If you give explanations that contradict Prabhupada statements, wont that make people doubt our founder-acharya?

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When you give answers that contradict Srila Prabhupada’s statements won’t that reduce people’s faith in Prabhupada? Should we not follow Srila Prabhupada rigidly and avoid speaking anything controversial that will cause people to judge or doubt Prabhupada’s books? You have answered that Karna you have written an article about how Arjuna was superior to Karna but Prabhupada says in a lecture in a letter to Nandarani Devi that that Arjuna couldn’t have killed Krishna it was only by Arjuna couldn’t have killed Karna it was only by Krishna’s grace that he killed him similarly when you give the explanation of Papa Yonaya as referring not to women whereas Prabhupada refers it to women aren’t you contradicting Srila Prabhupada? Answer, thank you for asking this question it’s a very important question and it involves various subtleties, I’ll try to address them one by one firstly I have no intention to contradict Srila Prabhupada nor have I contradicted Srila Prabhupada ever, I have contextualized Srila Prabhupada, there is a difference between the two when we say contradict Srila Prabhupada we are reducing Srila Prabhupada to one particular statement or one particular position only and Srila Prabhupada himself was a very deep profound and he spoke on the same issue at different times in different ways in fact Srila Prabhupada himself was asked what books he would like to write on and he said he would like to write on the Bhagavad Gita, he said he had already written a commentary and Srila Prabhupada said no there are so many previous Acharya’s commentaries, I would like to present their commentary, another Acharya’s commentary so clearly if Prabhupada would have written another book, he would have presented another perspective and that would at least have something different from the perspective he had presented in the commentary that we have and he didn’t consider it contradictory or wrong, it’s just different so an Acharya they may take many different positions on one issue at different points so a classic example is when somebody is troubled by sensual desires in one letter Prabhupada says my standard instruction to all my disciples is that if they are troubled by sensual desires they should immediately get married another lecture Prabhupada says that everybody is troubled by sensual desires and indulgence is never going to solve the problem the only way is we learn to tolerate it and transcend it by chanting Hare Krishna and practicing and becoming absorbed in Krishna so I am paraphrasing but this is not just different but Prabhupada is giving two opposite statements so now if somebody recommends to some devotee guide in today’s context in the moment guide is somebody who is troubled by such desires to enter the Grahastha Ashram somebody could quote Prabhupada’s second statement and say you are contradicting Srila Prabhupada and the accusation against somebody that you are contradicting Srila Prabhupada is such a grave accusation that it immediately labels that person and then makes people blind and deaf to whatever that person is saying so we may also need to consider that those who accuse somebody of contradicting Srila Prabhupada or deviating Srila Prabhupada now what might be their motive in insisting on a insisting on a selective representation of Prabhupada as a standard representation it could well be and I am not saying this is but it could well be that they want to monopolize Prabhupada and by claiming that they alone are following Prabhupada they gain position and power in the eyes of those who want to follow Srila Prabhupada and thus that others are not following Srila Prabhupada can become a very very virtuous seeming activity which is actually a power grabbing activity it seems to I am so faithful to Prabhupada basically by monopolizing Prabhupada I gain sole power over those who want to follow Srila Prabhupada so we need to consider especially anyone who says that I know what Prabhupada is saying and that this person is contradicting Srila Prabhupada well we have to really be very careful when somebody makes a statement like that because usually what happens in such a situation is that we all have our own backgrounds and we will gravitate towards certain aspects of Srila Prabhupada so somebody who is may be more in favor of grahastha ashram may get inspiration from Prabhupada statements which recommend grahastha ashram somebody who is more in favor of brahmacharya may get inspiration from Prabhupada those statements now getting inspiration for our own practice from particular statements of Srila Prabhupada is perfectly fine in fact it is important that we get such inspiration but insisting that those statements alone represent Srila Prabhupada and that anyone making any statement separate from those statements is misrepresenting Srila Prabhupada is causing doubts in people’s mind about Prabhupada that could well be a that could well be a power grabbing exercise now sometimes that person may not even consciously understand that this is what I am doing but that’s what they may be doing now moving forward to statements if we point out that Prabhupada has taken different positions on different issues will that cause doubt in people’s minds yes it may cause doubts if we have trained people to think that practicing spirituality means that we reduce the complexity of life to the simplicity of bullet points this problem do this, this problem do this now many people turn to spiritual life because they don’t want to take responsibility for thinking about their life choices they just want to outsource their responsibility for their life to others and to some authority which they consider trustworthy because that authority is divine so people who come to spirituality for that purpose to outsource their responsibility for thinking to someone else they may be disturbed when they see that oh I thought following Prabhupada meant doing this but Prabhupada also said that also so we come to Shila Prabhupada not simply to avoid complexity we come to Shila Prabhupada to enrich our spirituality enrich our bhakti and practicing bhakti sometimes may require confronting complexity Arjuna faced a complex problem in the Bhagavad Gita start when he had to decide whether to follow his Kula Dharma or his Kshatriya Dharma so there is so much moral complexity throughout our scriptures so in fact the mentality those who come to a religious path because they want to outsource the responsibility for thinking to someone else they are the people who are most likely to become fanatical in fact that’s what happens in extremist organizations like ISIS people just follow their leaders unthinkingly and those leaders can lead them to horrendous things thereafter Prabhupada did not want that kind of followers Prabhupada told all of us to be independently thoughtful and Prabhupada differentiated between philosophical speculation and mental speculation and he said that once we accept philosophical speculation is to understand how certain statements are true so we don’t challenge the statements itself but we try to make sense of those statements so when Prabhupada has made different statements on different issues then how do we make sense of those statements so now so that is what we need to think and thinking this is actually becoming independently thoughtful sticking to one statement of Prabhupada and demonizing anyone who takes any other position based on some other statements of Prabhupada that is monopolizing Prabhupada for once which could be for purposes of consolidating one’s own power or for avoiding life’s complexity so now let’s look at the two examples which you have pointed out with respect to Prabhupada’s position Prabhupada’s translating Papa Yonaya as including women as referring to women also yeah that is there in the Bhagavad Gita and that is in no way to be denied but Prabhupada himself in his lectures has said that has put women in a different category and Papa Yonaya as another category and there are quotations for that which is where you can find on my website so that means if Prabhupada has taken two different positions one in his book we agree something that is in his book is primary and we respect that but Prabhupada has taken another position also now if the position that Prabhupada has taken in his book is used by some people to do actions that Prabhupada never did and Prabhupada didn’t approve to demean women then if somebody is quoting a particular shastric position shastric statement to justify one’s own ideological positions then to point out that Prabhupada himself has taken another position is to actually introduce is to prevent Prabhupada’s movement from being taken over by a particular ideology so that is actually protecting Prabhupada’s legacy and if it confuses some people it will actually deepen it may confuse some people who don’t want to do the hard work of thinking deeply they may just stick to one position and that’s perfectly fine if that’s what they want to do but those who want to be resourceful and effective followers of Srila Prabhupada need to consider his different positions and thereafter understand how best can Srila Prabhupada’s purpose be served in different contexts so I have personally seen and heard about how certain statements of Srila Prabhupada are being used to demean women and to choke their enthusiasm to practice bhakti and serve Krishna in various ways now of course while that extremism is there the other extremism of feminism where it’s more about women’s rights than about what is devotionally right that is also a problem that is also an extreme that has to be addressed so I was addressing a particular reading of Srila Prabhupada which seemed to be used to justify an anti-women ideological position and I problematized that by pointing to Srila Prabhupada’s quotes on that issue so it is actually to help us appreciate how Prabhupada was deeper than what we think he is so showing Prabhupada’s different positions on different issues shows that how he was responsive and responsible that he was not just fixated on one statement of Shastra but he looked at Shastra as a broad arsenal of resources from which he drew whatever resources appropriate at what time now regarding the statement that Prabhupada says Arjuna could not kill Krishna sorry Arjuna could not kill Karna it was Karna who killed Krishna well that is a statement of universal philosophical import that applies even to the fact that Krishna couldn’t have been able to bring down Bhishma or Drona and Bhagavatam Krishna says that mayai vaite nimitta matram bhava saubhya saachi you just become an instrument svayam dhor bhaya asana dharmam Bhagavatam says that it is Krishna who by his own arms and by others arms killed various demons so that statement that Prabhupada is not giving in that brief letter which addresses various issues he is not giving an elaborate philosophical analysis of the Mahabharata he is making a specific devotional point that there are challenges that we ourselves may not be able to overcome on our own in fact we can’t do anything on our own it is Krishna who empowers us to do it and Prabhupada is giving a particular example of that so now does this statement of Prabhupada said that his authority comes from Shastra so there is Guru, Sadhu and Shastra now the incidents that I have quoted in the past time in the Mahabharata they are objective incidents from the Mahabharata so Karna might hypothetically even if we accept fully Prabhupada’s statement that Arjuna couldn’t have killed Karna are we going to delete all the incidents in the Mahabharata where Arjuna got the better of Karna do we want to place our founder Acharya as contradicting Shastra that would be fanaticism will we be going further and saying that we will delete Shastra sections which doesn’t agree with what our Acharya has said no Prabhupada would never approve of that at all so when Prabhupada makes a statement which is we have to look at especially a statement which is different from what the Shastric narratives can indicate by themselves then we have to consider what is the point of those statements now of course in the Mahabharata itself we can find a statement which supports Prabhupada just before the final war between Krishna and Arjuna between Arjuna and Karna Krishna tells Arjuna that Karna’s prowess is equal to or even greater than yours now we may say doesn’t this prove this conclusively no it’s not conclusive proof because in that same passage I have answered that question on my website you can search for it in that same passage Krishna concludes by saying therefore Arjuna now is the opportunity for you fight wholeheartedly and kill Karna today and that will bring you almost close to the doorstep of victory in this entire war so now if Karna is superior to Krishna if Karna is equal or superior to Arjuna how is Arjuna going to kill Krishna so Krishna obviously had some plan and Krishna’s statement there was not meant to say that Arjuna shouldn’t fight in fact Krishna’s statement was that Arjuna you should fight so the historical track record is something which is there in the scripture so this is a very subtle but dangerous intellectual temptation to absolutize one statement in scripture or absolutize one statement by a spiritual teacher even by our most prominent spiritual teacher Lakshya Prabhupada Prabhupada himself told us to read he referred to the Mahabharata and Mahabharata is a part of our epic so should we not read what Prabhupada what the epic itself and should we not think about the epic and what it implies and then we see what Prabhupada is saying so now we could say that the scripture says what it says and hiding what scripture says or denying what scripture says is not what Lakshya Prabhupada would ever have wanted us to do he is presenting Bhagavad Gita as it is, he is presenting scripture to us so then if we see Prabhupada made a statement and the scriptural narratives at some part says so even Krishna knew and Arjuna knew that Arjuna has bested Karna on some occasions and Karna has never bested Arjuna then why is Krishna making a particular statement why is Prabhupada making a particular statement so when within the tradition itself there are statements that seem contradictory then we have to see them, these are not contradictions but they need contextualization and contextualization is what I am doing so Prabhupada makes two points over there first in his letter, first is that it is Krishna who killed Karna and that is perfectly true we are incompetent to do anything without Krishna’s will and without Krishna’s mercy and secondly Prabhupada says that therefore Krishna used at that time unfair means so unfair means means that Krishna had Arjuna shoot even when Karna was on the ground and his chariot wheels had sunk into the ground so Prabhupada is making that statement to explain the strategy that Krishna used at that particular time and yes that is a valid explanation for Krishna’s use of that strategy Prabhupada himself at other times quoted the words with the cunning we need to be cunning and Prabhupada himself was resourceful in that way at times when say for example in Juhu land there was some double dealing being done by some people Prabhupada used ingenious strategies for making sure that the devotees were not cheated so Prabhupada’s statements have to be contextualized in such a way that his other statements are also understood properly and scriptures also understood properly so contextualization of Srila Prabhupada reveals the depth of our tradition and the depth of Srila Prabhupada and it will actually increase people’s faith and those who wish to operate in black and white understandings well there are teachers there are those representing Prabhupada who may also give a black and white understanding and there are those who want they can go to that person those teachers but those who want an understanding of Srila Prabhupada that reflects the reality and the complexity of life where there is not just black and white but there are many shades of grey I am there for serving them so I am giving a nuanced understanding of Srila Prabhupada and to call that as causing doubt in Srila Prabhupada is a misrepresentation thoughtful readers, thoughtful hearers of Srila Prabhupada will naturally get these doubts and if those doubts are not addressed by someone then thoughtful people will think that following Srila Prabhupada means having blind faith and they will go away and Prabhupada wanted thoughtful people to come Prabhupada wanted to attract brahminically minded people and thoughtful people will need answers that are sufficiently deep that are not simplistic black and white understandings that are not just packed solutions to complex problems so rather than fixing labels on someone who doesn’t agree with our understanding of Srila Prabhupada it is much more humble and honest to recognize that Prabhupada has multiple dimensions and we all get inspiration from certain aspects of Srila Prabhupada so I am inspired by the nuanced Prabhupada who addresses whose positions reflect his awareness that life is not black and white and that is the Prabhupada that I am presenting. Thank you