Dear Madhudvisa Prabhu, Hare Krishna! Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
You say that only pressure from the GBC can cause the Archives devotees to mend their ways, and that the GBC doesn’t care.
But, there’s another way. Let’s hit them where it hurts. Their wallets:
1. We should encourage the devotees to either download the MP3s for free or to buy them from you. By downloading them, they even get a superior set of MP3s, because the downloadable versions on Causelessmercy.com have tags which are designed for the iPod touch / iPhone. They are also superior, because of these enhanced tags, for playing on computers using iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player, etc. These enhanced MP3s are probably also work better on many other portable MP3 players, but, so far, this has not been tested.
2. We should encourage the devotees to download the VedaBase for free instead of purchasing it from the Archives for hundreds of dollars! It only takes a few minutes to download, and then they would get a version free of the very annoying, very cumbersome copy-protection.
Yes, Pratyatosa Dasa and Madhudvisa Prabhu, organize this boycott. Let the devotees exercise their rights. I believe this the first time a boycott is being organized in iskcon. Lets shake up and wake up the GBC and whoever else from their selective slumberland ZZZzzzzzzzzz.
Let this be also a prelude to Sivarama’s ” i had a dream ” iskcon
membership suggestion. Membership in an organisation also means to
exercise ones rights and vote. Lets see what happens next.
Dear SG Prabhu, thank you very much for your very perceptive comment.
If you go to the Bhaktivedanta Archives home page, http://prabhupada.com/, you will see further evidence they only seem to care about using Srila Prabhupada as their “sugar daddy” to finance their comfortable life in the country. The only links that actually work are the ones designed to fatten their wallets! Archiving is obviously very low on their list of priorities!
Your servant, Pratyatosa Dasa
What about http://vedabase.com ?
You speak strongly, but are you willing to volunteer your time to help? Or you just like to make bug talk?
You are criticizing something that I wrote almost 2 years ago. Obviously, their home page might have changed many times since then. Maybe they have mended their ways to some extent. If they have, then that is very good news!
http://vedabase.com looks very nice. Does it have the unchanged (pre-1978) versions of Srila Prabhupada’s books?
There are latest possible editions I got, so most books are edited from so called original version.
I have plan to put there also first editions of Srla Prabhupada’s books, but there are many tasks with higher priority on my to-do list.
If you would like to help and volunteer some time, or know somebody who who would, you are welcome to contact me through vedabase.com contact form.
Dear Pratyatosa Dasa, tks. Lets press on till they come to the
table and do what is right.
By the way, is Bhaktivendanta Archives a private registered company?
Who is the owner of Bhaktivendanta Archives? To whom does it report. In regards to sales what is its annual turnover? Does it give out any annual statements of account?
What does it do with the money from the sales of its “products”
which is HDGSP’s property and things like that? I think the
iskcon devotees of the world should get to know how the inner
working of iskcon is “atually” functioning.
Hare Krsna.
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Eddy Gaasbeek
Date: Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 4:40 PM
Subject: Regarding your questions:
Dear Pratyatosa Prabhu,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Regarding your questions:
1. Did you actually make the statement that the unreleased tapes are “too controversial?” (This statement seems to be a complete contradiction of your earlier statement claiming that the Bhaktivedanta Archives is “non-political!”)
2. If so, then in what way are these tapes “too controversial?”
No, we never made such a statement.
3. What is the BA’s legal basis?
4. Is the BA a legal 501c3 not-for-profit corporation?
5. If so, then in what state (of the United States) is it incorporated?
The Bhaktivedanta Archives is a 501c3 not-for-profit corporation, registered in the state of California.
6. Isn’t your legally mandated annual board meeting supposed to be a matter of public record? If so, where are the transcripts?
Please find the minutes of the last Annual General Board Meeting attached.
7. Isn’t it also legally mandated that the corporation’s board of directors be a matter of public record? If so, then who are they?
Our board members are Parama-rupa Dasa, Ekanatha Dasa, Nitya-trpta Devi Dasi, Jayadvaita Swami, and Govinda Dasa.
8. Aren’t the corporation’s by-laws supposed to be a matter of public record? If so, then where are they?
We are happy to send you a copy of our by-laws. As you’ll see they are basically legal boilerplate, with occasional tailoring to better fit the mission of the Bhaktivedanta Archives.
9. If you fail to provide the mentioned corporate information to anyone who requests it, aren’t you in danger of losing your status as a Federally approved non-profit organization?
We believe we are sending you everything you’ve asked for that the law require us to send. If there’s anything missing, please let us know.
10. Do the BA corporation’s by-laws state that the BA is subservient to the GBC, the BBT, and/or the BBTI? If not, then why not?
As you’ll see in our by-laws the Bhaktivedanta Archives is a separate organization. They do specify, however, that our collection is the property of the BBT and/or the BBTI. The GBC is not mentioned, because Srila Prabhupada specified, in the BBT founding documents that ISKCON and the BBT should be separate.
11. Even if there was a resolution passed by the GBC that the BA is authorized to do what it is doing, even the GBC, as it is presently constituted, has a very questionable legal basis, and even more questionable is the legal basis for the BBT / BBTI as they are now constituted. Isn’t that true?
Our service lies in archiving, not in law. So we wouldn’t feel qualified to offer an opinion on this question.
12. Who is the BA’s GBC representative?
As mentioned above, for the preservation of the Archives material we are responsible to the BBT, not to ISKCON. We therefore don’t have a GBC representative.
13. What’s to stop legal action from being taken by a group of devotees who can prove that they are the real disciples of Srila Prabhupada to force the BA to turn over Srila Prabhupada’s priceless legacy to them?
Once again our service lies in archiving and not in law. We would say however, that to the discerning observer common sense might prevail in seeing that the material in the Bhaktivedanta Archives has responsibly been preserved and cared for from the beginning.
Hoping this finds you in good health,
With best wishes,
Ekanatha Dasa
The BA’s 2008 tax return is also very revealing: http://llbest.com/ba/.
Another opportunity to boycott the Archives:
Bhaktivedanta Vedabase 2003 (Folio)
The most up-to-date edition of folio released by Bhaktivedanta Archives. It is a hodge-podge mixture of original Prabhupada books, new BBT changed Prabhuapda books plus many books by Prabhupada’s disciples. It has a lot of useful information mixed up with a lot of things written by people who are not liberated souls.
Price: $19.95
Author: His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Format: CD-ROM
(http://krishnastore.com/bhaktivedanta-vedabase-2003-folio-h-krishna-1319.html)
———- Forwarded (with permission) ———-
From: Madhudvisa dasa
Date: Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 6:14 AM
Subject: Re: Let’s Boycott the Bhaktivedanta Archives!
To: Pratyatosa Dasa ACBSP
Dear Pratyatosa Prabhu
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Yes. I think it is a good idea Prabhu.
But still I think we should be careful not to forget the main point. And that is that BA have these Prabhupada Audio recordings locked up and we want them to release them so we can hear them. In the big picture all we are interested in is getting BA to release everything in its original form in some good quality digital format. So we should keep pressing them for this. We don’t want to attack them because that will make them even more determined not to help us. And it will give them some reason for taking the attention off the real point which is they have been criminally holding back so much of the Prabhupada audio from the devotees for so many years. And they need to stop this. They need to come clean and release all this Prabhupada audio.
It is not just the 500 unreleased tapes that have not been released. On the original “Bhaktivedanta Tape Ministry” there are 611 tapes. And typically on these tapes the Bhagavatam classes and Bhagavad-gita classes are mostly complete. A certain, but small, percentage are cut off at the end. The “second batch” of tapes BA released for the tape ministry was in the mid 90’s. That is four hundred and something tapes. But these tapes were made by Parama-rupa Prabhu with his new digital editing system and they are quite heavily edited. They are almost all cut. Not just at the end but throughout. And I think also for these tapes BA may have edited the transcripts in the folio to match the edited tapes. At least I know they were doing this because I was staying in the Boston Temple and Berkeley Temple in the early 90’s and there were BA devotees in one of these temples working in a group on one Prabhupada class transcript a day to edit the transcript to match the tape. They would print out the old, complete transcript and would listen to the Prabhupada class early, just after Mangal Aroti, and would write the “corrections” on the transcripts and “correct” the original transcripts on the computer to match the new edited tapes. By the end of the day they would have the new, updated, edited and corrected Prabhupada class ready for the Vedabase (TM)…
So the point is most of these 400+ newer tapes the complete classes are not available.
And all the way through the 1000+ tapes we have Morning Walks are only used as “fillers.” Almost none of the morning walks are complete.
And they may not even have the original tapes any more…
We need to simply make a reasonable demand. “Please release the complete collection of unedited Prabhupada Audio so we can hear it…” That will get 100% support from everyone. And others also can put pressure on BA to do this. That is the pressure we want to put on them. We want to put so much pressure on them to release the Prabhuapda audio that eventually they will just do it to get free from the pressure.
Ekanatha is trying to not do this by arguing that he can not release anything until there are transcripts for everything in English, Sanskrit, Bengali and Hindi, and everything has been checked and double checked [to make sure Prabhupada does not say anything he does not like. And if he finds Prabhupada saying something he does not like do you think he will release it? Not likely…]
So this transcription nonsense has to be exposed for what it is. It is to enable them to edit the tapes. The proof of this is they will not release anything until the transcription is complete. Why? Because they want to edit out anything Prabhupada says that they think is “nasty…”
We never asked for transcripts. No one is asking for this. The process is hearing. We want to hear from Prabhupada. The transcripts can come later. But let us hear from Prabhupada now.
People should be aware that the Folio-Views platform that Bhaktivedanta Archives use for the Prabhupada folio is a very old and no longer supported system. It has been discontinued for more than ten years. It is software from a different age. It runs OK on Windows XP, but it has problems running on Vista, and more problems on Windows 7. The install that BA supply does not work properly on Vista and Windows 7…
Many of these problems can be solved by right clicking on the views.exe file after it is installed and setting it to emulate so ancient version of windows like Windows V3.1!! This is the program Bhaktivedanta Archives are still selling to devotees for over $300. Part of their policy to never use any technology until it is more than ten years old…
Folio-Views is such an ancient extinct dinosaur and they are engaging in such fraud selling this to the devotees for over $300…
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Your servant
Madhudvisa dasa
http://krishnastore.com/
My dear devotees of the lord
Protecting Bhaktivedanta s original books
is the most important task of this century.
No one has the right to change a word of he s work that he left us
you can t write upon anyone s work because you think
that you have a better and more exact translation personal mood
NOT BHAKTIVEDANTA S….that is why he WAS named that way…. The lover of the vedas.
IN THAT CASE ANYONE CAN WRITE THERE OWN VERSION…with there name.
and time will tell the difference.
Some may say we can t live with the errors…we are making a more accurate translation
to whom… I humble think the first error is to not obey what your Spiritual master Bhaktivedanta said.—-THESE ARE NOT MY WORDS …GO BACK TO THE ORIGINALS….
A big question for a big answer….to whom does this principle apply to….
Always Obey the Spiritual Master…for the beginners…for the bhakta s…for the less advanced…for the less fortunate…for the ignorants…for the fanatics ?
Or for all the highest rank devotees were understanding is sublime… extatic …loyal.. faithful….respecful…the most pure… sincere.. honest….OBEYFUL …advanced…
super educated…super wise …super humble …tolerante …comprehensive….
man all the qualitys that make s someone almost knock on heavens doors?……
with all respect to those who are…Such persons….
Where is this person ? where are these people ?
No one can say this for he would not be Humble…WE ARE IN THE PATH OF PERFECTION.
any path that takes the road of correcting is wiser …the meek will inheritage the world…
that is right…inclution is the word…brotherhood is the way….Caracter is the PATH.
Protect Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad is the right way to go.
LORD GIVE US SERVICE AT THY LOTUS FEET
only the “Pre-1978 Books Only” contain srila prabhupada’s unchanged books and can be installed on win7 quite easily without compatibility mode or whatever. just install with right mouse click (as administrator), ignore all error windows, and after installing copy the “Pre-78 book materials.nfo” into C:\Pre 1978 BBT Books\Infobases…
that’s all. and then start with directly doubleclicking that nfo-file.
More importantly is to inform the whole world to boycott not just those who are Hare Krsna devotees. For who were we before we became devotees? We were the whole world. Advertise internationally through all available international means regarding a boycott. ISKCON is reaching them with their counterfit programme so why would they care about those who are already aware of their deceit? If you understand the truth then use it to save the rest of the world for your world has already been discovered.
Ys Hasti Gopala Dasa
This is one of the most, if not the most, important issues among current and future followers of Srila AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada. We conditioned souls require access to all His Divine Grace’s unchanged words in audio, written and electronic form. He worked so hard, underwent so much to provide the Absolute Truth, then these rascals disrupt and contaminate everything. Surely it is the combined influence of Maya and Kali which has infiltrated. We need to pray harder and we need divine help to release our beloved Spiritual Master in this most attractive and perfect Form! Srila Prabhupada ki jai!