New Pope Clings to Simplicity
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Sep 21, 2016
Marcia Beloved 3 years ago
Can he maintain his simple Jesuit lifestyle as he assumes his high Vatican post?
Will he be effective if he ignores the centuries long trappings of power, influence and intrigue that historically characterize the high office of Catholics and the Vatican?
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Sooner or later the power may go to his head. He may be a saint or maybe he is a part-saint but in any case, the position carries a certain power with it, and once you accept it unless you can exert absolute power over the power of the position, it will carry you away.
Being humble has nothing to do with it, if underneath it is something that you desired all along, something which you considered yourself fit to be because of your humility expertise.
The desire is there in his psyche. This is why providence pushed him into the throne room. Providence said to him at that moment,
“They think you are humble. They feel you would be the ideal person for this corrupt position. You had that hidden desire all long. Now that will be exposed. They will all know that you had this burning desire to be the one, to be the mirror image of St. Peter. Here you go.”
And with one push he was pushed into the throne room but then there was the stage fright so he ran back-stage and wanted to find a corner to hide.
It is not going to work. There will be demands placed on him. He will have informers and controllers around him. His whole psychological make-up will be affected.
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We have the situation of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita where he wanted to act in a saintly way on the battlefield. But that can’t happen because the battlefield is all about running an efficient slaughter house.
I think it was Baba Ram Das one of America’s new definitions for what a Guru is. He said something to the effect that
DESIRE IS A TRAP
The trap is that once you desire something, providence makes note of it and begins to set forces into motion to give you that, whatever it is, in the future. So if what you desire is impractical, then providence does not care about that. That becomes your headache when the desire is manifested in a very distorted way which may not fit your actual needs but which you will find was thrust into your face.
I have spent my whole life running from desires and running from popularity. Fame is the sure way to be controlled by desires, mine and others.
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When I was in New Vrindavan, just a week before I left the place, when Kirtanananda Swami was having the heat of the FBI chase after him, I got a message to see him. He knew what he did and he had some idea that the Feds were on his trail and had evidence. So mentally the guy was very lonely. I mean he was smiling but deep inside he was feeling that something went terribly wrong with what he was doing and that it would be ruined shortly.
It is like when a test pilot climbs into the cockpit of a new aircraft which was never tested. The guy is going to be famous for life. Just to be in a position of having to pilot that thing is overwhelming emotionally. He gets the aircraft off the ground and it climbs way up until it passes the previous altitude records. But as soon as he reaches that highest altitude, then he hears a small explosion somewhere in the air craft. “O shit,” he thinks. “My ass is fried. I have both fame and death in one circumstance.”
Kirtanananda was genuinely happy. He was the most famous sannyasi in his guru’s society. He did everything better than anyone else over all, but………some things were done in the wrong way.
So I got this message that I was to see him at his place. At the time he had moved up near the Palace of Gold which he built to honor Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami. The place where he lived in a house there, was lined with many roses plants which were in bloom at the time when I got there. The whole place smelled like rose petals.
I got in there and as is customary, I offered my respect to him by laying my body down on the floor as they do in that society.
So he looked at me and smiled. This was after we were at logger heads because he had told me to attend the board meetings and when I would say something he would put it down immediately and establish that he was guru and nothing should be said which contravened his instruction. I remember clearly who was in the board meets, they were all Prabhupada’s disciple who was technically, Kirtanananda’s God-brothers. I was the only one there who was his disciple. Hansadutta was just disgraced because he was found with two German women in an ashram in a shower in the nude. He was there by the side with an authority/no-authority look on his face.
So it was just me and Kirtanananda. He smiled but it was the sort of last smile that a person could make just before they face the fire squad.
He said to me, “Take sannyasi. Go to Cleveland. Run the temple there.”
I did not reply to him. I left soon after. I realized at the time that this was an ultimatum.
Kirtanananda knew then that he would not be there very soon because the Feds would arrest him. Some of his inside men who knew what they knew were talking to the Feds and their evidence would be conclusive enough to put him away for good.
He was telling me to do this sannyasi thing and take control of the Cleveland temple so as to put me into a position of authority. If he got arrested it would not matter because I would have the authority and the rest of the sampradaya would be forced to accept me once I went through the ceremony.
So here is an example where I dodged desire and killed providence’s offer for the fulfillment of the desire.
Hence this pope is trapped because if he was really resistant to fame, then he would have backed out already. The fact that he did not have the power to back out initially means that he is not strong enough to stop the manifestation of desires which are in his psyche.
And this is not a criticism of Pope Francis. This is a statement of desire-fact which pertains to any and everybody.
I had an initiation ceremony a few days ago. Eomeone might think that I am into that, into being somebody’s guru. Into being a religious official. But actually I am not attracted to it. And why?
Because I know the whole story about it. Read my book Spiritual Master.
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This is not to say that the initiation ceremony was done half-heartedly. It was not done in that way, because I did it under the authority of Swami Shivananda who is deceased.
On my own no such ceremony is required. I can do whatever I should or am purposed to do, without the ceremony.
Marcia Beloved 3 years ago
The trap is that once you desire something, providence makes note of it and begins to set forces into motion to give you that, whatever it is, in the future.
The example you give of your desire to be a sannyasi and then refusing it later when it is actually offered, is very encouraging and inspiring.
It speaks to me like this: I may have many desires now and many desires from previous lives. Even though I have nurtured a multitude of desires, if I reach a point of clarity through spiritual discipline and meditation, I can discriminate as to which fulfillments I should accept. I do not have to be chained hand and foot to all of my treasured desires IF I develop the discriminating insight. It all hinges if I practice enough and reach a high enough level of detachment and dispassion whereby I possess the power to refuse fulfillments.
