Rocana Prabhu: Madhu Pandit dasa is a pretty ideal temple leader

Bhaktin Petra, 15. Januar 2009: “Rocana Prabhu, Sampradaya Sun, stellt die Frage, siehe unten, ob Madhu Pandit in Bangalore nicht so etwas wie ein König sei? – Soviel Erfolg, zehntausende Menschen arbeiten unter seiner Führung, soviele erfolgreiche Projekte gleichzeitig.
Und das alles obwohl Madhu Pandit Prabhu “nur” ein ritvik ist, also jemand der sich nicht selbst in den Mittelpunkt stellt, sondern Srila Prabhupada. Dies scheint für viele ein Widerspruch, aber gleichzeitig sieht man doch wie jetzt einige grübeln, ist dies der Weg um an die Macht zu kommen? Bleibt zu hoffen, dass die Devotees da nicht mehr mitspielen und machthungrigen Führern die rote Karte zeigen.  Aber Madhu Pandit Prabhu wird das sicherlich in nächster Zeit klar stellen, dass falsches Ego und Erfolg im hingebungsvollen Dienen niemals parallel laufen. ”

Varnasrama Starts with the King

BY: ROCANA DASA

Jan 14, CANADA (SUN) — Last month there was a great deal of discussion about what’s going on in Bangalore, which has become the “unofficial seat” of ISKCON in India. Of course, Bangalore is not part of what is known as the “official ISKCON”, which is the institution run by the GBC. Having now officially announced themselves as a Rtvik temple, ISKCON Bangalore, headed up by Madhu Pandit dasa, is finally being revealed for what it is — a very successful preaching program.

Earlier discussions in the Sun were about how the Akshaya Patra program’s finances were being handled. There were some detractors who felt that Madhu Pandit dasa and his lieutenants were not doing things in a proper way, or there was some hypocrisy at work, and it was suggested that Madhu Pandit is personally profiting from what’s going on there. The responses coming from Bangalore to these charges were level-headed and quite thorough in dispelling this impression, and we have had no new word from the challengers.

We then had a series of articles on how Bangalore is trying to implement the DOM, which is Srila Prabhupada’s method of management. And our readers are now getting an opportunity to see many of the temple activities at Bangalore in full color, as devotees have begun to submit more material to the Sun for publication. Yesterday’s photo-journal spread on the Vaikuntha Ekadasi festival was very inspiring.

All these goings-on at Bangalore have gotten me thinking about the situation there, as far as I know it. I admit I haven’t been to Bangalore while Madhu Pandit has been in charge, so I’m hearing all this third-hand, and via all the articles and comments that have been sent our way. But I was considering, what is the original Vedic system? The devotees are constantly trying to figure out what did Srila Prabhupada wanted, how he wanted us to manage his movement, and what kind of managerial system he promoted. Of course, in the early days of ISKCON there was the structure of the GBC, Temple Presidents and various temple authorities, but Srila Prabhupada’s main vision and preaching was along the lines of varnasrama. The varnasrama principles and organizational structure were established according to the sastra by Krsna, and it is the ideal, perfect system.

In Kali yuga, this system first broke down when the brahmans, who were essentially the head of the varnasrama system, became corrupted. Then there were the kshatriyas, who also became corrupted. And what we find today, the capitalist democratic system, is basically catering to the vaisyas being in charge of society. Of course, this has further deteriorated. Basically, the higher or influential class became selfish, lost their God-consciousness, and started to exploit those beneath them. When the capitalists exploited people to the degree that they did, then the Communist system came in for a time, wherein the sudras got their revenge towards the capitalists who were exploiting them.

Today, we find this interesting and unique scenario unfolding in Bangalore where, from what I can gather, Madhu Pandit has naturally evolved into a role something like that of the king. He certainly fits that role much more than any ISKCON leader who’s a sannyasi, or supposedly a brahman.

I’ve heard Srila Prabhupada say on many occasions in lectures, and you’ll find it in the Srimad Bhagavatam, that when the brahmans — and more importantly the sannyasis – when they had to get rid of a king because he was just too atheistic and disgusting, they always replaced him with his son or some heir to the throne. They let the replacement know this is how things are done, and they let him carry on and do his duty as a kshatriya, while they went back to their duty. They didn’t replace the king by installing themselves as the leaders of the kingdom, because that is not the proper role for brahmans and sannyasis. But that is exactly the kind of imbalance we find in ISKCON, and as we can clearly see today, it does not work.

Now in many respects, that was the system in place when Srila Prabhupada was here. Of course, this is not reported or promoted by the present leaders, who dismantled that system, and they don’t want anyone to understand why they did this. Back then, the temples were all run by grihasta leaders. While I’m not suggesting that they were as expert as Madhu Pandit, and probably weren’t, they provided the same kind of leadership, on a level reminiscent of a king or a kshatriya. They had their frailties and problems, as even Vedic kings did, but the kshatriyas weren’t expected to be perfect, like the brahmans or sannyasis. For the most part, they did a very admirable job of running and expanding Srila Prabhupada’s temples.

I was one of those Temple Presidents, and a lot of my close friends were also Temple Presidents in Canada and the U.S. I could speak at length about how the system worked, and have written about it in the past. In many ways, it’s similar to the system we find today in Bangalore, except there’s it’s being done on a more glorious and grand scale.

I’m guessing that Madhu Pandit’s motivation to extricate himself from ISKCON and the burden of having to deal with the so-called GBC was largely based on the principle that they were interfering and causing him a lot of grief, and holding him back from making the desired progress. Truthfully speaking, even during Srila Prabhupada’s lila, from the point of view of most Temple Presidents, the GBC were a burden and a pain that had to be transcended. They never embraced the principle that Srila Prabhupada established the GBC on originally, and for the most part, we were glad to see the back of most of the GBC and waved to them when they got on the airplane. They didn’t really accomplish anything, but rather caused the local temple managers a lot of problems.

Basically, Srila Prabhupada said that he wanted the GBC to “do as I am doing”, which meant to preach, visit the temples, enliven everyone, stay out of politics, stay out of management. They were supposed to travel and inspire the devotees, to make sure that Srila Prabhupada’s vision and his programs were being maintained and expanding, and not getting out of hand due to the notions of the local authorities.

Of course, to whatever degree they were following those instructions, that all changed when Srila Prabhupada left. That in itself is a long story — how the Zonal Acarya system impacted the local temples, and how the leaders became discouraged and eventually all of them, that I know of, either decided to become sannyasis or plug themselves into some ISKCON program or, like the majority, they just gave up their service in their prabhu-datta-desa because it was just too frustrating.

Each local temple has its own unique story, but it all amounts to the same thing: the local leaders became discouraged. Srila Prabhupada’s system of management was undermined all across North America. But today, we see that system working effectively in Bangalore. If you look at Madhu Pandit dasa in that light, he’s a pretty ideal temple leader. He’s not running around in glorious attire or under grandious circumstances, as even the Vedic kings did, what to speak of the ISKCON sannyasis today. He works very hard and he has good advisors around him, and people are happy. All the elements of Krsna consciousness are being fulfilled: the sadhana, the Deity worship, the book distribution, prasadam distribution, festivals, recruitment… all those things are happening on a very wonderful scale.

Of course, we don’t’ expect Madhu Pandit to embrace the idea of becoming an official king, but if we want to take Srila Prabhupada’s vision of varnasrama and extend it, we do have to consider the big dilemma of how to introduce varnasrama from a leadership standpoint. If you look at the real varnasrama system, we see that the whole concept of leadership is of the utmost importance. The principle of a blind uncle is better than no uncle – or a bad king is better than no king – was practiced in previous ages, and also in early ISKCON. Even if someone was a relatively bad leader due to the influence of the age of Kali, in comparison to the Vedic kings of a previous age, it’s better to have a bad king than no king at all. You absolutely have to have leadership. Srila Prabhupada promoted his new, young disciples into leadership positions that they had no training for, and had no life experience to support. They’d had only a very short time in Krsna consciousness. The leadership position certainly tested them, and those who didn’t come up to the level of maturity and responsibility that was required by the positions were virtually burned out. But the need for leadership was clearly understood by Srila Prabhupada, and the system did work. Of course, it would have worked a lot better if the leaders were far more qualified, but if we hadn’t had those leaders, then without a doubt we wouldn’t have enjoyed the results we had.

It seems logical to me that based on that principle, someone of Madhu Pandit’s qualifications might well evolve into being a king. After all, he’s really creating a kingdom – a huge organization – and one of the main principals is that if you have a pure leader, then you don’t have all this unnecessary, expensive, burdensome bureaucracy. Someone has a vision, they make the necessary decisions, they have the power and the resources to see those decisions carried out, and the vision accomplished. And that’s what it means to be a king. In many ways, this is a very simple means of governing, so long as the king is pure and a Vaisnava, and he is respectful of the Acaryas. As far as I can understand, that is Madhu Pandit’s position. His adoption of Rtvik-vada may be the only exception, but that is a position he may also revise in the future, when’s he’s been exposed to a higher level of preaching.

So I’m not raising the banner here and saying “Madhu Pandit for King”, or “Madhu Pandit for Life”, or Madhu Pandit should set-up a dynasty. I just wanted to share my vision on leadership, and how I see things from a distance, going on there in Bangalore.