Back To Prabhupada, Issue 21, Autumn 2008, Editorial
Welcome to Issue 21 of Back to Prabhupada (BTP).
A common question we are asked relates to why the IRM is not apparently “winning”. If the IRM are doing the right thing, then Krishna and Srila Prabhupada will surely be on “our side”, and empower us to victory. So why isn’t this happening?
The question assumes that “winning” and “victory” in this context must mean taking over ISKCON properties or amassing many properties ourselves, and having more followers than the GBC. Thus “winning” and “victory” are defined in terms of the following one has. If we think about this for a second, we will realise how absurd this proposition is, for in the world today ISKCON itself is one of the smallest religious groups out there, and it is rapidly getting smaller and fractured. By this logic, Christianity and Islam must be “winning”, and have God on “their side”. Obviously, in this context the GBC will argue that what matters is not size, but whether or not the correct message is being preached.
Aha! So “success” actually means preaching the correct message, rather than preaching the wrong message successfully! Hence, this must be the criterion for judging “success”, “victory” and “winning”. What matters is not how much people are following you, but how much we are following Srila Prabhupada. Having many buildings, followers, etc., is meaningless if one is deviating from Srila Prabhupada. Otherwise then we would not be measuring our success, but merely how successful we are at deviating. So let’s measure:
1) The years since the formation of the IRM have been characterised by near silence from the GBC in terms of papers challenging our position, culminating in the ignominious withdrawal in 2004 of the GBC’s position paper, On My Order Understood, which the IRM’s position paper, The Final Order, challenged.
2) ISKCON’s leaders have been pushed to agree with all our major points, as copiously documented in BTP Special Issue No. 2.
3) Our website homepage www.iskconirm.com lists a “matrix of defeat” documenting how every attempt by ISKCON leaders to justify the guru hoax has been thoroughly defeated by the IRM.
4) And any time ISKCON leaders open their mouths on this subject, only contradictory hypocritical gibberish emerges, as documented repeatedly in every BTP issue!
So they have no position, they agree with our position, they can’t agree with themselves and can’t justify anything they say – how much clearer does it need to get?! In terms of establishing the truth about Srila Prabhupada, and then justifying, defending and preaching it, the IRM has clearly established its objective and “won”. The opposition no longer even tries to offer any justification for its position, merely stating that its current position is that Srila Prabhupada wanted gurus, and that is all. And Srila Prabhupada explains that being “victorious” in “destroying the opposition” is what constitutes “success”:
Harikesa: “You so completely destroy the opposition, it’s very hard to say anything more.”
Prabhupada: “Yes. […] you have to learn it and face the public and be strong to defend yourself. That is success. […] But be victorious to the opposing elements.”
(Conversation, December 26th, 1975)
Clearly, Krishna and Srila Prabhupada are empowering the IRM to expose and defeat the opposition, and establish Srila Prabhupada’s supremacy.
“But”, one may ask, “what about the fact that the GBC’s guru hoaxer group distributes books, establishes temples of Krishna, gets people to chant Hare Krishna etc.? How can this just be dismissed as being inconsequential? How could they do this unless they were ‘empowered by Guru and Gauranga’?”
Some of our older readers will remember that this was exactly the argument used to justify the zonal acharya system of 1978-1986. All the books distributed and “devotees made” etc. were used to justify and cover up the mass deviation from Srila Prabhupada’s will, which was The Great Guru Hoax, Part 1. Nothing has changed today, except that the external results in terms of “preaching” etc. are not even as impressive as they were during the zonal acharya years, but the same guru hoax deviation continues. Hence the goal, and thereby the definition of success, for Srila Prabhupada’s movement, is not to get people to deviate from Srila Prabhupada. Success means to get people to surrender to Srila Prabhupada, which in turn is evinced by serving Srila Prabhupada in getting others to surrender to him. Currently, the IRM is the only organisation even attempting to do this as its mission, whilst others either openly deviate from Srila Prabhupada or just ignore this state of affairs, concentrating instead on setting up their own small independent movements.
Therefore, the battle is already “won”. We simply need to make others aware of it! And this is what the IRM is doing, and as each issue’s letters pages attest, we are also succeeding in doing this as well!
Please feel free to write to me at the following address with any comments whatsoever: irm@iskconirm.com.
Thank you and Hare Krishna.
Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada,
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