“Iskcon and the Guru Issue Part 8 – The Hidden History of ISKCON”

The Hidden History of ISKCON

Original Source: http://prabhupadvision.com/

Since the Founder Acharya of ISKCON, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, entered into his Samadhi Lila, the International Society for Krsna Consciousness has been fraught with; power struggles, schisms, controversies; GBC, guru and Sannyasi ‘falldowns’ brought about by; sexual, criminal, moral, ethical and philosophical deviance. It has been well documented that the main cause of the conflicts within ISKCON has been due to an ambitious, spiritually immature, minority of His Divine Grace’s disciples who seized control of his movement, transforming it into a private businesslike corporation that has very little to do with the intentions and desires of its Founder, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada. 

Though in the minority, these errant disciples assumed all leadership positions, appointed themselves as gurus and created an elitist oligarchy of leaders who began to systematically vilify and alienate any disciple or follower who protested against their hostile takeover of ISKCON. Over the last three decades these errant disciples expanded their support and infrastructural base, gaining controlling interest in both managerial and legal aspects of the movement and controlled all forms of accountability and information dissemination which successfully whitewashed any opposition, making them basically untouchable. They also established an unauthorized guru franchise system making a mockery of the spiritual system that A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada established and much to the castigation of their God brothers and sisters began to masquerade as self realized souls claiming to be successors of His Divine Grace.

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada’s intention was to create an Agrarian Vaisnava Society under the auspices of his guidance and instruction and based on the teachings of the past Vaisnava Acharya’s. However over the last several decades these errant leaders of ISKCON have instead created an urban based pseudo religious society that is based on liberalistic/pluralistic spiritual tenets and have intentionally ignored the needs of the older members of the society, choosing to recruit their own disciples in order to gain resources and finances for their personal plans.

Many devotees feel that they have no future in this modern liberalistic ISKCON, which is more interested in secular business and secular educational stratagem than Vaisnava Community development. An ISKCON that shunts its people into the secular educative process and workforce as opposed to creating agrarian rural based communities for devotees and their children to live their lives with the ‘simple living high thinking’ ideal.

The GBC and Gurus have been in power since the latter part of the last century and the early decade of this new century. In this time, they, like us, witnessed a huge surge in awareness of global economic and environmental issues and that the reality of a global catastrophic breakdown of world economies and social structure is becoming increasingly more a reality.

The choice that the ISKCON GBC and Gurus made, to dedicate all of ISKCON’s resources, finances and manpower to urbanize and corporatize the Krsna Consciousness movement, was made in direct opposition to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada’s instruction and our best advice. With the present and predicted state of world economies and climatic disturbance, this choice now seems to be the wrong one. It can be said that even if they were trying their best to fail and ruin Srila Prabhupada’s Society giving it, and us, no hope for the future, then they could not have done a better job!

If the world experiences economic breakdown due to the shortcomings of the highly speculative Capitalism and the yet to be proven Globalization, we may soon begin to experience catastrophic social breakdown along with the current destructive changes in the world’s environment and weather. The hardheadedness and ignorance of the GBC and Gurus to listen to the ‘writing on the wall’ means that they are responsible for making the decision to be a part of the problem instead of being the solution. Therefore their heavily urban secular development based policies will leave us bereft of the rural agrarian knowhow and the sanctuaries that His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada instructed us to accomplish.

What value will degrees and PHD’s in secular academics or our non devotee workforce experience have if this breakdown occurs? What value will their Guru training seminars and their imitations of the academic training and accreditation be when we have no income or place to live?

It is not they that will pay the price, it is we who shall pay the price. By making this choice they have stolen our future and our children’s future. The future that A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada spent so much of his time, his love and extreme effort to give to us.

Yet the ‘history’ of ISKCON as described by these errant disciples has painted a picture of their struggle to follow our Spiritual Masters instructions to their best ability as they attempted to make it fit with an ever changing modern world. However, others see that the only struggle that these errant disciples have had, has been with their Godbrothers and Godsisters who disagree with the pluralistic corporate methodology and the direction of these errant disciples in leadership of the ISKCON institution.

The main argument that the errant disciples used to obscure the truth is that everyone ‘sees’ from their own particular biased perspective and so do not see the real meaning behind the instructions and intention of our Spiritual Master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada and that only “they” can see his true intention. However, the truth is simple and can be seen by the simple hearted. His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada’s instructions are simple and clear as His Divine Grace knew precisely what the fallen conditioned souls of the Kali yuga need and did not fail in his mission to educate us with all the knowledge and understanding that we need to become Krsna Conscious.

“Asammoha, freedom from doubt and delusion, can be achieved when one is not hesitant and when he understands the transcendental philosophy. Slowly but surely he becomes free from bewilderment. Nothing should be accepted blindly; everything should be accepted with care and with caution.

Satyam, truthfulness, means that facts should be presented as they are, for the benefit of others. Facts should not be misrepresented. According to social conventions, it is said that one can speak the truth only when it is palatable to others. But that is not truthfulness. The truth should be spoken in a straightforward way, so that others will understand actually what the facts are. If a man is a thief and if people are warned that he is a thief that is truth.

Although sometimes the truth is unpalatable, one should not refrain from speaking it. Truthfulness demands that the facts be presented as they are for the benefit of others. That is the definition of truth.”

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada’s instructions and intentions were meant to be taken “as it is” as can be attested by the above quote from his Bhagavad-gita As It Is. Word for word, it is self explanatory and the truth is self evident. There is no requirement to have this quote edited, sanitized or interpreted as it is very simple and straightforward.

This website [prabhupadvision.com] is dedicated to anyone who desires to know the truth behind this takeover of ISKCON by these errant disciples who claim to represent our Spiritual Master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, but in fact represent some other undisclosed authority. It is hoped that the more devotees that become aware of the dangers of allowing the present GBC and Franchised Gurus to hijack His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada’s Society, the more likely it is that the true followers of His Divine Grace will assert themselves and rid ourselves of the untenable yoke of these errant and disrespectful disciples and their minions.

It is only then that the full force of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada’s hard work and love for us will manifest as his true followers take control of the finances that belong to his society, the resources that Lord Krsna gave to him for us, the manpower that is here to do His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada’s bidding and most importantly we will have a future, something real and tangible that we can offer our children. Yours in the service of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada.
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Disclaimer: This website [prabhupadvision.com] is designed to be a historical record of a largely unknown and unpublished history of ISKCON from the perspective of devotees who have a more pragmatic view of the ISKCON that their Spiritual Master A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada established. As the views and opinions of the various articles may affect the sensibilities of devotees who are relatively unaware of the issues presented – reader discretion is advised. The views and opinions of the various articles posted on this website are not necessarily the views and opinions of the PrabhupadVision.com staff, but we believe that they provide a ‘broader’ picture than the one the ISKCON leadership endorses.