Prabhupadanugas UK: Readers’ questions and challenges

[The letter below was sent in response to BTP’s exposee of ISKCON guru Satsvarupa Das’s sex novel, which was subsequently withdrawn by the GBC, as highlighted in BTP 17]:

“I am very sad to see that you are one of those people who seek pleasure in attacking others. If you really want to please Srila Prabhupada, why don’t you just engage yourselves in spreading the Holy Name to other desperate conditioned souls in this Kali Yuga? What can you gain in being so busy seeking the open sores like the flies?”
– Gopi Gita Devi Dasi, Krishna.com

Editor replies:

1) You claim our actions are wrong, yet the GBC and Satsvarupa acted on our action and Satsvarupa’s book was withdrawn. So if our actions are wrong, then why did the GBC and Satsvarupa act on them and agree with them? How can it be bona fide for the GBC and Satsvarupa to act on “some devotees concerns”, but it be wrong for devotees to express those very concerns in the first place?
2) You are attacking us, saying that we “take pleasure in attacking others”, and are “busy seeking open sores like flies”. So why didn’t you follow your own advice and simply engage yourself in spreading the Holy Name to others? Instead, you felt it important to point out what you thought were our mistakes. So how can it be wrong if others also point out mistakes?

If your standards apply to our actions, then by extension, the GBC, Satsvarupa and you yourself are also guilty (see 1 and 2 above). By your own standards, you should not have even written to us in the first place criticising us.
You are thus defeated by your own hypocrisy and self-contradiction.

“If your organization feels that ISKCON is not running as Srila Prabhupada desired then you should do the same thing as Srila Prabhupada did when he felt that Gaudiya Math is not running as his Guru Maharaja desired. […] In your magazine there is no word of pure devotion on the lotus feet of Krishna. I do not want your magazine. Because, as milk touched by snake give poisonous effect, similar effect one can get in spiritual life by reading your magazine, in the name of devotion to Krishna.
– Amoha Das, Goa, India

Editor replies:
Srila Prabhupada as the Acarya is empowered to found his own organization. We however are not successor Acaryas empowered to start our own societies. On the one hand you are claiming we are deviant snakes, and on the other you are claiming we are acaryas! “Pure devotion to the lotus feet of Krishna” means to surrender to Krishna through the bona fide Guru, since you cannot approach Krishna directly. Srila Prabhupada is that bona fide Guru. How, therefore, can we be pleasing Srila Prabhupada by kicking him out as ISKCON’s Guru? How is this “pure devotion to the lotus feet of Krishna”? Indeed, spiritual life does not even begin unless one has first surrendered to the bona fide Guru.
Since our magazine is the only literature telling people who the bona fide Guru is to whom one must surrender in order to attain pure devotion to the lotus feet of Krishna, it can only help one begin one’s spiritual life; because without Srila Prabhupada as the Guru, there is no spiritual life. Therefore your desire in the name of devotion to Krishna to not be informed regarding the actual status of the bona fide guru for ISKCON, means you are actually preventing your possible devotion to Lord Krishna.

“Based upon the deviant nature of your philosophy I would presume you use similarly deviant methods to solicit devotees. Right now is the Prabhupada book marathon, if you really want to please our param guru then why don’t you do what really pleases him by distributing his books, rather than getting involved in trying to tear apart communities? ”
– Patita Pavana Rama Das, UK

Editor replies:
You say that our philosophy is “deviant”, yet you do not say why following Srila Prabhupada’s instructions to keep him as the diksa Guru of ISKCON as per his July 9th 1977 directive and his Last Will and Testament, is “deviant”. On the contrary, not following his instructions, and relegating him to being the “param guru” of his own movement in favour of 80 voted-in substitute successors, is the real deviancy.
You talk about what really pleases Srila Prabhupada. You cannot please Srila Prabhupada by kicking him out as the Guru of his own movement and then hypocritically distributing his books, while simultaneously proclaiming to the general public that the Guru whose books we should follow is not actually the Guru!
You say we are “trying to tear apart communities”. But you cannot tear apart that which is not united to begin with. ISKCON today is nothing more than dozens of competing guru cults, with gurus constantly trying to outdo each other and deviating from Srila Prabhupada’s teachings. We have continually documented this disunity and deviation in the pages of BTP. There can not be any brotherhood in ISKCON without the fatherhood of Srila Prabhupada. These are the facts which you are unable to challenge, but would rather ignore by burying your head in the sand.

“I have received a few issues of Back to Prabhupada. There is no doubt, Srila Prabhupada is the Guru and he should be followed. But, beyond that I found the issues and their contents were almost similar in many respects. Like, speaking about lies, Gurus and the scandals and such things.”
– Rhama Parthasarathy, Dresden, Germany

Editor replies:
You are correct that there is no doubt that Srila Prabhupada is the Guru and that he should be followed. But for many ISKCON members and supporters there is still a lot of doubt that this is indeed the fact. Hence, BTP has to continue educating them by presenting the truth regarding Srila Prabhupada and how today’s ISKCON is not following him. And as you can judge from our letters pages, we are being successful in our attempt, as more and more readers change their lives by rejecting the path of illusion and embrace Srila Prabhupada as the true spiritual master.
Further, how can one claim to be following Srila Prabhupada unless they take action to expose and expunge the lies and scandals that are being perpetrated in his name? And only BTP and the IRM are taking this action.
It is incumbent on all true disciples to speak the truth, even when it is unpalatable to do so, as this is what Srila Prabhupada has instructed us to do:

“If a man is a thief and if people are warned that he is a thief, that is truth. Although sometimes the truth is unpalatable, one should not refrain from speaking it. Truthfulness demands that the facts be presented as they are for the benefit of others. That is the definition of truth.”
(Bhagavad-gita As It Is, 10:4-5, purport)