The Elephant in the Mandir, Part Two
BY: MAYESVARA DASA (ACBSP)
— A Critique in Three Parts.
The Soul of ISKCON?
Mayesvara das: In the fall of 2015 Bhadri Narayan wrote a serious paper that asks many questions about the soul and direction of ISKCON called: "Who are we and where are we going? A Fight for the Soul of ISKCON". We are all troubled by the issues he raises and now Hridayananda is campaigning for his own interpretation of ISKCON with his drive to present Krishna West propaganda.
BY: MAYESVARA DASA (ACBSP)
— A Critique in Three Parts.
The Soul of ISKCON?
Why isn't he the guru of ISKCON?
Mayesvara das: In the fall of 2015 Bhadri Narayan wrote a serious paper that asks many questions about the soul and direction of ISKCON called: "Who are we and where are we going? A Fight for the Soul of ISKCON". We are all troubled by the issues he raises and now Hridayananda is campaigning for his own interpretation of ISKCON with his drive to present Krishna West propaganda.
[PADA: First of all Hrdayananda's deviations date way back to the early 1980s when it was reported that he was "hanging out with a woman secretary (who has big boobies?)" by a number of people including the BBT's Dravida das. Then he supported Bhavananda -- even after it was reported he was having "homosex in the holy dham."
Hrdayananda was living in Beverly Hills and was known as "swami 90210" for quite a long time, and women were reportedly constantly going in and out of that residence including "Mustang Sally." He was often seen in front of the LA temple surrounded by a dozen women (I am a witness) etc.
He was chastised even decades ago for "not chanting his rounds and attending temple programs." OK he was already living the "Krishna West" program even decades ago. Hrdayananda was known to be supportive of gay marriages and he was often critical of comments made in the Vedas.
He also claims that parts of the Mahabharata are "fictional." Then, he officially launched "Krishna West." There has been a long series of red flags here for decades -- and nothing of substance ever gets done. And this is why the book "Monkey On A Stick" calls the GBC "gutless wonders."
Of course, now the GBC has spent apparently $20,000,000 ($20M) suing the Bangalore devotees, so they can make another temple into a ghost town -- and they have won -- nothing. Not even a paper clip. So this is another example of how they "manage" things. More devotees are getting elderly and they are sick and dying and they need to start a "fund me" site to get medical help, while the GBC pours millions and millions down an endless legal battle rabbit hole.
They spend $20 million dollars and cannot even show us one paper clip as a result of all this expenditure. Srila Prabhupada says, whatever you do -- do NOT waste piles of Krishna's money on lawyers -- like the Gaudiya Matha did and -- big surprise, that is the first thing the GBC does!
So this is a fight for the soul of ISKCON and it looks like the GBC is -- losing the fight, and losing bags of money in the process. Now Mayesvara still seems to think the GBC is doing a good job managing at least some of their crises, but he seems to forget, they are the ones who created these crises in the first place. They start a fire, then act like they are the fire department?]
Hrdayananda was living in Beverly Hills and was known as "swami 90210" for quite a long time, and women were reportedly constantly going in and out of that residence including "Mustang Sally." He was often seen in front of the LA temple surrounded by a dozen women (I am a witness) etc.
He was chastised even decades ago for "not chanting his rounds and attending temple programs." OK he was already living the "Krishna West" program even decades ago. Hrdayananda was known to be supportive of gay marriages and he was often critical of comments made in the Vedas.
He also claims that parts of the Mahabharata are "fictional." Then, he officially launched "Krishna West." There has been a long series of red flags here for decades -- and nothing of substance ever gets done. And this is why the book "Monkey On A Stick" calls the GBC "gutless wonders."
Of course, now the GBC has spent apparently $20,000,000 ($20M) suing the Bangalore devotees, so they can make another temple into a ghost town -- and they have won -- nothing. Not even a paper clip. So this is another example of how they "manage" things. More devotees are getting elderly and they are sick and dying and they need to start a "fund me" site to get medical help, while the GBC pours millions and millions down an endless legal battle rabbit hole.
They spend $20 million dollars and cannot even show us one paper clip as a result of all this expenditure. Srila Prabhupada says, whatever you do -- do NOT waste piles of Krishna's money on lawyers -- like the Gaudiya Matha did and -- big surprise, that is the first thing the GBC does!
So this is a fight for the soul of ISKCON and it looks like the GBC is -- losing the fight, and losing bags of money in the process. Now Mayesvara still seems to think the GBC is doing a good job managing at least some of their crises, but he seems to forget, they are the ones who created these crises in the first place. They start a fire, then act like they are the fire department?]
The New Age movements attract huge followings because they mix some elements of the truth in with all their speculative nonsense. Hridayananda appears to have done the same thing. He is quite astute and offers some good observations, but unfortunately he packages them up in what many have said is a wacky proposal. Krsna West threatens to undermine the purity which has been the true force that makes ISKCON the powerful religious and cultural revolution that Srila Prabhupada intended it to be. Unfortunately, this pattern for building a newer and better ISKCON has been tried several times before.
The Gopi Bhava Club
Even before Srila Prabhupada departed some leaders bonded together in an elite clique that soon became known as the Gopi Bhava Club. It was made up of a select few devotees that met to discuss the intimate pastimes of the gopis, artificially thinking that they can enter into understanding of the gopis prematurely. As soon as Srila Prabhupada found out about it he immediately snuffed it out and chastised his disciples severely for interjecting their own speculative interpretations into his very straightforward and clear instructions. It was an insidious weed that sprouted from the hearts of senior devotees and threatened the creeper of devotion, bhakti-lata bija, so Prabhupada pulled it out strongly.
One would think that should be enough to snuff out that maya for good, but about 15 years later after Srila Prabhupada moved on, the Gopi Bhava Club was resurrected, at least partially due to the association of Narayana Maharaja, who spoke much more liberally about the Gopis' lila than Srila Prabhupada ever felt was appropriate. This time however, the GBC can be credited for disciplining those senior devotees who fell into that trap and sparing the greater devotee community from this deviation which Srila Prabhupada had clearly considered a sahajiyic tendency rooted in the hearts of those who promoted it.
[PADA: This makes no sense? A group of ISKCON's "acharyas" are discussing the gopis, and this is not appropriate? Its not appropriate for acharyas to discuss the gopis? Then we need to fix that deviation, because acharyas who are deviating need to be corrected, censured and disciplined? Acharyas are deviating and need to be disciplined?
Where does Srila Prabhupada discuss this process, when the acharyas deviate -- they will be disciplined? And why would their "discussing the gopis" be a deviation unless the GBC's GURUS are NOT QUALIFIED to discuss this topic. And if they are not qualified to discuss the gopis, why are they being advertised as "assisting the gopis" acharyas?
And -- who will discipline the acharyas?
Oh great, the GBC, Mayesvara, Badrinarayan, Rocana, Torben Nielsen, Ajit Krishna and ilk, they will correct and fix their wayward acharyas. Wait a minute, that would mean these people are SUPERIOR to the acharyas, because they can "discipline" the acharyas. How did this lot become the boss of Lord Krishna's guru successors? And worse, this lot says that the acharyas are post samadi, posthumous and postmortem. All glories to -- the postmortem?
Badrinarayan and ilk also say this all the time as well, we are going to "discipline" the GBC's acharyas when they deviate. Problem is, its an offense to consider that acharyas are deviants; and its an offense to correct the acharyas, and so forth. Badrinarayan is going to "train" his acharyas how to behave, in just the same way my neighbor is training her puppy to behave?
So this is the first problem with these folks -- like Rocana, the GBC, Sridhara Maharaja, Narayana Maharaja, Torben Nielsen, Ajit Krishna, and similar other thinkers, they keep saying (A) God's successors and acharyas are just like our neighbor's foolish puppy dog -- who is digging up another neighbor's garden, because both puppies and acharyas deviate. And then (B) we'll have to "correct" and discipline this bad behavior.
We will train and "rectify" this puppy out of digging holes in the garden and "discipline" this wayward puppy -- by attacking him with a newspaper. And these folks have the same policy with their acharyas. When their acharyas are doing bad things, they will censure, rectify, suspend, monitor and correct them too. Mayesvara thinks acharyas and puppies are on the same level, both need to be disciplined for bad behaviors?
So there you have it! Puppies deviate and have to be corrected, and acharyas ALSO deviate and have to be corrected. Nope. People who are deviating are not acharyas in the first place, hello! And so now they have created a giant GBC management "system" for correcting, suspending, monitoring, removing and training "wayward acharyas," without understanding -- the Lord and His acharyas are not deviating in the first place?
And if a person really is an acharya, why would he accept any managerial body discipline or correcting, at all? A puppy might accept correcting. Whereas the person who is artificially made the messiah -- might not take other's advice and correcting. And isn't this the whole trouble with these guys false acharyas, they do not think they need anyone's advice or correcting? Hee hee, so Mayesvara thinks acharyas are in training and puppies are also in training, no wonder ISKCON is in such a mess!]
==============================
Sridhar Swami of Navadwipa
Sridhar Swami was one of Srila Prabhupada's most beloved Godbrothers. He suffered from several serious medical handicaps but he loved Srila Prabhupada dearly and was one of the few who stepped forward to help him when he asked for it after he came to the West. Shortly after Srila Prabhupada departed, Sridhar was consulted by many concerned devotees in an attempt to sort out all the confusion on how ISKCON should move forward.
[PADA: Sridhara Maharaja believed that the 11 were gurus, despite the rest of us having serious doubts. He said that when these guru deviate we should "wait and see" before we take corrective measures. OK so when your guru is watching football and taking all sorts of psychotropic drugs, we should "wait and see," maybe he'll give that up. Really? And Sridhara Maharaja was the person who said that GBC should vote in more gurus every year at Mayapura, which they introduced.
Sridhara Maharaja is also the original architect, and founder father, of those who said puppies and acharyas are equals, they both need to be disciplined and corrected. Puppies and acharyas are equals? Sridhara Maharaja did not resolve any confusion, he started mass confusion by his saying puppies and acharyas are equals, both need censuring, correcting, disciplining, removing and etc.]
Krishna clearly stated that ALL his devotees are magnanimous souls (Bg 7.18). However, it was not too long before anyone who even mentioned Sridhar's name would might be asked to find a different place to go. This was the first sign that our GBC leadership felt threatened by any outside source even if it happened to be a very exalted devotee of the Lord that Srila Prabhupada clearly trusted and respected greatly.
[PADA: Mayesvara has failed to explain why Sridhara Maharaja supports the idea that acharyas and puppies are equals?]
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======================
The ISKCON Monastery and Prabhupada the Monarch
The next radical deviation to the core ISKCON teachings came shortly after Srila Prabhupada moved on. It was brewed up in the defiant mind of Keith Ham (Kirtanananda) and manifested in the hills of West Virginia at New Vrindavan. He instructed his sycophants to replace the Indian dhoti with the brown robes of medieval Christian monks. He then dressed up the murti of Srila Prabhupada with a royal red robe, and a gold crown modeled to make His Divine Grace look like a king. It was the most ridiculous thing anyone who understood Srila Prabhupada's humble and servitor mood could ever imagine. Fortunately it did not take long for the GBC to act. Shortly after that Keith and his merry band of monk(eys) were all exiled from ISKCON for how shamelessly he embarrassed the reputation of His Divine Grace. After Keith and some of his eccentric followers were hauled off to jail for crazy things like racketeering and conspiring to commit murder, what was left of New Vrindavan was welcomed back into ISKCON!
[PADA: Sorry, it was people like me and Sulochana were waving all sorts of red flags on the New Vrndavana program years before it was raided by the SWAT team. Nothing was done, plain and simple, and they marginalized us and orchestrated killing one of us. Mayesvara handily forgets that the GBC was writing in their Back To Godhead magazine that Kirtanananda is like Jesus, thus they are collectively the ones who made the New Vrndavana nightmare evolve.]
The Ritvik Reaction
Then the Ritviks became alarmed by how many people were victimized after they got initiated by overly zealous individuals who accepted them as disciples but later fell down.
[PADA: That is part of the problem, the real problem is that these overly zealous persons were declared to be acharyas by the rest of the GBC, and then people like Sridhara Maharaja, Narayana Maharaja and others supported the false notion that these people are acharyas. Even a "sort of" follower of Narayana Maharaja admits to PADA recently, well yes, Narayana Maharaja was fooled by Tamal into thinking these people are gurus. The ritviks were not fooled.]
The Ritviks leveraged the faux-pas of those individuals as indirect proof to assert that Srila Prabhupada didn't feel any of his disciples were qualified to initiate disciples into the ranks of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. They preached that His Divine Grace had the extraordinary vision to see how incompetent his disciples were before he moved on.
[PADA: Notice that Mayesvara carefully avoids telling us who is a person who is qualified to be the diksha guru of ISKCON now? He handily makes the vague notion that there is someone to be the guru now, of course he will not tell us "who or whom that is," because then we will realize this is a giant bluff. Srila Prabhupada says persons who do not identify the name of their guru are mayavadas.]
At that point they contend he radically changed the instructions he gave about initiation for over 11 years with a one page highly controversial letter dictated to Tamal Krishna Maharaj on July 9. In that short correspondence, the Ritviks propose that Srila Prabhupada changed the parampara system set up by Krishna in the Gita (Bg. 4.2) and there was absolutely nothing unusual about that because Srila Prabhupada was empowered to change what Krishna established!
[PADA: Established what? Established whom? Established where? Where is the continued parampara that Mayesvara alleges is now existing? Krishna establishes that there should be a no-named, non-existing phantom guru who has no name, no books, no temples etc.? Srila Prabhupada and Krishna established that there is a phantom guru out there somewhere who has no apparent actual existence?
Srila Prabhupada was empowered to make -- zero -- successor gurus, who do not exist? Mayesvara is basically saying there is a current guru, but he is a little like the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, he cannot really be seen by anyone. And Ajit Krishna, Torben Nielsen, Rocana, all of these people are the same, they say there is a current guru out there somewhere, but they cannot name who he is. So they worship a phantom, whereas at least the ritviks can identify their guru, his books, temples, devotees and etc.]
Narayana Maharaja
Those who took shelter of Narayana assert [without evidence] that he was appointed by Srila Prabhupada to carry on and lead his disciples into the future after His Divine Grace departed. Yet some of those individuals became just as openly antagonistic to the welfare of ISKCON as the most militant of the Ritviks. This led to a complete breakdown of good will in the Vaishnava community that should have been avoided but wasn't, to the disgrace of all parties.
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Sexist Language & Female Gurus
More recently women have objected to some of the language that Srila Prabhupada used in his books and for a while there was a campaign to have all of those clauses rewritten using more politically correct language. Now there is a huge debate regarding whether or not it is appropriate for women to accept disciples. Once again it appears everyone's intentions are also good, but that is obviously not an acceptable criterion for deciding such delicate issues. One thing that is evident, however, is that while this debate rages on it will further divide the Vaishnava community and may lead to yet another group defecting from ISKCON proper.
[PADA: OK well the GBC has a lot of these people in their midst and they do not officially remove them, for years together?]
Sexual Distractions and Personal Preferences
Those who are attracted to the same sex are also becoming more vocal about wanting to know where their place is within Lord Chaitanya's sankirtan movement. Will ISKCON acknowledge their plea, or will we exile them to the social equivalent of the leper colony? At the end of the day, sex that is not exclusively for the purpose of bearing a Krsna conscious child is distractive and inappropriate no matter how it is practiced.
[PADA: OK Tripurari swami and Hrdayananda are the leaders of the homosexual acceptance and homosexual marriage program, but we simply think this is not the way forward. Homosexuals and for that matter bi-sexuals and heterosexuals need not advertise their sexual behaviors in and around Krishna's program, that is their private business and should be kept that way. Its not something we need to meditate on. Meanwhile, because the ritviks do not believe homosexuals are or were acharyas, they are banned.]
The Wild West and Krishna Whoppee!
Now Hridayananda claims he was appointed by Srila Prabhupada to "Use His Intelligence"to devise ways to make Lord Chaitanya's mission acceptable to the masses in the Western world. He apparently feels that the program Srila Prabhupada set up has failed and therefore justifies the interjection of the radical changes he has concluded will fix it. His apology to the GBC, published by Sampradaya Sun on Jan 15, sounds very prim and proper… but I am sure I am not the only one to notice that nowhere in his apology does Hridayananda say he intends to back off from his radical ideas.
[PADA: He has had these radical ideas for years and nothing was ever done.]
We can only assume he remains intent about stripping the Vaishnava culture out of the Hare Krishna movement. So all his letter really says is: "I am sorry I got caught and called my Godbrothers a bunch of morons. I'll be more careful not to do that in the future if the GBC will no longer pose any objections to my revolutionary ideas about changing the dress, the food, and everything "Indian" about the Hare Krishna movement." I.e.: Politics as usual.
I have my doubts regarding ISKCON management being able to resolve all of these divisive issues to the satisfaction of those who raise them. When the Ritvik revolution began I suggested that perhaps ISKCON could make some accommodation for those who wanted to take shelter of Srila Prabhupada's mercy until they felt comfortable surrendering to one of his disciples for diksha initiation. Perhaps those individuals would never do so in this life, but had the GBC offered a way to accommodate those with the Rtvik sentiment we might have been able to prevent the huge conflict that now exists between that community and ISKCON.
[PADA: OK so we should take shelter of the GBC's illicit sex guru sampradaya? Why should we even have to be bothered with that bogus program? Why can't people take shelter of the acharya?]
It later became obvious that there was nothing the GBC could do because it was Krishna Kanta who boldly asserted that he would not tolerate ANY aspect of the traditional parampara system.
[PADA: OK so the GBC asserts that acharyas are most of the time falling into debauchee behaviors, and Mayesvara et al. are saying that is "the tradition"?]
He showed no goodwill and made no effort to cooperate on all the other things Vaishnavas readily agree on. It was Krishna Kanta's stubborn unilateral demands that forced the fracturing that has since led to a lot of unnecessary strife and ill will among the Vaishnava community.
This is the real tragedy and as new challenges come up, we should all strive to learn from this how to avoid similar breakdowns in the future. Despite our various minor differences we can remain bonded as one Vaishnava sanga to protect mother Bhumi and her inhabitants from New Age nonsense, Neo-Advaita sophistry, Buddhist voidism and the other demoniac forces of Kali in general.
[PADA: Except Mayesvara is worse than a Buddhist voidest, at least they have a guru namely Lord Buddha. He says we have to take shelter of a guru, -- who does not exist. He says we need to follow the tradition and accept a current guru, but he does not name the guru who is current, so he would rather have people worship zero than worship Prabhupada.
And Mayesvara and his pals say we are bogus Christians who want Prabhupada to be worshiped like Jesus is worshiped. And why is that such a bad thing? At least the Christians can name their guru? ys pd]
The Gopi Bhava Club
Even before Srila Prabhupada departed some leaders bonded together in an elite clique that soon became known as the Gopi Bhava Club. It was made up of a select few devotees that met to discuss the intimate pastimes of the gopis, artificially thinking that they can enter into understanding of the gopis prematurely. As soon as Srila Prabhupada found out about it he immediately snuffed it out and chastised his disciples severely for interjecting their own speculative interpretations into his very straightforward and clear instructions. It was an insidious weed that sprouted from the hearts of senior devotees and threatened the creeper of devotion, bhakti-lata bija, so Prabhupada pulled it out strongly.
One would think that should be enough to snuff out that maya for good, but about 15 years later after Srila Prabhupada moved on, the Gopi Bhava Club was resurrected, at least partially due to the association of Narayana Maharaja, who spoke much more liberally about the Gopis' lila than Srila Prabhupada ever felt was appropriate. This time however, the GBC can be credited for disciplining those senior devotees who fell into that trap and sparing the greater devotee community from this deviation which Srila Prabhupada had clearly considered a sahajiyic tendency rooted in the hearts of those who promoted it.
[PADA: This makes no sense? A group of ISKCON's "acharyas" are discussing the gopis, and this is not appropriate? Its not appropriate for acharyas to discuss the gopis? Then we need to fix that deviation, because acharyas who are deviating need to be corrected, censured and disciplined? Acharyas are deviating and need to be disciplined?
Where does Srila Prabhupada discuss this process, when the acharyas deviate -- they will be disciplined? And why would their "discussing the gopis" be a deviation unless the GBC's GURUS are NOT QUALIFIED to discuss this topic. And if they are not qualified to discuss the gopis, why are they being advertised as "assisting the gopis" acharyas?
And -- who will discipline the acharyas?
Oh great, the GBC, Mayesvara, Badrinarayan, Rocana, Torben Nielsen, Ajit Krishna and ilk, they will correct and fix their wayward acharyas. Wait a minute, that would mean these people are SUPERIOR to the acharyas, because they can "discipline" the acharyas. How did this lot become the boss of Lord Krishna's guru successors? And worse, this lot says that the acharyas are post samadi, posthumous and postmortem. All glories to -- the postmortem?
Badrinarayan and ilk also say this all the time as well, we are going to "discipline" the GBC's acharyas when they deviate. Problem is, its an offense to consider that acharyas are deviants; and its an offense to correct the acharyas, and so forth. Badrinarayan is going to "train" his acharyas how to behave, in just the same way my neighbor is training her puppy to behave?
So this is the first problem with these folks -- like Rocana, the GBC, Sridhara Maharaja, Narayana Maharaja, Torben Nielsen, Ajit Krishna, and similar other thinkers, they keep saying (A) God's successors and acharyas are just like our neighbor's foolish puppy dog -- who is digging up another neighbor's garden, because both puppies and acharyas deviate. And then (B) we'll have to "correct" and discipline this bad behavior.
We will train and "rectify" this puppy out of digging holes in the garden and "discipline" this wayward puppy -- by attacking him with a newspaper. And these folks have the same policy with their acharyas. When their acharyas are doing bad things, they will censure, rectify, suspend, monitor and correct them too. Mayesvara thinks acharyas and puppies are on the same level, both need to be disciplined for bad behaviors?
So there you have it! Puppies deviate and have to be corrected, and acharyas ALSO deviate and have to be corrected. Nope. People who are deviating are not acharyas in the first place, hello! And so now they have created a giant GBC management "system" for correcting, suspending, monitoring, removing and training "wayward acharyas," without understanding -- the Lord and His acharyas are not deviating in the first place?
And if a person really is an acharya, why would he accept any managerial body discipline or correcting, at all? A puppy might accept correcting. Whereas the person who is artificially made the messiah -- might not take other's advice and correcting. And isn't this the whole trouble with these guys false acharyas, they do not think they need anyone's advice or correcting? Hee hee, so Mayesvara thinks acharyas are in training and puppies are also in training, no wonder ISKCON is in such a mess!]
Puppies need to be disciplined, and so do acharyas?
==============================
Sridhar Swami of Navadwipa
Sridhar Swami was one of Srila Prabhupada's most beloved Godbrothers. He suffered from several serious medical handicaps but he loved Srila Prabhupada dearly and was one of the few who stepped forward to help him when he asked for it after he came to the West. Shortly after Srila Prabhupada departed, Sridhar was consulted by many concerned devotees in an attempt to sort out all the confusion on how ISKCON should move forward.
[PADA: Sridhara Maharaja believed that the 11 were gurus, despite the rest of us having serious doubts. He said that when these guru deviate we should "wait and see" before we take corrective measures. OK so when your guru is watching football and taking all sorts of psychotropic drugs, we should "wait and see," maybe he'll give that up. Really? And Sridhara Maharaja was the person who said that GBC should vote in more gurus every year at Mayapura, which they introduced.
Sridhara Maharaja is also the original architect, and founder father, of those who said puppies and acharyas are equals, they both need to be disciplined and corrected. Puppies and acharyas are equals? Sridhara Maharaja did not resolve any confusion, he started mass confusion by his saying puppies and acharyas are equals, both need censuring, correcting, disciplining, removing and etc.]
Krishna clearly stated that ALL his devotees are magnanimous souls (Bg 7.18). However, it was not too long before anyone who even mentioned Sridhar's name would might be asked to find a different place to go. This was the first sign that our GBC leadership felt threatened by any outside source even if it happened to be a very exalted devotee of the Lord that Srila Prabhupada clearly trusted and respected greatly.
[PADA: Mayesvara has failed to explain why Sridhara Maharaja supports the idea that acharyas and puppies are equals?]
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======================
The ISKCON Monastery and Prabhupada the Monarch
The next radical deviation to the core ISKCON teachings came shortly after Srila Prabhupada moved on. It was brewed up in the defiant mind of Keith Ham (Kirtanananda) and manifested in the hills of West Virginia at New Vrindavan. He instructed his sycophants to replace the Indian dhoti with the brown robes of medieval Christian monks. He then dressed up the murti of Srila Prabhupada with a royal red robe, and a gold crown modeled to make His Divine Grace look like a king. It was the most ridiculous thing anyone who understood Srila Prabhupada's humble and servitor mood could ever imagine. Fortunately it did not take long for the GBC to act. Shortly after that Keith and his merry band of monk(eys) were all exiled from ISKCON for how shamelessly he embarrassed the reputation of His Divine Grace. After Keith and some of his eccentric followers were hauled off to jail for crazy things like racketeering and conspiring to commit murder, what was left of New Vrindavan was welcomed back into ISKCON!
[PADA: Sorry, it was people like me and Sulochana were waving all sorts of red flags on the New Vrndavana program years before it was raided by the SWAT team. Nothing was done, plain and simple, and they marginalized us and orchestrated killing one of us. Mayesvara handily forgets that the GBC was writing in their Back To Godhead magazine that Kirtanananda is like Jesus, thus they are collectively the ones who made the New Vrndavana nightmare evolve.]
The Ritvik Reaction
Then the Ritviks became alarmed by how many people were victimized after they got initiated by overly zealous individuals who accepted them as disciples but later fell down.
[PADA: That is part of the problem, the real problem is that these overly zealous persons were declared to be acharyas by the rest of the GBC, and then people like Sridhara Maharaja, Narayana Maharaja and others supported the false notion that these people are acharyas. Even a "sort of" follower of Narayana Maharaja admits to PADA recently, well yes, Narayana Maharaja was fooled by Tamal into thinking these people are gurus. The ritviks were not fooled.]
The Ritviks leveraged the faux-pas of those individuals as indirect proof to assert that Srila Prabhupada didn't feel any of his disciples were qualified to initiate disciples into the ranks of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. They preached that His Divine Grace had the extraordinary vision to see how incompetent his disciples were before he moved on.
[PADA: Notice that Mayesvara carefully avoids telling us who is a person who is qualified to be the diksha guru of ISKCON now? He handily makes the vague notion that there is someone to be the guru now, of course he will not tell us "who or whom that is," because then we will realize this is a giant bluff. Srila Prabhupada says persons who do not identify the name of their guru are mayavadas.]
At that point they contend he radically changed the instructions he gave about initiation for over 11 years with a one page highly controversial letter dictated to Tamal Krishna Maharaj on July 9. In that short correspondence, the Ritviks propose that Srila Prabhupada changed the parampara system set up by Krishna in the Gita (Bg. 4.2) and there was absolutely nothing unusual about that because Srila Prabhupada was empowered to change what Krishna established!
[PADA: Established what? Established whom? Established where? Where is the continued parampara that Mayesvara alleges is now existing? Krishna establishes that there should be a no-named, non-existing phantom guru who has no name, no books, no temples etc.? Srila Prabhupada and Krishna established that there is a phantom guru out there somewhere who has no apparent actual existence?
Srila Prabhupada was empowered to make -- zero -- successor gurus, who do not exist? Mayesvara is basically saying there is a current guru, but he is a little like the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, he cannot really be seen by anyone. And Ajit Krishna, Torben Nielsen, Rocana, all of these people are the same, they say there is a current guru out there somewhere, but they cannot name who he is. So they worship a phantom, whereas at least the ritviks can identify their guru, his books, temples, devotees and etc.]
Narayana Maharaja
Those who took shelter of Narayana assert [without evidence] that he was appointed by Srila Prabhupada to carry on and lead his disciples into the future after His Divine Grace departed. Yet some of those individuals became just as openly antagonistic to the welfare of ISKCON as the most militant of the Ritviks. This led to a complete breakdown of good will in the Vaishnava community that should have been avoided but wasn't, to the disgrace of all parties.
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Sexist Language & Female Gurus
More recently women have objected to some of the language that Srila Prabhupada used in his books and for a while there was a campaign to have all of those clauses rewritten using more politically correct language. Now there is a huge debate regarding whether or not it is appropriate for women to accept disciples. Once again it appears everyone's intentions are also good, but that is obviously not an acceptable criterion for deciding such delicate issues. One thing that is evident, however, is that while this debate rages on it will further divide the Vaishnava community and may lead to yet another group defecting from ISKCON proper.
[PADA: OK well the GBC has a lot of these people in their midst and they do not officially remove them, for years together?]
Sexual Distractions and Personal Preferences
Those who are attracted to the same sex are also becoming more vocal about wanting to know where their place is within Lord Chaitanya's sankirtan movement. Will ISKCON acknowledge their plea, or will we exile them to the social equivalent of the leper colony? At the end of the day, sex that is not exclusively for the purpose of bearing a Krsna conscious child is distractive and inappropriate no matter how it is practiced.
[PADA: OK Tripurari swami and Hrdayananda are the leaders of the homosexual acceptance and homosexual marriage program, but we simply think this is not the way forward. Homosexuals and for that matter bi-sexuals and heterosexuals need not advertise their sexual behaviors in and around Krishna's program, that is their private business and should be kept that way. Its not something we need to meditate on. Meanwhile, because the ritviks do not believe homosexuals are or were acharyas, they are banned.]
The Wild West and Krishna Whoppee!
Now Hridayananda claims he was appointed by Srila Prabhupada to "Use His Intelligence"to devise ways to make Lord Chaitanya's mission acceptable to the masses in the Western world. He apparently feels that the program Srila Prabhupada set up has failed and therefore justifies the interjection of the radical changes he has concluded will fix it. His apology to the GBC, published by Sampradaya Sun on Jan 15, sounds very prim and proper… but I am sure I am not the only one to notice that nowhere in his apology does Hridayananda say he intends to back off from his radical ideas.
[PADA: He has had these radical ideas for years and nothing was ever done.]
We can only assume he remains intent about stripping the Vaishnava culture out of the Hare Krishna movement. So all his letter really says is: "I am sorry I got caught and called my Godbrothers a bunch of morons. I'll be more careful not to do that in the future if the GBC will no longer pose any objections to my revolutionary ideas about changing the dress, the food, and everything "Indian" about the Hare Krishna movement." I.e.: Politics as usual.
I have my doubts regarding ISKCON management being able to resolve all of these divisive issues to the satisfaction of those who raise them. When the Ritvik revolution began I suggested that perhaps ISKCON could make some accommodation for those who wanted to take shelter of Srila Prabhupada's mercy until they felt comfortable surrendering to one of his disciples for diksha initiation. Perhaps those individuals would never do so in this life, but had the GBC offered a way to accommodate those with the Rtvik sentiment we might have been able to prevent the huge conflict that now exists between that community and ISKCON.
[PADA: OK so we should take shelter of the GBC's illicit sex guru sampradaya? Why should we even have to be bothered with that bogus program? Why can't people take shelter of the acharya?]
It later became obvious that there was nothing the GBC could do because it was Krishna Kanta who boldly asserted that he would not tolerate ANY aspect of the traditional parampara system.
[PADA: OK so the GBC asserts that acharyas are most of the time falling into debauchee behaviors, and Mayesvara et al. are saying that is "the tradition"?]
He showed no goodwill and made no effort to cooperate on all the other things Vaishnavas readily agree on. It was Krishna Kanta's stubborn unilateral demands that forced the fracturing that has since led to a lot of unnecessary strife and ill will among the Vaishnava community.
This is the real tragedy and as new challenges come up, we should all strive to learn from this how to avoid similar breakdowns in the future. Despite our various minor differences we can remain bonded as one Vaishnava sanga to protect mother Bhumi and her inhabitants from New Age nonsense, Neo-Advaita sophistry, Buddhist voidism and the other demoniac forces of Kali in general.
[PADA: Except Mayesvara is worse than a Buddhist voidest, at least they have a guru namely Lord Buddha. He says we have to take shelter of a guru, -- who does not exist. He says we need to follow the tradition and accept a current guru, but he does not name the guru who is current, so he would rather have people worship zero than worship Prabhupada.
And Mayesvara and his pals say we are bogus Christians who want Prabhupada to be worshiped like Jesus is worshiped. And why is that such a bad thing? At least the Christians can name their guru? ys pd]
