== COWARD ==
Namaskar,
It takes strength, faith, and courage to carry the AM flag and bring
Baba's ideology to the people. We expect such qualities from those
involved in dharma pracara - including those publishing our AM magazines.
Unfortunately, "Bhakta Samaj", one of our AM periodicals in Hindi, is
compromising our AM ideals and has instead become the mouthpiece of
local Hindu dogma in order to appease capitalist enterprises & the
status quo.
That is why many are signaling that it is time to kick out the current
publishers of "Bhakta Samaj", as well as any others in our Publications
Dept who fail to uphold the dharmic standard of AM.
FALLING INTO THE MIRE OF HINDU DOGMA
Baba has graciously come to give a new set of teachings to the whole
world. In that process, He has corrected the various misnomers and
dogmas that crude Hindu priests created about Lord Krsna and Lord Shiva.
But the publishers of Bhakta Samaj magazine choose to disregard Baba'a
guidelines and instead adhere here to all those old Hindu dogmas,
thereby confusing the masses and making our Marga look like one other
dogmatic Hindu sect.
Let's review this unfortunate situation step by step. Remember, the goal
here is only to uphold Baba's teachings and not allow our Marga to fall
into dogma.
DOGMA #1:
COMPLEXION OF LORD KRSNA AND LORD SHIVA
Over the long history, for selfish reasons as well as out of just plain
confusion, many dogmatic preists and religious opportunists have
misrepresented the skin tone and physical appearance of Lord Krsna and
Lord Shiva. Often they want to do this to promote their own clan as
being related with Lord Shiva, and therefore show they are better than
others. Baba has addressed this tactic and others like it in His series
of discourses, "All Bask in the Glory of Shiva".
About this particular misnomer, Baba has made the matter about Lord
Shiva's skin tone quite clear.
"Rajatagirinibha madhumaya durlabha"
Baba says, "Victory to the benevolent wielder of the thunderbolt, the
one with white-complexioned body ..." (NSS: Shivagiiti)
In the Shivagiiti song which Baba has Himself written, Baba distinctly
states that Lord Shiva had a light complexion. And that same claim Baba
makes in the below passage.
Baba says, "Born into a Mongolo-Aryan family, this great man had a high
nose and fair complexion. He was a great Tantric - a great yogi. The
name of this Maha'purus'a of the non-Aryan society was Shiva." (NSS)
Likewise, Baba makes a similar statement about Lord Krsna.
Baba says, "The complexion of the historical Krs'n'a who lived in
Dva'para Yuga was not black." (DKG)
Thus, our Marga Publications should reflect this fact that both Krsna
and Shiva were of fair complexion. Here the matter is not to promote any
race but adhere to Baba's teachings.
To demonstrate this fact about the color of the body of Lord Shiva, Baba
Himself specifically guided artists about how to portray Lord Shiva when
making the cover of the 1982 edition of Namah Shiva'ya Sha'nta'ya. On
that cover, Lord Shiva is of a very fair complexion. That is the visual
example that Baba has put forth.
Unfortunately, in recent publications of "Bhakta Samaj" [a] Apr '08,
Year 6, Issue 10, [b] Sep '08, Year 7, Issue 3, and [c] Feb '09 Year 8,
Issue 2, the publishers have portrayed both Lord Shiva and Lord Krsna as
being totally dark-skinned by placing high-gloss pictures of their
darkend tone on the cover.
We all know know that pictures play a large part in people's
understanding, or in this case misunderstanding. So when the publishers
place a full-sized cover picture that wrongly depicts Lord Krsna and
Lord Shiva, then that dogmatic portrayal will stick in the minds of the
reader. And they will not get Baba's teaching on this very point.
Again, it is not my personal desire or agenda that Shiva or Krsna should
be of any part color. This is not a political essay or cultural
platform. Our chief and only aim is that Baba's' ideals should be
highlighted. And when He Himself has said that Lord Shiva was of fair
complexion and when He Himself has personally designed a book cover to
represent this, then we must not allow any of our publications,
including "Bhakta Samaj" magazine, to go against Baba's teaching by
spreading some dogmatic (mis)presentation.
Tragically, this is not the only problem. The Bhakta Samaj magazine is
filled with misguided notions stemming from Hindu dogma. Why? Because
the publisher does not have the requisite courage to promote AM,
instead, like a coward, he follows Hindu dogma.
DOGMA #2:
ONLY HIGHLIGHT LORD KRSNA AS A LOVABLE CHILD
As we know well, Baba has taken great care to properly present Lord
Krsna's personality. One of the main aspects Baba details is that of
Lord Krsna on the battlefield and His role of Parasarathi. Because it
was in this role that Krsna united the people and created one human
society. To this end, Baba has delivered dozens of discourses and at
minimum two books: Discourses on the Mahabharata, and Namami Krsnasundaram.
In contrast, in His many discourses, rarely, or even never, does Baba
discuss or describe Krsna has an adorable, cute little child. In fact
the main aspect of Krsna's childhood that Baba does highlight is when
Krsna killed the woman who was nursing him when she tried to poison him
to death.
Baba says, "Putana attempted to suckle Krs'n'a after applying poison to
her breast, but Krs'n'a bit her breast sharply, and the poison got into
her bloodstream, and she died." (NKS, Disc: 19)
So Baba has boldly highlighted Krsna's dharmic qualities, even when
describing Krsna as a baby.
In stark contrast, most of the dogmatic Hindus dislike Krsna's role on
the battlefield and His tactics of diplomacy. They do not like the many
ways Krsna employed to do away with negative elements. They wrongly feel
that this sends a bad or even dangerous message as these selfish priests
do not want to encourage people to oppose dogmas. So they instead only
highlight Krsna as a soft, cuddly, chubby baby. All the dogmatic Hindu
sects prefer to see Krsna in this manner.
But this is not the way Baba has chosen to present Lord Krsna.
Yet guess what our "Bhakta Samaj" magazine has done. They used an entire
cover (Sep '08, Year 7) to highlight Krsna has one innocent child deity,
just like all the Hindu sects do.
However this was never Baba's approach. Always Baba was pointed on Lord
Krsna's role as true dharmika leading ahead on the battlefield of life -
uniting people by crushing dogma and wrongdoers.
The dogmatic Hindu priests never appreciate this role of Krsna and they
also feel that Krsna's role as Vraja is controversial. That is why they
mostly dogmatically portray Krsns has a chubby baby. And it is that
dogma that graces the cover of Bhakta Samaj. That is the tragedy of how
our magazine is succumbing to dogma.
Why? Because the publisher is a coward. He knows what is right but
cannot do it because of his cowardly nature.
DOGMA #3
LORD SHIVA WEARING OMNKARA LOCKET
Here is another key point.
Lord Shiva - the Father of Tantra - is the epitome of dharma. Yet crude
Hindu priests commonly adorn Shiva with all kinds of dogmatic elements,
including the omnkara symbol or letter.
Of course, on the '82 edition of Namah Shiva'ya Sha'nta'ya, Baba's
portrayal of Lord Shiva is free from all such dogmatic notions.
But on the cover of the April '08 edition of "Bhakt Samaj", Shiva is
shown wearing a omnkara symbol on his anahata cakra. So once again the
magazine is falling prey to Hindu dogma and ignoring Baba's dharmic
guidelines.
DOGMA #4
LORD SHIVA WEARING SACRED THREAD
Baba adamantly opposes the caste system and all the forms it takes. That
is why Baba insists that before taking AM initiation, one must renounce
their caste and do away with things like the brahmin tradition of
wearing a sacred thread and sacred hair. These are just elements of
brahmin supremacy.
That is why Baba never applies such symbols to any picture of Lord Shiva
as Lord Shiva recognises the greatness of all, not one particular caste.
But once again, the editors and publishers of "Bhakta Samaj" (April '08)
fall prey to Hindu dogma and display Lord Shiva on the cover of the
magazine wearing the sacred threat depicting caste supremacy.
By seeing this, any rational reader is bound to think that our Marga is
just another dogmatic Hindu sect.
Such is the awful outcome of having a coward be the editor of an AM
magazine.
DOGMA #5
RIVER GAUNGA & PHALLIC WORSHIP
Other dogmas that have been repeated again and again in the "Bhakta
Samaj" magazine is the old, Hindu notion of the river pouring out of
Shiva's head as well as Shivalingua (phallic worship). Both of these
dogmatic ideas have been shown on the cover of this magazine. That
entire scene has been explained in greater detail in the endnotes of
this letter.
The main idea is that our AM magazines are meant to be the media of AM
dharma and not religious dogma. Yet at present, shockingly, there is no
end in sight to the array of dogmas that are littering the "Bhakta
Samaj" magazine.
JUST TOOLS OF THE CAPITALIST ELITE
One question that invariably that crops up in the mind is why is all
this nonsense happening. Why is Dada Santoshananda, the publisher of
"Bhakta Samaj", allowing all this to happen?
Many report that the reason is that Santoshananda is money and status
oriented so he does not want to disturb or ruffle the feathers of the
ruling elit. In order to grab a few extra pennies from the ruling
capitalists and dominant religious funders, Dada is willing to sacrifice
and compromise AM ideas. That is his cowardly nature. He is unwilling to
bravely stand for the teachings of AM. Instead Dadaji is making a
back-door deal with those top vaeshyas by selling out on AM ideology and
Baba's ideals.
That is the tragedy and here below is how Baba explains this phenomenon.
Baba says, "The vaeshyas' financial power carries more weight...the
vaeshyas have no trouble buying the vipras' brains...they can easily buy
them off. In a vaeshya state, poets, scientists, litterateurs and great
heroes are awarded prizes, medals and titles for this very reason. By
participating in all this, the vipras and the ks'attriyas surrender all
their endowments at the feet of the vaeshyas for a little money or some
name and fame; and at the same time feel they are fortunate. They fail
to realize that they are digging their own graves." (HS)
In this way Santoshananda has sold out to - both AM ideology and his own
soul - to the vaeshyan elite by pinning Hindu dogma all over "Bhakta
Samaj".
BABA'S BLESSING
By Baba's grace He has corrected thousands of years of dogmas and given
the proper depiction of the lives and teachings of Mahasambhuti Shiva
and Krsna. So when the publisher of "Bhakta Samaj" is constantly going
against Baba by making our AM magazine an agent of Hindu dogma, it is a
serious matter. That is why many are telling that the cowardly ways of
Santoshananda & others like him must go. They must be removed from the
post and rectified or forced to leave if they cannot give up their dogma.
That is the strong stance we have to make and by this way AM dharma will
be delivered to the hungry hearts and minds of the people.
Namaskar,
Bhavanath
Note 1: DOGMA OF RIVER GAUNGA
As we know, it is a blatant misnomer and a false tale that the Ganges
river is pouring from Lord Shiva'a head. Hindu priests invented this
dogma because by this way they can befool the common people to go to the
Ganges to purify themselves. And then those greedy Hindu priests will
cheat lots of money from those innocent and naive worshippers. So with
this crude idea in mind, avaricious priests supported this dogma of
having the Gaunga flow from the top of Lord Shiva's head.
But Baba opposes and exposes this dogma in numerous places. (Ref: AV-7,
p.56-59; NSS Disc 4; etc; etc;) Baba outrightly rejects and nullifies
this view that the Gaunga flows out from Shiva's head.
In a colourful and unique way Baba tells the entire story behind this
very dogma. Here reveals the whole thing of how the river Gaunga got
wrongly latched on to Lord Shiva's picture. (Reference NSS: Disc 4) And
Baba's detailed and pointed explanation has been included in Note 1 down
below. But the essence of the story is that Shiva's wife, Gaunga, was
unhappy because her son was not a strong sadhaka. Whereas the children
of Shiva's other wives were quite advanced spiritualists. So to console
Gaunga and make her feel alright, Lord Shiva paid special attention to
Gaunga. He treated her in a very pampered way in comparison to how HE dealt with
His other spouses. So the common people got the wrong idea that Shiva
loves Gaunga the most and that Gaunga was his favourite. So they created
pictures of Gaunga sitting on Lord Shiva's head. And then one
misconception led to another until finally the river Gaunga (Ganges)
ended up flowing out of Shiva's head. Hence this is one classic example
of the confusion that gets mettled up with religious dogma.
Here is the flowing and beautiful way in which Baba reveals how the
pouring of the river Gaunga from Lord Shiva's head is nothing but the
concocted tales of a few priests.
Baba says, "Shiva had a third wife--Gaunga. She was a Mongolian girl
with a yellow complexion, born in Tibet. I said a little while ago that
[Shiva's 1st wife] Gaorii had a son, Bhaerava, [and Shiva's second wife]
Kalii had a daughter, Bhaeravii, and Gaunga had a son, Karttikeya..."
"Bhaerava, the son of Parvatii, was an ardent spiritualist, a Tantrik
sadhaka. Bhaeravii, the daughter of Kalka, was also an ardent
spiritualist and a sincere practitioner of Tantra; but Gaunga's son,
Karttikeya, was of a different mould. Because of this she was very sad
at heart; she was very unhappy with her only son. So to remove her
mental unhappiness, Shiva used to treat her with the utmost courtesy.
The people would complain that Shiva was not so soft and courteous in
His dealings with Parvatii and Kalii as He was with Gaunga. He was
pampering Gaunga too much--as if Shiva was dancing in joy, with Gaunga
seated on His head."
"On the basis of this saying, Shiva was depicted in the Paoranik Age
with Gaunga tied to His matted locks of hair. Then a story was concocted
in some Purana that the water discarded after washing the feet of Visnu,
flowed down from heaven, and Shiva supported the flow on His head; then
this flow became the river Gaunga. That is, Gaunga, the wife of Shiva
became the river Gaunga. Actually this river Gaunga has no relation
whatsoever to Shiva...These are mere tales of the Puranas." (NSS, Disc 4)
Note 2: DOGMA OF PHALLIC WORSHIP
Next, is that in this Bhakta Samaj magazine they are putting photos of
the Shiva-liunga or phallic worships. But this is all just dogma from
the primitive pre-historic where they were doing phallic worship in
hopes of increasing the number of offspring and hence increase the size
of their clan. But AM does not support this outlook negative phallic
worship; here again Baba has exposed this dogma to its very core. Every
Ananda Margii understands that we neither support nor practice phallic
worship. But those Dadas put it in our Bhakta Samaj Magazine for the
world to see.
In their twisted approach, dogmatic priests have crudely reduced the
worship of Lord Shiva to nothing but Shiva-liunga, or phallic worship.
Means around the entire globe world, in the name of worshipping Lord
Shiva, only the misguided practice of phallic worship is going on
(primarily). This situation is happening in not one but in thousands and
thousands of Shiva's temples. Yet Baba guides us that Lord Shiva is the
Father of Tantra and that Shiva's teachings have nothing to
Shiva-liunga, i.e phallic worship. Rather this phallic worship was
introduced later on by dogmatic religious priests.
Baba says, "You should remember that there is no mention of the worship
of Shiva-liunga in the dhyana mantra of Shiva. From that it is clear
that the worship of Shiva-liunga was introduced much later." (NSS, Disc 5)
So, as Baba points out, this Shiva-liunga or phallic worship has
absolutely zero to do with the Father of Tantra-- Lord Shiva. Rather
this phallic worship picture is the misguided creation of those
misguided Hindu priests. So this is nothing but one religious dogma. Yet
tragically, it has made it onto the pages of "Bhakta Samaj".
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WT Conduct Rule: Dealings
Baba says, "Supervisory workers will have to take proper care of each of
their supervised staff in all respects." (Pt #2 of 'Six Additional Rules')
Note: This is a very significant rule but in today's Wt culture
supervisory bosses are more focused on emptying the pockets of their
subordinates and using them for their groupist schemes. This is the only
"care" they do. In future when standard of devotion in supervisory
workers is higher, these rules are likely to be followed in which case
the situation will be better.
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