I just read this SANGA (I am a few years behind and trying to catch up) and I found it to be so profound. I found it so, not only because it teaches such a helpful and practical concept for propelling a sadhaka forward and shifting the political sphere of GV, but also because gurumaharaja has captured –I imagine through realization– one of the most sophisticated and important psychoanalytic concepts ever articulated. In brief, the heir to Freud's legacy was a woman named Melanie Klein who suggested that one of the main manners in which a mind is organized is around diametrically opposed cognitive-emotional categories (splitting) for the sake of keeping awareness of mixed opposites, (gray in gurumaharaja's language) from coming together. She articulated the reasons why this mixing causes a lot of anxiety and needs to be maintained. However, she also dscribed how over the development of the psyche one can begin to make some integration between these diametrically opposed categories and thereby have a fuller understanding of and sense of self and reality. It also causes someone to be less reactive, paranoid and more relational. This development is sometimes very hard to accomplish and the GV community greatly suffers from this developmental arrest. This is one of my most cherished theories (as I find it to be a highly useful clinical theory) and I see now that gurumaharaja has realized it as a phenomena in the spiritual community and for the sadhaka as well*. His own special contribution –in my opinion– is that as an object of love, Krsna himself encourages such a flexible awareness and integration. Just another moment in which I am utterly impressed by his practical realizations...
Q. In the Sanga called “From Black and White to Shades of Gray”, Swami Tripurari is using his own words/realization to explain that the teachings of Krsna consciousness are not simply a matter of black and white and that we must come to appreciate that there are many shades of gray in understanding Krsna lila and philosophy. I don't follow this; where in the teachings does it say that?
A. I believe that I made it clear in that Sanga that a black and white understanding of lila and philosophy belongs to the kanistha adhikari (neophyte devotee). Classically the kanistha knows the lila but not the philosophy that underlies it. A more advanced kanistha knows the philosophy underlying the lila but cannot deal with apparent contradictions between two acarya's opinions. These devotees also may be unable to recognize the same philosophy when it is spoken in a different vocabulary.
As the neophyte devotee makes advancement toward the object of his love, he becomes more fixed in devotion yet flexible philosophically owing to the very nature of his venerable object. He begins to understand that Krsna may reveal himself in one way to one devotee and another way to another devotee. To use the analogy of the Goswamis, Krsna appears to the devotee as a multifaceted precious jewel. In the realm of philosophy, a verse that previously meant only one thing to the devotee now might have several meanings and applications. Thus in modern terms, a black and white conception progresses to an understanding that the philosophy has many shades. A devotee then acknowledges that there are different angles of vision even within the same sampradaya. Ultimately, in perfection, devotees will see Krsna with different vision as well. Some will see him with eyes of conjugal love (madhurya), others with parental affection (vatsalya), friendship (sakhya), servitorship (dasya), and so on.
*As one of the most pressing examples of this in the community I wanted to say something of the "Prabhupadanugas". This is a perfect example of what I am referring to. This concept creates a diametrically split community, along 'loyal' vs. 'disloyal' devotees. Prabhupada is the "white" meaning he is idealized to protect the memory of him from any ambiguity and imperfection and all others in the community that are not perfectly aligned with the idealized Prabhupada are demonized. They are made into the "black" the demons, the betrayers and kept at a distance. What they are protecting is their idealization, not the community. Philosophy represents the possibility of harmony, or integration, of agreeable grounds...and thereby even philosophy has to be restrained. All of these mental operations require significant distortion to maintain, they cause paranoia that the unnaturally opposite categories will collide, and require lots of active separations be maintained. However, to be fair to the Prabhupadanuga community and accurate with the theory... what is feared or what causes the most anxiety is the terror that if they begin to harmonize differences, soften the idealizations and come together despite the forced separations it will be a loss of Prabhupada as they know him (what is likely felt by them as a fragile relationship 'as it is'). They do not yet have the awareness that it will only create a fuller sense of Srila Prabhupada... this is what the developmental achievement aims for.
I think the danger in black and white thinking, even though it may be required or be the only type of thinking possible at one point, is that it ends up mistaking black for white and white for black if not broadened when the necessity to do so arises and information, etc. is at hand to enable one to make this leap.
I think the danger in black and white thinking, even though it may be required or be the only type of thinking possible at one point, is that it ends up mistaking black for white and white for black if not broadened when the necessity to do so arises and information, etc. is at hand to enable one to make this leap.
Thank you for taking the leap for us Guru Maharaja.
For you it is as water in a calf's hoof print and an ocean for us.
Please keep me in your fold so I may forever cherish your wise counsel.