GBC meeting 2023

GBC Meeting, 2023

BY: NAGAR BEHARI DAS

Radhakantananda das: Look, Maharaja, I realize that I am the youngest member here. But you asked me to participate because you said that the GBC had grown stale, outdated, tired and self-serving. Those were your very words. I was reluctant to join considering the implications of becoming a part of a body that has been despised as much as this one. I spoke to you frankly, but you insisted, and I appreciate the efforts of the new GBC to turn it around, to go back to Srila Prabhupada's standard. 

Things have changed since the old guard was forced out due to the direct action of devotees all over the world who were sick and tired of being exploited. So when you said that the GBC needed fresh blood to move away from stagnation and corruption, I came forward to serve the devotees. So please let me speak and if you don't agree, then say so. Are we afraid to express ourselves? I thought those days were over. Prabhupada said about his beloved disciples, "Just learn to engage them." And that is exactly what the previous GBC did not do with their banishments, ex-communications, now-defunct law book and general cold shoulder to those who were the Society's essence, the devotees.

Gouravani devi dasi: Look at it this way, without devotees you do not have a society. And without a society what is the use of GBC? Our power is derived from serving them, and from the Founder-Acharya, not the other way around. So it is about time to listen to the voice of reason and cultivate a little love and trust. Isn't compassion supposed to come with the territory of being a Vaishnava?

Ram Purushottam das: Right, Mataji, but a lack of warmth was the standard policy of the previous GBC. Except, of course, towards themselves. History records that child molesters were maintained and even worshipped as gurus while the families of the children were swept aside so that our illustrious predecessors could strut about with titles like GBC Emeritus. Many sincere disciples were used as cash cows by GBC personalities who destroyed their own initiates by investing their disciples' hard earned money in fruitless and bankrupt businesses. Gurus married or seduced their own disciples or children of disciples. Dozens of Gurukula kids grew up feeling abused and abandoned, and then committed suicide.

Gouravani devi dasi: Yes, I know, Prabhu. That is how my father died when he was forty-one. When he took his own life, in the note he left behind he wrote about how he could never understand why the GBC-guru who molested him retained a leading position in the society until his last days on this earth, while my grandmother who bore him was forced to live in a car.

Radhakantananda das: I heard that one GBC set up a credit card machine next to a Deity of Goddess Durga, right in front of Radha and Krishna. Prabhupada said, "call a spade a spade" and that is exactly what we should be doing here. It's our job, our duty. The GBC that was just ousted famously ignored the needs of the individual devotees who comprised the heart and soul of the society. It was Srila Prabhupada's order from 1972 that devotees should become qualified for Bhakti Shastri, Bhakti Vaibhava, Bhaktivedanta and Bhaktisarvabhauma. To this day despite the dedication, renunciation and scholarship of thousands of ISKCON members, not one Bhakti Sarvabhouma has been recognized. It is as though the past GBC care little about preaching, about what Prabhupada desired or the salvation of fallen conditioned souls.

Gouravani devi dasi: What to speak of their own Godbrothers and sisters…In fact, in those days there was more emphasis placed upon mundane college degrees than devotional qualifications. It was as though the Society's failures in the ‘80's could be rectified if devotees just went back to college and got jobs. Devotees who received PhD's were constantly touted as the most advanced on the official ISKCON GBC website.

Ram Purushottam das: Right, Mataji, the same website that conveyed the message that book distributors were inferior to academic mental speculators. My grandfather, who you all know was an original GBC member, said that this fever for material degrees got so far out of hand that devotees from the Bhaktivedanta Institute were just eager to sip tea with famous scholars and were scared to even mention Bhagavad Gita As It Is. Many GBC's used their positions to write their own books full of watered down compromises and pretended to preach from them. One even went on a World Peace Tour, even though Prabhupada said quite bluntly that lasting peace does not exist anywhere in the material world.

Gouravani devi dasi: I even have a set of books I call "The Compromise Collection",which ISKCON's leaders substituted for Prabhupada's encyclopedic works. You wouldn't believe the self-serving compromises in books like Servant of the Servant, Many Moons, Spiritual Warrior, Journey Home, Pilgrim's Progress and Bhagavad Gitas by Kirtanananda or Tripurari. Or the hundreds of volumes of Vyasa Puja books written and offered to ordinary conditioned living entities, many of whom absconded from ISKCON with large amounts of cash and new girlfriends. If you want to see what was wrong with ISKCON's leadership in black and white, come visit my library. These books stand as proof that our old guard placed their ambitions before the concept of serving Shri Guru. Did you know that in college towns wherein devotees taught Hinduism, that street sankirtan was even prohibited by the GBC?

Ram Purushottam das: There were even plans uncovered in 2014 to build a GBC Hall of Fame, modeled after the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cincinatti.

Radhakantananda das: As they say, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." And with no checks or balances, it was as though some of our illustrious predecessors thought they could sweep their crimes of sexual abuse, child molestation, embezzlement and other serious offenses under the rug forever and continue to send the bill to their disciples. They thought that they could get away with it forever until…

Bhakti Devashraya Swami: …Until the creation of the Internet.

Bhakti Prabhava Swami, Chairman: Prabhus, let's call it quits for lunch, shall we?

Bhakti Devashraya Swami: Oh, good idea. What's on our menu today?

Bhakti Prabhava Swami, Chairman: That would be whatever prasadam the other devotees are honoring downstairs in the prasadam hall: dal, rice and chappatis. Sadhu sanga, anyone?