Can someone elaborate on how the word "surrender?" has been used in your experience? As in angrezi's sentence:



The word "surrender" to me has very positive connotations, denoting a kind of expectation of Divine Grace and not requiring any specific action on the part of the prapanna.

These two phrases joined to make a sentence don't seem to jive.

I don't have the same devotional background that most of you do (I have never lived in a temple or been a member of any organization) so I am not familiar with this usage of the word "surrender" although I have realized the word is a bit of a turn off for some people even when used in the context I mentioned, which is very unfortunate.

I am so lost here! What does it mean? Like dance and sing "real big" or don't come back?

Or do you mean something else by samkeerthana? .....

??

I hope you don't mind explaining to one such as myself- ignorant in these matters.

Whaaaa? Since when does Hari samkeerthana have anything to do with... I mean, if somebody's going to collect donations, that is OK, but you can't call that "sankeerthana!"

Supposedly "the pick" was where you went out and pinned stickers or pins on people and tried to collect money. Often the pins or stickers had something not really KC like "ET phone home" or the name of a rock band. In Boston they used to go to rock concerts and collect in the concert and in the parking lot. The only KC sticker they had was a Jagganatha sticker that was popular at Grateful Dead concerts.

Here's an unpleasant memory for you.

My ex was a "sankirtan" devotee - i.e. money collector. For a "vacation" we were going to New Vrndavan but to get there he was going to collect on the pick for the "laxmi." We drove to my ex's in-laws in New Jersey and then went to Giants Stadium for a Bruce Springsteen concert. I got left in the parking lot alone. He wouldn't buy me a ticket so I could at least have somewhere to go for the concert. He got one for himself (something he tended to do all the time once he "fringed out") to go collect. After a few hours, I started to have a panic attack and went looking for him and got lost in the parking lot. Somehow I found him and then I got to drive to New Vrndavan while he slept. At least I got to hear the concert.

At the time, I felt lucky because we were paid up ISKCON "life members" and didn't have to stay in the regular devotee quarters. We had real beds and showers. Needless to say, I was rather underwhelmed with New Vrndavan and "Bhaktipada" and never returned. I did cook an offering for Radha-Vrndavana Chandra, though - as my reputation as a good cook was pretty well known. Chandramukhi dasi (first child "born in the movement" - there's another one!) who was also there, also showed me a secret stash of prasadam ice cream and we binged out!

Oh wow, thanks for the clarification. I did not know sankeerthana meant something other than... sankeerthana. Yikes!



I like that part of the story best Geez... That's sounds like Krishna to me, actually (more than the traditional prescribed activities). Sneaking away from the crowd to munch on ice cream in secret with sweet friends.

Also, something you mentioned in your post also, even though I was never "in the temple" a pet peeve for me is when people call money "Lakshmi." Sri Maha Lakshmi is so much more than money... Lakshmi is to Satya what Radha is to Gopidust. Well almost... I admit I lean towards Krishna's side... I could never match Miss Dust's fervent devotion for her Devi.

I agree with your pet peeve. It really is a profanity to use a spiritual name in such a way.

Actually, while I was writing the previous post, I was wondering how many of us will slip into our ISKCON lingo - even using the phrases that we didn't particularly care for?

Surrendered came to mean doing any thing your ISKCON authority told you to do, no matter how stupid they were. Supposedly you were sort of surrendering to Krsna by proxy--through them to Prabhupada, through him to Krsna. Sounds ok in theory; the practice left a lot to be desired.

Sankirtan as a practice started out as singing/dancing/chanting on the street, then got extended to selling books, then finally not even that, just collecting money. Competition used to be about how many books one sold, then came to be about money collected. When it was about the books, one might almost give one away to a poor but eager buyer. When it was about money, one might shortchange a "karmi" in order to boost the amount collected.

If you think that there was nothing spiritual near the end, you are correct--except the sincerity of the people who were told this was their service.

Or at least, that's my opinion, having watched this sad progression.

As a person interested in semantic, and knowing how the choosing of your words influences your thinking, I always try to strike down, whenever Iskconer slang comes up - but I still notice myself using several such terms. Also, in my own use, many Iskcon terms changed their meanings.

"Sankirtan", for me, means something as troubleful as going out the street to preach; a difficult and unpleasant duty that one will try to skip - it is sad that this is the thing coming to my mind when I think of the Sanskrit word meaning "chanting the holy names", but that I call "bhajan" anyway, and the word "sankrtan" was used in this weird way, so it got stuck. I was never on particularly good terms with the idea of distributing books, anyone can see this.

"Authority" came to mean anyone who likes to exert power for the sake of exerting power.

"Maya" - now I use that everytime, and mostly in its original sense. Now and them, when some of my family members began to desire household machines and clothes and whatever we don't even need - so, when consumer frenzy sets in -, I just say, shaking my head: "You are in Maya."

There are others too, but I remember only these right now.

Maybe this Iskcon slang theme would merit an own topic. Why not?

Good idea, Chanahari!

When I use an ISKCONism that I think is offensive, or just reeks of that particular use and would be used that way no where else on the planet, I often stick it in quotes as a way to show I am consciously using it in a context that makes sense. I know that some experiences in ISKCON call for the use of such terms. And one of the reasons I wanted a site for former (and current) devotees was that who else would understand these past experiences and the terms we need to use to describe them? You had to have been there.

"Fixed-up brahmacari" -- my spiritual master once reminisced that when he heard the term for the first time, his associations were to "the fix" -- to drugs. He visualized a brahmacari so high that he got stuck to the ceiling...

Some terms that I found rather humorous:

"in ignorance" -- about prasadam that was old and gone bad. Who, ever, outside ISKCON could understand what this expression meant??

Some expressions derived their charm from being translated literally from English to Polish (so-called "false friends" in translator lingo):

"zaagitowany umysl" for "agitated mind". The verb "to agitate" in Polish is reserved for political agitation.

Similarly funny was "on the mental platform" -- the word "platform" is used for structures of armed concrete and the like. It lacks the metaphorical sense of a plane, level.

...ahhh, here's some more. (I have served as a Polish translator and editor for the BBT, where it was the mission of our team to eradicate the old ISKCONisms in the books.)

"Separation" -- again translated into its "false friend", separacja. In Polish, the word is reserved for legal contexts, most notably marital separation as a first step to divorce. Imagine Radharani "crying in separation from Krishna"?

There was even a place where Radharani was said to be zdewastowana due to separation from Krishna. (meaning devastated like a building in an act of vandalism)

As new devotees we learned quickly what the terms meant and could use them more or less adequately. But we could not communicate with nondevotees! And if we ever read a non-ISKCON book or listened to other people talking of spirituality using the "ordinary" words about love and relationships, we tended to feel the vocabulary betrayed their misconceptions, the mistaking of the mundane for the spiritual.

Sometimes the translation problems were more insidious, though, because they were less obvious and involved a subtle shift of meaning.

Satyabhama mentioned the word surrender. Its Polish translation lies etymologically closest to the word "subordination." A clear notion of order and hierarchy. Nothing left of the autonomous act of the individual surrendering, no rapture or emotion in the word.

The word for devotion, though, was aptly chosen: oddanie. It means "giving [oneself/back]", and is the same word often used when speaking of a woman allowing a man to make love to her: she gave herself to him.

That is REALLY sad! Jeeeeez....

Dhyana's posts have me wondering what types of terms Russian Devotees use. If there are any members here that know these, please post!

It's sadder when we consider what sankirtana should is actually termed 'harinam.' While that is not a bad name anyway, it still doesn't describe what sankirtana should be.

"We're all going on harinam, you coming?" - Eh?

It was "harinama-sankirtana" first, like in Narottama dasa's song, and then in the West, it was shortened to "harinama". At least that's how I guess.

well but there are other types of sankeerthana too. Like Annamacharya's sankeerthanas... so beautiful... and has nothing at all to do with collecting money.

See my post in the Krishna Krishna Krishna thread... Vinnapaalu Vinavale

In Hungary we had a wide range of slangs, you could actually listen to devotees talking for minutes without understanding a word if you were an outsider. Most of them cannot be translated into English, sorry... When I was in Sweden, there were some devotees whose English vocabulary mostly consisted of Iskcon-slangs like "he/she is off", "useless", "far out", "spaced out" and "tough". Oh, and the famous "anyway". "Anyway" was like a mantra, you could hear it every two seconds. Once there was a big feast in the evening and many members of the brahmacari ashram failed to wake up for mangala arati. I was waken up by the deep voice of the Yugo devotee who usually slept next to me. He was murmuring: "Far out... spaced out... maya... useless..."

Devotees in Hungary often used English expressions in a funny way. For instance, the local GBC usually came with his caravan. Devotees always said "Oh, Maharaj is in the caravan." The problem is that in Hungarian "caravan" does not mean a mobile home as in English, it mostly refers to a group of camels walking in a row.

Not to speak about the ubiquitous, weird contraction of the English expression "spaced (out)", which is pronounced "spayst", and actually conjugated like an original Hungarian verb! (I find it so strangely expressive that I still use it. )

It looks like:
I spayst (=I space out), I spaysted (=I spaced out), I am spaysted (=I'm spaced out).
I'm spaysty.

You don't want to know aht the word karawan means in Polish... the funeral vehicle!

Hello Openmind, so nice to see you here!

Oh geez, that's TOO MUCH (another Iskcon slang that just came to my mind)!

Great to see you too, Dhyana! (I wanted to insert a flower-giving smiley here but this forum does not have it)

O, Preya, you will ROTFWL when you hear some of them. Санкиртанщик (sankirtan devotee; hope that I don't remember it wrong) is the first one that comes to my mind.

Here's the Moscow Begovaya temple version of

yasya prasadad bhagavat-prasado
yasyaprasadan na gatih kuto 'pi

(I never learned the Cyryllic keyboard, so please bear with my Roman imitation...)

Ya syem prasada, bhagavat-prasada
Ya syem prasada malenkiy kusochek...

Instead of "shankha bhaje ghanta bhaje" in Gaura-arati sometimes nasty brahmacaris sang "sonka bhaje". "Sonka" means ham in Hungarian.

Ever heard about "Jaya Machine-Gun-Dev"?

Or Prahlaaaalalaaala Dayane"...

These Eastern European ones are just too funny! Keep 'em coming.

Gaura arati again: "bosiiiiiii-yache gaurachand". "Bosi" in Hungarian means "little witch". Yes, with a "w".

My wife told me that some disciples of Bhakti Vikash in Russia wanted to write a Vyasa puja offering for him in English, so with English dictionary in hand they wote: "my dear expensive guru-dev..."

Well, actually it was just "expensive guru maharaj," since both dear and expensive in Russian are described with the same word "dorogoy."

Yamuna tiiiiraaaaa brahmachaaaaariiii....

Now this is something I can understand.

The correlation of surrender and “allowing a man to man to make love to her” and the surrender of the self to God is a beautiful simile.

This concept of true love and lovemaking is what I believe life is meant for.

Without surrender and love our struggles are no more than selfish attempts at becoming important and indulging in silly egotistical mental masturbation. Both in a loving relationship with another jiva and with Krsna.

I read somewhere, that in "English translation", this line of Govindam was changed from

ananda-cimaya-sad-ujjvala-vigrahasya

to

"I got dust in my eyes, I do. Joyous grhasthas."

Do we want to split a new topic on unintentional change alterings?

No, we don't. Let's not try to make this meandering river of humor too straight, or it will lose its power to inspire further meanders... thinketh me. It's okay as it is.

Just occurred to me that I should provide the translation for the non-Russian-speaking audience:

Ya syem prasada, bhagavat-prasada
Ya syem prasada malenkiy kusochek...

"I'll take [some] prasada, bhagavat-prasada
I'll eat a tiny morsel of prasada."

In my withdrawal period, I also pondered much on the expression "Krishna consciousness". I felt that Radha was left out of it - of course, that is for the sake of shortness; still, didn't this choose implied that Radha is perceived as less important, especially considering that other Gaudiyas try to give Them approximately equal importance? (Well, they also call themselves Vaishnavas.)

That's why I ceased to call myself "Krishna conscious" or the Hungarian correspondant form of "Krishna-y" (in English, it sounds weird, but in Hungary, the derivational affix with implies being connected or "equipped" is widely used - so we are "krishnaash"-s in Hungarian, -ash/esh being the suffix) as a name of my religious affiliation, and took up "bhakta" instead. You can be a bhakta of either of Them - so there is no taking sides, when it is not neccessary. (When there is a need to taking sides, I call myself a Radha-bhakta though. )

I'd like to respond to the original question about the word 'surrender'...

I was a disciple of Srila Bhaktipada's for six years and handled some of his foreign correspondence for much of that time. He used this word a lot and promoted the concept heavily--meaning, "do as I (your spiritual master) say." As I recall it was the closest English equivalent to the Bengali or Sanskrit 'sharanagati', which has a broader, more nuanced meaning than most people give to 'surrender'. Of course use of the word surrender was abused...

I've encountered this word in other spiritual/religious contexts since then and still have appreciation for the original intent. The familar example in most people's minds is the prayer of Jesus: "Not my will, but Thine be done." That's surrender. However that doesn't express the loving devotional feelings that Radha and Chaitanya so eloquently describe.

We went through quite some misery in the Dutch production as far as translations were concerned.

The original BG translations and early translations of the Krishna Book, NOD and first 3 cantos were done by a Dutch devotee named Hayeshvara, who decided to render the works in archaic, Biblical Dutch, perhaps to preserve some kind of aristocratic mood (which does work well in Dutch).

The authorities decided, however, that any future translations were to be done in modern style Dutch. Moreover, the translations were done by several different translators with very different styles. Meanwhile, some key translations had been changed back and forth -- even for "Supreme Personality of Godhead," which only appears a gadzillion times in ACBS' books.

We asked Dravida and Gopiparanadhana for advice and especially clarifications on what ACBS exactly meant with many of his word choices. Later I also consulted with Harikesh and other translators. Everything was inconsistent, to the point that I personally decided to choose the best of each bad bargain. Over all that worked out fairly well. But...

Since Gopiparanadhana had emphasized to me over and over again that with "rascal" ACBS meant a much stronger epithet than the "little naughty boy" idea in US English (rather, more the strongly insulting meaning "rascal" has/had in the India of ACBS' time), I changed it to a Dutch word with the strength equivalency of "*sshole."

Once the Path of Perfection with that change hit the streets, it wasn't much appreciated.

Ultimately, the entire Dutch production was moved to the Mediterranian BBT. SB 5 to 10, containing 3 different translation styles radically different from the first 4 cantos, were finally printed 6 years after their completion. I don't think the CC has ever been completed in the last 15 years. They did produce a new BG recently, which I haven't seen yet.

I can hardly imagine that there is any other language that has so many different styles of translations, where practically every book or volume has been translated and edited by someone different.

What about

"im fried"=Im angry/frustrated
"fringie"=someone who only comes to the sunday feast or likes to associate with devotees but not actually join.

Krsna Ksetra Prabhu once joked in a class how, when he first heard the expression "a fixed-up brahmacari," his associations were to someone high on drugs.

My mental image was rather that of someone hanging from the ceiling, firmly pinned up there!

Surrender I always thought to be when one army surrenders to another superior one; when defeated. I.e. it is kind of conditional, and done against your will. If so, I think it is a bad word choice even in english.

One day I thought about what BDSM could have in terms of spiritual equivalent, and then it hit me, with a kind of scare, that the gopis actually submit to Krishna in a similar way. Submit in this context means to let someone else do whateter s/he fancies. To volutnerily give up control. So The DS part in BDSM actually looks like a perversion of the surrender to Krishna. And thus submission I think is a better word choice, since you submit due to your own free will, but you surrender against your will.

Surrender to me always means force. And I rebell. The temple president surrender is of that kind. And the surrender to the guru, as could be seen when my ISKCON guru fell away, and his surrendered disciples took over many of his posts and facilities.

Subordination, as I feel it, might be done according to one's free will, but as you as it is in a hierarchical context, and also where you in the future can take the role of the person you subordinate to today.
Yeah, subordinate to Krishna today, and tomorrow you are Krishna who others subordinate to!

I am not sure. I have heard ISKCONites give philosophies that Krishna is the supreme, and Radha expanded from Krishna, meaning plopped out from, gremlin style (anyone who have seen the movie gremlins means what that means).
From a lower viewpoint, sometimes Radha-Krishna is seen as just Krishna, or even as God. How many does not say God about Krishna, forgetting that there is a Goddess too.

Radha and Krishna are one and the same, and at the same time eternally separate. Acintya-bedha-abehda-tattva. Deep philosophy is too much for many, so let's just forget Radha for simplicity. After all, Krishna is God, isn't he?
For a Krishna bhakta, Krishna is not God, he is just a nice guy. The nicest guy.

Still in today's culture, the wife/girlfriend is often seen as a kind of attachment to the man/boy, not as an individual on the same standing. And that view, of course, also shows when looking at the personalities of Godhead.
Can modern man yet see women as equal to men?
If not, of course Radha has to be subordinate to Krishna.

This is not only the fault of the today's culture and the modern man... actually, in today's culture (ie. modern Western culture) there are much more possibilities for a woman to be more an individual and not just an accessory or a consumer product for a man, although it would be foolish to deny that this notion remains existent in the West as well, especially in the consumerist subcultures of the younger generations. (After all, desire for power over others - this is what male and female chauvinists, national chauvinists, authority figures and others of this kind want -, and desire for excessive material consumption comes from the same source.) Still, I think the de-Radhaization of Radha-Krishna has more to do with the medieval Indian tradition and its male-centered resilience, than the Western way of thinking. There are much more "modern men" who can see women as equals than "non-modern men".

Of course, in the West it was thought that it will be also more "efficient" to preach a monotheistic male God - Krishna only, and leave out Radha... The notion of worshipping two separate persons (even if they are in the same time unseparate too ), among whom one is female, is a difficult idea for many people socialized on Christian and anti-Christian ideas (with "anti-Christian ideas", I mean atheistic ideas that evolved as counterreactions to Christian beliefs. Most of our thoughts about what contitutes a God was formed on Christian bases, and so did our notions of what is not God.). So to appease them, Western Gaudiyas, Iskconers in particular, accepted the self-designation of "Krishna conscious" (thereby disallowing the theoretical possibility of bhakti for Radha - and possibly for other divine beings - independently form the bhakti for Krishna). This process was catalysed by the new preachers' weak grasp of deep philosophy, the Western consumeristic male chauvinism; so this three factors could reach what the male-centeredness of the original Indian tradition in itself couldn't, and Radha was constrained into unprecedented insignificance.

What I mean is that this situation is very new and caused by the influence of material energy.
Getting rid of Radha didn't facilitate better understanding (and preaching) with the Abrahamic monotheists, because the other lifestyle and cultural differences that separated new Gaudiyas from the general population were much bigger. While deep philosophy is undigestible for the overwhelming majority of humankind, it is not a good idea to change its terminology to meet the niveau of those who can't digest the original - it robs those who would be able to digest it, while those who aren't able to take it will produce an own terminology anyway - it happens under the name of "popular religiousity" all overy the world. And the male centeredness in Indian Vaisnavism was a consequence of stochastic historical mechanisms, that preferred male centeredness in other parts of the world as well. Yet we allowed these factors to go with full sthrength, and at the end, we ended up losing Radha out of sight.

Its funny cos when I was in Iskcon I got the immpression that everyone was obsessed by Radharani, even in India they were all chanting radhe radhe! and Krsna was kind of forgotten.

And in the classes they were always saying Radha is superior to Krsna because she controls him with her love and she is in charge in the spiritual world.

It used to upset me a bit cos I thought Krsna was God and noone should be above him and I couldn't relate to Radharani really, as I was in love with Krsna at the time.

You are very lucky to have lived in such a temple.

Which temple was this? I may consider rejoining ISKCON...

Wouldn't that be funny? I can see it now, "Moderator from Gaudiya Repercussions, the heretic forum for former devotees, joins ISKCON!"

Here's one: "I made him (or her) a devotee."

Kind of contradicts the idea of devotion to God being a 'natural inclination of the soul' and sounds like bragging.

Another way of saying "he or she owes me big time and is always my subordinate".

Sometimes I think there has been a de-radhanization (funny word), and sometimes I think there is progression to reveil more and more, and it just have not progressed far enough. If we look back in the tradition, the progression is to go from the less to the more intimate aspects of Godhead. At about the time of Chaitanya, Radha was introduced, and then the aspect of love between Radha and Krishna came.
There was a kind of cult, who wrote the Brahma vaivarta purana, that introduced Radha as separate goddess, part of Krishna, but it appears that it did not go the whole way. Maybe therefore that cult became forgotten, or rejected by Gaudiya Vaisnavas. Or maybe it was rejected since it was too bold for the male-dominated culture?

I believe this is connected with the position of women in culture. As long as women are opressed, and seen as inferior, it is not possible to have a philosophy where Radha is equal to Krishna, and where every women is a partial, patial expansion of Radha. That would make women equal to men, and if that is culturally impossible, the philosopy has to mirror that.

Today we find a little bit of the opposite. It is not culture that holds back, it is religious traditions. Women can't be equal to men, since the scriptures say otherwise. And even though Prabhupada did a lot for the equality, like giving women equal rights in ISKCON, and putting Radha and Krishna equally on the altar, still the philosophy is holding back and the equality does not come out.

Therefore I think the time is ripe to advance the philosophy about Radha one step more. Now is the time to see Radha as equally side by side to Krshna without problems. Now it is time to understand the mystery of Radha. And today, the time is ripe to thus see women as equal to men, side by side. There is nothing that holds back anymore.

Some are waiting for one of the GV gurus and acaryas to reveil that philosophy, but it just appears that many of them are more into holding on to the old traditions, their status quo, and not rocking the boat. After all, if you speak such philosophy, you fear being expelled from your status as GV guru and acarya. Therefore I don't think the advancement of the philosophy will come from one of the big established personalities.

Just like when the gopis wanted to dig out the Radha kund, and did not have the big faciltiies, but started to dig with whatever they had, I think the ermegence of Radha will come about in the same way. Those who really believe in it will have to start to dig small, with whatever they have. Together everyone will produce a big pond, and then everyone can take their bath in the pond of Radha. The mercy of Radha is available, it is just a matter of taking part of it.


Exactly what I think and feel.

Still, in the very widespread profilation of different branches of GV seen today, some are saying Radhe! Radhe! The main branch adheres to the same old male-dominant viewpoint, saying that they are the only true form. Maybe it has been like that all the time. We think that the main branch has always been like that. At the same time, the strong branch of ISKCON comes through single personalities. That branch was a minor branch in the beginning. This gives hope. It just requires one single person to turn the tradition for the future. The question is only - who is it?
Is it the wild avadhuta who runs around on the streets and sings Radhe! Krishna!
Or is it the person who sits more quietly and does not make a big noice about her?
What is the path actually? To rush forward boldly, or to take small careful steps?
Or will there be a revolution in the institutionalized ISKCON, by the mercy of Prabhupada?
Only the future can tell.
Until then

Radhe! Radhe!

You have a point with that, about the gradual appearence of more and more detail. Radha was around there before Chaitanya's time though. Jayadeva's Gita-govinda already features Her, three hundred years before Caitanya; Brahma-vaivartta-purana is said to come from that time too, and it was also the time when Nimbarka founded his sampradaya. Nimbarka's sampradaya has much more to do with the Gaudiyaism, by the way, than Madhva's, the one Gaudiyas claimed allegiance to for some unknown reason – most importantly, they teach acintya-bhedabheda too, and they worshipped Radha together with Krishna, regarding Them to be of the same significance; that was something unheard of in other sampradayas that regarded Radha to be just an apsara or something like that, if they even believed She exists.

There are some older Puranas that mention Radha together with Krishna too, the Vishnu-purana being dated to somewhere between 200 BCE and 600 CE (indology buffs out there, correct me if I'm wrong). Even Mahabharata briefly mentions Her, so she is not a relatively recent innovation.



Naturally. Where God is male, there the male is God. The material interests of the men, the brahmanas and the authorities overwrote the spiritual revelation by means of the religious philosophy. As an Iskconite girl (who lives in ISKCON since her birth, but has tendencies to be Radha-bhakta) said recently to me: „By choosing Radha, you renounced all the power privileges that came with your gender” - and while I wasn't the one who chose Radha, she highlighted the motivation of de-Radhaization of bhakti.

All in all, there are periods when Radha gets more prominence, and there are other periods when She is again pressed back into the background, if material interests so desire. It goes around in cycles, but it seems that with every circle, more of it sticks. Now it is time that the post-Caitanya de-Radhaization period to be put to end for good.

Actually, the situation gets better even in Iskcon. When I joined, Radharani was kind of a secret. Everyone spoke about Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Creator and Maintainer, the killer of demons, his incarnation of Caitanya, his role as the caitya-guru, the Isvara that knows the movement of every grass... Sometimes they briefly mentioned, that in Goloka, there is some Radha with Him as well – who is this Radha? She is the „pleasure potency of Krishna”, came the prompt answer, and nothing more. Once I asked someone to say something more, because this short one-liner didn't satisfy me – and I was administered a long lecture about how hearing and speaking of Radha while not on the suitable level of consciousness makes one – of course – a sahajiya, attached to worldly sexuality and offenses against God; the conclusion was that I should never even think of the name of Radha (and it was somewhat easy, because I never had any info to think about Her...).

Nowadays, it is something completely different. Although Krishna still remained as the focus of intellectual and emotional interest for most of the devotees, Radha is not unheard of anymore. Even the gurus speak about Her, recognizing that She is able to keep Krishna under control. There are some Radha bhajans chanted too, and not only on Radhastami and the appearence of the Radha-kunda, but other times as well. So in fact, Radha is already coming back. But this is still a long way from what I would find ideal, so there is yet place for the Radha revolutionaries (who most probably won't be among the big gurus, mainly because most of them are just institutional managers that are kept in position by their organizational skills).

Well, I never really left nor was kicked out. Every now and then I go with them - in the liberal wing of the congregation, I'm still welcome.

The Indologists believe that there actually are two different versions of the Brahma Vaivarata purana. The first version was what gave the purana its name, and contains something else than Radha and Krishna. That version is almost completely lost. Then at sometime around 500 years ago, it was rewritten with the current context.

There is a chance, since women today have more rights than ever. But I don't think that men will dethrone themselves. So here women, and those who identify as manjaris and gopis, have to join forces to bring forward Radha.

That's nice to hear. I have not been in ISKCON for 8 years, and don't know what is going on.

The funny thing is that I, for example, do not identify myself either as a manjari or as a gopi (nor am I a woman)... but I do hope that I still can participate.