“Demons in the Guise of Devotees”

Prabhupada, Madhya-lila 1.218, Purport: […] Why should a Vaishnava be envious of another Vaishnava who is successful in spreading the holy name of the Lord? An actual Vaishnava is very pleased to accept another Vaishnava who is bestowing the Lord’s mercy. A mundane person in the dress of a Vaishnava should not be respected but rejected. This is enjoined in the sastra (upeksa). The word upeksa means neglect. Full Purport

“Demons in the Guise of Devotees”

BY: ROCANA DASA

Sep 25, 2010 — CANADA (SUN) — A serial reply to the three-part lecture series by Madhavananda das.

A Sun reader called to our attention the fact that Madhavananda das, the devotee from Orissa who publishes Sri Krishna Kathamrita Bindu and operates the GopalJiu.org website, has published on the Internet three classes that he gave as successive lectures, entitled “Demons in the Guise of Devotees“. I’ve listened to these classes a number of times, and would like to respond to them, in a serial format. As we begin the first response, I would like to suggest that anyone interested in the subject should take this opportunity to listen to the three classes, which should be taken as a group.

As his ISKCON Desire Tree bio describes him:

“Madhavananda das joined ISKCON in Los Angeles in 1982. He moved to Bhubaneswar Orissa in 1993 where he has been living since. He was instructed by Sri Srimad Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja to edit his lectures into publications. For over ten years he has been serving as the director of ISKCON Gopal Jiu Publications, the editor of Sri Krishna Kathamrita Magazine, and the email magazine Sri Krishna Kathamrita Bindu.”

An American, Madhavananda got initiated by Rameswar in Los Angeles, and after his guru’s demise, he ventured over to Orissa and took shelter of Gour Govinda Swami. By reading Madhavananda das’s publications and listening to his lectures, it’s quite evident that his Orissan yatra is primarily following HH Gour Govinda Swami’s mood and teachings, which are somewhat different then the overall ISKCON mood.

One issue of Sri Krishna Kathamrita Bindu, Volume 10, focuses on Sri Krishna’s pastime of killing Putana. Comprised of various writings, the issue opens with Madhavananda’s own personal introductory comments. As the reader will discover, the Putana issue forms the basis for Madhavananda prabhu’s “Demons in the Guise of Devotees” lecture series. The arguments made in his lectures are quite interesting, in the sense that he doesn’t give a typical ISKCON response.

I would suggest to readers who will be following my commentaries on this subject that they also read Gour Govinda Swami’s writings on the GopalJiu.org website. You’ll find in his writings two main themes he left before his departure, which form a boundary for his followers. One theme is that ‘everything is in Srila Prabhupada’s books’, and the other is, ‘never leave ISKCON’.  There is a preface to Gour Govinda’s “Mathura Meets Vrindaban” book in which you’ll find some interesting and different perspectives on the concept of ‘everything is in Srila Prabhupada’s books’, which includes the notion that many things in Prabhupada’s books are only in “seed-like form”. This perspective also seems to form a foundation for the type of content you’ll find in Madhavananda’s publication, Sri Krishna Kathamrita Bindu.

Gour Govinda Swami clarifies his position on ‘everything is in Srila Prabhupada’s books’ by saying some very unique and, from my point of view, troublesome things. For example, he compares Srila Prabhupada and his writings to Lord Buddha and Shankaracarya. This implies that just as the Vaisnava Sampradaya Acaryas who came after Shankaracarya had to re-establish the Vedic direction, similarly, the Acaryas coming after Srila Prabhupada will be free to elaborate and expand upon Srila Prabhupada’s seed-like truths – which is exactly what Madhavananda is doing in his Putana issue of the Sri Krishna Kathamrita.

We don’t find a clear philosophical explanation of what “seed-like form” means, other than the fact that many of the concepts in Vaisnava siddhanta cannot be properly expressed in English, therefore Srila Prabhupada had to encapsulate them or put them in seed-like form, in the form of Sanskrit slokas and so on. In other words, unqualified persons cannot really understand everything from Srila Prabhupada’s books unless they have someone such as himself, Gour Govinda Swami, to further expand upon and explain some of the content. We have heard similar conclusions coming from B.V. Narayana Swami. Personally, I don’t accept this notion at all, as I’ll explain in more detail later on.

In the Putana edition of Sri Krishna Kathamrita, you can see how this concept is understood and translated by Gour Govinda’s disciple, Madhavananda das. Along with excerpts from the writings of the Sampradaya Acaryas, Srila Prabhupada, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati and Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur, Madhavananda also quotes the Mahabharata, as well as English poets and philosophers such as Aldous Huxley and Robert Browning, who he also quotes in his article and lectures. What I find most interesting is that in his lectures on the subject of the Putana pastime, he focuses not on what Srila Prabhupada said, but on what Srila Bhaktisiddhanta and Srila Bhaktivinoda had to say on the subject of demons disguised as devotees (or critics, as Madhavananda argues).

In the excerpts from Aldous Huxley, the author is talking about reformers and how it’s useless to try to change things. Browning is talking about the Church, as he saw it in his day. Whether that was the Catholic Church or the Scottish Church of England, I’m not certain, but he’s talking about priests, and so on.

As the reader will surely agree, all these writings essentially serve to describe and expose ISKCON’s obvious and steady decline into religiosity and ecclesiastical circumstances. This material is sure to cause the readers of Sri Krishna Kathamrita to consider the circumstances they find themselves in today, as devotees interfacing with ISKCON. So here we have a member of ISKCON, a deputed leader in his area, and the editor of an ISKCON-approved publication, including all these somewhat damning and very descriptive articles in his magazine – something you’d never find in an ISKCON publication like Back To Godhead.

The circumstances behind Madhavananda’s personal scene are anybody’s guess, only know to those intimately associating with him. There is an interesting voice that one hears in the background of the lectures, who appears to be an American friend of the speaker, or an authority or peer of Madhavananda’s. This individual is not named, but he obviously finds it appropriate and within his power to chirp up, correcting Madhavananda when needs be, and making his own clarifications in the middle of the lectures.

There are other people in the audience, some of whom are somewhat confused by Madhavananda’s classes. This is not surprising, given that we are hearing from a preacher who is trying to remain in ISKCON, as his Spiritual Master ordered him to do, and is therefore trying to clarify the fact that these articles are directed not towards ISKCON leaders (the obvious present-day examples of so many points made in the Putana story), but rather towards the critics of ISKCON. Of course, this re-direct is really far-fetched, and takes a lot of verbal calisthenics and intellectual cheating – it’s a form of twisting the meaning of sastra so it will be palatable to the ISKCON leaders. Obviously, this confuses the audience Madhavananda is preaching to, as evidenced by their questions.

So the main theme of Madhavananda’s three consecutive lectures, which followed his publication of the Putana edition of Sri Krishna Kathamrita, is that those who are critics of ISKCON are synonymous with the demoness Putana, the false guru. Madhavananda very likely finds himself in the delicate situation of wanting to protect his own congregation in Bhubaneswar, needing to remain in good standing with the ISKCON leaders, and wanting to follow his spiritual master’s instructions to remain in ISKCON. In this position, he is no doubt challenged to deal with those like myself and publications like the Sampradaya Sun, who have been motivated to point out the problems and circumstances within ISKCON and the Vaisnava community that need to be addressed or exposed. In both ISKCON and in the sub-culture of Gour Govinda Swami’s Orissan yatra, there are both fanatics and well-meaning, sincere people. But trying to stay on the middle road, Madhavananda has chosen to apply the instructions from Putana lila not to ISKCON or to Gour Govinda’s yatra, but rather to the critics of ISKCON. He is essentially criticizing the critics – something he says others should never do, as you’ll hear in his lectures.

We’ll begin our commentary with Part One of Madhavananda’s lecture series. You’ll find that he’s somewhat repetitive from one part to the next, because he must re-frames the arguments each time, leading to the crescendo — his final purport, given in Part Three.

Madhavananda das on “Demons in the Guise of Devotees”

In the Putana edition of Krishna Kathamrita Bindu, the analogies and examples given by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur were directed to false gurus – those who dress up like Vaisnavas, those who take advantage of the Sampradaya Acarya’s position and preaching, dressing and acting so as to appear to be highly spiritually advanced persons. This charade isn’t hard, if you are karmically endowed with great memory and acting abilities to pretend you’re something you’re not.

So it’s the false gurus that the great Sampradaya Acaryas point to as being representative of or symbolically depicted by Putana. Of course, that pastime actually took place – Putana is not just a metaphor. Putana is the false guru, and she embodies one of the first big hurdles you have to overcome when you enter spiritual life. The big advantage of participating in this Krishna Consciousness movement when a Sampradaya Acarya is personally present to directly instruct and initiate, is that you’re not as likely to be tempted or distracted into accepting false gurus. Of course, when Srila Prabhupada was present, just as when Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur were present, there were plenty of other alternatives to Krishna Consciousness. Likewise, all of us prior to coming to Krishna Consciousness may have been attracted to false gurus — folk heroes of the era like Bob Dylan or Paramahamsa Yogananda, or Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Thanks to Srila Prabhupada’s powerful preaching we had to make a decision, and those who made the decision to serve him and participate in his lila were saved from Putanas. But nowadays, since Srila Prabhupada’s departure, our situation is just as described in the Putana edition: ISKCON history shows that many of the leaders who self-promoted themselves as highly advanced were really demons in the disguise of devotees, and they caused a great deal of harm to individuals in the society. Madhavananda das was one of the individuals who was harmed. He joined and became initiated by Ramesvara, a Zonal Acarya who unceremoniously fell down and left the movement. Madhavananda then went to Orissa and got re-initiated by Gour Govinda Swami, who gave him the instructions to publish his material and to preach in Orissa. So Madhavananda naturally had to accept his new guru’s perspective and version of Krishna Consciousness, which was undoubtedly very different from Ramesvara’s.

As for Gour Govinda Swami, it’s no secret that he encountered all sorts of problems from the ISKCON false gurus, from the kali-chelas, the demons in disguise who took ISKCON from a spiritual movement into the realm of religiosity, turning it into an ecclesiastical institution devoid of the mood and preaching of the Sampradaya Acaryas.

Gour Govinda Swami quickly became the acarya for the Orissa area. To a certain degree, his preaching and his mood eclipsed Srila Prabhupada in that region, what to speak of the Zonal Acaryas, who were not so happy about this circumstance. Then came the strange disappearance pastime that Gour Govinda exhibited, leaving his body while giving darshan to his students in Mayapur, in February 1996, during the GBC meetings. His departure apparently took place just hours before the GBC were about to “interview” him and discuss with him some of the problems they had with his preaching. The Zonal Acaryas had let it be known that they didn’t understand Gour Govinda’s preaching, and they weren’t happy with the way he was presenting Krishna Consciousness, and particularly guru-tattva in ISKCON. The tension had been building for some time before that fateful evening. But the big confrontation in Mayapur never took place, because Gour Govinda Swami suddenly departed, whether voluntarily or by Krishna’s arrangement.

So all the various examples in the Putana edition very aptly describe the problems created by the dubious leaders of ISKCON, which both Madhavananda das and his guru experienced directly. The illustrations given by the Sampradaya Acaryas and other sources in the Putana issue also describe, very fittingly, those presently occupying leadership posts in ISKCON. What the Putana examples do not describe, however, and were never intended to describe, are the critics of those Putana-like false gurus.

Because there is not a natural fit between the lessons contained in Putana lila and the conclusions Madhavananda das is trying to draw and convince his listeners to accept, he has to work very diligently to give them arguments that will somehow make these disparate pieces all come together. While his method of delivery is very professional, and on the surface appears to be very Vaisnava-like and Krishna conscious, when studied carefully, most of his arguments prove to be very poorly constructed, indeed.

One of the arguments Madhavananda presents throughout his lecture series is the idea that you (those who criticize ISKCON) are someone who is seen (e.g., by Krishna and guru), but you are not a seer. In other words, you’re totally unqualified, you’re probably a demon yourself, in the strict sense of the word, and you don’t know what lies behind the scenes. You don’t know Krishna’s real intentions, or the Spiritual Master’s intentions, meaning Srila Prabhupada as the Founder-Acarya of ISKCON, and therefore you’re better off keeping your mouth shut – just like he does.

So even though all the information you’re given by sastra, by your Spiritual Master, by your own personal experience, all indicates that many persons in power are demons, not devotees, you should keep quiet. They’ve taken power, and they’re causing devotees a great deal of grief, they’re really kali-chelas themselves, they’re dharma-dwajis, etc. but you should keep quiet about it. Don’t criticize them, or you’ll be the kali-chela, the dharma-dwaji.

On one hand, Madhavananda suggests that you can ignore these false gurus, these mini-Putanas – just don’t take counsel of them, avoid associating with them as much as possible, etc. Of course, this is nearly impossible if they’re an authority, and have a direct impact on your life and service. You have no choice but to interface and cooperate with them, and surrender to them, because they hold your fate, your position and service in ISKCON, in their hands. You are at their disposal. They can make life miserable for you, or they can throw you away if they get some inkling that you’re not accepting them as an authority, or not accepting the way the institution is being driven towards religiosity.

So how to deal with these people without having to leave ISKCON? That is Madhavananda’s problem, and it’s the problem of many, many devotees in the institution — especially those who have established preaching programs such as his. He has worked hard and carved out his own unique publishing seva, and he obviously doesn’t want it threatened by some ISKCON authority or the GBC, who could have him removed or force him to leave ISKCON, as so many other senior devotees and disciples of Srila Prabhupada have been forced to do. But because Madhavananda has accepted Gour Govinda Swami, he’s really caught between a rock and a hard place on this one. Gour Govinda said “Don’t leave ISKCON.” So in order not to leave ISKCON, Madhavananda’s got to show that he’s a team member, on board with the rest of the ISKCON authorities — criticizing, chastising and fault-finding the critics of ISKCON, just as the leaders do. And that is what his three-part lecture series is designed to accomplish.

Instead of criticizing the ISKCON leaders, who are obviously and clearly being described by so many of the sastric references and other material quoted in the Putana issue, Madhavananda’s message is that it’s the critics who are a big disturbance in our society. According to him, the critics can’t reform anything anyway, because the leaders aren’t going to listen to them and they’re never going to change. Besides that, the critics are not in the position of being the guru of those hearing from them, therefore the critic runs the risk of getting chastised or ostracized, and it’s just not worth it. Better to keep your mouth shut, unless you’re empowered or appointed – unless Krishna or the Spiritual Master has given you the authority to be a critic.

Now in my particular case, I am making a great deal of effort to publish the Sampradaya Sun. I’m always looking out for signs from above, from Krishna, which indicate to me that I’m either doing this for the pleasure of the gurus and real Acaryas, and doing a service to Krishna, or not. In his lectures, Madhavananda quotes from Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati, that only a very small percentage of the actual followers of any religious practice are seriously practicing and interested in the philosophy and tenets, and those people need to be provided with information. And that’s really what the Acaryas are doing. They’re supply information; so is the sastra. Likewise, but on a non-absolute platform, the Sampradaya Sun is also providing information to the community of devotee — the personal experiences and realizations of the devotees themselves, which is important information to have access to.

One of the most difficult things about being in Krishna Consciousness is that you’re constantly reminded that the material world is a miserable place. Srila Prabhupada and sastra are very descriptive in this regard. The Srimad Bhagavatam, the preaching of past Acaryas, has been written down for our benefit. So we have to accept that this material world is a very miserable place, that it benefits us to know it, and to deal with it appropriately. And there is a program — as Madhavananda says — to chant Hare Krishna and read the Srimad Bhagavatam. Unfortunately, Madhavananda also suggests that you can’t apply this knowledge to what he calls “the devotees”, which really means the leaders in ISKCON. Don’t apply the knowledge there… it’s too dangerous, too difficult, it will agitate your mind too much and disturb your bhajan. Just apply the knowledge to the material world outside the realm of ISKCON personalities… even though most of your existence is focused on the association of devotees in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

Madhavananda also promotes the ISKCON solution, which was recently reaffirmed by the Sastric Advisory Council in their paper, “ Balancing the Roles of the GBC and the Disciple in Guru Selection“: yes, you’re supposed to apply the knowledge, but within boundaries. If you see some senior person doing nonsense or deviating from sastra, then it’s best to just go to him in a humble mood, hat in hand, so to speak, and point out the fact that he’s doing something wrong. Of course, as anyone who’s had anything to do with ISKCON knows, that’s a very dangerous tact to take. If a person is in maya, as you’re trying to point out to them, then one of the symptoms is that they won’t accept the truth. After all, they’re hearing the truth constantly, and have decided not to accept it. And to have some underling, someone who they can easily blow off, tell them they’re doing something wrong… well, the reaction is predictable. You’re either on the sidewalk, or you get a serious repercussion.

According to ISKCON, if pointing out someone’s mistakes doesn’t work, then the idea is to go to someone even more senior — someone who knows them, and will try to tell them they’re in error, and need to change something. And if that doesn’t work, well… just forget it. You tried your best, and that’s it. But most importantly, don’t broadcast it. Don’t advertise it, says Madhavananda. Do not publish how you feel in a way that others can hear, because they’re trying within the institution to recruit people, and if these new recruits go on the Internet and hear how bhakta so-and-so is in the institution, and he’s in a circumstance like the one you’re thinking about putting yourself into, and he’s complaining and all disturbed about any number of things — super-rich swamis who come flying in who are obviously doing a big dog and pony show, who are obviously not the kind of swamis that are described in the sastra, not the kind of swamis the Acaryas were — this might disturb the new recruits. So do not broadcast the fact that you’re disturbed. Don’t talk about it, and just accept the reality that you’re not in a position to do anything about it. Just hunker down, go to the morning program, take what you can from what’s available, put up with all the nonsense, and if you’re that kind of person, you can survive in the institution known as ISKCON.

But despite his ‘see but don’t tell’ rule, Madhavananda himself goes way beyond the point where most ISKCON approved preachers and authorities would ever go. He printed the Putana issue of his magazine, and presented these thoughts, which certainly open the door in the minds of many who read the numerous points of comparison between the Putana false guru and the ISKCON leaders.

Madhavananda das chose to go far beyond the boundaries of what Srila Prabhupada had to say about Putana lila. Srila Prabhupada did not give the kinds of detailed commentaries on the Putana pastimes that are presented in the magazine, about Kamsa and false gurus in the disguise of devotees, etc. Of course, at the time, Srila Prabhupada was the one we were associating with – a true, highly advanced Vaisnava. He did tell us not to go to his godbrothers, however, which was as big hint.

So Madhavananda’s philosophical conclusion is that it is the critics who are demons, not the leaders in ISKCON who are causing the actual problems. Basically, all the rest of us have no spiritual qualifications, no institutional position to do anything about them. We just have to depend on Krishna to take care of them, because there’s no other mechanism whatsoever, including criticism. Madhavananda does not recognize the principle of free speech and free press, or the notion that people should have a constitutional right to their opinion and freedom to express it within certain bounds, which is one of the hallmarks of a free society. ISKCON does not have a constitution and does not adhere to these principles. They control the press, and only want to give you the good news, suppressing the bad news. And they deal very harshly with anyone who feels motivated to assert their personal rights to express themselves.

Many of the examples that Madhavananda offers, which many ISKCON devotees use when trying to deal with the institution’s critics, are based on sastric references to the fact that conditioned souls are prone to criticize other individuals. The problem with this approach is that ISKCON is an institution, not a person. Institutions are made up of many individuals, some of whom accept administrative posts and positions of power over all the other individuals. And if you criticize any of the philosophical positions they’ve taken, or their actions, or words they’ve spoken in their capacity as leaders, then apologists like Madhavananda judge you for having criticized them personally. Even though you may be addressing a philosophical issue – an issue you feel is contaminating or leading people astray – any criticism is considered personal criticism.

Take the book changes issue, for example. Now we know who did those book changes, the inside individuals, and by criticizing the book changes, or the philosophical principle underlying the book changes, devotees like Madhavananda say you are criticizing these individuals personally. The same is true with the issues of appointing gurus or re-initiation, which was presented by the GBC. If you criticize these institutional programs, the members of the GBC take it personally, and their followers claim that you’re criticizing great devotees, when you’re really just criticizing the philosophical position they’ve taken as institutional leaders.

So this notion that one cannot criticize leaders who have accepted public service roles because they’re individuals – this is not a concept presented in sastra. This is simply a convenient way of bending sastra to suit one’s personal circumstances, and in that regard, it is an egregious practice.

The only time Madhavananda specifically mentions Srila Prabhupada in this regard is to say that Putana-like critics always point to the excerpt from Bhagavad-gita As It Is, wherein Srila Prabhupada addresses the issue of satyam, telling the truth – that one has to tell the truth regardless of how people are offended, which is a brahminical quality. Madhavananda tries to counter this quote by falsely claiming that Srila Prabhupada never criticized devotees or his disciples. But those who are even a little enlightened on the subject know that this is totally untrue.

Yes, there are a few circumstances where Srila Prabhupada criticized some of his disciples for criticizing other disciples – a fallen sannyasi and the temple president of Detroit, for example — but these are the exceptions to the rule. He did personally criticize his disciples and other devotees on numerous occasions, and when he did so, he did not first turn off the microphone, or wait until he was alone with the individual. Srila Prabhupada made critical comments about individuals in his classes, on morning walks, and in writing, obviously knowing that this material would be circulated publicly — and it was meant for our benefit.

As far as Srila Prabhupada’s godbrothers are concerned, he put his criticisms right in the purports to the Caitanya-caritamrta. He gave vyasapuja offerings that were highly critical, and criticized individuals in letters and so on. He made it know what his opinions were of his godbrothers. He sometimes named names, and when didn’t, he didn’t exclude anyone from the group he was directing his comments towards, much to the chagrin of future Sridhar Swami and B.V. Narayana followers.

This has been a point of contention and controversy for a long time. Just today, I listened to the morning walk conversation in Denver, June 30, 1975, during which Srila Prabhupada specifically criticized Bon Maharaja, by name (see Dandavats article).
While much of Madhavananda’s presentation in his three-part lecture series is well done, in the case of this comment that Srila Prabhupada never criticized devotees, to my mind this is an instance where Madhavananda has consciously decided to deceive his listeners. And one should take this into consideration while listening to the entire lecture series.

While Madhavananda advocates personalism via his notion that any criticism is equivalent to fault-finding an individual, his own personalism stops short in other ways. For example, he does not acknowledge that the nature of Krishna’s creation is that there are different types of people. Some of them, like myself, may be journalistic by nature. Basically, if you have brahminical propensities, you’re going to have a tendency to question, ‘What is this, what’s going on?’ And the nature of the brahmana is that they preach about their realizations, about what they see, what they’re experiencing. This extends not only to what they’re experiencing internally, but also outwardly, within the realm of circumstances that most affect them and society. But Madhavananda’s advice essentially obviates this brahminical dynamic. He’s really just giving friendly advice to people who are in a similar situation as him, telling them it’s better to just suck it up and tolerate, as if you’re in the armed forces or in a third world country.

Did Srila Prabhupada and the Acaryas want us to establish a third world dictatorship type of society, or did they want to establish varnasrama? One of the problems that people in power have long experienced — even under varnasrama in the pure Vedic culture – is that when they wanted to succumb to maya and let their senses get the best of them, they still wanted to present themselves as God and hold onto absolute power, but the brahmans were challenging them. The brahmanas were telling them, “This is against sastra, you should not do this, you should straighten up and fly right, there’ll be serious repercussions if you do this, you’ll get a reaction, etc.” The rulers who didn’t like this, especially the really demoniac kings, would react against the brahmanas. And as far as I can see, this is basically what’s happening in ISKCON today. We’re acting as brahminically as possible, telling people how we feel, pointing out the unfortunate facts of certain situations, and it’s a dangerous and lonely position. It’s a position Madhavananda doesn’t want to put himself in.

Although the brahmanas have always been called insincere fault-finders by the leaders they’ve challenged, it does not mean they are insincere. They are simply unpopular. Madhavananda talks a lot about “sincere devotees”, but his conception of what this means isn’t very clear. There are sincere aspirants, and there are those who are insincere. For those who are sincere, Krishna will lead them to the truly advanced and bona fide guru. Of course, Madhavananda considers that he was sincere, and Krishna led him to Gour Govinda Swami, proving that perspective to be right. All those who either stuck with ISKCON and the Zonal Acaryas to the end, then continued on by getting re-initiated by ISKCON gurus, or those who went to B.V. Narayana, Sridhar Maharaja or Srila Prabhupada’s godbrothers — whether or not they are sincere, Madhavananda doesn’t clarify. Of course, this is the typical methodology, the type of preaching we’re very accustomed to in ISKCON.

Madhavananda likes to say that there’s the ‘seer and the seen’, and if you read his Spiritual Master’s writings, you’ll see where he gets that from. But what about the concept of sastra-caksus — seeing through the eyes of sastra? Employing Vedic knowledge that enables us to see what is before our eyes? According to Madhavananda, you can’t apply sastra-caksus. Your eyes are opened by the mercy of Guru and Sastra, but you can’t ever trust your eyes, because you’re ‘not the seer’. Once you take up Krishna Consciousness and your eyes are opened and you see something, you’re told by Madhavananda that you can’t trust your eyes, and you can’t say anything about what you see, you can’t express the vision or the experience that you had, because that could be offensive. You should just keep your mouth shut, and as Madhavananda says, chant the Holy Name and read the Srimad Bhagavatam. If saying what you see involves any kind of criticism of someone who’s presenting themselves as Vaisnava, then it’s aparadha.

The ISKCON institution has long claimed the same thing – do not speak out. You run the risk of aparadha, and it’s against sastra, and so forth. We disagree, naturally, and it’s my opinion that if the society had embraced the principle of speaking the truth of what we see, we’d all be better off. Allowing devotees to know the truth is all-important, and they find out anyway, regardless, through the grapevine.

You can’t keep these things quiet. If the leaders had been honest in the past, at the appropriate time, then the society would have given the impression that it’s open-minded, straightforward and honest. Instead, they’ve covered-up all the big mistakes, and given the wrong impression. They’ve come off looking like an oppressive regime, a third world type of society that’s primitive in the way it deals with people.

I’ve written extensively on this subject, and won’t belabor the point here. Suffice to say, the Zonal Acarya period was rife with the promotion of untruths perpetuated by the leaders, and persecution of anyone who saw it and spoke about what they saw. I was prevented from telling the truth about Hansadutta, Jayatirtha, about Kirtanananda, and it goes on and on. In the end, we couldn’t tell the truth about the so-called Reform Movement. If we could have, it might have saved a lot of devotees from being seriously hurt. So the repercussions are far worse from trying to hide and suppress the truth, than for people to just hear it and through strong preaching and explanations that are sastrically based, come to understand what it is they’re being told. By properly applying the philosophy, one can teach their congregation to see the truth about the material world, through the eyes of sastra. Instead, in ISKCON, we get the sort of scenario Madhavananda is advocating.

Madhavananda and other ISKCON leaders are always admonishing the members of our society that we can’t talk about the mistakes made by devotees, but sastra is full of such stories. The previous Acaryas have seen fit to use these stories to illustrate our philosophy. The pastimes of devotees, especially those who are not completely pure, maha-bhagavatas, are one of the primary means of explaining how the philosophy should and should not be applied by the fallen conditioned souls attempting to become Krishna conscious. So this whole policy of not being able to bring up or use as an example anything that has gone on in the past that reflects negatively on one or more of the devotees – this is not what is modeled in our Vaisnava sampradaya.

Madhavananda uses numerous examples from sastra to support his assertions, like the pastimes of Bhisma. We’ll deal with this part of the lecture in another segment. Although Madhavananda’s arguments in his lectures are based directly on the Putana edition, in which Srila Bhaktivinoda and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta elaborate on the meanings of the pastime, in his lecture, Madhavananda instead quotes from the Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto 11, 1.1, concerning the disappearance pastime of the Yadu Dynasty, who killed themselves off in a fratricidal dispute. The 11th Canto was purported by Hridayananda and associates, not Srila Prabhupada, but Madhavananda offers some quotations from it as part of his lecture.

Although Madhavananda does not make it clear, as pointed out by the previous Sampradaya Acaryas, some members of the Yadu Dynasty were inimical towards Krishna. They were too familiar, they didn’t recognize Him to be God, and as such they had to be eliminated for the benefit of humanity. Their death was caused by Krishna, fulfilling one of His purposes – to rid the world of the burden of powerful political forces and people. Of course, some members of the Yadu Dynasty were not of that bent — they weren’t jealous, they understood who Krishna was and they wanted to serve Krishna. But they also had to be eliminated and replaced in their roles as demigods, which they took in order to serve this lila.

Madhavananda is obviously using this example of the Yadu Dynasty so that his readers will conclude that certain members of Srila Prabhupada’s senior leaders during his lila period were similar to some members of the Yadu Dynasty — some were inimical and envious, but others were demigods. Madhavananda would have us believe that in either case, you can’t criticize them.

During the post-samadhi period in ISKCON, a lot of the senior leaders — both the Zonal Acaryas and those who served them – were eliminated by various means. There were eliminated not by fratricidal war, but through individual circumstances that removed them from the ISKCON scene because, like some members of the Yadu dynasty, they too were envious — of Srila Prabhupada. Of course, a proper analysis of that situation has never been made by ISKCON historians, and needless to say, Madhavananda does not venture down that road either. Nor does he make a clear and honest comparison between what happened to the Yadu Dynasty by Krishna’s arrangement, and what happened to the ISKCON leaders after Srila Prabhupada’s departure.

Madhavananda would like us to believe something different than reality about the ISKCON pastimes, and he places several thought-seeds in our mind in this regard. One of them is, that things are not always what they seem. What that actually means is not entirely clear. One would naturally consider the parallels between ISKCON history and the Yadu dynasty, but Madhavananda doesn’t draw that specific conclusion. What seems more likely, given the content of his lectures, is that he is suggesting that the critics of ISKCON are like the members of the Yadu dynasty, and they are all beating one another to death. Krishna is eliminating these critics, just as he eliminated members of the Yadu dynasty.

So things are not as they seem to Madhavananda… which is apparently meant to imply that the ISKCON leaders who the critics are fault-finding, they are the ones who may not be as they seem, on the surface. For example, Madhavananda would like us to entertain the thought that many of the devotees from the Zonal Acarya period who were removed or eliminated, and/or for that matter those still in power, are some kind of demigods. Those who left ISKCON returned to their posts as demigods, the damage they did to Srila Prabhupada’s pure spiritual movement and all the offenses they committed – these things should be overlooked because they’re in a different category or strata than the rest of us. Like the members of the Yadu dynasty who were playing a part in Sri Krishna’s lila, these fallen ISKCON leaders deserve to be looked at differently than the average devotee.

Thousands of devotees like myself left the ISKCON institution (not Srila Prabhupada’s transcendental movement), and the leaders would like us to believe that we all left because we were in Maya, not following properly, or committing offenses to our godbrothers, etc. As a result, we don’t deserve the same kind of consideration that the big, fallen leaders do. The ‘little people’ who left just have to be considered victims of maya, Kali Yuga, and their own minds and senses. The top leaders, however, they’re to be considered from a different vantage point. They are more like players in a lila drama, and their devastating falldowns are not really a reflection of personal failings – certainly nothing they should be personally criticized for. This is what Madhavananda would have you believe.

Another example from sastra that Madhavananda points to are two stories of Lord Indra — but he uses these pastimes to illustrate the opposite of the Yadu dynasty example. He uses Indra to support his notion that things are not always what they seem. We’ll explore these in more detail in a future segment, but briefly, in one pastime Indra comes in the disguise of a sannyasi and tries to interrupt Prithu Maharaja’s 100 ashvamedha sacrifices; the other is the Krishna lila pastime when Indra inundates Vraja with torrential rains because he’s angry with Nanda Maharaja’s decision to take Krishna’s advice, and not sacrifice for him. He Madhavananda these examples to give his audience the impression that ISKCON leaders can be likened to Indra, and that we should act accordingly and not criticize Lord Indra, because that was the same advice Narada Muni gave.

Of course, the approach taken by our Sampradaya Acaryas with such sastric examples is not, ‘Well, we won’t advertise the pastimes of the demigods who fell down or made mistakes’, although that’s the process Madhavananda suggests we follow in the case of ISKCON.

Such pastimes are spoken in the Srimad Bhagavatam and are purported by the Sampradaya Acaryas so that we can see the truth – not so that we can hide or ignore the truth. Srila Vedavyasa didn’t avoid naming Indra, or Lord Brahma, when he stole the cowherd boys.

And in their commentaries, our Sampradaya Acaryas did not blank out Indra’s name, or avoid mentioning it so they would not be criticizing an advanced Vaisnava. Srila Vedavyasa and the Acaryas did not hesitate to use their pastimes as examples of what not to do, and they didn’t feel they were being offensive by pointing out the mistakes made by demigods, or even exalted personalities such as Bhisma.

The fact is that the underlying analysis of these pastimes was given to us by advanced devotees so that we can understand. It’s not that, ‘I am so fallen, I am so unqualified that I can’t see, therefore I should not apply this philosophy to my own personal circumstances, or to the society, or to the history that I’m personally involved in. I should just read Srimad Bhagavatam and chant my rounds – or listen to lectures such as Madhavananda’s, and allow him to tell me the purport to what’s going on.’

And that’s basically what Madhavananda’s doing here. He’s giving us the perspective that he wants us to have, even though he’s not our guru, and we have not accepted him as a guru, and he’s not the guru of the vast majority of those who will listen to his three-part lecture series. Yet this is the very thing he tells us critics we should not do – don’t criticize anyone, because you are not their guru… you should only listen to your own guru, and no one else has any business or qualification to instruct you, or when it comes to ISKCON, warn you. Yet Madhavananda publishes his lectures online for all the devotees to hear. In the same way the Sun publishes articles, he publishes articles in his Krishna Kathamrita Bindu magazine.

And this brings us back to Madhavananda’s Putana theme and the primary underlying philosophical point, which is that in our midst, in our society, there are false gurus — demons in the disguise of devotees. Madhavananda is happy to encourage his listeners to consider the critics of ISKCON to be mini-Putanas, be he is not so keen on having us consider the fallen or contaminated ISKCON leaders to be such persons. No, let’s not deal with that. Let’s just hint at things, and conclude in the end that it’s really the critics of these persons who are at fault.

From my viewpoint, the critics in ISKCON today are, for the most part, themselves sincere devotees who are trying to assist other sincere devotees — and it’s only sincere devotees who will listen to the truth, because once you hear the truth, life becomes more difficult. When you hear the truth about the material world from the Srimad Bhagavatam and the Bhagavad-gita and Krishna and the Sampradaya Acaryas, your life becomes much more awkward and difficult at first, until you actually become realized — Krishna conscious.

In the same way, if you hear about the real history of ISKCON, the undisputed factual circumstances around the past and present leaders, then it can be very painful, but you’ll save yourself and avoid a lot of grief. But if you’re left without names, without details, without the actual circumstance being described, then you can only speculate and create a state of confusion, which nobody wants. Not wanting to deal with the truth of things, so many devotees instead just accept the sanitized version of ISKCON history — the Madhavananda lecture series version — because it’s the easy way to go.

But if you wish to know the truth, and you go read the infamous websites Madhavananda refers to disparagingly in his lectures, like the Sampradaya Sun, you will hear from the critics about the actual facts. You will hear the experiences of sincere devotees, and this becomes troublesome. It will cause you to start asking questions… “Who’s the bona fide guru? Who should I accept?” and so forth.

Madhavananda is not going down that road, because if he did… well, he’d be at risk of being taken out of commission by the ISKCON leaders. Instead, he has made it his business to act as everyone’s guru, lecturing them on the dangers of listening to critics like me, who he considers to be mini-Putanas, false gurus.

In my case, I happen to be the godbrother of many of the individuals I’m talking about. I participated as a disciple of Srila Prabhupada’s throughout most of his lila period, and I see it as my business to preach in such a way as to not only protect Srila Prabhupada’s movement, but to protect the people who want to find their way to the real Sampradaya Acarya and take shelter there. I’m not saying they shouldn’t take diksa, or they should break tradition, or break with sastric dictates. I’m saying that if you make the effort to understand ISKCON history properly, and understand who Srila Prabhupada is as the Sampradaya Acarya, then your whole journey will become much, much easier, not more difficult or confusing.

In the final analysis, the sastric references provided by Madhavananda in his lectures are not meant to describe critics such as myself. In the context of Madhavananda’s Putana theme, I don’t profess to be a great leader, either inside or outside of the institution. I have no disciples and I’m not a sannyasi, so it would be hard for me to try and dupe anyone into following me falsely. Nevertheless, while he didn’t call me by name in his lectures, Madhavananda das obviously considers me to be the very sort of mini-Putana false guru critic his preaching is aimed at.

Until we publish the next segment of our analysis of Madhavananda’s lecture series, we encourage the readers to read the GopalJiu.org website and listen to the three-part lecture series, “Demons in the Guise of Devotees”, posted on “ISKCON DesireTree“. You’ll discover that in the final lecture, especially, Madhavananda give us a very interesting twist on the examples he has presented for everyone’s contemplation. And we will begin there next time. Hare Krishna.