Qualifications of the Good Disciple

Murti of Vedanta Deshika

There seems to have been a great deal of interest in my last post about guruship, so here’s another from a similar period of Vaishnava history. Its by Sri Vedanta Deshika (1268-1387) and it appears in the Sishyakrityadhikara section of the Srimad Rahasyatrayasara, one of his most important works. This piece is [...]

The Reprehensible Delusions of Guruship

The Vaishnava teacher who gave these cautionary instructions for gurus wrote many important works on the practise of bhakti. When the sacred town of Sri Rangam was being attacked by Mogul invaders, who eventually slaughtered 12,000 people, he made a daring plan to escape with the utsava murti of Ranganatha (smaller deities above)

I saw this [...]

The King Has No Clothes

I was sent this short clip of a neo-Vedic raja or ‘king’ and it was such a spectacular example of how a ’self-realised guru’ should not speak that I had to share it with you.
Great brahmanas have written that before you open your mouth you should know the mood of your audience. And what to [...]

The Great British Ritviks

The editors of the ‘Back to Prabhupada’ magazine - my old friends.
I note that the editors of Back to Prabhupada, the magazine of ‘The Real Hare Krishna Movement,’ have again featured something I’ve written in their magazine. Their last issue gave me two pages and this present issue one and a bit.
I think [...]

Strategies for ‘Keeping Good Priests Good’

‘Keeping good men good.’ My local Catholic priest explains what it means for him
Mindful of my current interest in ‘keeping good men good’ I had the opportunity to speak today with a local Catholic priest, Father Raymond Legge. Although both he and I know that the history of the church has certainly not been unblemished [...]

Keeping Good Men Good

The recent departure of Balabhadra Dasa from ISKCON, and the account of the circumstances leading up to his departure, will no doubt prompt some of my newer readers to ask the obvious question: “How could this possibly happen?”
How is it that a man who was has been a Vaishnava for more than thirty years, a [...]

Srila Prabhupada’s Vyasa Puja, Thirty Years Later

Srila Prabhupada, my spiritual master, sitting on the lawn of Bhaktivedanta Manor. On the birthday of the spiritual master it is customary for all disciples to write or speak something about him for the other Vaishnavas who assemble on the day. Here is my piece for this year. It is not a philosophical statement, but [...]

Little Ants on a Leaping Lion

 
The Sri Vaishnava poet Vedanta Deshika (1268-1387)

The year was 1315 and Vedanta Deshika, the great Sri Vaishnava poet, was writing a book about the transmission of spiritual knowledge. He was trying to think of an analogy for the importance of devotion to the acarya, the foremost spiritual preceptor, when he remembered something his nephew, [...]

More on ‘Back to Prabhupada’

Srila Prabhupada in one of a series of photographs taken by Guru Das
 

In my blog, Thoughts on Back to Prabhupada Magazine, I included a few reflections on the guru-disciple relationship. The piece was not intended as an endorsement or a refutation of the ritvik conception. Nevertheless, my blog was picked up by that magazine [...]

Two Gurus and a False Dilemma

Vibhisana, the brother of Ravana, appears before Lord Sri Ramacandra
Lord Ramachandra had reached the ocean separating Him from the island of Lanka, where Ravana was holding His wife Sita captive. He and His army paused for some time on the beach. Suddenly, Vibhisana, the brother of Ravana, troubled by his brother’s outrageous behaviour, became [...]