Back To Prabhupada, Issue 77, 2023
We are continually documenting how the leaders in ISKCON are cheating their followers. However, below we present an example of cheating par excellence, wherein the same lecture from Srila Prabhupada is misrepresented to enable cheating in 3 different ways!
In the previous article, we quoted from an initiation lecture given on 14/5/23 by GBC voted-in guru HG Kripamoya Dasa ("KMD"). In that lecture, as part of trying to claim that he is authorised to be a diksa guru initiating disciples as his own, he claimed the following:
"Prabhupada was giving a talk in Mayapur in 1975, he said, ‘So we need a hundred gurus in our movement', and all the devotees, you can hear all the devotees go, ‘Jai!'. He said, ‘We need a thousand gurus in our movement'. The devotees go, ‘Jai!'. He said, ‘We need ten thousand gurus in our movement'. The devotees go ‘Jai!'. He said, ‘We need a 100 million gurus in this movement'"
KMD here refers to a lecture given by Srila Prabhupada in Mayapur on 6/4/75. However, the above is a made-up quote, since what Srila Prabhupada actually states in that lecture is the following:
"Simply prepare yourself how to repeat Krsna's instructions very nicely, without any malinterpretation. Then, in future... Suppose you have got now ten thousand. We shall expand to hundred thousand. That is required. Then hundred thousand to million, and million to ten million."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 6/4/75)
There are significant differences between KMD's "version" and what Srila Prabhupada actually said. In particular, rather than Srila Prabhupada stating that "we need X gurus" in the movement, he simply states that what already existed just needs to be expanded, without any mention of "gurus". But KMD's made-up "version" better suits the point he wants to make.
We previously documented KMD lamenting that people nowadays require him to provide evidence for what he claims "Srila Prabhupada said" before believing him. No wonder, since he prefers to make things up in his efforts to falsely claim Srila Prabhupada's disciples for himself! This lamentation of KMD was documented by us in the BTP 71 QNN article, "The Triumph of POP", and it can be read here.
On 14/5/23, a "Diksa Guru Oath Ceremony" was held for a newly GBC voted-in diksa guru HH Gauranga Prema Swami ("GPS"), who is a disciple of ISKCON guru HH Jayapataka Swami ("JPS"). At that ceremony, a recording was played of the exact same quote from Srila Prabhupada's lecture in Mayapur dated 6/4/75 ("we shall expand...") that we just documented KMD making up. Thus, on this occasion, at least everyone got to hear Srila Prabhupada's real words. However, JPS claimed about this quote that:
"So, in this way, I have many disciples who can become diksa gurus."
Thus, JPS claims that the quote from Srila Prabhupada which we reproduced in the previous section supports JPS's disciples becoming diksa gurus in his physical presence. But this quote makes no mention of "grand-disciples" becoming diksa gurus in the physical presence of their own gurus. In fact, it does not mention diksa gurus at all. Nor does it even refer to diksa gurus – a fact which becomes very clear if one adds the words "diksa gurus" to the phrases in Srila Prabhupada's lecture that are claimed by JPS to be referring to diksa gurus:
"suppose you have got now ten thousand diksa gurus, we shall expand to hundred thousand diksa gurus. That is required. Then hundred thousand to million diksa gurus, and million to ten million diksa gurus."
1) There were not 10,000 diksa gurus in ISKCON at the time Srila Prabhupada gave this lecture. Rather, Srila Prabhupada is talking about the approximate number of his disciples and aspiring disciples, which at the time did number many thousands.
2) In addition, Srila Prabhupada speaks about a wholesale expansion of this "10,000" number to 100,000. Such a wholesale expansion would be feasible if Srila Prabhupada was only talking about an "acarya" that simply preaches by repeating whatever he knows, i.e. a "preacher guru", rather than a diksa guru. But to become a diksa guru is not so easy that one can assume that every single one of the "10,000" disciples will automatically become a diksa guru, regardless of their level of qualification or spiritual advancement. A fact that ISKCON leaders agree with, having ensured that even under their bogus GBC diksa guru system, only a tiny fraction of Srila Prabhupada's disciples were considered qualified enough to become diksa gurus.
Earlier in that same lecture given on 6/4/75 in Mayapur, Srila Prabhupada stated the following:
"the etiquette is, at least for the period the guru is present, one should not become acarya [...] if somebody comes for becoming initiated, it is the duty of such person to bring that prospective candidate to his acarya. [...] Don't transgress this etiquette. Navamanyeta. That will be falldown."
Srila Prabhupada then also makes it clear that this etiquette cannot be transgressed regardless of who the guru is, because in the very next statement Srila Prabhupada states that even his Godbrothers followed it during the lifetime of his own Guru Maharaja, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura:
"Just like during the lifetime of our Guru Maharaja, all our Godbrothers now who are acting as acarya, they did not do so. That is not etiquette. [...] That is insult. So if you insult your acarya, then you are finished."
Thus, if you dare to initiate in the presence of your spiritual master, what happens?:
Falldown. Insult. You are finished.
Hence, leaving aside the fact that JPS is not even an authorised bona fide guru himself, clearly, the one thing this lecture does not support is initiating in the presence of one's own guru, and thus it should be the last lecture one should be quoting from to claim support for such an activity. Yet, that is exactly what JPS did to support his disciple becoming a diksa guru in his physical presence – though they deliberately refrained from playing a recording of this part of the lecture during the ceremony!
In using the same lecture from Srila Prabhupada to cheat in 3 different ways, ISKCON's leaders have surpassed their own usually great cheating abilities!
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