700830 - Letter to Allen Ginsberg from Hayagriva
August 30, 1970
New Vrindaban, R.D.3
Moundsville, W. Va.
From: Hayagriva
[Rough draft of letter to Allen Ginsberg from Hayagriva, given to SP for his approval.]
Dear Allen,
I received your postcard the other day. Regarding your article, “Reflections on the Mantra,” first let me say that personally I would include it, for although I may not agree with your conclusions regarding mantra, I would consider that your viewpoint has the right to be expressed. After all, the article bears your name, and whether I agree or disagree with your conclusions is irrelevant.
However, since His disciples and potential disciples will be both reading and perhaps even distributing the book, Srila Prabhupada (His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami) feels that He should not encourage exposing them to a philosophy of mantra which may confuse or misdirect them from their discipline. I understand both viewpoints—that you are reluctant to sign your name to a book that doesn’t represent your full viewpoint and that He is reluctant to sign His name to a book which includes a non-Vaishnava mantra philosophy.
The following are specific reasons why Srila Prabhupada objected to the article. He did not give these specific reasons to me personally, but I know that these are the points with which we would take exception:
1) First you compare the mantra to a Rolling Stones’ song and a Gertrude Stein poem. The Hare Krishna mantra is identical with Sri Krishna and is the most potent sound in the universe, so its comparison with mundane vibrations is inappropriate.
2) “…The words become pure physical sounds uttered in a frankly physical universe,” you write, but the mantra or sabda is purely spiritual, coming from the vaikuntha planets beyond the material sky, and though our consciousness may be material, the sound “Krishna” is not.
3) How can Lord Tennyson’s repeating his name over and over be bhakti in an approved sense? Real bhakti is directed to Lord Krishna, not Lord Tennyson, to the Supreme Self, not the finite self.
4) The motives for chanting enumerated by you, to produce “a new density as a kind of magic language or magic spell,” or to serve “as a vehicle for the expression of non-conceptual sensations,” or to realize “certain blissful or horrific feelings.. or gaieties, or Hebraic solemnities,” are not pure devotion or pure bhakti but are tinged with personal considerations. The devotee chants Krishna’s name out of ecstatic love for Krishna Himself, as a lover chants the name of his beloved. But this elevated stage of pure devotion is rarely found.
5) The chanting widens the consciousness, true, but in a much more profound way than “an intense conversation with psychoanalyst or lover, or priest, etc.” The consciousness is widened because it comes in direct contact with Sri Krishna.
6) Comparing the mantra to a sexual or “lover’s” cry is an offensive comparison in the sense that Hare Krishna provokes an orgasm of the spirit which is eternal whereas an animal glandular orgasm is trapped in time and illusion. The word “mantra” itself means “mind releaser.” The mantra liberates the self from material conditioning, but sexuality propitiates that conditioning. At least this is the proclamation of Vaishnava philosophy and of Lord Sri Krishna Himself in the Gita.
7) Perhaps most objectionable to Srila Prabhupada is the statement: “So that one who sings Shiva’s name becomes Shiva (Creator and Destroyer) himself. The subjective experience of repeated singing of Shiva’s name confirms this theory as far as I have been able to tell.” By chanting Hare Krishna, one does not become Krishna. The living entity never becomes Krishna, although he may have all the qualities of Krishna—eternality, essence, bliss and knowledge. This is the major difference between the dualism (acinta veda veda tattva) of Madhvacarya and Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and the monistic philosophy of the Mayavadi school and the followers of Sri Sankaracharya. In Gita, Lord Sri Krishna speaks of the living entity as “an eternal fragment of Myself,” which has all his qualities but does not partake in terms of quantity: the part never becomes the whole, and the attempt of the part to become the whole is ultimately frustrated. So by chanting the names of Krishna or Shiva, which are non-different from Sri Krishna or Shiva, one does not become Krishna Himself or Lord Shiva Himself. One may have Sri Krishna rolling off one’s tongue, or one may partake of the bliss of Krishna, but one never becomes Krishna.
8) Finally, Swami Shivananda is referred to as “Vishnu Himself,” and this cannot be substantiated, neither by scripture nor experience. Recently some members of ISKCON began preaching that Srila Prabhupada is Krishna Himself, and Srila Prabhupada asked them to either rectify their preaching or leave ISKCON. Although the Meher Baba and Ramakrishna people proclaim their teachers to be God or Krishna Himself, we can only accept incarnations that are mentioned in the Vedas, and for this yuga these include only Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Lord Buddha, Christ, Mohammed and the Kalki avatar which is yet to come. etc.
(These points can be expanded, and with Your permission, I will expand them, citing specific scriptural reference to substantiate my refutation.)