May 27, 07 CALGARY, CANADA — Sriman Ravinda Swarupa Prabhu has recently posted on Dandavats an attempt at reconciliation, through explanation of the GBC's current policies. This is welcome, and I am sure that there will be a detailed response from the devotees. However, I have a question or two that have been asked before, but I have never seen even an attempt at an explanation by ISKCON authorities:
1. Why are wages being paid to devotees?
This is clearly 100% in defiance of the instructions of our spiritual master, and MUST be immediately stopped! Ravindra mentioned in his Dandavats article that devotees who have been outside of Iskcon for some time, and who then later became re-engaged with the temples, see so many changes. Count me in this category. It is quite unnerving to have to address the leaders of the Iskcon that I love and would give my life for, have given my life for, in such a way as my natural inclination is to love and support them. It does not at all please me to become a protester. But I will not back down from my brahminical duty.
2. Didn’t Srila Prabhupada say that change was a Western disease, and not to change ANYTHING?
3. What is the value of the so-called cooperation of the Temple Presidents, Secretaries, etc with the GBC, when they are simply paid-off mouthpieces for the GBC?
Who in their right mind will be stupid enough to believe that there is any impartiality to such cooperation, when the “money money, brighter than sunshine, sweeter than honey” is used to co-opt the very persons who are supposed to speak up for the temple devotees? Are people really so gullible that they will want to perform pure devotional service in Iskcon, when their so-called leaders and exemplars are paid-off lackeys? I have personal experience of this in Toronto. This is not something I enjoy having to say. It boggles the mind that such obvious corruption continues while Ravindra tries to assure us that all is going according to Srila Prabhupada’s directions. Get off your high horse, prabhu, and get real. We are not quite as insipidly ignorant as you seem to think.
The brahmanas are supposed to be honest, and we will give some credit in our minds to HH Ravindra Prabhu for at least superficially espousing adherence to Srila Prabhupada’s directives. We also respect the work that he has done over many years, and we offer our obeisances. However, the refutation of the asked for elections of the GBC members by Srila Prabhupada in 1975 was done under heavy coercion by the entrenched and insistent bunch that later seized Prabhupada’s ISKCON for their own sense gratification as Zonal Acaryas. Srila Prabhupada wanted the devotees to have a say, to place some responsibility in the hands of those actually doing daily service without financial rewards, and this originally came out as the Direction of Management. This was thwarted by an ambitious gang of eleven. So, it is misdirecting to suggest that those days are past, when the results continue.
Is Ravindra Maharajah afraid that if elections were actually held, and votes given by non-paid-off prabhus, that he would personally lose? In any responsible position representing the many in this world, an honest man will resign when his authenticity and character are called into question. An honest GBC should resign as a group, and call for elections, then perhaps we would have full cooperation by the mature devotees.
Symptomatic of this blind-sidedness is the rejection of regular temple itsaghostsis.
4. Why are there no longer istaghostsis?
Any management would not be so foolish as to disenfranchise their greatest asset -- their employees, in this case the devotees. Yet Iskcon is now so haughty that they ignore our devotees in this way, like they have nothing to say, like nobody cares about their opinions and understandings and suggestions. This is symptomatic of the whole problem: a top-heavy management system that is readily perceived as partial and imperfect. Better to decentralize and kick the ambitious ones out. Let corporate Iskcon dissolve. Let the leaders clean the floors like surrendered souls, and re-learn humble service attitudes.
I constantly hear of all my Godbrothers who were chased out of Iskcon, or avoiding it, or simply hoping for some inviting change. Why are we not actively soliciting their full reinstitution as Iskcon leaders and sannyasis?
Why should we compromise our deepest spiritual values to suit the political foibles of some temporary GBC's? This is cheating in the name of religion. How about actually addressing practically the so-oft-stated problems, instead of avoidance and word jugglery, for a change? This kind of avoidance is a silly waste of our collective time.
In business, often the biggest cheat and unscrupulously ambitious persons rise to the top, dog eat dog. In this regards, this GBC election should be held and voted only by non-paid initiates, whether temple servants or outside servants, free of coercion, free of guru-based adherence to differential party lines. Other measures to prevent fraud and manipulation could also be utilized. Had it been the case that the GBC was perceived as trustworthy, there would be no problems, but rightly or wrongly, the general perception is one of some corruption. In order to restore legitimacy to the authority of the GBC, let them act openly and legitimately. No doubt even in the “good old days” there was a degree of criminality also, albeit less well publicized. Still, let's now take all opportunities to turn Iskcon into the 100% pure movement that it should, and I still believe, can be.
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