Swarupa Hebel: When Srila Prabhupada left this world in 1977 ISKCON faced many challenges and there was much confusion, disenchantment and disenfranchisement among the thousands of members. Many people, like myself, left and never came back.
[PADA: A devotee asked me if its possible some of our ISKCON people were formerly 1930s Gaudiya Matha people, and they were reborn in ISKCON, in order to continue their service to Lord Gaurana's mission? Well maybe so, but if that is the case, it looks like mostly they made the same mistakes -- again!
Almost exactly the same negative events happened in the post 1936 Gaudiya Matha as in post 1977 ISKCON. In 1936, Sridhara Maharaja and his bogus cohorts endorsed a false guru, resulting in scandals and a giant purge of the mass of rank and file congregation devotees.
Gradually, dissenters were being beaten and killed. Then -- starting in the 1940s, there was gradually horrific mass media publicity and lawsuits. After a lot of the post 1936 Gaudiya Matha rank left and file fell away, their temples became empty ghost towns. Same types of things have happened in ISKCON. ALMOST EXACTLY!
Srila Prabhupada furthermore says there were problems with the fallen away post 1936 "rank and file" congregation members such as: wife swapping, intoxication, and he said a number of the former members were sitting in the tea shops reading newspapers and smoking beedis. Srila Prabhupada says -- one party deviated, one party left, both are useless.
Almost identical history repeated in post 1977 ISKCON: Self-appointed gurus fell down; Many leaders and sannyasas fell down; Many rank and file were kicked out, most of them fell down; And worse, Sridhara Maharaja -- the head architect of the false acharya's party of 1936 -- was then coronated by the ISKCON leadership as ISKCON's "senior most vaishnava on the planet" and ISKCON's "shiksha guru."
Right, the founder father of the 1936 illicit sex acharya's program needs to be consulted as our senior most "advisor." And what did he advise?; That conditioned souls need to be worshiped as acharyas, same advice he gave in 1936. And then people like Hansadutta installed huge photos of himself with Sridhara Maharaja in the foyer of the Berkeley temple, and anyone who doubted Sridhara's authority was demonized and kicked out.
Sridhara Maharaja then became the darling shiksha guru of the ISKCON gurus and ISKCON overall. For example Satsvarupa was sending out audio tapes to all of ISKCON, where the GBC were speaking with Sridhara, about how we have to keep the GBC's gurus in their posts -- even when it is self-evident they are deviating. Worship of known deviants then became the rule of law.]
[PADA: Unfortunately people like Swarupa Hebel and others never really explain: what was the factual cause of "the confusion"? Nor does he ever explain what it means to be loyal to the instructions? Loyal to what instructions? Sridhara Maharaja says we need to give guru seats to conditioned souls, offer bhogha to conditioned souls, and so on, and that is "the instruction"?
When were we instructed to worship 11 conditioned souls as our acharyas? Sorry, that "instruction" came from the bogus ISKCON leaders and their bogus shiksha gurus like Sridhara Maharaja, Narayana Maharaja and others, and not from Srila Prabhupada. A follower of Narayana Maharaja admits, NM was telling people to take initiation from ISKCON (the 11 gurus).
And then not only the bogus leaders but folks like Swarupa Hebel and his pals like Sruta Srava began to endorse Sridhara Maharaja, the founder father of the illicit sex and criminally debauched guru program of 1936, and main cheer leader of the same bogus guru's program after 1977 in ISKCON. That was called by one of my God brothers -- the Sridhara Maharaja process of placing "petrol on the fire"? So if these guys take birth again, why would they be saved from promoting this same deviation again? Did they learn that this was bogus in this lifetime? Apparently, no.
And then Hansadutta, Jayatirtha, Tripurari swami, Jagat guru swami, Dheera Krishna swami, Panchadravida -- and many others -- they all ran off and said we need to surrender to Sridhara Maharaja, founder father of the worship of illicit sex acharyas. And they simply enticed gullible people like Swarupa Hebel and Sruta Srava to join that process. These are the main people who caused all the confusion, they thought they could replace the worship of the acharya with the worship of deviants, fools, drug addicts, sexual predators and criminals. Most of them have still not learned that this was the wrong idea?
However! The cause of all the confusion was very clear right at the outset in 1978, Srila Prabhupada's worship was being: replaced, displaced, discouraged, changed, altered, removed, minimized and made unrecognizable from the pre-1978 state.
Now we had 11 "new gurus" with their "11 new vyasa seats"; and ISKCON was offering the society's bhogha to the 11, and offering all the new disciples to the 11, and offering the assets and everything else to these 11. Yet there was never any evidence that the 11 had been appointed as the successors?
So it was not really that confusing, right away in 1978 we asked for evidence of this alleged appointment of 11 acharyas, we were not given any evidence, because there was none. The "confusion" was that many people bought into "the big lie" that there had been a guru appointment.
Again! And some of the worst promoters of this bogus guru appointment were folks like Sridhara Maharaja, Narayana Maharaja and others, they kept saying these 11 are the appointed diksha gurus. Yet they never seem to have asked for any evidence that these 11 had been appointed as diksha gurus and acharyas either? Even BV Puri was told, they are not gurus, but at the end of that same conversation, he went backwards and started talking about how these GBC's are "gurus." He did not get it either.
So, the ISKCON leaders simply usurped the post of guru, that is all that happened, and many hapless devotees helped them promote that deviation, or they acquiesced by simply leaving and allowing the pirates to take over the ship.]
[PADA: A devotee asked me if its possible some of our ISKCON people were formerly 1930s Gaudiya Matha people, and they were reborn in ISKCON, in order to continue their service to Lord Gaurana's mission? Well maybe so, but if that is the case, it looks like mostly they made the same mistakes -- again!
Almost exactly the same negative events happened in the post 1936 Gaudiya Matha as in post 1977 ISKCON. In 1936, Sridhara Maharaja and his bogus cohorts endorsed a false guru, resulting in scandals and a giant purge of the mass of rank and file congregation devotees.
Gradually, dissenters were being beaten and killed. Then -- starting in the 1940s, there was gradually horrific mass media publicity and lawsuits. After a lot of the post 1936 Gaudiya Matha rank left and file fell away, their temples became empty ghost towns. Same types of things have happened in ISKCON. ALMOST EXACTLY!
Srila Prabhupada furthermore says there were problems with the fallen away post 1936 "rank and file" congregation members such as: wife swapping, intoxication, and he said a number of the former members were sitting in the tea shops reading newspapers and smoking beedis. Srila Prabhupada says -- one party deviated, one party left, both are useless.
Almost identical history repeated in post 1977 ISKCON: Self-appointed gurus fell down; Many leaders and sannyasas fell down; Many rank and file were kicked out, most of them fell down; And worse, Sridhara Maharaja -- the head architect of the false acharya's party of 1936 -- was then coronated by the ISKCON leadership as ISKCON's "senior most vaishnava on the planet" and ISKCON's "shiksha guru."
Right, the founder father of the 1936 illicit sex acharya's program needs to be consulted as our senior most "advisor." And what did he advise?; That conditioned souls need to be worshiped as acharyas, same advice he gave in 1936. And then people like Hansadutta installed huge photos of himself with Sridhara Maharaja in the foyer of the Berkeley temple, and anyone who doubted Sridhara's authority was demonized and kicked out.
Sridhara Maharaja then became the darling shiksha guru of the ISKCON gurus and ISKCON overall. For example Satsvarupa was sending out audio tapes to all of ISKCON, where the GBC were speaking with Sridhara, about how we have to keep the GBC's gurus in their posts -- even when it is self-evident they are deviating. Worship of known deviants then became the rule of law.]
Swarupa: When I left it was not with bitterness and anger but it was with a heavy heart and with the hopes that the confusion and misdirection would soon end and the society would be back on track. Srila Prabhupada left us everything we need to carry on so to do right was simply a matter of loyalty, dedication, maturity and faithfully following his instructions.
[PADA: Unfortunately people like Swarupa Hebel and others never really explain: what was the factual cause of "the confusion"? Nor does he ever explain what it means to be loyal to the instructions? Loyal to what instructions? Sridhara Maharaja says we need to give guru seats to conditioned souls, offer bhogha to conditioned souls, and so on, and that is "the instruction"?
When were we instructed to worship 11 conditioned souls as our acharyas? Sorry, that "instruction" came from the bogus ISKCON leaders and their bogus shiksha gurus like Sridhara Maharaja, Narayana Maharaja and others, and not from Srila Prabhupada. A follower of Narayana Maharaja admits, NM was telling people to take initiation from ISKCON (the 11 gurus).
And then not only the bogus leaders but folks like Swarupa Hebel and his pals like Sruta Srava began to endorse Sridhara Maharaja, the founder father of the illicit sex and criminally debauched guru program of 1936, and main cheer leader of the same bogus guru's program after 1977 in ISKCON. That was called by one of my God brothers -- the Sridhara Maharaja process of placing "petrol on the fire"? So if these guys take birth again, why would they be saved from promoting this same deviation again? Did they learn that this was bogus in this lifetime? Apparently, no.
And then Hansadutta, Jayatirtha, Tripurari swami, Jagat guru swami, Dheera Krishna swami, Panchadravida -- and many others -- they all ran off and said we need to surrender to Sridhara Maharaja, founder father of the worship of illicit sex acharyas. And they simply enticed gullible people like Swarupa Hebel and Sruta Srava to join that process. These are the main people who caused all the confusion, they thought they could replace the worship of the acharya with the worship of deviants, fools, drug addicts, sexual predators and criminals. Most of them have still not learned that this was the wrong idea?
However! The cause of all the confusion was very clear right at the outset in 1978, Srila Prabhupada's worship was being: replaced, displaced, discouraged, changed, altered, removed, minimized and made unrecognizable from the pre-1978 state.
Now we had 11 "new gurus" with their "11 new vyasa seats"; and ISKCON was offering the society's bhogha to the 11, and offering all the new disciples to the 11, and offering the assets and everything else to these 11. Yet there was never any evidence that the 11 had been appointed as the successors?
So it was not really that confusing, right away in 1978 we asked for evidence of this alleged appointment of 11 acharyas, we were not given any evidence, because there was none. The "confusion" was that many people bought into "the big lie" that there had been a guru appointment.
Again! And some of the worst promoters of this bogus guru appointment were folks like Sridhara Maharaja, Narayana Maharaja and others, they kept saying these 11 are the appointed diksha gurus. Yet they never seem to have asked for any evidence that these 11 had been appointed as diksha gurus and acharyas either? Even BV Puri was told, they are not gurus, but at the end of that same conversation, he went backwards and started talking about how these GBC's are "gurus." He did not get it either.
So, the ISKCON leaders simply usurped the post of guru, that is all that happened, and many hapless devotees helped them promote that deviation, or they acquiesced by simply leaving and allowing the pirates to take over the ship.]
I sometimes think how amazing it would be if all the thousands of people who served in ISKCON from 1966 to 1977 while Srila Prabhupada was present would once again come together as a spiritual family -- everyone reunited in a spirit of love and trust. In cooperation and conjunction with all the thousands of others who have taken to Krishna consciousness in the last four decades there's no limit to what could be accomplished.
I got to thinking recently that this very phenomenon can and will happen. One may say that time is running out. But I am trying to see the bigger picture. I mean to say ... that many of us will be coming back to continue and hopefully finish our business in our next life.
That's just the reality -- although it would be nice to think that everyone will be heading back to the spiritual sky after this life is done. Okay -- so figure that in the next ten or twenty years the majority of us will be going, going gone and taking birth in new bodies -- having another go at it (once more, with feeling).
And then add another fifteen or twenty years for growing into adulthood in the next life. And then my friends, there's gonna be some fireworks going off. So stay tuned for the upcoming reunion and renaissance. We'll all be getting together and getting it together for the big encore. And when those saints go marching in you know I want to be in that number ... when those devotees in fresh new bodies go marching down the streets of every town and village chanting Hare Krishna. All glories to Sri Sri Guru and Gauranga. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
PADA: Even if ISKCON devotees come back again and take birth in and around ISKCON in the future, it will not help if they never figured out the problem in the first place, that they allowed the worship of their acharya to be hi-jacked by rascals? First of all we have to understand the problem, whether this life or another life.
We cannot allow the worship of our acharya to slip downwards, and turn into the worship of speculators, neophytes, falling down people, sexual predators, debauchees, sahajiyas and criminals. Unless we understand this principle, simply taking another birth in future is not going to fix things. Taking another birth does not result in automatic realization.
Nor did the Gaudiya Matha people take rebirth to re-start their mission back, it has floundered for the most part and not revived. Has the Gaudiya Matha revived back to the principle of worship of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta, under a GBC? Nope, even if they took rebirth in India, they did not come forward to fix this mess.
To sum, the Gaudiya Matha people tried to make conditioned souls into acharyas, its the premature guru disease. Srila Prabhupada said about them -- one of their bogus gurus falls, then another one comes to take the place of the fallen one -- the he falls, then another -- and another, and in some camps their gurus do not even last for a year before they fall. And in this way, they killed their guru to become guru. And Sridhara was the architect of the same guru rubber stamp in ISKCON, he said they need to vote in more gurus, and they did. Guru voting is simply another deviation.
All this is simple ordinary common sense? (A) Yes, you can tell kindergarten children that someday they might BECOME police men. (B) Then you cannot give these same kindergarten children loaded police guns, a police badge, a pair of police handcuffs, and tell them to start busting down criminal's doors and arresting and shooting at people because they are ALREADY policemen.
This will result in people getting killed, including the children. These Gaudiya Matha types seem to have no idea that they cannot give loaded guns to children and tell them they are ALREADY the police. In other words, any ordinary person walking on the street has a better idea of common sense than they do. So, a person who lacks basic sense is considered as in the modes of ignorance, he cannot discriminate what is to be done and what is not, as is described in the Gita.
Srila Prabhupada...."Similarly any transcendental message, any Vedic literature, unless it is presented by a self realized devotee, it is poison.You simply misunderstand the whole thing, and you do not get the benefit. Rather, you become a victim of misunderstanding."
Srila Prabhupada's Lecture on : Bhagavad-gita 4.1-2 -- Columbus, May 9, 1969 (ys pd)
[PADA: Of course all these people are famous for saying, there is no letter from Srila Prabhupada where he says his worship should continue? So, unless Jesus writes a letter to his followers ordering them to worship him, they should stop worshiping him? Why would Jesus have to write a letter to his followers ordering his worship, or his worship should be stopped?
PADA: Even if ISKCON devotees come back again and take birth in and around ISKCON in the future, it will not help if they never figured out the problem in the first place, that they allowed the worship of their acharya to be hi-jacked by rascals? First of all we have to understand the problem, whether this life or another life.
We cannot allow the worship of our acharya to slip downwards, and turn into the worship of speculators, neophytes, falling down people, sexual predators, debauchees, sahajiyas and criminals. Unless we understand this principle, simply taking another birth in future is not going to fix things. Taking another birth does not result in automatic realization.
Nor did the Gaudiya Matha people take rebirth to re-start their mission back, it has floundered for the most part and not revived. Has the Gaudiya Matha revived back to the principle of worship of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta, under a GBC? Nope, even if they took rebirth in India, they did not come forward to fix this mess.
To sum, the Gaudiya Matha people tried to make conditioned souls into acharyas, its the premature guru disease. Srila Prabhupada said about them -- one of their bogus gurus falls, then another one comes to take the place of the fallen one -- the he falls, then another -- and another, and in some camps their gurus do not even last for a year before they fall. And in this way, they killed their guru to become guru. And Sridhara was the architect of the same guru rubber stamp in ISKCON, he said they need to vote in more gurus, and they did. Guru voting is simply another deviation.
All this is simple ordinary common sense? (A) Yes, you can tell kindergarten children that someday they might BECOME police men. (B) Then you cannot give these same kindergarten children loaded police guns, a police badge, a pair of police handcuffs, and tell them to start busting down criminal's doors and arresting and shooting at people because they are ALREADY policemen.
This will result in people getting killed, including the children. These Gaudiya Matha types seem to have no idea that they cannot give loaded guns to children and tell them they are ALREADY the police. In other words, any ordinary person walking on the street has a better idea of common sense than they do. So, a person who lacks basic sense is considered as in the modes of ignorance, he cannot discriminate what is to be done and what is not, as is described in the Gita.
Srila Prabhupada...."Similarly any transcendental message, any Vedic literature, unless it is presented by a self realized devotee, it is poison.You simply misunderstand the whole thing, and you do not get the benefit. Rather, you become a victim of misunderstanding."
Srila Prabhupada's Lecture on : Bhagavad-gita 4.1-2 -- Columbus, May 9, 1969 (ys pd)
[PADA: Of course all these people are famous for saying, there is no letter from Srila Prabhupada where he says his worship should continue? So, unless Jesus writes a letter to his followers ordering them to worship him, they should stop worshiping him? Why would Jesus have to write a letter to his followers ordering his worship, or his worship should be stopped?
So this is another nonsense idea, we need to have a specific order from the acharya -- in order to worship the acharya. The Christians worship their guru because they love their guru, no letter is needed. We should need no such letter ourselves. Anyway, if they did not understand that we need to worship the pure devotee in this lifetime, simply taking birth again will not automatically give them the realizations they lacked in this lifetime. Basically this is another cop out, we ruined ISKCON in this life, we will come back and fix it. Post dated check. ys pd]
