Dangerous Ground They’re Treading

The BBT Trust was created in 1970, for the sole purpose of publishing the writings, words and books of the maha-bhagavat, uttama-adhikari, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada. Indeed, the International society for Krsna consciousness, ISKCON, grew and expanded beyond anyone’s expectations, to unprecedented proportions, causing a spiritual revolution throughout the world in only 10 short years, due to the “divinely inspired” pristine words of Srila Prabhupada.

However, even in the 70’s there were warning signs:

“At the present moment in our ISKCON campus, politics and diplomacy has entered. Some of my beloved students on whom I counted (on) very, very much have been involved in this activity which I consider as disrespectful. So I have decided to retire and divert attention to book writing and nothing more.

Please therefore let me know how far you can all help me in this connection and what are the manuscripts ready for printing. I think I shall now stop all other activities except publishing of my books.” (Letter to Satsvarupa, July 27, 1970)

Srila Prabhupada put his time, energy and focuses into book distribution, understanding the words dictated to him by Paramatma were the remedy for a confused and misdirected civilization. History has recorded that Prabhupada’s original books, words and writings changed the lives of tens of millions of fortunate people. Hundreds of scholars from around the world wrote praises and appreciation of his literary masterpieces, eulogizing His Divine Grace as the most profound and proficient theologian in modern day time.

Following Srila Prabhupada’s instructions the BBT began printing his books in all languages on the planet Earth, enabling people who had never met Prabhupada to change their lives by surrendering to him and becoming Krsna conscious. His disciples’ numbers grew, they became engaged in devotional service and made spiritual advancement without his physical presence due to the purity of his unchanged vani.

Up until November 14, 1977, ISKCON looked unstoppable and like it would fulfill the prophecy of bringing in the Golden age of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu for the next 10,000 years. However, reviewing history, since that fateful day it has shown a somewhat different story.

“The main business of human society is to think of the Supreme Personality of Godhead at all times, to become His devotees, to worship the Supreme Lord and to bow down before Him. The ācārya, the authorized representative of the Supreme Lord, establishes these principles, but when he disappears, things once again become disordered. The perfect disciples of the ācārya try to relieve the situation by sincerely following the instructions of the spiritual master. At the present moment practically the entire world is afraid of rogues and nondevotees; therefore this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is started to save the world from irreligious principles. Everyone should cooperate with this movement in order to bring about actual peace and happiness in the world.” (Srimad Bhagavatam 4.28.48)

Prior to Srila Prabhupada’s Vapu disappearance he picked 11 of his senior disciples to act in an official role with regards to initiations. Prabhupada could see these 11 were still not purified with their hearts full of lust, pride, ambition, greed, and anger along with the desire for pratishta but in this age of Kali, these were the people he had to work with.

Without getting into much historical detail, the 11 appointed themselves “Zonal Acaryas/initiating spiritual masters” and immediately constructed 11 elevated seats looking down on their godbrothers and sisters; they then decreed that they were now pure devotees, were the ultimate authority for Prabhupada’s ISKCON, and drove away thousands of godbrothers and sisters who wouldn’t worship them.

“The spiritual master must never be carried away by an accumulation of wealth or a large number of followers. A bona fide spiritual master will never become like that. But sometimes, if a spiritual master is not properly authorized, and only on his own initiative becomes a spiritual master, he may be carried away by an accumulation of wealth and large numbers of disciples. His is not a very high grade of devotional service. If a person is carried away by such achievements, then his devotional service becomes slackened. One should, therefore, strictly adhere to the principles of disciplic succession.” (Nectar of Devotion, chapter 14)

In 1980 these infamous 11 were forced by some of their godbrothers who desired to become “diksa” gurus as well, so they introduced the fallacious system of voting gurus into Prabhupada’s ISKCON, “stamping” bona fide disciplic succession on their “guru-ship” titles.

Once in place, around 1982, the “gurus” who were all GBC members crazily gave HH Jayadvaita Maharaja permission to correct “100” typographical errors in Srila Prabhupada’s books just to keep him out of their ‘businesses’. Allowing Jayadvaita permission to make “100” grammatical changes to Srila Prabhupada’s books was equivalent to Sringi cursing Maharaja Pariksit, allowing Kali Yuga to come in. Jayadvaita has since made over 5,000 questionable changes to the Bhagavad-gita; his sidekick, Dravida prabhu, has made so many changes to Prabhupada’s Caitanya-caritamrita that even he’s lost track, and now the “BBTI editors” are changing Paramatma’s words in the Srimad Bhagavatam. So the question is, who is keeping record of all the editing that has gone on, is going on, and that will go on in the future? Then there’s the point of when will enough be enough? When will there be “no more requirement” of an editorial department for Srila Prabhupada’s books?

The question as to whether the writings of the acarya may or may not be revised by his disciples after his disappearance is answered by the rule of arsha prayoga. This principle states that one should not see mistakes in what the spiritual master has written or think that his writings may be changed to make them more effective or politically correct. To preserve his teachings in their originally published form is the way by which the acarya is honored, and to do otherwise is to dishonor him. That is the rule of arsha prayoga, a principle that devoted followers of a bona fide spiritual master must adhere to without deviation.

Jayadvaita’s insane rationale is:

“Srila Prabhupada completed his education in the first decades of the 1900’s and wrote his books in the 1970’s or earlier, before gender issues in the English language reached the level of attention they have lately assumed. He therefore used the pronoun ‘he’ not exclusively as the masculine pronoun but also as generic and inclusive for both sexes…”

trying to bring His Divine Grace down to a mundane “author for hire” level. Also in the 1975 edition of the Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Prabhupada warns:

“A devotee or disciple should never attempt to criticize the Lord or His representative, the spiritual master.” (Caitanya-caritamrta Madhya 12.25)

And:

“I am not much fond of the idea of changing things to accommodate the public — better to change the public to accommodate us.” (Letter to Bali-mardana – Bombay, December 28, 1971)

If editors are required, ad infinitum, for Srila Prabhupada’s books, then what will their duty statement read? Will it say that an editor’s job is to keep up with modern trends, according to the times, as Kali Yuga digresses, in grammar, political correctness and educational levels, so that Prabhupada’s books will always be considered “contemporary”?

I know maharaja has an active brain with some sort of intelligence but I just cannot understand the arrogance of him thinking he can edit whatever he likes in Srila Prabhupada’s books. But then anyone coming in the future has to be controlled or disallowed to edit the books he edited.

The BBT was a trust formed by Srila Prabhupada who picked the trustees for publishing exactly what he wrote. Most of the trustees broke the regulative principles, stole money or disobeyed his directives, thus having to be replaced. Still amidst the confusion and bewilderment they tried as best they could to continue publishing his original books.

However, unbeknownst to the ISKCON world, Jayadvaita was increasing his adulterated changes throughout Prabhupada’s books, politicking, gaining support for his unauthorized changes from weak devotees who hadn’t studied or read Prabhupada’s books thoroughly enough.

Around 1996, Jayadvaita, in close corroboration with Amarenda prabhu formed the BBTi, Bhaktividanta Book Trust International. They tried to completely disband the BBT but the India BBT gallantly fought them off, yet they somehow still managed to pull the coup of the century by making the BBTi the operating arm of the BBT.

Legally, the BBTi is not a trust, but a corporation which functions completely differently from the idea and ideals of a trust, which Srila Prabhupada wanted and established. The CEO of BBTi is a multi-millionaire and moderately successful businessman but has no idea of what Srila Prabhupada wanted. He is instead adopting a corporate infrastructure along with all the various training and ‘corporate ladder climbing’ hierarchical posts. His sideline ‘hobby’ is trying to centralize ISKCON, which is completely opposite of what Prabhupada wanted, (i.e. see 22 December, 1972, Los Angeles Letter to Karanadar), so that the GBC, under his influence can dictate whatever crazy policies they come up with.

The focus of the BBTi believes that a successful business model with all the modern cutting edge training methods, workshops and seminars, which are actually designed for a capitalistic business, is the way in which ISKCON should develop into the future.

The BBTi have also erroneously claimed they’re getting “closer to Srila Prabhupada” by their editing, which is a completely fictitious and misleading statement. In fact, the BBTi have degraded Srila Prabhupada’s position of a pure devotee and are unscrupulously and defiantly defiling the work of a maha-bhagavat uttama-adhikari , and with the poisonous tongue of a serpent are publically declaring he’s an “AUTHOR FOR HIRE.”

“If a previous acarya has already written about something, there is no need to repeat it for personal sense gratification or to outdo the previous acarya. Unless there is some definite improvement, one should not repeat”. (Caitanya-caritamrta Madhya 12.150)

As previously stated, Srila Prabhupada received hundreds of letters of appreciation and admiration for his books from professors and intellectuals around the world. I’ve yet to see one letter of tribute from anyone thanking Jayadvaita for his changes. But then, after 5,000 changes in Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-gita, Jayadvaita has camouflaged his changes by deceptively not mentioning them, saying it is still Prabhupada’s book As It Is. This is unprecedented in the literary publishing world, bordering on fraud!

Why the BBTi editors cannot understand the dangerous ground they’re treading is beyond my understanding. Srila Prabhupada was a shaktyavesa avatar, an empowered incarnation, so I sincerely hope they come to their senses before Yamaraja’s boys introduce themselves.

“Sometimes they come, however, by the order of the Lord not to hold any administrative post, but to associate with the Lord in person or to propagate the message of God in human society. Such a empowered representative are called saktyavesha-avataras, or incarnations invested with transcendental power of attorney.” (Srimad Bhagavatam 3.5.21)

By Mahasringa dasa
Apr 30, 2015 — Jaipur, Rajasthan (SUN) —