When prominent godmen are accused of sexual assualt how should we respond especially with people who have been following those godmen?

Transcript

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Question When some God-men who are quite respected and famous are accused of sexual assault how should devotees respond to such situations? Answer First and foremost we should know that the legal principle holds true in the devotee circle also. A person is considered innocent unless proved guilty. So we shouldn’t take a sadistic delight in pointing out in using such examples to try to say how there are so many as some people quote fools and rascals.
We don’t know what is the truth and unless the due process of law finds out what is the truth we shouldn’t be using this to try to brobeat some philosophical point into others. Especially if there are some people who are connected with that particular spiritual teacher then we shouldn’t use this to try to in a sense intimidate or beat down those people. This is a time I remember it a long time ago when there was some similar such accusation against a person.
So there was one devotee whose family was a follower of that particular teacher and he was also a follower and then that accusation came up in the newspapers and then His Holiness Radhanath Maharaj told the devotees when he came to know about it told the devotees they were all trying to cultivate him he was a very influential person the devotees were trying to cultivate him so he said that when he comes here don’t talk with him about this at all because everywhere he goes this is what he is going to be hearing about and he is intelligent enough but don’t hurt him be sensitive so this may not be the approach of all preachers within ISKCON but what happened was that when people are in such a situation where they are deciding which spiritual teacher should I follow they are connected with ISKCON and they are connected with some other organizations or some other teacher then what they want to see is how our philosophy is reflected in our behavior so people need compassion people need concern now that doesn’t mean that we showing compassion and concern doesn’t mean that we have to compromise on the philosophy but we have to understand that for people their emotions may help make them guide their decisions as much as their reason often quite much more than the reason so if people see that you know whatever now if they have following some spiritual teacher and that spiritual teacher does something wrong now all this we are assuming that actually there is something wrong so that spiritual teacher does something wrong that can very well be a means by which they can recognize the error in following that spiritual teacher and come to come to Krishna and those who are following Krishna properly but if those who are representing Krishna seem to get a perverse delight in exposing the shenanigans of such people who are acting as teachers then that alienates people that alienate those followers now we shouldn’t think that this is just a competition between that spiritual teacher and and Krishna consciousness for people often in for people in general this is a matter of broad religious faith we may say that we are following Shastra and others are not following Shastra but from the general people’s point of view what they see is that you all religious teachers they lump everybody into one group and from their perspective often it may be a question of having faith choosing to have faith in God or giving up faith in God because of this so if they say ok here one person is doing something wrong that person is given to lust and here there are other people who are just taking such delight in criticizing that other person those people are giving in to pride so there’s all people neither of them actually seems to be sincerely devoted to God and that way people may just give up their faith in God entirely so we don’t want that we want people to come to a deeper and more authentic connection with God so we should deal with if there are people who are following such spiritual teachers then we should deal with them sensitively help them understand that ultimately it is not one particular spiritual teacher they are following it is God whom they are trying to go close to and God is always there for them irrespective of what happens to anyone and we can tell them to see this as an opportunity to take greater shelter of the world of God by understanding his words and studying the message of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita and the Vedic scriptures now if they seriously study the scriptures they will themselves develop the eyes, the intelligence based on scripture understanding of what the actual criteria of a spiritual teacher are and based on that they will themselves be able to arrive at a proper conclusion about whom they should follow so we should see these as opportunities these situations not as opportunities to rub salt on somebody’s wounds people’s faith is wounded and if we take a perverse delight we are rubbing salt on their wounds instead of doing that we should be focusing on trying to help people heal those wounds so sometimes healing a wound involves doing some surgery also but generally surgery should be done after a person has developed adequate trust in the surgeon and the person asks for the surgery so that means if people’s faith itself broad faith itself is a matter of issue then firstly we have to ensure that we connect them with God and help them to see that the value and the validity of the wisdom of the Vedic literature of the Bhagavad Gita is continues to hold true irrespective of the conduct of any particular spiritual teacher and then after that we should see help them to understand the Bhagavad Gita properly and then take an informed decision about how to go ahead with their faith so in general sensitivity and compassion sensitivity means not hurting the others and compassion means helping them by guiding them closer to the words of Krishna see I told you you should have followed me ultimately that’s what we are saying if we are if we take a delight in that you know we don’t want anyone to follow us we want people to follow Krishna and we should help them to take greater care and shelter of Krishna in such a time by carefully studying Krishna’s words and then take a decision accordingly