Summer 2006
The guru system we have today in ISKCON is the result of a “guru reform”
movement spearheaded in 1984 by His Grace Ravindra Svarupa Das.
This “reform movement” sought to convince the world that, though
ISKCON’s GBC (Governing Body Commission) had made a huge error in
unauthorisedly appointing 11 “pure devotee guru successors” to the real
Guru, Srila Prabhupada, (Great Guru Hoax part 1), they had now become
“enlightened” with the actual truth; namely, that Srila Prabhupada had
left an open field for any of his disciples to succeed him as a diksa (initiating) guru - so long as the GBC gave its voting approval, which
has resulted today in some 70 unauthorised gurus (Great Guru Hoax part 2). We will now analyse the words and wisdom of the founder of ISKCON’s
current guru system, who expanded the hoax from “11 to 70”.
| Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati cause of ISKCON problems |
| “The real revolutionary, and the person
who really has caused many of our problems today, is
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, Issues in ISKCON Reform lecture, June 29th-July 3rd, 1999) |
Here Ravindra Svarupa Das tries to blame the mess which ISKCON is
in, on the spiritual master of Srila Prabhupada, Bhaktisiddhanta
Sarasvati Thakur!
| Srila Prabhupada like mafia manager |
| “This is the fact, this is the Mafia. The mafia style, it wasn’t
criminal, this is inherited from an old Roman style of management, it is
just pre-industrial that is all. This is an old fashioned pre-industrial
style of social organisation. That somehow or other survived in Palermo
and places like that. I will tell you something, just to show you how
intuitively recognisable that style is. There was a period of time when
Ramesvara (one of the original 11 ‘hoaxer gurus’ – Ed.) was having his
assistants either read the book or see the movie ‘The Godfather’, so
they could learn about management. It wasn’t because it was criminal,
but it was the relationship of the interchange between the leaders and
the followers that was actually the essence of that style of management.
And this guru... As the zonal acharya, that is how; Prabhupada was also a manager like that.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, Issues in ISKCON Reform lecture, June 29th-July 3rd, 1999) |
Here Ravindra Svarupa Das compares the management style of both Srila Prabhupada and the
zonal acharya system (Great Guru Hoax part 1) to that of the Mafia.
| Lord Krishna’s actions defective |
| “Krishna says in this world, any endeavour is covered with fault. Just
as a fire is covered with smoke. So anything that you do in this world,
it is always going to have its defects or its downside, even if it is
done by Krishna himself. Lord Chaitanya released confidential
information into the world about Krishna’s pastimes that were maybe not
very well spread around so much. What was the result ? A sahajiya movement, and you can say well look what Lord Chaitanya did you know, He
put this whole sahajiya movement here, He shouldn’t have done that, it
was a big mistake.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, Issues in ISKCON Reform lecture, June 29th-July 3rd, 1999) |
Here Ravindra Svarupa Das extends Lord Krishna’s statement in the Bhagavad-gita that “every endeavour is covered by some sort of fault” (Bg. 18.48), to the activities of Lord Krishna Himself, even though in the purport to this verse, Srila Prabhupada clearly states such faulty activities only apply to conditioned souls:
“In conditioned life, all work is contaminated by the material modes of nature.”
(Bhagavad-gita As It Is, 18.48, purport)
| Srila Prabhupada is ‘dead’ |
| “I simply wish that these people (ritvik advocates) would settle this
issue by writing Prabhupada a letter and letting us know what he says
when he answers back.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, San Diego Ritvik Debate, 1990) |
Here Ravindra Svarupa Das offensively tries to demonstrate the alleged fallacy of the ritvik viewpoint by highlighting Srila Prabhupada’s physical absence.
| Ritvik appoinment = Guru appointment |
| “Yes, Prabhupada accepted him (Kirtanananda) back and went and gave him
a position of leadership. He was on the GBC, and New Vrindavan was a
very important place of pilgrimage, and you know, he was one of the
people whose name was on the list when Prabhupada appointed ritviks, and
in the context, everybody understood that these were the people who
would be the first initiating spiritual masters. Of course everyone’s
big doubt about that is how that Prabhupada named these people expecting
them to be spiritual masters when he knew all these things about them.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, Issues in ISKCON Reform lecture, June 29th-July 3rd, 1999) |
Ravindra Svarupa Das' “guru reform” was predicated on arguing that the first 11 “gurus” were not “appointed” as such:
| “There was no hand-picking of successors” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, ISKCON Communications Journal, Vol. 2, No.1, January 1994) |
Yet at the same time he claims that Srila Prabhupada hand-picking and
appointing 11 ritviks was the equivalent to naming 11 diksa gurus, as we
see above. As if such an ambivalent fudge was not bad enough, he
simultaneously
tries to fudge this fudge with other nonsensical claims:
| Parampara (disciplic succession) to continue via “a nod” |
| “because he said I shall select some of you, this is the selection that
never was. I shall select some of you, that’s what he did, was he both
selected and didn’t select, very cleverly or obliquely, and at arm’s
length. He appointed 11 ritvik gurus, and also said you cannot become
guru, unless you are qualified, now this to me, this was a nod, these
are my best people. This was a nod in their direction.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, San Diego Ritvik Debate, 1990) |
So on the one hand 11 ritviks were appointed to go on to become gurus,
and on the other they were simultaneously selected and not selected to
be gurus.
Go figure!
| Ravindra Svarupa Das’ problem (October 1984) |
| “I was asked to be in charge of a committee to research matters and find
out what went wrong. What went wrong in ISKCON and what to do about it.
What was wrong with the guru position and what to do about it.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, Issues in ISKCON Reform lecture, June 29th-July 3rd, 1999) |
| Ravindra Svarupa Das' solution – Poacher turns gamekeeper (September 1985) |
| “So anyway that was this meeting, then people, that is when I started
initiating and became an initiating guru by the way. Our little group of
people we got together and the GBC said we need three signatures, we got
to have some people, so they looked at me and this the first time I
really thought about this. So I got three, few signatures as they wanted
in fact, Satsvarupa, Tamal Krishna Goswami and Hridayananda Maharaja,
those were the signatures. So I was then an officially approved
initiating guru.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, Issues in ISKCON Reform lecture, June 29th-July 3rd, 1999) |
Here we see how the so-called “guru reform” deal was “stitched-up”. The
“guru reform” led by Ravindra Svarupa Das from 1984 had to find the solution to what went
wrong with the horrendous zonal acharya system in place at the time
(Great Guru Hoax part 1). Very quickly, he finds the answer – to make
sure he gets a share of the guru pie himself.
- And WHO gives it to him?
- Who signs his ‘guru papers’ for him?
3 of the
11 “zonal gurus” he was supposedly challenging and reforming. Therefore,
following this supposed “guru reform”, all of the original 11 gurus (not
yet fallen) who had perpetrated a monstrous hoax on the whole society
for nearly 10 years that caused the “guru reform” movement in the first
place, got to keep their guru positions and disciples intact, were not
sanctioned in any way whatsoever, and in exchange, the guru field was
opened up to the supposed “reformers” such as Ravindra Svarupa Das.
And in this way the deal was cut, the “reformers” were bought-off by the
zonal gurus, and everyone went home happy.
| 1992: Ravindra Svarupa Das promotes occult astrologer |
| “Panditji, the astrologer and seer, had by his occult art pierced the
veil of the future and seen a wonder arise, a marvel born from—of all
things (I feel compelled to add)—the 1990 meeting of the Governing Body
Commission of ISKCON […] the Hare Krsna movement would manifest world-transforming power. Panditji went so far as to specify an exact date, March 7, for the completion of the dharma-cakra. A marvel, a world-historical marvel, would be born.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, ‘ISKCON’s Dharma Cakra’, Back to Godhead, #26-02, 1992) |
| 2000: Ravindra Svarupa Das admits occult prophesy fails |
| “Therefore the question remains: What, then, will we do? How will we
deal with our polarized and disintegrating society? […] If we ask why ISKCON now finds itself in such an impossible position, we can only conclude that it must be due to the continuing reactions to our own sins and offenses. […] So I have been baffled and in much distress […] trying to pray continuously and earnestly for forgiveness for all our offenses to Srila Prabhupada, to Vaishnavas, and to dependents like women and children. Of course, now our offenses and sins against our children are foremost in mind, but these are just part of a larger pattern of offenses, ultimately to Prabhupada.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, then GBC Chairman, May 2000) |
| 2005: Ravindra Svarupa Das encourages worship of himself |
| “He (Bhakti Caru Swami) told us that he had recently attended the Vyasa
Puja celebration of his dear friend Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu in
Philadelphia. He recalled that as they were having lunch, Ravindra
Svarupa Prabhu, speaking about his own Vyasa Puja celebration, said,
“Actually, disciples NEED this.”” (Text PAMHO:10411392, “Vyasa Puja /Prabhupada festival”, 19 September 2005) |
| Ritvik is traditional |
| “Two deviations from Prabhupada’s order - the “zonal acarya” system and
the “posthumous ritvik” system - rest on adherence to the traditional
idea of leadership. […] In the event, the Gaudiya Matha leaders disregarded this order, and instead they reverted to the traditional single-acarya rule to which they were, after all, culturally habituated.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, Allegiance to Guru, to ISKCON and to Prabhupada, 1998) |
| Current ISKCON guru system not traditional |
| ”What we were trying to do now you have to understand had never been
done. It had just never been done and to me it’s entirely natural that
in this case when you’re doing something that had never been done; when
you’re going to have a single institution with many different spiritual
masters and there are many different disciples who are going to have to
work together in a cooperative and unified way. Just hadn’t been done.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, Issues in ISKCON Reform lecture, June 29th-July 3rd, 1999) |
| Current ISKCON guru system based on trial and error |
| “How to do it? And to me the only the way you can do it is to try this
and if that doesn’t work try this….. until you finally find what works
out. So I think it was very difficult for anyone to foresee, so it seems
that the only way to do this is by trying to do it. And see what works
and what doesn’t work and Prabhupada himself said that he used the trial
and error method, so I’d don’t think it is not bona-fide.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, Issues in ISKCON Reform lecture, June 29th-July 3rd, 1999) |
| GBC not traditional |
| “But he was trying to change something, and set up a GBC, but we learn
that Bhaktisiddhanta had wanted the same thing to happen and it did not
happen, because the idea of this GBC is not exactly traditional.” (Ravindra Svarupa Das, Issues in ISKCON Reform lecture, June 29th-July 3rd, 1999) |
Here Ravindra Svarupa Das turns completely on its head the common argument used against
the ritvik system set up by Srila Prabhupada, that it is unprecedented
and untraditional.
Rather, Ravindra Svarupa Das states that it is his guru system which ISKCON now follows
which is unprecedented, created as it was through a system of “trial and
error”, and further the whole system by which ISKCON is run via a GBC,
is also not traditional. But the ritvik system which has a single acarya, Srila Prabhupada, is based on the traditional idea of
leadership.
Clearly therefore, according to Ravindra Svarupa Das, if “tradition” is to be any yard-stick, it is his guru system which runs today in ISKCON which should be ditched, rather than the ritvik system.