I have a sincere and respectful question to people who visit this forum. It has to do with the standard of self control and behavior in general, adopted by people after leaving regulated asrama life. I am interested in your own experiences, and experiences of other people you know well enough to use as an example.

The question is (more or less):

After leaving regulated asrama life, do people revert back to their old habits, develop new "bad" habits ("sink lower"), or keep some standards from their earlier ashrama life, perhaps modified somewhat (like: "no beer on Ekadasi" ).

Your replies and thoughts are greatly appreciated.

I did go more or less back to how I lived before my ashram-experience. I have always been pretty austere and regulated fellow. I do eat eggs and an occasional fish. Drink coffee and have two bottles of beer on saturdays. Do not get up that early anymore. Between my ears and in my heart I feel better and more spiritual than what I ever did in the ashrama. Is it because of my years in ashrama or despite it, I do not know nor care. Life is as it is and it is not in my hands.

that seems to be the general trend, from my earlier observations, with maybe a bit more tendecy (or at least appreciation) towards "higher" standards of behavior.

as to the perceived level of spirituality in the "life after ashrama" - that is also quite an individual matter, altough perhaps similar to our material habits in the sense that we tend to go back to our earlier level.

for some, Krishna consciousness seems to be a natural progression from their earlier life, while for others it seems quite artificial and "out of sequence".

Basically, I live in the same way as I did while in ISKCON - but I have my own farm house, land and many cats and dogs! But apart from that - and these are things I always wanted (a house, some good piece of land, many dogs and cats) and kind of missed while living in the asrama - I basically live in the same way... Celibate, no drugs, no gambling and no eating of meat, fish or egg.

On the other hand, now I miss Mayapur, the kirtans and those funny guys carrying sticks around...

But, I guess you can't have it all! Either god or dog - and in the end the choice was quite easy.

I don't gamble on ekasasi janmastami or gaur purnima.

Mostly my temple life continued, i do most of everything like i did. The one thing that i don't take part in anymore is, sucking up to false gurus. I was bad, now i'm "more better".

If i am able to fulfill all my desires here, much of the place will be quite similar to my old temple grounds. And if my wishes come true as well, all living standards will be the same.

but approaching 50 years old, and so many bodily aches and pains later, i am not sure that i will fulfill all.

Not much to tell about bad habits but when I left the life in the temple at first I took a job and tried to live like all normal people do. Although I really liked my work in an IT company, it was too much stress in relations with people after the peaceful asrama life. Therefore after a year I left my job and returned to a lazy individualistic lifestyle with more freedom.

For me the most important thing was the community. I really miss my asrama life where I had a chance to live together with so many extraordinary and intelligent personalities from different countries and cultures. I felt very uneasy before KC in the university and also after leaving ISKCON in the corporate environment. I would like to live in a community of likewise minded people with soft hearts and sweet characters again but it may not be possible at all.

I don't believe that religions are somewhat nearer the Absolute Truth than any person on the street. But there is a need for people to contemplate and fantasize about unknown and to share and express these ideas. The need for sharing sometimes may be bigger that the actual value of shared beliefs. Thus the religious communities can be very beneficial for our emotional, aesthetical and ethical fulfilment. I only don't understand the hard approach to "heretics" and holier-than-thou preaching and for this reason I have a very low opinion of most cults including ISKCON or GM. But the actual vaisnava ideas I find quite interesting and entertaining.

you should visit our non-Iskcon Vaishnava community in North Carolina. you would probably like it.

http://www.prabhupadavillage.com/

Thank you for your really good comments everyone.

One of my chief interests is to work towards building truly sustainable (in every way) communities (or at least interpersonal relationships) based on a very broad Vaishnava understanding. It is a great pity that so many people who sincerely take up our tradition end up very disenchanted with it's current manifestations. It simply does not have to be that way.

Statement of Purposes

By Madhuha dasa

1. To develop a community where followers of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, can peacefully live together, keeping His instructions (available in His books, letters, conversations, tapes, etc.) as their day to day guidelines and as the ultimate authority for any questions that may arise.

2.http://www.prabhupadavillage.com/purposes.html Click to view attachment

Well, to be honest, I didn't revert back to my old habits, because my habits before during and after iskcon stayed the same. I was one of those straight-edge kids before I joined. I maintained my rebellious streak while in iskcon, so I just kept to myself, made sure I evolved as a person (and I don't mean spiritually) and Learned things that would help me when I left. I don't see my iskcon years as a break so the say in my life, meaning as the person I was before and then changed some to fit in while in iskcon and then return to it. It wasn't like that. Of course my formal education stopped when I joined and that I had to pick up when I left. But I learned an incredible amount of stuff in Iskcon that I can see now serves me very well. I guess I was always pretty lucky with the services I had.

I modified the topic title just a bit, because I really disliked the judgment behind the phrase "how low do we go" as it's all a matter of perspective.

When I left ISKCON I kept living exactly as before, and continued this for a decade. Then I realized I was not straight and had to deal with the philosophical issue that presented to me, reevaluated the Vaishnava teachings in a more critical light, and rejected the majority of them. Once I rejected them I felt free to evaluate the lifestyle and decide what I felt was "low" or spiritually harmful and what was a nonissue. I put eggs back into my diet to help with my anemia, continued to be a strict vegetarian, tried gambling a few times but gave it up as a bore (quit while ahead of the game too), allow myself an occasional drink but never get drunk--never more than one or two at a time. I am happily married but none of that "once a month" business. I view sex as a sacred act when performed by two people who love each other. Ekadasi? Why would I maintain a calendar from a religion I no longer believe in? I have a whole new religious calendar and I keep it just fine.

I've always been serious about spiritual life both before and after my Vaishnava involvement. I understand the desire of believers to frame our coming and going within their belief system, with all this talk about past lives, etc., but I think we should be allowed to frame this in our own terms here at least.

I still like Johnny Cash.

i no longer eat my daughter's menses due to not being able to marry her off

ISKCON was a stop along the way in my spiritual journey that has been going on ever since I can remember. I was a seeker even in the crib.

ISKCON for me was:
1. what I found after the Roman Catholic Church started to teach that there was truth in other religions.
2. A safe harbour from a turbulent family and school life.
3. A "clean cut" life, separate from the world.

Had Vatican II never happened, I doubt that I would have ever bypassed Christianity at all. I would have entered a convent as a teen. When I joined an ISKCON temple for the first time in 1976, it was for me like joining a convent. When I joined again in '81, it was to live a simple, clean, God-conscious life away from family woes and fear of the modern world.

I left ISKCON mainly because I felt that I didn't 100% believe in GV and that there were too many false gurus. For many years after that, I continued to chant, attend the Sunday program and read the books. Pretty much, I considered my self a Radha-Krsna worshipping pagan.

Later my interest in Christianity was re-kindled and I finally got around to studying the Eastern Orthodoxy that I had been attracted to since I was about 8 years old. After about 4 years of off and on study and Orthodox church attendence and then 1 year of serious study and church attendence, I took the plunge - quite literally - into the baptismal font.

In many ways I am still the same, but I pray that I have grown and matured. In younger days, I was very self-righteous and judgmental of others. That started to change once I left ISKCON. I also learned that no religion in the entire world will create cookie-cutter perfect people. Every faith has hypocrites - even among those who claim they belong to "no particular faith."

I lived among devotees from 1969 to 1980. After a few years of drug smuggling and then getting busted and serving a year in prison I was paroled to San Francisco and became a heroin addict. For the past four years I've been on methadone maintenance.
Never once did I stop being a vegetarian and never once did I doubt the teachings of the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya. I just went nuts -- that's all. What can I tell ya?
“Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:41

I may not be really qualified to answer, because I never lived in an ashram.

But before living in ISKCON, I already lived in relative austerity and recluse - I was not part of the subcultures around me, didn't go out, didn't even watch television. Then while being an Iskconer, I added eating only offered vegetarian food, built a standard ISKCON altar (the uninitiated edition, of course), and to chant sixteen rounds of japa. (I never got up too early.)

Leaving Iskcon, I burned the altar, and abandoned regular chanting with the prescribed formula (ie. guru's mantra; panca-tattva mantra; repeating HK 108 times; gurus's mantra; panca-tattva mantra), substituting it with ad libitum bhajan; otherwise, no change.

this thread is not a good representation of vedic culture, im sorry to say.

This is forgivable provided that you still take a bath in the Ganges every time you see an atheist's face.

I bathe all the time because I am not sure who is an atheist. I take shower everytime I read something Dhyana writes, because she is an atheist.

Ooooohhhh

she may be an athiest but the main thing is she obeys her husband and uses a lota and the left hand

Where did you get this "intelligence" from??!

And most importantly she is 9 times lustier than males.

Somehow this whole questionaire turned into Dhyana and her whereabouts.

Maybe not --- but it IS a valid representation of personal and individual examples of very real and very human "repercussions" that occur when imperfect, conditioned souls come into contact with and try to adhere to an extremely austere, orthodox and ascetic lifestyle such as Gaudiya Vaisnavism.

Why would you be sorry to say that this thread is not a good representation of vedic culture. I'm at a loss as to what you mean by that? Could you perhaps explain or clarify that statement? I agree with you but ... what does that have to do with the Brooklyn Bridge and the price of tea in China?

Thank you for your association Click to view attachment

Swarupa Prabhu

I cannot be responsible for meanings. That's all I mean. There is no hidden meaning. If that's what you mean.

I once did some research trying to find out where this 9 times thingy came from. I could not trace it to Hindoo shastra, and the context where Prabhu De mentions it (Devahuti got TLC from nine clone copies of Kardama Muni) has not inspired one single other Gaudiya acharger to speculate that this should mean girls are 9 times more lusty than boys. I did, however find that the notion comes from the Qran! I don't have a ref, but that's where it seems to come from. De got it from the Musulmans, he he.

I take it to mean that she uses the lota and the left hand to obey her husband

you obviously know nothing of Polish women angreziji

it was not meant to represent the vedic culture. it was an just an inquiry...

and it is not meant to be scientific either...

I sure as hell stopped wearing kaupins after ashram life....

But seriously, after leaving ashram/temple life I took with me the important changes I had made in my life up to that point -- such as vegetarianism and no drugs -- choices that I feel made my life better. I see joining ISKCON as a catalyst in these decisions, not as the sole initiator. I think I would have moved into that direction even if I had never joined.

There are certain innate values and principles in everyone that rarely change permanently. They may change for a while under specific circumstances, but usually an individual will revert back to his/her core belief system once the circumstances dissapear. The KGB found this to be true after several years of studying the concept of brain washing. They found that the results of brain washing only last as long as the conditions under which they were obtained are maintained or fueled. Changes to the core belief system only become permanent when initiated by the individual through personal, voluntary conviction.

What I think happened to me, and many who joined, is that the environment more than anything else determined many of the smaller changes and catalyzed the expression of certain core beliefs that were suppressed in a former environment. Now that I am out of the ashram/temple environment most of these smaller changes no longer hold up. I have been reverting to my core belief system, which already contained many elements similar to what I joined later. In some cases, my innate morals and principles were better than the ones they got temporarily replaced with. Thus I can relate very well to Zanardi's statement that "Between my ears and in my heart I feel better and more spiritual than what I ever did in the ashrama."

I'm still a vegetarian because I never liked meat, fish or eggs. It made me puke as a child, and if it wasn't for the enormous emphasis on meat eating in the family I grew up in, I would have been a vegetarian from birth. Same for intoxicants. I never liked alcohol or pot, and gave them up as soon as I found an excuse strong enough to counter the peer pressure that got me to take them in the first place. Never used any other drugs. Never will. Not because of ashram life, but because it's innate.

I believe that as we develop individually, it will be natural changes in our convictions that trigger changes in our set of values and principles. Certain environments may be helpful or harmful in this process, but none of them is able to change your core beliefs permanently by itself. So I'm not worried any longer. I'm on the spiritual path, more free than ever. I take my time to look around. I go to the temple, attend programs, meditate, etc. but all with a completely different mindset than I used to. The mindset of my core beliefs, not the one that was cult-shaped.

Oh well, ramble ramble ramble....

After reading this thread, for the first time, I can say with all honesty -I am the most fallen (at GR)

Angrezi, you feeling being the most fallen makes you automatically the most advanced! Please criticize me, nay, even better smash me so that I may feel bliss. You are revealing a lot, both in this section and in the confidential one, of yourself. We know who you are.

Angrezi seems to be joking 90 per cent of the time.

The rest 10% is hardcore.

no i'm really the most fallen. but I'm practicing a kind of tantric path that I made up myself, so from that perspective I'm pretty advanced. It just depends on how you look at it I guess. Smashing people is seen as unadvanced in my sampradaya so I'm sorry I cant smash you zanardi. I can recommend some good most-fallen/advanced smashers that can chastize you if you want.

Yes, whip me, whip me good. This thread did really have a strange name - How low do we go? It presumes that we are fallen. Fallen from where?

The idea comes from the Vedas: if you do not follow the varnashram system, then you are low. And the Vedas, as everybody knows, were written by buffoons...

OK, if you want it so badly

Thank you so much. I feel I am coming up again. After a week of strenuous whipping I will certainly be able to give up coffee.

Let's not forget that in some instances --- the lower the better; e.g. playing golf, doing the Limbo (how low can you go??), the mileage on a used car .......

Good thing I just read your post. You opened my eyes! I've wasted over 35 years of my life believing that the Vedas were bona fide scriptures and the source of incredible -- if not divine -- knowledge. What a fool I've been! Thank you so much for enlightening me -- and at the same time insulting close to a billion Hindus on this planet. It's amazing how much a person reveals of himself when he opens his mouth or puts pen to paper (or posts to the internet).

Don't worry, it won't last!

I have very deliberately kept out of this one.

Why?

Just because.

we all have a right to create our own system of values. in the thread title I put the -low- in apprentices to indicate relativity of that context, and separately indicated my respect for other points of view in that regard.

It does not bother me that other people value things differently than I do. But being judgemental cuts both ways, and very often people who criticize devotees and Vedic literature are as simplistic in their approach as the naive hard-core isckonite neophytes, if not more so...

Why the sarcasm? This is not the vedic cheerleader forum. This is a forum where you can expect these personal opinions. Members come from a variety of backgrounds, with the common denominator being that they all have/had some connection to gaudiya-vaishnavism or related belief system. Many have left it behind and are here to share and discuss their experiences -- which are not seldom negative or traumatic -- and current outlook on the present and future.

In your bio you state that "My convictions concerning the teachings of my guru maharaja [ACBS] remain firm" and then you challenge "Show me a philosophy that makes more sense and I'll consider it." That may work for you, but in this forum you'll find many people for whom that no longer works or never worked. People with viewpoints that may challenge ACBS and his teachings and even the teachings of the sastra and their status in general. Again, this is expected. If you can't take that or at least empathize, considering that you may not know everyone's background, you may be in the wrong forum.

Now something else.

I find your statement about Epitau "insulting close to a billion hindus" (by dismissing the status of the vedic literatures) rather surprising. In your 40 year devotee career, did you miss all the variagated ways in which ISKCON preaching routinely insults over 2 billion christians, over a billion muslims, over a billion atheistic denominations, close to half a billion buddhists, close to half a billion Chinese traditionalists, and another half a billion other non-hindu belief systems? What to speak of the sweeping generalizations about "negros" being low class Nisada descendents and better off as slaves, insulting an entire race, and the countless negative and degenerating statements about women, insulting an entire gender. Makes these close to a billion insulted hindus look somewhat trivial, if you ask me...

Now, of course we can find a bunch of nice and positive statements in ACBS' books, too, and we can churn it out in defense mode for all its worth, but what I'm referring to is not ISKCON's PR front, but the daily talk amongst devotees in and around temples for the last 40 years -- which is much more of a reflection of the reality than what the PR department puts out there.

QUOTE (Kula-pavana @ Mar 17 2006, 04:43 PM)

we all have a right to create our own system of values. in the thread title I put the -low- in apprentices to indicate relativity of that context, and separately indicated my respect for other points of view in that regard.

It does not bother me that other people value things differently than I do. But being judgemental cuts both ways, and very often people who criticize devotees and Vedic literature are as simplistic in their approach as the naive hard-core isckonite neophytes, if not more so... 

Honestly and seriously, do you think any one of us is simplistic in that way? I am not picking up a fight, I am just curious.