Today I’m sitting the RHCE exam, in ten minutes in fact.

I’ve been reading “Our Srila Prabhupada - A Friend to All: Early Contemporaries Remember Him“.

It is a very interesting book. It is a collection of interviews with persons who knew Srila Prabhupada before he left India to preach in the West. From reading this book and hearing their appreciations I’ve gained a greater appreciation for the point of view of Srila Prabhupada’s godbrothers, the Gaudiya Math, Srila BV Narayana Maharaja, and other persons who hold a different angle of vision than I have.

Even within ISKCON everyone has a different angle of vision.

Reading this book I can understand and appreciate why Srila BV Narayana Maharaja sees things the way he does. That doesn’t mean that I abandon my own unique perspective, but I can appreciate the difference. The ability to simultaneously accomodate diverse, and sometimes contradictory viewpoints is important. The whole Vedic culture is based on this, and the inability of modern Western academics to appreciate this aspect of it leads them to interpret it as a confusion or collection of competing systems. In fact, there are many different people in society, each with their own unique and valid experience.

The Vedic culture recognizes and honours this by constructing a situation where these people can coexist and pursue their own self realization and spiritual evolution in such a way that the impact of their angle of vision on others with a different angle of vision is minimized. This is done by the guidance of brahmanas, spiritually adept persons who are able to accomodate and appreciate multiple angles of vision and interact with people in terms of their mentality.

A lot of the time people of different mentalities are encouraged to stick to their own concerns, and ignore others around them, as they will find the plethora of mentalities and realizations confusing, and will react by either becoming attracted to something that they shouldn’t, or condemning something that they shouldn’t.

The Srimad Bhagavatam describes this principle of multiple angles of vision:

“Steadiness in one’s own position is declared to be actual piety, whereas deviation from one’s position is considered impiety. In this way the two are definitely ascertained.”

SB. 11.21.2

His Holiness Hrdayananda Goswami, commenting on this, says:

In actuality, virtue and fault are not absolute but are relative to one’s particular platform of advancement. Remaining fixed in the type of discrimination suitable to one’s level of advancement is good, and anything else is bad.

So people are encouraged to focus their attention on cultivating their own progress, and not to give much attention to what other people are doing, which can often lead to misunderstanding, and offense.

In the case of Srila Prabhupada and his disciples, they were encouraged to be busy about their own work, so much so that they didn’t have time to poke their nose into what other Gaudiya Vaisnavas were doing. This was Srila Prabhupada’s practical way of “keeping the children apart”.

How easy misunderstanding comes about is described in one pastime I read last night (I’ll get the reference later).

Many of us are familiar with Srila Prabhupada’s eulogy to his sannyasa guru,Srila Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Maharaja, who left his body while Srila Prabhupada was in America.

What we didn’t know was the back story. Srila Prabhupada was writing letters to Trivikrama Maharaja, Srila Kesava Maharaja’s disciple, asking him why he wasn’t sending the mrdangas he had promised to send. Trivikrama Maharaja and the other disciples were of course dealing with the impending departure of their gurudeva. They had written to Srila Prabhupada to inform him of Srila Kesava Maharaja’s condition, but those messages had not reached Prabhupada.

Srila Prabhupada is left wondering why these guys are not lending support, and they are left wondering why Srila Prabhupada is so insensitive to the condition of his dear Godbrother and the situation there.

Aspersions are made and things are said which remain for years afterwards, even after the misunderstanding has been cleared up. This book helps to bring some of these things into the light.

There are a number of other incidences where the backstory is explained and the whole situation is laid out. A lot of frictions simply arise from different angles of vision, incomplete understanding, and an inability to hold on to our own understanding while honoring another who has a different understanding.

This book is helping me to understand the perspective of Srila Prabhupada’s Godbrothers, and to understand Srila Prabhupada’s policy of separation. It is in fact necessary to “keep the children apart”.

I’m not about to run off and join the Gaudiya Math (as if it were one homogenous thing and ISKCON were another homogenous thing), but I feel that I have a deeper appreciation for our wider heritage from reading this book, and a deeper appreciation for Srila Prabhupada from other angles of vision.