Should Hari Vilasa be ISKCON GBC? Pride Should Decide
BY: RAM KAMALAYAN
Nov 17, 2011 — SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA (SUN) —
My family and I live some distance from the ISKCON temple near Seattle, but we have friends going more often. It is a beautiful temple and we appreciate too much that ISKCON has presence here. I am disturbed, however, when I hear some of the politics of that temple. How much you know is truth is a question. But as they say, where there is smoke there is surely fire. People talk, and we have heard some of the not so pleasant things rumored about this devotee, Hari Vilasa - treating other devotees badly, taking advantage of temple assets to bolster his own personal business, Uncle Harry's (someone said he would cook his commercial tooth powder in the Deity kitchen of the older original temple building for his personal gain), mistreating his wife who moved apart from him, watching adult films that are against principles of bhakti, and so forth. If even one of these rumors is true, then he cannot take the position of guru or spiritual leader.
This recent account by Mr. Patel on the yesterday Sun article, of Hari Vilasa banning a good bhakta from even visiting the ISKCON temple does not seem to me to be proper or within his power to do so, especially when Hari Vilasa is the one at fault. As far as I know about ISKCON, he is supposed to see that standards of Srila Prabhupada are executed. But how is he personally keeping the good standard expected of an ISKCON leader? That is the doubt here.
In South India we respect the other gods - Shiva, Parvati, Durga, Ganesh. But having read Srila Prabhupada's Gita, I can now understand that it is not part of bhakti marg system. Everyone knows you worship Durga or Ganesh for material standard, and not for pure devotion to Sri Krishna. If this devotee, Hari Vilasa, is a member of managerial board of ISKCON, how can he introduce something that is misleading the people that are innocent and come to the ISKCON temple for spiritual inspiration?
Srila Prabhupada told his followers to not worship demigods, and he is allowing this to go on in Prabhupada's own temple? That seems to be one misconduct, but another is for his pride to carry away his proper judgment and restrict the devotees from coming to temple that know his defect and are not afraid to speak something. I am very disappointed on hearing this account. I do not want to support a temple that is not actually following the Acarya's message and teachings, and I have serious doubts now that this devotee Hari Vilasa should be a member of the ISKCON governing body.
First qualification of the devotee of Krishna is that he should be humble. It seems that his power he may think he has, has robbed him of proper sense. I think he should honorably resign his position. Too many scandal rumors are there for many years of Hari Vilasa, and no solution to fix the man. Sri Ram also followed this dharma when he heard the people of Ayodhya talk about him in bad light. This is dharma, not showbottle and pretend to be advance devotee, important, and mistreat other devotees. Pride is such a sinful thing. If ISKCON leadership cannot protect the standard of pure bhakti that Srila Prabhupada has introduced, then it will loose pure followers and will in some time be finished, like rice husk without the rice, it will become nothing of use.
I have noticed here on this Sun website, there is no GBC dialogue with the devotees who have many complaints of deviations. That itself is not a good sign. Any management board that does not address such serious issues of complaints and buries their heads in the sand, will always fail and loose the business. Maybe it is too late. The GBC may not be sincerely interested in keeping the standard that Srila Prabhupada introduced. I know many, many good devotees in Indian bodies that are very disappointed of this.
Prabhupada's bhakti standard is so high. Maybe it is too high for this Hari Vilasa. Then better let him go away, do his personal business, and try recovering and improving himself first. That would be honest devotee and show he is still on the road of Krishna bhakti. But do not mislead the innocent who are coming to Prabhupada for spiritual shelter and guidance. They are coming to him and not to someone who is pretending to be as good as him but cannot follow his teachings.
Hare Krishna.
