Back to Prabhupada, Issue 21, Autumn 2008
“The root of all problems now facing ISKCON is that we, the disciples of Srila Prabhupada, have not yet established proper Vaisnava relationships among ourselves. And then I went on to commit to writing—for the first time—my honest perceptions of life in ISKCON (November 1984): A society of devotees in which proper Vaisnava relations are not yet the norm is called a kanistha-adhikari society. Its distinguishing characteristic is contentiousness arising from envy. […] Spiritual immaturity often leads a kanistha-adhikari to identify spiritual advancement with organizational advancement. He thinks that attaining prestige, power, and the perquisites of office is evidence of spiritual advancement. Lacking the assets for real spiritual achievement, he substitutes organizational elevation, which he can attain through his cunning or political prowess.”
(Ravindra Svarupa Das, Pillars of Success)
Having made the above statement to illustrate that the root of ISKCON’s guru crisis at the time (The Great Guru Hoax, Part 1 – the “zonal acharya” system) was the fact that the movement was one of materialistic kanistha-adhikaris (neophytes), ISKCON “guru reformer” Ravindra Svarupa Das (“RSD”)’s solution was to push for the elevation of many of these same kanistha-adhikaris, including himself, to become “good-as-God” gurus themselves, just months later.
Therefore, having 11 kanistha-adhikari “gurus” was counteracted simply by very quickly having many more of them (The Great Guru Hoax, Part 2), drawn as they were from the same pool RSD has criticised above as being kanistha-adhikaris.
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