Bhakti Vijnana Swami "Another Retired Guru"?

Bhakti Vijnana Swami and Radhanath 

Bhakti Vijnana Goswami was born in Tashkent, former Soviet Union. He took to spiritual life in 1980, during a difficult time during the communist era in the former Soviet Union, when the National Security forces were harassing any type of spiritual practitioner. Despite these obstacles, Bhakti Vijnana Goswami—a scientist, a Moscow State University graduate and postgraduate student at Institute of Molecular Biology—decided to experiment with the Hare Krishna mantra. 

To his great happiness, it moved him profoundly. He is a disciple of Radhanath Swami and resides primarily in Moscow, Russia, working tirelessly towards the building of a monumental temple there. He travels widely throughout Russia sharing Krishna Consciousness.

Since 1997 Bhakti Vijnana Goswami has acted as a member of ISKCON’s Governing Body Commission and since 2005 has served as one of the initiating gurus of ISKCON. His zonal responsibilities include Georgia (CIS) and Israel. He serves as co-zonal secretary for Eastern and Western Siberia, Northwest CIS, Ural Region, Moscow, Southern, Central Region, CIS, Golden Ring, Armenia, Far East and also co-GBC for North and South Korea.

On July 1, 2010 the Council for Public Awards of the Russian Federation awarded Bhakti Vijnana Goswami a medal “for professional and business reputation” third degree, “for his contribution in strengthening Russian-Indian friendly relations, and for his contribution to the popularization of the spiritual-cultural literary heritage of India.”

[PADA: OK wait a minute, he thinks he is like Jesus and he can be a diksha guru and absorb sins? Then he wonders why he "feels exhausted"?]

(Translated -- so there might be some errors)

Dear Vaishnavas,

Please accept my obeisances. All Glories To Srila Prabhupada!

The last two months were very difficult for me. The tension over the past weeks has been superimposed upon my chronic fatigue, accumulated over some years now. And all of this has led to my complete nervous and physical exhaustion - the state in which I now reside. Similar, although not as severe, this is the condition I had occasionally before. Now it is much more severe. 

Short breaks helped me to recover a little, but my recovery was never complete. Even during the recovery periods of resting, a sense of duty did not allow me to fully retire. Now, however, the situation is much more serious, so the senior Vaishnavas recommended me to take an extended vacation for an indefinite period and to depart my management role. My communication with the outside world during this period will be reduced to an absolute minimum. My body and mind are in need of a complete rest and recuperation.

I really hope for your understanding and support this.

It is difficult to say how much time I will need, but I will not be able to participate in any programs planned for the coming months. As for the more remote scheduled dates, they are also open to question. Dina-Caitanya will contact the organizers of all planned programs, we will look at how to minimize undesirable consequences of this decision.

My condition forces me to look differently at what I was doing all this time. For many years I often acted against my real nature, being forced to deal with management issues. According to Krishna, it is dangerous for us and can lead to complete exhaustion. Just the opportunity to talk about the philosophy of Krishna consciousness has saved me all this time. 

I love diving into the Scriptures, to talk about Krishna and to help people, but management is not my strength, although the role of manager constantly demanded me to act this way. Some time ago I wanted to pass this responsibility on to the younger devotees. I now feel a deep need to drastically take a more natural position, more appropriate to my abilities. At the same time, I am very grateful to Srila Prabhupada and senior Vaishnavas because they have given me the opportunity to serve - albeit imperfectly - for the mission.

I also feel a very deep gratitude to the devotees, with whom I share bonds of a joint service. I want to believe that by taking a more natural position, I can continue to help them, but not as a manager. So I can do the most good. Support from devotees has helped and I hope that this decision will also be accepted. I think that my more or less retirement and change of my role will help many young, talented devotees to more fully demonstrate their abilities in serving the mission of Srila Prabhupada and take on more initiative and more responsibility.

Take this opportunity to apologize to all the devotees who I wittingly or unwittingly offended or hurt. Relationship with the vaiṣṇavas is the most dear thing in my life.

Your servant, BV Goswami.

===========================

[PADA: Not really sure what you folks are managing? 

For starters, Radhanath destroyed New Vrndavana by his encouraging the criminal regime of Kirtanananda there. And this created a huge criminal scandal for the entire movement worldwide, as these crimes were reported in the news media. And now you folks managed to bury the sexual predator Kirtanananda in the holy dham? Is this management we need?

Your folks are spending $$$ millions of dollars in Dallas after being sued for your child abuse program; 

Your folks (headed by Radhanath) are spending perhaps $20 million dollars suing the Prabhupadanugas in India; 

Your folks are now being charged with criminal contempt in the Bangalore court -- which we are told -- your folks will spend more millions defending your criminal agents; 

Your folks (headed by Radhanath) got a lawyer to block us from getting our books from the printers; 

Your folks are being taken to the Attorney General in New York for hi-jacking the Brooklyn temple; 

Your folks are being charged by a number of ex-kulis with current mis-management of the Vrndavana gurukula, which is apparently still committing abuse, and which was recently involved in a student drowning there, in part because allegedly -- proper funds were not being used to maintain the facility and hire proper people. 

Where is your managing?

The new people will not be able to "take over" and start managing properly, as long as your program is still blocking them, and you folks are still taking control of the over arching management. All of these lawsuits are the result of your folks blocking practical people who wanted to see things managed properly.     

And worse, you are claiming to be a diksha guru who can absorb sins like Jesus is also doing. Srila Prabhupada said we neophytes will fail (have nervous and physical break downs?) if we try to act as sin absorbing messiahs. Who told you its a good idea to imitate Jesus? Of course you will fail. Long overdue! 

And now you will simply join the ranks of many other retired GBC's gurus, like Bhagavan, Satsvarupa, Hrdayananda, Jayapataka, Harikesha, Ramesvara, Hansadutta, Bhavananda, Jayatirtha, Kirtanananda, Ravindra Swarup, Prithu, and many more, who have "retired from management" -- after you folks promoted fools as your acharyas and ruined the lives of countless people, and ruined the ISKCON movement in the process. 

You make a big mess, then retire? How is that helping? You should not retire, you should fix the mess you made first, then retire. Anyway, now you folks have created yet another deviation, the retired acharya's syndrome, more foolishness on top of foolishness. Anyway, have a good rest, you will need it, because you will carry the accumulated sins of your followers along with you into many future lifetimes, and you will have a lot of work to do in the coal mines of the lower planets working off all this karma. 

It is forbidden for us neophytes to act as a diksha guru and accept karma, this is rule no. 1 for us neophytes. We cannot violate these rules and expect a smooth ride, that will never happen, rather the ride will be very bumpy. Surrender all your assets and followers to Srila Prabhupada, and this might save you somewhat. ys pd]