Srila Prabhupada’s Poisoning and Devotee’s “Cognitive Dissonance” Over Facts

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Srila Prabhupada’s Poisoning and Devotee’s “Cognitive Dissonance” Over Facts.
By Anuttama Devi Dasi

“I think that the biggest impediment in presenting evidence for the poisoning of Srila Prabhupada, is cognitive dissonance. When someone believes something to be true and then is confronted with evidence/data that contradicts that belief, one of the ways that they cope with the dissonance is to find evidence or an explanation that supports their original belief. In this case, apparently there was push back using the theory that elements in a hair sample aren’t proof of anything. This is a great counter to that excuse to cling to dissonance. I suppose you should also expect a degree of viciousness towards yourself and hope that you don’t find that too disturbing. The fact is that this subject is disturbing, but needs to be confronted if we are to expect any healing. You might remind Kill Guru Become Guru (Book One, Page 759) people that the only way to get rid of the dissonance is to analyze the evidence with an open heart.

The psychological reason that many devotees are unable to believe that Srila Prabhupada was poisoned:

It is impossible to have two contradictory beliefs without experiencing extreme emotional discomfort. When a person is confronted with facts that contradict a firmly held belief, he / she experience what psychologists call “cognitive dissonance.” That term describes the dissonance that occurs in a person’s sub-consciousness that makes him uneasy until he is able to resolve the matter by either: changing his beliefs, changing the value of the contradictory belief, getting new information that enables him to disallow the contradictory information or actually forgetting the contradictory information.

Here is an hypothetical example of cognitive dissonance: Sally, a mother of three, who works at REI has a Labrador Retriever who she considers to be a member of the family. Sally sees herself to be kind, generous, merciful and loving and that self-concept is reinforced by her friends and family who all agree that Sally would risk her life to save a kitten. She volunteers and the local animal shelter and helps with fund-raisers. At a fund-raiser, another volunteer showed a video with graphic pictures and film footage of the industry standard for chickens who are raised for meat.

Four birds occupy a twelve inch square cage and their beaks are cut off so that they won’t peck each other to death because of the stress of their crowded conditions. Sally was horrified after seeing the footage and vowed never to eat meat again.

Sally was unprepared for the resistance she encountered with her lifestyle change of being a vegetarian. Her husband, a doctor, expressed doubt that she’d get enough protein and the kids complained about the new menu so much that Sally agreed to fix the regular meals for the family, while maintaining a meat-free diet herself. At work, her co-workers made snarky comments about her new diet and even at the animal shelter, one co-volunteer, Lisa, a well-respected lawyer, explained that meat animals are raised for that purpose, so it is alright to eat them.

About a week after becoming a vegetarian, after making her family’s favorite meal of fried chicken, she was unable to resist the temptation of having just a small portion. She decided that for her, it made sense to only eat meat sparingly, as she didn’t see herself as a fanatical animal-rights advocate. After her week long stint of being a vegetarian, Sally rarely thought about the conditions that the animals she consumed had to endure.

The hypothetical story above is an example of someone dealing with the cognitive dissonance that comes from getting information that contradicts a belief. Many devotees experience a similar psychological phenomenon when they are presented with the irrefutable facts that Srila Prabhupada was poisoned. Even hearing an audio tape of Srila Prabhupada saying he believes he is being poisoned along with rock solid forensic evidence proving this to be the case is insufficient for many devotees to even consider the possibility that poisoning could have occurred.

For many devotees, the belief that their senior godbrothers are advanced devotees who only desire to serve their spiritual master and Krsna is a stronger belief than even Srila Prabhupada’s words to the contrary. Of course it is easy for them to maintain that belief because the belief is shared by the other devotees. It is human nature to want to “fit in” by sharing beliefs that are common to others in their society. People do not want to be outcasts and will go to bizarre lengths to fit in with the group.

Solomon Asch did a conformity study in 1958 in which a volunteer was shown a vertical line and asked which line, out of 3 possibilities was of the same length. Unknown to the volunteer, the seven other participants, who he thinks are also volunteers, are actually actors who all have been told to pick the same incorrect answer. The actors all give the same incorrect answer, but although the correct answer is obvious, invariably the volunteer will give the same incorrect answer as the actors.

Similarly when a devotee is presented with rock solid facts proving that Srila Prabhupada was poisoned, he will invariably claim to believe what the other devotees believe. And then he will convince himself either that: the truth is false or that the truth is unimportant. Then he will make every effort to forget this subject and avoid getting into situations where the facts are presented in order to dispel the cognitive dissonance he is feeling.

Or he may even search out new information that supports the majority opinion that the poisoning could not have occurred, even if that new information is flimsy and unable to bear scrutiny, such as Mayesvara’s Poison Antidote presentation.

As devotees we should not fall prey to this mechanism of the Illusory Energy that allows us to minimize, disbelieve or forget important spiritual information. Maya’s job is to cover the soul’s ability to see the truth, that we are pure spirit souls who are eternally Krsna’s servants. Allowing Maya to cover the truth that Krsna’s pure servant was attacked by demons in the guise of devotees will not help anyone advance in Krsna consciousness.

Believing that the poisoning is irrelevant because it happened 40 years ago is just another of Maya’s ploys to keep us in illusion.

Devotees are attacked by demons throughout the books given to us by Srila Prabhupada. And devotees apparently are inconvenienced and suffer from those attacks. Haridas Thakur was beaten almost to death, Prahlada was trampled by elephants and thrown off cliffs, and the Pandavas endured so many difficulties. And all of these devotees also eventually, because they had taken birth, also died. Srila Prabhupada had taken birth, so it was inevitable that he would also leave his material body at some point.

The fact that the poisoning coincided with his magnificent passing gives us valuable lessons on many different levels. An important lesson is that we need to be able to see the truth through the illusion.

Where is the Outrage?!
https://www.prabhupadanugas.eu/news/?p=47522