"Living Prabhupada" Update by Surya Narayan das

By Surya Narayana das - A Blunt Crayon Production

Offered to our great senapati [commander-in-chief] bhakta,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

"Regarding the disciplic succession coming from Arjuna, disciplic succession does not always mean that one has to be initiated officially. Disciplic succession means to accept the disciplic conclusion."

(Letter to Dinesh -- Tittenhurst, 31 October, 1969)

“Character is destiny” - Heraclitus.

In this final instalment of Living Prabhupada, we kick off with hearing how Svavas Prabhu has taken exception to the speaker's apparent support of JAS’s (Jayadvaita Swami's) ‘no Jai Prabhupada’ motion.

Svavas Prabhu: “I don’t understand how you can say that when the disciple is here chanting the prayer [samsara davanala] that he’s chanting it to his particular spiritual master.”

Vijaya Prabhu (giving the class): “So, should they not think of their spiritual master when they are offering these prayers?”

Sarvas Prabhu: “I’m not sure where you got your understanding from, but mine is different.”

Vijaya Prabhu: “Well… well, I didn’t know, I… um, is there a law like that? Is there an Iskcon law?”

It’s become pretty obvious that there’s no clear understanding of the standards amid much speculation and contradiction, and again I wonder what it must be like for the new devotee to be hearing all this stuff. There’s a reason Iskcon devotees are defecting to other camps that appear more stable. Why has spiritual life since Srila Prabhupada’s departure become so combative, divisive, complicated and confused?

“And you keep to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then your life is sublime. Very simple thing. Very simple thing. But it is simple for the simple, but it is very hard for the crooked. Yes.”

(Initiation lecture - Boston, 26th December, 1969)

The microphone is then handed to Bhrigupati Prabhu who we know personally from his time here in NZ. He’s a gentleman and strict sadhaka who held many a devotee's respect.

“My thing is, I don’t know one way or the other. And I don’t feel stupid saying that. Whatever the GBC... whatever the... you know... big sastric authorities and pundits decide, I go along with, I just want to do the right thing. Okay, whatever you guys say is the right thing. I’ll do it.”

I have to say, I felt disappointed and a little saddened to hear Bhrigupati Prabhu giving away his power so easily. He’d just finished telling the audience how he listens to Prabhupada lectures day and night; so why not have enough trust in his own grasp of sastric authority to decide for himself what’s right and wrong?

Bhrigupati Prabhu: “Okay, whatever you guys say is the right thing. I’ll do it.”

The problem with accepting without question is you can end up following the GBC down the garden path of aparadha as they insist Prabhupada is no longer the guru of his movement, and unceremoniously chuck others out of the house. Make ourselves subservient to such leadership and we run the risk of becoming complicit, and tolerating ignorance and untruth isn’t noble. Prabhupada never said he’d stop being the Acarya guru for all Iskcon, so if we follow those who removed him then we could find ourselves serving their will, not his.

“And ignorance. If we give service in ignorance, without knowing what is what, that kind of service may lead us to become punished. So we must know what kind of service we shall give.”

(Room conversation with Lord Brockway - London, July 23rd, 1973)

Ten years on from being assured HDG himself had selected his Eleven pure successors and the GBC were backpedaling hard in damage control, apologising (albeit way too late) to Pradyumna Prabhu and the scores of trodden over Vaishnavas they’d driven out. So maybe blind following doesn’t always equate to doing the right thing.

“The truest evidence of an inferior mind is to allow oneself to be persuaded away from one’s deepest convictions.”

(Frederick Wentworth)

Maybe we get to stand on our own two feet and decide for ourselves what’s right and wrong. It’s not an offence to be in loyal opposition. Nor is it offensive to think critically.

“At GBC meetings, the gurus sat on seats higher than that of the other GBC members.”

(from Iskcon Zonal Acarya History)

As for the detractors like our boy Bhakta Matt who would prefer everything remain comfortably numb in the past, injustice plus time never equals justice.

“Each guru had his own seat in temples in his zone, there was another seat for the visiting guru, and Bhagavatam speakers used a third seat - sometimes a fourth seat was used for Bhagavatam speakers who were disciples of the Zonal gurus.

(from Iskcon Zonal Acarya History)

The conversation continues with the speaker, Vijaya Prabhu, arguing that the disciple is trying to establish a relationship with his guru, and that’s why he’s thinking of him when he’s singing the Prabhupada song.

Svavasa Prabhu: “He [the disciple] can go into his home and chant that prayer to his spiritual master there. This is a public forum. This is the temple that Srila Prabhupada established. If you go into your own home and have a picture, a deity of your guru, hey listen, invite all your other godbrothers and godsisters there and have a big bash, chant for eight hours, no problem. But here, when you’re in the temple room, this is Srila Prabhupada’s.”

So you join Iskcon, get told to worship Prabhupada, then get told you have to give him up and worship a voted-in God-guru only to have some some passive/aggressive temple president tell you, “Don’t even think about singing your voted-in-guru's name here, go home and have your bash, this is our Prabhupada’s temple!” (As for the brahmacaris whose home is the temple, well, I guess they’re just screwed).

As with the JAS presentation, I experience an unhealthy smattering of projected shame and guilt levelled at the poor unfortunate ‘non-Prabhupada’ disciples for daring to do what they’ve been trained to do: worship guru according to the standard laid out in Prabhupada’s books. It sounds as absurd as it is abusive. My impression, not just here but in general, is there’s an element of bullying of the perceived ‘inferior’ non-Prabhupada disciples, not allowing them full access to His Divine Grace, an equal place in the society, nor fully recognising their voted-in-gurus. They have little voice, and Prabhupada disciples more often than not trump, dominate, countermand or ignore concerns. Basically treated like second-class citizens.

Svavasa Prabhu: “And I recall also when we had the 11 gurus in Iskcon, at one particular point when that particular guru would come to a temple to visit, then we would have mangal arati and we would all be chanting to that particular guru, and we would ignore Srila Prabhupada. That happened for years! For years that happened, and then we had so many of them fall down. So we have to be very careful. Why do we need to change anything? Just leave it as it is and just be happy in KC.”

Vijaya Prabhu: “No, I didn’t say change anything.”

Here Svavasa Prabhu ties the changes made to Prabhupada’s rightful place as Iskcon's diksha guru to the fall-downs, asking, “Why do we need to change anything? Just leave it as it is. This is the same as Manavata Prabhu said in part three, and Sura Prabhu before that.

Many Prabhupada disciples appear conflicted or unclear in themselves, calling for things to return to how they were in Prabhupada’s time, while remaining convinced they have exclusive access to His Divine Grace and the door to his direct mercy is now shut… because they shut it. So to varying degrees they all seem to be affected by the Zonalism contaminant, a feeling of absolute spiritual superiority over others. But if you truly want to go back, then you have to go all the way back and give Prabhupada back what was stolen from him. All this doublethink and doublespeak indicates something amiss, an undercurrent of uncertainty, grasping at straws, a disturbance in the force.

“Each guru was given an honorific title which had to be used by everyone when addressing him.”

(from Iskcon Zonal Acarya History)

Svavasa Prabhu: “So if the disciple wants to do that secretly [think of their guru] in their heart or whatever, fine. I’m not going to tell them don’t. [He’d just finished very clearly telling them don’t, and that they had to go home to do it.] I’m not going to grab someone by their kurta and throw them out the door because they're thinking of their spiritual master. But I’m saying publicly, publicly this is what’s established.”

What I’m hearing is, is that if you don’t do it in secret and sing your voted-in-gurus name publicly then you will get thrown out by your kurta? It sounds like a thinly veiled threat coming on top of being told to go home and chant. Simply denying others the same rights as they, ‘the Prabhupada disciples’, freely enjoy. It’s another toxic discriminatory spin off from the Zonal deviation. Thinking the temple belongs to them, and that it’s their job to silence or send members down the road.

This raises a serious question for me: could the actions of the GBC and their supporters who have blocked future generations from a direct, personal relationship with His Divine Grace, Srila Prabhupada be considered a human rights issue?

Has Iskcon's aristocracy created a caste system, branding all who come after them unworthy of inheriting the same unconditional love and mercy they had received? The newly minted Untouchables are denied equality and access to the same spiritual resources as the one percent elite who control the people, power and money on Planet Iskcon. Sounds a lot like the material world.

I personally believe Prabhupada’s power, love and mercy is available to all, but if someone surrenders to the GBC they may loose that opportunity, voluntarily forfeiting the right, having been convinced it’s not an available option via the GBC propaganda machine. I think that’s misleading at best.

Vijaya Prabhu then backs the ‘no guru's name’ prohibition: “That’s a law. That’s an Iskcon law. It’s just Prabhupada, of course."

However, moments earlier the same speaker had sounded bewildered, questioning if it was law. Now he’s suddenly stating emphatically, “That’s the law."

Svavasa Prabhu: “Exactly. And this is the way it should be. After all of us Prabhupada disciples are dead and buried, God bless you.”

This is a very interesting throw-away line, and once again it seems these guys can’t help but roar their dominance for all creatures of the jungle to hear. These seniors won’t hesitate to point out their superior social standing: “After all of us Prabhupada disciples are dead and buried...” I believe every speaker we’ve heard from so far has made sure we’re all aware, he’s a ‘Prabhupada disciple.’

They’ve become the self-appointed mouthpiece for the Founder-Acarya: “Prabhupada can never love you as he loves us, and Krishna will smote you if you break the laws of disciplic succession. Our Prabhupada is taking us home so you go find your own way from amongst the used-car taxi rank we’ve left you. Good luck and God bless.”

Of course, it remains to be seen who God might bless or chasten, but in essence we’re being told the song is only important as long as they’re around to sing it to their spiritual master, but after that well… Maybe we’ll have to drop the Prabhupada song from the morning program as no longer applicable? We can always sing to our voted-in-guru at home in secret, I guess.

As you’re probably picking up, I’m feeling unimpressed. I found this section particularly distasteful and disrespectful, treating the ‘lower caste devotees’ like some kind of commodity that needs sorting into its correct place. An unwelcome annoyance they must tend to before they’re whisked away to be with Prabhupada for eternity. The irony, of course, is that all you seniors within Iskcon collectively contributed to the mess you’ve now found yourself standing in. It was working fine before you broke it.

The almost complete absence of kindness and compassion, and the apparent lack of awareness these ‘senior men’ display while glibly discussing others' spiritual lives (some sitting right there in the room), is unsettling, but sadly not surprising. For years we’ve experienced this heavy ego conditioning: "I’m a Prabhupada disciple. I’m superior. You have nothing of value to offer. Remain silent. Obey our instructions.”

The Zonal deviation created an Us and Them, and the multi-guru system has caused further division. At the time of writing this, devotees await to see if the entire Indian yatra will split from the rest of world Iskcon, pivoting on the unholy actions of one of the voted-in-gurus. 

The ramifications of such division run deep (think Jagannatha Puri restrictions), and we would never have found ourselves in this mess had they not removed His Divine Grace as Iskcon's Acarya guru. It’s that simple. Judge the process by its result. Prabhupada brought everyone together. The GBC and their voted-in-gurus continue to tear the society apart. How many thousands have left over the years as a direct result of the unauthorised changes that were made, and the guru madness that followed?

“The local guru’s picture was permanently on the altar.”

(from Iskcon Zonal Acarya History)

The new bhakta is told the voted-in-guru is more than Prabhupada and they must have a living guru if they're to make any advancement or get back to Godhead. So, in essence, we’re being informed Srila Prabhupada is spiritually dead and gone. But then in the next breath it’s preached the spiritual master is less than Prabhupada and no one can sing Srila Gurudeva's unholy name within the temple.

To further compound the dualism, when your voted-in-guru bloops you’re then told to ‘go back to Prabhupada’ because he’ll never bloop, is eternally pure, and through him you’ll be connected to the entire parampara!? And confusion reigns supreme.

If your head's not spinning enough already, next week old JAS will be back perched on high, all bitter and twisted demanding exclusive allegiance to the voted-in-guru club and doubling down on his demands to stop that infuriating, “Jai Prabhupada” philosophical wrongness.

What a total cluster f%*#! And the kicker: when the sincere seeker has finally endured enough mistreatment, dragged from pillar to post, forced to accept a man as God, made to worship in secret, told he must have wanted to be cheated when his fake guru bloops, then again forced to take reinitiation and do it all over; when he’s finally had enough and walks, these same seniors will sit around in their offices smugly talking about loyalty to Prabhupada and never leaving the movement. They’ve made Iskcon into a scorching copper planet and it seems difficult for anyone to find real peace there.

It’s been painful and at times bordering on the bizarre to witness these guys trying to navigate their way through the tangled web they’ve stitched up with their wretched, ‘anyone but Prabhupada’ kingdom they won with crooked dice. They appear unwilling to give His Divine Grace enough spiritual realestate in his own movement in which to drive a pin.

To close out this snapshot study of the conflicting opinions and standards swirling around Srila Prabhupada and the voted-in-guru, I thought we could end with “winner of most absurd speculation from an esteemed senior member” award.

Once again we are in LA temple and dealing with the same issue:

Dravida Prabhu: “The Gurvastakam, the mangal arati, is to the spiritual master. So for those verses appropriate, especially saḿsāra-dāvānala-līḍha-loka- and giving the holy name and, basically the first four verses, that’s going to be there for every spiritual master.

“I’m a disciple of Srila Prabhupada so I’m thinking of Srila Prabhupada, but the other generations they can think of their own spiritual master in relation to Srila Prabhupada in those [first four verses.]"

“Now when you get to nikuñja-yūno rati-keli-siddhyai [laughs and makes a doubtful face], you may not be able to think of your spiritual master in that regard!”

After all we’ve heard, we’re finally being told by another senior Prabhupada disciple that in fact only the first four verses are for the voted-in-Iskcon-guru, but after that, well, you may not be able to think of him because those verses describe the qualities of an actual spiritual master. You can think of your voted-in-guru (in secret) for the first four verses, but after that he drops out of the picture. The next four, they’re exclusively for us Prabhupada disciples, sorry.

“I’m a disciple of Srila Prabhupada so I’m thinking of Srila Prabhupada, but the other generations…..”

The Founder-Acarya of our movement says: “This song is offering obeisances particularly to the spiritual master, and the symptoms of the spiritual master are described in this prayer.”

(Purport Gurvastakam by Srila Prabhupada, Los Angeles, January 2, 1969)

The prayers describing the symptoms of the spiritual master have been incorporated into the morning program by Srila Prabhupada for a reason. We get to learn, recite, and imbibe what a true spiritual master is, and what he’s not. We are being spiritually educated through this bonafide prayer. Prabhupada introduced the prayers to be sung to him because he saw himself as the guru of his movement.

“The GBC should all be the instructor gurus. I am the initiator guru and you should be the instructor guru by teaching what I am teaching and doing what I am doing. This is not a title, but you must actually come to this platform. This I want.”

(Srila Prabhupada Letter, August 4th, 1975)

These prayers stand in stark contrast to the premise given by the voted-in-guru proponents who tell us the guru can be a kanistha, four-verses-or-less guru, and it’s the disciple who's at fault if they choose a bad one.

“Choosing an Iskcon guru is like choosing a used car: buyer beware!” - JAS

But that’s nonsense according to Srila Prabhupada and the Gurvastakam describing the symptoms of an actual guru. Srila Prabhupada never promoted falling gurus, four verse gurus, or reinitiations. Prabhupada never instructed anyone to reduce, rewrite or remove his song. And where’s the used-car-guru described in Prabhupada’s books? And when did HDG hand over the reins and relinquish the Gurvastakam to others? Much of what we hear today falls outside of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings.

So either we follow Srila Prabhupada, or we follow GBC, but no man or woman can serve two masters.

“So the spiritual master is not self-made. It is not that if anyone comes before you and bluffs you that “I have attained spiritual perfection, and I have realized something by some method.” No. The spiritual master, bona fide spiritual, means he has to receive the power from authority. Otherwise it is useless. It is not that one can become spiritual master overnight.”

(Purport Gurvastakam by Srila Prabhupada, Los Angeles, January 2, 1969)

The voted-in-Iskcon-guru, and what Srila Prabhupada defines as the spiritual master through the Gurvastakam prayer (and countless places within his books and lectures), are two incompatible entities.

“Srila Prabhupada disciples should treat the eleven gurus almost like their own spiritual master.”

(GBC Resolution 1979)

To rub salt into the spiritual wound, after we’re told we must have wanted to be cheated and so Krishna fulfilled our unhealthy desires via the fraudulent guru, if we then return to the shelter of Prabhupada they’ll label us Ritviks and throw us out by our kurtas anyway.

Under their dumbass concocted system, you’re dammed if you do, damned if you don’t. They poisoned the well then criticise those who drank the water they said was pure.

For me personally, and it really is just one man’s opinion, I believe it’s our birthright to sing ALL the verses and choose a spiritual master who embodies ALL the qualities found in Gurvastakam. I think it was wrong to have removed His Divine Grace, and I believe we need an open, honest discussion about what went down in Iskcon all those years ago.

“By regular attendance in classes on the Bhagavatam and by rendering of service to the pure devotee, all that is troublesome to the heart is almost completely destroyed, and loving service unto the Personality of Godhead, who is praised with transcendental songs, is established as an irrevocable fact.”

(Srila Prabhupada SB 1.2.17-21)