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Who can I trust?

• Subject: Who can I trust?
• From: Bhakta Chip
• Date: Mon Jan 15 10:14:16 1996
• Message-Id: id697

Dear Bhakta Chip

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Thanks for the letter. The things on the "PADA" site are all true. It sounds too
bad to be true, but it all happened. ISKCON is now very different from the 
organization established by Srila Prabhupada.

>Please, Prabhu, I beg you to help me. I have been feeling very stupid lately,
>insomuchas I have learned that many ISKCON "gurus" couldn't even be considered
>a devotee of Sri Krsna. In many of your comments you show how many ISKCON
>leaders are not following the instructions of Prabhupada and I have recently
>visited the following Web site:
>
>http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~kyf/pada.html
>
>Please visit this site and tell me if these things are true. I just don't know
>who to trust any more.  I feel almost ashamed to be affiliated with ISKCON

You have to take shelter of Srila Prabhupada. He is a pure devotee and actually
that is a rare thing. It is not that ISKCON can just "rubber stamp" eighty men to
 be gurus like Srila Prabhupada. The real qualifications have to be there.

The problem is the position of guru is very attractive to the materialistic men.
They want to be worshipped and have followers, etc. So they make a show
of being a great devotee, but is is all false, they are just materialists after
sense gratification, and they only exploit their followers. They cannot give them
Krishna consciousness.

We can only tell the devotees from the demons after making a little advancement
in Krishna consciousness. That comes from chanting the Hare Krishna mantra,
reading Srila Prabhupada's books and trying to live our lives in such a way that we
always remember Krishna, never forget Krishna. We should do everything for Krishna.
That is Krishna consciousness.

Srila Prabhupada is not dead. He is living in sound. He is completely present in
the form of his books. All you need to do is sincerely chant Hare Krishna and 
read Srila Prabhupada's books and everything will become clear.

>(as it is today...).  How will I ever be able to approach a spiritual master?
>How will I, someone in such ignorance, know who is true mahatma and who is a
>self-serving cheater going by the name of guru?

You have to get knowledge. Srila Prabhupada sometimes said if one doesn't know
what gold is and he goes to purchase it then most likely he will be cheated. 
Someone will say, "Here is some gold," and take his money and go away. So you 
have to know the qualities of a spiritual master -- they can be found in Srila 
Prabhupada's books.

We have embarked on a great quest, to reestablish our lost relationship with
Krishna, and there will be many obstacles on the path. The material world is
constructed in that way. It is maya's [the material energy] job to bewilder 
us, to cover our intelligence, so we accept this material world as a place where 
we can be happy... And then we spend all our energy trying to make arrangements 
to be happy... But it is not possible. We want to remain young, but the body 
grows old, we want to be healthy -- but we get sick, we want knowledge -- but this 
world is full of ignorance, we want pleasure -- but all we get is so much anxiety. 
Our nature is sat-cit-ananda-vigrah, We are eternally youthful, full of knowledge, 
full of pleasure and we have an eternal spiritual body. But this material world and 
the material body we are now identifying with are just the opposite: asat, acit and 
nirananda; temporary, full of ignorance and full of anxiety...

So the whole atmosphere here is like that, completely opposite to the nature of
the soul. We can't be happy here. We are just like fish out of water. If you 
take a fish out of the water he can not be comfortable, no matter what sort of nice 
things you give him... because he is out of the water. So we belong in the spiritual 
world, serving Krishna there.

So read Srila Prabhupada's books and chant Hare Krishna always. Don't be
disappointed, it is far better to find out these things now rather than to take
initiation from a bogus guru and have your life ruined. It is a terrible thing. 
If you surrender to the wrong person and he cheats you it is a great disaster in 
your spiritual life.

So chant at least 16 rounds of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra daily, follow the four
regulative principles (no illicit sex, no intoxication, no meat eating, no 
gambling) and read Srila Prabhupada's books. You will find all the answers there 
and gradually you will see you are making spiritual advancement. The symptom is we 
become less attached to material things as we become more attached to Krishna.

What Srila Prabhupada books are you reading at the moment?

Looking forward to hearing from you again.

Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!


Your servant

Madhudvisa dasa

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