Krishnakant, IRM: “The great Guru Hoax, History repeats itself!”

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The great Guru hoax: History repeats itself!

In the previous issues of BTP we have documented the great Guru hoax which has
been the basis for ISKCON’s history and activities since the departure of Srila
Prabhupada in 1977. This great Guru hoax was split into two parts, with part 1
of the Hoax in 1978 being the unauthorised creation of a group of successors to
Srila Prabhupada.

Part 2 of the hoax was subsequently opening the doors to allow anyone and every
one to be an unauthorised Guru successor. What is not so widely known is that
this hoax is an almost exact replay of what happened over 60 years ago in the
Gaudiya Matha, the organization created by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati
Thakura, who is Srila Prabhupada’s spiritual master.

Indeed, ISKCON was started by Srila Prabhupada because of the great Guru hoax
which had destroyed his spiritual master’s mission, the Gaudiya Matha. How
ironic it is therefore, that the antidote to this great Guru hoax, ISKCON, has
itself be come gripped and destroyed by a similar Guru hoax. We will detail
here the similarities of this amazing phenomenon.

Great Guru hoax – Part 1

Before his departure Srila Prabhupada nominated no one as a Guru to succeed him.
However, his leading secretaries who had been appointed only as `ritviks’, or
his representatives, made plans to unauthorisedly install themselves as successor acaryas (Gurus). The Gaudiya Matha did the same thing, except they installed one acarya for the world, whereas in ISKCON they divided the world up into 11 zones, and installed 11 acaryas:

“Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, at the time of his departure, requested all his disciples to form a governing body and conduct missionary activities cooperatively. He did not instruct a particular man to become the next acarya.
But just after his passing away, his leading secretaries made plans, without authority, to occupy the post of acarya, and they split into two factions over who the next acarya would be. Consequently, both factions were asara, or useless, because they had no authority, having disobeyed the order of the spiritual master.”

(Caitanya caritamrta, Adi Lila, 12.8, purport)

“In the latter days of my Guru Maharaja he was very disgusted. […] Still he requested his disciples to form a strong Governing body for preaching the cult of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He never recommended anyone to be acarya of the Gaudiya Math. But Sridhara Maharaja is responsible for disobeying this order of Guru Maharaja, and he and others who are already dead unnecessarily thought that there must be one acarya.

If Guru Maharaja could have seen some one who was qualified at that time to be acarya he would have mentioned. Because on the night before he passed away he talked of so many things, but never mentioned an acarya. His idea was acarya was not to be nominated amongst the governing body. He said openly you make a GBC and conduct the mission. […]

So Sridhara Maharaja and his two associate gentlemen unauthorisedly selected one acarya and later it proved a failure.”
(Srila Prabhupada Letter to Rupanuga, 28/4/74)

Great Guru hoax Part 2

Subsequently with the failure of foisting 11 acaryas on the movement, ISKCON
responded by allowing many others to also have a shot at posing as unauthorised
Gurus. So today we have 80 different Guru cults all vying for a piece of the ISKCON pie.

Most of these Gurus are satisfied simply with expanding their own Guru cult. The Gaudiya Matha also split up into many different mathas, each with their own unauthorised Guru in charge, following the failure of their acarya programme, with all these mathas also simply being satisfied with strengthening their own Guru cult:

“Why this Gaudiya Matha failed? Because they tried to become more than Guru.
[…] They declared some unfit person to become acarya. Then another man came, then another acarya, another acarya.”
(Srila Prabhupada Room Conversation, 16/8/76)

“The result is now everyone is claiming to be acarya even though they may be kanistha adhikari with no ability to preach. In some of the camps the acarya is being changed three times a year.”
(Srila Prabhupada Letter to Rupanuga, 28/4/74)

“All are satisfied with a place for residence in the name of a temple, they engage disciples to get food stuff by transcendental devices and eat and sleep.

They have no idea or brain how to broadcast the cult of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.” (Srila Prabhupada Letter to Rupanuga, 28/4/74)

Conclusion Srila Prabhupada made the following cautionary prophecy whilst mentioning the great Guru hoax of the Gaudiya Matha re ferred to above. He said:

“Therefore we may not commit the same mistake in our ISKCON camp.”
(Srila Prabhupada Letter To Rupanuga, 28/4/74)

Unfortunately this warning was not heeded, and as we have seen, exactly the same mistake WAS committed.
It is said that history repeats itself because human nature repeats itself:

Like Srila Prabhupada, Srila Bhaktisidhanta Sarsavati Maharaja was also betrayed
by his leading secretaries.

“You can simply refer the history that the same thing is…”History repeats itself.” When there was Roman Empire, Mogul Empire, the same strife, the same political dissension, the same fight.”
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, Montreal, June 16th, 1968)

Unfortunately, as long as that nature of deviating from the order of the spiritual master, that nature of desiring followers, that nature to desire to sit in the seat of one’s Guru remains, naturally history will indeed keep repeating itself.

To end, we would like to issue the following call to our brothers in the current
GBC, who unfortunately are still consumed with this nature; a call which was
given originally by Srila Prabhupada to his Godbrothers, due to the havoc THEY
had wreaked with THEIR great Guru hoax:

23. If everyone just initiates then there will only be a contradictory result.
As long as it goes on, there will be only failure.
29. O shame! My dear brothers aren’t you embarrassedfi In the manner of businessmen you increase your disciples.
39. You have become renouncers, brothers, so renounce everything. But if you also renounce the order of the spiritual master, then what kind of renunciation is that?

(VyasaPuja Offering To Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, made by Srila Prabhupada in 1961)