New vs. Old ISKCON
BY: DHIRASANTA DASA
Jan 04, HOBART, TASMANIA (SUN) — Govinda Prabhu has highlighted many issues in contemporary ISKCON in "Shadow ISKCON or True ISKCON - Take Your Pick". One of the issues that he highlights is changed ways of doing and being. The GBC deputies, the committees and departments, some of which did not exist in Srila Prabhupada's day are some of those. I think we need to remember how revolutionary Srila Prabhupada was - traveling to the west, engaging mlecchas in deity worship, making them brahmans, liberating women spiritually, establishing a vision for varnasrama that is yet to be realized.
In some ways the use of computers and the use of academia as a preaching tool and vehicle for gaining social credibility are 21st century tools that perhaps His Divine Grace would have used, were he amongst us today.
Like Govinda, I want to see farms flourishing and not being closed and sold. I do want to know why the Alachua Girl's School that was feted in BTG was closed. I do want to know what the CPO is doing to protect children, work for healing for victims and to thwart pedophiles using spirituality to get access to kids and vulnerable young people. It is not acceptable to me that Bhavananda has not ever faced his accusers. It is not acceptable that the checkered history of New Vrindaban - including Devamrita, Radhanatha and the former female sannyasi, Malati - are not written and debated, the lessons learned and understood. Like Govinda, I want GBC responses to all these issues.
Srila Prabhupada was about purity - theological, personal, brahminical and moral. The 11 "acaryas" sending waves of disciples to sell/cajole and beg on the streets demeaned Srila Prabhupada and his movement. That almost all have fallen is testimony to their lack of purity. The second tier followers who continue to be questioned, including Devamrita and others, do need to demonstrate their humanity and humility for their failures - noteworthy being going into schism from ISKCON and following Bhaktipada, aka King of New Vrindaban heresy.
Why do the GBC not make long-serving GBC deputies full GBC men? Why does the GBC not make all initiating gurus 100% non-managerial and let them preach, teach, exhort and demonstrate their spiritual understanding and insight to the temples and congregations? Purity is the force.
I do want to see those who have learned from their mistakes given the chance to serve and be loyal servants of Srila Prabhupada, including those who were gullible enough to swallow Kirtanananda's nonsense. ISKCON has a long, long way to go to undo the damage and be the revolutionary, world-changing vehicle for spiritual transformation that Srila Prabhupada believed it could be. There is no shortage of extra issues to be added to the mix - the place of women, the education of children, the abandonment of preaching to westerners in some places, and the Hinduization of ISKCON.
Having a brahminical council of learned brahmanas could help ISKCON "follow the regulative principles of bhakti-yoga...(and) develop a desire to attain Me". (BG 12:9) It could be a vehicle for purification and transformation of us individually and collectively. Our Gurus should be inspiring us in this, motivating this inner transformation. We, too, have a responsibility to contribute to this process. Addressing the practical issues of contemporary ISKCON, and relating those issues to bhakti-yoga and to Srila Prabhupada's merciful teachings is a transformation that all of us should aspire to see happen.
