Rocana on the "Direction of Management," Part 11

Direction of Management, Part 11

BY: SUN STAFF

Aug 01, 2019 — CANADA (SUN) —

Ritvik Strategy: DOM & ISKCON Inc.

It has now been 43 years [at time of first writing] since the DOM was issued. For about half of that time, 22 years, the Direction of Management was relatively unknown except to those ISKCON leaders who had become aware of it at the time of its issuance. Although it had not been included in the 1990 version of Folio 2.0, in 1992 the DOM was included in that year's Vedabase release. In "The GBC Was the "Enemy", Roupa Manjari devi wrote [31]:

"The document was basically unknown and unread (what to speak of obeyed) until 1992, when my husband found it online in the Vedabase. No one knew what it was or if it had any significance in particular, but when my husband found it, it seemed to him like accidentally discovering a diamond mine. From that day onward, he propagated awareness of the DOM, to the point that it has now (in 2012) become known and read by practically everyone in the Krishna Consciousness Movement."

[PADA: Right, there are many instructions that ISKCON should be managed, by managers, and that means they cannot be telescoped to the post of acharya. There are simply no examples in shastra of ANY GBC / Rocana scheme of acharyas being "managed by a committee," being voted in by committee and etc. 

Worse, Rocana's dismantling the committee idea -- is making bogus acharyas who are promoting bogus Radhanath books and etc. Again! There is no such thing as conditioned souls managing the acharya? And worse, Rocana cannot even produce a committee that manages anything properly, because he has his bogus maverick independent acharyas sprinkled into his committee.]

As we have demonstrated throughout this series, today the DOM has not only come to the attention of most devotees, but is largely misunderstood, due to the campaign of misinformation and propaganda put forward by leading DOM proponents. Now being heralded by many devotees as the new 'silver bullet' solution for fixing ISKCON, this misunderstood and misrepresented DOM is being promoted by members of the Ritvik community and those calling themselves 'Prabhupadanugas'.

[PADA: Yes, but GBC / Gaudiya Matha / Rocana's idea of making conditioned souls into "acharyas -- managed by the committee" is never going to work. What works? -- whether its in a Church council or a corporation -- is a managerial body. And the DOM "Direction of Managing" is simply one more tool in that tool box. The idea was that there would only be a managerial body, and not a guru process, and that was ALWAYS clear whether we ever heard of the official legal DOM or not.

There are thousands of churches all over the San Francisco area, and they are all "managed" by a committee of church elders and their priests. Their process is monitored by the Church's elders, committees / Church councils and so on, and that is why they are functioning with relative success. I am not really sure how anything can function without some sort of board of direction, managerial committee, council of elders, or something along those lines? Is Rocana saying there is no need of a managerial board, we need his living gurus instead?] 

The current strategy being employed by Ritvik leaders is to distance themselves from the label 'Ritviks' by re-branding as the 'Prabhupadanugas'. Simultaneously, many have been distancing themselves from the stigma of Ritvikism by disassociating from the now defamed and defeated manifesto, "The Final Order" [32], instead re-branding themselves as proponents of the DOM under the umbrella of ISKCON Inc.

[PADA: OK except the idea that Srila Prabhupada should be the acharya is far from being defeated? Rather we keep getting more people on board with the idea, including that we have a nice Prabhupada program right on Rocana's doorstep in Vancouver. Its expanding, not being defeated?]

And this is where the story gets interesting…

ISKCON Inc. is the short name of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. -- the original ISKCON entity personally incorporated by Srila Prabhupada in New York in 1966. That incorporated entity is at the center of the Long Island lawsuit, a battle going on for years now between the GBC/ISKCON and the break-away Ritvik faction in New York who have gained control of Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON Inc. [See our comments on this lawsuit in Part One of this series.]

[PADA: Hardly no one really cares if Long Island wins or loses this lawsuit. Its not a legal issue really. Many / most people simply want to worship Srila Prabhupada because they feel he is the only person qualified to be worthy of their worship. They really do not care primarily about the outcome of various legal wrangling among entities.]

For years, we had been under the impression that this lawsuit was essentially being fought over the Long Island temple, which had come under control of a group of board members under Ritvik leadership. But in fact, the lawsuit is being fought over control of the ISKCON Inc. corporation, whose assets extend far beyond the Long Island temple property or the GBC's rights to control the congregation.

This fact was not some great secret being kept… the information was a matter of public record, some of which has appeared in Sun articles submitted by Nimai Pandit das over the course of his reporting on the Long Island lawsuit. The rest of the information has been on public record in the form of the ISKCON Inc. incorporation documents, which we had never seen. Prior to reading them, we didn't make the connection between the Long Island temple and the ISKCON Inc. corporation, which is the real prize being fought for in the New York courts.

In January 2013 we began to carefully study the situation when we came to understand that devotees were using Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON Inc. to proliferate Ritvik-vada. By employing the DOM, with the assistance of Nara Narayana Viswakarma dasa, they crafted a combined ISKCON Inc. / DOM presence as a way to rally disenfranchised devotees around a new flag. This flag was not overtly flying the 'Ritvik' colors, but rather the 'Prabhupadanugas' identity.

Peddling misrepresented versions of both the DOM and ISKCON Inc., these devotees have been simultaneously moving towards a unifying constitution. While the predictable in-fighting has gone on, with key personalities moving from one Ritvik sub-camp to another as alliances shift, a worldwide campaign continues on in which 'Prabhupadanuga' centers and devotees are being convinced to unite under the DOM / ISKCON Inc. umbrella.

Over the course of our lengthy exchange with Nara Narayana and Roupa Manjari, we heard a grandly convoluted explanation about where, exactly, their loyalties lie in all this. They have both defended and defamed Ritvik-vada and those who consider themselves Ritviks. We discussed with them their DOM / ISKCON Inc. alliances with Ritviks / Prabhupadanugas, and we heard their denials about having any such alliances. 

We will present the highlights later, at the end of this series, in a summary profile of the personalities who are promoting this scheme to sell the ISKCON Inc. vehicle, which is being pushed along on the wheels of Ritvik-vada and the DOM, both of which have been welded onto Srila Prabhupada's corporation.

[PADA: OK so Srila Prabhupada said many times there should only be a managerial body. And he said we should not produce false gurus. What difference does it make if any of this is "legally established" in Long Island or not? Most devotees we are working with want to worship the acharya, they are not that interested in the results of lawsuits in karmi courts.] 

Why is this issue important?

Because if the Long Island lawsuit is lost by the GBC / ISKCON, then Srila Prabhupada's 1966 ISKCON Inc. -- which both the BBT Trust Agreement and the Mayapur-Vrindavan Trust Agreement refer to -- will remain under Ritvik control, and all non-Ritvik temples could potentially be prevented from enjoying certain benefits in association, particularly with the BBT Trust.

And if the GBC / ISKCON wins the Long Island lawsuit, then the movement will likely have to live with a legal precedent that establishes the GBC as the ecclesiastical authority of ISKCON -- a designation that could have far reaching legal ramifications that will affect all devotees wishing to associate themselves with the ISKCON name.

This is a complex matter. We will do our best to present the information as clearly as possible, and we will provide copies of the legal documents so individuals can study them and arrive at their own conclusions. Suffice to say, we find the situation serious enough to have warranted this lengthy commentary.

[PADA: What is really having far ranging impact is that thousands of devotees are now worshiping Srila Prabhupada, totally independent of the GBC and official legal ISKCON. These folks don't really care a hill of beans if the GBC officially wins the claims to the property of ISKCON or not, because they do not participate in ISKCON and rarely if ever attend GBC programs. 

Nor do they worship the GBC's gurus, nor do they recommend GBC's gurus to their friends and family. Most of them also want to read original books as well. In sum, they are divorced almost totally from the GBC's guru process.

They also already know that ISKCON has had to declare itself bankrupt and the temples are largely evolving now as Hindu hodge podge / Yoga classes / Bhagavat Sapta / Demigod worship / Car pooja / Hindu wedding programs, which they are not interested in. I myself saw that one GBC follower, a speaker who lectures in their temples, has on his site advertisements for RAMA KRISHNA mission, so they are going that way and most of our people have no inclination for that direction.

If these Prabhupada people have been defeated in Rocana's "Church of Ritvik" paper, then Rocana has to explain why this program keeps expanding and we keep getting more people asking us about this all the time? And if we are not going to have Srila Prabhupada as the acharya managed by a committee process, then what does Rocana propose is the alternate? He never says? ys pd]

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Srila Prabhupada -

"Love is reciprocal, voluntary, good exchange of feeling. Then there is love. NOT by force! Krishna does not want to become a lover like that, ‘You love me, otherwise I shall kill you!"

July 8, 1976.

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

Guru-kripa – “Why does Krishna allow us to enter the material world?”

Srila Prabhupada – “Because you have got little independence, therefore you can violate. You are part and parcel of God, you have little independence, that has to be accepted but we can misuse that. Krishna-bahirmukha haïä bhoga väïchä kare. That MISUSE is the cause of our falldown”.

Conversation, Mayapur,

February 19, 1976.
Is the Spiritual Master no different than his photo? (from 1972)

1 - Form is called "vapu"

2 - Teachings are called "vāṇī"


Srila Prabhupada - "Next you ask if I am present in my picture and form? Yes. In form as well as in teachings. To carry out the teachings of guru is more important than to worship the form, but none of them should be neglected. Form is called "vapu" and teachings is called "vāṇī". Both should be worshiped. Vāṇī is more important than vapu''.

Letter to Tuṣṭa Kṛṣṇa:

Ahmedabad

14 Dec 1972.

A photo of Srila Prabhupada was on the Altar in Nairobi when he was there in 1975, so a devotee asked the question -

"Is there any difference between picture and murti form of the Spiritual Master?"

Devotee - "You said that if we made a marble image of you and offered food to it, you would not accept it. So…"

Srila Prabhupāda - "Hm?"

Brahmānanda - "In your lecture you said that someone who offers food to a statue of yourself…"

Srila Prabhupāda - "He is not statue, but people think statue. He is Kṛṣṇa Himself. But because we cannot see Kṛṣṇa at the present moment, therefore He appears like a statue".

Brahmānanda - "His question… You stated that a statue of yourself is not the same as you, and yet in some of our temples, such as Vṛndāvana, the mūrti of Your Divine Grace has been installed and they are offering prasādam. So is it the same, that the prasādam is accepted by the guru?"

Srila Prabhupāda - "Yes. Sākṣād-dharitvena samasta-śāstraiḥ. Guru is nondifferent from Kṛṣṇa. That is accepted by all the śāstra.

Sākṣād-dharitvena samasta śāstraiḥ. Sākṣād-dharitvena samasta-śāstrair uktaḥ: It is said,” tathā bhāvyata eva sadbhiḥ, “and those who are advanced devotees, they accept it like that.” Kintu prabhor yaḥ priya eva tasya:

"But the guru’s position is the most confidential servant.”

So guru is the servant God, and Kṛṣṇa is the master God. Both of them are God, servant God and master God. Guru kṛṣṇa kṛpāya pāya bhakti-latā-bīja

[Cc. Madhya 19.151].

So we have to serve both the servant and the master. Through the servant, we go to the master".

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.28.18

Nairobi, October 27, 1975