Jaya Govinda Dasa

A thoughtful person may justly question, Why would Srila Prabhupada use in his preaching emotionally charged words like “fools” and “rascals” to refer to those who do not accept the Vedic understanding? What, we may wonder, is driving his apparent aggression? By getting to know Srila Prabhupada as a person as well as a Gaudiya Vaisnava acarya – one who teaches by his good example – and by coming to understand his mood and mission, we may reflect, reason, and finally conclude that he was driven by love and compassion for all souls.

Let me tell you of my experience in dealing with these words. I had already become used to hearing Prabhupada characterize people as “rascals” or “fools,” but I have to confess that once, while listening to a conversation during a walk with a small group of disciples I couldn’t believe it when I heard him suggest that if people say they cannot understand the Bhagavad-gita, they should pin a button with a red capital “R” on their shirts – “R” for “Rascal”. I thought Prabhupada was overdoing it with this comment. Why would he be so condemning toward even innocent persons? I lived with that question – and with my mixed feelings – for a while.

Then Drutakarma Prabhu, a prominent and successful preacher in the scientific field, visited our temple. Based on the trust and respect I have for him due to his experience, realization, and authority, I inquired about Prabhupada’s use of words like “rascal” and “fool” when talking about scientists: “What does Prabhupada mean by ‘rascal’? If I translate these words into Italian, my mother tongue, they have quite harsh connotations (although ‘rascal’ has a softer meaning when applied lovingly to a child). Usually, a rascal is a dishonest, malicious person – someone despicable.”

Drutakarma Prabhu’s response was stern. He asserted that Prabhupada would call scientists rascals because they are rascals – that is, Prabhupada meant what he said and was speaking boldly and intentionally. I was startled by this answer, which sounded to me like a heavy and too-general critique of scientists as a category. However, after thinking about it more I became convinced. It occurred to me that Drutakarma Prabhu must know more about scientists than I do because he works with them in his preaching; I am naïve and still influenced by a culture that considers scientists an unquestionable authority. Thus based mostly on faith and submissiveness I accepted his answer and my mind became pacified.

Nevertheless, the question may still be raised: Is Prabhupada using such language in a hurtful, abusive, or offensive way? Is it correct for a man of God to characterize people as cats, dogs, hogs, asses, cows, pigeons, monkeys, camels, fools, or rascals? Isn’t such language simply too harsh and disrespectful?

I cannot honestly say the answer to this was always clear to me. To be fair, I had to evaluate it as an independent thinker and not settle for a dogmatic answer. I decided to first consider the general cultural context from which Prabhupada used what we may consider “bad language.” In my analysis I focused on the word “rascal,” but the same analysis can be applied to any of the words in the above list.

A search of the BBT archives shows that Prabhupada used the word “rascal” more than 4,000 times. He used it mostly when he was speaking informally – during lectures and conversations – although it also appears in his books. From an analysis of his usage it seems that Prabhupada used rascal to translate the Sanskrit word mudha. We can find two such references in Bhagavad-gita 7.15 and 9.11. In Bhagavad-gita 7.15 Krishna lists several categories of persons who never surrender to Him: “Those miscreants who are grossly foolish, who are lowest among mankind, whose knowledge is stolen by illusion, and who partake of the atheistic nature of demons do not surrender unto Me.” Prabhupada translates the term mudha as “grossly foolish,” and in his Bhaktivedanta Purport compares such people to asses:

The mudhas are those who are grossly foolish, like hardworking beasts of burden. They want to enjoy the fruits of their labor by themselves, and so do not want to part with them for the Supreme. The typical example of the beast of burden is the ass. This humble beast is made to work very hard by his master. The ass does not really know for whom he works so hard day and night. He remains satisfied by filling his stomach with a bundle of grass, sleeping for a while under fear of being beaten by his master, and satisfying his sex appetite at the risk of being repeatedly kicked by the opposite party. The ass sings poetry and philosophy sometimes, but this braying sound only disturbs others. This is the position of the foolish fruitive worker who does not know for whom he should work. He does not know that karma (action) is meant for yajna (sacrifice).

The purport further clarifies the character and quality of intelligence of these persons:

Most often, those who work very hard day and night to clear the burden of self-created duties say that they have no time to hear of the immortality of the living being. To such mudhas, material gains, which are destructible, are life’s all in all – despite the fact that the mudhas enjoy only a very small fraction of the fruit of labor. Sometimes they spend sleepless days and nights for fruitive gain, and although they may have ulcers or indigestion, they are satisfied with practically no food; they are simply absorbed in working hard day and night for the benefit of illusory masters. Ignorant of their real master, the foolish workers waste their valuable time serving mammon. Unfortunately, they never surrender to the supreme master of all masters, nor do they take time to hear of Him from the proper sources.

Prabhupada concludes his description, and then even more strongly, compares mudhas to hogs:

The swine who eat the night soil do not care to accept sweetmeats made of sugar and ghee. Similarly, the foolish worker will untiringly continue to hear of the sense-enjoyable tidings of the flickering mundane world, but will have very little time to hear about the eternal living force that moves the material world.

In Bhagavad-gita 9.11 Krishna uses the same term to characterize those knowledgeable persons who cannot see His divinity despite their scholarship and education. “Fools deride Me when I descend in the human form. They do not know My transcendental nature as the Supreme Lord of all that be.” Prabhupada clarifies Krishna’s statement:

Despite the transcendental qualities of Lord Krishna’s body, its full bliss and knowledge, there are many so-called scholars and commentators of Bhagavad-gita who deride Krishna as an ordinary man. The scholar may be born an extraordinary man due to his previous good work, but this conception of Sri Krishna is due to a poor fund of knowledge. Therefore he is called mudha, for only foolish persons consider Krishna to be an ordinary human being. The foolish consider Krishna an ordinary human being because they do not know the confidential activities of the Supreme Lord and His different energies. They do not know that Krishna’s body is a symbol of complete knowledge and bliss, that He is the proprietor of everything that be and that He can award liberation to anyone. Because they do not know that Krishna has so many transcendental qualifications, they deride Him.

According to this definition and usage, a mudha may refer to both a simple “grossly foolish” person, and to a learned person who, despite his knowledge, does not surrender to the Lord or who even offends Him due to lack of proper information, humility, and surrender.

At this point one may ask, Is Prabhupada fully aware of the offensive connotations of his words? After all, English is not his first language, and we know that Prabhupada learned his English in India at a nineteenth-century Scottish institution. We can expect that the time and place where he learned English must have had an influence on his usage. (I wish to mention that I will make this analysis from a sympathetic perspective, because I too speak English as a second language.)

Let’s then analyze the etymological meaning of the word “rascal” and how Prabhupada would have been trained to use it.

A general English definition for rascal is: a low (-class), deceitful, and unreliable scoundrel. Etymology: “Middle English rascaile, foot soldier, commoner, worthless person; from Anglo-French rascaille, from Old French dialect (Norman & Picard) *rasquer – to scrape, clean off; from Vulgar Latin *rasicare. Date: 15th century. 1: a mean, unprincipled, or dishonest person; 2: a mischievous person or animal.

Did Prabhupada know what he was saying when he used this word? By comparing the dictionary definition with Prabhupada’s use of the term in the above-quoted translations and purports, it seems that he did.

Yet the use of a bad word does not necessarily imply bad feelings. In loving relationships even bad words can express love and affection, and because the beloved trusts his lover’s intentions, he does not take offense. Instead, he feels cared for. Let’s then consider the sentiment behind Prabhupada’s apparently offensive language.

Those who have had the opportunity to associate with Prabhupada both in person, through his teachings, and through his sincere and honest followers, know for certain that Prabhupada was driven by love and compassion for the suffering souls in all species of life. The poem he wrote upon his arrival in the United States in 1965 vividly expresses this internal mood and his sense of a worldwide mission:

Most of the population here is covered by the material modes of ignorance and passion. Absorbed in material life, they think themselves very happy and satisfied, and therefore they have no taste for the transcendental message of Vasudeva. I do not know how they will be able to understand it.

How will I make them understand this message of Krishna consciousness? I am very unfortunate, unqualified and the most fallen. Therefore I am seeking Your benediction so that I can convince them, for I am powerless to do so on my own.

Somehow or other, O Lord, You have brought me here to speak about You. Now, my Lord, it is up to You to make me a success or failure as You like.

O spiritual master of all the worlds! I can simply repeat Your message, so if You like You can make my power of speaking suitable for their understanding.

Only by Your causeless mercy will my words become pure. I am sure that when this transcendental message penetrates their hearts they will certainly feel engladdened and thus become liberated from all unhappy conditions of life.

There is no trace of ulterior or personal motive in Prabhupada’s words. He was sad to see the living beings plunged in maya, illusion. He dedicated his life to Lord Caitanya’s mission of delivering them, in line with his previous masters and as a way to please the Supreme Lord. He wanted to distribute love of God and give a chance to all living beings to put an end to their suffering in this temporary world and to go back to their eternal home, God’s divine realm. And he prayed to Krishna from the core of his heart to be blessed with the capacity to use suitable language to reach and transform people’s hearts. If we think he failed to attain this benediction – that his language abused those to whom he was preaching rather than delivered them – we would automatically be implying that he failed in his ability to repeat Krishna’s own words. Prabhupada conveyed Krishna’s message as it is. And Krishna’s words, even the apparently critical ones, have the ability to deliver the conditioned souls.

That said, we can frankly admit that Prabhupada was sometimes like a thunderbolt and sometimes like a rose. That’s the nature of an exalted Vaishnava: “This is the nature of the mind of an uncommon personality. Sometimes it is soft like a flower, but sometimes it is as hard as a thunderbolt.” (Caitanya-caritamrta Madhya 7.73) When acting like a thunderbolt he would use hard words. But he was never motivated by envy. Rather, whether acting as a rose or delivering the thunderbolt, he cared for people. This is not that different from how Narada Muni simultaneously cursed and blessed Nalakuvera and Manigriva. Was Narada’s behavior bad or unethical? No! He brought about these two persons’ liberation through his strong show of concern for them. Similarly, was Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami’s bad for calling those who did not accept and follow Lord Caitanya “demons”? We could say he sounds like a disrespectful exclusivist! Our acaryas sometimes physically beat those who did not acknowledge defeat in philosophical discussions. Was that because they lacked humility or honesty? When Caitanya Mahaprabhu physically attacked Advaita Acarya for preaching Mayavada philosophy, was His behavior offensive? Was Lord Nityananda’s kicking of Sivananda Sena or his calling Raghunatha Dasa Goswami a “thief” without apparent reason bad? Or were these all expressions of affection and compassion?

Srila Prabhupada comments on the above verse from Caitanya-caritamrta that “the softness of a flower and the hardness of a thunderbolt are reconciled in the behavior of a great personality.” And he quotes from Uttara-rama-carita (2.7) to explain this behavior.

“The hearts of those above common behavior are sometimes harder than a thunderbolt and sometimes softer than a flower. How can one accommodate such contradictions in great personalities?” (Caitanya-caritamrta, Madhya 7.74)

Such contradictions may give rise to doubts in great personalities. Doubt is a characteristic symptom of intelligence. In his purport to Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.26.30 Prabhupada comments that

Doubt is one of the important functions of intelligence; blind acceptance of something does not give evidence of intelligence. Therefore the word samshaya is very important; in order to cultivate intelligence, one should be doubtful in the beginning. But doubting is not very favorable when information is received from the proper source. In the Bhagavad-gita the Lord says that doubting the words of the authority is the cause of destruction.

Thus a doubtful person may decide to “live with the question” or with some doubt for a while. But he or she needs to ultimately and honestly solve his or her dilemma.

My own dilemma was cleared for good by Prabhupada’s mercy in light of his Bhagavad-gita purport to 6.47, where he expresses his inner motives and concerns for those who, for some reason, do not acknowledge and worship God:

The word bhajate is significant here. Bhajate has its root in the verb bhaj, which is used when there is need of service. The English word “worship” cannot be used in the same sense as bhaj. Worship means to adore, or to show respect and honor to the worthy one. But service with love and faith is especially meant for the Supreme Personality of Godhead. One can avoid worshiping a respectable man or a demigod and may be called discourteous, but one cannot avoid serving the Supreme Lord without being thoroughly condemned. Every living entity is part and parcel of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and thus every living entity is intended to serve the Supreme Lord by his own constitution. Failing to do this, he falls down. The Bhagavatam (11.5.3) confirms this as follows:

Anyone who does not render service and neglects his duty unto the primeval Lord, who is the source of all living entities, will certainly fall down from his constitutional position.

The sastra’s stand and Prabhupada’s purport here sound pretty conclusive: “One cannot avoid serving the Supreme Lord without being thoroughly condemned.” This is the unfailing universal low of dharma. In this light, Prabhupada’s condemnation of rascals should not be a surprise after all. Over and above all dharma, though, we always have to take into consideration Prabhupada’s intention when condemning people. We should trust that Prabhupada is speaking from compassion because the scriptures tell us that great souls sometimes speak strongly and sometimes more gently to bring about the deliverance of conditioned souls, but they are never motivated by envy.

Prabhupada is never compelled by envy. Rather, due to compassion for the fallen souls he accepts the thankless job of guru, the one who in parampara and with genuine realization, points out the Absolute Truth to broaden the worldview of the fallen souls – sometimes at the risk of appearing discourteous. I can clearly see now how Prabhupada’s use of words like “rascals” and “fools” is just an expression of his real love and compassion for the ultimate well being of fortunate souls.