“Prabhupāda, there is prejudice in this movement”
Prabhupāda didn’t come to spread a sectarian philosophy but to teach the real dharma of the soul, a universal philosophy that can free us from our bodily constraints and prejudice.
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Once, in the 1970s, during a public program at La Trobe University in Australia, a group of students accused devotees of spreading American propaganda. They argued that our movement came from America and most of its members are Americans. Madhudviṣa Prabhu answered that Prabhupāda started his movement in America because a pious Indian lady gave him a free ticket on a boat. If they had sent him a ticket to Australia, he could very well have started his movement there.
Śrīla Prabhupāda didn’t come to the United States to spread a sectarian philosophy but to teach the real dharma of the soul, a universal philosophy that can free us from our bodily constraints and prejudices and fix us on our real identity as pure souls.
In the 18th chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita, Krsna explains that knowledge by which one sees that in different types of bodies there are different types of souls is knowledge influenced by the mode of passion. Conversely, knowledge by which one sees the same undivided spiritual nature in all living entities is knowledge in the mode of goodness.
Our movement could have started in any part of the world and spread from there, but somehow Krsna chose to start it from the United States, probably because at the time, there were favorable conditions there. From the United States, our movement spread to Canada, the UK, Germany, France, and other European Countries, and finally to Australia. All these countries share a similar culture; therefore, devotees didn’t have great problems working together. However, when black-skinned devotees from both the United States and Africa became numerous, certain problems emerged. Prabhupada referred to that as “skin disease”. This same skin disease also manifested against women on many occasions.
Unfortunately, not everyone becomes pure as soon as he or she starts to chant the holy names. For most of us is a relatively long process. As long as it is not completed, we keep living in a delirious condition where we are still influenced by our prejudices and other traits of our material conditioning, even though we are practicing the spiritual process and posing as Vaiṣnavas. Somehow, this can go quite far in our spiritual practice.
For years, one of the leading devotees in Latin America used to make jokes about how people from Latin America are uncultured and unintelligent, “śūdras” as he described. He was not even very discreet about it. Later, a whole movement started in the West because a portion of our devotees was uncomfortable with the fact that some of our temples started being attended mostly by Indians.
Just like there was a favorable situation for our movement spreading in the United States, then in Europe, and later in Russia and other CIS countries, nowadays there is a favorable situation in India and amongst the Indian diaspora, and many devotees are being made from these communities. Later, it may be China, who knows?
However, although our movement started in India, and our ācāryas, all the way to Śrīla Prabhupāda, were born there, there are still members of our movement who have problems understanding that a soul in an Indian or Chinese body is not different from a soul in an American or European body. Conversely, the opposite is also seen: some Indians think that all Westerners are mlecchas, although this is rarer nowadays. Most Indians (and especially Indian devotees) appreciate Western devotees, often seeing them as role models. Most people in India nowadays have this mistaken idea that Western culture is better, and when they see Westerners who were born in this culture giving it up and taking to Krsna Consciousness, they become very inspired.
Even in Mayapur, where Indians are the vast majority, there are still devotees who think Indians are somehow inferior and treat them badly, especially the villagers who come to work. This shows how many of us are still quite far from understanding even the first verses of the Bhagavad-Gita.
In Śrīmad Bhāgavatam (4.11.13), it’s mentioned that “The Lord is very satisfied with His devotee when the devotee greets other people with tolerance, mercy, friendship, and equality.”
The best type of example is when one can just treat people as equal friends, without any sense of superiority. This also shows that we are actually following the philosophy we teach. If you have a desire to spread Krsna Consciousness and don’t know how to start, one thing you can do is just go to Mayapur and spend your time walking around, greeting the visitors, and treating them nicely. You will be surprised by the effect it has.
When Śrīla Bhakti Thirta Swami started at our movement, he could observe that black-skinned devotees were often discriminated against. Later, he raised this question to Śrīla Prabhupāda, mentioning that there is prejudice in our movement. Śrīla Prabhupāda answered with a valuable instruction. He said that if he thinks you are inferior just because your skin is black, then he is a nonsense. However, if you become offended because of that, then you are the nonsense.
If someone mistreats us because our body has black skin, or because we have a body of female gender, or because we were born in a certain place, this means he is not a very cultured person. He (or she) is a “nonsense” as Śrīla Prabhupāda put it. However, if we become offended by it, it means we are also identifying with the body, and because of that, we are taking offense. In this case, it means our consciousness is also not correct. As Prabhupāda put it, in this case, we are the nonsense.
When we can treat others with tolerance, mercy, friendship, and equality, no matter what kind of body they have, what their skin color, race, or gender is, it means we are starting to understand the philosophy we preach. Before that, we are just uncultured people trying to pose as Vaiṣnavas.
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