Back To Prabhupada, Issue 77, 2023, Interactive
“Why are you not preaching to the karmis* to become devotees, but preaching to the devotees to become your followers? Can you explain? Go preach to the karmis, to the impersonalists, to the Mayavadis**, they are much worse than the ISKCON devotees for sure. Why are you not preaching to them?”
– Nadia Prakash Dasa, Varna, Bulgaria
* Materialistic fruitive workers
** Followers of impersonalist, atheistic philosophy
This is a common criticism levelled at the IRM – that why is our mission geared only towards devotees rather than the public – and therefore we shall answer it here in detail. (All emphases added.)
1) We are not preaching to the devotees to become our followers. We are asking them to become Srila Prabhupada's followers, as this is what they are meant to be, rather than followers of unauthorised, deviant gurus who have hijacked his movement for their own profit, adoration and distinction (PAD). Srila Prabhupada established himself as the Founder-Acarya and thus sole authorised diksa guru of his Society and never ordered any successor diksa gurus to replace him.
2) Srila Prabhupada stated that preaching to devotees should take precedence over preaching to "karmis" in order to make sure that the devotees are trained up "perfectly" in the philosophy of Krsna consciousness:
"Yes, you have got the right idea when you say that your preaching work shall be directed toward the children and the devotees and not so much to the Dallas public. We may thin the milk till it becomes useless, or we may boil it until it becomes thick and sweet, so now we have got enough followers, let us train them up perfectly in the philosophy and activities of Krishna Consciousness way of life. Unless all of my students become very much fixed up in their spiritual progress, what is the use of so many programs for expansion?"
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 20/6/72)
3) Srila Prabhupada called this process "boiling the milk". He warned that unless the devotees were "very thoroughly" learned in the knowledge of Srila Prabhupada's teachings then the "whole thing will become lost":
"Now we have got so many students and so many temples but I am fearful that if we expand too much in this way that we shall become weakened and gradually the whole thing will become lost. Just like milk. We may thin it more and more with water for cheating the customer, but in the end it will cease to be any longer milk. Better to boil the milk now very vigorously [...] So let us concentrate on training our devotees very thoroughly in the knowledge of Krishna Consciousness from our books, from tapes, by discussing always, and in so many ways instruct them in the right propositions."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 22/6/72)
4) In the final meetings Srila Prabhupada had with the GBC, he again emphasised the need to make sure that the "milk was boiled" in regard to the leaders. He stated that though earlier GBC members did not need to be very advanced, now it was important that they all must be "ideal acarya-like":
Tamala Krsna: "in the past some GBC men have fallen down..." [...]
Srila Prabhupada: "They must be all ideal acarya-like. In the beginning we have done for working. Now we should be very cautious. Anyone who is deviating, he can be replaced."
(Room Conversation, 28/5/77)
From these instructions we can conclude the following:
a) Once there were enough devotees made worldwide, Srila Prabhupada authorised concentrating on preaching to devotees at the expense of making new devotees, in order to ensure they understood the philosophy correctly. Srila Prabhupada did this even though those who were non-devotees may have been "much worse" than those who were in ISKCON.
b) Srila Prabhupada wanted this to be done just 6 years after ISKCON was founded and at a time when the movement was not even deviating wholesale philosophically.
c) Srila Prabhupada's prophecy that unless this was done "gradually the whole thing will become lost" actually came to pass. For, as well as being a bogus guru cult, the movement today is deviating wholesale philosophically in many other ways – see here for the evidence.
Consequently, given the above facts, the need more than ever above anything else for devotees to become thoroughly learned "perfectly" in the philosophy of Krsna consciousness as Srila Prabhupada wanted – is more than justified and authorised by Srila Prabhupada in the current wholesale deviant circumstances. The IRM is therefore exposing the philosophical deviations which are being perpetrated in Srila Prabhupada's name.
5) As we would be helping reveal to devotees the correct philosophy of Krsna consciousness, we would also be rendering the highest good:
"For one who explains the supreme secret to the devotees, devotional service is guaranteed, and at the end he will come back to Me. There is no servant in this world more dear to Me than he, nor will there ever be one more dear."
(Bg., 18.68-69)
6) Additionally, even GBC voted-in guru HH Bhakti Vikasa Swami has observed that ISKCON has itself become corrupted with "Mayavada", as well as "sahajiya"*, influences:
"So then I thought, well that's, you know, that just shows our movement's a sahajiya movement [...] But it is difficult to train people within the present ISKCON Society when there are all these Mayavada and sahajiya influences. I mean just like, for instance, there's thousands of things we could say."
(BVKS Lecture, 24/8/11)
* Pseudo-devotees
Thus, by preaching within ISKCON we would also in any case be preaching against "Mayavada" .
7) Many devotees who join ISKCON today believe they are following Srila Prabhupada's teachings by following the GBC's unauthorised guru system. That this guru system is unauthorised is admitted by the GBC itself – please see the articles on pages 5 and 6. These devotees sincerely think they have already embraced Srila Prabhupada's true teachings and thus are going back to Godhead. Hence, if we do not reach out to them about Srila Prabhupada's actual instructions to accept him as their diksa guru, they could forever stay in ignorance and potentially follow their deviant gurus to hell:
"Similarly, those who mislead people go to hell, and their followers go with them."
(SB, 6.7.14)
"The pseudo-spiritual master flatters the so-called disciple, and thereby both the master and his ward go to hell without a doubt."
(SB, 1.19.37, purport)
Therefore, given the misfortune of such persons, we must help them.
8) Leaving aside the need to help devotees from being doomed to ignorance and spiritually lost, as disciples of Srila Prabhupada our duty is to defend and promote him. Srila Prabhupada's position has been hijacked, he is being defamed, and his legacy and name is being used to perpetrate a massive hoax and cheat everyone. Every issue of BTP documents all these things and more. Given such a dire situation, if we do not defend Srila Prabhupada who will? Srila Prabhupada says:
"Suppose if I am here and somebody kills me, and if you do not protest, is it a very good business? People will be surprised that "So many disciples are there, and this man is being killed, and nobody do anything?""
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 27/10/74)
Srila Prabhupada's movement has been spiritually killed for the last 46 years, and it is continuing. So how can we not protest and do something? Therefore, no real disciple of Srila Prabhupada can stand by and allow this cheating to go on in Srila Prabhupada's name. So, as disciples, we are acting against this. This alone is enough to impel us to have a single-minded ‘tunnel vision' to only be concerned with fighting on behalf of Srila Prabhupada.
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