Unfair criticism
As Krsna explains in the Bhagavad-Gita, one who does good is never overcome by evil. Pure devotees are always victorious, but the influence of envious persons can create a lot of disturbance.
Any great personality can be unfairly criticized when we take things said by them out of context. This is, of course, a very common tactic used to disqualify one's opponent. It's much easier to tarnish one's reputation by using something he said out of context than to explain what he said or intended to say.
Similarly, many are against our movement or even against the teachings of Srila Prabhupada. In the Soviet Union, communist leaders had access to Srila Prabhupada's books as they started to infiltrate behind the Iron Curtain, and they correctly concluded that if these teachings were to spread, they would put an end to their regime. They, therefore, declared war against devotees and against the teachings of Srila Prabhupada, based not only on repression but on the spread of disinformation. Devotees were thus labeled as a dangerous sect that was spreading American propaganda. Similarly, in the United States, deprogrammers used to not only kidnap devotees and try to brainwash them but also spread lies to the public.
As Krsna explains in the Bhagavad-Gita, one who does good is never overcome by evil. Pure devotees are always victorious, but the influence of envious persons can create a lot of disturbance in the short and medium term. Devotees eventually emerged victorious in their struggle against the Soviet Union, but this doesn't mean they won without a long fight.
Similarly, the teachings of Srila Prabhupada will eventually spread around the world and steer humanity back on course, but this doesn't prevent Kali and his servants from trying to stop this process. One of the ways they do it is by using quotes from Prabhupada out of context in a bid to try to disqualify him. We can find this tendency even inside our own movement.
Based on quotes put out of context, Srila Prabhupada is accused of being a misogynist, a racist, and so on. In this way, people are distracted from the essential message his books contain.
Another distraction is the theory that Srila Prabhupada was poisoned by his close disciples. This is an unfounded theory that was disproved in many different ways by a number of devotees, but somehow or other continues to float around the less enlightened layers of the online population. Similarly, conspiracy theories based on the ritvik idea continue to float around, presenting an alternative view of reality, where there are no pure devotees after Prabhupada, and where he changed his mind at the last moment and decided to abolish the paramparā.
Another way to try to kill Prabhupada is by disqualifying his disciples, and thus trying to extinguish his spiritual bloodline. Just like one can try to destroy all traces of a specific personality by killing his children and family members, one may try to kill Prabhupada by attacking his disciples and grand disciples who are trying to continue his disciplic succession. Naturally, there are many cases of falls and other faults that one should be careful about, but we often see that even devotees who are innocent are frequently attacked. Anyone who achieves a certain success in preaching Krsna Consciousness becomes a target of such campaigns.
Just like one may be tempted by Kali into falling into drugs or promiscuous sex, and thus forget about his spiritual life, we may be distracted by any of these factors and lose the opportunity of practicing Krsna Consciousness and perfecting our lives. The modern age offers us unprecedented access to knowledge about Krsna Consciousness and easy access to advanced devotees, be it online or in person. However, it's important to know that these same channels are increasingly used by the followers of Kali to distract us and make us lose the opportunity.
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Hare Krishna Prabhu ji 🙏 thank you for this article. This is the thing going on prominently and devotees who were in iskcon from years are diverting by this unfair criticism and leaving iskcon for no reason . This is the most important topic on which devotees has to speak about .
Hare krsna prabhuji .Unfortunately , this has become so true.People pick Srila Prabhupad out of context and just use it randomly either to support their own personal claims , or against Srila Prabhupad.Thank you for bringing this subject matter to light.