BY: ROCANA DASA
— On the Zonal Acarya king, Bhagavan
Apr 07, 2011 — CANADA (SUN)
In previous articles, we’ve presented commentary on the lineages of Zonal Acaryas, Kirtanananda and Tamal Krishna Goswami, and today I’d like to present Bhagavan das.
Many readers have responded to this series, suggesting that we’ve forgotten to mention the names of several princes, but our aim here is to focus primarily on the surviving princes, and those who were on the highest levels of the Zonal kings’ hierarchy.
Prior to the Zonal Acarya concept being implemented, right after Srila Prabhupada’s departure, Bhagavan was a householder, and the GBC for France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
After becoming the GBC, he promptly brought many of his American friends over to Europe because in the countries where he was GBC, most people didn’t speak English. This was especially true in France, where there was great resistance to the concept of speaking English.
So for Bhagavan to have friends and associates that he could relate to, he had to bring in Americans, and he would then put the Americans in charge of the different countries. In this way, he managed his zone.
Because of his Zonal Acarya position, Bhagavan soon found it necessary to take sannyasa, abandoning his wife and children. His princes soon followed suit, also taking sannyasa. One of Bhagavan’s principle princes was Indradyumna Swami, who is now a larger than life personality within ISKCON. Indradyumna was a very close friend of Bhagavan das.
Another of Bhagavan’s princes was Kesava Bharati, who was in Spain. He couldn’t maintain his sannyasa status and fell down, and it took him many years to regain that status. Just recently he’s become a sannyasi again, after doing his penance according to the GBC, but as of today, he’s not among the surviving princes of King Bhagavan.
Most of his princes followed him into iniquity by falling down with women. Indradyumna seems to have resisted this temptation, although based on the photos circulating on the Net of his close association with young women, it clearly seems that he is at risk.
In many respects, Indradyumna Swami still reflects a lot of Bhagavan’s style of management from the Zonal Acarya period. Of course, Indradyumna has not manifested the same tendency or propensity to be a direct manager, e.g., he’s not on the GBC, but the lifestyle that he leads, and the way that he thrives on and requires a great deal of attention and a sort of rock star status is very reminiscent of Bhagavan.
Bhagavan used to take his court, all of his princes, off on vacation together. They would go to resorts to sun bathe, to places where they could swim and relax, to health retreats and spas where they could take all the programs for being healthy and vibrant, and attractive. Bhagavan understood the principle of looking like a king, and acting like a king, keeping everyone in a mood of awe and reverence due to his being physically externally attractive.
Bhagavan changed a great deal after becoming a Zonal Acarya, making drastic adjustments to his personal and preaching style. He adopted the heavy preaching style that Guru Kripa had adopted, with great success.
Guru Kripa, along with Yasodanandana dasa, were running a successful money gathering program, and Bhagavan also adopted many of their techniques for collecting money. He began doing the marathon sankirtana, pushing everyone far beyond their limits in a very unbalanced program which caused the devotees to neglect their spiritual lives, instead emphasizing the collection of money.
And with this money, Bhagavan lived a very nice lifestyle. He bought palaces, gave himself lavish accommodations and lifestyle, and bestowed a slightly less lavish facility on his princes. This is all part of the history. But what we’re mainly concerned with today is that these personalities, the princes of the Zonal Acaryas, are now controlling and running ISKCON.
I mentioned in a previous article Sivarama Swami, who is presently a Zonal Acarya in Hungary. He was first under the Zonal Acarya, Tamal Krishna Goswami, but later he went over to England, just before Jayatirtha’s first major falldown. After Jayatirtha’s final falldown, Sivarama took charge in England, when Bhagavan became the Zonal Acarya of England.
At that time, Sivarama became very enamored with Bhagavan. I was an old associate of Sivarama’s from Canada. In fact, he initially took over a position I left, just after Jayatirtha began exhibiting his ridiculous symptoms and was forced to take sannyasa. I chose to get away from all that insanity, and went to East Africa. Sivarama Swami, who had taken sannyasa from Tamal Krishna, then took over my position as head of the Sankirtana program under Jayatirtha in England, and he became a prince of Bhagavan.
I can recall having the association of Sivarama Swami during those days. At one point we went to India together, and I was just astounded by his complete supplication to Bhagavan. He had totally fallen in love with him. He loved Bhagavan’s style of management and his methodologies.
And to this very day, Sivarama is very Bhagavan-like in the way he does things, and in the lifestyle he’s adopted. Bhagavan was known for his Louie XIV image. He loved the high life and lived in a very opulent fashion, even though he was a sannyasi.
And you still see this propensity today in Sivarama Swami and Indradyumna Swami. Both of them are making a big negative impact on ISKCON, as far as I’m concerned, and many of my godbrothers agree. They’re setting the style and carrying on the tradition of the Zonal Acaryas. Even though they don’t carry the title openly, the same philosophy is there, underlying their activities.
Sivarama Swami eventually left England and took over the country of his ancestors. He was a Hungarian Canadian when he joined, and I guess he learned the language as a child. He has obviously convinced himself that having the power, position and lifestyle of a Zonal Acarya is what’s best for himself, and for ISKCON.
These Zonal Acarya princes who still live the lifestyle and carry on this same philosophy are today members of the GBC. They hold a lot of power in ISKCON. The GBC is simply a means by which they keep their power in place. Sivarama Swami was recently heard promoting the idea of the GBC being the Ultimate Managing Authority, at the Annual Meeting in Mayapur.
Of course, he’s flaunting the GBC regulations, in the same way that Radhanath and many of the other Zonal Acaryas on the GBC are. They use the GBC and their position to protect their own Zonal Acarya positions. This seems to be OK with the GBC, even though they’ve passed laws against this attitude, and supposedly reformed. But they haven’t reformed.
We still have these princes, who have now become older and more set in their ways, convinced that what they’re doing is right. They produce the same kind of results the Zonal Acarya’s originally got. They have men, manpower, things are happening.
Externally they look successful, because that formula does work in the material world. Material history will show how certain personalities who adopt the same kind of psychology and politics get fantastic results, because people want to follow them. They want to believe that these leaders are what they depict themselves to be.
I don’t know what goes on in the hearts and minds of these leaders… whether they themselves are so convinced due to false ego that they’re great sannyasis and preachers and so on? Time will tell. Many of them may survive, in the sense that they won’t fall down like so many of their fellow brothers, the previous princes have done. But ISKCON has nonetheless taken a great deal of risk in promoting this whole concept, and supporting it.
All the original Zonal Acaryas have fallen down, and many of their princes have fallen, causing great harm to Srila Prabhupada’s movement and great pain to many, many converts to Krishna consciousness. And yet, the GBC just continues to look the other way, condoning and justifying it.
The Zonal Acarya king Bhagavan had a big impact in his time. Today, he’s whatever he is – a successful businessman and yet another fallen leader currently trying to negotiate a comeback. But let it not be forgotten that he caused a great deal of damage, and that damage is still impacting ISKCON through his princes.
Rocana Prabhu has mentioned Sivarama Swami, and so it seemed a good opportunity to tell some of his history here in Canada; It was 1974, and the Winnipeg Gour Nitai temple was thriving , sometimes almost despite the presidents that occupied the upstairs second floor office. At 160 Home Street, not too far from downtown, in one of the older but still cool sections of the city, a large corner three story house in the residential neighborhood had been decorated and turned into a reasonable facsimile of a Vedic ashrama.
The temple president, during the three and a half years the temple was maintained, was changed every few months to a year ! Balakrsna, Rocana, Nandikeswara, Sivarama.
Balakrsna Prabhu was very positive, and as the first president there, he carried us forward with good grace. He was great, very personal and positive, an excellent lecturer and advisor. We were all sorry he went back to British Columbia to the farm life. I suppose there were few opportunities for his small family in the city.
Rocana Prabhu seemed an aloof and relatively cold sort. He did not inspire our loyalty, and I recall more than once when he said very discouraging things to me personally, most unnecesarily. I was the senior devotee there, though the youngest, and he was contemptuous. I personally did most of the Deity worship and the cooking, although only first initiated, and slept very little at the time. He would criticize me for sometimes nodding out during japa. Fortunately, he left after a while, restoring a feeling of relief and well-being to the depressed temple atmosphere. He was competent and steady, but not a good leader of men. His style was authoritative and aloof.
Nandikesvara Prabhu was the opposite. He was dynamic, personal, and inspiring. He smiled a lot, led a good krtana, and encouraged us individually, like an older brother. We loved him , and our temple just exploded under his leadership. Many new and still solid devotees joined, we distributed books like there was no tommorrow, and everybody was blissful. But the GBCs saw fit to pull him and send him to Montreal, taking the majority of our sankirtana devotees tand his old Regina buddies there with him. The Winnipeg temple, producing so many devotees, never recovered.
Then along came Sivarama Prabhu. He had a very hard and naive nature, pushing so hard as to have all the civil authorities in Winnipeg wrankling at his aggressive antics about the town malls, and main streets. He burned out the city like he could care less. He burned out the devotees, some of whom including myself eventually just left. He treated us all like his chattel , like he was the big big authority and we were his dupes. He was most cultish and gang-like in his behaviors. He introduced quotas for sankirtana that everyone hated. No new devotees joined. Soon, he packed up the Deities and devotees and moved back down to the USA.
Winnipeg was always a busy temple in terms of producing new devotees and book distribution, but bad managment destroyed the whole program, such that Winnipeg has suffered for decades now with no temple, and is one of the only cities in the world where Srila Prabhupada’s temple was shut down. This very mixed bag is the older generation’s legacy here in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Dear Rocana Prabhu,
My obeisances to you. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada.
As usual, you have written a superb article. The grace of your style, the eloquence of your sentences, and the clarity of your descriptions make me envy your abilities. It is hard to find anyone, inside or outside of our circles, whose writing talents equal yours.
Since you are posting articles on Prabhupadanugas, a dominant ritvik website, it appears your position on the ritviks has softened, from what you wrote me, below, on August 1, 2010.
Your servant, friend, and Godbrother,
Mahasana dasa
“And yes, our personal philosophical stance, and the Sun’s overriding editorial position, is anti-Rtvik. I’ve written extensively about my position in my Church of Rtvik paper.
“The Sun’s editorial policy on Rtvik-vada is this: we will publish anything pro-Rtvik that is not just a rehashing of the same arguments in favor of Rtvik-vada that have been discussed threadbare for years and years. No chewing of the chewed in promoting Rtvikism. What we WILL publish are pro-Rtvik arguments that present any reasonable new material: new arguments, new evidence, or new realizations that are pro-Rtvik. These are we happy to publish, in order to foster an ongoing reasonable debate on siddhanta.
“What we’re not willing to do is encourage Rtvik-vada by publishing propaganda that serves no purpose but to entice devotees to take up Rtvik-vada. We don’t support it, philosophically, and we don’t use the Sun as a platform to promote it. We are promoting the Sampradaya Acarya position, which we believe is the proper siddhantic conclusion, and which provides a means to eliminate the guru-tattva dilemma facing both the Rtviks and the GBC rubber-stampers.
“RE: Bangalore temple and many other Rtvik temples and programs, yes, we’ve been happy to publish reports of their preaching activities. We think Bangalore is doing a fabulous job in everything EXCEPT their post-samadhi diksa initiations. We see their success as being due to their dedication in keeping Srila Prabhupada at the center. The Rtvik initiations they conduct are not a necessary aspect of that program, and unfortunately only serve to undo some of the good, because they’re engaging in apasiddhantic activities.
“Whether it’s the Rtvik temples in Bangalore or Montreal or Singapore, the Sun is happy to promote their articles on Ratha Yatras, book distribution, etc., etc., but we would not accept articles from any of them that simply propagandize Rtvik-vada, without meeting the criteria stated above (new evidence/arguments/realizations).”
Rocana is cheating. He proposes to represent diverse community views, but in reality, he censors everything to favor an anti-ritvk stance. He has done immense harm to our ritivk movement. Ask many ritivks and anti-GPC (guru poisoners’ club) devotees who used to write to that site.. No serious ritivks bother to go to his site anymore, and when they do, they are censorred and rewritten. This is a cheating process, not honest journalism. Just ask Radha Govinda Swami, Dhamaghosa, etc etc etc. He won’t even use B. Radha Govinda’s Swami’s sannyasa name, as apparentl;y he considers himself a big authority over her and others. SS is very tickly and misleading. In my opinion, two cents worth, it is a purposive attempt to hijack the movement philosophically and destory the ritivk movement. Oh. He is fine with the Bangalore temple, he just doesn’t like to see Prabhupada as the master, instead he wants Bhaktimarga Swami. Hare Krsna.