Living Prabhupada, Part Three.
By Surya Narayana das - A Blunt Crayon Production.
“As for your next question, can only a few pure devotees deliver others[: A]nyone, if he is a pure devotee he can deliver others, he can become spiritual master. But unless he['s] on that platform he should not attempt it. Then both of them will to go to hell, like blind men leading the blind.”
(Letter: Tusta Krsna 14th December 1972).
We continue with the debate in LA over Srila Prabhupada’s position vs that of the voted-in-guru. Let’s see if the senior Iskcon devotees can enlighten us further.
Manavata Prabhu: “I find it to be a deviation that we don’t do things that we did when Prabhupada was on the planet, and that now we don’t need to do that because we think Prabhupada’s not physically present. We see simply by historical example that practically all the spiritual masters who, you know, became spiritual masters after Srila Prabhupada, practically all of them fell down. So it just seems to be obvious to me that we wouldn’t want to not do something we did when Prabhupada was here. Prabhupada is the spiritual master of everyone.”
It’s true that Srila Prabhupada acted as the spiritual master of everyone, initiating the sincere follower into spiritual life through divya-jnana, transcendental knowledge, and even those initiates who never physically met their guru were accepted as his disciples.
Paramananda: We’re always feeling your presence very strongly, Srila Prabhupada, simply by your teachings and your instructions.
Srila Prabhupada: Thank you. That is the real presence. Physical presence is not important.
(SP Room Conversation, Vrndavana, 6/10/77).
Manavata Prabhu: “Although Srila Prabhupada may not be one’s diksa-guru, he is the siksa-guru for the whole movement.”
On the one hand, Manavata Prabhu appeals against the deviations that have seen a shift away from how things were done, but on the other hand he appears willing to accept what I would say is the main, heavy deviation: the stripping of Srila Prabhupada’s God-given right to initiate disciples via empowered representatives. Something HDG was doing for many years, and something he never ordered stopped.
“The sometimes devious maneuverings of individual GBC men, and the GBC body as a whole to keep the movement, their zones and their profiles in order are difficult to justify philosophically, to say the least.”
(Suhotra Swami, letter to Sesa das, Sept 4th, 1985).
Manavata Prabhu backs his understanding that it was indeed a deviation, saying: “...practically all the spiritual masters who became spiritual masters after Srila Prabhupada… practically all of them fell down.”
He’s correctly judging the process by its result, and the GBC back him on this one, calling it the ‘Zonal Acarya deviation’ in their 1999 Resolutions.
However, the depth to which the Zonal mentality remains coursing through the veins of our society’s power base is as evident today as it was in the late 70s and throughout the 80s.
“It was only with a mighty unified effort of the G.B.C that we defeated envious elements in our society who in 1978 tried to destroy the faith in guru parampara.”
(A Modest Proposal For Purifying ISKCON, by Satasvarupa das Goswami, 1987)
Satsvarupa twists the logic, accusing godbrothers/sisters who called out the GBC for voting Srila Prabhupada into oblivion of wrongdoing. With tabloid style muckraking, he brands the Vaishnavas envious and out to destroy faith in the parampara and trumpets how his little gang's heroic, mighty unified effort was able to defeat the enemy. SDG then gives notice to others who might challenge, reminding them, “pride cometh before the fall.” Wow, did they end up with egg on their faces!
By exaggerating and falsifying their spiritual credentials (a warped sort of spiritual Munchausen syndrome), the Eleven forced themselves upon the innocent followers who had come to Srila Prabhupada for pure shelter and guidance. A mundane political power grab within a spiritual society. Base and ugly, but the objective was achieved.
With the benefit of hindsight, Satsvarupa’s letter is seen as petty, cruel, and filled with deceit, ad hominem attacks, and more than a few straw-men chasing around in his mind. He’s more recently written trying to distance himself from it all, saying that he was manipulated and bullied by others to say and do, thus throwing his co-conspirators under the bus.
The big Eleven tried to justify their level of Divine worship by comparing themselves to Prabhupada. SDG shuts down the dissidents by saying, ‘How dare you? Prabhupada set this standard of worship, so you’re criticising/blaspheming Prabhupada by rejecting it.’ The ultimate guilt trip. Of course, they forgot one little thing: Srila Prabhupada was worthy of receiving said worship due to his being a pure devotee of Krishna.
That was shown in his humility despite his position. Their charade minimised and insulted HDG, insinuating his spiritual status was easy to obtain. Stop smoking, chant on the beads for a few years, carry the stick, piece of cake: pure devotee! SDG’s Lilamrta is awash with such gonzo journalism penned by a conditioned soul seemingly contaminated and bewildered by a collective sense of false prestige and their need to drag the spiritual master down to their level.
Their claim was as absurd as a cobbler dragging a wooden throne into the town square and demanding worship equal to the recently departed king. The other villagers would surely look on in wonder. To many of the Iskcon villagers, these men were simply phantasmagorists childishly trying to catch the moon.
Sadly, all these years on and the current mood/response toward those who might question the legitimacy and origins of our current guru system has a similar accusatory, retaliatory flavour. Open discussion on the subject is still crushed, North Korean style. So really not much has changed. They still brand devotees as envious and have their action plan, a rewrite of the 87 ‘Proposal For Purifying ISKCON,’ to rid the movement of those dangerous, Prabhupada-centric elements who dare believe Srila Prabhupada could be enough and then some.
“The GBC Body hereby makes known its STRONG DETERMINATION to ENFORCE ISKCON law in the matter of ritvikism.”
(GBC Resolutions 2000 - emphasis mine).
I find it really interesting how, in relation to the monumental changing of Prabhupada’s status from diksa to siksa, the otherwise well-spoken Manavata Prabhu appears not only happy to let that change slide, but openly reinforces this stuff!
But the reality is, the very success of the Zonal takeover hinged entirely on that all important ‘change’ that saw HDG unceremoniously dethroned. Without them altering the founder’s position there was no Zonal Acarya guru system. It was the original lie from which all other lies, changes, deviations, and gurus were born. It is the change that changed everything!
“The Governing Body Commission, being weakened due to the Zonal Acarya deviation, failed to correct these errors to the detriment of many ISKCON members.”
(GBC Resolution 1999).
As will be demonstrated in the outro quote from Bhakti Caru Swami, we sometimes wonder if these senior devotees think deeply about what it is they’re saying.
Many years ago, I cut my teeth as a wire worker before moving on to become a welder / metal fabricator. In my role as wire worker, I’d calibrate the complex wire straightener and wire former machinery to do large runs, 10,000 - 20,000 units of sometimes quite complex, exacting configurations. During these runs, I’d constantly be checking the variables as just a slight variation would see me wheeling out a big bin of useless wiggly thingies by day's end.
If I detected even a slight change, I wouldn’t just keep cranking out more of the same in the hope that it would right itself, neither would I try to alter the client's design requirements to fit my now sub-standard product. I couldn’t justify the flawed units simply by telling my foreman, “Well, *some* of them aren’t defective.” No, I would shut everything down and carefully go back to the start and trace out what had changed, find the genesis of the problem, and re-calibrate the machinery back to the specs that had produced the original, correct result. I see no reason why these commonsense principles cannot be applied to spiritual life.
Next we hear from Svavasa Prabhu who is handed the microphone as the senior Prabhupada disciples continue the sharing circle, discussing the controversial proposed ‘Prabhupada-less, voted-in-gurus only’ mangal aratis.
Svavasa Prabhu: “I agree with Manavata Prabhu. We didn’t know anything about nothing before Srila Prabhupada came. When Prabhupada introduced this song he specifically introduced it for himself.
“So here you have five or six or seven disciples who were initiated by a regular guru in Iskcon, and they’re chanting to their spiritual master, but then he’s not there any more (blooped), then who are they chanting to? In other words, there have been many regular gurus that have blooped from Krishna consciousness, so who do they [the disciples of the blooped guru] chant that prayer to?”
This is a really important question, and we thank these thoughtful devotees for having the courage to broach what we know is a very controversial and sometimes dangerous topic within the Hare Krishna movement. GBC threats and muzzling dates back to the inauspicious birth of the Zonal creature, so talks like this are still quite rare.
“So who do they [the disciples of the blooped guru] chant that prayer to?”
Vijaya Prabhu, giving the Bhagavatam class replies emphatically,
“Obviously, if they’ve blooped, they chant to Prabhupada!”
Svavasa Prabhu: “Okay, so that’s why the GBC want all of us to chant to Srila Prabhupada because of that situation happening. He is the Acarya. When they're chanting the prayers to Srila Prabhupada, it’s *to* Srila Prabhupada as far as I understand. I can research that a little more.”
Vijaya Prabhu: “We should do some investigation and find out.”
At this point in the exchange it becomes evident these senior Prabhupada disciples who’ve been in the movement for perhaps the majority of their lives, and dealing with the voted-in-guru issue for four decades or more, don’t really know what they're talking about. There’s much indecision and a lack of clear leadership around the rules, laws, and competing opinions being bandied about by powers that be. There’s much tippy-toeing around the elephant in the room, and no one can say for sure where the Founder-Acarya fits into the scheme of things!
Svavasa Prabhu: “The point being yes, your guru could bloop, and if he’s blooped, then what do you do?”
Vijaya Prabhu: “Go to Srila Prabhupada.”
Svavasa Prabhu: (in agreement, and almost in unison) “Go to Prabhupada!”
Vijaya Prabhu: “Of course!”
So both men clearly believe that when your voted-in-guru bloops, “you go to Prabhupada.” This naturally raises the same question we had for Sura Prabhu who said a very similar thing: and so we ask again, what exactly does, “go to Prabhupada” look like to you guys?
We hear disciples of blooped gurus being told to begin their day singing samsara davanala to Prabhupada.
"By the mercy of the spiritual master, one receives the benediction of Krsna. Without the grace of the spiritual master, one cannot make any advancement."
Are these senior, respected Prabhus saying we should just go to Prabhupada and sing the prayers as a kind of default gesture? Or are they saying sing the prayers, and believe with full conviction and faith that you’re receiving benediction from Srila Prabhupada, and with the benediction of such a spiritual master, you *will* make spiritual advancement?
I feel the answer to this question is really important, and perhaps these senior men need to get clear on what exactly it is they’re saying. Just as they may feel their own spiritual life is of importance, similarly others' spiritual lives are of equal value. Not that those who didn’t meet Prabhupada are from a lower caste and so it doesn’t really matter how it all pans out for them.
Things are further confused if my guru has blooped because then what JAS demands isn’t applicable or even possible. I can only “Jai Prabhupada,” I have no one else to “Jai.” And neither can others break my meditation on my voted-in-guru with their “Jais” because my Gurudeva is long since blooped, and I definitely won’t be meditating on where he’s at these days. Actually JAS is breaking my meditation by telling me it’s not the Prabhupada song after the GBC and the senior Prabhus told me to ‘go to Prabhupada!’ So the disciples of blooped gurus in Iskcon, according to JAS, can’t sing the song to anyone! Just another bamboozling side-effect of unqualified men messing with Prabhupada’s perfect system.
Hypothetical: “I may feel encouraged by you all senior men telling me to go to Prabhupada when my guru bloops, but I’m also a little concerned that your pity will turn to rage if you decide I’ve gone too far to Prabhupada, and you’ll then brand me a filthy Ritvik - enemy number one! Don’t devotees claiming they can ‘go to Prabhupada’ get burned at the Iskcon stake of heretics and aparadhis?”
Conclusion: If it’s obvious to go to Prabhupada after your guru bloops, then why not go before? Or better still, why not avoid the blooping gurus altogether? Should we allow ourselves to get fleeced on the way to HDG and what does he say about allowing oneself to be cheated?
As if there’s not already enough tapasya in this life, it seems kind of nuts to go out of our way to do it hard, veering off on some dusty back road filled with the danger of uncertainty, saffron bandits and stolen devotion. If they’re going to send people to Prabhupada anyway, better do it now than wait till after their broken.
“According to sastra, the duty of the guru is to take the disciple back home, back to Godhead. If he is unable to do so and instead hinders the disciple in going back to Godhead, he should not be a guru.”
(Srila Prabhupada SB 8.20.1 purport).
The blooped guru not only commits a disloyal act by abandoning those he lured in with a false spiritual contract, but he also breaks the sacred promise he made to his own spiritual master, the yajna, and the Lord. In this way, the once bright-faced follower filled with innocent enthusiasm is seen descending in a blazing wreckage of spiritual-suicide, having vainly flown too close to the sun. Maybe His Divine Grace was protecting us from ourselves when he didn’t name a successor?
It’s really difficult to believe this was Srila Prabhupada’s master plan, his vision for the future of Iskcon; a society filled with kanistha, used-car, buyer beware gurus, destroyed faith, and revolving temple doors.
Bhakti Caru Swami: “Nevertheless, after Srila Prabhupada’s disappearance, we in Iskcon also MADE A SIMILAR MISTAKE, THINKING that Srila Prabhupada had appointed 11 successors. We also plunged in to the same syndrome of appointing spiritual heads of the institution PRESUMING that after Srila Prabhupada’s disappearance THEY INHERITED Iskcon.”
“In 1987, about 10 years after Srila Prabhupada’s disappearance, this mistake was addressed by concerned leading devotees of Iskcon, BUT WAS NOT FULLY CORRECTED. Just by ADDING MORE GURUS and allowing them to initiate wherever they could attract disciples, THAT MISTAKE WAS ONLY DILUTED TO SOME EXTENT BUT WAS NOT REALLY CORRECTED.”
(BCS, published on July 12th, 2009 on the GBC-funded dandavats website. Emphasis mine.)
Footnote: Actually, when you add more of a thing to a thing, it doesn’t dilute the concentration, rather it expands and increases the original thing, simply making it more voluminous. So Maharaja’s synopsis is incorrect in this regard.
And if that ‘thing’ is a mistake, then adding more mistakes simply makes it a bigger mistake.
A real life example of this ‘mistake expansion’ can be found in my own spiritual journey and that of my contemporaries. We joined soon after the ‘pure acarya’ for our zone had fallen, and yet despite this person no longer operating here, many went on to be cheated by gurus who had been added to the mistake! Had the mistake been contained to just those Eleven then that would never have happened.
A blooped guru is a blooped guru, and the damage done to disciples' lives is ‘felt at full strength’ regardless of honorific titles or not. Diminution requires adding something different to a solution, not more of the same. Guru Reform is simply more of the same, and therefore reform in name only… a slick marketing campaign that simply rebranded the same unlicensed product. Old wine in new bottles. The Zonal system was never abandoned or dismantled, rather it was just being added to while the big seats were being shuffled out.
Ultimately, throwing more mistakes at the mistake simply spread the disease and infected more people. To fully eradicate a deeply inherent mistake may require draining the swamp!
“He [Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Maharaja] never recommended anyone to be acharya of the Gaudiya Math…. If Guru Maharaja could have seen someone who was qualified at that time to be acharya, he would have mentioned. Because on the night before he passed away he talked of so many things, but never mentioned an acharya. Therefore we may not commit the same mistake in our ISKCON camp.” (Srila Prabhupada, letter to Rupanuga, April 28, 1974)
