Emails

Inbox Clutter and More

Megamails

Over the past few weeks there has been so much clutter in my email inbox that at times I began to consider opting out of the devotee emailing list.

Might I remind you all that there is a perfectly good, easy to join and use, forum available on YOUR GroupSpace that I set up for you ages ago, which is mostly ignored despite the fact that there are about 60 recipients on the devotee email list and at most about ten sending emails out to the rest of us. Subol Krsna confided in me one day that he also finds that devotees ignore the gifts he offers.

(How would you feel if you cooked a feast which nobody accepted and it all went to waste?)

http://groupspaces.com/giriraja

Manadena

It would be nice if you could respect our inbox space and use the GroupSpace instead of cluttering up the devotees' email inbox. Respect is of immense value if you really want to become a Vaisnava. I don't need your respect BUT you need to GIVE respect, just as I need to give respect. It's a fundamental part of Vaisnavism, without it ... you can guess the rest of this phrase.

Content of Emails

Nevertheless, I read almost all of the spam emails :) that arrived in my inbox, sometimes even replying or commenting (rarely), felt rather depressed regarding the outpouring of what appeared to be mostly nonsense (although I clearly recognise that the writers thought otherwise) and felt rather happy to read the occasional email that made a lot of sense and revealed the author as a sane, intelligent, thoughtful person.

Not that I imagine that any of us rabble are anywhere near perfect, except that some appear to be way ahead of the pack.

One beautiful email moved me to reply with the following, which I think is important. Accept it or reject it as you choose. You are free to do as you wish; although I do wish to move a motion at a future meeting, that persons who disrupt meetings or gatherings of devotees be ejected for a minimum of 30 minuites up to exclusion from that meeting. Devotees evicted from three meetings become subject to a review of their behavior by a board of their peers which may result in permanent or semi-permanent expulsion from all meetings, although nobody should be excluded from chanting, hearing and prasadam seva, unless they are extremely offensive.

The Email Reply

I have had time to focus on reading your nice email. I tend to agree with you. The only problem I can see is when devotees become frustrated by thinking that their idea is not being HEARD because the community aren't interested and then the devotee(s) feeling excluded, raise their voice at meetings, become angry, etc, instead of simply understanding that the community don't find their idea(s) appealing. Worse than this is when devotees practice deceitful dealings and campaigning (read: politics) to lend impetus to their desired agendas/ideals. Despite divine advice to the contrary, anger becomes commonplace.

This appears to be going on, where devotees push the same dead ideas year after tired year, or struggle to be in control, or more important than others (all materialistic, anachronistic, useless, valueless desires/anarthas).

These devotees don't want to tolerate and cooperate, they only want themselves and their ideal(s) to be adopted by the community, so that they appear important. This is kanistha and it goes on. We need to recognise it as what it is and work around it, not against it.

Tolerance, humility, and the desire to actually act like a Vaisnava/Vaisnavi are pleasing to Srila Gurudeva, so is effort ("service"). But service is of extremely limited value to anyone at all, whether Sri Guru or fellow man, if it is not done in the mood of tolerance and humility coupled with the desire to act like a real devotee. Without this sweet mood, conflict errupts. This is where we need to direct our attention; to generate more awareness of and attraction to each and every devotee ALWAYS acting in this sweet mood, regardless of the dealings going on around them.

WE ALL NEED EACH OTHER so very very much. Understanding this is very important. No one is better than any other devotee, except by consensus. We all accept Marahajas, Syamarani, Uma Didi, etc, as our superiors by consensus. The rest of us are all peers and each of us is fault ridden and is humbly tolerated by our peers; for this reason, and many others, we need to practice deep, sincere humility when dealing with each and every one of our peers, whether singly or collectively.



Servant of ALL the devotees
tarunkrsnadas
A demon humbly embarking upon this bhakti margha by the strength invested upon us all by our beloved Srila Gurudeva.