That Wai Lana video interview—aside from being staged, is also reflective of much of what is happening in the "krishna" groups worldwide. Again—I reiterate, the bhakti cults were always a small—rather private affair, traditionally, historically, as well as in it's ritualistic expression. Now, we have Facebook gurus giving their memes advice online, surfer sanyassis posing with movie stars, guru's making viral videos and pushing their personality cult worship of certain members and not others. Butler has built up Wai lana as the SIF brand. She's a product they can sell and use to attract people to their group of naive idealism and, well, idiocy.
They did the same with Tulsi—they worked hard to build up the image of a warrior goddess of sorts—a modern day Arjuna—conflicted by the "cost of war", yet finding solace in the message of gita/krishna. It's fascinating to watch from the sidelines.
Within SIF, you are really not seeing much preaching going on about chaitanya, radha krishna and various core aspects of gaudiya vaishnavism—instead it's more about samkhya and yoga and a more universal concept of a krishna, christ-like personality—sitting on a rock with his arm around a deer—peaceful and pensive.
No mention is there about the true goal of the devotees to go to an eternal heaven where they dance as 14 year old village girls with the playboy-god krishna. Why is that? This is obviously the goal of gaudiya philosophy and the pinnacle of their practice.
They went from Hare Krishna, to Haribol and finally to "Namaste"—a universal hindu greeting. What's next? Will the butler cult appropriate "Aloha" as the official SIF "phrase". Tulsi sure is drilling it in her campaign.
I wonder what new SIF followers are told about their founding guru, Chris Butler, AKA, JAGAD GURU, SIDDHASWARUPANANDA PARAMAHAMSA SRILA PRABHUPADA? I know when we were young we were told that Butler was getting sicker and sicker on account of his "disciples offenses". This type of point is very commonly drilled into devotees minds in all the krishna cults. Bhaktivedanta pushed this idea and even at his passing suggested that people had poisoned him. Devotees literally walk on eggshells thinking that if they don't chant 16 rounds they are making their guru suffer, or that if their mind drifts while they chant they are somehow committing offenses and unable to taste the "nectar" of the holy name.
The vedic works as well as more contemporary works of various acharyas stipulate literally hundreds of rules and regulations and offenses you can make—that thwart you from achieving the "goal". Meanwhile, the sciprtures state that you can chant accidentally or even in jest and still achieve pure love of god. Devotees go year after year banging away on their drums and beads experiencing nothing more than the pleasure of hearing music and enjoying a tune and community/group bonding. But they try to convince themselves it's some sort of higher power and bliss—a merciful gesture of their guru and god.
I see countless gurus making up their own things as they go along—to justify what they are doing. If there is one thing that these gurus are, it's expert politicians. If something sounds off—they have a verse to support it. If something seems odd—there is an injunction for that. If things seem forced or fake—you must be offensive/you are the problem—not the process or path. It's a life of constant paranoia and fretting. It's no wonder at the end of the day most of these gurus just throw their hands up and just say: Chant and be happy. And boy are their disciples glad to hear it! Screw the scriptural injections and rules and regulations—lets just chant and be happy. Maybe we can smoke a reefer afterwards and catch a wave with gurudev afterwards. I'll make sure to take lots of pictures and post them on the cult FB page so we can get some likes from all the prabhus.
The question still remains: What business do gaudiya vaishnava gurus have building huge temples, initiating thousands of followers, printing thousands of books, surfing, teaching yoga postures, changing traditional mantras, entering into money ventures, running schools for kids, associating with drug smugglers and politicians, appointing successors, being on Facebook, twitter, youtube and other places? The answer is they don't. At best, according to their own traditions—they are to live in small groups, accept not many disciples, and live silently and peacefully in the association of their guru, begging door to door. Karma yoga and kriya and janan have no real place in gaudiya vaishnavism. At least not for the long haul and certainly not as a primary preaching point.
There is an implied arrogance and lack of any humility in their totalitarian approach. They feel that their way is THE way for all humanity and this is foolish and has ramifications that go deep. We live in confusing times but nonetheless we have progressed in our understanding of various concepts and ideas. Believing in 4 armed gods, elephant gods and half man half lion gods and lewd cowherd boy gods as "absolute" and perfect conceptions of divinity—or as divinity at all—is crippling to the mind of any mildly intelligent person. Talk about no credibility. I'm not surprised many modern day krishna cults end up focusing more on the physical yoga, meditation and "Namaste" as the main offerings of their quasi hindu love cults. Or, that their groups have effectively stopped growing and are dependent on keeping existing members and indoctrinating kids born into the cult as a method of growing their numbers (or going to third world countries or places that are ripe for the taking like Russia—needless to say these ventures require huge amounts of money to make the temples appealing and the food tasty—lord knows the philosophy and stories alone ain't cutting it. It's timer like this where yoga and guitars come in handy). No forward thinking modern mind would ever go to a Ratha Yatra festival looking to gain much more than some eclectic chanting and dancing and free vegetarian food. Likewise, a person going to a SIF center is not going to leave with anything more substantial than going to a run of the mill yoga class.
The video of way lana's interview is of comic proportions. It's like something off an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. The woman seems high on pills and fake as she rambles off in arrogance the various countries that have somehow reacted positively to her cheesy song. It's difficult to sit through the video and not crack up at how awfully silly and juvenile it all is. Gosh—even a child would find it humorously pathetic. It has little more social import and value then watching an episode of Teletubbies or Barney the Dinosaur.
All this aside: [nirmukta.com]
And many more great articles on there about the Gita and other frustrating upanishadic texts.
Now, I want everyone to visualize Jiva Goswami dressed in flowing yoga pants (or jeans and a t-shirt) doing downward dog while saying "Namaste!". Later that day he'd go and catch some waves with the rest of the 6 goswamis and wind up his afternoon bhajan with some quality Facebook posts for his thousand of worldwide followers.
Namaste.
They did the same with Tulsi—they worked hard to build up the image of a warrior goddess of sorts—a modern day Arjuna—conflicted by the "cost of war", yet finding solace in the message of gita/krishna. It's fascinating to watch from the sidelines.
Within SIF, you are really not seeing much preaching going on about chaitanya, radha krishna and various core aspects of gaudiya vaishnavism—instead it's more about samkhya and yoga and a more universal concept of a krishna, christ-like personality—sitting on a rock with his arm around a deer—peaceful and pensive.
No mention is there about the true goal of the devotees to go to an eternal heaven where they dance as 14 year old village girls with the playboy-god krishna. Why is that? This is obviously the goal of gaudiya philosophy and the pinnacle of their practice.
They went from Hare Krishna, to Haribol and finally to "Namaste"—a universal hindu greeting. What's next? Will the butler cult appropriate "Aloha" as the official SIF "phrase". Tulsi sure is drilling it in her campaign.
I wonder what new SIF followers are told about their founding guru, Chris Butler, AKA, JAGAD GURU, SIDDHASWARUPANANDA PARAMAHAMSA SRILA PRABHUPADA? I know when we were young we were told that Butler was getting sicker and sicker on account of his "disciples offenses". This type of point is very commonly drilled into devotees minds in all the krishna cults. Bhaktivedanta pushed this idea and even at his passing suggested that people had poisoned him. Devotees literally walk on eggshells thinking that if they don't chant 16 rounds they are making their guru suffer, or that if their mind drifts while they chant they are somehow committing offenses and unable to taste the "nectar" of the holy name.
The vedic works as well as more contemporary works of various acharyas stipulate literally hundreds of rules and regulations and offenses you can make—that thwart you from achieving the "goal". Meanwhile, the sciprtures state that you can chant accidentally or even in jest and still achieve pure love of god. Devotees go year after year banging away on their drums and beads experiencing nothing more than the pleasure of hearing music and enjoying a tune and community/group bonding. But they try to convince themselves it's some sort of higher power and bliss—a merciful gesture of their guru and god.
I see countless gurus making up their own things as they go along—to justify what they are doing. If there is one thing that these gurus are, it's expert politicians. If something sounds off—they have a verse to support it. If something seems odd—there is an injunction for that. If things seem forced or fake—you must be offensive/you are the problem—not the process or path. It's a life of constant paranoia and fretting. It's no wonder at the end of the day most of these gurus just throw their hands up and just say: Chant and be happy. And boy are their disciples glad to hear it! Screw the scriptural injections and rules and regulations—lets just chant and be happy. Maybe we can smoke a reefer afterwards and catch a wave with gurudev afterwards. I'll make sure to take lots of pictures and post them on the cult FB page so we can get some likes from all the prabhus.
The question still remains: What business do gaudiya vaishnava gurus have building huge temples, initiating thousands of followers, printing thousands of books, surfing, teaching yoga postures, changing traditional mantras, entering into money ventures, running schools for kids, associating with drug smugglers and politicians, appointing successors, being on Facebook, twitter, youtube and other places? The answer is they don't. At best, according to their own traditions—they are to live in small groups, accept not many disciples, and live silently and peacefully in the association of their guru, begging door to door. Karma yoga and kriya and janan have no real place in gaudiya vaishnavism. At least not for the long haul and certainly not as a primary preaching point.
There is an implied arrogance and lack of any humility in their totalitarian approach. They feel that their way is THE way for all humanity and this is foolish and has ramifications that go deep. We live in confusing times but nonetheless we have progressed in our understanding of various concepts and ideas. Believing in 4 armed gods, elephant gods and half man half lion gods and lewd cowherd boy gods as "absolute" and perfect conceptions of divinity—or as divinity at all—is crippling to the mind of any mildly intelligent person. Talk about no credibility. I'm not surprised many modern day krishna cults end up focusing more on the physical yoga, meditation and "Namaste" as the main offerings of their quasi hindu love cults. Or, that their groups have effectively stopped growing and are dependent on keeping existing members and indoctrinating kids born into the cult as a method of growing their numbers (or going to third world countries or places that are ripe for the taking like Russia—needless to say these ventures require huge amounts of money to make the temples appealing and the food tasty—lord knows the philosophy and stories alone ain't cutting it. It's timer like this where yoga and guitars come in handy). No forward thinking modern mind would ever go to a Ratha Yatra festival looking to gain much more than some eclectic chanting and dancing and free vegetarian food. Likewise, a person going to a SIF center is not going to leave with anything more substantial than going to a run of the mill yoga class.
The video of way lana's interview is of comic proportions. It's like something off an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. The woman seems high on pills and fake as she rambles off in arrogance the various countries that have somehow reacted positively to her cheesy song. It's difficult to sit through the video and not crack up at how awfully silly and juvenile it all is. Gosh—even a child would find it humorously pathetic. It has little more social import and value then watching an episode of Teletubbies or Barney the Dinosaur.
All this aside: [nirmukta.com]
And many more great articles on there about the Gita and other frustrating upanishadic texts.
Now, I want everyone to visualize Jiva Goswami dressed in flowing yoga pants (or jeans and a t-shirt) doing downward dog while saying "Namaste!". Later that day he'd go and catch some waves with the rest of the 6 goswamis and wind up his afternoon bhajan with some quality Facebook posts for his thousand of worldwide followers.
Namaste.