Oh man. Those booklets and books are gone. You can't even get them on eBay. I recall on book distribution in the PI how we used to hit up cemeteries and places where vulnerable folks would buy into the booklets. The booklets in and of them selves were a mumbo jumbo of samkhya and yoga with a nice dose of krishnaism. Obviously butler was posited as the "true guru".
One of the ongoing things that blows my mind is that no one made an effort to redo these booklets. New covers, update the content etc. Same for butler's lectures. It's like the man froze in time.
I recall at the PI school there was a big box where the lectures were categorized by topic or in the least alphabetically. There was only so many of them, so after 4 years, it was not uncommon to have heard some lectures a dozen times. We were asked to write essays on the lectures. I recall after the 10th time of listening to some of theme I started to slack on my essays (you can only write about something so many times), and was questioned by Yoshodanandana devi dasi as to why I felt the lectures did not warrant more of an essay. I was like, "I've heard these lectures so many times...".
One funny thing was that at the school, the alter had a big picture of Butler on the left and on the same level as him was a big picture of chaitanya. Obviously, in terms of hierarchy and tradition, the guru was not to be on the same level as chaitanya. It's funny, but we really knew very little about the other gurus in the parampara on the alter. It was just accepted that this was this unbroken line of teachers going all the way back to 4-headed creator god brahma. And we now know that this is far form being the case, but it was always the naive way that it was communicated.
Many of the booklets and pamphlets spent a lot of time on the basic "you are not the body" concept. In fact, if there is one single idea that butler had communicated ad nauseum, it was that one point. As if that was not the basic premise of every religion on the planet.
I assume to avoid confusion with ISKCON, butler almost always focused on mantras like gopal govinda rama sri madhu suddhana and Madana Mohana Murari. Hare Krishna was rarely sung.
Most of the booklets and a lot of promotional material always featured a picture of krishna sitting on a rock, pensive, with his arm around a deer. A sort of jesus pose. Approachable. You know, sans all the 4 headed gods, 4 armed gods, Huge rats and elephant headed gods and everything else you would be exposed to and expected to believe in as you went further down the rabbit hole.
One of the ongoing things that blows my mind is that no one made an effort to redo these booklets. New covers, update the content etc. Same for butler's lectures. It's like the man froze in time.
I recall at the PI school there was a big box where the lectures were categorized by topic or in the least alphabetically. There was only so many of them, so after 4 years, it was not uncommon to have heard some lectures a dozen times. We were asked to write essays on the lectures. I recall after the 10th time of listening to some of theme I started to slack on my essays (you can only write about something so many times), and was questioned by Yoshodanandana devi dasi as to why I felt the lectures did not warrant more of an essay. I was like, "I've heard these lectures so many times...".
One funny thing was that at the school, the alter had a big picture of Butler on the left and on the same level as him was a big picture of chaitanya. Obviously, in terms of hierarchy and tradition, the guru was not to be on the same level as chaitanya. It's funny, but we really knew very little about the other gurus in the parampara on the alter. It was just accepted that this was this unbroken line of teachers going all the way back to 4-headed creator god brahma. And we now know that this is far form being the case, but it was always the naive way that it was communicated.
Many of the booklets and pamphlets spent a lot of time on the basic "you are not the body" concept. In fact, if there is one single idea that butler had communicated ad nauseum, it was that one point. As if that was not the basic premise of every religion on the planet.
I assume to avoid confusion with ISKCON, butler almost always focused on mantras like gopal govinda rama sri madhu suddhana and Madana Mohana Murari. Hare Krishna was rarely sung.
Most of the booklets and a lot of promotional material always featured a picture of krishna sitting on a rock, pensive, with his arm around a deer. A sort of jesus pose. Approachable. You know, sans all the 4 headed gods, 4 armed gods, Huge rats and elephant headed gods and everything else you would be exposed to and expected to believe in as you went further down the rabbit hole.