“Euro GBC Invents Their Own Movement”

Ravanari das, Jan 01, USA: With their announcement of the ISKCON Europe Excellence Awards (they’ve even got initials for them, the IEAA, isn’t that cutesie?) the politicos in Europe or the €GBC have again twisted Srila Prabhupada’s movement another notch out of shape. What do the recipients of the IEAA’s receive as a prize? A trip to Disneyland? A DVD of the new Avatar movie? What rubbish will they invent next?

Do you think that Srila Prabhupada would approve of such utter nonsense—bribing devotees with empty rewards for selfless devotional service? Do they think they need to entice mahatmas by offering them awards like a bunch of grinning karmis on a TV game show? Ask any devotee who has actually read the books what they think Srila Prabhupada would say to this crass display of flattering innocent members of the society. His Divine Grace would have thundered, “Our prize is Krishna consciousness. Krishna-seva itself is the prize. The GBC has stepped outside their bounds.” Or how about this quote from Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati: “If the sadhu turns to flatter me, he becomes my enemy.”

What the Euro-politicos have now done is to rope a price tag onto devotional service by announcing their “First Annual” official awards. Nowhere in Srila Prabhupada’s instructions is it stated that his GBC will award yearly prizes like kewpie dolls at a carnival. That the devotees who have been named as recipients of the dubious honor are quite worthy is not in question. What is in question is where the €GBC gets their power and authority to invent such new and novel twists, while claiming to represent the world’s most ancient culture. The psychology of the €GBC demonstrates their attitude of thinking they need to patronize the genuine devotees—who form the heart and soul of this movement—by trying to ply them with concocted inventions.

The €GBC is on a subtle ego trip which, to ease their collective conscience, forces them to be nice once a year, but “nice” only in an official way. These “Excellence Awards” are nothing more than a grand condescending collective smile from the € in-crowd, sitting high in an ivory tower with fawning appreciation for their underlings. The great devotees in this movement do no require such hollow bribery. Evidentially, the €GBC do not know how to properly honor their fellow devotees as equals. That is because they think that they are somehow superior. That is the disease such “leaders” get from remaining apart from mahatmas who are worthy of their worship as selfless bhaktas.

Why not invite them for a festival at some temple? Would you be ashamed of having a rank and file devotee tag along with you? How about writing an essay about how much they appreciate such nice devotees? Is it too much to just pen an essay for one of your websites about how much you cherish their examples? You all like to be thought of as big authors anyway, don’t you? So write something about the glories of your Godbrothers and –sisters instead of expecting others to glorify you all the time. Say, why not try perhaps even talking to them individually like fellow human beings, instead of your usual €GBC “I’m too important, too uptight and too busy to give inferior underlings like you the time of day” routine.

None of the devotees named in this €GBC fiasco have served the Supreme Lord with the thought in mind of being insulted with your artificially-created dubious honors. It would be poetically just for these “award winners” to give the Big Shots in the €GBC a nice “thanks but no thanks”. After all, why should dedicated Prabhus who are thoroughly honest be used as test market docile guinea pigs for another experiment in bending the Hare Krishna Moment further out of shape?