Prabhupada problems

 

This will be a somewhat weird blog post, and I haven´t really checked my sources, or much of anything, but since I can publish whatever whenever here, why not this too?

Apparently, the founder and first leader of the ISKCON (the Hare Krishna movement), Shrila Prabhupada, sometimes contradicted himself in his published writings. This has created problems for some in the ISKCON, Prabhupada being the only authority within the movement. I assume the “founder-acharya” is considered to be pretty much infallible. So how can there be contradictions in his world-famed purports? And since Prabhupada has passed away (or perhaps passed on), nobody can ask him to clarify the contentious points…

The main contradiction is that Prabhupada said different things at different times about the origins of the soul (jiva). He seems to have taken three positions on the matter. The first one is that both God (Bhagavan), the soul (jiva) and the material substrate (prakriti) are eternal. The second is that God (i.e. Krishna) created, or perhaps emanated, the soul in an “intermediary world” at some specific time. Indeed, Krishna´s energy body emanates new souls pretty much all the time. The soul is endowed with at least some free will, and can therefore chose either to ascend to Krishna´s Heaven (Vrindavana) or reject Krishna, at which point the soul descends into the imperfect material world, emanated by Krishna precisely to house jivas who refuse Him. The third version says that the souls were originally with Krishna in Vrinadavana, but that some souls then fell all the way down to the material plane.

So what´s going on? Why did Prabhupada take three distinctly different and even contradictory positions on the origins of the human soul? My guess is that we´re dealing with a question of authority. The first scenario is presumably similar to that of “orthodox” Vaishnavism (if there is such a thing). The second scenario seems to be the real position of the Gaudiya Vaishnavas, the Vaishnava sub-tradition Prabhupada belonged to. And the third version? Maybe that´s Prabhupada´s own position on the matter.   

The ISKCON founder wanted to show his credentials as an orthodox interpreter of Vaishnavism, perhaps because the Gaudiya sub-branch is considered heterodox. At the same time, he also wanted to show his loyalty to his own lineage, which is of course Gaudiya Vaishnavite. Finally, as the leader of his own sect, the ISKCON, he could also show his originality as a teacher. These subtleties were lost on his followers, however, who still wonder about the “contradictions” in his messaging, not realizing that he was speaking in three different voices to demonstrate his teaching authority to three somewhat different audiences...

Problem solved? :D