Are Prabhupada’s standards being diluted by, say, singing mahamantra in Bollywood song tune?

forms specifically comprise dilution? Now, first of all, I would say that we shouldn’t be too quick to pass judgment on this. Why? Because every tradition has a core that remains unchanging.
And every tradition has a periphery that keeps changing. And that has to keep changing. If it doesn’t change, that tradition will no longer be a living tradition, that tradition will simply become an artifact in the museum.
So, a tradition has to always be contemporary. And being contemporary means that one has to add, relate with, address, present oneself according to whatever contemporary forms are there. So, for example, Prabhupada himself was very dynamic.
The heart of our morning program is Darshanamati. And right in that Prabhupada has Gomindamadi Purusham in a western tune. Isn’t it? Now, what is this, if not the resourcefulness of an Acharya? So, now, some people think that being faithful to Prabhupada means just following the external forms that Prabhupada gave us.
That can be one definition of faithfulness. But Prabhupada adopted many external forms because of his inner resourceful dynamic spirit of presenting Krishna Bhakti in a way that would be attractive to people. So, being faithful to Prabhupada can also mean adopting that inner resourceful spirit and presenting Krishna Bhakti in a way that is appropriate, which will appeal to people.
If you look at Prabhupada, he said, I followed my spiritual master 100%. And yet, if you just study even a little bit of the life of Bhakti Swami Thakur and the way he presented things in Gaudiya Math and the way Prabhupada presented things in ISKCON, there are significant differences. Now, no differences in the central things, but there are many differences.
In the Gaudiya Math, for example, we have, they mostly have Gaur Kadal identities. Prabhupada established Gaur Nidra identities. So, in most Gaudiya Maths, we have the Guru Parampara moving like this upwards from Prabhupada towards the Previous Acharya.
In most Gaudiya Maths, they have Guru Parampara moving like this downwards. So, we can look at Bhakti Swami Thakur would never print any pictures of any sacred images in his books. Prabhupada may have insisted on having pictures in his books.
So, if you just study our tradition, you know, what happens is, if this Prabhupada is our founder and definitely his position is preeminent, but Prabhupada is a representative of a tradition. And if we disconnect Prabhupada from the tradition that he has given us, then we misunderstand Prabhupada and we misrepresent our tradition. So, Prabhupada has to be seen in the context of his tradition.
So, now, I gave some examples. I won’t go into technicalities of each of those things. But Prabhupada had his reasons for doing what he did.
And the essence of that reason was, what would be most appealing to people? So, he put pictures in his books, because pictures would attract people. And the pictures, people look at the book, people look at the plates and then they say, I want to know what is in the book. So, Bhakti Swami Thakur did not put pictures in his books, because at that time, that was not the common standard.
That was a time when Bhakti Swami Thakur’s books were mostly received in India. And Indians had a very, at that time at least, had a very special reverence for sacred images and the thought that somebody may throw a book away and the sacred picture may fall on the ground and then that would be a great offense. There are many considerations, different considerations at those times.
So, if you see, before Srila Prabhupada, in our whole tradition, nobody emphasized Bhagavad Gita as much as Prabhupada did. Jiva Goswami’s primary work that he wrote on was Srimad Bhagavatam. Baldev Vidya, which is primary commentary was on Vedanta Sutra.
Bhakti Swami Thakur’s primary contribution was his explanation of the teachings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu based on Chaitanya Charita Amrit. Bhakti Swami Thakur’s primary contribution was his Gaudiya Bhashya, his commentary on Bhagavatam and Sri Srimad Bhagavatam. Before Srila Prabhupada, yes, many Acharyas quoted Bhagavad Gita, but none of them emphasized Bhagavad Gita as much as Prabhupada did.
When Bhakti Swami Thakur sent his disciples abroad to Europe, at that time, they used the book Shri Krishna Chaitanya that was co-authored by Bhakti Swami Thakur and one of his disciples, disciple Nishikant Sanya, as their primary preaching book. That was the primary book that they would distribute and many devotees they made and they made it all based on that book. So, Prabhupada chose Bhagavad Gita.
Why is that? You see, if he said that I am following my spiritual master as it is and he is choosing an entirely different book. Not that Bhagavad Gita was not quoted, it was never made the central focus of the preaching. So, the point which I am making by all this is that we cannot have a simplistic idea of diluting Prabhupada’s teachings just because some forms are adjusted according to time-based circumstances.
Prabhupada himself adjusted forms according to time-based circumstances. There are multiple reasons. Now, because of various historical circumstances, the Bhagavad Gita had somehow become very respected in India as a Hindu counterpoint for the Bible and the Quran and many political readers were using the Bhagavad Gita to propagate their own ideas.
So, Prabhupada said, I will give the pure Shraddhanta Bhakti based on Bhagavad Gita. And in the West also, Bhagavad Gita had become very popular. People were interested, not very popular, but people were interested.
So, as compared to say Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam, Chaitanya Charita Amrit, these were unknown books. If you look at Bhakti Sahaja, Bhakti Nath Thakur, his primary preaching was in Bengal and Orissa. He wrote books for the Western audience.
He had Western audience in mind, but he wrote mostly in Bengali and he himself directly did not reach out to Western audience. Bhakti Sahaja Thakur’s main audience was Indians. He did have a vision of reaching out outwards.
So, my point I am making is, tradition is never a collection of frozen formulas. This is what has been done by Adyacharya. This is what we all are meant to do.
Yes, we are all meant to love Krishna and we are all meant to inspire others to love Krishna. But those who have followed Prabhupada for many years, those who have a sincere desire to share Shri Prabhupada’s message, they will know by the mercy of Shri Prabhupada how best to present Krishna Bhakti. And rather than making a very straight value judgment or statement that Prabhupada’s teachings are being diluted, we have to understand the time, place and circumstance.
And if we have certain questions, maybe this particular thing is a dilution, then it is best to go and ask those devotees who are doing this. No, what is the reason for doing this? And if we feel that it is a dilution, then we don’t do it. But if we start, if all of us start judging other devotees like this, then two things will happen.
First of all is that we will become judgmental and we will start fighting with each other. If you look at European history, there were, just before the scientific revolution came, scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, after Newton and Copernicus, before that what were Christians doing? There was a scholastic tradition and there was something like 10,000 pages of material written debating whether the angels in heaven have hands with five fingers or six fingers. You know, we laugh at this, but who knows, 100 years down the line, people will laugh at us.
You know, you are saying that should Hare Krishna be sung in this tune or this tune? You are singing Hare Krishna, Baba. Isn’t that enough? So, I feel that we shouldn’t be too judgmental about this. If we have questions, better to clarify from those sources and not make blanket excuses like this that Prabhupada’s teachings have been diluted.
Better be safe, you know, we may think that I am being faithful to Prabhupada, but we may end up offending the faithful followers of Prabhupada by saying that they are deviating. Now, it is of course possible that deviations can happen, but at least I feel we shouldn’t imagine that I am a self-appointed watchdog in the moment. We follow what inspires us according to our understanding of bhakti and we move onwards.
If certain things we feel, you know, I don’t feel inspired to follow it, I don’t feel this is right, that’s fine. Now, so, with respect to the specific question, I would say it depends on time, place, circumstance. Now, I mostly do outreach in India.
So, maybe a few years ago, for the first time when Mantra Rock was introduced in India, there was a lot of debate. Should Mantra Rock be introduced? You know, Mantra is sacred, why do you want to use rock music with that? So, then there’s a lot of discussion. Then my understanding is this and this, that the principle is we need to remember Krishna.
So, now, for us as devotees, if we are habituated to hearing the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra, then if we hear Mantra Rock, we don’t remember the mantra, we remember the rock. But for people who are already attracted to rock, but they are already hearing the rock, when they get the mantra through the rock format, they focus on the mantra. So, we have to see whether a particular form of the presentation of devotional service, is it stimulating remembrance of Krishna in people? So, for some particular form, so, for example, if I have heard some Bollywood tunes, and now I hear the Hare Krishna Mantra in that tune, then I may remember that Bollywood song.
But there may be so many other people for whom that Bollywood tune may not be an issue at all. And ultimately, it is, if you really think, it’s quite possible that Bollywood did not make that tune. That tune also existed before, but we came to know that tune because of Bollywood.
So, now, isn’t that because once Bollywood used that tune, that tune has become devotionally untouchable for all of eternity. So, ultimately, for these things, I think the best principle is, what is favorable for our bhakti, we do that. So, if something helps new people or devotees in promoting the remembrance of Krishna, then they can do it.
But if something we find, it doesn’t remind us of Krishna, it reminds us of something else, then we avoid it. That way, we can protect our bhakti and also protect ourselves from offending others.