābā Mahārāja is a mahā-aparādhī, critic, liar, etc etc etc, by touching the Lotus Feet of Nṛsiṃhadeva. Bābā Mahārāja will also do the same and put his own claims. Then, we can let Bhagavān judge who is right and who is wrong and very quickly we can have a solution. The invitation is open not only to you, but to anyone. Just let us know who will go and when you can go.

As you can see, there are plenty of options for us to solve this issue for good. The only thing which is not an option is to continue receiving long essays with irrational emotional shouting and insults—this cannot lead anywhere. Śrīla Bhakti Pramod Purī Gosvāmī Mahārāja said that— “Emotion is not devotion. Emotion leads to demotion, but devotion leads to promotion.”

So, in case you agree to pursue any one of the proposed solutions, we can continue our conversation, otherwise this will be our last message to you regarding this topic, because we think it is not productive for all of us to dedicate further time to this issue. Time is paramārtha.

Finally, if none of the options above are accepted, this sevā will keep going—it cannot and it will not just stop because you are angry.

Link for the video where Śrīla Śrīdhara Mahārāja requests the removal of the offenses:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51JVzQCx288

Last Harikatha of Śrīla Bābā Māhārāja addressing these points:

https://youtu.be/-D7udzqDil8

Jay Gaura!

Thanks a lot

Truly yours in service of Śrī Guru, Gaurānga & Go-mātā

All the sincere members of Sri Bhakti Siddhanta Vani Seva Trust.