Highly Touted Book Has A Lot Of Mistakes

From: <divyacaksu_b23@heritage...>
Subject: Highly Touted Book Has A Lot Of Mistakes
To: Ananda Marga Discourses <anandamargadiscourses@sunlink.net>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2013 11:01:55

Bábá

Namaskar,

The highly touted, latest edition of Ananda Vacanamrtam Part 11-12 (2008) came out several years back with much fanfare; unfortunately the book is riddled with scriptural distortions. This letter points out grave transcription errors from this AV 11-12 (2008). Although AV-12 has many, many errors, one key distorted paragraph about priest dogma has been discussed in detail below. 

PROOF OF DISTORTION IN BOOK: AV 11-12

Note: An audio file of Bábá's original spoken discourse has been uploaded to our new blogsite. You will see in the upper right corner of the blog page. The file is called “Ticket For Hell”. This sound file is the absolute proof that what is printed in the book is totally wrong. Read below for all the details.

OUR MORAL DUTY

As disciples of Bábá, we should be very strict in preserving the sanctity of His printed discourses. This is our moral duty.

Some may claim, ‘What is the big deal if we change a few words here and there-- that is fine, so long as we keep the gist of what He is saying’. Some may say like this.

But that error-prone approach will not do; it is not acceptable. Because one error leads to another until finally everything is totally ruined. Vigilance is needed from the very beginning.

NOT A GROUPIST ISSUE

Everyone knows that the Tiljala camp is the one printing Bábá's books these days. But here the issue is not who is printing Bábá's books. No one is trying to criticize any group per se. That is not the motivating factor behind this letter.

The issue is that our AM books-- Bábá's teachings-- must be proper, period, no excuses. That is what Bábá wants and that is what this letter is about.

Who can forget those days in Patna when Bábá was harshly scolding and rebuking various wt’s for not recording and printing His discourses. Bábá was furious and set the tone that His discourses must be recorded and printed in a timely and proper way.

So this whole topic goes way beyond any petty group clash. Rather it is an issue of non-compromising strictness and faith regarding the sanctity of Iśťa and Ádarsha.

Without proper scripture then any movement will turn into dogma. That is what happened with all the religions. They put more emphasis on buildings and roads and less emphasis on the accuracy of scripture. In result, all that is left is dogma. We must not let this same fate meet our Márga. We must ensure that Bábá's discourses are 100% accurate. His each and every word must be printed “as is”. That is the only way to safeguard His scripture. Without that, AM will just sink into dogma, marred by one scriptural distortion after another.

THE PROBLEM WITH AV-12

Now then to the problem at hand...

Nearly every discourse in AV-12 (2008) has been terribly distorted in one way or another. Here we are not just talking about skipping over small words like ‘and’ or ‘but’ etc, but rather deep-seeded distortions that affect the very meaning of Bábá's discourse.

Here is one critical example. In the 3rd to last paragraph of the discourse, ‘Everything Comes From Something’ (2 June 1979 evening, Lyon, France), those AMPS publishers wrote it entirely wrong.

THEY WRONGLY WROTE: “And you should never think, ‘Oh, because the priest didn’t issue me any ticket for Heaven, I won’t be able to go to Heaven.’ No, no, no, don’t say that. The priest has no right to issue you a ticket, and who is going to issue you a ticket to Hell? No, no, no, your good actions will bring you closer to Parama Puruśa, and finally you will become one with Him by dint of your sádhaná, by dint of your occult practice.”

Yet see here what Baba really spoke.

BABA ORIGINALLY SPOKE: And you should never think that, “Oh, because the priest didn’t issue any ticket for heaven, that's why I won’t be able to go to the heaven.” No, no, no, no, no don’t think like that. The priest has got no right to issue a ticket of heaven, and who is going to issue him with a ticket for hell? [laughter] No, no, no, no, no your good actions will bring you closer to the Parama Puruśa, and finally you will be one with Him by dint of your sádhaná, by dint of your occult practice.

Note: An audio file of Bábá's original spoken discourse has been uploaded to our new blogsite. You will see it in the upper right corner of the blog page. The file is called “Ticket For Hell”. This sound file is the absolute proof that what is printed in the book is totally wrong.

Note: When Bábá is saying “who is going to issue him with a ticket for Hell?”, then those in the audience started laughing because Bábá's statement is quite humorous. So those who attended that day enjoyed Bábá's talk, but because those words were omitted from the printed discourse, readers are deprived of this gift.

The above is what Bábá originally spoke in English as He was in Europe at the time and this discourse was given 100% in English.

So in Baba’s version, He is pointing out the injustice of the priests and making a joke about how those dogmatic priests should be sent to hell.

BABA SPOKE: “The priest has got no right to issue you a ticket of heaven, and who is going to issue him with a ticket for hell?”

Here Bábá is making a direct statement about how crooked priests have no right to misguide and exploit the people based on the false notions of heaven or hell. Rather, those priests themselves will live in their own hell if they continue to perpetrate crimes against humanity. That is Bábá's essential point.

But the AMPS Publishers changed that very section to make it sound like you the reader, not the priest, is being sent to hell.

THE AMPS PUBLISHERS WROTE: “The priest has no right to issue you a ticket, and who is going to issue you a ticket to Hell?”

So they totally missed the issue of Bábá mocking and attacking that priestly dogma. So their new edition of AV-12 strays far from Bábá's teaching.

Because in His revolutionary way, Bábá is boldly pointing out the dogma of the priest class and bashing and mocking their so-called authority, yet our Publishers changed that section entirely. The Publisher’s version wrongly tells the reader to go to hell--not the dogmatic priests.

And indeed there are numerous errors.

A COMEDY OF ERRORS

In comparing the above two paragraphs, anyone can see that 13 errors of omission and commission have been made in only 4 or 5 lines of text. That means there are 2 or 3 distortions on every line. And it seems the whole book is like that. Yet this recently published AV 11-12 (2008) is the book that some of our respected Dadas are saying is “perfect”, and done ”word-for-word” according to the original cassette. They were assuring Márgiis that there are no errors in this book etc, etc.

But now we can see for ourselves what is going on.

     THE MAIN CRITICAL ERROR: ‘PRIEST IS GOING TO HELL’

And again, the main critical error of this passage is that those publishers distorted the section where Bábá is saying that the priest will go to hell. This is a serious point.

Because AM is against all kinds of dogma, especially religious dogma as that stifles the growth of the whole society. And Bábá is adamantly telling that not only do those priests not have the power to send anyone to heaven, but because of their shams and duplicity those crude priests themselves will go to hell. That is Bábá's dramatic statement.

Yet the publishers missed and distorted this point entirely when printing the latest version of Ananda Vacanamrtam 11-12.

Bábá makes a revolutionary stand against priest dogma and our respected publishers ruined that point.

WHY LIKE THIS

Was the error done deliberately by our publishers-- i.e. The Tiljala camp. Was it a mere oversight-- along with thousands of others? How did it happen? Only we can guess.

But one thing is certain: Since they are so enthusiastic to translate all Bábá's discourses from Bangla, regardless of the original language in which Bábá spoke, perhaps that is the cause of this problem. That is one hypothesis.

Or maybe those Dadas just want to preserve or protect the sanctity of the priest class. Or maybe they are scared of criticizing those priests.

Any or all of the above may be the reason why this horrible distortion was done.

Let us remember that in the recent past, these same publishers deleted the final three paragraphs of the discourse ‘Liberation of Intellect’ (NHNS) where Bábá points out how the dogma of Islam says three females are equal to one male.

STANDARD PROTOCOL

Standard protocol among publishers in the world is that once they learn a book of theirs has not been well produced, they will withdraw the book and fix it, and issue the rectified version as a new edition. But it is unfortunate that our AMPS Publishers do not follow this standard. Even after learning that a book is full of distortion and the general Márgiis are aware, even then they continue selling the same distorted version. Such an approach is quite a spectacle in the world of publications.

BABA’S BLESSING

By Bábá's grace He has given us human life and we should ensure that we preserve the integrity of Bábá's teachings. Here is Bábá's special teaching on this point.

Bábá says, “You have to build up society by your collective efforts. You know when the weaver weaves clothes then rats and termites engage in trying to cut it. So the weaver has to protect the clothes from those rats and termites. In the same way when you are building anything then without any delay various types of “termites” and “rats” will try to destroy that work. You must be careful. Above all those who have a pious motive to build up something, they ultimately get victory. But “rats” and “termites” do not have a pure motive so ultimately getting destroyed is their fate. Just they leave some dirty, ugly mark in the pages of history.”

”By seeing those ugly, black marks, in future people think ‘oh, it seems this was attacked by termites and rats. Oh it appears that the termites and rats which came to attack and destroy this, but instead those rats and termites broke their teeth and got annihilated’.”

”It is the universal law. So as you build up good things, be vigilant to keep sharp eyes all around. Be sure to protect your work from “rats” and ”termites”.”

”In the past females were preparing mango jelly in summer. And to shoe away the crows & to protect the mango jelly, one boy from the house was always standing guard with large stick in his hand and sharp eyes watching for those crows. Same way you should always be alert & vigilant to save your work from termites and rats. Then work will be done...”

”Today again you take oath to build up the earth by your own individual and collective efforts. We have come here to beautify this earth. We will make it so and we will go on doing this our whole life. This will be our main collective vow.” (AV-24 Hindi, p.149).

Namaskar,
Divyacakśu


Note: Many of us know that there are terrible issues with the publication of Bábá's books. Even then it has to be recognized that Dada Acyutanandaji has tried hard since he became part of the Publications team to improve the quality of the books. It is due to his efforts and Bábá's grace that progress has been made. Tragically our dear Dada Acyutanandaji is often in a poor state of health. As our brother and esteemed worker, we are wishing him strength to continue his strong effort to improve upon the publication of our AM books since 1990. Once again, Dadaji has been steadfast in his sincerity since day 1.