Re: A LETTER FROM VRINDAVANA
Dear Prabhus,
Humble obeisances to all you precious Vaishnavas. A member who attended the recent gala festivities in Vrindavana has written to convey some thoughts on the state of ISKCON today. On one hand, the Hare Krishna Movement is a successful world-wide phenomenon. This all due to the Shrila Prabhupada’s strictly adhering to the pure message of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Yet, it is no secret that real leadership in ISKCON is sorely lacking today. Here are our member’s thoughts …
Where Are the Leaders?
Where Are the Leaders?
This year (2025), I attended the 50th anniversary of the Shri Krishna-Balarama ISKCON center at Raman-Reti, Vrindavana. It was indeed very blissful to be among three generations of devotees engaged in spiritual activities. We had all come together to celebrate how Krishna consciousness has spread all over the world in the past half century, by the incredible spiritual potency of His Divine Grace Shrila Prabhupada.
Yet, among the congregation of blissful bhaktas, the absence of many of the so-called leaders of the Hare Krishna Movement was an obvious sore point. While the majority of GBC and swamis were a no-show, the devotees in attendance — the ones that the GBC and swamis consider their rank-and-filers — were blissfully on their own.
This is a great irony because when they die, ISKCON’s so-called leaders hanker for their own samadhi tombs in Vrindavana, yet when the opportunity arises for them to come to the dhama alive and in the flesh, they are nowhere to be seen. Here in Vrindavana, there are tombs of past ISKCON gurus that include a vicious child molester, a drunkard, a mundane humanitarian, a pornography addict, and a woman.
Aren’t samadhis intended for genuine renunciants, or has the GBC turned the land of Krishna into a graveyard for their corrupt, immoral and fallen shudra cronies?
I made a few inquiries about why so few “leaders” showed up for the celebration. The answer I received most often is that they are afraid to face a congregation of elder devotees — their own Godbrothers and Godsisters. Why would these guilt-ridden personalities be afraid of being judged by whatever few Prabhupada disciples remain?
After all, nearly all of Srila Prabhupada’s initiates were basically thrown out of ISKCON by the GBC during their infamous zone-a-phile era. Thousands of them were sent off to die in some forgotten and lonely isolation. Basically, the disciples that remained in ISKCON had the benefit of some cushy position.
The GBC is still chained to a bleak period of ISKCON history when imitation “Prabhupadas” overthrew common sense and claimed to be “successor acharyas.” There has never been any serious atonement on their part, except for a few flaccid “Dear John emails” saying, “Sorry about that, folks.” In short, any member of the GBC, or any guru, or any minister rubber-stamped by them, remains ball-and-chain attached to a gurgling cesspool of rotten karma for which there has never been proper prayaschitta by ISKCON leadership.
Anyone who joins a gang or criminal organization immediately becomes susceptible to, and liable for, the group’s bad karma. The predictable GBC response to their past sins that still sits like dust under their carpet has always been secrecy and seclusion. They hide themselves away in their regular meetings in fear that the dust they created might make itself known. They are like a secret society that bands behind a smokescreen of joyful-sounding interfaith rubbish meant to placate the ignorant public and keep genuine thinkers at bay.
Disinformation is the function of their blubbering old mouthpiece, Rukmini’s husband Anuttama dasa, and their smoke-and-mirrors website ISKCON “News.” Meanwhile dozens of encyclopedic volumes, films, and television shows written, not only by disenfranchised devotees, but also by scholars, have emerged explaining in no couched terms the real function of GBC cohorts in hiding crimes.
Prabhupada repeatedly mentioned that after the disappearance of the acharya, many malicious predators appear who throw his sacred works into chaos. Dressed in the finery of a paramhamsa, Kali himself invades and pollutes the holy atmosphere that the bona fide spiritual master created with his blood, sweat and tears. Adorned with saffron cloth and false symbols of spiritual realization, Kali’s cohorts illegally climb upon the holy seat of the pure devotee to destroy genuine Krishna consciousness.
Then, once they are ensconced in a smoky aura of presumed sanctity, Kali and his sinister agents proceed to make a mockery out of true devotional service by funneling the worship intended for the guru parampara onto themselves. Thus, the predators accumulate temple funds and utilize their ill-gotten gains for their own selfish, sensual gratification.
The predator’s free enjoyment— which the unfortunate rank - and-file has paid for— takes the form of illicit sexual intercourse, gold watches, luxury apartments, bungalows, health retreats, rich cuisine, and free servants who carry out his every wish. Such exploitative behavior has been displayed so openly, and with such predictable frequency by ISKCON’s callous GBC, that their zombified following think being exploited by them is business as usual. However, becoming a member of ISKCON should not mean that an innocent seeker should become a servile victim of Stockholm syndrome.
Considering all these factors, it is no wonder that ISKCON’s “leaders” did not show their faces for the festivities. Their show-bottle guru pretension can no longer be hidden. Literally, thousands of members of ISKCON’s are clamoring for restoration to the way that Prabhupada designed his movement. Even if the awakening devotees are too polite to directly confront the guru hijackers and the GBC’s rubber stampees, the clownish imitation acharyas know exactly what everyone thinks of their behavior.
Hence, ISKCON’s leadership chose to hide out in their private castles, rather than face the sidelong glances of disgust from their peers.
It seems that the leaders of today’s ISKCON would prefer to show their faces at their church-like social events they call “sadhu sangas,” where they can exert some control. At such parties, ISKCON’s gurus know they will get the worship they crave from their automatons, because expensive tickets are sold at the door.
This tactic conveniently serves as a simple means of excluding any vile critics. Instead, only a parade of cult-blinded fans flush with cash will pour in and occupy their spot on the folding chairs. They sit like zombies before the rock-star stage from which sahajiya kirtans and harangues by the likes of Radhanath or other compliant swamis conveniently packaged and branded as “nectar” are the order of the day.
At the Krishna-Balarama 50th festival, as I chanted my daily quota of rounds at Shrila Prabhupada’s samadhi, it was almost as if I could hear the thoughts of His Divine Grace emanating from the shrine. Was it my imagination, or was I hearing the Founder-Acharya? Some of the thought that came to me were:
* How could the GBC have allowed illegal changes to the books?
* And how could they have spent millions of dollars to hide the originals and list Shrila Prabhupada as their “worker for hire,” after changing the BBT from a trust to the BBT(I) corporation? When will they come to their senses and restore the books back to the original way?”
* How could men who pose as successor acharyas become rapists of children as soon as no one was looking? And even after the guru and swami pedophiles bankrupted ISKCON in the Turley Lawsuit, how is that child molestation was still allowed to continue in ISKCON gurukulas for decades?
* How is it that thousands of worthy preacher-disciples were kicked out of the ashrams after they had given up their very lives to the spiritual master? Why were so many devotees either removed, beaten, or even killed, to keep them from exposing the truth about GBC corruption?
* Why was Pradyumna Panditji removed as the translator of the ongoing Bhagavatam project in favor of a bag of hot wind who thinks he is a holy teacher with a college degree?
* When will the “millionaire swamis” give up their huge bank balances and learn to rely on Krishna alone?
* Why is the GBC allowing Kali-yuga Mayavadi “swamis” to be glorified in books written by a GBC member to be sold in over a dozen languages in ISKCON centers? Why is the GBC publishing a book about the Bible’s Old Testament? Do not Bhagavad-gita As It Is and Srimad-Bhagavatam have enough information?
Did not Prabhupada state, “I have given you everything”?
* When will the GBC take to heart Prabhupada’s repeated pleas about becoming humble servants of Krishna’s servants.
* When will ISKCON’s overly-agreeable swamis stop initiating Hindu professionals who flatter them, and who purchase their initiations with large bribes (errr donations)?
* When will ISKCON’s swamis insist that their Hindu initiates should know the ABC’s about preaching to everyone they meet (or at those they work with) instead of merely inviting other Hindus for dinner in a ruse of “bhakti-vriksha”?
Greedy ISKCON swamis have thus made a Mayavadic mishmash out of the once-strict Gaudiya Vaishnava principles that ISKCON was meant to stand for?
* Mission drift has taken the ISKCON ship thousands of miles off course into very dangerous and uncharted waters of Mayavada.
* When will ISKCON stop conforming and compromising with mundane so-called “religions”?
* When will the GBC stop wholesaling the Hare Krishna Movement as a Hindu organization in order to attract cheap followers along with their donations?
* When will ISKCON stop paying salaries to Indian pujaris and “devotees”?
* When will Bhaktivedanta Manor become a place of genuine devotional service again, instead of a Hinduized business?
In short, although I found the 50th anniversary celebration at ISKCON Vrindavana blissful, I have returned home sadder but wiser. Since it is well known that ISKCON’s GBC members clandestinely read the messages from the A.I.S.F., I am hoping that they will consider these thoughts and bring the society they pretend to lead back on track again, because an objective look at ISKCON management reveals a cesspool of corruption.
Your servant, (Name withheld for safety reasons)
