{"id":28576,"date":"2021-06-19T14:53:14","date_gmt":"2021-06-19T19:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/?p=28576"},"modified":"2021-12-19T14:54:00","modified_gmt":"2021-12-19T19:54:00","slug":"hati-mata-the-mad-elephant-offense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/hati-mata-the-mad-elephant-offense\/","title":{"rendered":"Hati mata – the mad elephant offense"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Anyone that knows me knows that I am fiercely loyal to ISKCON and very wary about criticism of Vaisnavas. So how to account for my recent raising of concerns about a particular devotee’s historic child abuse? Have I crossed the dangerous line into hati mata – the mad elephant offense that destroys all spiritual credits?<\/div>\n
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Certainly one should be careful – and not enter into criticism of a devotee lightly. But we cannot function effectively where there is some absolute prohibition in raising concerns – where legitimate concerns are shouted down with accusations of “you’re being offensive”.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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K.D. McComb (Krishna Devata) prefaced her recent and brilliantly composed analysis with the following reference.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cTo blaspheme pure Vaisnavas is an offense, but even blaspheming other jivas is a sin. Vaisnavas have no interest in performing such a sinful act. However, provided one has the right motive, the scriptures have not condemned a careful critique of someone\u2019s faults. Proper motive is of three types: desiring the welfare of the person criticized, desiring the welfare of the world and desiring one\u2019s own welfare. There are three types of proper motive:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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1. If the intention in analyzing someone\u2019s sins to ensure that he attains his ultimate welfare such reflection is auspicious.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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2. If the motive behind reflecting on someone\u2019s sins is to benefit the whole world, then this is to be counted as an auspicious act.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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3. If such reflection is undertaken for one\u2019s own spiritual welfare, then it too, is auspicious. There is no fault in such reflection.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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~ Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur ~<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The sought result in this case is the effective administration of due process with regards child protection by the Society’s leadership. There is no malice intended towards anybody.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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It’s understandable that mild mannered devotees find the whole matter disturbing. But it is the violation of a child that should provoke our disapproval – not the surfacing of the details of the poor handling of the case.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Neither I nor others have taken leave of our senses or the due regard we have for Vaisnavas<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone that knows me knows that I am fiercely loyal to ISKCON and very wary about criticism of Vaisnavas. So how to account for my recent raising of concerns about a particular devotee’s historic child abuse? … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-28 22:58:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}