Do You Love Your GBC?
BY: PRALAMBAHA DAS
Bhaktivedanta Book Trust
The GBC: To unify and unite or divide and dissect, that is the question
Sep 16, 2011 — WINDHOEK, NAMIBIA (SUN) —
Part Two: The Good, the Bad and the Silent
3. What is your understanding of the service description of the collective GBC body?
Once again, Prabhus, thanks very much for asking.
At the outset, let me confess that I am the greatest supporter of the GBC, and that is why I have taken time from my busy schedule to reply. I am the greatest proponent because the GBC body was created by Shrila Prabhupada. His Divine Grace knew that in the absence of a World Acharya (which, let me remind you, each of you are not) the opinions of a like-minded panel of dedicated souls would go a long way to figure out how to apply his instructions towards the creation of a Krishna Conscious New World Order. And to the degree that this principle is followed, I am a fan, defender and sold-out servant of the GBC.
Our personal inclination is that we care for neither concocted doctrines such as Ritvikism, nor do we give credence to those rabid accusations of PADA which are without philosophical merit. We have no feeling whatsoever for camps that have arisen in competition with ISKCON such as that of Narayana Maharaja or the impersonalist gatherings labeled as Bhakti Fest. We are tried and true devotees of ISKCON, and for this reason we are grateful to the gracious members of the GBC for letting us air our opinions for the benefit of the hitherto exclusive GBC body and the Society as a whole. However, it should not be overlooked that if the GBC had properly governed ISKCON in the generation since the departure of Shrila Prabhupada, none of those useless camps described above would have arisen.
Question #3 deals with services provided by the GBC. Our understanding is, as you say, "service" because service in devotion has always been the hallmark of advancement in the Vaishnava sampradayas. Service to God and Guru through serving other devotees is the mark of advancement. The GBC, on the other hand, generally have formulated their service attitude in reverse. Many of the individual GBC members, it would seem, loathe the thought of rendering personal service to their peers or to devotees in general. Through their contempt for serving the lowly flock of temple servants, many from the GBC have been promoted to a platform of exemption. It appears to be endemic amongst GBC members that service is a one-way street.
It is well-known and frequently experienced that generally, many GBC members have both hands extended in a willingness to accept service and to exploit others with those hands through bending Shrila Prabhupada's teachings to their own benefit. And it is this one misconception upon which at least many of the old guard of the GBC is united. They have incurvated the instruction of "becoming great by serving the greatest" to their advantage. Yet this is their miscalculation, because nowhere do the shastras define greatness as elevation to a post of licensed exploitation, except perhaps in some GBC manual. And neither should the crooked minds of some individual members of the GBC be allowed to consider that when they are being served by genuine and innocent Vaishnavas, it is because the rank and file is of the same crooked mentality insofar as they wish to ascend to that post which they serve. Obtaining political rewards is not the definition of service, though what "service" truly means may not be appreciated by the chamcha "ministers" and self-important "secretaries" who do the bidding of the GBC hierarchy.
It is due to this good ol' boy cronyism within the GBC that they each silently turn their eyes to some other direction when, for example…
Bhakti Caru organizes a New Age Festival that severely minimizes Shrila Prabhupada to the point of blasphemy.
Or the GBC remains conveniently mum when a tilak-free Radhanath attends a ridiculously expensive dinner costing tens of thousands of dollars with a war-mongering politician and claims that it is to have a "heart to heart chat."
Or the GBC's enthusiastically sponsor watery philosophical discourses by their so-called "Communications Minister" on ISKCON News
Or closing their collective eyes when the Tantric Mayavadi motivational speaker "Indra" Armstrong is invited to host the Vancouver Rathayatra.
Or playing dumb when members of their GBC country club deftly change the philosophy, programme and the very basis of Prabhupada's movement to accommodate a book signing tour for an eager self-promoter from their own ranks.
Or acting as though it is business as usual when a long-standing member of their committee accumulates millions in donated funds and loans it out at interest.
We sincerely wish to honor our revered GBC as the finest and boldest in ISKCON, yet in the face of such cowardly nepotism such sentiments become impossible, at least in the minds of any thinking individuals. In a genuinely spiritual organization like ISKCON, the most elevated personalities are the masters of serving others. Let me remind the esteemed GBC that no one can become your guru until he knows how to be humbler than you are. This is the lesson that the Original Spiritual Master, Lord Nityananda Prabhu set when He ordered Shri Raghunath Das to serve the other Vaishnavas (Caitanya-caritamrta Antya 6.51)
dadhi, cida bhaksana karaha mora gane
shuni anandita haila raghunatha mane
"'Make a festival and feed all My associates yogurt and chipped rice." Hearing this, Raghunatha dasa was greatly pleased."
That is what we learn first and foremost from Shri Guru and that is a lesson that the GBC has blindly ignored in their quest for imagined glory, with few exceptions. We are pleased that His Holiness Jayapataka Maharaja on the day of this festival Dadhi Cida Utsava has often served all devotees and the temple guests as an example to his other GBC members. But if there was adequate humility in the GBC body as a whole, then this foolish questionnaire would not be necessary.
Humility means servant of the servant of Shri Guru and Shri Gauranga and humility is required to enact the instructions of Shrila Prabhupada in a way that any knowledgeable devotee knows will please His Divine Grace. Not that with your American disease some new-fangled process is concocted with the pretense that Shrila Prabhupada would be pleased by such convenient deviations.
Certainly an organization like ISKCON requires structure, and -- following the divine example of Shrila Prabhupada -- structure means ownership of properties, turning them into ashram-temples and managing them in an intelligent manner. This is well known. But the structure is created to serve the needs of the energetic preachers. The building does not become the GBC's private country club. As soon as the sense of overlord-ship overtakes the individual GBC member in charge, then the building rather than the assembled devotees becomes supreme, and those who dwell within the brick and mortar become servants of the building and its self-proclaimed monarch.
Again, a lack of humility causes the philosophical issues, including a proper service attitude required for leadership, to become reversed. And so it is that we find the Interfaith that is being foisted on the Society as a whole to be more than a friendly handshake to other so-called "religions." Interfaith is an accommodating method by which ISKCON will be turned into a theocratic and ecclesiastical body with popes and bishops who receive the worship of their disadvantaged underlings. In other words, the GBC's emphasis upon grouped church-ism rather than brahminical preachers will certainly destroy ISKCON in a few years if it is not rectified. It will emerge as unto Prabhupada's teachings in the same way that, for example, the Episcopal or Catholic churches are to the teachings of Lord Jesus Christ. If that is what the GBC desires, then by all means, full steam ahead. But if there are caring and thinking members on the GBC body who can read the handwriting on the walls, let them prove their bona fides by voicing their objections before they share the responsibility for sinking Prabhupada's ISKCON into the murky sea of mayavadism.
4. What are your observations regarding how the GBC members interact with each other?
This silly question raises another problem, because how the GBC interact with one another is their own hush-hush affair. The GBC have hired cheerleaders from amongst their exclusive ranks who have been initiated with the purpose of singing their glories. Their songbirds write about the wonderful "synergy" displayed by the GBC at their yearly assemblage. Despite the Rah! Rah! Rahs! of the GBC's cheering squad, the complaints from "lesser members on the GBC" (those who actually preach) that the annual huddles are monopolized by the same six voices year after year are not entertained.
So it appears as though there is a conspiracy of silence afoot. We are not privy to know anything about how the GBC deals with one another. We are kept in the dark, except during those glorious Kodak moments when the boys come down to pray to themselves with that fabricated GBC vow which perpetuates their delusional positions of power like some clique of comfy King Paundrakas.
It is very telling indeed that the GBC have sent out this questionnaire to inquire of those they scorn as to what they feel is the relationship the individual members share with one another. This appears to be a tacit confession that the walls are cracking in their imagined kingdoms. Our constructive criticisms contained herein are meant to be like bonding cement. Therefore, since our words represent the feelings of thousands of silent Prabhus, the GBC would be wise to take these admonitions to heart no matter how harsh they appear, because once the walls of the dike fracture and the floodwaters overtake whatever remains of Prabhupada's work, it will be every man and woman for themselves.
The letter that accompanied the questionnaire states that the GBC have "empowered" their Strategic Planning Team. One of the purposes of the SPT is that, "Certain key areas were identified as being crucial to the success of the above. One was to ensure a greater unity and cohesion among the GBC members themselves and the body as a whole."
Look, Prabhus, common sense dictates that if you cannot get along with one another, how is an "empowered" gaggle of empowered lackeys going to help you? Or this futile questionnaire (which is obviously fishing for flatterers)? The problem is that most GBC members are so habituated to demanding worship -- rather than commanding respect -- that conflicts naturally arise when too many holier-than-thou egos collide with one another. But if you were Prabhupada conscious, then the idea for this questionnaire would never have arisen.
These are my frank observations and I thank the respectable ladies and gentlemen on the GBC for considering them before ongoing disastrous GBC policies ruin the sankirtan movement in many parts of the world, notably America. To be certain, in a few other places the GBC is to be commended, though it is no longer our desire to polish the shoes of the captain of the Titanic while he storms full speed ahead into an iceberg.
Next, Part Three
