Statistical analysis supports concerns about
lack of Srila Prabhupada’s 1977 audio recordings
GovindaPeaceFarm — I’ve been listening to Srila Prabhupada’s audio recordings nearly every day for a while, and a few days ago I completed hearing the whole 19 CD collection. It’s over 1,000 hours of Srila Prabhupada, and most of the MP3s I’ve heard more than once. For me, nothing compares to hearing Srila Prabhupada for purifying my consciousness, driving out maya, putting my mind at ease, and reminding me of Krishna. I couldn’t wait to start over with MP3 CD#1.
There’s been a lot of commotion recently over the 500 or so tapes that the Bhaktivedanta Archives has yet to release, and I even helped promote the petition for them to just do it already. However, considering that we have so many recordings and that Krishna consciousness is conceptually simple, I would be surprised if there is anything being withheld that he hasn’t said somewhere else already. Of course without hearing the tapes one cannot be sure, but my main interest is the tapes that never made it to the archives.
I say that with a little reserve, because I don’t have absolute PROOF, however I’ve heard many devotees talk about some large number of tapes that went missing, apparently more than one batch. The most often number I’ve heard was about 150.
That’s hearsay, I know, certainly not the most reliable form of evidence, but there’s more. First consider the following conversation:
Tamala Krsna: We tape everything Prabhupada says. Everything he says, we tape, whether you’re here or not here.
Guest (3): No, I don’t want to talk on the machine.
Tamala Krsna: We’re not taping for any other purpose, but our Guru Maharaja’s words are very sacred to us, so we tape all the time, whether you’re here or not here.
>>> Ref. VedaBase => Short Dissertations — May 24-25, 1977, Vrndavana
Please take note of the date too, because it’s just a few days before Srila Prabhupada announced that initiations would be conducted by rtviks after his disappearance, and (not) coincidentally also just a few days before the frequency of available audio recordings of him radically dropped. It looks like a coup.d’ISKCON, and please read on to see why I dare suggest this.
Naturally Tamala Krsna was saying exactly what anyone would expect. Every morning devotees would chant, “My only wish is to have my consciousness purified by the words emanating from his lotus mouth,” that being Srila Prabhupada’s lotus mouth. These tapes would ensure that we could listen to Srila Prabupada practically forever, and others (like me) could hear him too. I’m grateful for these recordings, and so glad that they were so diligent in recording his speaking.
When the issue of tapes being withheld arose recently, it reminded me of a document I received last year that contained copies of the records of tapes from 1977 in the Bhaktivedanta Archives’ possession. Recently I decided to do some basic statistical analyses on these data. I think the findings are quite interesting.
Unfortunately the data I have are interrupted in two places, so I analyzed them in three groups that are still useful for comparison. First, the overall distribution:
The bar lengths represent the frequency of a certain number of tapes per day that are held by the archives, and third order polynomial trendlines are added to aid with visualization. For example, the tall red bar means that for May 28 to November 14, 1977, the Archives has zero tapes on over 56% of the days. One can also look at the absence of a blue bar over the zero column (to the left of the tall red line) and understand that from January 2 – 9, 1977, there were no days without tapes, or in other words, the Archives has at least one tape every day during that time period.
Notice that the first series, colored blue and dated from the beginning of January 1977, resembles a slightly irregular bell curve. A majority of days had 2 or 3 tapes. The second series, colored green and covering late winter 1977, is another bell curve skewed to a plateau shape. This again would be a fairly normal distribution. The third series, which is most interesting is not a bell curve at all. It is a sharp decline, indicating that on most days there are ZERO tapes and the overall shape suggests that taping was abnormally rare. Another explanation that seems more likely, given other circumstances briefly discussed below, is that some tapes were hidden or secretly destroyed. I have heard multiple accounts of devotees claiming some knowledge of that happening.
The first set, below, goes from January 2, 1977, to January 9, 1977. In this series there were an average of 2.875 tapes per day, with the most often number of tapes being 2, with that number on 37.5% of the days. Every day had at least one tape.
| First series | ||
| tapes | frequency | percent |
| 0 | 0 | 0.00% |
| 1 | 1 | 12.50% |
| 2 | 3 | 37.50% |
| 3 | 2 | 25.00% |
| 4 | 1 | 12.50% |
| 5 | 0 | 0.00% |
| 6 | 1 | 12.50% |
The second series, below, goes from January 22, 1977, to March 2, 1977, with an average of 2.375 tapes per day. In this group, we had a fairly even distribution of numbers of tapes per day, with five days without any tapes, eight days each with 1, 2, 3, and 4 tapes, and three days with 5 tapes.
| Second series | ||
| tapes | frequency | percent |
| 0 | 5 | 12.50% |
| 1 | 8 | 20.00% |
| 2 | 8 | 20.00% |
| 3 | 8 | 20.00% |
| 4 | 8 | 20.00% |
| 5 | 3 | 7.50% |
The third series, which coincidentally went from May 28, 1977, to November 14, 1977, was the most interesting. In this time period there was an average of only 0.8 tapes per day. More than half the days (56.14%) have 0 tapes. The distribution was as follows:
| Third series | ||
| tapes | frequency | percent |
| 0 | 96 | 56.14% |
| 1 | 39 | 22.81% |
| 2 | 18 | 10.53% |
| 3 | 12 | 7.02% |
| 4 | 4 | 2.34% |
| 5 | 2 | 1.17% |
Probably the most notable anomaly was that during one stretch (August 18 – October 1) there were 45 days in a row with zero tapes! In the 85 days between July 9 and October 2, there were only 15 tapes. That’s only 1.2 tapes per WEEK, compared to almost 2.5 tapes per DAY before the May 28, 1977, data presented here. Has a plausible explanation been given for the dearth of tapes at that time? This is precisely when I would expect Srila Prabhupada to be responding to questions about the July 9, 1977, document and elaborating on how he wanted initiations to be conducted after his disappearance.
One may assume that Srila Prabhupada was too ill to speak, but in Tamal Krsna Gosvami’s diary there is an entry dated 4 September 1977
which definitely contradicts that idea:
Prabhupada announced, “As soon as I get green card, I will go to New York.”
“How long will you stay there?” I asked.
“As long as you like.”
“Srila Prabhupada, you are just like a cow. You will go wherever we lead you, but you never stop giving milk.”
“That is because I am a surabhi cow. …”
It sounds like a nice discussion; too bad we can’t listen to it. Two days later the Vedabase shows there is a letter dictated by him indicating that he was at the Bhaktivedanta Manor, mentioning his frail health but is clearly very spunky and says he is looking forward to touring all over the world to see all his disciples and the temples again. Obviously he was speaking, so there must be another reason why there are no tapes.
I think Tamal Krsna Gosvami gives the real answer here:
“Actually Prabhupada never appointed any gurus. He appointed eleven ritviks. He never appointed them gurus. Myself and the other GBC have done the greatest disservice to this movement the last three years because we interpreted the appointment of ritviks as the appointment of gurus.” (December 3, 1980)
In order to scrap the rtvik system Srila Prabhupada established and institute a zonal acarya system instead, any relevant instructions Srila Prabhupada may have given would have needed to be suppressed. Don’t believe for a moment that Tamal Krsna’s confession was entirely honest. He could not have misinterpreted what Srila Prabhupada was saying. If he were fully honest, he would have said “fraudulently interpreted.”
A little over a year before Srila Prabhupada’s disappearance, he made this strong statement:
“Why this Gaudiya Matha failed? Because they tried to become more than guru. He, before passing away, he gave all direction and never said that “This man should be the next acarya.” But these people, just after his passing away they began to fight, who shall be acarya. That is the failure. They never thought, “Why Guru Maharaja gave us instruction so many things, why he did not say that this man should be acarya?” They wanted to create artificially somebody acarya and everything failed. They did not consider even with common sense that if Guru Maharaja wanted to appoint somebody as acarya, why did he not say? He said so many things, and this point he missed? The real point? And they insist upon it. They declared some unfit person to become acarya. Then another man came, then another, acarya, another acarya. So better remain a foolish person perpetually to be directed by Guru Maharaja. That is perfection.”
>>> Ref. VedaBase => Room Conversation — August 16, 1976, Bombay
Considering Srila Prabhupada’s obvious frustration with his godbrothers’ failed attempt to appoint gurus independent of any order from Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, it is completely unbelievable that Srila Prabhupada would be negligent in the matter of giving clear orders on the subject of guru succession in ISKCON. Sometimes devotees say that the matter of guru succession was obvious, and that everyone knew whatever that particular devotee thinks. But it was certainly not obvious, and the proof of this was the fact that Satsvarupa, speaking on behalf of the GBC, felt the need to ask Srila Prabhupada directly:
Satsvarupa: …Then our next question concerns initiations in the future, particularly at that time when you’re no longer with us. We want to know how first and second initiation would be conducted.
Prabhupada: Yes. I shall recommend some of you. After this is settled up, I shall recommend some of you to act as Officiating-Acaryas.
Tamala Krsna: Is that called Rtvik-Acarya?
Prabhupada: Rtvik. Yes.
If the GBC already knew the answer to this based on Srila Prabhupada’s prior teachings, then they would not have wasted his time asking that. I’ve read the complete conversation on that topic many times, and for a long time I just found it incomprehensible. My impression was that the discussion seemed like their communication was broken, almost incoherent, like Srila Prabhupada and his disciples had different ideas in mind and could not bridge the gap. I remember when I would get to the point where Tamal Krsna said “That’s clear,” and I would practically exclaim “What?! That’s not clear at all!” Then last year I finally got a clue about this and it all made sense.
I don’t know how it happened, but in 1997 the GBC passed a resolution to have this tape examined by a forensic specialist, and they employed Norman Pearle for the job. It was the same year that Mr. Pearle was recognized as “NAIS High Tech Investigator of the Year.” (http://www.pimall.com/nais/n.perl.html)
Mr. Pearle had this to say about the tape:
“In conclusion, this recording exhibits strong signs suggestive of falsification. I do not believe that these deficiencies might possibly be the product of some mechanical process or problem within the recording or duplication process and I believe that they exist at what is considered to be a higher degree than that of a coincidence. I strongly recommend that an independent Forensic Analysis be conducted the Master recording in order to determine the authenticity and originality of the evidence. This analysis requires what is represented as the original recording and the original tape recorder upon which this recording was represented to be made.” (September 22, 1997)
This was the so-called “Appointment Tape” that the Zonal Acaryas claimed gave them the seats as Srila Prabhupada’s authorized successors. It should be no great surprise that the tape was not made available to the devotees until several years after the so-called Zonal Acaryas had taken their thrones, nor is it a surprise that the GBC did not heed the investigator’s advice to provide the ORIGINAL tape and equipment for a more conclusive analysis.
Despite the fact that serious doubt about the integrity of the tape has been raised through professional forensic analysis, it still has some validity in the sense that an impeached witness can still incriminate himself. In other words, “anything you say can be used against you,” although a criminal suspect’s words in their defense are not necessarily trustworthy. Even though this tape that GBC apologists have called the “appointment tape” has been disqualified for supporting their position, they continue to quote from it out of context as if it were reliable. Still that is not a problem for their opponents, as Srila Prabhupada’s begins by indicating that initiations after his disappearance were to be conducted by rtviks and concludes by saying that they could become regular gurus only on his order, an order which he apparently never gave.
Considering all these facts along with many others too numerous to mention, I find it impossible to believe that the Zonal Acaryas erroneously thought Srila Prabhupada had appointed them as his successors. It was fraud and an almost unimaginable offense against the parampara. As stated by Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakur, “apujya yatra pujyante pujyanam ca vyatikramah. (In the place where those who are not to be worshiped are worshiped, there is offense to those who are actually worshipable.) and “pratibadhnati hi sreyah pujyapujya-vyatikramah. (Improperly understanding who is to be worshiped and who is not to be worshiped will impede one’s progress in life.)” >>> Ref. VedaBase => SB 10.74.30
They say there was reform, and many devotees want more reform so that anyone can become guru if they can somehow get an aspiring disciple, but none of it was authorized by Srila Prabhupada within ISKCON. Srila Prabhupada’s order was abandoned practically as soon as his body stopped breathing, just as leaders ignored many of his orders even before. Said Tamal Krsna, “Guru, oh wonderful! Now I am guru, and there is only eleven of us.” (December 3, 1980) So now there are many gurus, and many have fallen, but none were appointed by Srila Prabhupada. Nor is the GBC authorized to appoint or vote for them. “A guru can become guru when he is ordered by his guru. That’s all. Otherwise nobody can become guru.” (Srila Prabhupada Bg. Lecture. October 28, 1975)
So now I look back at the Bhaktivedanta Archives’ collection and it makes perfect sense why there are only fifteen tapes in the 12 weeks following July 9, 1977. Unfortunately it leaves to the imagination exactly what Srila Prabhupada was saying then, but any sane person would expect that he had been giving instructions on how to manage ISKCON after he was, as Satsvarupa put it, “no longer with us.” Considering so many corroborating facts, including:
- Srila Prabhupada’s response to that May 28, 1977, question, saying “officiating acarya… rtvik, yes.”,
- the forensic report saying that recording “exhibits strong signs suggestive of falsification,”
- the content of the July 9, 1977, letter, with its opening reference to the question of initiations after Srila Prabhupada’s disappearance,
- Srila Prabhupada’s apparent choice to not name any successor acaryas,
- Srila Prabhupada’s criticism of his godbrothers’ disobedience to their guru in the matter of succession,
- the obvious desire of the 11 appointed rtviks to illegitimately capture the title of acarya,
- numerous self-appointed and voted-in guru fall-downs,
- the extensive corruption in ISKCON’s history,
- one devotee’s testimony of personally hearing Srila Prabhupada say in early July that he wanted the rtvik system to continue,
- various reports devotees have given about tapes that disappeared,
- Tamal Krsna’s assertion that everything Srila Prabhupada spoke had to be recorded,
- proof that Srila Prabhupada was speaking and even travelling during the period of no tapes,
- and many other facts,
…the conclusion becomes obvious. These tapes are gone because that was necessary for railroading Srila Prabhupada’s order for initiation to be conducted by rtviks on his behalf and the creation of false acaryas instead. The next question is what to do about it.
Hare Krishna.
—————
COMMENTS
Madhudvisa dasa
Have you included all the tapes? There are over 200 1977 conversation tapes that Bhaktivedanta Archives have not released in audio form but, for the most part, are transcribed in the folio. These are primarily room conversations. We do have copies of these tapes and need to make some program to release them.
Paul Howard
Madhuvisa Prabhu, Yes, I believe I’ve included all the tapes, at least for the time periods I covered. I just uploaded my source data a moment ago, so you can look at it if you like. The link is at the bottom of the post. The documents are titled “1977 Recordings on File with the Bhaktivedanta Archives as of 9/6/96. There are a few pages missing, which is why I broke my analysis into three separate charts. If they acquired more tapes since that date, those aren’t included.
Caitanya dasa
Yes, it is becoming obvious to many devotees now. Just the other day I did a bit of research and I came to the exact same conclusion that you have written in this article. Seems like you and I are a bit on the same wavelength.
Why won’t they release the tapes? Because then their whole little bogus guru system will get totally crushed under the truth, which is that Srila Prabhupada never established them as diksa gurus, and in those missing tapes are most likely many instructions about the ritvik initiations.
Not one of these present day ISKCON gurus is anywhere near Srila Prabhupada’s exalted level. Let us continue to simply take shelter of Srila Prabhupada and ignore these pretenders who want to take the position of Srila Prabhupada.
Caitanya dasa
I have 3 different quotes that are from different Prabhupada disciples about their belief and understanding that many of Srila Prabhupada’s 1977 conversations, tapes, and letters were intentionally deleted. Here they are:
Personal memory by Caitanya dasa:
I was in the guesthouse room of the Kolkata temple with Bhakti Vikasa Swami and I heard him say “It’s a fact they have deleted so many tapes and letters”. He spoke this in a tone of total disgust towards the leaders of ISKCON.
Gauridasa Pandit, May 24, 2010
“Yes the tapes were monkeyed with. When I got an ‘appointment tape’ for the BBT Archieves in 1990 they had the July 7th conversation first, then the May 28th was spliced in like it was one conversation. There were transcriptions of each separate conversation so I asked how the tape was produced and Ekanath said that’s how they got it. Ramesvara was caught editing other tapes also. Sangita, Siddhanta’s wive has the scoop on that one.
After Srila Prabhupada appointed the ritvik representatives there were tapes of discussions made almost every morning for weeks. I know because I was there recording them! And they are not available at the Archieves! On the ‘Grand Disciple’ statement I believe that was spliced in too ~ from another conversation where TKG asked Srila Prabhupada what his relationship would be to devotees if and when a guru was qualified to initiate on his/her own.”
Govinda dasi, May 24, 2010
One, that there were in fact many tapes missing from that time period. Yes, this is true, and my understanding is that Tamal had those tapes and they somehow vanished. They were from the same time period that the July letter was written. “
july9th_77
Gauridasa Pandit, May 24, 2010 – “Yes the tapes were monkeyed with. When I got an ‘appointment tape’ for the BBT Archieves in 1990 they had the July 7th conversation first, then the May 28th was spliced in like it was one conversation.
I still have this tape …. somewhere.
Also initially the May 28th conversation was dated as July 7th!
Can Gauridasa Pandit prabhu confirm when the May 28th conversation happened?
I was told that TKG ordered for controversial tapes (the tapes that did not support his claims for throne) to be burned immediately after SP`s departure.
Hare Krsna.
Although i dont support the ritvik conclusion i was also told by a senior devotee just last week-end that the wholesale destruction of Srila Prabhupada tapes of the time in 1977 did take place under the instructions of H.H tamala krsna goswami.But i was told this happened before Srila Prabhupada departed,in other words whilst Srila Prabhupada was still physically present.!!! Either way,
the statistical evidence seems to corroborate this verbal evidence and vica versa.The problem with no tapes is no evidence and just leaves us with what there is, just speculating about the contents of the missing tapes does not help. And i dont believe that the July 9th letter(document), the May 28th alleged conversation transcription and the other evidence that is available helps us to positively formulate a conclusion based on Guru, Sadhu and Sastra.
servant of the servant dusyanta dasa.
@”just leaves us with what there is, just speculating about the contents of the missing tapes does not help.”
Right, since there is sastra we dont depend upon on lost tapes.
“Anyone who knows perfectly well the science of Krishna,” krsna-tattva-vetta, “in truth, he is guru.” Nobody can become guru unless he knows the science of Krishna.
(Bombay, December 16, 1974)
“Then you have to go, approach the bona fide guru. He will let you know.”
(Mayapur, April 5, 1975)
There are hundreds of quotes – guru must know the science of God, he must be bonafide, genuine, not a bluffer.
Advantage is that meanwhile after 41 fallen gurus people are convinced that this scenario of trial and error cannot go on forever. At one point your reputation of presenting bhagavat-dharma, knowledge about the science of God irrevocably went down the drain.
Nobody says there cannot be another guru except Srila Prabhupada, but, a guru has to be bonafide. Unless a guru is bonafide we simply repeat and repeat what happened past 35 years, creating a huge pile of fallen gurus.
“I asked this question in church to some Christian priest, that “God is limited or unlimited?” He said, “Unlimited.” “Then why you are restricting, limited one son?” He could not answer.”
(Tokyo, April 24, 1972)
If people figure it is wrong to select Srila Prabhupada as guru, and there are many, they should simply check if their decision is correct, their guru is bonafide.
On the other side, if you actualy want to do something, work for Krishna, like all these devotees at ISKCON Bangalore, then why waste time year after year looking for a real guru? Year after year wondering, is my guru genuine? Isnt Prabhupada solid as a rock?
After all, initiation is a formality, real importance is Sankirtan, yuga-dharma, associate with devotees, chant the Holy Name, become Krishna conscious, develop love of God. Having a sublime situation as nice Vaishnava gentleman.
Hare Krishna.
AGTSP, PAMHO.
It is so very difficult for a self realized soul to hold up his standard of bhajans and at the same time to manage an institution or even a single temple because of the influence of kali yuga. The management of temples should be done by his disciples. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta established 64 branches of Sri Gaudhiya Math in India and Srila Prabhupada established 108 temples all around the world but they are titans of devotion. Srila Prabhupada is the spiritual head of ISKCON. No one can say: “In this hand I have the books of Srila Prabhupada and in this another hand I have the institution of Srila Prabhupada and here in the middle is me; the representant of the Supreme Personality of God and by that I am the guru and the proprietor of the institution. It is some thing primitive. Srila Prabhupada established the GBC for the management in the earliest times of ISKCON and the subject of initiations is some thing different.
Prabhupada presented framework requirement for ISKCON according sastra and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Maharaja, his guru’s teachings.
When it came to adjust things according Westerners’specific physio-mental situation, Prabhupada often felt that his followers could not maintain such standard and things might deteriorate.
Prabhupada had to adapt spiritual disciplines so Westerners were able to follow. So much so that response from India’s conservative Vaishnava jury was he would be watering down Gaudiya-Vaishnavism. Prabhupada pushed in justifying his course of action before the Indian Vaishnava umbrella organization.
Prabhupada’s main concern was, are his disciples able to upkeep the standards instructed by him? What happens after 2-3 years, what would happen after 10-15 years? At the same time he didnt want to run his disciples over, he had to go through failures in order to clarify that e.g. too much severe tapasya, discipline, doesnt work for Westerners, where are the limits.
This process of gaining knowledge how to manage his society by going through failures is often criticized as, Prabhupada didnt know what will happen. At the same time if you tell people exactly what to do, how do they actually learn, they rather become robots? There always has to be practical experience of any scenario what can happen in order to have full experience of life and to efficiently deal with setback.
All those failures like premature sannyasa, gurukula far away from home simply made clear, where things were crossing the frontier, wouldn’t work in reality.
Most crucial cutting point in any spiritual society, combination of institutional management and spirituality. Spiritualy advanced souls might be bad managers while good managers might be bad spiritualists. This is basically 2000 years Christian history. Same in institutionalized Vaishnavism.
There were devotees who became something like confidential disciples of Srila Prabhupada, like all those pioneers who helped Prabhupada succeed.
(Letter to Gaurasundara)
Naturally these devotees expected to get good positions and other privileges like travelling with Prabhupada.
At the same time it often happened that just these disciples at one point felt hurt, so much so that they left in a huff.
If Prabhupada would have told while giving class, “I remain diksa guru for ISKCON”, “all ISKCON leaders have to undergo quality control by having an election every year” – these legendary 11 would have left ISKCON instantly (some people might argue that would have been best, but this is NOT how Prabhupada saw things, otherwise he would have told them to leave his room and organize an election).
From previous experience – Nitai, Karandhar, Rupanuga, Vishnujana, Revatinandana, Syamasundara, Bali Mardhan, Kirtananda, etc. etc. – this should be clear, many with management potential just left.
An institution in our present world has to vote its leaders, there has to be transparency in every detail, receipts and expenditures, total revenue.
There has to be two thousand years Chrisitan church experience to be a lesson to us. Otherwise institutionalized Vaishnavism will disappear in the West. In many countries it is already happening.
To counteract by turning a bhagavat-dharma society into a Hindu mandir isnt what Prabhupada instructed.
The bona-fide Guru always follows Sadhu and Sastra:
We all agree that Srila Prabhupada is Guru. Thus anything Srila Prabhupada orders (like July9th document) is already in line with Guru Sadhu and Sastra.
72-12-14.Letter: Tusta Krsna
As for your next question, can only a few pure devotees deliver others, anyone, if he is a pure devotee he can deliver others, he can become spiritual master. But unless he on that platform he should not attempt it. Then both of them will to go to hell, like blind men leading the blind.
“If the spiritual master does not know what is actually to be done, what is actually not to be done, and he acts against the rules and regulations of the sastra, then such spiritual master may be given up.”Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.16.36,
Tokyo, January 30, 1974
The present day FISKCON`s spiritual masters are all following Bhagavan`s motto; Fake it till you make it…They themselves are conditioned souls, they don’t know where they will end up at the time of death, so they cannot liberate their followers. They are giving postdated check….(while having insufficient funds in their spiritual account).
…and we all know what SP said about that…..