I keep hearing from several sources that some Russian disciples of BVNM have, as I had much predicted, employed my recent writings as ammunition in their hate campaign against the babaji tradition. Since none have contacted me in person, this is my open letter to them all.

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Dear Friends,

I'd like to let you know that nothing irritates me as double standards do. Your ongoing campaign stands as a good example of this, though one hopes it's more rooted in ignorance than it is in malice.

Please reconsider your position in furthering the smear propaganda you spread to validate your own group and its precepts. Your greatness should not depend on your ability to put down an imagined opponent. Of course it must bother you that people are leaving your group and finding shelter with some mahatmas at Radhakund. Rather than engaging in propaganda against the babajis, it would be prudent for you to clean your own act and by that become attractive enough that people wouldn't have the need to look around.

Remember how we talked back in the days how people keep flowing from ISKCON to BVNM, but people rarely go back? And this was so the evidence of BVNM having the mightier product for sale, yes it was indeed. And so we looked down upon ISKCON for their critique of BVNM, those poor ignorant beings who lacked the sukriti for better. Look now when the tables are turned, are you any different at all? "No, but we're different!"

There is a fair-sized population of babajis leading sub-standard lifestyles, and you have now discovered some evidence in my writings and employed it for your wicked purposes. However, people living in glass houses shouldn't be throwing them rocks around. Perhaps you've heard the old proverb?

Please consider that you are most likely isolated into a small corner of the BVNM world, and as such quite possibly rather limited in your exposure to the problems that are rampant also in your own group, or otherwise unwilling to be awake to their reality as an aspect of your fanatical faith.

In your sanga, is there no history of sannyasis flirting with girls and getting married? In your sanga, is there no history of some senior sannyasis, who charm girls with their sweet and savory rasika talks, and take sexual advantage of them? One springs to mind, who people said back in the days was surely the most advanced of them all. An abuse spanning over several years, and the abuser being protected by the leader of your group himself from disciplinary action. Curiously enough, that very same sannyasi, who is back in the preaching business as if nothing had happened, was the first one to name Sri Ananta Das Babaji in public as a sahajiya.

In your sanga, do you think it is a gem of moral beatitude that single women, who are so committed to one-pointed bhajan that they don't care to marry, have discovered an easy fix for the occasional sexual urge in having casual sex? Who do you think consumes more ganja, the folks here at Radhakund or the initiated members of your congregation? Is it not that those raganuga-festivals of yours often double as match-making fairs where feromones hum high in the stratosphere?

People who are insiders no doubt know an ocean more. I haven't been keen on tracking the scandals, abuse and misconduct of your group, as it generally doesn't interest me at all. I have nothing to win or to lose, regardless of what your group may be. No doubt the issues I mention are but a fragment of the grand total of problems breeding under the polished cover people like to project.

Considering your own embarrassing state of affairs in many respects, wouldn't it be prudent to be minding your own business rather than finding an external object to fight? A common enemy no doubt serves both as a great unifier and as a distractor from internal problems. Russia, terrorists, babajis — you name it, the strategy is well established and regrettably also quite effective among the less perceptive populace, what to speak of those whose faculties of reason have been clouded over by religious fervor.

Please, let's stop these pathetic smear campaigns and try to each clean our own houses instead. That would, I believe, be much more constructive to a great number of causes, some of which we share.

In concluding, since I am being quoted, I'd like to quote myself from an earlier blog as something I would wish would also to be quoted to keep everything in perspective.


Please also include the above in those letters of yours to ensure that no undue critique is directed to the undeserving.

I have written a pointed letter with hopes of making a point. You'll forgive me if anything in this letter has come across as unkind. I do love you all, but I get allergic reactions from some of the things you say. Wishing you a good life and smooth progress towards your spiritual ideals!

Sincerely,
Madhavananda Das