{"id":6629,"date":"2008-11-03T06:09:30","date_gmt":"2008-11-03T05:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=6629"},"modified":"2008-11-03T06:09:30","modified_gmt":"2008-11-03T05:09:30","slug":"demoncrazy-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=6629","title":{"rendered":"DemonCrazy (“Democracy”)"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jagabandhu das<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Guru-Krishna Prabhu,<\/p>\n

Dandavatts! All Glory to Sri Guru and Gauranga! All Glory to Srila Prabhupada!<\/p>\n

Many thanks for your well said contribution on Dandavats Re: Srila Prabhupada’s own views on voting (as so nicely phrased by both your Grace and Madhavananda Prabhu)! I’m also quite surprised to see that rather than follow Srila Prabhupada’s perfectly wise and clear instructions in this regard, some have considered it appropriate to engage in mundane politics under the pretense (or auspices) of real Krishna Consciousness.<\/p>\n

Personally, I joined the ISKCON Chicago (Evanston) temple at the age of 17 (before I was old enough to vote). Shortly thereafter, Srila Prabhupada’s supremely gorgeous Srimad-Bhagavatam Seventh Canto was published and released. Within it we found the story of Sri Prahlad who did not care for the fundamental idea of politics wherein one is encouraged to pursue the mundane duality of friendship and enmity, rather than trying to become a kindly friend to all through the genuine elevation of true spiritual consciousness. I was very affected by Sri Prahlad’s mood and thoughts and so have never voted in the 33 years of my adulthood. And like Srila Prabhupada I do not believe real authority or leadership may be mandated or legislated. In his beautiful Bhagavat speech Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur himself also discourages the idea of automatic popular consensus. Popular consensus is widely over-rated as a means for accurately selecting or promoting actual quality in regards to anything substantially significant.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it may prove useful to consider that America’s founding fathers developed the electoral college they also did not believe in popular consensus as a means to choosing the country’s topmost secular leader because they did not consider the masses intelligent enough to wisely select their own leader. However, not unlike the Roman oligarchic, aristocratic autocracy (who distracted the masses with wine, bread and circuses) the electoral college panders to the collective false ego by allowing the masses to believe that their dissenting voices really count within the “electoral” process. In reality, all the world’s current governments (regardless of whether “democratic” or “communist”) are corrupt self-serving oligarchies. Whoever controls the wealth makes all the rules (which control the people). It’s called the golden rule. In terms of the mundane realm, whoever has all the gold makes all the rules.<\/p>\n

Politics (not unlike spectator sports) seems to be the new opiate of the masses, especially in America. Every four years the general public is given a chance to delude themselves into believing they have an opportunity to once again deaden the pain of their discontent by promoting a brand new cult of personality as the “savior” of the masses (while they are grossly exploited by the politicians from behind the scenes). Mass hysteria amongst the herd of sheep is more like it. And sheerest mundane illusion. But sheep would prefer even a poor shepherd to having no shepherd at all.<\/p>\n

Doubtless, real leadership is important. But my experience in this life is that if you “settle” for less, you’ll be “lucky” to get it. And you’ll have to “fight” to keep it. Genuinely Krishna Conscious true leadership is the only real solution for the actual benefit of all the people. Same as it ever was.<\/p>\n

Institute alone (of any type) cannot be an automatic substitute for the real inner pursuit of the Absolute by the truly spiritually astute.<\/p>\n

Humbly with affection,<\/p>\n

Jagabandhu das<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jagabandhu das<\/strong><\/p>\n

Genuinely Krishna Conscious true leadership is the only real solution for the actual benefit of all the people. Same as it ever was. Institute alone (of any type) cannot be an automatic substitute for the real inner pursuit of the Absolute by the truly spiritually astute. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}