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Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00053 Jan 2006
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- Subject: [ramanuja] Reg. Gayathri Mantram and ISKCON
- From: vimalkumar ranganathan <panardasan@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 15:47:05 -0800 (PST)
- List-id: <ramanuja.yahoogroups.com>
SrI:
Dear Sri Mohan Swamin,
Whilst your points are indeed effective, I would like to ramble a couple of my thoughts, as somebody who had been deeply attached to ISKCON in the past:
1) When it is accepted that becoming a Vaishnava is paramount and not the varna-affiliation, I am not able to reconcile with the fact that ISKCON gives "brahmana initiation" to all and sundry (including Women!!!) which has no prior vedic pramanas, even in our Sampradayam, our AchAryAs never tampered with the varna system, granted they made it a strong point that being a Srivaishnava is more important. Brahmana
initiation for ladies and ladies chanting Gayathri in ISKCON - I don't know if it is western influence, or implicitly vEdic. I would love to be corrected on this regard.
2) Worse, many of our "Iyengars" take "initiation" from western-born SwAmis and Goswamis of ISKCON - thus symbolically relegating all their responsibilities to our Ramanuja Matham, sporting the Gopi Chandanam which is different from Sri Vaishnava sampradayam. Worse, I know of so-called SrivaishnavAs who sport fantastic thirumaN during socio-religious occasions but immediately revert to the Gopi-Chandanam at home - which reflects the pitiable condition of our sampradayam. Also, I can't understand the logic beyond young unmarried males/females from Srivaishnava families being "initiated" in ISKCON, thus accepting Gaudiya Sampradayam. I once asked a very nice ISKCON sannyasi about the same - if they respect Srivaishnavism so much, why should they
initiate disciples from SV, instead of just asking them to just follow the Srivaishnava Matham? His answer was, disciples even from Srivaishnava families unconditionally surrender to Him explaining their lack of interest in SV, he initiates them only then. I couldn't doubt Him.
3) Granted, there are many positively influential points in ISKCON that we learn from - food-style, commitment, etc. Unfortunately we are losing many of our brethen - young and old alike to a different sampradayam with philosophies and practices orthogonal to ours.
Dasan,
Kidambi Soundararajan.
Azhvar EmberumAnAr JeeyAr ThiruvadigalE Saranam
http://www.vedics.net
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