The Dumbing Down of ISKCON, 1978-Present
BY: COUNCIL OF DEVOTEES
1978: Eleven self-proclaimed acharyas pose with a photo of Shrila Prabhupada. Before most would bite the dust, their activities proved that they were more interested in usurping that throne than serving it. In the aftermath of the spiritual and human tragedy resulting from their attempted destruction of the sampradaya, dumbness and stupidity continue to rise from smoking ashes. Their plan reeked of pure stupidity from Day # 1. And much of today's ISKCON is too numb, too dumb to feel the pain.
Jan 19, 2012 — WORLDWIDE (SUN) —
The GBC's whole plan was dumb from the start. Which means that from the time they ascended like demi-gods into a heaven of their own foggy pipe dream it was doomed to take them and anyone who followed them down, down, down. Who did that gang of fools think their fellow devotees were? There is a certain mistake when one assumes that all others are as dumb as oneself just because one has never learned how to think for oneself. They should know for certain that if Shrila Prabhupada kept them close, it was because they were the most ambitious and needed the guidance. More advanced devotees were left to the real business off actually spreading the movement through preaching.
The grueling scenario has been reviewed a million times. First the GBC foisted eleven neophytes on the innocent, genuine devotees by trying to prop each one of them up as a world acharya. Then -- Bingo! -- they whipped out their political shears and tried to cut up the world into "zones" so that they could enjoy their charade as demi-monarchs of imagined kingdoms.
We all knew that their royal proclamation of Zonalism was done as much for their hatred of one another as for their desire to lord it over material nature as fantastic self-proclaimed kings seated on velvet thrones and intoxicated with their own glories. Preaching Krishna consciousness, something that the actual devotees were sworn to uphold, had nothing to do with their dumb politics.
For wiser devotees (the ones who cleaned the toilets and went out on book distribution) their plan was just too immature -- and too evil -- to think about rationally. But that dumb plan drawn up by a group of greedy men almost destroyed the work of Shrila Prabhupada. In truth, the only result they could expect was what would actually happen: they almost burnt down the house that the world could live in. Many of the eleven have perished in the ensuing conflagration.
The next phase of their dumb, foolish plan was too horrible to think about. And that was to fill the movement with unthinking personalities who were submissive to fallible human tyrants rather than to serving the great Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya Vaisnava Sampradaya. In short, this meant turning a spiritual movement into a religion. This, in a nutshell, has resulted in today's dumbing down of ISKCON. It is so incredibly obtuse today by comparison to what it was when Shrila Prabhupada was boiling the milk that it actually defies imagination. But here it is, on ISKCON News, on Dandavats and on other "authorized" sources. Dumbness doesn't stop there, it is also witnessed throughout the various factions like Ritvik-ism and imitation "Gaudiya Math" factions. It is the great dumbing down of a world spiritual movement -- a movement that was conceived originally by an empowered representative of the Supreme Lord -- to put a real, live thinking head back on society by training brahmanas.
The stuff you see in ISKCON should be the stuff of bad movies
The Sun's readers are sufficiently educated in these issues. We have read about stupid moves layered over dumb ones that have put ISKCON into its present-day pathetic situation of mundane charities, poor-feeding, karmi education, youth power, feminism, New Age concepts and fascination with mundane world events. But today what fascinates the Council of Devotees as we discuss the present situation is the grand bloop of Prabhavishnu, or more specifically, the reaction of the society to his intolerably inane letter. In a word, many of the watered-down ISKCONites act as though such disgraceful behavior (as reported in the Sun over the past days) is business as usual. With their complete absence of righteous anger and indignant rage, they remind us of members of a society whose scripture is one where the warrior becomes a non-violent Buddhist and leaves the battlefield.
From the New ISKCON "Gita":
"The mighty generals said: 'Just see, O great warriors. The great hero has thrown down his bow and stormed off the battlefield for he has realized that love, peace, woman's power, interfaith, New Years', college degrees, karmi "gurukulas" and youth karaoke are the true paths to spiritual love and the yoga of bliss. Let us salute him for showing us the way to regaining our senses. Likewise shall each of thee throw down thy weapons and salute him for his example must be followed.'"
From the way they think and express their minds, you'd think that they read this version of the shastras:
"As Ajamil lay dying, his only thoughts were of the one he loved dearly, his prostitute named Suzie Wong. ‘Suzie, Suzie,' called the dying brahmana. Just then from out of the sky and from two opposite directions came two different sets of beings. One was an angel and messenger of the Supreme Lord. The other was a fierce servant of the demi-god of death, a Yamaduta. The Yamaduta took out his nagapasa rope and began to lift the soul of the sinful Ajamil from his physical body. ‘Stop,' ordered the servant of the Lord. ‘But he is so sinful,' countered the Yamaduta, ‘there is not a sin he has not committed. ‘Yes,' said the servant of the Lord, but years ago he was a nice guy and besides he did a lot of good things when he was younger. Don't forget that.' ‘Oh, I see,' countered the Yamaduta, ‘the rules have changed. I'm outta here. You take him to GBC heaven.'
OK, so this sounds harsh. Harsh, that is until you read some of the justifications and rationalizations that have appeared on Dandavats.com. This is stuff you just can't make up. And it becomes worse when, as we have seen in yesterday's Sun, Prabhavishnu's excuse for leaving his own Kurukshetra and cozying up with a karmi woman from Thailand was exactly the same excuse Param Gati gave for trying to seduce one of ISKCON's brahmacharis: "Hey, I was tired." I mean, this Param Gati thinks that devotees are so dumb that after he gets caught with active homosexual tendencies, he writes, "My mission is the same as Prabhupada. That means take you to the spiritual world and put you at the lotus feet of Radha and Krishna."
DUMB! Look, what if you catch me in your house trying to seduce your wife and I say, "Wow. You are right. But I was tired." So you will respond, "Oh I did not realize that you were tired. It's OK now. Let me wash your feet and massage them. You'll feel better." Let's look even closer at this excuse of being "tired from traveling". Who paid for their Vyasa Asans, round-the-world tickets and yearly vacations? It gets worse. You catch me in your house trying to seduce your wife, but the first thing I do is talk you into paying for the taxi waiting out front, before you can prepare the scented water to wash my feet. The whole thing is dumb, Dumb, DUMB! That is why the attitude of the intelligent, enlightened and thinking devotees is, "Hey, GBC, don't do us any more favors. If you are so damn tired, why not just go to bed like everyone else. Frankly, the Council of Devotees has been around the block a few times, and we're tired of your bluffs and lies."
Below are a couple of the comments from the peanut gallery over at Dandavats that defy reasoning. I present them and rest my case about a decline in spiritual intelligence in ISKCON nowadays.
In the first comment, the guy calls these little trysts of Prabhavisnu's "rumors", even when they have been happily admitted to by the ex-"guru" himself. And this Buddhist analogy he tells, what world does he live in? He says that one monk had carried a lady across the river and forgot about it while the other one was still carrying her in his mind. Hey now, Prabhu, Prabhavisnu has not put her down. It is no rumour that he's still with her, and if you say that those who were suckered into washing his feet don't have a right to consider the situation with some degree of emotion and frustration, then you are reading the shunyavadic Buddhist Gita that your friends in ISKCON love to tout nowadays. Your comment is ridiculous and offensive to thinking individuals.
From Dandavats:
"So many things are being talked and so many rumors are being spread all over against Prabhavishnu prabhu.
"I just remembered one story from a moral story book….. Once there were two Sadhus going to a village and on the way they had to cross a river. They saw a lonely pregnant lady needed help to cross the river. It was about to be sunset. Finding no one, she requested those Sadhus to help her crossing the river. One of them was ready to help her but the other Sadhu insisted not to listen to her request at all saying that ‘we are Sadhus and we can not touch any lady.' But still his Sadhu friend went to help that lady crossing the river and left her on the other side of the river. But seeing his friend Sadhu not listening to him and went to help that lady, he became very angry and stopped talking to him. As both of them had to go to the same place, so they had to walk together on the same road. After walking together for sometime the Sadhu who has helped the lady asked the other one," What happened to you? Why are you not talking to me at all? Has anything gone wrong?' And the other Sadhu replied, ‘I don't want to associate with you as being a Sadhu you have touched that lady.' After hearing the answer from his angry friend, he said ‘I just helped her crossing the river and left her there only but you are carrying her in your mind from the beginning till here.'
"Now I want to say to those people who are carrying such negative thoughts day & night and spreading it everywhere. We all have read his recent letters which were published in this website. He has mentioned everything clearly whatever he has undergone. He has shown transparency in all his dealings. Why to blame him so much? Anyone can be trapped in the clutches of Maya at any moment. What to speak of Prabhvishnu Prabhu or a few ISKCON Sannyasis who have been practicing Krishna consciousness for just 40/45 years, if we just go to the history we will find many Rishis & Munis who had been meditating thousands of years and leading severe austere life also have fallen prey to Mayadevi.
"Remember guys. Mayadevi is not designed for only ISKCON Sannyasis. It can attack anyone at any point of time. And one of the important qualities of Maya is we can not recognize the presence of Maya within us."
Unbelievable. Now see the next example. This devotee appreciates Prabhavisnu's sincerity, honesty and humility. Whoa there: he got caught red-handed. What else is he supposed to say? "Oh I'd like you to meet my mother…"? If he was so wonderful, why has he not actually admitted his fallen state instead of blaming the people who worked hard to pay for his round the world jaunts all these years? Those are the people who have the right to be tired, not someone who gets his feet washed. As far as his spiritual life is concerned and the hope this writer expresses, as long as there are apologists like these people in ISKCON there will can no hope either for individuals or for the society.
"At the outset, I would like to state that I appreciated the tone of both letters from Prabhavisnu das Prabhu. There is a combination of honesty and sincerity which is indeed touching and does require a lot of humility and lucidity from his part, both in his thinking process and the analysis of his personal situation, which leaves plenty of hope for his future spiritual life."
For those who think that it is some sort of aparadha to criticize those who have run from the battlefield, we rest our case with a verse from Bhagavad-gita As It Is that is seldom quoted, but needs to be remembered more often nowadays. (Bg 2.35):
[Shri Krishna said] "The great generals who have highly esteemed your name and fame will think that you have left the battlefield out of fear only, and thus they will consider you a coward."
But one last point. And that is, if the GBC are such a close knit group, why do they allow their fallen comrades-in-arms to try to smokescreen their flock of ISKCON sheep with insensitively dumb letters? Look, if there was any intelligence in the GBC whatsoever, they would have told Prabhavisnu Prabhu, "Look, the devotees are tired of such bluffing. It did not work for Param Gati and it will not work for you either, buddy. Be truthful and take responsibility. Be humble. They'll listen. Don't blame them, don't blame us, and don't blame your bishop back in Ireland. Don't blame your girlfriend or your mother, either. Take the heat now, or the alternative ISKCON press is going to be crawling all over you and over us, too." For the righteous indignity and justifiable anger has been aroused more by damn bluffs and lies of pretended leaders than by the trysts in Bangkok. It is the business-as-usual GBC bluff that has caused this firestorm of protest more than anything else, more than the fall-down itself.
So we close with a word to the wise for members of the GBC, at least for those who have not been hypnotized by the party line into a mindless stupor. The next time you catch one of your elite cheating, have your fellow ex-Good ol' Boy Club member write a letter that says, "I cheated. I got caught. I am a fool, a rascal and a worm in the stool." You'll quell a lot of protest in advance. And the Council of Devotees will appreciate the time you've saved us from having to teach you the ABC's of management every time a GBC gets so tired that he feels a need to undress the next person who walks in the room.
