LETTER BY NAARA NARAYAN DASA TO A FELLOW GODBROTHER

http://iskcon-dom.com/introduction.html
ON THE SUBJECT OF THE NON-ELECTED GBC | 4 FEB 2012
Dear **** Prabhu,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada!

When attempting to determine if a representative of an organization is corrupt or not, the first task is to determine if the officers of that organization are obeying the “law of the land”. In our case, all “Law” descends from Krishna down through the Vaishnava Sampradaya, and we have received it as such from Srila Prabhupada.

Over the years, even when He was present, there are repeated examples of the ISKCON leaders trying to “dumb down” the ISKCON Movement to conform with their idea of how a material corporation, garden club, city council, etc., should be run. So we can see that even from the beginning, there was going to be a clash, and out of that clash, either Srila Prabhupada, (representing Krishna) or the ISKCON leaders (headed by the GBC) would win.

For Srila Prabhupada to win, the GBC would really have had no choice (particularly when ordered to do so on a Topmost Urgency basis in 1974) but to agree, unanimously, to follow the exact structure, principle and Intent of the Direction of Management, since that was glaringly clearly what Srila Prabhupada unmistakably wanted.

The number one factor of accepting the Direction of Management was based on loyalty to Srila Prabhupada – Absolute Loyalty. That is the signature duty of the disciple, and is spelled out in Clear Directive Orders in the text of the DOM, that the GBC’s first, foremost and most absolute Duty was to fulfill Srila Prabhupada’s “Will” by not adding or subtracting to His Direct Order in the DOM.

Since the GBC commissioners were (and are) to be elected from the body of Temple Presidents, and since under such a liberal system of electing leadership, would have given unlimited opportunity for the Temples to expand and increase in number, who would be suitable to be GBC, would be determined by the Temple Presidents at the time of that particular election. Instead we are seeing the same old faces for over 40 years, not realizing that with the DOM, there would be not only hundreds, but thousands of “fresh new faces” to take up the post of GBC.

In addition, the second generation (namely, the Gurukulis), who Srila Prabhupada suggested would be more advanced than their own parents, in terms of spreading the Krishna Consciousness Movement authentically and effectively all over the world, would have inhabited the roles of Temple Presidents and hence, GBC, as soon as they graduated from the Gurukulas, with advanced knowledge of Krishna Conscious philosophy, and extraordinary levels of personal chaste behavior.

Well, the non-elected GBC were not accountable to the Temple Presidents, or to the poor mothers and fathers to the children who were so horribly abused in complete secrecy, within the non-elected GBC system of schools. Not being elected, the GBC of that day “circled the wagons”, to protect themselves and their own reputations, with not even the slightest consideration that their number one duty lay with the mothers and fathers of the children in the Gurukulas. (Had they been elected, they would have never been able to betray the trust of these innocent householder couples, who paid fortunes for their children to be sodomized.)

An elected GBC would have nipped inappropriate behavior to the Gurukula students “in the bud”, because they would have been elected for this precise purpose of being accountable to their constituents. But it got worse – not only did the non-elected GBC hide the pedophilic crimes (each with a 25 year sentence) to “keep ISKCON from getting a bad reputation”, but they consciously (or at least subconsciously) welcomed the destruction of their generation’s children, because they feared that were these children to actually emerge, more advanced than they, that they would be replaced, and never be able to become the “ultimate ecclesiastical authority” of anything, what to speak of ISKCON.

A young Brahmacari, starting at 5 or 6 years old, has taken a vow of poverty, so during his schooling, he has no valuable possessions whatsoever, from which he can be robbed. But he has one possession: His Chastity. And that one precious possession was plundered over, and over, again, by beasts like Satadhanya, Bhavananda, Kirtanananda, Sri Galim, and many of the others.

By destroying the chastity of the young, innocent student Brahmins, with their shaved heads, perfect Tilak, and consciousness wide open to be guided by Srila Prabhupada’s Vani to the highest platform of spiritual existence, they destroyed these children, who went on to become the broken, damaged rubble of what they had been promised by Srila Prabhupada.

Bewildered, clinging to the thought that Srila Prabhupada said they were “special”, they mill around the Movement, with no duties to perform, broken, and ruined, from the point of view of accelerated spiritual purity that was promised their parents in the form of the Gurukula training that they were to have received.

And this GBC knew what they were doing, with the conspicuous proof that many of them are still GBC, and others actually gurus. So when you ask if someone else might have been “better” than the present members of the present GBC, we have to honestly declare – we will never know.

Because the Gurukulis were systematically destroyed, and made non-competitive with the present GBC. And the thousands and thousands of temples that would have opened by neighbor talking to neighbor, guided by the elected GBC, never came to be.

But one thing we know for sure – that there is no language in the entire Krishna Consciousness Literature, Lecture and other Vani gifted to us by Srila Prabhupada, that ever mentioned that the GBC would ever become the “Ultimate Ecclesiastical Authority” of ISKCON.

On the few occasions that Srila Prabhupada was faced with the word “ecclesiastical”, He condemned it out of hand. In 1976, Srila Prabhupada has His (apparently) treacherous Temple Presidents, GBCs, Sannyasis and other leaders sign an Oath of Allegiance to Him, to be renewed yearly. Considering that they were all initiated, and had “de facto”, given their lives to Him as their Lord and Master, one would have imagined that loyalty would already be there.

Had the GBC been elected, Oath of Allegiance would have been declared to Srila Prabhupada into perpetuity long after 1977, when He departed from our association. To this day, no one would be allowed to become Temple President, GBC, or Sannyasi, without signing his Oath of Allegiance to Srila Prabhupada. But that is not the case today. The Oath of Allegiance still exists, but it is an Oath of Allegiance to the unelected GBC, as the “ultimate ecclesiastical authority” of ISKCON.

The GBC fully accept the Direction of Management. Bhadri Narayan, in a court case discussing the authenticity of the GBC, stated that the DOM is the only founding document, and that everyone knows that, and has read it. And the DOM clearly states that the purpose of the GBC is to fulfill the Will of Srila Prabhupada.

But now with the Oath of Allegiance being made to the GBC, not Srila Prabhupada, a bold and glaring fact, fully worthy of the Court of Yamaraja, has been revealed: They do not fulfill the Will of Srila Prabhupada anymore.

They have replaced Srila Prabhupada, Will and all, so now they can declare, as an ecclesiastical authority, that whatever they say supersedes the “former” “Authority of Srila Prabhupada, and that they, and they alone can determined which of Srila Prabhupada’s Teachings are to be taught, and which are not.

It would be hard to imagine a worse outcome for a people’s Movement, which is the essence of Lord Caitanya’s Personal Example, than the example being set by the present unelected and now, “ecclesiastically supreme” GBC.

As far as your point regarding the “living guru” as a source of verification of one’s spiritual advancement, let me only say that the process of Istagosthi was established by Srila Prabhupada as a regular arena for expressing one’s doubt, and to reaching Siddhanta, based entirely on the Vani of Srila Prabhupada.

In a Temple, there is always someone senior, and that senior person, “vetted” through the process of Istagosthi, is perfectly qualified to guide any number of neophytes, to the Lotus Feet of Srila Prabhupada, which is (of course) the Exact Equivalent of leading them to Lord Krishna’s Lotus Feet.

There is really no need for an “ISKCON guru” to verify anything, save and except that he will never speak a single word that is not in “cent percent” synchronization with the Words that he received from Srila Prabhupada, both in person and in writing.

I hope that the above posting will serve to clarify certain key issues surrounding the “foggy” arena into which so much deliberate dis-information has been placed by the unelected GBC, to bewilder us, one and all.

Your eternal servant,
Naara Narayan Dasa Vishwakarma