Back To Prabhupada, Issue 34, Winter 2011
In BTP 17, we quoted the following GBC lie stated by GBC member Badrinarayan Dasa:
“Srila Prabhupada started something revolutionary; a multi-guru system all serving under a governing body.”
(Badrinarayan Das, GBC, “Report from the Parallel Lines of Authority Committee”, 7/7/2007)
This lie was repeated one year later by ISKCON Communications Director and GBC member Anuttama Das, as we quoted in BTP 23:
“Srila Prabhupada gave a very clear structure specifically for ISKCON as a multi-guru society.”
(Anuttama Das, ISKCON Communications Director, ISKCON News Weekly, 25/10/2008)
We say that both of these statements are lies based on Srila Prabhupada never having authorised any guru successor, let alone “a multi-guru society”. Ironically, this fact is accepted by the GBC, who agreed with the following confession by ISKCON GBC-elected guru HH Jayadvaita Swami:
“Is this an outright fabrication or not? That Srila Prabhupada “personally detailed the procedure for increasing the number of initiating guru[s]” is something we can only wish. Or falsely tell the Society he did.”
(HH Jayadvaita Swami, email to the GBC, 13/12/2003)
As we detail here, the mere existence of so many multiple guru hoaxers is itself leading to the guru hoax exposing itself.
Srila Prabhupada explains that the guru is one since his message is the same:
“The guru may be this person or that, but the message is the same; therefore it is said that guru is one.”
(Science of Self Realization, “What Is a Guru?”)
Therefore, if all the ISKCON gurus were actually representing the same teachings of Srila Prabhupada, then in theory there would be no disagreement between them. (Even agreement would not necessarily mean they are representing Srila Prabhupada, since they could still be in agreement with each other in their deviation!)
However, the guru hoaxers are unable to represent the same message, whatever that may be, since they continually contradict and attack each other. We have already cited many examples of this in previous issues, such as:
• BTP 2: HH Bhakti Vikash Swami and HH Bhakti Tirtha Swami attacking each other.
• BTP 5: HH Sivarama Swami attacking HH Jayapataka Swami.
• BTP 5: HH Indradyumna Swami attacking HH Jayapataka Swami.
• BTP 6: HH Suhotra Swami attacking the GBC.
• BTP 8: HH Danavir Goswami attacking HH Hridayananda Das Goswami.
• BTP Special Summary Issue 1: HH Jayadvaita Swami attacking ISKCON gurus.
• BTP 10: HH Jayadvaita Swami attacking the GBC.
• BTP 14: HH Prahladananda Swami attacking the GBC and ISKCON gurus.
• BTP 16: HG Ravindra Svarupa Das attacking ISKCON, the GBC, ISKCON sannyasis and ISKCON gurus.
• BTP 29: HH Mahavishnu Swami attacking ISKCON, the GBC and ISKCON gurus.
• BTP 30: HH Prahladananda Swami attacking ISKCON sannyasis.
• BTP 31: HG Kripamoya Das and HH Bhakti Charu Swami contradicting each other.
• BTP 31: HG Sankarsana Das and HH Jayadvaita Swami contradicting each other.
• BTP’s 100 Contradictions book: HH Bhakti Charu Swami contradicting the GBC and other ISKCON gurus.
• BTP’s 100 Deviations book: HH Sivarama Swami contradicting the GBC and other ISKCON gurus.
To these internecine attacks we can now add the following:
HH Danavir Goswami attacking HH Sivarama Swami
HH Danavir Goswami:
“It is my contention that an ISKCON guru must fully participate in the temple morning program each day lest he disqualifies himself to be a guru. […] After some time however if that devotee, now guiding disciples, relaxes his sadhana due to “being advanced,” or to “preaching,” or some other reason, is it not a fly in the ointment? [...] Such devotees may have capabilities as speakers, managers, etc., yet they should not take the position of initiating gurus because that requires one to act as an example for his sisyas. If the guru is unable to daily attend the morning program, it is probably a good time for him to defer from initiating more disciples until he recovers.”
(HH Danavir Goswami, “Guru in the morning” article, published 19/11/2011)
HH Sivarama Swami:
“I can go back to the morning program - attending mangala- arati, chanting japa with devotees who are leading the temple room while they’re chanting japa, dressing Radhe Shyama, and giving class and kirtan, and something that two years, two and-a-half years I’ve been, except for festivals, I’ve hardly been doing it.”
(HH Sivarama Swami, Podcast, 28/11/2011)
[Note: HH Sivarama Swami initiated disciples during this period as normal].
HH Bhakti Vikash Swami attacking HH Radhanath Swami
“There’s a book* […] written by one of the, probably the most, popular leaders within ISKCON today – now that book, I can’t help thinking if you’d shown it to Srila Prabhupada he would not have been at all pleased, because there are pictures of all these mayavadis and mundane people, […] and there’s not a bad word about any of them. People that Prabhupada if he spoke about them at all would criticize them. […] And at the end of the book he says that now having come to Prabhupada, now I’m engaged in helping with hospitals and feeding children and eye camps. […] So as I see it there are serious problems with that […] if anyone read that book hundreds of thousands of times, they’d never even get the idea that you’re supposed to surrender to Krishna, that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead […] some erotic or almost erotic scenes […] it’s not the duty of a sannyasi to write about such things. [...] I just can’t imagine what Prabhupada’s response would have been if he saw that book, but our movement has changed, it’s not for the better”.
(HH Bhakti Vikash Swami, Lecture, 24/8/2011)
* The Journey Home by Radhanath Swami
The spectacle of these guru wars alone makes it clear that we do not have a multi-guru society expanding forth from Srila Prabhupada, with all the gurus representing his message. Rather, we simply have a group of hoaxers, with each inventing his own ideas, leading naturally to this mass contradiction between them.
Return to IRM homepage