By Krishnakant, IRM (Editor Back to Prabhupada Magazine)
July 24, London, UK — As all our articles in this section, the one below has also been first published in the IRM’s official magazine Back To Prabhupada.
BTP is being distributed for free to ISKCON devotees and people interested in Srila Prabhupada’s teachings worldwide. If you would like to receive BTP at your home, simply send us your full name and street address via the following email address: irm@iskconirm. com.
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Thank you & Hare Krishna
Quotes, Notes and News (QNN)
GBC spokesman against IRM dumps guru
Readers may recall that in issue 12 of BTP we noted how ISKCON devotee Krishna-Kirti Das (Christopher Shannon) had been officially charged with defending ISKCON’s guru hoax in an academically sponsored debate between the IRM and the GBC. He has now completely rejected his own ISKCON guru, HH Hridayananda Goswami!:
” […] for many years I have been an initiated disciple of Hridayananda Goswami. However, on account of recent news of his blessing of homosexual nuptials and his less-than-straightforward response to the devotee community about his involvement, I have formally ended my relationship with him as his disciple.” (Krishna Kirti Das, 15/2/2009)
We therefore have the crushingly demoralising situation whereby the one person the GBC chose to defend their bogus guru system against the IRM, in a debate arranged and published by the highly esteemed Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, has now publicly dumped his own guru. (Please go here to read the IRM/GBC debate in question: www.iskconirm.com/docs/pdf/krishnakirti.pdf)
Can it get any clearer that the GBC’s guru system is rotten to the core when even its most enthusiastic and qualified apologists end up so disenchanted?
Rock `n’ roll guru rocks GBC
In QNN 22, we ran a story about GBC member and voted-in guru Param Gati Swami (“PGS”) and his predilection for dancing at rave parties, and showed a photograph of him engaging in this activity while dressed as a “raver”. We stated:
“How can those who are supposed to be self-realised `as good-as-God’ gurus, representing Srila Prabhupada and connecting us to Krishna, be any of these things, if they do not even know the most basic rules of behaviour?”
In his defence, PGS argued:
“My intention, when I participated in these programs was to be more close to the devotees, “less distant”, specially of the young generation.”
Now once again BTP, empowered by Krishna to defend Srila Prabhupada from the guru hoaxers, has been proven to be prescient. As the following GBC resolution demonstrates, PGS came just a little too “close to the devotees”:
“The Governing Body Commission of ISKCON wishes to announce that Param Gati Swami has resigned from the GBC and will no longer accept disciples for initiation. The GBC has determined, following a careful investigation, that Param Gati Swami recently made sexual advances to a male devotee.
The man did not welcome these advances and matters advanced no further. In pursuance of GBC direction, Param Gati Swami will be staying in Mayapur for the next year for a directed course of counseling and spiritual restoration under GBC supervision.
Those who are his initiated disciples should approach their local temple or regional authorities, as well as other trusted senior devotees, for personal guidance and direction.
By virtue of strong association with good devotees and a deep relationship with our Founder-acarya Srila Prabhupada, they will be able to overcome any impediment and continue to advance on the path of devotional service.” (GBC Executive Committee, 2009)
1) It may be noted that though PGS has been stripped of his GBC and guru position, he is still allowed to continue as a sannyasi (renunciant) and that he is now undergoing a process of “spiritual restoration”, implying that he could once again be reinstated as a “good-as-God” guru.
If making sexual advances to young devotees under one’s care is compatible with sannyasa status, just as having an affair with a married disciple was in the case of Satsvarupa Das “Goswami” (see BTP 19), we wonder what exactly one has to do before the morally bankrupt GBC will actually rescind one’s sannyasa position?
2) It is also stated that if PGS’s disciples cultivate a “deep relationship” with Srila Prabhupada they will be able to “continue to advance on the path of devotional service”.
But then why would one require to get initiated by a GBC guru such as PGS in the first place? Rather, it must be Srila Prabhupada who is the bona fide Guru with whom one can have “a deep relationship” as a direct disciple and thereby “advance on the path of devotional service”, just as Srila Prabhupada himself teaches:
“First we must find a bona fide guru, establish our relationship with him, and act accordingly. Then our life will be successful, for the guru can enlighten the sincere disciple who is in darkness.”
(The Science of Self-Realization, chapter 2)
By also directing these disciples to take “personal guidance and direction” from all other senior devotees in ISKCON, the GBC resolution also confirms Srila Prabhupada’s statement that only he is the initiator guru, while everyone else in ISKCON – including the GBC themselves – are simply to act as teachers or instructor gurus:
“The GBC should all be the instructor gurus. I am the initiator guru, and you should be the instructor guru by teaching what I am teaching and doing what I am doing.”
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, August 4th, 1975)
Thus the IRM’s position that Srila Prabhupada is the only authorized and bona fide diksa (initiating) Guru in ISKCON is once again vindicated, as the GBC are again forced to admit.
Rumblings in Russia
In the last issue, we profiled how the spread of the IRM in the Czech Republic, Germany and Hungary (amongst other places) had caused various ISKCON leaders in these countries to take defensive action, leading to them being exposed speaking complete nonsense in the process (please see “An error in every sentence”).
Now the growth of the IRM in Russia has caused one ISKCON devotee to complain about the IRM to his GBC representative, HH Bhakti Vijnana Goswami (“BVG”), that:
“The problem is they have written responses to all the ISKCON articles, and thus the final word is theirs […] many people are getting the impression that their theory is better reasoned and is closer to the truth […] bhaktas go to them. What is to be done?”
BVG’s response, containing the usual gibberish, with an “error in every sentence”, is that basically nothing can be done! See the reply here: www.iskconirm.com/docs/webpages/bvg.htm
In addition, some years earlier HH Indradyumna Swami, fearing the imminent arrival of the IRM into Russia, had also decided to join the “error in every sentence” club, as the following exposé demonstrates: www.iskconirm.com/docs/webpages/ids.htm
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