Making Women ISKCON's Messiah's Advisors / Garuda On Books

Making Women ISKCON's Messiah's Advisors

Women nurse volunteers needed for

Lokaram's guru fix it mental hospital.

PADA: OK well here is a guy who says there are -- not too many abominations -- going on in the eternally pure guru parampara from God. There are only a few dog stools in the sweet rice, so what is the problem? 

Now he is suggesting that the mostly male GBC gurus get some women into their group council, to do -- what? -- balance out the top heavy misogyny and pro-predator messiah's program? Why would gurus, who are getting direct dictation from God, need a bunch of conditioned soul women to become their shiksha guru co-manager advisors? 

Yep, these male body messiahs from heaven men, who are being given direct advice from God, are making a mess. Maybe the input of some women will help. Maybe some women could dictate better than God? Hee hee, and maybe not.

First of all Lokaram seems to think that the men bodied souls who are already suffering from taking sins -- will not also happen when women bodied souls claim they are messiahs who can absorb sins. Why would women be exempt from getting sick, falling down, suffering, making scandals and / or dying prematurely from taking sins? He gives no explanation how they would be exempt. 

Lokaram's sin vacuum cleaner.

I think his vacuum bag is too full of sins.

PADA: Anyway, Lokaram made his proposal to have women included in the GBC's illicit sex with men, women and children messiah's club to -- a GBC guru -- and that guru rejected his proposal, so he is taking it elsewhere. That means Lokaram does not believe these gurus are to be "equated with the Supreme God" rather they are conditioned souls whose advice may be defective, and so he is rejecting their advice.     

Srila Prabhupada: As Lord Krsna's appearance and disappearance are all spiritual, transcendental, they are not ordinary things, similarly, Lord Krsna's devotee, His representative, who is sent to this material world for preaching the glories of Lord Krsna, their appearance and disappearance is also like Krsna's. Therefore, according to Vaisnava principles, the appearance and disappearance of Vaisnava is considered all-auspicious.>>> 

Ref. VedaBase => Srimad-Bhagavatam 6.1.27–34 -- December 16, 1970, Surat

PADA: OK so these GBC gurus are not descending from the spiritual world, they are mundane defective beings whose advice can be accepted or rejected. And now we should add mundane defective women to the guru pile and that will make even more mundane and defective advice. 

Of course maybe some of these women could give good sound advice to the GBC men, like for example, take better care of children. But if these GBC guru men already do not know that, they are not only defective, but criminally negligent. They need to be removed from posts of authority if some women are better managers than them.

Refining the Narrative on Women in ISKCON Leadership

By Lokarama Dasa | Feb 23, 2025

Srila Prabhupada on a japa walk with Yamuna Devi Dasi, Malati Devi Dasi, and others.

The history of ISKCON has shown that Kali, the personification of the current Age of Quarrel, is adept at introducing controversies that act like storm clouds obscuring the effulgent sun of Mahaprabhu’s samkirtana movement. The propensity for debate, argument, and verbal conquest can be likened to turbulent winds; harsh speech to torrential rain; and fleeting victories in establishing one’s position to flashes of lightning—offering only momentary illumination before plunging everything back into darkness.

Kali wields his two chief whips — hypocrisy and quarrel — to sow discord and undermine unity. As aspiring servants of Lord Chaitanya, we must all be vigilant not to become Kali’s instruments by ourselves coming under the sway of these two influences. All who remain oblivious to or otherwise unmindful of these dangers may meet with spiritual stagnation, or in severe cases, spiritual ruin.

In this spirit, I offer a historical reflection on the topic of women’s roles in ISKCON leadership. I approach this subject not as a participant in the ongoing debate, which I feel is an unproductive mode of discourse among Vaiṣṇavas, but as one providing historical evidence to clarify misconceptions. Those inclined to debate would do better to direct their energy toward engaging with the billions of atheists and opponents of Vaisnavism across the planet.

Approximately a year ago, I submitted a document titled Q&A on FDG to a senior, respected Vaiṣṇava guru for his review. He responded that his primary reason for opposing the idea of women serving as initiating gurus in ISKCON was that “Srila Prabhupada never appointed women to the role of temple president or GBC.”

PADA: OK so Lokaram submits his women manager's position paper to a senior GBC guru, and his paper is discarded and rejected by that guru. And Lokaram does not accept the version of the ISKCON guru, rather he thinks this guru is wrong, defective, and has not understood the issues. That means Lokaram thinks "gurus" are mundane defective beings who are conditioned souls. We can reject their authority because, they are not authorized. 

This shows how "guru" has become a relativized mundane person in ISKCON. When the guru speaks -- it might be the Supreme absolute truth, it might be speculation, it might be totally bogus, it might be apa-siddhanta, and it might be evil and not good whatever. Any new bhakta can either accept or reject what the guru is saying, because there is now no standard for statements from a guru. 

Thus we find that many times the followers of ISKCON gurus reject or even scoff at the statements of their own gurus, because "guru" has become a mundane conditioned being. So the first thing Lokaram is teaching us is -- gurus are conditioned, defective souls whose directives can be ignored, rejected, scoffed at and even -- countered and replaced with directives from the new bhaktas. 

Yeah this guy is such a bogus misguided person, and that is why -- he is our senior man guru. What? Yep. This means "guru" has become a relativised conditioned being and not a self realized one. Of course, being a senior Vaishnava guru in ISKCON today pretty much means -- he is a member of the GBC's illicit sex with men, women and children guru's parampara. So they really have no basic mundane moral codes for guru, never mind higher consideration. No wonder their own followers are questioning their judgement, when they are judging conditioned souls if not illicit sex deviants to be ISKCON gurus.

However, this is not a complete account.

When Srila Prabhupada formed the GBC in 1970, he intended to give two women, Govinda Devi and Yamuna Devi, one shared vote as GBC members. Govinda Dasi recounts: “[Srila Prabhupada] explained that he wanted two ladies on the GBC, “to deal with matters relating to women and children.” Because, he explained, “children are shy and young women are also shy,” so they may only talk to a woman if there are problems” (1, see all footnotes below). (2).

PADA: Women's voices should have been included more, and should become more included now, and I think that would have possibly helped the situation with the mistreatment of children. Eventually, women's position being minmized created a backlash of women not being happy with the managers (like Yamuna was). At the same time, Tamal and his sannyasa clique were not happy having women -- or even some males like Siddaswarupa, or people like me -- challenging their decisions. 

Eventually, Srila Prabhupada himself wanted to send Tamal to China because he was not happy with Prabhupada's decisions either. There was an overall problem of these managers not wanting to consult with women, or with us, or people like Siddhaswarupa, or even Srila Prabhupada. 

And the women were another group that was shut out -- to the peril of the society. Of course yep, we were also shut out. But here this fellow is basically saying, we need the input of women because these male gurus are committing too many errors. 

Therefore, the opinion of various women is superior to the opinion of a lot of these male gurus. And he may be right. However, if these women are also conditioned souls, they will not have a superior opinion to a realized guru. They will only be superior when their conditioned soul female opinion is better than another defective being who is male. Of course this begs the question, why would self realized gurus need to have their position corrected by a conditioned soul -- male or female? 

From this, it is clear that Yamuna’s decision to decline the service of GBC was driven by the reluctance of certain male leaders to accept women in leadership roles, rather than any inherent inadequacy in women. After all, it was Srila Prabhupada himself who had proposed the idea.

Pranada Devi recounts: “In September [1996] at North America’s first Vaishnava-Christian Dialogue, I sat at a table with Tamal Krishna Maharaja and Ravindra Svarupa dasa in East Freeport, MA, eating lunch prasadam between sessions. Unexpectedly, Tamal Krishna Goswami thanked me for my work of educating devotees about Vaishnavis. He point blank told me that he supported all my efforts to initiate change for women in all spheres of ISKCON participation including as gurus— a belief which he had already demonstrated in welcoming Sudharma to the GBC.

PADA: OK but Pranada began to have an affair with Satsvarupa dasa goswami, thinking that he was in need of some special amorous pastime therapy. Srila Prabhupada says when a guru has an affair with his disciple, it is just like a father having sex with his own daughter. 

OK it is de facto pedophile. Yet Prananda has gone on promoting these guys as gurus. A pedophile ilk guru lineage is not authorized. She recently got some high praise from Jayapataka, founder father of the anal reconstructive surgery epidemic messiahs program in Mayapur.

Lokaram is evidently in Mayapur.

Jayapataka is in Mayapur.

And Snidely Whiplash Dhanurdar is there too.

The gang is all here!

Why, then, did Srila Prabhupada never again bring up the idea of having women serve on the GBC or in other leadership roles? It has been suggested by some ISKCON leaders that this indicates that Srila Prabhupada didn’t really want women to have a voice in leadership. But is it possible, instead, that being fully aware of the disrespectful attitudes some of his prominent leaders held toward women, he simply wished to avoid creating unnecessary disturbances within ISKCON’s fledgling administrative structure?

PADA: Right, these GBC guys could not handle managing women properly, and to say they are gurus is a mistake. It simply made things worse for women. 

In conclusion, as the above narrative illustrates, it is incomplete history to claim that Srila Prabhupada never appointed women to the role of GBC. By proposing to give women GBC members a half-vote each, he expertly preserved gender distinctions and granted women a voice in the leadership of his ISKCON society, while acknowledging the competence and dedication of his female disciples.

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare

Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

PADA: OK the conclusion is that most of the male leaders of ISKCON -- aka the voted in messiahs from Vaikuntha -- are defective. They should be consulting with others, in particular, women -- who can advise them on protecting women and children from abuse. I would sign up except, I do not believe gurus would mistreat others in the first place, never mind need to consult with conditioned soul women to realize they are mistaken by orchestrating mistreating others.

About the Author

A disciple of His Grace Vaisesika Dasa Adhikari, Lokarama Dasa lives in Mayapur with his wife, Madhavi Dasi, and their three children. He serves as English editor for the BBT’s Sanskrit and Bengali translations division. He is also researching and writing a book about ISKCON history post-1977 from a Krishna conscious perspective. He is a GBC college graduate (class of 2023). You can visit his latest initiative, the ISKCON History Archive website here. Lokarama also spoke alongside Krishna Kshetra Swami at the 2025 ILS on the topic “Writing Our History to Prepare ISKCON’s Future.” Readers can watch that presentation here.

Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of ISKCON or ISKCON News.

PADA: Yeah Ravindra swarupa said he wanted to make an ISKCON history page, otherwise ISKCON history will be written by outsiders, maybe Henry Doktorski or worse, deviants like PADA. The GBC never made that happen, because I think even they knew, there are too many problems in that history and it makes the GBC look foolish to have made that history happen. ys pd 

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Preserving the Sanctity of Śrīa Prabhupāda's Books:

Solving the Book Changing Controversy

Presentation by and lively conversation with Garuda Das, PhD

Hosted by Rukmini and Badarayana at their home in Gainesville

Wednesday, March 5th @ 7 pm

538 NE 7th Ave

(3 blocks from the B.I.)

Many devotees feel that the BBT editing of Prabhupāda's books has been necessary even after he departed from this world, and many devotees feel that what Prabhupāda himself published in his books can only be changed with his authority and permission. Garuda Das solves this controversy with a solution grounded in both theological and scholarly approaches. Garuda Das is Prabhupāda's first disciple to enter into the academic world (having earned two master’s degrees and a doctorate from Harvard University) for establishing Vaishnava studies as a respected field of knowledge and to publish his own books with some of the most prestigious academic presses in the world. 

As a highly trained textual scholar who was blessed by Prabhupāda to pursue his scholarly work resolves this contentious issue. Garuda Das presently holds two university positions, one in which he teaches undergraduate student in Virginia and the other in which he mentors and guides doctoral students in Berkeley, California. (For more information on Garuda Das, see www.garudadas.com.)