“Enemies of ISKCON by Ravindra Swarupa”

Sunset at Srimati Radharani's palace in Barsana

Posted by PADA, Oct 27 2010 — […] Comments on GBC meeting notes: The meeting was lead by our GBC, Ravindra Swarupa Prabhu, and I thought he did a good job of it, considering the difficult circumstances.

We all appreciated having him there, and I hope we see more of him in the future. One of the focus points was the new bylaws that had recently been adopted by Gita-nagari, and had been sent out to the community members via e-mail the night before. The document was about 35 pages of legalese, and I only got a few minutes to look it over before the meeting. I wondered how much others had been able to become familiar with it, and we spent a substantial portion of time having questions and answers about these new rules.

Ravindra explained that the reason for the new bylaws was that “enemies of ISKCON” were trying to take control of ISKCON temples. Wow! These weren’t atheists or Christians or Muslims he was talking about; he mentioned rtvik devotees and disciples of Narayana Maharaj. He used the words, “enemies of ISKCON” twice. With the second usage, he didn’t mention the Narayana Maharaj group, but again referred to the rtviks.

This got me thinking. I don’t know much about Narayana Maharaj’s group, but I’m not quite sure what separates myself from that of the rtviks, other than a formality. I chant Hare Krishna; they chant Hare Krishna. They are devotees, as far as I’m concerned. Sure, they sometimes get angry about how things have been managed in ISKCON, but they have good reason, in my humble opinion. Does this make me an “enemy of ISKCON” according to the GBC? Borderline, perhaps? I hope not. I don’t want to be anyone’s enemy.

When I came to ISKCON, I learned that I had to accept an initiation guru from the list of approved gurus, and Srila Prabhupada was emphatically not on the list. “Sorry, he’s dead; he can’t accept you. Pick someone else.” Although Srila Prabhupada had spelled out his standard for accepting disciples, they could not accept me on his behalf. They could only reject me on his behalf and take me as their own disciple if I would agree to that.

I can’t help but think that these new bylaws are another sign of material consciousness in our GBC. They are taking shelter of lawyers and courts as a way of defending their property. Why can’t they maintain ISKCON’s temples by superior, convincing preaching? Are they not qualified brahmanas?

My dear GBC members, you can control the temples by these methods, but you can only control Krishna by pure devotional service, devoid of material motives. What makes you think that Krishna does not reside in the hearts of His devotees, including those whom you consider your enemies? Do you think it wise to find so much fault with these devotees just because they do not agree with your forced intervention between Srila Prabhupada and those aspiring devotees who crave his shelter?

It seems to me that what the North American GBC means by “enemies of ISKCON” is really just a group of devotees who feel strongly that Srila Prabhupada wants to continue to be available to us as guru. Others who like being guru feel threatened to be in competition with Srila Prabhupada, and therefore consider the rtvik proponents as their enemies and have taken up a legal defense against them. The reality is that our only enemy is the lust in our hearts that makes us want to lord it over material nature. How much worse is the desire to lord it over Krishna’s devotees? What a dangerous trap!

Hare Krishna.

Source: Gita-nagari Secret meeting from an anonymous source.

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