elow we dramatically highlight how what is stated in BTP ends up having universal significance for ISKCON's "preaching".
ISKCON's "preaching"
ISKCON has announced a major preaching project called the "Srila Prabhupada Legacy Museum" at ISKCON's headquarters in Mayapur, India. In a video published on 20/2/25 by the "Temple of the Vedic Planetarium" ("TOVP"), it is explained how this museum is to be promoted as a historic landmark in its own right, and there are plans for it to:
"expand to 21,000 sq. ft., becoming the largest museum for any single person in the history of mankind".
Within this museum, the video states that a central exhibit is a structure containing a hut and a window:
"Srila Prabhupada's room [...] there was just a straw hut, and we have simulated the same straw hut to live with Srila Prabhupada [...] in this grass hut, Srila Prabhupada was looking out this window, and this window where he saw and he made a statement, where he saw people were struggling to get the scrap out of thrown leaf plates, trying to get something to eat. Srila Prabhupada had tears in his eyes and he said nobody should go hungry within 10 kilometre radius of Sridhama Mayapur. So much compassion. This is the window of compassion."
Thus, the exhibit highlights the above incident via a special "window of compassion" wherein Srila Prabhupada supposedly saw people fighting to get food to eat from discarded garbage. Hence, within this window is a picture of food being distributed to illustrate Srila Prabhupada supposedly seeing the above incident through this window and then launching a program to combat hunger specifically because of having seen the above "garbage" incident through this window.
BTP exposé becomes prophetic
However, just months before the above announcement, in the BTP 81 article "Not Following POP Leads to Farce", we exposed the very same "garbage story" that the above museum exhibit is dedicated to illustrating! In that article, we quoted Srila Prabhupada giving his actual reason for starting the prasada distribution in Mayapur, and it was not this "garbage" story. Indeed, the "garbage" story is never even hinted at by Srila Prabhupada at all, period. Rather, the story only first came up in ISKCON after Srila Prabhupada's physical disappearance, as another one those infamous "Prabhupada said" stories. Further, we documented that there are at least *13* different versions of this story, depending on which ISKCON source is telling this story, and thus clearly all these stories with their contradictory versions cannot be true! Nor, as noted above, is there any evidence that any version is true.
Fabricated Prabhupada's life
As noted above, the hut exhibit is stated to be inspired in part by the "garbage" incident having taken place there. But, even the many contradictory versions of this story quoted do not state that the incident took place in the "hut". Where the location is given, it always states that the incident actually took place in a multi-storey "building", e.g. the following version quoted in the BTP article states it occurred:
""the day right after we moved into our first building," Jayapataka says. "Srila Prabhupada was in his room on the second floor.""
(HH Jayapataka Swami ("JPS"), BTG #13-04, 1978)
Indeed, in another version of the story, JPS makes it explicit that the "garbage" incident did not take place in the hut. He describes it occurring after:
"we moved from the grass hut to the lotus building"
(JPS, Remembrances [Siddhanta Dasa, ITV])
Thus, even if ISKCON wanted to claim that one of the many unsubstantiated, contradictory stories must be true, its exhibit of the "window of compassion" inside a grass hut would still be fake.
Accepting JPS's authority
A number of the many contradictory versions of the "garbage" story come from GBC guru JPS, who has given different contradictory versions himself. Indeed, it is JPS who appears to be the originator of this "garbage" story. He claims he was in Srila Prabhupada's room and saw it happen, and out of all the ISKCON sources for the many versions of the story quoted, he is the only source who claims to have actually witnessed the supposed "garbage" incident. Thus, the "garbage" story relies on the authority of JPS.
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It is stated that the "Akshaya Patra" program started by ISKCON Bangalore has been inspired by the following story:
"Srila Prabhupada, the Founder-Acharya of ISKCON, once witnessed the disturbing sight of children fighting with dogs for scraps of food. Deeply touched by what he saw, he asked his followers to work towards a world where no one would go hungry"
(www.akshayapatra.org/history, archived 6/25)
But this is the same "garbage" story, which, as we just noted, relies on the authority of JPS. Which would mean that this program, in effect, would have been inspired by JPS rather than Srila Prabhupada. Which is ironic, since ISKCON Bangalore had claimed to reject the authority of JPS for that of Srila Prabhupada long ago. Hence, the importance of adhering to the "Prabhupada-Only Paradigm" (POP) of only accepting the authority of Srila Prabhupada, as we are always urging.
Lie memorialised for 10,000 years
ISKCON's TOVP in Mayapur is ISKCON's showpiece preaching project. And an integral part of the TOVP is the newly opened Srila Prabhupada Museum dedicated to showing Srila Prabhupada's life, which is supposed to be a factual preservation of Srila Prabhupada's life, and expected to last for 10,000 years. Thus, the museum is also central to ISKCON's preaching, and intended to be viewed by millions of people. Yet, part of this central exhibit, with the "window of compassion" inside a hut, is definitely fake according to the same contradictory stories from which it has been created.
Conclusion
Thus, it is established that a fake reconstruction of Srila Prabhupada's life is being provided. And thus, people will wonder that if ISKCON is lying about this, what else is it lying about when it comes to Srila Prabhupada's life. And yet, all this could easily have been avoided if ISKCON had realised the importance of accepting the Prabhupada-Only Paradigm as continually explained in BTP.
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