Commentary

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In his Vedanta-sutra Srila Vyasadeva has described that everything is but a transformation of the energy of the Lord. Sankaracarya, however, has misled the world by commenting that Vyasadeva was mistaken. Thus he has raised great opposition to theism throughout the entire world.

- Sri Caitanya Caritamrita Adi-lila 7.121

If you introduce a commentary into Srila Prabhupada's books culturally relativizing his statements, then you run the very real risk of diminishing people's faith in his words. Do not subject Srila Prabhupada to a meta-analysis in his own book. It is disrespectful.

Introducing this commentary will not increase the faith of those who have no faith in Srila Prabhupada, and it will have the effect of diminishing the loyalty to the GBC of those who do have strong faith in Srila Prabhupada.

You write another contemporary book and create faith in people through your preaching. Then when they have faith in you, they will have faith in the one in whom you have faith - that is service to Srila Prabhupada.

If you do not have potency to do this, then what is the question of having the spiritual potency to comment inside Srila Prabhupada's own book?

The simple message is this: I do not accept the GBC on the same level as Srila Prabhupada. I know that Srila Prabhupada is qualified to write in his book. To put it liberally: I don't know if anyone else is. I prefer for those who "know better" how to make a relevant contemporary presentation to demonstrate their spiritual prowess with their own book. That is honest, and protects Srila Prabhupada's legacy - which is the job of the GBC.

The GBC has left a brahminical thought vaccuum around resolution 311. This does not inspire confidence that this resolution has the potency to pull itself off. Although it is not spelled out in the resolution, resolution 311 is justified on the basis of its effects and the ability of those proposing it to judge potential future effects, rather than scriptural injunction. Given this, the lack of finesse in effecting an introduction to the society, one flanked with significant brahminical support (something a little more significant than republishing a random blog post from Madhava Ghosh prabhu on Dandavats.com), further undermines that resolution 311 has the qualification to do what it wants to.

Why has Sita-pati, who is usually being bashed by the conservatives as a liberal and by the disenfranchised as an ISKCON/GBC apologist, suddenly had to reveal the steel hand within the velvet glove and come out as an arch-conservative? Because this resolution and the way it has been enacted has hit me directly in the heart. That's inexpert, and seems to have been an unforeseen consequence of this resolution. I wonder what other unforeseen consequences are in store? Hard to say what consequences have or haven't been pre-seen, because there is no thus far no brahminical support for resolution 311. If it does exist, it isn't available to the members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

It's hard to accept that this is the kind of brahminical leadership that is qualified to comment inside Srila Prabhupada's books.

Just as Romaharsana's disqualifications were not discussed until he exceeded his authority, this resolution brings to the forefront the previous examples that show that the GBC is not on the same level as Srila Prabhupada.

A predictable outcome.