Which ISKCON?

Feb 20, USA (SUN) BY: ANANTA DAS —
In comment to some of the articles appearing on the Sun, I would like to make some observations. Firstly I agree there are many legal entities that are incorporated under the acronym ISKCON. Every one of them is a separate corporate entity which is comprised of several founding members who are the legal representatives of that particular body. If one was to add up all the ‘actual’ members of ISKCON globally, then you will be surprised just how few there are. These founding members are the legal ‘owners’ of ISKCON and the only official members. Legally there are individual corporations which apparently share no legal connection with one and other. So if any criminal, ethical or philosophical problem should arise, the buck should stop at the entity that the problems are arising from. 

However understanding specifically where the proverbial buck should stop when attempting to hold any individual or legal entity accountable for any actions or inactions within the multifarious boards / commissions / departments / ministries /committees / plenary bodies / affiliated bodies, etc of the multi-headed slippery eel called ISKCON is near on impossible.

When one attempts to navigate through the above convoluted bureaucratic rigmarole that is Corporate ISKCON to attempt to find the person or body who is actually to be made accountable, for anything short of a capital crime, one can see just how sneaky and slippery a web of deceit and subterfuge has been woven by the cunning legal minded ISKCON leadership in order to protect the institution and its legal members.

However, even though Corporate ISKCON is a nebulous quagmire of bureaucracy, it is overseen and managed by the GBC or the Governing Body Commission. The GBC has assumed the supreme authority over all things to do with ISKCON, both managerial and spiritual. It writes the laws and prosecutes them. It creates and is responsible for the various Ministries, Boards, Committees, Trusts, and Departments that constitute Corporate ISKCON. All functionary appointments for seniority are approved by the GBC. It appoints the various Gurus, Sannyasis, etc. that provide the so-called spiritual aspect of ISKCON. It is also responsible for the supervision and spiritual standard of all spiritual and managerial leaders or officialdom within ISKCON.

The GBC is where the buck should stop. But to date nothing, even up to the point of ‘class action’ taken against them, has been able to affect even the slightest positive reformatory or punitive measure. They have always cunningly evaded the proper consequences of their activities and diluted down any punitive action. Of course, Margaret Connors would say that this was due to their karma. But more Specifically, it is due to the fact that ISKCON has evolved with the mentality of a New York Lawyer. You will never find any Justice in a New York Lawyer’s ethic, only law and a very clever way to get around that law.

The whole bandwagon is really only here to makes sure that the volunteers and financial sponsors do what they, the GBC, want them to do. (Note: An ISKCON volunteer is a rank and file devotee, that means you). Volunteers are responsible to them, but they are not responsible to the volunteers. If a volunteer who is not a senior or politically strategic functionary commits a crime or goes against their expressed wishes, then the full force of their judiciary is brought against that wayward volunteer.

However, if they themselves commit crimes or perpetrate philosophical deviations they are protected and if need be promoted, especially if they were made to feel some discomfort by any public disclosure of their act.

Braja Bihari is a perfect example of such a corporate ISKCON functionary who has been disgraced in the eyes of the worldwide devotee community, yet bathes in the full support of the GBC, Gurus and ISKCON officialdom.

Had this person been a member of a law abiding corporation he would have been unceremoniously drummed out of the corporation and would never be made responsible for even a fake jewelry stall at a local Saturday market, but he is instead embraced by the institution and afforded the privileges of royalty. As evidenced by his latest role and influence in this year’s GBC Deputy Meetings, as well as within the GBC at the 2010 GBC meetings (severe health status notwithstanding).

But my good godbrothers and godsisters, he simply has a very big karmic bank account, and unless and until that goes into deficit, we will continue to have him working his ‘black magic’ with Corporate ISKCON with wild abandon.

We the volunteers have not the accrued karmic points to stand against this type of person or this type of institution. An institution whose membership collectively lacks the scruples that make up a normal, healthy mature person.

Apologists like Margaret Connors would have us believe that so long as we don’t have a watertight legal case against any specific corporate entity or person, then we should simply chant Hare Krishna and be happy. Each of us left to suffer or be rewarded according to our past karmic activities. Tuck our little hands deep inside our bead bags and chant, as the ones in leadership position and loaded karmic bank accounts do what they please with Srila Prabhupada’s ISKCON and the many innocent volunteers. For, as she would have us believe, if we had been chanting purely for all these years and let the corrupted ISKCON leaders do what they wanted without a murmur, then we would be pure devotees and above all this nonsense.

With this logic, the children in our Gurukulas should have been taught in classes to chant Hare Krishna when being molested, and be firm in the knowledge that what was happening to them late at night was simply their past karma catching up with them, happily chanting away as their little bodies were being molested and abused. Their spiritual leaders such as their teachers, headmasters and the GBC gurus who the children reached out to in their time of need, were acting according to the laws of nature when they either ignored them or reprimanded them for ratting on their perpetrators. But they should keep on chanting and being happy with their lot in life, and they should accept what happened to them as their punishment for past sins. And if there was any wrong doing on anyone’s part, that that person would suffer at some future time as prescribed by their own individual karma.

It is a crying shame that each parent of a child that was raped, molested or beaten by teachers in ISKCON did not make a police case against them and had that devotee prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and perhaps the teachers/headmasters and GBC would have been punished for failure to report a crime, as well. If they had, we would be living in a very different ISKCON today! Devotees like Dhanurdhar and Gauri may have done jail time. Had our leaders possessed even a shred of moral fiber, maybe they would have properly investigated the abuse and murder(s) that went on in New Vrindavan, and maybe Radhanath Swami would have seen jail time?

But they didn’t, and they still don’t. What they do possess is a very sturdy karmic bank account that has them placed way above any here and now accountability for any of their actions or inactions, which have caused so much pain and suffering to the volunteers that have made the ISKCON leaders’ lives a fairytale of fame, admiration, financial/property gain, lofty status and position within ISKCON.

Of course, we are all responsible for our own actions and inactions as well. The parents should have known better. “Should” is the operative word. Of course they should have known better, but they believed that their leaders represented Srila Prabhupada (as they claim they do) and were therefore their ever well wishers. But that was not the case, as our leaders have always been more interested in their own plans and agendas. They acculturated the conception that to speak outside of the ‘family of devotees’ was bad (akin to a cop ratting on another cop) and that they were trying their best to deal with the issues. This idea has now taken on a bureaucratic infrastructural aspect with the formation of the International Child Protection Department and ISKCON Resolve.

Non-adherence to the protocols set down by the above process will be regulated by the new ISKCON Law Book and ISKCON Constitution and enforced by GBC mandate. If a volunteer has a grievance, then they simply make a submission to one of the above departments who will handle the case and therefore keep it inside the dysfunctional family of Corporate ISKCON.

Actually to begin blaming the parents and the children who were in that particular instance innocent, is really in such bad taste that it makes my stomach turn. Margaret Connors certainly is one cold, clinical piece of work. The pedophiles and abusive personality types that gravitated to our Gurukulas were in many cases victims themselves. Victims of their past lusty desires and such, but the real responsibility lies with the non-abusive teachers, principals, GBC, etc., who knew and allowed them to get away with these atrocities and ignored the pleas of the children who at that time were innocent victims. These are the ISKCON Leaders (many of whom are leading the movement today) who had the responsibility to appropriately respond to our children’s needs, and who not only failed to do so, but acted in ways that can only be termed wicked.

It is so very easy for people like Margaret Connors to sit there and blame the children and their parents out of context of the totality of the situation (case) our parents and children found themselves immersed in. Easy, but, brutally cold.

When reading the articles by the apologist Margaret Connors, I can’t help thinking that she is not seeing from our, the volunteer or non-official ISKCON member’s, point of view. She perceives the problems and is coming up with answers that can only be from the senior leadership viewpoint, and that‘s why she fails to understand our predicament. That is why she quotes sastra like a lawyer quotes law when he is trying to get his ‘guilty’ client off a criminal charge by a mere technical detail point of law. Maybe she has a legal or corporate background and has never really been a rank and file devotee who has been at the mercy of the ruthless ISKCON Corporate Wallas.

It does not matter who you are, what matters is the line of thought and questioning that you are assuming. From the angle of vision that you are coming from, you are speaking from the point of view of the upper echelon of ISKCON, which philosophically speaking is nothing more than sophistry (a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone).

And as a parting point, I would like to add that as Vaisnavas, we are not so much interested in our karma. We are here to learn to do the right thing by Srila Prabhupada and Krishna, and not the errant GBC, Liberalistic Gurus or corporate lackeys.

Hare Krishna
Thank you very much…

Ananta das (USA)