Should devotees bathe in Radha-Kunda?

From Manoj P

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Shrila Prabhupada, when he saw that devotees were behaving frivolously in Radha Kund, he told the devotees not to wait there.
And now after that, there is some indecision and split decision among devotees in ISKCON, should we bathe in Radha Kund or should we not? So, what should we as devotees do? Answer, Radha Kund is the most sacred of all the places for others, Gaudiya Vaishnavas, who are actually followers of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Srimati Radharani. Through them we approach Krishna and Radha Kund is the most sacred place. If we read Upadesha Amrit, it says that the most fortunate are those people who can get to stay in Radha Kund.
And certainly bathing in Radha Kund is a great fortune. So, it should be our cherished aspiration and we should not consider it as something bad. We have to understand that Shrila Prabhupada spoke that, but that was in a particular context for a particular circumstance.
Shrila Prabhupada has given various instructions throughout his books. So, in the front of Veda base, Jaidwaj Maharaj has written a guideline and there he says, Prabhupada’s words have come to us through four sources. Most important are his purports, which are universal, largely.
And second are his lectures, which also contain universal themes, but also he will be speaking based on the specific audience that is there. And third are his conversations, which are for the specific group of people with whom he is talking. And fourth are his letters, which are generally for the specific person to whom he is writing.
So, for example, to some devotee he may write, you have told me that you are having some difficulty with sex desire. Therefore, my instruction to you is, if you are troubled by sex desire, you should get married. Now, can we say this is a standard instruction for everyone? There is another conversation that Shrila Prabhupada says, some devotee says, I was troubled by sex desire.
You are troubled. He says, everybody in material existence is troubled. So, we cannot say that just because somebody is troubled by sex desire, that person should give up renunciation and get married.
That may be what is required for that devotee and for other devotees also. But that cannot be taken as a universal instruction. So, in this hierarchy, the most important, the most universal is the purports.
Second in the hierarchy is the lectures. Third is conversations. And fourth is letters.
So, in his books, Shrila Prabhupada has talked about the fortune of bathing in Radha Kund. And in one of his conversations with a particular group of devotees, he has told us, he told, you should not bathe. And the point was, actually, he brought them there to bathe.
But it is a sacred place. And if somebody is frivolous in that sacred place, then that is an entirely unbecoming attitude. So, for example, sometimes it happens in some temples that if some pujari, one time it happened that there was a temple, deities were there.
And the pujari while dressing, he moved Radha Krishna and he put Radha Krishna two at a far distance away. Radha Krishna at one corner of the altar, Krishna at other corner of the altar. And Prabhupada came there and he says, why have you kept Radha Krishna five million miles away? And Prabhupada was so angry.
He said, such devotees should not be given the responsibility of worship. That is, such devotees should not do duty worship. Now, does that mean that they should never do duty worship for all time to come? What it means is that the gravity of the point should be understood by the way Prabhupada is speaking.
And then one should be able to rectify oneself. So, when an acharya makes a statement like this, in a particular context, as a reaction to a particular behavior, that gravity should definitely be understood and the statement should not be minimized. Because minimizing will again make us act frivolously.
At the same time, when something is contextual, we cannot make it universal. So, we cannot make an absolute ban on devotees bathing in Radha Krishna because of one statement of Shilpa Prabhupada, even if that was an emphatic statement. So, generally speaking, the devotees, if they go to Radha Krishna, they should actually read about Radha Krishna, understand what is the glory of Radha Krishna, offer prayers to Radha Krishna.
Ideally, if they go with some senior devotees who help them to be in proper consciousness in Radha Krishna, and then they can take a bath. And Shilpa Prabhupada wanted his disciples and followers to do that. That’s why he wrote about it in the books.
And that’s why he had brought those devotees there also to take a bath. So, we should not minimize what Shilpa Prabhupada spoke in any context. But at the same time, we should not universalize and absolutize what Shilpa Prabhupada has spoken in a particular context.
We should understand the context, understand what we are meant to learn from it, and then apply that in our particular situation. So, for a specific group of devotees, if their spiritual leader, their spiritual master has given some specific instructions, say don’t bathe, then they can do that. But in general, Shilpa Prabhupada wanted devotees to get the blessings of Radha Krishna.
And so, devotees can bathe in Radha Krishna, but in a proper reverential attitude. Thank you.