The Guru Debate Within our Movement
BY: KULA-PAVANA DASA
Mar 27, USA (SUN) — I have been following the guru debate within our Movement for quite a few years now. Since I am involved in a day-to-day contact with both new and old devotees, as well as with people who are simply curious about our Movement, I would like to share a few observations related to this debate.
It seems to me that the tone, content, and form of the guru debate within our Movement are directly leading to an overall devaluation of the concept of guru in general, as well as to a marked decline in overall faith in the Krishna Consciousness process as presented to us by Srila Prabhupada.
Of course other events, such as the numerous fall downs of ISKCON gurus or their abuses of power, did not help in that regard. Still, the way we discuss the guru issue in our Movement has a lot to do with how people perceive the legitimacy of our Movement in general, as well as with how such regrettable fall-downs are understood by both devotees and those who merely observe our society.
Seems to me, that there are four basic camps in this discussion. What are they and what are their "sins" in this debate?
One camp -- those aligned with the GBC - usually presents a patronizing attitude of "we know better", mixed with a long history of withholding relevant information and frequent outright misrepresentation of the facts (read: telling lies), combined with habitual covering-up of serious abuses of power and substandard behavior of ISKCON gurus.
The ritvik camp "sins" are personified by the "Final Order thumpers" who basically call anybody involved in the current ISKCON power system a crook, traitor, liar and pretender. They unabashedly build great sand castles on single words or single sentences attributed to their guru. These are the two main camps.
The third camp consists of ex- ISKCON devotees who took shelter of Gaudiya Vaishnavas from post-Gaudiya Matha organizations or those representing traditional Gaudiya parivars. This camp often looks with complete disdain at the first two groups, considering both of them to be apa-sampradayas of the worst sort.
The fourth camp is those devotees who do not care very much for debating such issues and who do not have a clearly formed opinion about which party is right. Their "sin" is often just being passive when it comes to understanding and addressing one of the most important issues facing Lord Caitanya's movement today.
The good news is that despite all the accusations, mud slinging, shoddy logic, out of context, twisted and/or contradictory quotations often used in these guru debates, people are still interested in hearing from a spiritual authority. The bad news is that people usually do not look to our movement to find that authority.
Many former devotees have completely lost faith in the process Srila Prabhupada brought West with such effort and self-sacrifice, to a large extent due to the way devotees conduct themselves. It is a fact that people tend to judge the guru by observing the quality of his disciples. For example, if the disciples claim that their guru's words are to be the 'law books for mankind for the next 10,000 years', they better be able to at least agree among themselves as to what that law is saying. Otherwise nobody will take them seriously.
My plea to you, dear devotees, who debate the guru issues in public:
Please act like true Vaishnavas and cultured human beings so you will be seen as a credit to your guru's greatness and an asset to his mission. Please study the issues you debate in the way our acharyas recommended and please listen to the opposing arguments like it is customary in a philosophical debate (as opposed to a common quarrel).
Thank you for your time.
Your servant
Kula-pavana dasa
