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Param Dayal Nityananda das: Members of ISKCON understand that truth can be found in other teachings, but falsity is also found in many of them. As such, to properly represent Srila Prabhupada, we have to be able to see if someone is following a teaching which contains some truth, which we can add to, or if it contains fallacies we should expose. Of course Srila Prabhupada ordered us to present things nicely. When I moved into the Boston Temple in 1980 I was told that preaching to a newcomer was successful if they came to the Temple again. If someone left angry, it was my fault.

The truth is science, illusion is nescience. But presenting the truth, in order to free others from illusion, is an art as well as a science. For example, Srila Prabhupada’s displayed various moods when dealing with mayavadis. He had a friendly relationship with Dr. Mishra who was a mayavadi philosopher and founder of The Yoga Society of New York Inc. (actually they would sometimes argue but they always remained friends.)1 Dr. Mishra forbade Srila Prabhupada from preaching in his organization, but because of his friendship with him, Dr. Mishra still allowed Srila Prabhupada to do kirtana; and through this, Srila Prabhupada made disciples. On the other hand, Srila Prabhupada’s approach to preaching was quite different with regards to some argumentative mayavadi students at MIT. In one exchange with such students Srila Prabhupada became angry, grabbed one of the students by the shirt collar and shouted “You say everything is one! But is this cotton shirt the same as a cotton ball? Why don’t you wear a cotton ball instead of this shirt?” The shouting (back and forth) continued until the end of the exchange when devotee urged Srila Prabhupada to leave in a taxi they had called for him.2

So devotees can cite different examples of Srila Prabhupada to justify different approaches to preaching. Yet, although we may not be able to establish an absolute right or wrong way to preach, we can never preach properly if we do not understand things clearly; therefore, in this article we simply focus on distinguishing truth from falsity. We leave it up to the individual devotee to decide how to deal with people they encounter.

The Jivamukti Yoga organization(JMY) founded by David Life and Sharon Gannon, teaches things which seem consistent with Krishna Consciousness. Indeed, one of their “Focus of the Month” teachings, titled “Bhakti Trumps All” ends with:

When others congratulate you, immediately defer to the real doer who is behind every action and proclaim, “All glories to Shri Krishna!” If invoking Krishna is too religious for you, that’s fine, but at least be humble enough to defer to a power higher than your own limited, mortal self.3

This seems to be consistent with Krishna Consciousness. But the phrase “limited mortal self” may cause one to question if they are implying that we have an immortal self which is unlimited. That is mayavadi philosophy. Actually, this is exactly what they are teaching. In a different Focus of the Month article we find this statement:

… Nothing is apart from the One Thing – the One Thing is everything. While living we have the opportunity to feel it, know it, and become the One Thing.4

But explicit statements like the one above are less frequent and sandwiched between ambiguous ones. More specifically, sometimes it seems like those preaching mayavadi philosophy are saying something Krishna Conscious, because both Krishna Consciousness and mayavadi philosophy teach that God is everything, and both teach that we are nondifferent from God. But for the mayavadi this means we are everything. In contrast, a genuine bhakta knows he is nondifferent from God, only in the sense that he is infinitesimal part of Everything/God. Thus, despite the abundance of quotations from the Bhagavada Gita and other Vaishnava texts in JMY philosophy, there is no similarity between what JMY teaches about God, and what is taught in ISKCON;

There is another factor which may lead to confusion. As mentioned in the beginning of the article, Krishna Consciousness is nonsectarian and devotees acknowledge that there is truth in other paths. This is not taught to appeal to a certain mindset; rather, it is taught because it is a fact. It just so happens that this is consistent with the idealism of many spiritual seekers; including many who join ISKCON. They tend to highly value openmindeness and loath dogmatism. The worst dogmatism of all may be the idea that the path one is on is completely right and other paths are all wrong. So the ideal of openness, combined with the fact that mayavada philosophy is deceptively similar to Krishna consciousness, creates a situation where there is a danger of devotees thinking that JMY is teaching something which is also taught in Krishna Consciousness, when it isn’t.

Let’s take another look at how uncritical idealism may blind one from the facts. In a JMY Focus of the Month we read:

Someone recently asked me if asana practice could be a bhakti practice. Asana practice must be a bhakti practice; it must be done with love and devotion to God if the ultimate aim is to be reached.

The ultimate purpose of asana practice is to purify the body, to purify one’s negative karmas so that you can open up to Love, which is God.

It is only through the act of love that we come to the realization of Love—the goal of bhakti yoga. Practice asana so that you will be able to love God more. There is no greater goal to strive for in this lifetime

In the same article, the prayer below is cited to encourage people to become an instrument of God:

“Make me an instrument for Thy will; not mine but Thine be done; free me from anger jealousy and fear; fill my heart with joy and compassion.” 5

Actually the sincerity of an idealistic devotee may cause him to be enthusiastic about such a statement. He may proclaim: “This is a means for connecting the millions of hatha yoga practitioners to bhakti! Let them see love of God as the goal of hatha and the greatest achievement! Wow, JMY is teaching people to make themselves an instrument for the will God!” It is understandable that a devotee thinking this way may feel another devotee is being overly orthodox if he points out that the phrase “Love, which is God” is philosophically incorrect. But the phrase is philosophically incorrect and that is enough for some devotees to reject the whole teaching. They can anticipate statements like the one below which appears later in the same article.

Our bodies are the storehouses for our unresolved karmas—all of our unfinished business with others — all of our small self concerns make up our individual self or jiva, whereas our true Self, the atman is eternal, bliss-filled — free from all suffering.

Let’s see how this contrasts with the Teachings of ISKCON. In Srila Prabhupada’s purport to SB 3.15.33, we read:

In Bhagavad-gétä it is said that the living entities, who are parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord, are eternally parts and parcels. According to the Mäyävädé philosophers, the living entity in illusion considers himself part and parcel although he is actually one and the same as the supreme whole. This theory is not valid.

In another Focus of the Month, an epistemology (how you can really know) the truth of oneness is described. The example is given of falling in love with someone and then the separateness between you and them dissolves.

It may dissolve for perhaps only a moment, but in that moment, you know that it’s possible. You don’t have to be an enlightened being or a saint to have this experience of the Oneness of being: it happens at the moment of sexual orgasm and at the time of death. And it also happens every night when you go to sleep, into deep sleep… A yogi wants the deep sleep experience while they are awake, a conscious experience of continuous ecstasy, like a perpetual orgasm; well, we could use the metaphor of the orgasm, but we could also use the metaphor of death… To see yourself in others—to see so deeply into others that otherness disappears and only the Self—only God, only Love—remains is the yogic magical quest6.

JMY does not prescribe sex as a means for obtaining a permanent state of self-realization. But it clearly describes self- realization as understanding you are the only thing that exists; and you are the only enjoyer. According to Krishna Consciousness this is precisely the attitude of a jiva who is envious of Krishna; the jiva who wants to take Krishna’s place. The Truth is, Krishna is the only Enjoyer and we are meant to be enjoyed by Him. Because we want to be something we are not (the enjoyer) we have an illusory identity which causes us to suffer extreme misery in this material world. So what JMY claims is the truth (what they say we should aspire to realize) is actually the illusion which causes our material bondage. There is no truth in mayavadi philosophy, nor the version of it taught at JMY; zero.

If we have any real compassion, we will try to deliver as many people as we can from these misleading teachings. We might befriend JMY followers in order to engage them in genuine Krishna Consciousness, or we may try to defeat their philosophy directly, but whatever we do, we must never agree with them. We must open our minds to truth wherever we find it without allowing mayavadi hallucinations to enter.