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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Feb 22, 2010 11:00:26 GMT -5
Tapati’s Hall of Shame: Trying to Impress Swarupa with My Devotion nolongerquivering.com/2010/02/22/tapatis-hall-of-shame-trying-to-impress-swarupa-with-my-devotion/Along the lines of "Vyckie's Tour de Crap" ~ Tapati offers her own "Hall of Shame" ~ amazing the similarities. I think this post vividly illustrates that QF does not hold a license on Patriarchy and the "us v them" mentality ~ this example adds to the growing body of evidence on NLQ that the Quiverfull brand of patriarchy is neither unique ~ nor innocuous.
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Post by susan on Feb 22, 2010 13:51:12 GMT -5
Thank you for sharing this, Tapati. I'd been enjoying your previous writings so much, and was rather sad when you stopped for while. So I'm glad you're starting back up again! Along the lines of "Vyckie's Tour de Crap" ~ Tapati offers her own "Hall of Shame" ~ amazing the similarities. I think this post vividly illustrates that QF does not hold a license on Patriarchy and the "us v them" mentality ~ this example adds to the growing body of evidence on NLQ that the Quiverfull brand of patriarchy is neither unique ~ nor innocuous. Yes, I agree with you, Vyckie, it is all quite amazingly similar. Tapati, I am wondering if you and Carolyn have ever resumed contact?
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phatchick
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Post by phatchick on Feb 22, 2010 19:01:36 GMT -5
{wry grin} It reads a lot like the crush letters my friends and I used to mail to whatever hunk was on the cover of Tiger Beat (Yeah, I am that old ). Teenagers as a general rule tend to have an "Us vs Them" mentality anyway. That and a tendency to still look at the world as black and white. IMO, Tapati, you don't have that much to cringe over. You weren't any weirder than the rest of us.
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Post by arietty on Feb 22, 2010 19:27:50 GMT -5
Taptai I laughed out loud reading your hall of shame letter because it's so classically adolescent! It made me very affectionate for the teenage you
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Post by dangermom on Feb 22, 2010 22:23:40 GMT -5
That's what I thought too.
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Post by krwordgazer on Feb 23, 2010 22:51:09 GMT -5
Yes, I recognize that earnestness, that desire to please. That was me, too-- that was so many of us. I don't think you have anything to be ashamed of, Tapati.
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Post by tapati on Feb 24, 2010 0:10:35 GMT -5
Yes it is very typical of teenage mentality--yet I thought I was so adult at the time, able to make life-changing decisions. I think that it is unethical to take advantage of and preach to teens with the goal of getting them to change their religion. Carolyn never resumed contact with me. That still makes me sad because I treasured her friendship so much. I at least would have appreciated the chance to get some closure with her and understand what was going through her mind back then. I am hoping to get back to writing soon; I was sick most of this winter and now have a bad case of tendinitis in my right arm, I believe induced by Levaquin, an antibiotic I was given late in January. It has a federal black box warning for causing tendon damage and even rupture. I am trying to rest my arm as much as possible. One thing you might notice about this letter--the use of semi-colons. I was quite enamored of them and was trying to use a lot of them to impress Swarupa.
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Post by arietty on Feb 24, 2010 18:21:42 GMT -5
Tapati when I was a teenager I used semicolons constantly! I was also enamored with them
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jwr
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Post by jwr on Feb 25, 2010 23:55:48 GMT -5
Hi Tapati
Thanks for this. It reminds me of a book I got in 1988, Monkey On A Stick: Murder, Madness and the Hare Krishnas, by journalists Hubner and Gruson. They were the first ones I read who referred to ISKCON as a fundamentalist group. Here's the relevant passage. It's a description of Keith Ham's first encounter with Prabhupada:
"As Keith Ham listened, he realized the swami was a Hindu fundamentalist, one who believed that the battle described in the Gita was a historical event. That didn't bother Ham. Although he knew that most interpreters of the Gita believed the battle was a metaphor for the internal struggle between man's higher and lower natures, he was comfortable with the fundamentalist view--he'd grown up with fundamentalism and had never really rejected it.
"Much of Ham's life, his work at Columbia and his search for spiritual truth, had been shaped by a revolt against his father, a fundamentalist Baptist minister... But it wasn't a revolt against his father's orthodoxy; Ham liked that. For all his sophistication, he wanted absolutes. He was pleased that the Swami and his father were both convinced they possessed the truth. The difference between the two preachers was that his father taught fear and punishment; his God was the vengeful, white-bearded Jehovah. The swami preached love; his God was a playful, sensual, blue-skinned boy." (pp. 48, 49).
BTW, I lost track of the movement over the years. Last I remember, Ham had become the official successor to Prabhupada, and was trying to run the organization from inside a prison, where he was doing life for murder. Is he still the leader? And is he still in the joint?
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jwr
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Post by jwr on Feb 26, 2010 1:13:00 GMT -5
P.S. @ Tapati
I replied to your blog before reading the other comments on the thread. After reading them I agree that it's strange to use "hall of shame" for your blog. Really, there's nothing shameful about it. It's totally normal for adolescents to think in an "us vs. them" mentality. And in that awkward, scary time of life--no longer quite a child but not yet quite an adult--it's also quite normal to look for a strong foundation upon which to stand; in your case and many others' cases, it was a form of fundamentalism.
What stuck out to me in your blog was the description of spiritual conflict. Away from school you could get totally absorbed in Krishna-consciousness (which in our nick of the woods we call "bhava," pronounced bhab), but at school it would fade away. And yet at other times, the bhava would come on spontaneously, in your words like a "flashback."
Again, nothing at all shameful here. On the contrary, you were struggling with a major issue that all the world's religions have faced over centuries. Your struggle has been the struggle of everyone, whether Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu or whatever, who chose a monastic (renouncer) life over a secular or "householder" lifestyle. Since you were just a kid and yet were trying to address these age-old, very real issues, it sounds like you were both intelligent and mystically gifted. Again, where's the shame in that?
As an aside, if you had succeeded in maintaining your Krishna bhava at school, you might have regretted it. Although my wife is a Christian, she is of the same race and culture, and is from the same city as Prabhupada. She was very mystically gifted from childhood and in high school would go spontaneously into bhava during class; only to be rudely jerked out of it when the teacher smacked her up side her head. Her struggle was the mirror inversion of yours; she had to train herself to turn it off when the situation required.
Again, I really see no shame in any of this. If there's an ISKCON Hall of Shame, it's for people like Tirtha das (Thomas Drescher); not the normal high school kid that you were.
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Post by tapati on Feb 27, 2010 19:44:11 GMT -5
Hi Tapati Thanks for this. It reminds me of a book I got in 1988, Monkey On A Stick: Murder, Madness and the Hare Krishnas, by journalists Hubner and Gruson. They were the first ones I read who referred to ISKCON as a fundamentalist group. Here's the relevant passage. It's a description of Keith Ham's first encounter with Prabhupada: "As Keith Ham listened, he realized the swami was a Hindu fundamentalist, one who believed that the battle described in the Gita was a historical event. That didn't bother Ham. Although he knew that most interpreters of the Gita believed the battle was a metaphor for the internal struggle between man's higher and lower natures, he was comfortable with the fundamentalist view--he'd grown up with fundamentalism and had never really rejected it. "Much of Ham's life, his work at Columbia and his search for spiritual truth, had been shaped by a revolt against his father, a fundamentalist Baptist minister... But it wasn't a revolt against his father's orthodoxy; Ham liked that. For all his sophistication, he wanted absolutes. He was pleased that the Swami and his father were both convinced they possessed the truth. The difference between the two preachers was that his father taught fear and punishment; his God was the vengeful, white-bearded Jehovah. The swami preached love; his God was a playful, sensual, blue-skinned boy." (pp. 48, 49). BTW, I lost track of the movement over the years. Last I remember, Ham had become the official successor to Prabhupada, and was trying to run the organization from inside a prison, where he was doing life for murder. Is he still the leader? And is he still in the joint? Keith Ham was ONE of the initiating gurus after Prabhupada left. I'm sure in his OWN mind he was THE successor but no one else (other than his group of sycophants) saw him that way. As far as I'm concerned, he is evil--a sociopath--who saw the movement from the very beginning as a vehicle for grabbing power and control of others. He is out of prison but fortunately for the world, suffering various illnesses so the damage he can do is limited. That's a good thing!
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jwr
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Post by jwr on Feb 27, 2010 22:07:22 GMT -5
Hi Tapati Thanks for this. It reminds me of a book I got in 1988, Monkey On A Stick: Murder, Madness and the Hare Krishnas, by journalists Hubner and Gruson. They were the first ones I read who referred to ISKCON as a fundamentalist group. Here's the relevant passage. It's a description of Keith Ham's first encounter with Prabhupada: "As Keith Ham listened, he realized the swami was a Hindu fundamentalist, one who believed that the battle described in the Gita was a historical event. That didn't bother Ham. Although he knew that most interpreters of the Gita believed the battle was a metaphor for the internal struggle between man's higher and lower natures, he was comfortable with the fundamentalist view--he'd grown up with fundamentalism and had never really rejected it. "Much of Ham's life, his work at Columbia and his search for spiritual truth, had been shaped by a revolt against his father, a fundamentalist Baptist minister... But it wasn't a revolt against his father's orthodoxy; Ham liked that. For all his sophistication, he wanted absolutes. He was pleased that the Swami and his father were both convinced they possessed the truth. The difference between the two preachers was that his father taught fear and punishment; his God was the vengeful, white-bearded Jehovah. The swami preached love; his God was a playful, sensual, blue-skinned boy." (pp. 48, 49). BTW, I lost track of the movement over the years. Last I remember, Ham had become the official successor to Prabhupada, and was trying to run the organization from inside a prison, where he was doing life for murder. Is he still the leader? And is he still in the joint? Keith Ham was ONE of the initiating gurus after Prabhupada left. I'm sure in his OWN mind he was THE successor but no one else (other than his group of sycophants) saw him that way. As far as I'm concerned, he is evil--a sociopath--who saw the movement from the very beginning as a vehicle for grabbing power and control of others. He is out of prison but fortunately for the world, suffering various illnesses so the damage he can do is limited. That's a good thing! Yeah, he's a real predator. I remember reading that he claimed to be THE MAN; the Big Dog; the Only one. He's also the main alleged culprit in the conspiracy-theory poisoning death of Srila Prabhubada. And the Wikipedia article on him yesterday claims he moved to India in 2008. So perhaps we're neighbors. He's supposedly wheelchair-bound, so like you said, I doubt he can do much harm. (except for psychological/spiritual harm; which is bad enough). What a mess. "Silly human race..."
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Post by tapati on Feb 28, 2010 18:17:00 GMT -5
P.S. @ Tapati I replied to your blog before reading the other comments on the thread. After reading them I agree that it's strange to use "hall of shame" for your blog. Really, there's nothing shameful about it. It's totally normal for adolescents to think in an "us vs. them" mentality. And in that awkward, scary time of life--no longer quite a child but not yet quite an adult--it's also quite normal to look for a strong foundation upon which to stand; in your case and many others' cases, it was a form of fundamentalism. What stuck out to me in your blog was the description of spiritual conflict. Away from school you could get totally absorbed in Krishna-consciousness (which in our nick of the woods we call "bhava," pronounced bhab), but at school it would fade away. And yet at other times, the bhava would come on spontaneously, in your words like a "flashback." Again, nothing at all shameful here. On the contrary, you were struggling with a major issue that all the world's religions have faced over centuries. Your struggle has been the struggle of everyone, whether Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu or whatever, who chose a monastic (renouncer) life over a secular or "householder" lifestyle. Since you were just a kid and yet were trying to address these age-old, very real issues, it sounds like you were both intelligent and mystically gifted. Again, where's the shame in that? As an aside, if you had succeeded in maintaining your Krishna bhava at school, you might have regretted it. Although my wife is a Christian, she is of the same race and culture, and is from the same city as Prabhupada. She was very mystically gifted from childhood and in high school would go spontaneously into bhava during class; only to be rudely jerked out of it when the teacher smacked her up side her head. Her struggle was the mirror inversion of yours; she had to train herself to turn it off when the situation required. Again, I really see no shame in any of this. If there's an ISKCON Hall of Shame, it's for people like Tirtha das (Thomas Drescher); not the normal high school kid that you were. The Hall of Shame moniker originally came from a category Vyckie suggested for carnival posts back in November. I submitted a few things at that time. The goal was to come up with past writings that reflected our viewpoint back in the day, when we were still believers. I don't really like the us-and-them tone, the disparagement of Christians, or the wide-eyed eagerness to neglect my education for an organization that would mostly exploit me, but no, I don't really think it's deeply shameful. More embarrassing than anything.
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Post by tapati on Feb 28, 2010 22:36:31 GMT -5
In that vein, perhaps it shouldn't be called "Tapati's" Hall of Shame, but rather, a category named Hall of Shame with other contributors, like it was originally conceived. Vyckie? How does that sound? I imagine someone else will have material for it at some point.
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jwr
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Post by jwr on Mar 1, 2010 1:55:49 GMT -5
The Hall of Shame moniker originally came from a category Vyckie suggested for carnival posts back in November. I submitted a few things at that time. The goal was to come up with past writings that reflected our viewpoint back in the day, when we were still believers. I don't really like the us-and-them tone, the disparagement of Christians, or the wide-eyed eagerness to neglect my education for an organization that would mostly exploit me, but no, I don't really think it's deeply shameful. More embarrassing than anything. Ok, now I understand the "Hall of Shame" title. We all have things we're embarrassed about. Speaking of "...neglect[ing] my education...": you would be shocked to know how many young evangelicals/pentecostals etc got (and still get) suckered into attending a one or two year Bible School or "School of Ministry." These are usually connected to a local church and are unaccredited. The diploma isn't even worth the paper and ink used to print it. Years later they look back with deep regret. One friend of mine had all the intelligence and drive to become a doctor but his pentecostal pastor said he was called to ministry; so he did the bible school thing instead. It was a dead-end. Now he's in his late 30s, has changed jobs many times, and utterly loathes himself for not having gone to med school. He lives with constant regret hollowness in his heart about it. I bet a lot of people on this forum have a million such stories. Really tragic and such a waste of human life.
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