The Patriarch, Part 3: Faithfulness to Received Teachings

As I mentioned in prior posts on this blog, the Vedas and Vedic culture are respected by Hindus and Hare Krishnas alike, and the prescribed social roles in Vedic culture are very clearly delineated.  As I also mentioned, there are plenty of members of the Hare Krishna movement (just as there are "modern" Hindus also) who don't put a lot of importance on living according to Vedic cultural prescriptions in this day and age.  Srila Prabhupada, the founder and acarya (teacher-by-example) of the Hare Krishna movement, struck a balance between traditionalism and innovation, and his followers -- just like Christians, Jews, Muslims, and undoubtedly those of many other faiths -- continue to struggle with the question of how much traditionalism and how much innovation we ought to accept in our treading of the path.

In his endeavor to hold fast to the standards Srila Prabhupada gave us, my father has sometimes been labeled a fanatic or other such derogatory terms.  He, naturally, does not feel that he is a fanatic at all; and I don't believe he really deserves that label either, although I do recognize that his combative Type 8 nature leads him to be pretty darn partisan and relish a good fight, and therefore he will sometimes fail to notice the beneficial, important, and/or reasonable aspects of other people's points of view.  My own nature is to look for common ground and help everybody get along and cooperate nicely insofar as possible, so my views of other people's positions tend to be gentler and more appreciative than his.  Still, I feel confident that there must be others in our movement who are far more rigidly traditionalistic than my father.  At least a few! ;)

I'm sure that my father's personality does play a part in his choice of social ideals and beliefs to passionately champion -- just as my own personality influences me, and those of other members of our movement influence them.  I see no reason to exempt him from that assumption.  Certainly it can't be doubted that his personality is a very good fit with many of the teachings he expounds on.  Still, his claim that he isn't making anything up, that he gets all his attitudes and beliefs straight from Srila Prabhupada and sastra (scripture), is also something he has every right to make.  The traditional culture that's represented in our scriptures is patriarchal, and Srila Prabhupada did speak highly of it and introduce many aspects of it into his movement.