Suhotra Swami Discusses ISKCON's Sridhara swami
[From the early 2000s.]
Suhotra Swami:
I had a long and intimate talk with Sridhar Maharaja yesterday. He is one of my Godbrothers with whom I can reveal my mind in confidence. He jokingly says it is because our initials are the same, "SS." In many ways he and I have the same mind about a lot of things. For example, he resigned from the GBC a few years ago, just as I resigned this year. His "excuse" for resigning is that he has a liver condition that endangers his health.
And that is true. Twice he went into a coma from this condition.
[PADA: Notice that none of these folks warned their GBC friends that taking karma as diksha gurus will make them get sick, or even die? That is not even a problem for these folks. Their fellow gurus are getting sick, falling down, going cracker pots, and even dying from taking karma, but that is never mentioned as a problem here or anywhere else that we can find?
Even when their "good friends" get sick, fall down, and die, they never warn their dear brothers that taking karma might cause their falling, sickness, even death. If you loved someone, especially when they awoke from a coma, you'd maybe try to tell them to avoid doing things that would put them into another coma?
That never seems to happen. Just go ahead, take more and more karma, and -- die. And go to hell carrying this boat load of karma with you. Great advice! And ISKCON goes down the tubes by making pretend you guys are another Jesus who can absorb sins, when clearly you cannot and everyone knows that. It discredits the movement.]
But now he is doing better, has lots of energy, travels around the world, preaches, and his major project is to raise funds to build the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium in Sridham Mayapur. It is to this project that he has dedicated the rest of his life.
[PADA: OK but Sridham Mayapur is the headquarters of the bogus GBC's annual meetings. And it is thus the place where their deviated "GBC resolutions" are created every year, for example where they produce documents saying that its common for Krishna's successor gurus to be deviants.
Its also a place where Radhanath, Jayapataka, Bhavananda, Nitai chand, Satadhanya, Bhavananda's bucket boy Hari Sauri -- and many other deviants congregate. And recently some abuse victims said they were experiencing PTSD from seeing Dhanurdar swami strutting around and using the MVT building there, and so on. We are not supposed to support simply making bricks and stones buildings, we need to support places that preach the right siddhanta.]
But his liver sickness is not the deepest reason for his resignation from the GBC. He told me he used to be "a company man." That is an expression that refers to a man who totally identifies with the company he works for, who is unquestioningly loyal to the management. But after 10 years or so on the GBC, after seeing how the Governing Body Commission of ISKCON works from the inside, he began to have questions.
[PADA: Wow, so it took Sridhara swami 10 years to figure out that all the banning, beating, molesting, lawsuits, police raids, assassinations, multiple failures of the GBC's messiahs, ad infinitum, is the wrong road for ISKCON. Meanwhile! The Berkeley police here knew ISKCON was on the wrong road almost right away -- when they had to raid the temple and Berkeley farm for theft of credit cards, illegal gun sales etc. and they had to make a series of felony arrests at the temple. Why is it that the police are more advanced than these "senior men"?]
Sridhara Swami sees that too much institutionalization stifles the spontaneous enthusiasm that Srila Prabhupada liked to see in his disciples. But at the same time Maharaja remains an ISKCON man. He quit the GBC feeling that his participation on that Body was not very fruitful, but he continues to work for ISKCON as Prabhupada taught him. He does not point a finger of blame at anyone.
[PADA: Well there you have it, all the banning, beating, molesting, lawsuits, police raids, assassinations etc. should not be blamed on any of the perps and factual crooks. This stuff just happens by accident all over the place? Saying "no one is to blame" for all these deviations is a cover up for the deviants.
Its worse than that, if no specific criminal action is linked to any specific criminal, then the ISKCON institution as a whole is forced to take the blame and has to suffer the results of -- police raids, lawsuits, bad publicity, guru scandals, murders, and so on. There is no individual accountability, so the Krishna society as a whole takes the blame, and suffers as a result (as it has). Is it not that if no one else is to blame, then ISKCON is to blame?
There are tens of thousands of specific victims, but no specific perps? Then we wonder why the post-1978 ISKCON gurus process has been branded as "antinomianism" (lawless in the name of religion) by my friend Dr. J. Stillson Judah. He also told me to "watch your back" because these people are dangerous and will resort to criminality in a heartbeat.
Yet: not one specific person or persons are to be blamed for causing all this mayhem, its just happening willy nilly -- randomly -- or by Krishna's arrangement (as some fools have argued with us as the cause). Many devotees argued with me that there is not cause for alarm, I just have to accept Krishna's arrangement -- and thus Krishna is arranging for ISKCON to be overtaken with criminals and to develop a criminal reputation in the public media. That is their idea of "Krishna's arrangement." OK its a cop out to avoid taking responsibility. And it is tossing ISKCON under the bus.]
After all, the GBC is made up of devotees who are also trying to serve Srila Prabhupada and Krishna. Their service in the difficult and controversial area of management of the Society is sure to be problematic.
[PADA: This is utter foolishness. We do not manufacture acharyas and then "manage them." There is no such thing as having a GBC committee to vote in over 100 acharyas and then legislate, advise, manage, censure, monitor, suspend and remove acharyas for deviations. None of this is found in Vedic culture. The only good news is, they admit that "managing" their huge bunch of renegade acharyas is "problematic," but yet they also admit they caused the problem themselves by voting in these acharyas from square one. They created their own Frankenstein false guru monster. If they are creating all this trouble, how are they the guru successors to God?]
Yes, they do make mistakes. I recall so clearly the meeting at which they made Harikesha Prabhu the GBC chairman for 3 years straight. The Body was completely convinced that this would help solve many of ISKCON's long-standing problems. But Prabhupada had clearly established that a GBC chairman may only hold office for one year. Within half a year, Harikesh Prabhu not only left his post as GBC chairman, but left his position as ISKCON guru, BBT Trustee, and sannyasi. Indeed, he left the Society itself.
[PADA: OK so now acharyas make mistakes, fall down, bloop out, and acharyas should only be in office for one year, and so on. Where do any of these rules apply to acharyas?]
Since then he has been an advocate of New Age-ism. His dropping out of ISKCON left a good portion of the Society in chaos. At the time the GBC voted him into 3-year chairmanship, I abstained from casting a vote because I sensed a big mistake was being made. And I was right.
[PADA: The GBC are a group of something like 80 acharyas, and they are voting in other acharyas who are not qualified, and this is creating chaos. Of course, if we certify unqualified people as God's successors, we have to expect total chaotic results. This happens nearly every time a conditioned soul is artificially elevated to the post of messiah of the Jagat, he cannot keep up the false show. Why would 80 acharyas vote in bogus people as their co-acharyas?]
But who doesn't make mistakes?
[PADA: OK here we go, the acharyas are Krishna's successors, they speak only as Krishna dictates, therefore -- their words are full of mistakes. Of course making conditioned souls into acharyas is not "a mistake," its a highly calculated and organized GBC process and anyone who objects is treated viciously.]
Even Srila Prabhupada once said, "You can finds faults in me too" (that is to say, if you are the type of person who looks for faults in others to explain away your own faults.) But that isn't healthy psychology; it is a process of the mind that is called projection, in which one projects deficiencies inside himself upon others.
"I can't get along with this devotee because he gets too angry," one may argue; but all that means is that you have anger inside yourself to begin with, and your anger is rubbing against his, causing friction. As Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati said, "Because my vision is so honeycombed with faults, wherever I look I see only faults." We must all find a way go on trying to serve Guru and Krishna despite the faulty nature of our collective conditioned existence. And we must avoid the offense of criticizing Vaishnavas.
[PADA: Neophytes posing as acharyas are destined for the most obnoxious regions of the universe, and their society is destined to fail. Why should we not point out that this is going to cause major problems for ISKCON?]
I feel exactly the same way as Sridhara Maharaja does about institutionalization. I too used to be a company man; I used to think that all of ISKCON's problems are "manageable." But as we saw Lord Krishna Himself explain in a verse I quoted in the last Transcendental Psychology essay, so-called external problems are really internal problems.
[PADA: Sridhara Maharaja created false gurus in 1936, and he endorsed the GBC's 11 bogus gurus after 1978, and this process ruins institutions. The subsequent banning, beating, molesting, lawsuits and assassinations are the same problems he created after 1936. And Suhotra agrees with Sridhara Maharaja, we should rubber stamp conditioned souls as acharyas? This is not a problem with institutions per se. There are huge institutions and giant corporations all over the planet, and none of them are anointing conditioned souls as God's successor gurus, and they are thus managed quite nicely as a result.]
A disciple once started to ask a question of Srila Prabhupada, that "If devotees are transcendental, then..." Prabhupada cut him off: "Devotees are trying to be transcendental!" The members of the GBC are no exception. They are trying to be transcendental, but as I have personally seen, many of the problems they are trying to solve are problems they created themselves in the first place. So-called external problems are really internal problems. You can't manage away anomalies that are inside of you.
[PADA: If the GBC are making their own problems, then that means they are deviating from the process given by Krishna.]
To see this truth, which is explained by Krishna himself to Uddhava, is not to be offensive to the GBC or to any devotee manager. And it is not to say that there should be no management in ISKCON whatsoever, just some smiley walking-on-clouds spiritual anarchy. Management in ISKCON is necessary; Srila Prabhupada made no doubt about that. However, to be loyal and respectful to ISKCON management does not mean to ignore or dismiss as unimportant those areas, those qualities, of Krishna consciousness that management cannot actually manage!
[PADA: For conditioned souls to manage acharyas is a non-starter. There is no instruction for a committee of neophytes to manage the acharyas.]
For example, how can your taste for hearing and chanting the holy name of Krishna be managed? Now, it is true that we can manage to get ourselves into the temple in the morning, and manage to get our hands in the beadbag, and manage to perform 16 rounds of japa. But that doesn't guarantee you will chant good rounds with rapt attention. Still, there is a connection between good management of the circumstances of chanting on the one side, and taste for chanting on the other. Srila Prabhupada indicated this nicely in these words:
"There is a English proverb that "God helps him who tries to help himself." That is a English proverb. So to become Krishna conscious is not very difficult thing. People have no taste. They do not understand the importance of this Krishna consciousness movement. But this is the only way by which one can become perfect and happy."
Maybe you did not catch the point Prabhupada is making here. It is that even though people have no taste and thus cannot understand the importance of Krishna consciousness, God will help them if they help themselves. Thus "to become Krishna conscious is not very difficult thing." We "help ourselves" by trying to manage our spiritual activities nicely.
We don't have taste, but we should try to get it. We don't understand, but we should try to. This is what sadhana-bhakti is all about. Still, in the final analysis, whatever we do or don't do, the taste "by which one can become perfect and happy" comes to us by the grace of God.
In the practice of sadhana-bhakti, we realize that this grace becomes more apparent in our lives as we try to help ourselves attain it. So because there is a connection between God's help (His mercy) and our helping ourselves (by nicely managing our devotional activities), it may seem that if we are not getting that taste, then it is a problem of management.
Well, certainly if we lack taste in Krishna consciousness, something has come up between ourselves and Krishna. But is that "something" really only just external management -- our temple president for example, or the GBC? Has anyone ever had the experience that just by blaming the management as being bad their taste for chanting the holy name improves?
In reply to that question, someone may reasonably answer, "No, of course not. That's not the way. Let's not talk about blaming anyone. But we have to take steps to create a pure atmosphere in which we can try our best to make advancement and thereby attract the Lord's mercy."
That is a good answer. But ... even if we do that, the mercy of the Lord that we attract by our efforts may manifest in a way we don't expect. Maharaja Bharata nicely "managed" to leave his throne and go to the forest to cultivate his taste for Krishna consciousness. But God arranged that he became attached to a deer instead. Not that God forcibly attached his mind to the deer, but He made the arrangement by which Maharaja Bharata's latent material attachments came up in his heart to focus upon the deer. The result was that even though he had attained the exalted state of bhava-bhakti, Maharaja Bharata had to take birth as a deer in his next life.
But while he was in that deer body, the Lord permitted him to remember his previous life's devotional service. And so, as a deer, Maharaja Bharata took to hearing about Krishna with the greatest urgency. Then he was blessed with the full measure of higher taste. Thus after giving up that deer body, he became the spiritually famous Jada Bharata. Obviously, Krishna's plan for delivering His devotee and Maharaja Bharata's own plan for getting himself delivered were a little different!
We are not being offensive to the principle of good management in ISKCON by reflecting upon these truths that are so plainly stated in Srimad-Bhagavatam.
Offenses are created by the way we express ourselves, and by the way we act. If we express anger and frustration and act impetuously (i.e. in the mode of passion), denouncing other devotees for faults that we ourselves carry in our own hearts, then we commit offenses.
[PADA: Yep, we cannot criticize specific criminals and criminal action, we have to let ISKCON as a whole take the blame for all this. We cannot criticize individuals, so instead -- we blame "the institution" (ISKCON). This means, we save the criminals and toss ISKCON under the bus (which they did).]
We should persevere. This word means "to persist in or to remain constant to a purpose, an idea, or a task in the face of obstacles or discouragement." I personally find institutionalization discouraging.
[PADA: OK institutions are the problem, not the criminals mis-using the institution. We save the criminals, and sink the institution.]
So by other's discouraging, I was forced, by a condition of depression, to resign from the GBC.
[PADA: Wow, so by association with the GBC's 80 something gurus, this causes discouragement and depression. This is the result of association with 80 "pure devotees from Vaikuntha." And what happened after these guys resigned, well nothing, they did not really try to fix these issues. Instead, they started to blame ISKCON as an institution for their depression, instead of blaming the people who caused their depression.
Notice that the problem according to them is Srila Prabhupada's mission, not the people mis-using the mission. As a few ex-kulis told PADA, these guys like Suhotra, Ramesvara, Harikesh, Hansadutta, Jayatirtha, Bhagavan, Bhavananda, Satsvarupa etc. destroyed the mission and then just resigned and walked away taking no responsibility for the mess they made for the lives of others, or for the mess they made of ISKCON. Tough luck suckers! And then the society had to declare bankrupt to avoid paying its victims.]
But I remain constant in my purpose as a disciple of Srila Prabhupada and as a servant of his Society. It is a question of finding the position and service for yourself in which you can best persist.
[PADA: Serving the society -- by saying institutions are not important according to Sridhara Maharaja of the Gaudiya Matha, so we can destroy the mission to save the crooks who hi-jacked it from prosecution and responsibility.]
There is another state of mind called obstinacy. It can look a lot like perseverance. But obstinacy is defined as: "the state or quality of being stubborn or refractory." Refractory means "to be resistant to authority." Therefore it is said: "The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't."
Another English saying is, "Where there is a will, there is a way." Conversely, where there is a won't, there isn't a way. If we look at the ISKCON institution only in terms of "I won't," then there is a good chance we won't find our way back to Godhead.
"I won't surrender to these power-hungry ISKCON managers! I won't tolerate their hypocrisy! I won't listen to their classes, which are just the same old dry preaching over and over! I won't obey their instructions, I won't cooperate with them, I won't associate with them!" This insistent "won't" is just a weed in the heart choking the life of the devotional creeper.
[PADA: So we need to follow a process that causes the leaders like Suhotra and Sridhara swami to be depressed and resign? And to get sick, and die prematurely from taking sins? And both of them are now departed, after people sometimes wrote to pray for their GBC guru who is sick from taking sins. Why would God want to save people who are making pretend they are another Jesus who can absorb sins?]
Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of; they just turn up some of the ill weeds on to the surface.
Anyway, I so much appreciate Sridhara Maharaja's mood. He has realized that management can't solve our most fundamental problems in Krishna consciousness.
[PADA: Sridhara Maharaja was the person who said we should vote in a whole bunch of more acharyas, that caused the society to fail even faster.]
Only Krishna can do that. And Krishna does that in His own way, according to His own plan, because He is independent and supreme and all-powerful, and charmingly clever, too. But Maharaja does not take Krishna's supremacy over all as an excuse to be obstinant towards management. Rather, Maharaja perseveres. He has a strong will, not a strong won't. And thus he continues to go forward. Seeing his example, many devotees are inspired in their own spiritual lives. I am one of them...
I pray, pray, pray to Sri Sri Jagannatha-Sudarshana that what I am experiencing here in my talks with Godbrothers like Sridhara Maharaja, Keshava Bharati Maharaja, Bhaktividya Purna Maharaja, and Prabhupada Prabhu, is the start of a spiritual revolution. I feel incredible spiritual nourishment whenever I get the mercy of their association.
[PADA: Well all that happened was the you guys tossed ISKCON under the bus to save these creepy guys like Bhakti Vidya Purna swami, Bhavananda, Hari Sauri and all the rest of these corrupt folks. ys pd]
[From the early 2000s.]
Suhotra Swami:
I had a long and intimate talk with Sridhar Maharaja yesterday. He is one of my Godbrothers with whom I can reveal my mind in confidence. He jokingly says it is because our initials are the same, "SS." In many ways he and I have the same mind about a lot of things. For example, he resigned from the GBC a few years ago, just as I resigned this year. His "excuse" for resigning is that he has a liver condition that endangers his health.
And that is true. Twice he went into a coma from this condition.
[PADA: Notice that none of these folks warned their GBC friends that taking karma as diksha gurus will make them get sick, or even die? That is not even a problem for these folks. Their fellow gurus are getting sick, falling down, going cracker pots, and even dying from taking karma, but that is never mentioned as a problem here or anywhere else that we can find?
Even when their "good friends" get sick, fall down, and die, they never warn their dear brothers that taking karma might cause their falling, sickness, even death. If you loved someone, especially when they awoke from a coma, you'd maybe try to tell them to avoid doing things that would put them into another coma?
That never seems to happen. Just go ahead, take more and more karma, and -- die. And go to hell carrying this boat load of karma with you. Great advice! And ISKCON goes down the tubes by making pretend you guys are another Jesus who can absorb sins, when clearly you cannot and everyone knows that. It discredits the movement.]
But now he is doing better, has lots of energy, travels around the world, preaches, and his major project is to raise funds to build the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium in Sridham Mayapur. It is to this project that he has dedicated the rest of his life.
[PADA: OK but Sridham Mayapur is the headquarters of the bogus GBC's annual meetings. And it is thus the place where their deviated "GBC resolutions" are created every year, for example where they produce documents saying that its common for Krishna's successor gurus to be deviants.
Its also a place where Radhanath, Jayapataka, Bhavananda, Nitai chand, Satadhanya, Bhavananda's bucket boy Hari Sauri -- and many other deviants congregate. And recently some abuse victims said they were experiencing PTSD from seeing Dhanurdar swami strutting around and using the MVT building there, and so on. We are not supposed to support simply making bricks and stones buildings, we need to support places that preach the right siddhanta.]
But his liver sickness is not the deepest reason for his resignation from the GBC. He told me he used to be "a company man." That is an expression that refers to a man who totally identifies with the company he works for, who is unquestioningly loyal to the management. But after 10 years or so on the GBC, after seeing how the Governing Body Commission of ISKCON works from the inside, he began to have questions.
[PADA: Wow, so it took Sridhara swami 10 years to figure out that all the banning, beating, molesting, lawsuits, police raids, assassinations, multiple failures of the GBC's messiahs, ad infinitum, is the wrong road for ISKCON. Meanwhile! The Berkeley police here knew ISKCON was on the wrong road almost right away -- when they had to raid the temple and Berkeley farm for theft of credit cards, illegal gun sales etc. and they had to make a series of felony arrests at the temple. Why is it that the police are more advanced than these "senior men"?]
Sridhara Swami sees that too much institutionalization stifles the spontaneous enthusiasm that Srila Prabhupada liked to see in his disciples. But at the same time Maharaja remains an ISKCON man. He quit the GBC feeling that his participation on that Body was not very fruitful, but he continues to work for ISKCON as Prabhupada taught him. He does not point a finger of blame at anyone.
[PADA: Well there you have it, all the banning, beating, molesting, lawsuits, police raids, assassinations etc. should not be blamed on any of the perps and factual crooks. This stuff just happens by accident all over the place? Saying "no one is to blame" for all these deviations is a cover up for the deviants.
Its worse than that, if no specific criminal action is linked to any specific criminal, then the ISKCON institution as a whole is forced to take the blame and has to suffer the results of -- police raids, lawsuits, bad publicity, guru scandals, murders, and so on. There is no individual accountability, so the Krishna society as a whole takes the blame, and suffers as a result (as it has). Is it not that if no one else is to blame, then ISKCON is to blame?
There are tens of thousands of specific victims, but no specific perps? Then we wonder why the post-1978 ISKCON gurus process has been branded as "antinomianism" (lawless in the name of religion) by my friend Dr. J. Stillson Judah. He also told me to "watch your back" because these people are dangerous and will resort to criminality in a heartbeat.
Yet: not one specific person or persons are to be blamed for causing all this mayhem, its just happening willy nilly -- randomly -- or by Krishna's arrangement (as some fools have argued with us as the cause). Many devotees argued with me that there is not cause for alarm, I just have to accept Krishna's arrangement -- and thus Krishna is arranging for ISKCON to be overtaken with criminals and to develop a criminal reputation in the public media. That is their idea of "Krishna's arrangement." OK its a cop out to avoid taking responsibility. And it is tossing ISKCON under the bus.]
After all, the GBC is made up of devotees who are also trying to serve Srila Prabhupada and Krishna. Their service in the difficult and controversial area of management of the Society is sure to be problematic.
[PADA: This is utter foolishness. We do not manufacture acharyas and then "manage them." There is no such thing as having a GBC committee to vote in over 100 acharyas and then legislate, advise, manage, censure, monitor, suspend and remove acharyas for deviations. None of this is found in Vedic culture. The only good news is, they admit that "managing" their huge bunch of renegade acharyas is "problematic," but yet they also admit they caused the problem themselves by voting in these acharyas from square one. They created their own Frankenstein false guru monster. If they are creating all this trouble, how are they the guru successors to God?]
Yes, they do make mistakes. I recall so clearly the meeting at which they made Harikesha Prabhu the GBC chairman for 3 years straight. The Body was completely convinced that this would help solve many of ISKCON's long-standing problems. But Prabhupada had clearly established that a GBC chairman may only hold office for one year. Within half a year, Harikesh Prabhu not only left his post as GBC chairman, but left his position as ISKCON guru, BBT Trustee, and sannyasi. Indeed, he left the Society itself.
[PADA: OK so now acharyas make mistakes, fall down, bloop out, and acharyas should only be in office for one year, and so on. Where do any of these rules apply to acharyas?]
Since then he has been an advocate of New Age-ism. His dropping out of ISKCON left a good portion of the Society in chaos. At the time the GBC voted him into 3-year chairmanship, I abstained from casting a vote because I sensed a big mistake was being made. And I was right.
[PADA: The GBC are a group of something like 80 acharyas, and they are voting in other acharyas who are not qualified, and this is creating chaos. Of course, if we certify unqualified people as God's successors, we have to expect total chaotic results. This happens nearly every time a conditioned soul is artificially elevated to the post of messiah of the Jagat, he cannot keep up the false show. Why would 80 acharyas vote in bogus people as their co-acharyas?]
But who doesn't make mistakes?
[PADA: OK here we go, the acharyas are Krishna's successors, they speak only as Krishna dictates, therefore -- their words are full of mistakes. Of course making conditioned souls into acharyas is not "a mistake," its a highly calculated and organized GBC process and anyone who objects is treated viciously.]
Even Srila Prabhupada once said, "You can finds faults in me too" (that is to say, if you are the type of person who looks for faults in others to explain away your own faults.) But that isn't healthy psychology; it is a process of the mind that is called projection, in which one projects deficiencies inside himself upon others.
"I can't get along with this devotee because he gets too angry," one may argue; but all that means is that you have anger inside yourself to begin with, and your anger is rubbing against his, causing friction. As Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati said, "Because my vision is so honeycombed with faults, wherever I look I see only faults." We must all find a way go on trying to serve Guru and Krishna despite the faulty nature of our collective conditioned existence. And we must avoid the offense of criticizing Vaishnavas.
[PADA: Neophytes posing as acharyas are destined for the most obnoxious regions of the universe, and their society is destined to fail. Why should we not point out that this is going to cause major problems for ISKCON?]
I feel exactly the same way as Sridhara Maharaja does about institutionalization. I too used to be a company man; I used to think that all of ISKCON's problems are "manageable." But as we saw Lord Krishna Himself explain in a verse I quoted in the last Transcendental Psychology essay, so-called external problems are really internal problems.
[PADA: Sridhara Maharaja created false gurus in 1936, and he endorsed the GBC's 11 bogus gurus after 1978, and this process ruins institutions. The subsequent banning, beating, molesting, lawsuits and assassinations are the same problems he created after 1936. And Suhotra agrees with Sridhara Maharaja, we should rubber stamp conditioned souls as acharyas? This is not a problem with institutions per se. There are huge institutions and giant corporations all over the planet, and none of them are anointing conditioned souls as God's successor gurus, and they are thus managed quite nicely as a result.]
A disciple once started to ask a question of Srila Prabhupada, that "If devotees are transcendental, then..." Prabhupada cut him off: "Devotees are trying to be transcendental!" The members of the GBC are no exception. They are trying to be transcendental, but as I have personally seen, many of the problems they are trying to solve are problems they created themselves in the first place. So-called external problems are really internal problems. You can't manage away anomalies that are inside of you.
[PADA: If the GBC are making their own problems, then that means they are deviating from the process given by Krishna.]
To see this truth, which is explained by Krishna himself to Uddhava, is not to be offensive to the GBC or to any devotee manager. And it is not to say that there should be no management in ISKCON whatsoever, just some smiley walking-on-clouds spiritual anarchy. Management in ISKCON is necessary; Srila Prabhupada made no doubt about that. However, to be loyal and respectful to ISKCON management does not mean to ignore or dismiss as unimportant those areas, those qualities, of Krishna consciousness that management cannot actually manage!
[PADA: For conditioned souls to manage acharyas is a non-starter. There is no instruction for a committee of neophytes to manage the acharyas.]
For example, how can your taste for hearing and chanting the holy name of Krishna be managed? Now, it is true that we can manage to get ourselves into the temple in the morning, and manage to get our hands in the beadbag, and manage to perform 16 rounds of japa. But that doesn't guarantee you will chant good rounds with rapt attention. Still, there is a connection between good management of the circumstances of chanting on the one side, and taste for chanting on the other. Srila Prabhupada indicated this nicely in these words:
"There is a English proverb that "God helps him who tries to help himself." That is a English proverb. So to become Krishna conscious is not very difficult thing. People have no taste. They do not understand the importance of this Krishna consciousness movement. But this is the only way by which one can become perfect and happy."
Maybe you did not catch the point Prabhupada is making here. It is that even though people have no taste and thus cannot understand the importance of Krishna consciousness, God will help them if they help themselves. Thus "to become Krishna conscious is not very difficult thing." We "help ourselves" by trying to manage our spiritual activities nicely.
We don't have taste, but we should try to get it. We don't understand, but we should try to. This is what sadhana-bhakti is all about. Still, in the final analysis, whatever we do or don't do, the taste "by which one can become perfect and happy" comes to us by the grace of God.
In the practice of sadhana-bhakti, we realize that this grace becomes more apparent in our lives as we try to help ourselves attain it. So because there is a connection between God's help (His mercy) and our helping ourselves (by nicely managing our devotional activities), it may seem that if we are not getting that taste, then it is a problem of management.
Well, certainly if we lack taste in Krishna consciousness, something has come up between ourselves and Krishna. But is that "something" really only just external management -- our temple president for example, or the GBC? Has anyone ever had the experience that just by blaming the management as being bad their taste for chanting the holy name improves?
In reply to that question, someone may reasonably answer, "No, of course not. That's not the way. Let's not talk about blaming anyone. But we have to take steps to create a pure atmosphere in which we can try our best to make advancement and thereby attract the Lord's mercy."
That is a good answer. But ... even if we do that, the mercy of the Lord that we attract by our efforts may manifest in a way we don't expect. Maharaja Bharata nicely "managed" to leave his throne and go to the forest to cultivate his taste for Krishna consciousness. But God arranged that he became attached to a deer instead. Not that God forcibly attached his mind to the deer, but He made the arrangement by which Maharaja Bharata's latent material attachments came up in his heart to focus upon the deer. The result was that even though he had attained the exalted state of bhava-bhakti, Maharaja Bharata had to take birth as a deer in his next life.
But while he was in that deer body, the Lord permitted him to remember his previous life's devotional service. And so, as a deer, Maharaja Bharata took to hearing about Krishna with the greatest urgency. Then he was blessed with the full measure of higher taste. Thus after giving up that deer body, he became the spiritually famous Jada Bharata. Obviously, Krishna's plan for delivering His devotee and Maharaja Bharata's own plan for getting himself delivered were a little different!
We are not being offensive to the principle of good management in ISKCON by reflecting upon these truths that are so plainly stated in Srimad-Bhagavatam.
Offenses are created by the way we express ourselves, and by the way we act. If we express anger and frustration and act impetuously (i.e. in the mode of passion), denouncing other devotees for faults that we ourselves carry in our own hearts, then we commit offenses.
[PADA: Yep, we cannot criticize specific criminals and criminal action, we have to let ISKCON as a whole take the blame for all this. We cannot criticize individuals, so instead -- we blame "the institution" (ISKCON). This means, we save the criminals and toss ISKCON under the bus (which they did).]
We should persevere. This word means "to persist in or to remain constant to a purpose, an idea, or a task in the face of obstacles or discouragement." I personally find institutionalization discouraging.
[PADA: OK institutions are the problem, not the criminals mis-using the institution. We save the criminals, and sink the institution.]
So by other's discouraging, I was forced, by a condition of depression, to resign from the GBC.
[PADA: Wow, so by association with the GBC's 80 something gurus, this causes discouragement and depression. This is the result of association with 80 "pure devotees from Vaikuntha." And what happened after these guys resigned, well nothing, they did not really try to fix these issues. Instead, they started to blame ISKCON as an institution for their depression, instead of blaming the people who caused their depression.
Notice that the problem according to them is Srila Prabhupada's mission, not the people mis-using the mission. As a few ex-kulis told PADA, these guys like Suhotra, Ramesvara, Harikesh, Hansadutta, Jayatirtha, Bhagavan, Bhavananda, Satsvarupa etc. destroyed the mission and then just resigned and walked away taking no responsibility for the mess they made for the lives of others, or for the mess they made of ISKCON. Tough luck suckers! And then the society had to declare bankrupt to avoid paying its victims.]
But I remain constant in my purpose as a disciple of Srila Prabhupada and as a servant of his Society. It is a question of finding the position and service for yourself in which you can best persist.
[PADA: Serving the society -- by saying institutions are not important according to Sridhara Maharaja of the Gaudiya Matha, so we can destroy the mission to save the crooks who hi-jacked it from prosecution and responsibility.]
There is another state of mind called obstinacy. It can look a lot like perseverance. But obstinacy is defined as: "the state or quality of being stubborn or refractory." Refractory means "to be resistant to authority." Therefore it is said: "The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't."
Another English saying is, "Where there is a will, there is a way." Conversely, where there is a won't, there isn't a way. If we look at the ISKCON institution only in terms of "I won't," then there is a good chance we won't find our way back to Godhead.
"I won't surrender to these power-hungry ISKCON managers! I won't tolerate their hypocrisy! I won't listen to their classes, which are just the same old dry preaching over and over! I won't obey their instructions, I won't cooperate with them, I won't associate with them!" This insistent "won't" is just a weed in the heart choking the life of the devotional creeper.
[PADA: So we need to follow a process that causes the leaders like Suhotra and Sridhara swami to be depressed and resign? And to get sick, and die prematurely from taking sins? And both of them are now departed, after people sometimes wrote to pray for their GBC guru who is sick from taking sins. Why would God want to save people who are making pretend they are another Jesus who can absorb sins?]
Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of; they just turn up some of the ill weeds on to the surface.
Anyway, I so much appreciate Sridhara Maharaja's mood. He has realized that management can't solve our most fundamental problems in Krishna consciousness.
[PADA: Sridhara Maharaja was the person who said we should vote in a whole bunch of more acharyas, that caused the society to fail even faster.]
Only Krishna can do that. And Krishna does that in His own way, according to His own plan, because He is independent and supreme and all-powerful, and charmingly clever, too. But Maharaja does not take Krishna's supremacy over all as an excuse to be obstinant towards management. Rather, Maharaja perseveres. He has a strong will, not a strong won't. And thus he continues to go forward. Seeing his example, many devotees are inspired in their own spiritual lives. I am one of them...
I pray, pray, pray to Sri Sri Jagannatha-Sudarshana that what I am experiencing here in my talks with Godbrothers like Sridhara Maharaja, Keshava Bharati Maharaja, Bhaktividya Purna Maharaja, and Prabhupada Prabhu, is the start of a spiritual revolution. I feel incredible spiritual nourishment whenever I get the mercy of their association.
[PADA: Well all that happened was the you guys tossed ISKCON under the bus to save these creepy guys like Bhakti Vidya Purna swami, Bhavananda, Hari Sauri and all the rest of these corrupt folks. ys pd]
Dear PADA: When reading that Suhotra finally had this realization it is evident that this man is a real rascal. Europe's Prabhupada disciples worked hard to establish Prabhupada's movement from Villa Vrindavan, Italy, in the South up to Stockholm, Sweden, in the North so that after Prabhupada's departure thousands of new devotees came pouring in.
ReplyDeleteSo what Suhotra did was to instrumentalize these new devotees to throw out all the Prabhupada disciples. But this plunder Suhotra never mentions, what to speak of trying to bring these Prabhupada disciples back. Instead he wrote on his website "Sannyasa Journal", 2005: "Several years ago I published a letter to all ISKCON devotees about the trouble I was having from depression. I tried to rectify myself by resigning from the GBC, ceasing to give more initiations, and concentrating on my sannyasa duties. But the depression persisted and conspired with unhealthy, restless travel, lack of regulation, and lust, to knock me out of the race again."
So Suhotra's strategy always was to point out the fault of others, never admitting his own rascaldom. Of course we will never know whether he died naturally or that he was silenced the Russian way, see, "More of Kremlin's Opponents Are Ending Up Dead".
[PADA: Yes, we heard that at the end Suhotra was starting to criticize the GBC and he mysteriously died in Mayapur and some suspect he was poisoned. Same thing with Gaura Govinda Maharaja, mystery death in Mayapur. In any case Suhotra and Sridhara strategy is to blame the institution and not the specific criminals in the institution, so the institution suffers and the criminals go scot free. That is how he brought down the institution of ISKCON. ys pd]
(Note from India): We felt proud for their (westerners) dedication for universal serve and Love, but lots of time we are seeing that they are practicing such low class activities, like smoking, drinking, having illicit sex. A common Indian man lives much better life than these so called Vaisnavas. This is surely going damage Vaisnava culture a lot. Actually we common Indian people feel such things are very much disturbing.
ReplyDelete[PADA: Well yup. Especially when the GBC's idea is that even God's successor acharyas are often fallen, if not smoking, drinking, having illicit sex etc. That really tosses a spanner into the works. You are correct, this gives Vaishnava culture a black eye in the public arena.]
Yep M dasi, these guys were all vociferous and militant in making their living guru program. Then they just walk out the door when their bogus guru program is bunning down the house and say, tough luck suckers, you fell for our tricks! They are shameless, you got it. Yes it is interesting that Suhotra says "game over," that means he knew this was a farce and a game of making fools into acharyas from the start.
ReplyDelete"Its a joke, a game of tricks." Yup! Of course when Yamaraja says "game over," that's when it's really over. That is why the Isopanisad says false gurus and their supporters go to the most obnoxious regions of the universe, and considering how many obnoxious things there are here on planet earth, I dread to think of the conditions on the planets they are heading to. ys pd