George A. Smith: Rocana dasa also contradicts Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Thakur and calls him bogus

http://www.iskcon-truth.com/doar.html

Rocana dasa begins his article “The Ultimate Guru Test” in much the same way as I remember him beginning the morning Bhagavatam classes in Seattle so many years ago when Srila Prabhupada was still physically present, as if his audience consisted still only pf the young women in his TSP. the little girls from next doors guru kula and only the barest peppering of householders and brahmacharis and only then if he was lucky. Usually after Rocana dasa began to speak by his third or fourth sentence the little girls from the guru-kula had already started to giggle or begun to twitter. A sharp and stern word from either the dragon lady or their mother Dharini would usually suffice to restore order, bit only for a time. By that time however, the one or two brahmacharis that were sometimes in attendance had drifted off to sleep and the two or three householders had gone off somewhere, returning to their respective duties, leaving only Rocana dasa, his TSP of young ladies, the little girls and the oddball or perpetual guest to sit there still, sometimes listening to Rocana.

Not much different than any morning Bhagavatam class anywhere in the world, I imagine, even of those conducted personally by Srila Prabhupada or in Srila Prabhupada’s presence and everything was right as rain then because we knew that no matter how lacking in realization or leadership skills our own temple authorities might have been that we could always depend upon Srila Prabhupada to be there for us in our darkest hour and that if things ever got really bad that we could always write to him. The darkest hour of my spiritual life came suddenly, propelled by an occurrence so seemingly innocuous that you will laugh when I recount it. This dark night of the soul had been brought about by the conjunction of three individuals: one a temple president, two a homeless man and three myself, a young and starry eyed brahmachari with absolute faith and conviction in the goodness of Krsna the Supreme Personality of Godhead (or so he thought). Central to that conviction was the belief that it was both Krsnas and Srila Prabhupada’s will that no one should ever go hungry. Fueled by that consideration I invited the homeless man to come sit upon the step of our temple and there I fed him sumptuously with Krsna prasadsa and when he left I gave him another plate and I was very very happy thinking in my thoughts that by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy I had been allowed to help a little in the fulfillment of Lord Krsnas desire. Little did I know that while all of this was going on that the temple president had been watching the exchange and he wasn’t at all thinking happy thoughts like me, instead he was angry. After the old homeless man had disappeared the acting temple president came out and chastised me angrily, telling me that I should have just given the man a little and then sent him off. I was crushed, How could one not be when someone who you accept as your spiritual authority tells you that that you have believed about God all of your life is wrong. My heart went out of my service then and for several days I became like the walking dead. It was only on the third or fourth day in the time about that it takes for a letter from India to make it to Seattle that it was returned to me, befittingly in part by the one who took it. It was on that morning that Bala Krsna dasa the acting temple president came outside to find me wandering about. He said that we had gotten a letter from India addressed to every temple in the world. I guess that he had already read it and found in it something that he wished particularly to share with me so I came inside to hear him read. In the letter from Srila Prabhupada Srila Prabhupada told all the temples in the world that no one within mikes of one of Krsnas temples should go hungry. My heart did not just start beating again, it danced with joy and a love for Srila Prabhupada that have been with me ever since, so when Rocana dasa says the kinds of things that he says in the following sentence I know for a fact that he is simply speaking beyond his degree of realization or in the common vernacular that Rocana dasa is talking bull crap.

Rocana dasa writes:

“The process of initiation is not a magical, mystical experience, although that notion is often promoted by bogus gurus.”

The Ultimate Guru Test – Rocana dasa

“Initiation puts a person on the right track and also imparts an initial impulse to go ahead….The nature of the initial impulse also varies with the condition of the recipient. Although the mercy of the Good Preceptor enables us to have a glimpse of the Absolute and of the path to His attainment…,”

Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvatti on Initiation

“The nature of the initial impulse…,” So perhaps Rocana dasa wasn’t ready for a mystical experience, perhaps he didn’t need a miracle to save him but the fact that he deduces from his own limited experience what can only be or what cannot be for anyone else suggests that he is in the habit of elevating generalities up into the realm of Platonic Absolutes simply to give the appearance that he has hold of them or in other words that he is the highest spiritual authority, the final word on the Absolute and that is what I mean by my saying that Rocana dasa is talking bull crap.

I am no guru, not even a devotee and so I have nothing to gain by telling you a lie and disappointing you as some bhogus gurus will do by seeking to replace science with mystification but neither are all gurus who speak of imitation as being mystical either bogus as Rocana dasa would have us all believe. One can be sure of the truth of my claim from the above noted quote from our great Acarya Bhaktisiddanta Sarasvati Thakur and for many of us from our own experiences.

Tell us Rocana dasa what would  a glimpse of the Absolute and of the road to that attainment be referred to as if not as except as being a mystical experience?

Rocana dasa should knock it off and quit pretending to be an absolute authority on things that he  is simply clueless about and if he truly believed that all people who make such claims as that initiation provided them with just the kinds of mystical experiences that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta says that it can provide them with, then he should stop advertising them as he does by hosting such recollections on his web site.

I quote:

“I did not join the movement with any expectation that I would be staying very long. Already my father was dying and my mother suffered from both old age and disease. Living amongst the devotees I, of course, wanted to be one, but although Bala Krsna, the acting Temple President, thought that I was making good advancement, the Temple President’s wife one time told me that Srila Prabhupada had said that no conditioned soul living outside the association of the devotees could continue to follow the regulative principles. That was it for me. Considering that one day I must leave I could not accept initiation, only later to break the oaths that I swore to Srila Prabhupada. Thus it was that I sought or discussed initiation with the Temple President, Rocana das, after he returned from Sankirtana across the country or from Mayapur. I followed the program, I followed the regs, I threw my heart and soul into it, but with one reserve.

One day I got a call from my older brother informing me that our mother had fallen and broken her neck and that our father (blaming himself), had died of a heart attack and that if I hurried, I just might be in time for my father’s funeral and to be at my mother’s bedside before she also died.

The next morning I went into the temple room and there all alone before Lord Jagannath, Lord Balaram and Lady Subhadra. I begged leave of Srila Prabhupada. I could not be a loving devotee if I were not a loving son. I promised to return one day when my mother did not need me to care for here anymore.

Only one devotee came out of the temple to bid me farewell. I couldn’t blame them for, after all, in the mood of the time I was setting a bad example, leaving the movement for whatever reason, but she who said goodbye to me had also had a mother who she had nursed through her dying, and though Padyavali called me “fool”, I never harbored any resentment of her for it.

It was there at the bus station as I waited for the bus to take me to the airport that strange things began to happen, the living entities as spirit souls and their situation within the moods, even their mentalities, who was innocent, who was demoniac; became tangible to my perception, not a pretty sight, but that was them, but I, I was self realized.

I always considered that it was a going-away present from Srila Prabhupada and from the Deities, in appreciation of my at least having integrity in not swearing any oaths that I thought that later I would be unable to keep. But at the time it placed me in something of a quandary. Mother Swahna had told me that Srila Prabhupada had said that no “conditioned” living entity could follow regulative principles outside of the movement and yet here I stood, an immortal being (albeit still encased in a material body), ready for a new imprint. I was not long too wait for the opportunity.

I did not make much sense of these experiences at the time, they were overwhelming and though they inform my conceptualizations now, my intellectual understanding, I did not think of them in this way at the time when I was still in the grip of the experience. Just as it has happened on occasion since then, for no reason of mine I acted, walking over to a row of lockers at the bus depot. I had no need of a locker and no thought of what I did, I just opened one at random. There inside was a bucket of fresh cut carnations! I did not even know that the devotees did Sankirtana out of the Greyhound bus station, but at least one did, or had. Beside the bucket and carnations there was a cassette by George Harrison (All Things Must Pass) and a goodbye note to the temple devotees from another devotee, Dhadi Hartha das. I read the note and looked at the carnations…. Not only had I been given liberation (so that I could follow regulative principles outside of the movement), but I was now being given the opportunity to engage in the service of Lord Krsna in a liberated condition! That is Krsna. That is God. Such is the mercy of Srila Prabhupada.” 

From “Leaving Vaikuntha” an article by George A. Smith  – The Sampradaya Sun