By Surya Narayana Das, Blunt Crayon Productions.
“Bhakti does not depend on the age, bhakti depends on sincerity of service. It’s not that because one man is older than me, therefore he’ll be greater devotee. No.” (Srila Prabhupada: SB 7:9:3 - Feb 10, 1976 Mayapur, India)
As we touched on in "Jam Today", there’s a notion out there in the ether that there’s a definitive set of Vedic laws in Iskcon relating to guru tattva that we must all accept as gospel and swear allegiance to, and that it’s only the rabble rouser who thinks otherwise.
Rather than just surrendering my intelligence and buying into this idea, but given that the GBC, the voted-in-gurus and their supporters frown upon the right to consult one’s own God-given intelligence or the Caitya-guru within the heart on important issues, I thought we could examine what the senior Prabhupada disciples are saying on the position of Srila Prabhupada and voted-in-gurus within the movement, and see if we can’t find some clarity and balance there.
Since the day I joined, I’ve been told these are the most spiritually advanced and intelligent men and should be respected for their seniority and wisdom. They walked with Prabhupada so they must know how things are done, right? Around the time I was thinking about this research, someone sent me two relevant YouTube videos and so, favourite pen in hand, I grabbed my notepad and got down to some good old transcribing work.
It’s a little painful at times to read (it was no picnic to transcribe either), so I’ll present them in bite-size installments. But it is, I believe, a valuable snapshot of the lack of understanding, and confusion/controversy that surrounds the voted-in-guru / Prabhupada guru tug-o-war.
We open with Jayadvaita Swami giving a class in, I believe, the international headquarters of Iskcon in LA a few years back. He’s obviously very disturbed about his disciples and others having the audacity to chant “Jai Prabhupada” in the temple room. The Swami is far from blissful, scowling like the stern school master about to admonish his students. Up on his soap box, he punctuates his deliverance with slow sweeping, incredulous looks, and many a sharp hand gesture.
“This must be serious,” I thought, “I might learn something here.”
JAS first establishes his status and credentials, reminding us all that he’s in the privileged position of being a Prabhupada disciple. But he’s not done there. He offers some surprising enlightenment, informing us all, “but some of you still have the ‘further privilege’ of being the disciples of the disciples.”
He's saying that being *his* disciple means we’re even more fortunate than if they had Prabhupada as their guru! The Swami tells his audience 'samasarva davanala' is “not the Prabhupada song.” The remainder of this YouTube segment, JAS strains himself to impose his heavy mandate, convinced Prabhupada is gone, and that the song is not the Prabhupada song but is in fact for the even more privileged disciples to sing to their voted-in-gurus, which naturally includes him. He even says if others bust out with “Jai Prabhupada,” then they’ve spoiled the disciple's meditation on his voted-in-guru (their meditation on him!), “because you’re thinking it’s the Prabhupada song.“
How dare they.
Right off the bat, the 'further privileged' comment raised a red flag, and my hackles, and I thought of the thousands of disciples of these privileged Prabhupada disciples who were cheated out of service and money, forced into marriages, moved around from temple to temple like cattle, made to peddle trinkets on the street to facilitate various ISKCON gurus lavish lifestyles and world travel, to only then be unceremoniously dumped when ‘Srila Gurudeva’ found something better to do. I wonder if they feel ‘even more privileged’ than if they had been allowed to just stick with Srila Prabhupada?
Many an uber-privileged disciple who was graced with a voted-in-guru had their spiritual life damaged beyond repair, and for them being a disciple of the disciple is probably about as far away from privileged as they could imagine. Far from it being a privilege, being forced to accept a foolish voted-in-guru seems more a curse, the effects of which are still felt as this lost generation of formally fired-up devotees struggles to keep from going under. Many have been cast back into the dangerous material ocean far away from the shelter of Prabhupada’s lotus feet. For them that ‘privilege’ may feel like the worst thing that ever happened in their lives before or since.
“Now, suppose if you accept a wrong person as spiritual master, and if he guides you wrongly, then your whole life is spoiled." (Srila Prabhupada Lecture, March 2, 1966)
The Swami might want to consider that these are actual people they’re dealing with here. This isn’t some kind of game where you and your mates get to make up the rules, put on costumes, become the tyrant king for a few days, and then quit when you’ve tired of it, chucking disciples aside like unwanted props and playthings.
This post-Prabhupada speculation has wrought nothing but havoc as far as I can see, and sadly we all know there’ll be more anguish and despair to come. “It is better to maintain a devotee than to try to convince others to become devotees.”
(Letter to Satsvarupa Los Angeles 16 June, 1972).
It’s the worst example of mismanagement I think I’ve ever seen, pouring gallons of blood and thousands of hours into attracting and training people only to then stand back and watch this incredibly valuable resource pour out the back door. So dumb. Such a travesty.
JAS: “The next thing that disturbs me: Sometimes right in the middle of 'samsara davanala,' we hear “Jai Prabhupada”. What the hell is that!? Samsara davanala is not the Prabhupada song; it’s the guru song.
“Some of us have the privilege of being Prabhupada disciples, and some of you have the still further privilege of being disciples of the disciples of Prabhupada. You don’t need to chant “Jai Prabhupada, Jai Prabhupada” at any part of that song. Samsara davanala, Sri Krishna Caitanya, Hare Krishna. Nothing else!”
Jayadvaita Swami goes on to tell us that Prabhupada never sang “Jai Prabhupada” to his guru so that’s why we shouldn’t do it. Of course, that’s impossible to verify as Srila Prabhupada had been living in India and attending kirtan for years before coming west. Jayadvaita couldn’t know that was an absolute just because he had never heard it. A big speculation to support his dark propaganda.
We open with Jayadvaita Swami giving a class in, I believe, the international headquarters of Iskcon in LA a few years back. He’s obviously very disturbed about his disciples and others having the audacity to chant “Jai Prabhupada” in the temple room. The Swami is far from blissful, scowling like the stern school master about to admonish his students. Up on his soap box, he punctuates his deliverance with slow sweeping, incredulous looks, and many a sharp hand gesture.
“This must be serious,” I thought, “I might learn something here.”
JAS first establishes his status and credentials, reminding us all that he’s in the privileged position of being a Prabhupada disciple. But he’s not done there. He offers some surprising enlightenment, informing us all, “but some of you still have the ‘further privilege’ of being the disciples of the disciples.”
He's saying that being *his* disciple means we’re even more fortunate than if they had Prabhupada as their guru! The Swami tells his audience 'samasarva davanala' is “not the Prabhupada song.” The remainder of this YouTube segment, JAS strains himself to impose his heavy mandate, convinced Prabhupada is gone, and that the song is not the Prabhupada song but is in fact for the even more privileged disciples to sing to their voted-in-gurus, which naturally includes him. He even says if others bust out with “Jai Prabhupada,” then they’ve spoiled the disciple's meditation on his voted-in-guru (their meditation on him!), “because you’re thinking it’s the Prabhupada song.“
How dare they.
Right off the bat, the 'further privileged' comment raised a red flag, and my hackles, and I thought of the thousands of disciples of these privileged Prabhupada disciples who were cheated out of service and money, forced into marriages, moved around from temple to temple like cattle, made to peddle trinkets on the street to facilitate various ISKCON gurus lavish lifestyles and world travel, to only then be unceremoniously dumped when ‘Srila Gurudeva’ found something better to do. I wonder if they feel ‘even more privileged’ than if they had been allowed to just stick with Srila Prabhupada?
Many an uber-privileged disciple who was graced with a voted-in-guru had their spiritual life damaged beyond repair, and for them being a disciple of the disciple is probably about as far away from privileged as they could imagine. Far from it being a privilege, being forced to accept a foolish voted-in-guru seems more a curse, the effects of which are still felt as this lost generation of formally fired-up devotees struggles to keep from going under. Many have been cast back into the dangerous material ocean far away from the shelter of Prabhupada’s lotus feet. For them that ‘privilege’ may feel like the worst thing that ever happened in their lives before or since.
“Now, suppose if you accept a wrong person as spiritual master, and if he guides you wrongly, then your whole life is spoiled." (Srila Prabhupada Lecture, March 2, 1966)
The Swami might want to consider that these are actual people they’re dealing with here. This isn’t some kind of game where you and your mates get to make up the rules, put on costumes, become the tyrant king for a few days, and then quit when you’ve tired of it, chucking disciples aside like unwanted props and playthings.
This post-Prabhupada speculation has wrought nothing but havoc as far as I can see, and sadly we all know there’ll be more anguish and despair to come. “It is better to maintain a devotee than to try to convince others to become devotees.”
(Letter to Satsvarupa Los Angeles 16 June, 1972).
It’s the worst example of mismanagement I think I’ve ever seen, pouring gallons of blood and thousands of hours into attracting and training people only to then stand back and watch this incredibly valuable resource pour out the back door. So dumb. Such a travesty.
JAS: “The next thing that disturbs me: Sometimes right in the middle of 'samsara davanala,' we hear “Jai Prabhupada”. What the hell is that!? Samsara davanala is not the Prabhupada song; it’s the guru song.
“Some of us have the privilege of being Prabhupada disciples, and some of you have the still further privilege of being disciples of the disciples of Prabhupada. You don’t need to chant “Jai Prabhupada, Jai Prabhupada” at any part of that song. Samsara davanala, Sri Krishna Caitanya, Hare Krishna. Nothing else!”
Jayadvaita Swami goes on to tell us that Prabhupada never sang “Jai Prabhupada” to his guru so that’s why we shouldn’t do it. Of course, that’s impossible to verify as Srila Prabhupada had been living in India and attending kirtan for years before coming west. Jayadvaita couldn’t know that was an absolute just because he had never heard it. A big speculation to support his dark propaganda.
He concludes by saying, “Put it this way: I would be happy if you keep it at that,” a veiled threat about displeasing the spiritual master, but he finally agrees to a concession: mercifully allowing them to do Prabhupada’s pranamas, but only after samsara davanala. “And if you left them out, you would not be wrong. You would be institutionally wrong, but you would not be philosophically wrong.”
So here we have an Iskcon sanyasi / voted-in-guru using the platform of a Srimad Bhagavatam class inside Prabhupada’s international headquarters to chastise everyone who disturbed his mind by chanting “Jai Prabhupada." He mocks the GBC who are trying to at least encourage devotees to focus on Srila Prabhupada a little more, making it clear that he’s right and the institution is wrong. So many red flags.
“You would be institutionally wrong, but you would not be philosophically wrong.” In the words of the Swami, what the hell is that?
This man and his cohorts are trying to edit His Divine Grace A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada out of his own movement. But we have no doubt that the Founder-Acarya will emerge victorious. “Jai Prabhupada!”
I may be wrong, but I have the feeling they won’t be chanting this swami’s name in the temples around the planet and beyond for the next 10,000 years.
So here we have an Iskcon sanyasi / voted-in-guru using the platform of a Srimad Bhagavatam class inside Prabhupada’s international headquarters to chastise everyone who disturbed his mind by chanting “Jai Prabhupada." He mocks the GBC who are trying to at least encourage devotees to focus on Srila Prabhupada a little more, making it clear that he’s right and the institution is wrong. So many red flags.
“You would be institutionally wrong, but you would not be philosophically wrong.” In the words of the Swami, what the hell is that?
This man and his cohorts are trying to edit His Divine Grace A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada out of his own movement. But we have no doubt that the Founder-Acarya will emerge victorious. “Jai Prabhupada!”
I may be wrong, but I have the feeling they won’t be chanting this swami’s name in the temples around the planet and beyond for the next 10,000 years.
“When a clown moves into a palace, he does not become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” - Old Turkish Proverb.
At any rate I did learn something.
Pushing on, we look at another LA, SB class given, it seems, in the following days after the JAS anti-Prabhupada shocker. This class is by the late Sura Prabhu, another senior Prabhupada disciple. The video is queued to the point Prabhu is starting to come on strong:
“When we chant the mangal arati, that is the Prabhupada song! Srila Prabhupada is the Founder-Acarya. Therefore we have a deity of Prabhupada on the altar and in the temple room. We chant Srila Prabhupada’s name, we don’t chant anyone else’s name, it’s not necessary. It’s actually -- I think -- outlawed in Iskcon.”
At any rate I did learn something.
Pushing on, we look at another LA, SB class given, it seems, in the following days after the JAS anti-Prabhupada shocker. This class is by the late Sura Prabhu, another senior Prabhupada disciple. The video is queued to the point Prabhu is starting to come on strong:
“When we chant the mangal arati, that is the Prabhupada song! Srila Prabhupada is the Founder-Acarya. Therefore we have a deity of Prabhupada on the altar and in the temple room. We chant Srila Prabhupada’s name, we don’t chant anyone else’s name, it’s not necessary. It’s actually -- I think -- outlawed in Iskcon.”
It’s interesting to note that in Iskcon you must accept a voted-in-guru but you’re outlawed from singing his holy name inside an Iskcon property. As we’ll discover, there are many more rules, notions, and opinions to torture and baffle the young devotee's mind as he or she is pulled this way and that through the minefield that is post-Prabhupada Iskcon.
Sura Prabhu: “When we chant the mangal arati, that is Prabhupada’s song! The mangal arati is not chanted to my guru, your guru, everybody’s guru. We’re chanting mangal arati to the Founder-Acarya for the next 5000 years! [He may have meant 10,000] The fear is so many people present different ideas. [Srila Prabhupada] said the problem with you Americans, your disease is that you want to change things. You want to change everything. He said that.
“Some rascal, unscrupulous person may say, some low class envious being [voice begins to raise] may say “Oh, you don’t have to chant Srila Prabhupada pranamas”. No! You have a direct connection to Prabhupada. You read his books. There’s no need to read any other. There’s no need to chant anyone else’s name. All you need is to chant Prabhupada’s name and read the books.
“When we were in Mayapur in 1975 he was ringing the bell and jumping up and down and devotees were chanting “Jai Prabhupada, Jai Prabhupada!” You have to chant that! You don’t have to chant to any other gurudeva. If I am sitting in the temple thinking, “They’re chanting to me”, that is envy, the disease why we are here. I’m envious of Srila Prabhupada ”
Clearly, these are two polar opposite views on a very important philosophical area of how Srila Prabhupada and the voted-in-guru should be viewed within the movement.
Sura Prabhu continues: “Then they realised, our Iskcon leaders realised, 'Actually, Srila Prabhupada is the centre.' Actually he’ll be the centre for a long time but it is your business to keep him in the centre and not be bewildered. We’ll be gone, Prabhupada disciples, but you’ll be here carrying on that sampradaya.”
I found Sura's statements both encouraging and a little challenging. Most, if not all, Prabhupada disciples in any position of power in Iskcon - and others complicit by their silence - will actively block anyone, old or new, from thinking they could be a Prabhupada disciple, that they could be directly connected.
Sura Prabhu: “When we chant the mangal arati, that is Prabhupada’s song! The mangal arati is not chanted to my guru, your guru, everybody’s guru. We’re chanting mangal arati to the Founder-Acarya for the next 5000 years! [He may have meant 10,000] The fear is so many people present different ideas. [Srila Prabhupada] said the problem with you Americans, your disease is that you want to change things. You want to change everything. He said that.
“Some rascal, unscrupulous person may say, some low class envious being [voice begins to raise] may say “Oh, you don’t have to chant Srila Prabhupada pranamas”. No! You have a direct connection to Prabhupada. You read his books. There’s no need to read any other. There’s no need to chant anyone else’s name. All you need is to chant Prabhupada’s name and read the books.
“When we were in Mayapur in 1975 he was ringing the bell and jumping up and down and devotees were chanting “Jai Prabhupada, Jai Prabhupada!” You have to chant that! You don’t have to chant to any other gurudeva. If I am sitting in the temple thinking, “They’re chanting to me”, that is envy, the disease why we are here. I’m envious of Srila Prabhupada ”
Clearly, these are two polar opposite views on a very important philosophical area of how Srila Prabhupada and the voted-in-guru should be viewed within the movement.
Sura Prabhu continues: “Then they realised, our Iskcon leaders realised, 'Actually, Srila Prabhupada is the centre.' Actually he’ll be the centre for a long time but it is your business to keep him in the centre and not be bewildered. We’ll be gone, Prabhupada disciples, but you’ll be here carrying on that sampradaya.”
I found Sura's statements both encouraging and a little challenging. Most, if not all, Prabhupada disciples in any position of power in Iskcon - and others complicit by their silence - will actively block anyone, old or new, from thinking they could be a Prabhupada disciple, that they could be directly connected.
We know it’s outlawed by Iskcon law, and there’s excommunications to prove it. But here we’re being told not to be bewildered but to keep Srila Prabhupada in the centre, which of course I fully support. The trouble is, as soon as we actually try to do that we’re criticised and branded with a bloody great ‘R’ on our foreheads and then the privileged Prabhupada disciples throw us out of ‘their’ temples as they act as GBC enforcers, doing their bidding.
Sura Prabhu concludes his counter-offensive to what he clearly feels is the JAS offensive Prabhupada elimination attempt by saying, “One may think, “I’m a very advanced sanyasi, I’m a very advanced spiritual personality, I can do anything I like, I can change things left and right” but if one’s intelligence is polluted, then they are committing great offences. Then it is enviousness.”
We're hearing that we shouldn’t change anything and that we should keep Srila Prabhupada in the centre and not be bewildered. I would have liked to have asked Sura Prabhu, “Okay then, can you guys please tell us: how much Prabhupada are we factually allowed?
Sura Prabhu concludes his counter-offensive to what he clearly feels is the JAS offensive Prabhupada elimination attempt by saying, “One may think, “I’m a very advanced sanyasi, I’m a very advanced spiritual personality, I can do anything I like, I can change things left and right” but if one’s intelligence is polluted, then they are committing great offences. Then it is enviousness.”
We're hearing that we shouldn’t change anything and that we should keep Srila Prabhupada in the centre and not be bewildered. I would have liked to have asked Sura Prabhu, “Okay then, can you guys please tell us: how much Prabhupada are we factually allowed?
How much Prabhupada are you willing to give us? I hear you saying we “have a direct connection to Prabhupada” but what does that look like to you? You say we receive all of our knowledge through his books, and that his deity is on the altar and in the temple, and that he is present in these forms, but how much any of us are ‘allowed’ to embrace and imbibe HDG is really unclear. “All you need is to chant Srila Prabhupada’s name and read the books.” So why is every devotee who joins then shunted to the feet of a voted-in-guru if Prabhupada is all that?
These well intentioned fiery speeches may simply add to the tangled mess, pulling the birds nest of mixed messages even more askew if the esteemed senior devotees can’t give us a definitive answer. They need to get together and get their stories straight! It does your head in trying to walk this crazy tightrope wherein a slight mistake can see one or even both sides of the divide screaming at you for disrespecting either Srila Prabhupada or the voted-in-guru.
These well intentioned fiery speeches may simply add to the tangled mess, pulling the birds nest of mixed messages even more askew if the esteemed senior devotees can’t give us a definitive answer. They need to get together and get their stories straight! It does your head in trying to walk this crazy tightrope wherein a slight mistake can see one or even both sides of the divide screaming at you for disrespecting either Srila Prabhupada or the voted-in-guru.
Imagine if you were a new devotee who had just sat through both of these classes. Yikes! And the crazy thing is when the sincere soul finally becomes so disgusted with it all and goes away, he ends up with neither!
At least this prabhu wanted Srila Prabhupada to be in the centre, so that is definitely something. And you have to wonder, were they given a safe environment to reveal their minds, how many of these senior devotees truly believe the current voted-in-guru system is what Prabhupada wanted?
Footnote: Many of us already have Srila Prabhupada in the centre of our lives, and have done for years without begging for anyone's permission. We’re living Prabhupada every day. Perhaps rather than instructing us all how to keep Srila Prabhupada in the centre, the senior Prabhupada disciples get to acknowledge that it’s them who are only just now catching up on something we’ve never stopped believing nor experiencing.
Jai Prabhupada! (Yeah. That’s right, I said it.)
=====================
At least this prabhu wanted Srila Prabhupada to be in the centre, so that is definitely something. And you have to wonder, were they given a safe environment to reveal their minds, how many of these senior devotees truly believe the current voted-in-guru system is what Prabhupada wanted?
Footnote: Many of us already have Srila Prabhupada in the centre of our lives, and have done for years without begging for anyone's permission. We’re living Prabhupada every day. Perhaps rather than instructing us all how to keep Srila Prabhupada in the centre, the senior Prabhupada disciples get to acknowledge that it’s them who are only just now catching up on something we’ve never stopped believing nor experiencing.
Jai Prabhupada! (Yeah. That’s right, I said it.)
=====================
PADA: Very good analysis of post 1977 ISKCON. We cannot have Srila Prabhupada as our guru, we'll need to worship one of their "11 appointed successors" (who were not appointed). And failing that -- we have to worship one of their "voted in acharyas." So we either worship their first wave bogus appointed guru, or the voted in second wave guru, and both waves have been falling down left, right and center.
And that means for most people now, we have to worship one of the "2/3 show of hands voted in gurus," voted in by same people who have been falling down left, right and center. None of this was ever ordered by Srila Prabhupada. And the result is that many thousands and thousands of people's lives have been ruined -- spiritually and often materially -- by all these misconceptions.
Right now one of the former gurukuli victims told me he is currently cursing Bhakti Vikas swami to go to hell -- after this victim was told that Bhakti Vikas swami's program is currently blaming the five years old children victims -- like him -- for allegedly making "bad choices of the guru they should worship."
BVKS program says -- when their victims are only five years old children -- they "wanted to be cheated" and so the victims and their five years old peers were "selecting the wrong guru." This is simply twisting the knife into the wounds the BVKS program already made for these victims. The five years old children "made the wrong choices of guru," when in fact the BVKS program has been cramming the worship of these bogus gurus down the throats of these children.
The victims are to blame for being victimized -- because they made the wrong choices of guru, when they were only five years old. That is simply pouring salt into the wounds of the victims all the more. BVKS forgets to mention he has always promoted his pedophile guru system and its main exponents like Basu Ghosh, Jayapataka and others.
All this is meant to further traumatize and upset the victims all the more, by blaming them for making the "bad guru choices" -- actually made by the BVKS program and not the victims. The children had ZERO input in selecting these bogus gurus and the BVKS program had 1,000 percent input into selecting these bogus gurus.
I told this victim it is more evidence how the BVKS program stomps giant jackboots on five years old children and forces them to worship their pedophile pals, and then blames the children victims when the whole thing is exposed as a pedophile worship cult. And now someone sent me a video of Bhakti Vijnana's program promoting a parikrama with child beater Dhanurdar in one of the leading positions. They just cannot get away from promoting deviants as leaders.
The good news is, more people are finally catching up to these facts. And more people are realizing, their "eternally living connection to Krishna" is Srila Prabhupada. OK no thanks to the BVKS guys.
BVKS is in fact is still saying there is no evidence of anyone worshiping pure devotees found in shastra. There is however -- allegedly -- plenty of examples of people worshiping his pedophile pals as their messiahs, includes five year old children. Ummm, nope, there are ZERO examples of any bona fide people worshiping BVKS pedophile guru system being done by bona fide devotees, ever.
ys pd]
angel108b@yahoo.com
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