Tapati's posts with tag: quotes
I found this in a Buddhist magazine and had to chuckle:
Hair Braiding Meditation
By Polly Trout
May I be filled with lovingkindness. May I be well. May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.
May my daughter, who wants a billion tiny little braids this morning, be filled with lovingkindness. May she be well. May she be peaceful and at ease going to school with a billion tiny little braids.
May her best friend, who got a billion tiny little braids put in her hair at Club Med Ixtapa last week, be filled with lovingkindness. Also her mother, may she be peaceful and at ease. And the woman the mother hired to do all that cornrowing, may she be well. May she be happy.
May I be filled with lovingkindness as I put in these billion tiny little braids. May I be peaceful and transcend greed. Also, may I go to Club Med Ixtapa next season, when the beach will be even more inspiring due to my newly enlightened and greed-free state. May I be happy.
May my coworkers be filled with lovingkindness as they wonder why I am late for work as I make these billion tiny braids. May they be peaceful and at ease.
May my daughter not notice that these braids are not nearly as cute as her friend’s braids that got done professionally in Ixtapa, or if she does notice, may she be peaceful and at ease about that, please for God’s sake.
May my toddler, currently trying to vie for my attention as I make these tiny braids for her big sister, be filled with lovingkindness. May she be peaceful and at ease.
May my mother, who did this for me when I was five, be filled with lovingkindness. May she be peaceful and at ease. I wonder why I never thanked her for that.
May I remember this day sitting with my daughter, braiding her hair, late for work again, peaceful and at ease, happy.
I'm not a follower of Osho but I recently read this quote and what it says about religion, guilt, and social control is in line with my own observations. You have to realize that for most of human history religion has been aligned with government, and as such it was an enforcer of social norms and controls required by each government. You can see the culture wars in America as being a struggle between this idea that religion (specifically Christianity) should control our behavior and the idea that we alone should decide what is right and wrong and that should not be imposed on us by religion. While I don't believe in wallowing in guilt, taking responsibility for one's actions is of course the right thing to do, including making amends whenever necessary. Guilt, however, never helped anyone.
BELOVED OSHO,
I FEEL SO GUILTY WHEN WANTING TO EXPRESS MYSELF AND WHEN I FINALLY TAKE COURAGE TO DO SO, IT FEELS MORE LIKE A NO TO OTHERS THAN A YES TO MYSELF. THEN THE GUILT RETURNS BECAUSE OF THIS. POSTPONEMENT OR DEFIANCE ARE THE ONLY WAYS I KNOW BUT THEY SEEM PART OF A CIRCLE ANYWAY. BELOVED MASTER, IS THERE A WAY TO TRANSFORM GUILT?
My God!
Nobody has ever transformed guilt. It has to be simply dropped.
Why transform it? Do you want to preserve it in some form or other?
Guilt is not something that you are born with, it is not part of your nature. Guilt is created by the society.
For example, every religion creates guilt -- in different ways, but the technique is the same. All the religions live, thrive, on guilty human beings. First make them guilty -- once you have succeeded in making somebody feel guilty, you have almost killed his spirit. Now he will be a soulless slave to you.
As far as I am concerned, my whole work is in how to free you from guilt -- not to transform it.
I was born in a Jaina family. It is a very orthodox religion. You cannot conceive -- small things become guilt. You cannot eat in the night, that is guilt. If you have eaten in the night, you have gone down towards hell; you have taken one step downwards.
I don't see any problem. The religion is very old -- at that time, there was no light, no electricity, and it was understandable to prohibit people from eating in the night -- but why make it guilt? Just a rational explanation is enough, but religions are not interested in rational explanations. They don't miss a single opportunity in which they can make you feel guilty. Guilt is their power over you.
If we can remove all guilt from humanity, all the churches will be empty, all the temples will be empty. There will be nobody praying, nobody carrying Holy Bibles. But anything can be made into guilt. Sometimes it is very hilarious....
Up to my eighteenth year, I had not eaten in the night, and I was praised for it and I used to feel higher and holier than all the Hindus who lived around me -- they are eating in the night, poor fellows. They are all bound to go to hell. I was feeling tremendously happy that I was saved and these people were destroyed. But eating in the night... whenever you eat, somewhere it is night! So what difference does it make whether the night is here or the night is in London? The night is around.
In the Sikh religion, a Sikh is expected to follow five principles and each of those five is simply hilarious. A Sikh must have long hair... in the Punjabi language, these are called five "K's." The first K means kesh, hair; you cannot cut any hair of the body. The second K is katar. Katar means a special kind of sword -- now, what has a sword to do with a religion? -- every Sikh has to carry a sword. The third K is even more strange. I have been trying to find the religiousness of it but I have not been able to yet. It is called kachchha. Kachchha means underwear -- without underwear, you are finished.
My God! As far as I know, God himself has no underwear... because in no religious scripture is it described that God has underwear. But these poor Sikhs are having underwear. I was thinking, what is the matter? Why did underwear enter into it and become a religious principle?
Those were the days when Sikhism was born. India was under Mohammedan rule. And in war, if you use something that falls -- you are running and your dhoti falls away -- then kachchha is needed. Otherwise, katar will not do anything and you will become unnecessarily a laughingstock. But now there is no war and nothing is a problem. You can put the kachchha to rest!
But a Sikh cannot cut his hair. If he cuts it, he feels guilty. You have never felt guilty -- cutting your hair or shaving your beard, you have never felt guilty -- not even a far away, faint idea of guilt. What is there to feel guilty about?
But once the idea is put in your mind, and from the very childhood conditioned continuously, then it becomes difficult.
One Sikh driver used to drive me, he was my chauffeur. One night, when he was snoring, I cut his hair. In the morning he came running, crying, tears... he said, "I resign from the job."
I said, "What has happened?"
He said, "Can't you see? Somebody has cut all my hairs. He has destroyed my religion, my spirituality."
I said, "Just sit down. How, by cutting your hair, can your religion be destroyed?"
He said, "I don't want to listen to anything. It is written in the scriptures, and I don't want to listen to anything against my scriptures. So please, give me my kachchha and I am going."
Because while I was cutting his hair, I thought it would be good to take his kachchha also. So I pulled his kachchha out and he was so deeply asleep....
I said, "Kachchha? Who has taken your kachchha? You never take a bath -- I can say that my chauffeur is within a one mile radius, your kachchha sends such disgusting radiations. If somebody has taken it, be finished with it!"
He said, "No, it is my religion! And first I want to know who the person is."
And he had his sword in his hand. I said, "Calm down. I will bring you a new kachchha."
He said, "What about the hair?"
I said, "False hairs are available."
He said, "Then it is good."
These fools are all over the world, and they feel guilty. So you have to understand the psychology of guilt. Just understanding is enough, and it drops.
You have to understand that people, to make you spiritual slaves, have put ideas in your mind that "these things are wrong." That "if you do these things, God will be angry and throw you into hell." And naturally, nobody wants to go to hell -- except me, because I am immensely interested in hell. I don't want to go to heaven, for the simple reason that in heaven, you will find only dry bones, ugly saints, somebody holding his kachchha. In hell, you will find the best company possible. All great artists are there, all great poets are there. All great philosophers are there, all great mystics are there. In fact, anything that has happened on this earth and is beautiful, you will find in hell, not in heaven.
In heaven, you will find dusty old saints who are now suffering -- why have they made so much effort to come to heaven? And remember one thing that shows the situation: from heaven there is no exit. You can only enter, and finished. From hell, there are both doors -- entrance and exit. If you want to go, you can go. But nobody goes out. All the beautiful women, all the beautiful men -- it is twenty-four hours a celebration.
So I told my chauffeur, "Don't be worried. If you are going into hell, I am coming with you. You can remain my chauffeur there too!"
He said, "But I don't want to go."
But I said, "You don't understand. In heaven, there is no car -- what will you do?"
He said, "That is a real question -- I know only one job. Are you sure there is no car?"
I said, "Never heard... you can look into all your scriptures, in all the religions' scriptures. There is no car."
He said, "My God! Then it is better -- be finished with this kachchha and this kesh, I am coming with you! If you are going to hell, then there must be something in it."
Guilt has to be dropped.
Simple understanding, that's all.
You have been befooled, you have been conditioned.
Just drop it.
The moment you understand that this is something absurd, drop it. Transformation is not needed. And transformation is not possible either, because guilt is not a real thing. It is just an idea enforced in your mind. It is like a person who by mistake has learned that two plus two are five. Now, do you think some transformation is needed? All that is needed is to tell that person: "Two plus two are not five but only four." Just put four chairs before him -- two chairs on this side, two chairs on this side -- bring them together and tell him to count, whether they are five or four. And do you think he will have much difficulty in dropping the idea of five? There is no question. The moment he sees that two plus two is four, the five is finished.
Guilt is exactly like that.
It is the greatest crime against humanity done by your religious people. They cannot be forgiven.
God and I have become like two giant fat people living in a tiny boat. We keep bumping into each other and laughing. --Hafez (aka Hafiz) of Persia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafez
 From the book, Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer:
There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane--as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout--there may be no more potent force than religion. When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, may Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only profit whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremists have been home-grown, corn-fed Americans.
Faith-based violence was present long before Osama bin Laden, and it will be with us long after his demise. Religious zealots like bin Laden, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara, and Dan Lafferty are common to every age, just as zealots of other stripes are. In any human endeavor, some fraction of its practitioners will be motivated to pursue that activity with such concentrated focus and unalloyed passion that it will consume them utterly. One has to look no further than individuals who feel compelled to devote their lives to becoming concert pianists, say, or climbing Mount Everest. For some, the province of the extreme holds an allure that's irresistible. And a certain percentage of such fanatics will inevitably fixate on matters of the spirit.
The zealot may be outwardly motivated by the anticipation of a great reward at the other end--wealth, fame, eternal salvation--but the real recompense is probably the obsession itself. This is no less true for the religious fanatic than for the fanatical pianist or fanatical mountain climber. As a result of his (or her) infatuation, existence overflows with purpose. Ambiguity vanishes from the fanatic's worldview; a narcissistic sense of self-assurance displaces all doubt. A delicious rage quickens his pulse, fueled by the sins and shortcomings of lesser mortals, who are soiling the world wherever he looks. His perspective narrows until the last remnants of proportion are shed from his life. Through immoderation, he experiences something akin to rapture.
Although the far territory of the extreme can exert an intoxicating pull on susceptible individuals of all bents, extremism seems to be especially prevalent among those inclined by temperament or upbringing toward religious pursuits. Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a crucial component of spiritual devotion. And when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination, all bets are suddenly off. Anything can happen. Absolutely anything. Common sense is no match for the voice of God--as the actions of Dan Lafferty vividly attest.
It is the aim of this book to cast some light on Lafferty and his ilk. If trying to understand such people is a daunting exercise, it also seems a useful one--for what it may tell us about the roots of brutality, perhaps, but even more for what might be learned about the nature of faith.Near the end of the book, the author discusses his own thoughts about God.
I don't know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact, I don't know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty.
There are some ten thousand extant religious sects--each with its own cosmology, each with its own answer for the meaning of life and death. Most assert that the other 9,999 not only have it completely wrong but are instruments of evil, besides. None of the ten thousand has yet persuaded me to make the requisite leap of faith. In the absence of conviction, I've come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain--which doesn't strike me as something to lament. Accepting the essential inscrutability of existence, in any case, is surely preferable to its opposite: capitulation to the tyranny of intransigent belief.
And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few more modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here and why--which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive.
Jon Krakauer
January 2003
Religion through coercion yields not faith but tyranny. --Tommy Denton, columnist, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
"Brothers Unaware"
So many people
I know only a few
Yes I may say that I love this man
And that man
But what keeps me from loving you?
Date of birth, geography
The color of my skin, ideology
You got ten fingers, two legs, one nose
Like me
Just like me
And it's as simple as that
You see
And if I don't know who to Love
I love them all
And if I don't know who to trust
I trust them all
And if I don't know who to kill
I may kill myself instead
From the mouth of a baby
Will come the world saving words
That will save us all
And from the lungs of a child
Will come the everlasting breath of God
Increasing peace and honesty
And not carrying on Despite of me
Don't you know
This ain't about no race, no creed
No race, no creed
And it's as simple as that
You see
And if I don't know who to love
I love them all
And if I don't know who to trust
I trust them all
And if I don't know who to kill
No suicide
I'm already dead
Power takes as ingratitude the writhing of its victims. ~ Tagore
I have a few entries planned but I've been having non-stop migraines for the last few days, so...I'll be back.
Reading my favorite passage from Jalaja Bonheim
http://de.geocities.com/preciousprabhupada/add/painkillerspirituality.htmlSpiritual Pain and Painkiller Spirituality: Issues of Spiritual Abuse, Religious Addiction, and Codependency in ISKCON by Dhyana-kunda dasi (1999) I once discussed a current ISKCON problem with a devotee leader. We noted how difficult it was for the parties involved to decide what needed to be done. "Why are we in ISKCON so gullible and fanatical?" -- I expressed my frustration. "Why are we so often disregarding our intuition?" "To anyone who knows a little philosophy, the answer should be obvious," he replied. "The mind can be our greatest enemy." Putting aside the question of whether or not intuition is a faculty of the mind (as defined in the Vedic tradition) his statement is a half-truth. Consider Bhagavad-gita 6.5-6: "One must deliver himself with the help of his mind, and not degrade himself. The mind is the friend of the conditioned soul, and his enemy as well. For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy." Notice that the mind, when controlled, is said to be the best of friends to one who is *still conditioned* - not only to one who is already liberated and passes his days in ecstatic meditation on Krishna's intimate pastimes. Moreover, as Srila Prabhupada states in his purport to the verse above, what should control the mind is not an external agency but rather a higher inner voice: "But when the mind is conquered, one voluntarily agrees to abide by the dictation of the Personality of Godhead, who is situated within the heart of everyone as Paramatma [Supersoul]. Real yoga practice entails meeting the Paramatma within the heart and then following His dictation." The voice of Paramatma, Srila Prabhupada further explains, is nothing else than intuition and conscience: "Sarvasya caham hrdi sannivistah. . . Knowledge given by Paramatma from within the core of the heart is explained by the modern scientist as intuition. They do not know wherefrom the intuition is coming. And that is coming from God." (SP lecture on Bg 15.15, Paris, August 5, 1976) "Sarvasya caham hrdi sannivistah. Everyone has got experience. When we want to do something wrong, there is conscience: 'Don't do it.' 'No, no, let me do.' There is struggle. So this is the struggle between the soul and the Supersoul." (SP lecture on Bg 7.4., Bombay, February 19, 1974) "God has given advanced consciousness to the human being. Therefore he can feel the suffering and happiness of other living beings. The human being bereft of his conscience, however, is prone to cause suffering for other living beings." (SB 5th Canto, chapter summary for Ch. 26) Without getting into discussion of all the other scriptural statements that are or can be used in abusive ways, it is fair to say that the Vaishnava spiritual teachings contain warnings both against indiscriminately following one's thoughts, feelings, and desires, and against indiscriminately rejecting them. . . By disregarding the individual's innermost voice (the Supersoul, intuition and conscience), on the grounds that it might be cheating us, we sow seeds of spiritual abuse. Discernment is required, not censure. Intuition is the inner compass that protects us from being abused. Conscience is what prevents us from abusing others. The two are inseparably connected. Therefore a victim of spiritual abuse almost inevitably becomes a perpetrator, if placed in a position of power. .......... Fanaticism usually stems from fundamental distrust toward one's own thoughts and feelings. Stifling them results in a state of inner numbness, where the individual no longer knows what he wants and feels. In an attempt to give his life some order and meaning, he may try to supplant his lost "inner guide" with the voice of external authority. For such a person, religious authority with its claims to absolute truth has a deep appeal. (Porterfield, 1993) His surrender tends to be fanatical and blind, since he has discarded his capacity for critical evaluation. However, such surrender is not as unconditional as it appears; the person would ignore or distort, for example, teachings on emotional literacy or self-reliance, as they undermine his coping techniques. . . His "radar" picks up selectively on those teachings that can be used to justify blind following, self-abnegation, and hurting others. "For example, perhaps I feel unsure of myself and as if I don't belong anywhere. I cannot face my feelings of shame, loneliness and fear. Thus, I compulsively read the Bible or rigidly adhere to all the teachings of the Church, looking for absolute answers and a sense of belonging. Whenever that pain tries to come up, I get out my Bible or I go to Mass or I quote the Pope. Or, perhaps I have been deeply hurt and I am very angry. I have been taught to feel ashamed of such feelings and I am terrified of them. I believe that 'good Christians forgive', and I remind myself of Jesus on the cross. I tell myself that every time I don't forgive I am putting another nail in his hands. Whenever that anger and rage try to come up, I use Jesus on the cross to get them under control. Since denied feelings such as shame, anger and rage do not really go away but instead only build up within, the next time such feelings come up I may become even more rigid in my use of religion to get them under control." (Linn, Linn & Linn, 1994) Religious addiction and spiritual abuse propagate in their own "disciplic successions." A religious addict almost inevitably goes on to spiritually abuse others: "Because my need to control inner reality through a rigid belief system is so desperate, I insist that everyone else believe in the same way as myself. Anyone who doesn't threatens my system of controlling my inner pain. Thus I have created a world where there are no surprises, inside and outside, because I'm too afraid of them. I am now off the track of evolution, and off the track of my own human process of growth. If I have children, or if I am a religious leader, I may spiritually abuse those who are looking up to me. By spiritual abuse, I mean that I will deny their spiritual freedom by telling them there is only one way to God, my way -- because anything else is too threatening to me." (Linn, Linn & Linn, 1994) "I don't want to blame such people for what I am calling spiritual abuse and religious addiction. What better drug of choice than a perfect, all-powerful, all-knowing God out there who controls everything and everybody? Well-meaning people are set up for this in a culture that does not teach us how to deal with painful feelings, and in a church that has so often taught us that the truth is in the Bible, in the Pope, in the ministers or priests, in the sacraments... everywhere but inside ourselves. Religion is often taught as a system of control, of rules, rituals, of ideals: of shoulds. It's very easy to use all this to squelch the process of life, all the while thinking we're being good Christians." (Linn, Linn & Linn, 1994) The task of relating the above to the ISKCON reality is best left to the reader. The problem has been known for centuries and was identified by Rupa Gosvami as an obstacle to devotional service - niyamagraha, blindly following the rules not for spiritual advancement but just for the sake of following. The Linns further state that their intention is not to say that the scripture and religious authority have no truth to offer. Their role as carriers of the tradition is essential. However, they assert, we can't relate to the carriers of this tradition properly if we are out of touch with or trying to escape from our self as we experience it here and now. Fear of or aversion for one's present self does not lead to the discovery of one's deeper, eternal self. What usually happens, ISKCON history tells us, is that after a few years, the neglected side of the person's nature finds a way to get attention; but by that time, the problems have piled up high. ............. One symptom of religious addiction is literalistic, black-and-white "letter-of-the-law" thinking. The Linns point out that Bill Wilson (co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous) observed this kind of thinking in alcoholics, and family therapists identify it as characteristic of the dysfunctional families in which addicts are raised. "Precisely because it's a concrete, written document, the Bible easily lends itself to misuse by religious addicts. Because they tend to take everything literalistically, religious addicts can easily mistake what is nonessential in the Bible for what is essential to the gospel. This is what happens in "proof-texting," in which individual passages are used to prove points that may not be consistent with the overall message of the scripture. . . . Since the Bible is a big book, full of pronouncements about all sorts of things, it is a 'set-up' for misuse by literal-minded religious addicts and spiritual abusers. . . . Scripture may challenge us and it may call us to conversion, but it is not intended to shame us." (Linn, Linn & Linn, 1994) D. Johnson and J. VanVonderen call this approach to the revealed text "scriptural abuse:" "In a spiritually abusive system, Scripture is employed to prove or to bolster the agenda of the person using it. . . . . Proof-texting occurs when someone has a point he wants to prove. So he finds a verse to do so, even if it means stretching or ignoring the original issue about which the verse was written or the context in which the verse is found. Because this is the method the leaders use, it is the method the followers learn to use. Consequently, there is little or any opportunity to become capable or 'rightly dividing the word of truth.'" (Johnson & VanVonderen, 1991) Symptoms of scriptural abuse are undeniably present in our organization. Since for ISKCON members, the recorded words of our Founder-Acharya are as good as scripture, the arsenal of quotes to (mis)use is probably greater than in any other religion. In temple classes, for years we had sannyasis [celibate preachers] quoting a certain set of verses out of context to condemn family life; later we had married men quoting other verses to condemn the sannyasis' "false renunciation." Now we have a debate on what the women's role should be (exclusively that of wives and mothers, or according to their individual propensities), with both sides wielding quotes - often without much concern for the context. "Another one shot down by the VedaBase" - a GBC member once succintly summed up the effect of the procedure. Approaches to scripture recommended by spiritual masters of the Vaishnava religious tradition will be illustrated here by quotes from two works by Bhaktivinoda Thakura, who calls for approaching scriptural revelation with awakened intuition and conscience. The first quote comes from an early work entitled The Bhagavata: Its Philosophy, Its Ethics, and Its Theology, the other - from Shri Tattva Sutra, written by the Thakura many years later, at the peak of his literary activity. "In fact, most readers are mere repositories of facts and statements made by other people. But this is not study. The student is to read the facts with a view to create, and not with the object of fruitless retention. . . . Here we have full liberty to reject the wrong idea, which is not sanctioned by the peace of conscience. . . . Liberty then is the principle which we must consider as the most valuable gift of God. We must not allow ourselves to be led by those who lived and thought before us. We must think for ourselves and try to get further truths which are still undiscovered. In the Bhagavata we have been advised to take the spirit of the Shastras and not the words. The Bhagavata is therefore a religion of liberty, unmixed truth, and absolute love. The other characteristic is progress. Liberty certainly is the father of all progress. Holy liberty is the cause of progress upwards and upwards in eternity and endless activity of love. Liberty abused causes degradation, and the Vaishnava must always carefully use this high and beautiful gift of God." (Thakura, Bhaktivinoda, undated) "The Divine Knowledge is characterized as the sun whereas all the scriptures (shastra) are rays of that sun. This saying reveals that no scripture can contain the Divine Knowledge to the fullest extent. The self-evident knowledge of the jivas [living beings] is the source of all the scripture. This self-evident knowledge should be understood as God-given. The sages endowed with compassionate hearts have received this self-evident knowledge (axiomatic truths) from the Supreme Lord and recorded the same in the scriptures for the benefit of all jivas. . . . The independent cultivation of the self-evident knowledge is always necessary. This is the important thing needed in understanding the Truth along with the study of the scriptures. Since the knowledge itself is the origin of the scriptures, those who disregard the root and depend upon the branches cannot have any well-being. . . . Since knowledge itself is the root of the scriptures the one who has attained that self-evident knowledge will not be ruled by the scriptures, but only they will guide him with advises. In case of ignorant people, this is not so. They must be governed by the rules of the scriptures for their upliftment, if not they will have their inevitable down fall due to the sensual addictions." (Thakura, Bhaktivinoda, undated) Both quotes from Bhaktivinoda reproduced above end with warnings: liberty can be abused; creative attitude toward scripture requires personal integrity and a measure of spiritual advancement. The writers discussing spiritual abuse acknowledge this, too. Uncritical reliance on external guidance and authority is not always a sign of religious addiction. It is also typical for an early stage of faith development. "If reliance upon external authority helps provide security and structure for continued growth into higher stages, then it seems to us a part of healthy development. However, if reliance upon external authority is a way of compulsively avoiding one's own reality, then it seems to us more likely a sign of religious addiction. A measure of whether a particular religious behavior is healthy and stage-appropriate, or addictive, might be our ability to tolerate and gradually move toward respect for and even dialogue with those who are different." (Linn, Linn & Linn, 1994) This leads to an additional insight into the nature of spiritual abuse: "Just as emotional abuse includes expecting a two-year-old child to behave like a ten-year-old, or keeping a ten-year-old as dependent as a two-year-old, so spiritual abuse includes pushing people to a stage of faith development for which they are not yet ready, or trying to keep them at a stage that they have outgrown." (Linn, Linn & Linn, 1994) References: - D. Johnson, J. VanVonderen, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse: Recognizing and Escaping Spiritual Manipulation and False Spiritual Authority Within the Church, p. 13. Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1991.
- K. M. Porterfield, Blind Faith: Recognizing and Recovering From Dysfunctional Religious Groups, p. 66. CompCare Publishers, Minneapolis, Minnesota 1993.
- M. Linn, S. F. Linn, D. Linn, Healing Spiritual Abuse and Religious Addiction, p. 19. Paulist Press, New York/Mahwah, N.J., 1994
Much as I try to excuse my former spiritual master on the basis that he came from a culture with these attitudes about women and believed in scriptures where these attitudes and statements were present, still I am disappointed and cannot help but see how these kinds of statements led to the abuse of women in his own movement--however much he may have said that it didn't apply to devotee women. (Personally I would say these things shouldn't be said about ANY women.)
---------------
Brahmananda: Pet.
Prabhupada: Pet, like that. Dhol gunar sudra pasu and nari. Nari means woman. (laughs) Just see. He has classified the nari amongst these class, dhol, gunar, sudra, pasu, nari. Ihe sab sasan ke adhikari. Sasan ke adhikari means all these are subjected for punishment. And what about the guest?
Govinda dasi: Oh, the guest? It's coming.
Prabhupada: So sasan ke adhikari means they should be punished. (laughs) Punished means, just like dhol, when the, I mean to say, sound is not very hard, dag-dag, if you beat it on the border, then it comes to be nice tune. Similarly, pasu, animals, if you request "My dear dog, please do not go there." Hut! (laughter) "No, my dear dog. Hut!" This is the way.(?) Similarly, woman. If you become lenient, then she will be troublesome. So in India still, in villages, whenever there is some quarrel between husband wife, the husband beats and she is tamed. (laughs) In civilized society, "Oh, you have done this??" Immediately some criminal case. But in uncivilized society they don't care for court or civilized way of...
Room Conversation—April 12, 1969, New York
Q. Isn't it unreasonable to expect a woman to remain enslaved in a dysfunctional marriage? Srila Prabhupada: In the modern day, the wife is never submissive, and therefore homelife is broken even by slight incidents. Either the wife or the husband may take advantage of the divorce laws. According to the Vedic law, however, there is no such thing as divorce laws, and a woman must be trained to be submissive to the will of her husband. Westerners contend that this is a slave mentality for the wife, but actually it is not; it is the tactic by which a woman can conquer the heart of her husband, however irritable or cruel he may be. (SB 9.3.10) Krsna explained the duty of a woman. He also stressed the point of serving the husband: "Even if he is not of very good character, or even if he is not very rich or fortunate, or even if he is old or invalid on account of continued diseases, whatever the husband's condition, a woman should not divorce her husband if she actually desires to be elevated to the higher planetary systems after leaving this body." (Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Ch. 29)
"Devotee (1): They said that the man cannot be convicted of rape if he honestly believes that the woman consented to his raping her. Prabhupada: Yes, that is law always. Rape means without consent, sex. Otherwise there is no rape. There was a rape case in Calcutta, and the lawyer was very intelligent. He some way or other made the woman admit, "Yes, I felt happiness." So he was released. "Here is consent." And that's a fact. Because after all, sex, rape or no rape, they will feel some pleasure. So the lawyer by hook and crook made the woman agree, "Yes, I felt some pleasure." "Now, there is consent." So he was released. After all, it is an itching sensation. So either by force or by willingly, if there is itching, everyone feels relieved itching it. That's a psychology. It is not that the woman do not like rape. They like sometimes. They willingly. That is the psychology. Outwardly they show some displeasure, but inwardly they do not. This is the psychology." – (Morning Walk – May 11, 1975, Perth) http://de.geocities.com/preciousprabhupada/english/precious.html
More:
January 31, 1977 – Room conversation – Bhubaneshwar Satsvarüpa: Yes. (break) Mainly it's about the girls who are over ten. They were in Vrnndävana and discussed this with Jagadisha, but they couldn't settle up, so they wanted to know what you think. Their idea is that... As of now, there is no plan for a school for the girls over ten, but just that they should return to their parents and not get any more schooling. But they're thinking that there should be, and one reason is that you said in France that the girls could learn these sixty-four arts. So they were thinking that there should be a school for girls over ten, and that it should be situated in India. One reason is that in India our teachers can take help from Indian Life Member ladies who know these arts. Our Western devotees don't know them, the cooking and painting and things like this, but the Indian women do. ... Prabhupada: My opinion is already there according to the... They should be chaste, faithful to husband. Little literary knowledge, they can read. That's all. Not very much. Satsvarupa: As for the details of where and how to do this, that should be worked out by the GBC. Prabhupada: Yes. "So this dasi-pati, this is also significant word, "the prostitute's husband." Prostitute means... They are, in Sanskrit, called pumscali. Pumscali means they are moved by other men, umsacli. There are three kinds of women: [sairini,] sairindhri, pumscali...In this way there are divisions. So some women, they are very easily carried by men. So that is not very good. Therefore I am instructing our GBCs that "Let our little girls be educated to become faithful and chaste." That is their qualification. No education required. And the boys should be trained up to become first-class men, samo damas titiksa, like that. And literary, Sanskrit and English, that will make them perfect. If the husband is first class and the wife is chaste and faithful, then the home is heaven." (Lecture: SB 6.1.31; San Francisco, July 16, 1975) "I am also in receipt of your letters dated October 20 & 21, 1975. I note that your wife and Visalaini both gave birth to baby girls. That is the defect. I want male children but you have no stamina for it. I expected from Visalaini by her belly that it would be a boy. Anyway, never mind. The name Brijlata is nice. Why do the majority of my married disciples give birth to girls?" (Letter to: Dhananjaya: Bombay 9 November, 1975)
--------------
Now, even though devotee women have constructed a nice web page (http://www.chakra.org/discussions/WomenNov29_02_02.html) showing how Prabhupada didn't mean his anti-women quotes to apply to devotee women, and how he encouraged devotee women to do other things than merely cook and sew and serve husbands and children (such as encouraging Bibhavati to write), here he's talking about young devotee girls and cutting off their education once they knew the basics of reading, because they weren't expected to do much, other than be chaste and faithful to the husband.
This is alarmingly similar to how the FLDS women are treated currently under Warren Jeffs' reign (though formerly they were allowed to go to college).
I suppose by a fundamentalist member of the Krsna Consciousness faith I would be seen as a prime example of what horrible things happen when a woman is allowed access to higher education. We get all uppity and start questioning the status quo. That's pretty uncomfortable if your only answers to our questions are, "Prabhupada says" and "But it's in the scriptures."
ETA: anyone who thinks my views are radical should read this site by an Indian feminist:
http://www.geocities.com/realitywithbite/hindu.htm#1
 | Grace | May 2, '08 10:56 PM
for everyone |
 One of my favorite quotes--
Grace
It is no coincidence that we use the word grace both to describe physical beauty of movement and for a state of spiritual blessedness. When life-energy flows in its fullness through any living being, it manifests internally as pleasure and externally as grace.
Grace and pleasure are natural attributes of the sacred. Every time you ignore what gives your body pleasure, you lose some of the grace that every child and every wild animal possesses in such abundance.
Grace is a wonderful word, one of the few in the English language that stands at the intersection of the physical and the spiritual, reminding us that our task as human beings is not simply to identify ourselves as spiritual beings, but to embody spirit.
Grace is the fruit of such embodiment.
--Jalaja Bonheim
| Quotes | Apr 29, '08 2:01 PM
for everyone |
You go from love into love. --The Pagan Book of Living and Dying In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. --Albert Camus Love consists of this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other. --Rainer Maria Rilke When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us. --Alexander Graham Bell "Tcha," Tibor said. "You're too limited in your scholarship. There is real religion, which is about our relationship to God, which is important. But there is another kind of religion, and the is the religion that is about identity. It is about banding together in a group and defending ourselves against what we fear, when what we fear is each other. It is about not wanting to live in a world where we are a minority, because it is uncomfortable to be a minority. That kind of religion talks about God sometimes, but it doesn't have to. It can call itself Christian or Muslim or Hindu or Communist or Libertarian or Green. I like real religion, Krekor. It's been of enormous importance and value in my life. This other stuff, I look at it and I fear for the survival of civilization." -- from Hardscrabble Road by Jane Haddam
Some people see things as they are and say why. I see things that never were and say why not. --Geo. Bernard Shaw
| Quotes | Apr 25, '08 7:21 PM
for everyone |
And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~ Anais Nin.
Ask within for her advice, she is the Mother of the ages, Nothing surprises her. She has seen it all. --Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Wisdom of stars
and galaxies
and universes
grant me vision. --Louise Budde DeLaurentis
Blessed be
all that you think
all that you feel
all that you do --Karen Ethelsdattar
We have the same oceans in our veins, are sisters to the trees and rocks and stars, hold their identical minerals in our bones. One family. --Elsa Gidlow
As I claim all of the universe within me, I recognize my communion with all of creation. And as I take my place as one among many in that majestic story I know that I belong. --Anne Hillman
We need to stretch out our arms wide to the universe and say:
"THIS IS OUR BODY" --Anne Hillman
It cannot be gained by gaining it,
cannot be held by holding it,
cannot be had by having it,
cannot be got by going there. --Clarissa Pinkola Estes
In the lands of the universe there is no place
Where she does not manifest herself...
Compassion wondrous as a great cloud,
Pouring spiritual rain like nectar,
Quenching the flames of distress! --The Lotus Sutra
You wear her livery
Shining with gold,
You, too, Hecate,
Queen of Night,
Hand-maid to Aphrodite. --Sappho, trans. Mary Barnard
Playmate
My goddess has a gap-toothed smile
Imperfect, irrepressible, beautiful, divine
Leaping, soaring, laughing with delight
She kindles playful sparking fires
She tends the humble dog-rose
She is mother to the capricious wind.
My goddess has unruly hair
Imperfect, irrepressible, beautiful, divine
Grinning, dashing, dancing in the leaves
She pulls gentle pranks on hapless humans
She gifts the world with love and hope
She comforts the lonely ones
My goddess has lanky limbs
Imperfect, irrepressible, beautiful, divine
Flying, circling, swooping down
She tugs your collar
She tweaks your sleeve
She musses your hair
Inviting you to join in the game...
--Rachel Plassman
(Note: I am not a follower, just like this quote.)  One who makes their home their ashram should be like a bird sitting on a twig. She knows the twig may break at any second and is ready to fly off at any moment. A householder should always have the awareness that wordly relationships are momentary and may end at any time. You should have the firm faith that all the actions you are involved in are temporary works entrusted to you by God. -- Mata Amritanandamayi Ma
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