The cynicism of the intellect, the optimism of the will.

"Love is the Law, Love under Will."

There is another truism concerning history besides the one that Rocana prabhu mentions. It is the truism that Gokulananda is personifying, which is that "The only thing that we ever learn about history is that we never learn anything about history." It leads, of course, to the same place as the truism that Rocana prabhu quotes: "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it". It leads to someone's doom. Unfortunately, however, that doom is hardly ever exclusive to the willfully ignorant or the self-imposed stupid, but also to the doom of others.

Gokulananda is content to leave things as they are, to neglect any further investigation, to be content with the one-day verdict of history. My question for him is, "How many others would you doom?"

What I do affects others and what I do not do affects others. Do I look one day at God in his face and ask as Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Or do I accept my familial responsibility, not to harm my brother by my own actions, to guard him, them, from all harm that it's possible for me to protect him from?

What is it about Jesus' saying that "As ye have done to the least of them you have done unto Me?" that we don't understand? Is it that we think that Jesus was alone, that his consideration was sectarian? Do we not notice at all that in the expression that we are "the servant of the servant of the servant" that there is 100% accord between Lord Jesus Christ and the Vaisnava devotees of the Lord? What part of this allows us to hold in reserve as "mine" the least molecule, the last drop of blood? To the extent that we reserve ourselves for our own enjoyment, to that extent we are insincere.

"I" "I" "I" "I", "Me" "Me" "Mine" "Mine", "Whatever it is you want, I will give it to you, she whispers, riches, power, renown, glory, all the kingdoms of the world, I will give it. Just fall down and worship me."

Gokulananda does not seem to me to have placed a very high price upon his soul.

In the last several weeks I have been making the rounds, going here and there, walking up and down among the devotees, all the time as invisibly as I wished, or "as the minds of others go".

I have been among followers of ISKCON, Narayana Maharaja, and even those who still follow Kirtanananda openly, and I have heard some quite interesting things. It is amazing what some will say to an ear that they assume belongs to someone who is a karmi. What those who are eager for a sympathetic ear will pour into it. So many things I have heard, so much food for thought. I scarce know where to begin, so I will let the Sampradaya Sun offer me direction on where to begin. Taking that direction I will begin here with a perfect question that Rocana Prabhu has asked, and the answer that I have heard to it.

Rocana dasa wrote:

"If Radhanatha is so advanced and he's not a Zonal Acarya, then why doesn't he put his temple in ISKCON's name and invite all the other gurus to come preach and initiate there? Instead he manages his exclusive zone in the same manner as Kirtanananda ran New Vrindaban, acting with total impunity. They don't allow any other guru competition in to initiate, they keep their assets secret and separate from ISKCON and, they basically use ISKCON as a way to achieve their own ambitious agendas. They also consider any kind of critical or analytical analysis of them to be political. You're not allowed to criticize them at all, and if you do then you're instantly out. Of course, in Kirtanananda's case, you could also be dead. For these and other reasons, I believe that Radhanatha and the other maha-gurus in ISKCON are setting dangerous precedent right now"

I have been told that Tirtha has plans, none of which include remaining in prison for the rest of his life. I have heard that Tirtha plans to go to India, I didn't ask where, but I can imagine. Another person also plans to go to India, a person who is still secretly worshiped by some of his one-time followers, a person whose name is hated and reviled in the movement to the degree that even ISKCON would not let him back in. Nor would ISKCON have lent itself to the manipulations of such worshipers if they had declared themselves openly. I have heard that this is the reason that Radhanatha does not surrender his autonomy to ISKCON, because he plans to bring Kirtanananda back into the movement in a big, big way, sitting him up on the Vyasasana in his temple and crowning him; the current link.

I have been shown the sastric support that may be used to support this and although I have not been given the names of his secret supporters in ISKCON, I believe that they are there.

I don't know if this is true, but it does answer the question. And what is even more frightening is not that it might be tried, but that there is nothing that ISKCON or anyone could do about it. That, and also that it may even work. I guess we will just have to take Gokulananda's advice and wait for the verdict of history to find out if this is all true and whether it plays out. If it does, though, I would like to see the expression on Gokulananda's face when his Maharaja Radanatha offers to his defender the greatest honor, to wash Kirtanananda's feet.