Russell Brand // Mirror UK // De Facto Ritvik // India Heritage Boston etc. 11 06 26

Yep, people are having a field day with the 

"suspended Guru" issue.

The memes are everywhere. 

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RUSSEL BRAND: ABUSERS AND THE ABUSED

PADA: Someone said there are a lot of photos of him with ISKCON people like Radhanath, and it is going to come back to bite ISKCON for promoting this fellow. I dunno, let's hope not. I mean how much worse can the name of ISKCON be? 

But if this guy is a predator, while preaching heavy duty against the globalist women and children children trafficking and exploiting society, that would really be a lot of hypocrisy. He is a very clever and convincing speaker, and I can see how so many people would easily accept him as a champion of the down trodden and even a sincere spiritual seeker. It is unfortunate ISKCON is now connected to his legacy.

In any case, if he goes to prison, the prisoners are not going to be kind to him, that is for sure. I don't envy his situation at all, for one who has been honored, infamy is worse than death. True dat! The good news for PADA, we were never really put on a very high official position or pedestal, so we really have no got far to fall back down to. We are still taxiing the runway, so our crashing won't be a big crisis.  

On the other hand, his arrest has inspired other victims of other cases to come out of the woodwork, so maybe this will overall have a healing impact. Whole thing is sad, he comes to Krishna, sort of, and ends up with Saint Radhanath. Sheesh pilgrims! 

Anyway now he really has time to repent and think about what he is doing with his life, and let's hope he makes better choices. I think the Russell Brand legal issue has been going on for quite awhile, and therefore have confidence the courts did their homework on his case. But still the whole thing is sad, he could have been a good advert for Krishna, then he ends up being the worst. ys pd  

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The Mirror [UK]

Sadly, every time another famous person faces serious allegations, whether it’s Russell Brand, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Huw Edwards or someone else entirely, I recognise the same public conversation.

The names change. The emotions rarely do. Warning: Sensitive content. 

As someone who gave evidence in the Rolf Harris trial, I know just how difficult it is to speak out against someone the public admires. I also know why so many people struggle to believe it could possibly be true. People often ask why women wait so long to come forward.

I’ve come to believe we’re asking the wrong question. The better question is this. Why is it still so incredibly hard to speak in the first place. 

I didn’t come forward because I wanted attention. I came forward because I watched an interview with one of the young women Rolf Harris had abused.
She was only 14 years old when he assaulted her, and I knew she wasn’t lying.
I came forward for her. I came forward for the other women. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat. 

For a long time, I couldn’t understand why so many people called us liars or accused us of wanting money. There wasn’t any money. There never was.
We wanted justice. Looking back now, I don’t think it was only the victim / survivors who had a journey to make. The public did too.

When someone has entertained you for decades, you’ve welcomed them into your home through your television, you’ve trusted them and admired them, discovering that they may have abused that trust is incredibly confronting. People weren’t just losing a celebrity. They were losing someone they thought they knew.

That doesn’t excuse victim blaming. It never will. But understanding it has helped me stop carrying the anger I once felt towards people who couldn’t believe us.
Eventually I realised they weren’t asking the same question I was.

I was asking, “Why don’t they believe us.” Many of them were asking themselves, “How could someone I trusted possibly have done this.” Those are two very different questions. [Suzi Dent, who bravely gave evidence against sex offender Rolf Harris.]

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DE FACTO RITVIK

PADA: Trvrikrama swami was yelling and shouting at the other GBC at the 1990 GBC meeting. He said -- making all these "ISKCON laws" that apply to us gurus, such as financial accounting disclosures, making us sign an oath of allegiance, monitoring our correspondence with disciples etc. is "de facto ritvik." It is like the Council of Churches that makes the priests do the same thing, sign an oath to the Church and submit financials. And he is right, the rules the GBC are making for their gurus are the same type rules the Church applies to priests. Therefore it is ritvik de facto.

At the same time, Trivrikrama complained, a few GBC elite people like Jayapataka are not monitored by anyone, so he is more or less absolute. Trvikrama said the good old boys network of original 11 have different rules than us newcomers. So he was saying, the old guard have no rules and we have all the rules, thus it is a double standard. I think he is correct. There is good news, after awhile Trivrikrama was having an affair with a woman disciple and the GBC told him he has to cut that out, or wear white. Eventually, due to GBC pressure, he had to stop being a sannyasa. But some of his disciples from Eastern Europe told me, he was being very secretive for a long time and he was hiding the affair.

Which makes us ask, what kind of acharyas are having secret affairs with disciples? But this was causing a lot of confusion and infighting among his people because some supported him even when he was fallen. A bunch of people left after he blooped out. That is why Badrinarayan wrote a paper in 1982, the disciples should be considered the property of Srila Prabhupada, so when the guru bloops, the followers will stay. His paper was never accepted.

By the way Trivrikrama saw me at Rathayatra and he said "Holy h*ll, you are not six feet under, you are still walking around on the surface of the earth, why are you not six feet under in the graveyard"! So he was very disappointed their enforcer teams had not put me in the grave. What kind of acharya wishes others to be -- in the grave?

And Trivrikrama's buddy Ravindra Swarupa said the same type things, we are trying to restrict our acharyas -- but we cannot get Kirtanananda to do anything we say. He operates outside our authority. Hansadutta said the same type thing, a committee of defective people cannot make rules for an acharya, the whole idea is ritvik-diculous.

So now they are going to make a committee to consider the role of Srila Prabhupada and making him "more central," which is what they have been saying since the 1980s. But that never seems to happen. In any case, making Srila Prabhupada central and making the GBC agents or proxies, is also the ritvik idea. They also said we need to emphasize shiksha over diksha, again, making leaders into shiksha agents of the acharya is the ritvik idea.

But if we are going to have a threadbare theological re-make, we have to go back to ALL their previous papers and documents and sort through all the false statements. For example -- Gaura Govinda Maharaja's 1988 "Guru Tattva" paper said -- gurus can become asuras, and "hopelessly entangled in sense gratification." They never explain how the residents of Krishna loka are sometimes fallen and even asuras. And how is fallen Jayatirtha the Maya Jayatirtha, just like the real and false Mother Sita. What does Mother Sita have in common with intoxicated womanizers. What about the 1980 "The Mahajanas Have Difficulties." Or in 1978 BR Sridhar is our seniormost advisor, but then in 1982, he is a rascal and no one can visit him.

Instead of explaining all this, they just make another pile of new documents which are full of even more mis-statements and falsity, never correcting all the previous document's mish mash. I think it is finally time to say, a person who needs to be monitored by the Church Council, who needs to sign and oath and submit financials, is not Jesus. 

He is a conditioned soul priest, and therefore -- the ritvik idea is the only idea that is going to work. And that is why Srila Prabhupada ordered it. Making more rules and by-laws will never change the essential fact, a conditioned soul cannot take the post of acharya, and no amount of reams and reams and piles and piles of GBC rationalizing documents is ever going to change that fact. They need to make ritvik official. And if they don't, ISKCON will continue to spiral down in public and devotee opinion, and it will fade off into insignificance which it has been doing since 1978. ys pd

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INDIA HERITAGE BOSTON

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s System of Initiation | Ritvik Harināma Dīkṣā Ceremony

On Sunday, October 11, 2026, six devotees received initiation at Sri Sri Radha Damodara Mandir in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. Of these, three received Harināma Dīkṣā and three received Brahminical initiation.

The ceremony was conducted on behalf of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda, the Founder-Ācārya of ISKCON, in accordance with the ritvik system of initiation outlined in his July 9, 1977 letter. The devotees took sacred vows and received their spiritual names, marking an important milestone in their spiritual journeys.

“Initiation means you agree to enter the world of enlightenment.”

— Śrīla Prabhupāda, lecture in Los Angeles, December 13, 1968

May this sacred new beginning inspire deeper surrender, sincere chanting of the Holy Names, and a lifetime of loving service to Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Damodara.

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BHAKTI CARU SWAMI SPEAKS

"Like in 1987, although we had a reform, after so many gurus fell down, there was a fifty man committee was formed, and there was reform; it was not actually, at least my perception is that it was not actually a reform. It was kind of watering down the same misconception and continuing. Like what we did was we appointed some more gurus and opened up the world for anybody to initiate wherever he wanted. Whereas previous to that it was a kind of zonal acarya. So that I think is the main mistake where we started, that took place after Srila Prabhupada's disappearance that has never been properly rectified. [...] Yes, I agree, to begin with, I think at the beginning I said our main problem was introducing a defective initiation system. 

And that defective system may have been watered down to some extent but it's still prevailing. After Harikesa fell down in 1998, in 1999 I proposed that it's obvious that we are going in the wrong direction. Now, when you go wrong, when you know you're going in the wrong direction, what do you do? You stop to find the right way. So for the time-being, let's stop giving initiation and find out what actually the problem is and what is the solution to this problem, whether we can find a solution and until then, let us stop." (Bhakti Caru Swami, Toronto Meeting, July 20th 2003)

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FEMALE DIKSHA GURUS

ISKCON Gurus Urge the GBC Not to Force a Decision on Female Diksa Gurus

Published on Akincana Gocara on 21 October 2026

As the GBC devoted the second and third days of its 2026 Midterm General Meeting at Govardhan Eco Village to Vaishnavi diksa-gurus, two senior sannyasis and disciples of Srila Prabhupada addressed its members directly. Bhakti Raghava Swami wrote to GBC members in a letter headed "GBC/FDG October 2026", and Bhakti Vikasa Swami recorded a four-minute video message. Both ask the GBC not to force a decision. Neither had been published before; Akincana Gocara reproduces both in full.

Bhakti Raghava Swami, who says leaders of the India Continental Committee and the India Bureau asked him to take part in the meetings, writes that the GBC "as a whole" has "failed to take up seriously Srila Prabhupada's 50 percent mission, that of establishing Daiva Varnasrama Dharma", and that without that foundation its members are "recklessly tampering with" a principle concerning women that he regards as primary, not secondary, instruction. "When there is a clear majority opposition again and again voiced by the leaders in Bharat, as well as others around the world, it is wise not to force this issue and best to give additional time," he writes. "History has shown that within other major religious organisations premature decisions on crucial matters have had devastating effects."

Bhakti Vikasa Swami says in his video that a Mayapur resolution calling for guru-tattva to be thoroughly discussed before any change "was jettisoned", and that the GBC instead decided there had been enough discussion. He argues that the Sastric Advisory Council's research was "seriously flawed", that its flaws were never acknowledged, and that "to those who think that there is a strong case for instituting FDGs, you are highly likely to be seriously misinformed." Members, he says, "need to take the time to thoroughly, openly and honestly address all the pros and cons."

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