Суд над Бхагавад-гитой / Attempt to ban Bhagavad-gita

pure devotional progress. Rather, it tends to render one more
ass-like in that one often trends to unduly bear, even long after
initiation into the bhakti cult, a cumbrous, almost unshakeable,
inflated sense of self-importance. Furthermore, one may
unfortunately entertain an immodest impression of one’s
“superiority” over others who are less materially qualified, thus
gobbling up heaps and piles of temporary hog-stool-like false
prestige on the basis of accumulated collegial upadhis. One must
sagaciously avoid the snobbish, over-intelligent, grossly idiotic
notion that such slaughterhouse academia is in any way a
prerequisite for high-grade devotional eligibility, competency, or
potential, or to any degree indicative of such. When has such a
conceited, specious idea ever been taught by an acarya or
upheld by shastra?

How highly educated was Valmiki? Were Hanuman,
Sugriva, Jambavan, or Jatayu college graduates? How
doctorately decorated were Mrigari, the hunter; Dhruva;
Prahlada; or even their guru, Narada, in his previous life as the
son of a maidservant? How sophisticated or cultured was the
prostitute who, by the grace of Haridasa Thakura, converted to
Vaisnavism and chanted no less than three lakhs of hari-nama
daily? What about Haridasa Thakura himself? How literate was
the celebrated South Indian brahmana whom Lord Gauranga
embraced, eulogizing him as having truly understood the
essence of the Gita? How boastfully bookish was Srila Gaura
Kishora Dasa Babaji Maharaja? How many pointed examples are
required to illustrate the principle? Besides, we should simply
ask – Is the world over not teeming with college graduates and
professionals who profess avowed atheism or agnosticism?

One may argue that collegians have a better chance of
viewing the gamut of worldly affairs, thereby increasing their
natural drift toward a spirit of renunciation, but I dare challenge
this idea. Realistically, how many graduates conclude from all
their studies that they should just abandon the path of material
amelioration to join the Hare Krishna movement? Out of many
thousands of such supposedly educated people, hardly one has
any idea of spiritual perfection, what to speak of endeavoring for
it. And of the relatively few who do gain some understanding of


or interest in sampradayic devotion, what percentage of those
practicing the process on any level opts for a life of practical,
devotion-based renunciation stemming from genuine material
exhaustion?

Sophistical, materially conceived strategic religio-
administrative contrivances may appear to bluster their
professed expediency in determining the devotional eligibility of
a candidate, albeit, only as long as a dearth of genuinely mature
spiritual insight debilitates one’s power to perceive otherwise
obvious degrees of sharanagati or spiritual surrender, indicative
of an individual’s actual level of pure devotional shraddha. My
observation is that elevated paramarthika-shraddha manifests
on the strength of the gradual accumulation of stockpiles of
bhakty-unmukhi sukriti, or piety connected to and giving rise to
shuddha-bhakti. Such accrues on account of service-related
association with agents of pure devotion in this and previous
existences. This alone is the true measure of anyone’s fitness to
pursue the path of bhakti at the spiritual master’s ashrama.
Such pure devotional shraddha and subsequent spiritual
evolvement may be had by anyone – regardless of materially
pious or impious background in terms of species, race, caste,
creed, academic qualification, or pecuniary status – via the
potent influence of authentically empowered, munificent
representatives of Divine Grace. There is no use in eristically
contending this point, drawing on any amount of sciolistic
rhetoric. All things of this cosmos, though real in the sense that
they consist of the energies of the Absolute Reality, in fact
appear as valueless as so many zeroes by time’s dynamics,
which reduce everything to oblivion. Zeroes alone are valueless.
Only when the “One” of Krishna consciousness stands before
the “zeroes” of this world do the zeroes gain spiritual value,
proportionate to the degree that they actually contribute to the
favorable cultivation of Krishna consciousness. Still, in truth, it
is the “One” of pure, forceful Krishna consciousness, with or
without any subsequent number of “zeroes,” that is ultimately
noteworthy, important, precious, and efficacious.

Magnanimous first-class preachers, in the course of
spreading the message of Krishna consciousness, may go all out


in various ways to extend Lord Gauranga’s sankirtana
movement even to persons puffed-up or smug with aristocracy,
mundane scholarship, and material affluence. They
tenderheartedly consider those so materially obsessed to be the
most terribly entrenched victims of Kali’s influences, the least
likely to otherwise recognize and feelingly honor the mercy of
the Holy Name. The complete conversion of such spiritually
debased, vainglorious Kali-yuga reprobates to Vaisnavism would
serve primarily to proclaim a most prodigious spiritual triumph,
further acclaiming the glorious beatitude of bhakti’s benignity.
Such conversion is not at all intended to “up-grade” the material
status quo, prestige, or popularity of any missionary institution.
To grant or deny facilities for advancing in Krishna
consciousness merely on the consideration of material
qualification certainly constitutes an outrageous spiritual
iniquity. Real knowledge is engendered by and subservient to
bhakti and is always evinced by genuine pure devotional
humility. If it is observed that a “scholarly” individual has
virtuously embraced standard pure devotional ethics, we should
clearly conclude such to be attributable not to the individual’s
mundane erudition or cerebral dexterity, whatever the level,
but, undeniably, to the mercy of pure-hearted sadhus.

Unvitiated, truly elevated, scientifically conversant
devotees of the Lord easily see through the fraudulent front of
feigned self-effacement so often accompanying the copiously
concocted “foolosophical” distortions of Gaudiya-Vaishnava
siddhanta, rasa-vicara, and so on rampant in the rather absurd
dissertations of surprisingly well-placed, somewhat lavishly
lettered institutional evangelists. Guileless pure devotees
decline to recognize or support such gratuitous, bombastic,
quasi-theosophical craftsmanship masqueraded as abstruse
Krishna conscious esotericism. Hence, anything more than a
semblance of bhakti most certainly eludes such show-bottle
expositors of so-called transcendental knowledge, despite their
sacerdotal echelon or externally impressive scholastic pre-
eminence. Realization of the science of pure devotion is a
matter of revelation from within the heart based on an
individual’s degree of surrender to Krishna, not degrees of


irrelevant mundane academic so-called qualifications. Bhakti,
independent as she is, always causelessly appears to gradually
influence the heart of anyone of her own choosing and accord.
Flagrantly propagated or slyly insinuated, deviously hatched
fallacies or misconceptions concerning the autonomous nature
of Bhakti’s benevolence would certainly be seen as
symptomatic of this present age of nescience, quarrel, and
hypocrisy.

My dear Praneshvari, Shrimati Radhasundari! Do You
remember the instance of Your extreme compassion upon that
useless little flower? I become immensely solaced and hopeful
thinking of Your special mercy upon her. During Your vana-
vihara-lila, one evening in the month of Jyestha, as You and
Your Beloved were strolling along the forest path with Your
sakhis, playful Shyama, to give happiness to the trees and
creepers, was admiring them by touching their fruits and leaves
and smelling their fragrant flowers. As the two of You gradually
approached a thicket along the way, one unassuming, useless
little flower began to anxiously cry in great anxiety, lamenting,
“Oh, why did I have to be a useless flower? Why? Why did I
have to be so useless? Why did I have to be without any
fragrance for the pleasure of His senses? Oh! He never accepts
us useless flowers. I am the embodiment of the offense of
offering useless flowers! I’m so unfortunate! What is the use of
having taken such a useless birth in this land of Vraja? Why did I
have to be so useless?” Crying and crying again and again, she
deeply despaired: “Anyway, there is no hope of ever being
enjoyed by Him in this birth. I will give up my life by being
trampled under His lotus feet!” With this determination, she,
weeping and weeping, forcibly threw herself down off the bush,
falling unconscious on the forest path. O dear Shrimati
Radharani! You, overhearing the distress of her heart, pointed
her out to Your loving Shyama, who, mercifully reaching down
and picking her up from the ground, happily placed her as a
beautiful flower ornament atop His crown, giving her limitless
beaming bliss and glorifying the intensity of her bhava above
the sentiments of all other flowers!