BBT Loyalty vs. High Editing Standards

[PADA: Some devotees have wrote to PADA big complaints that Garuda Das is compromised with the BBT editors because he is friends with them and so on. And so we should not be publishing his materials, because that makes us also compromised. Same type thing happened when we posted a letter from a lady who is a disciple of Tamal, and she is complaining about the changed books. 

We should not publish "compromised" people. 

OK well she is writing something that has a lot of heart felt message and impact because, others have not done so? Why does she have to defend the original books, i.e. where are the other writers who should have said something like this 35 years ago? At least she has figured out something that simply passed by unnoticed by many others?  

And wait a minute, the only reason Garuda Das emerged as a figure in this whole situation is -- that others have not come forward to defend the original books the way he has? Its the same thing with PADA. Some people say we are bad, and we are this, that and the other, but we only emerged as lightening rods in this situation because -- others did not step forward and do these expose programs themselves? Why not make a better expose program? 

And its the same thing with the Bangalore program. Some people write to me about how they are doing this thing wrong, and that thing and the other thing, but its the same process; they only emerged as lightening rods because others did not. They may have defects in their program, ok fine, but at least they have a program to comment on? 

Why don't the people busy writing these complaints for 35 years do something better themselves? Writing about how bad Garuda Das, PADA and Bangalore are -- produces no tangible alternate program for the past 35 years? Bangalore made a temple here and its wonderful, so -- why not make something nicer and show us by example? Well, we are not going to do that -- of course!

And this was the same problem we had with the Illuminati-anugas. Oh, PADA is a bogus liar, he says we Illuminati-ites are promoting Hitler. No, we are not! Fine except, the foundation principle of many of the Illuminati-ites is that the Jewish bankers are the heads of the Illuminati? So they wrote all sorts of complaints about PADA, but never explained why they are promoting Hitler-anuga-ness in the first place? 

If they want to be disciples of Hitler, that is fine, but do not comment on Vaishnava programs if that is their main thesis. In other words, we should not simply sit around and criticize Garuda Das, PADA, Bangalore and others, if we have no intention of making something better. A blind uncle is better than none. ys pd]        

BBT Loyalty vs. High Editing Standards

BY: KRISHNA DASA

Jayadvaita Swami and Dravida Prabhu are far more qualified than the average devotee at editing. So it must be frustrating for them to constantly hear criticism from uninformed devotees. They have patiently, over the years, answered many unfair objections. By doing so, they have restored the faith of many devotees in the BBT.

[PADA: Those who think that Krishna's "pure parampara of successors" is filled with common men if not debauchees -- "are more qualified than the average devotee"? OK but any ten year old kid walking down any street in America knows that debauchees are not, were not, could not have been -- God's successors / gurus / acharyas? Why do people keep saying that the promoters of the illicit sex messiahs program are "more qualified" than the average devotee?]  

However, there are also many valid objections coming from the more intelligent members of the Gaudiya community. The BBT strategy is to ignore those objections, or to be economical with the truth. This is understandable as it would be detrimental to BBT book sales if the editors admitted that there are many unjustified alterations to Srila Prabhupada's books.

As the saying goes, "In war, truth is the first casualty". As long as the BBT is competing with KBI (who print the original editions of Srila Prabhupada's books) they will spin the truth so as to bolster their image. This is why they are not happy that Garuda PhD is speaking the truth in public. The BBT prefers to keep the devotees in the dark. They only want a confidential discussion with Garuda Prabhu and are upset that his podcasts have been posted on Sampradaya Sun.

Devotees who believe that Srila Prabhupada's books should only be edited to correct grammatical and spelling mistakes, and that the editing should be of the highest standard should hear Garuda Prabhu's criticism. If on the other hand, one feels loyalty to the BBT then one must settle for second class editing.

The solution to this problem is for the BBT to open up and frankly admit their mistakes. They should trust in Krsna. Their strategy of glossing over mistakes for the sake of protecting books sales is displeasing to intelligent devotees who can see their limitations.

The BBT trustees do not trust anyone else to correct their mistakes and they don't feel that it is either necessary or practical to undergo the big project of undoing the many unnecessary book changes. How sad. We did not ask them to be the via medium to understanding Srila Prabhupada's books. What happened to transparency?

One wonders if they secretly know that they are wrong to "clarify" Srila Prabhupada's words and are simply defending themselves, or whether they genuinely think they have the right to edit Srila Prabhupada's words in order to bring Srila Prabhupada in line with his over all message.

In the long term, the decision to hide from the truth and block attempts to refine the editing process may damage the BBT. The devotee community is more and more waking up to the truth. Would it not be better for sales and more pleasing to Srila Prabhupada if they improve their product?

[PADA: Yes, the BBT editors think that God's successors are often debauchees and so naturally they will want to edit the books to try to twist the meanings of the books into agreeing with their ideas. In any event, we are gaining more and more favorable people all the time, thus it looks like more people are accepting our view in any case. ys pd ]

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