Kamrā devī dāsī Autobiography Part 3
Some people may think that there is a conflict of interest, having a strong relationship with Jesus Christ and being a disciple of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrila Prabhupāda, but it is very far from that. Jesus’ main instruction was to learn to love the Lord, and the same with Śrila Prabhupāda. He said, “Just learn to love Kṛṣṇa.” A real spiritual master is non-denominational. The instruction is there to learn to love God. The spiritual master is that principle. There is personal relationship, and there is also the guiding principle, to develop love of Godhead under the guidance of one who has seen the truth. Those who truly love the Lord are a devoted team to direct the fallen souls back to the kingdom of God. There is no envy or personal agenda among them, and they rejoice together in the devotional progress of the aspiring devotee.
From my own realization, Śrila Prabhupāda is the personality foretold in the Bible, John 16.13. Famously, Jesus says in John 16.12 that there was more he could teach, but that the people in general could not bear to hear it. John 16.13 is a little nebulous in its translation, that when the Spirit of Truth appears, he will not speak on his own authority.
The Lord of the Heart has offered me a slightly different wording to John 16.13, which is, “When the Personality of Truth appears, or, in other terms, when the Embodiment of Truth appears, he will not speak on his own authority.” Śrila Prabhupāda is that personality. He never spoke on his own authority, but always on the authority of previous bonafide spiritual teachers and the authorized Vedic literatures. He never made anything up or falsely glorified himself. He had no propensity to change the teachings that came directly from the kingdom of God and that were transmitted purely via devotional lineage.
There is no contradiction in the teachings of Jesus Christ and Śrila Prabhupāda, only an enhancement, the rest of the story, so to speak, that couldn’t be given by Jesus at the time for several reasons. One of those reasons was, of course, that the people in general were of a lower class mentality in which they could not hear more. Another reason was that Śrila Prabhupāda had not yet come and made the topmost Vedic Literatures available all over the world in a way that they could be understood by the common people. And Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Lord Nityananda Rama had not yet come to perform Their transcendental pastimes, showing by example how to execute devotional service to the Lord, and so Their pastimes were not yet available in the great literatures such as Caitanya Caritamrita, Caitanya-Bhagavata, and Caitanya-Mangala.
Other things have been shown to me by the Lord about the relationship between our Śrila Prabhupāda and Jesus Christ that are very profound and endearing that cannot be readily shared, but I will say that Jesus Christ and Śrila Prabhupāda are co-conspirators in the plot to bring the science and practice of reawakening love of Godhead to the fallen and generally unwilling residents of this condemned material world. All saintly persons, all devotees of the Lord, no matter in what culture, are like-minded in that goal, but of course, a personality like Jesus Christ or our Śrila Prabhupāda is very rarely found.
When Śrila Prabhupāda was meeting with Christians, he would not usually say very much if he could not get them to accept that meat-eating was killing. He did not often go beyond asking them to accept “Thou shall not kill.”
The Bible is a holy scripture and has to be honored in that way. It was meant to elevate people to a higher consciousness so that they could gradually come to the platform of loving the Lord. But “thou shall not kill” is a basic foundational principle. People may say that it means “Thou shall not murder,” but in the Bible, Isaiah 66.3 states, “He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man…” The Bible, or any bonafide scripture, is meant to be accepted in full, not just to take what we feel works for us. A meat eater is actually denied hearing about the Supreme Personality of Godhead by the Godhead Himself, as the Lord is not pleased when His other children are being killed for the sake of gratifying the taste buds. Isaiah 1:15 states, “And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you; Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear; Your hands are full of blood.”
It is actually very hard to preach from the Bible, as over the years, there have been omissions, mistranslations, and misunderstandings, both innocent and purposeful. There are many Christian and Bible scholars who have specific evidence of the changes. I don’t claim to be an expert in those histories, but they are available. Even in a simple game of telephone, where a message is whispered around a room of people, the end result is most usually not how it started. So, 2,000 years later, what do we have? Some things have come down purely, and many things have not.
In a legal document, the substitution of even one word, for example “and” or “or,” changes the entire meaning of that document. We hear very often about “the word,” but what is the real word? There are so many translations, but what is the real word? It can be perplexing, and a thoughtful person who wants to know the real purport of the Bible may find him or herself questioning like that.
These are some points I often bring up with people who approach me to try to bring me to their perspective of the Bible. I may tell them that I do not have questions but that I can answer theirs. And that is not an egotistical statement. I can answer their questions if they ask because I have the topmost vaisnava spiritual master, but yet, they cannot hear, because they eat mother cow and father bull.
WorkofanAngel.com blog posts:
I‘m Śrila Prabhupāda’s initiated disciple. He accepted me for spiritual initiation in December of 1974. You could say that I’m an independent contractor or freelancer. By mutual agreement, I no longer claim to be a member of the organization that he initially founded. I’ve prayed over the years to be able to do something pleasing to him in this lifetime, and to that end, this is the best arrangement.
I’m most fortunate that this merciful personality saved my life in every way, through his teachings, his example, his genuine love for Kṛṣṇa, God, and the efforts he put forth for his disciples, followers, and humankind in general. He offered us a culture, a timeless philosophy, for the benefit of all souls, whether they find themselves in human form, animal form, plant form, or anything else. He offered a culture of respectful and harmonious interaction, with the goal of re-awakening our love of God.
My goal is to see the teachings, the mission, and the mood of Śrila Prabhupāda spread all over the planet, even beyond, as much as possible.
As I continue with this video series, I will share some more of myself and my experiences within the organization that Śrila Prabhupāda created… and why I have had to part ways with it. As I mentioned in my last video, even though the abusers from my childhood did horribly unmentionable things, I always saw them as “wannabees” and that I didn’t meet the real ones until later in life…
