Sep 06, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Dear Lekraj Prabhu,
Please accept our humble obeisances. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada!
You suggest that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s Gaudyiya Matha failed, but before this can be said, we owe it ourselves to find “success” in “failure”. At the time Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur created the Gaudiya Matha, India was saturated with young, highly articulate intellectuals – smarta Brahmins, Mayavadis, Sunyavadis, etc.
These troublesome pseudo-philosophers were defeated by Srila Saraswati Thakur in His 3 day discourse which discussed the Vaishnava and the Brahmana. At the end of those three days, practically all of the Smarta voices had been silenced.
If Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur had not gathered a vast number of these rascals into His own “compound”, they would have run rampant over the land, and created enough institutions to effectively defeat Srila Prabhupada’s Efforts at preaching, out of the power of their sheer numbers.
As it was, when Srila Prabhupada brought His astonishing white “dancing elephants” to India, complete with tridandas, bead bags, mridangas and kartalas, and filled with unsuppressable American enthusiasm, the “burnt remnants” of the disintegrated Gaudiya institution rose up against Him in every was possible, trying, even at the fag end of their own lives, to defeat the Bhagavat Dharma generously distributed by Srila Prabhupada, which they themselves never even had the slightest intention to obey or follow.
So we could say that Saraswti Thakur “ran interference” for Srila Prabhupada, with the effect that the ISKCON Movement was able to make headway in practically every country in the world.
You then suggest that ISKCON, too, “failed”, but you also failed to notice that ISKCON still (for whatever else can be said about it) a united Movement with installed Deities, a plentitude of Srila Prabhupada’s Books still being distributed in large quantities, even though the management of ISKCON has become almost unbelievably corrupt. We see ISKCON, metaphorically, as a beautiful, large palace, with all the gold, gems, polished floors and appointments that one would expect to find in such a palace.
Unfortunately, instead of wonderful human pastimes within this gorgeous place, it has become completely packed with vermin such as pigs, weasels, snakes, and a vast number of rats.
So there are those who, seeing the house filled with rats and other disgusting pests, saying, “BURN IT DOWN! BURN IT DOWN! BURN IT DOWN!”, which can hardly be considered to be an intelligent point of view. Lord Chaitanya did not “burn down” the Gundica Temple. Rather, with huge quantities of water, He washed it, until no dirty thing remained.
The pests can be driven from the house, and we know exactly how to do it, even in the face of our skeptical Godbrothers, who, sometimes calling themselves “Ritviks”, will never lend a hand. If we feel that Srila Prabhupada made a mistake, and we accept and understand that He is the External Representative of Paramatma (Supersoul) then, we must consider, that Krishna made a mistake, which strains all credibility to the breaking point.
No, Prabhu, there has been no mistake. Everything is going according to schedule, and ISKCON, when rid of its apparently endless supply of corrupt inmates, when washed clean with the aid of the Hand of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, will serve the world as Srila Prabhupada intended it to, and His Deities, installed by His Hand, have not ceased to be Krishna Himself, for the very simple reason that Srila Prabhupada, with His Impeccable Sraddha, asked them, “Please sit tight, and do not move from this place.”
So as in the case of many great deities that have been found in the mountains, the forests, the mud, etc., Krishna has not diminished one bit by this apparent neglect.
He, as the Param Isvara, fixed in His unlimitedly Powerful Eternal Nature, has outwaited even the most egregious human neglect. In other words, the Deities installed by Srila Prabhupada in temples (particularly in the Holy Dhams) will remain there, in their Archa Vigraha Forms, for the full duration of the 10,000 years of the Golden Age of Kali, and perhaps beyond.
We are in the first 50 years of a 10,000 year Movement. A few mad clowns, imagining themselves to be very important indeed have thought that they (of all people) have the power to “gum up the works” of the Pure Devotee of Krishna (who, by His very Nature, is unlimitedly powerful and impossible to defeat) will be utterly forgotten and buried in the dust of history as this Krishna Consciousness Movement, even after a few hundred years, what to speak of 10,000 years.
The ISKCON Movement will be manned by men of integrity and intelligence that we cannot even presently comprehend, who will actually read Srila Prabhupada’s Books, study every word, hold Istagosthis to reach Siddhanta on difficult points of realization and understanding, and then bind together to bring such conclusions into tangible results, experiencable by every man, woman and child on earth.
In 1970 Srila Prabhupada created a document called the Direction of Management, which His so-called “GBC” followers refused to accept over the following 7 years, when they launched themselves as “gurus”. The Direction of Management states clearly that each temple (as you very intelligently suggest) is individual, and independently owned and operated by the congregation members.
When there were sufficient temples, they were to nominate men who were currently Temple Presidents, to the post of GBC, and who would remain for 3 years only as GBC before returning to their respective temples to resume their duties as Temple President.
Srila Prabhupada clearly wished to separate “Church and State”, and that no one in management would be considered to be more sacred and holy than any other person. The “sacred and holy” would be reserved for Srila Prabhupada’s Vani, which by then (by default), would be placed in the very center of each ISKCON temple. As Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati said about His Father, Thakur Bhaktivinode: “He is eternally the Savior, and we are eternally the saved.”
So if the mood in each ISKCON center was that Srila Prabhupada is eternally our Savior, and if each elected Temple President, and each elected GBC saw themselves as the “eternally saved”, there would be no competition within any temples that would draw attention away from Srila Prabhupada, and the extraordinary multi-volume Vani that He left for us to study, reach Siddhanta, and then implement far and wide.
Regarding donations: Under the management structure proposed in the Direction of Management, those making the donations would also be those monitoring how those donations were used. Whoever donates must also become expert in Srila Prabhupada’s Teaching, so that everything will be transparent from the very beginning to the very end.
Early on in the Movement, Srila Prabhupada requested that all the Temple account books be read out loud weekly on the Temple steps so that anyone, including even passersby, would have a complete understanding of where every penny came from, to fill the Temple coffers, and how each penny was spent in the Service of Krishna (rather than salaries and perks, which were forbidden.)
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