Reading Prabhupada like the Devil Reads the Bible

How to undermine Prabhupada’s teachings:

1. Claim that Prabhupada was conditioned by the time and milieu he grew up and lived in.

In this way devotees can relativize a lot of Prabhupada’s statements, and we see some devotees try this, especially those statements which have social implications which runs contrary to modern secular atheistic thoughts. I’ve seen, to name a few examples, devotees advance this claim to justify a rejection of some of Prabhupada’s views on the role of women, homosexuality and the definition of science.

2. Claim that Prabhupada was not an expert on material matters.

While there might be some truth to this (Prabhupada would sometimes say that he was not an expert on certain material affairs), problems arise if we extrapolate from this that therefore whatever Prabhupada said about any material affairs can’t be taken as absolute truth. Like the first claim this has also been advanced in order to reject many of Prabhupada’s views on the role of women, homosexuality and the definition of science.

3. Claim that Prabhupada wanted us to adapt his teachings to our present time, place and circumstances.

Sometimes we should, of course, but this has probably become the most misused quote from Prabhupada. Even if Prabhupada said we shouldn’t do a specific thing with this quote in our hands we can now claim that “times have changed and we have to adapt.” Some devotees, for example, wants ISKCON to accept homosexual marriage, contrary to Prabhupada’s views, because times have now changed. 

4. Claim that Prabhupada didn’t want us to follow his words blindly.

Of course the ideal is not to follow Prabhupada blindly, but it’s better to follow him blindly than to contradict him. I’ve seen this argument used in connection with some of the above arguments in a way that undermined his teachings. With this quote one can even contradict Prabhupada and claim that “we now know better and since Prabhupada didn’t want us to follow blindly we are now following our own intelligence and new “scientific” data and Prabhupada would be very happy about that.” I’ve seen devotees reject Prabhupada’s critical remarks on Darwinism which he consistently made throughout his teachings, because “we shouldn’t follow him blindly!” 

With the above four claims we can basically take anything Prabhupada said and twist it to fit your own speculative philosophy – and in this way read Prabhupada as the Devil reads the Bible. 

I’ve heard a devotee claim that Prabhupada didn’t want us to repeat things we hadn’t sufficiently realized. But that’s not true. Even if our realization of Prabhupada’s word are not fully mature it’s our duty to simply repeat them:

Hari-śauri: When we go out and preach and we just repeat or try to repeat whatever we’ve heard from the spiritual master, but we may not have fully realized what we’re speaking about, does that somehow or another reduce the potency of the Gītā or the Bhāgavatam or…

Prabhupāda: Yes, realization takes time. Therefore there is no question of realization. Caitanya Mahāprabhu says you simply repeat as Kṛṣṇa says. That will save you.

The right and safe thing to do is to repeat what Prabhupada said. The wrong and risky thing to do is to speculate and try to be more clever than the guru.