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EDITORIAL July 22, 2000 VNN6100 Comment on this story GBC's Ill-treatment Of Hdg Srila Gour Govinda Swami Gurudeva BY SENAN G. S. EDITORIAL, Jul 22 (VNN) — From: Ramchandra SS To: G S Senan Subject: JAI SRILA GURUDEV ! Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 03:00:06 -0700 (PDT) =================================== Thank you very much, Ramcandra Prabhu, for sending me this sad and touching, yet enlivening copy of Rasamanjari Mataji's letter about GBC's continuous ill-treatment of our dearmost Pranadhana Gurudeva. Their envious behaviour towards him during Gurudeva's Prakata-lila led to his premature departure from this world. Yet, in spite of his physical absence, they cannot control or hide their deep-seated envious behavior, and continue to bully and harass those who glorify him. They cannot bear to witness his growing popularity stemming from his fantastic books so beautifully published and distributed by his dear and sincere disciples and followers. HOW CAN NITYA BADDHAS STOP THE FLOOD-LIKE FLOW OF THE GLORIES OF SUCH A GREAT SAD-SISYA OF SRILA PRABHUPADA? SRILA PRABHUPADA REPEATEDLY SAID THAT IF HE COULD GET JUST ONE PURE DESCIPLE, HE WOULD CONSIDER HIS LIFELONG MISSION A SUCCESS. THAT ONE AND ONLY SAD-SISYA HAPPENED TO BE OUR GREAT GURUDEVA SRILA GOUR GOVINDA SWAMI MAHARAJA. THIS REALIZATION CAUSED HAVOC IN THE RANKS OF HIS ENVIOUS GOD-BROTHERS/SISTERS THROUGHOUT ISKCON, ESPECIALLY AMONGST THE PAST AND PRESENT GBC MEMBERS, TEMPLE PRESIDENTS AND OTHER FOOLISH SO-CALLED DEVOTEES. LET'S PRAY THAT LORD YAMARAJAS WRATH WILL SOON BURN AWAY THEIR GROSS VAISNAVA APARADHAS. Mother Rasamanjari's simple and plainly truthful glorification of Srila Gurudeva in this eye-opening letter expressing her heart-felt disappointment with all those who harbour ill-will towards him, must, in my humble opinion, be shared with all. Though it is addressed to HH Vipramukya Swami, with her request for him to do something about GBC's wanton behavior to-date, i doubt he can do much to pierce the hard-hearted miserly minds of the shameless members of GBC who only wish to luxuriate in their own self esteem and cheap glories. i therefore take it upon myself, while begging for her forgiveness for not seeking her prior consent, to copy her most important letter to as many people as possible, including VNN and CHAKRA who (i pray) will find it most news-worthy to include it in their pages. Such publicity exposing the avaisnava behavior of useless people elected into the highest offices of trust can, hopefully, create a ground-swell of protests against those authorities, which could have more positive results. Otherwise, what can one man do? GBC will simply sweep the matter under the carpet, as they have been doing for decades. Thank you, Rasamanjari Mataji, for your brave and rare willingness to glorify our simply wonderful Gurudeva despite knowing that you will get brickbats and ill-treatment for your honesty. What you have written about him are my exact realizations, but you have expressed them far better than i could ever have done myself.All who read your letter with care and concern, will surely benefit from it. JAYA! SRILA GOUR GOVINDA SWAMI MAHASAYA GURUDEVA KI JAI!!HARE KRSNA! Your fallen servant, g s senan, Singapore. 11th July, 2000. COPY OF MOTHER RASAMANJARI DEVI DASI'S LETTER TO HH VIPRAMUKYA SWAMI: All Glories to Sri Sri Guru and Gauranga Dear His Holiness Vipramukya Swami, Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to our eternal spiritual master His Divine Grace Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Hope this meets you in good health. Prabhu, I would like to bring to your attention a letter which one Chakra editor, Madhusudani dasi, wrote to me (please see below). As far as I can see, there was no need to write to me in such a curt and spiteful manner, warning against violating GBC resolutions in correspondence with her. In a great rush to catch a flight to Rathayatra, I accidentally neglected to delete a part of my usual email letterhead glorifying Srila Prabhupada and the person who is teaching me all about how to love and serve Srila Prabhupada--the person who dragged me back from the strong and terrible clutches of Maya, the person who inspires, engages and purifies me in my Srila Prabhupada and Sri Krsna consciousness, who saved me from going to Narayana Maharaja and the ritviks; I mean Srila Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja, an exalted pure devotee, and our dear godbrother (although I never consider him as such, knowing him to be a nitya siddha and Sri Guru). Simply due to envy she has written to me in this way. For her sake and Chakra's, she should be corrected. When a person feels completely justified to chastise anyone for glorifying a dear disciple of Srila Prabhupada and a faultless pure devotee--a completely offenseless person, and she thinks her actions are condoned due to some GBC resolutions, we have to worry about the future fate of our movement. Srila Prabhupada made it very clear that the business of GBC is to maintain the discipline in our society; make sure the devotees are chanting their 16 rounds and following the four regulative principals, etc., and thus purify our hearts from envy. Actually the GBC could get valuable help in their endeavor to get devotees to chant their rounds purely and follow the principals if they would encourage devotees to read the books of Srila Gour Govinda Swami. The highly readable book, Srila Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja's glorious life history, Krsna Lingita Vigraha, One who is always embraced by Krsna, should be read by all ISKCON devotees to enliven and purify us. I have just been reading it and it is fantastic. Srila Gour Govinda Swami Srila Gurudeva never ever experienced eating even garlic nor onions, what to speak of egg, meat or beef-eating, pot-smoking, illicit sexual affairs, alcohol and drug addiction, tea or coffee drinking, obsessive sports and television/video watching like us. Even among saints he was notable. He took birth in a famous, pure vaisnava family in the line of Sri Shyamananda Prabhu. From his very birth he was Krsna lingita, always embraced by Krsna; he never forgot Krsna for a moment. As a young child he used to fall asleep clutching the Srimad Bhagavatam to his chest, sometimes he would cry until his mother put Srimad Bhagavatam into his hands; then he would stop. His earliest memory was singing the songs of Srila Narottama das Thakur which he sang while going on traveling harinam sankirtan with his uncles from village to village. He could give deep explanations on the Srimad Bhagavatam and Srimad Bhagavad Gita from the age of 8. He used to worship Sri Gopal Jiu with all devotion. In his childhood, the renowned, blind astrologer named Nityananda Khadiratna spoke of him, "This boy is full of devotion and he is very intelligent. He will marry and obtain government service. When he is in his middle age he will give up family life and become a sadhu. He will attain high knowledge and an important place in the line of sadhus. He will build temples. He will make Gopal's place bright. Krsna Himself has sent this child from His own abode--nitya-dhama--to this material world for preaching His message and to deliver the fallen conditioned souls." He fulfilled all the prophesies of this astrologer. He manifest all symptoms of being a pure vaisnava from his very birth and he never fell down from the pure vaisnava standard in his entire life. He took initiation from Srila Prabhupada and showed the highest standard of guru disciple relationship just to teach us, and he didn't just parrot like the rest of us, he actually expanded on the supremely exalted teachings of the Sri Bhaktivedanta Purports; but would we learn anything? NO. Because we thought we knew everything. We wouldn't humble ourselves to learn anything from him. We are so unjustly proud, yet he is so genuinely humble and loving. So it behooves the GBC to encourage devotees to hear about and glorify a pure vaisnava like him, to get help in their service as GBC for Srila Prabhupada. If the GBC will do that, then envy will leave our society. Then also, devotees like Madhusudani dasi will not make offense and yell at others for respecting and honoring great vaisnava servants of Srila Prabhupada like Srila Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja. If the GBC is unable to discipline themselves to follow the regulative principals and chant their rounds, if they are not able to inspire members of our society to give up bad qualities like envy of pure devotees, but rather pass laws which somehow condone free expression of such hellish qualities, then their function becomes extremely suspect. Now Srila Prabhupada's society is being sued for 400 million by its children--basically for not following the practices which would have purified our hearts and made us into decent human beings, for refusal to learn the deep tattvas of devotional service, and for vaisnava aparadha which naturally occurred as a result of this neglect. Rumors abound about Jayapataka Swami not chanting his rounds for years, Lokanatha Swami producing a DNA-proven illegitimate child, Varshana Swami being rescued by police from a life-member's locked bathroom after passing out drunk in the tub with 4.0% alcohol content in his body, Romapada having millions in his bank accounts and talking to girls on the phone for hours at a time, Hridayananda Maharaja and Guru Prasad Swami going to Badger, California, last month to speak and dance with Narayana Maharaja (who the GBC has banned devotees from going to see since 1994), Jayadwaita Maharaja publicly refusing to cooperate and pay the $500 per disciple tax, Bhaktitirtha Swami Krsnapada's using the honorific term ''pada'' without reservation in his books and in the society, just to mention a few....Why can't the GBC discipline these? Why couldn't they discipline the child molesters? Why is everything all backwards? And if the rumors are true that the GBC actually sent Bhadrinarayan and then Hrdayananda Swami and Guru Prasad Swami to meet with Narayana Maharaja, for purposes of developing 'mutual respect,' --no wonder our society is having so much trouble. What hypocrisy! We never encourage devotees to hear from ISKCON's own pure devotee disciple and follower of Srila Prabhupada, rather we neglect, restrict and mistreat him off the face of the planet; we refuse to try to understand his enlivening explanations of sri guru tattva and we publish an entire book attempting to prove him wrong on his elevated explanation of Srila Prabhupada's explanation of jiva tattva. Yet Narayana Maharaja completely agrees with both Srila Prabhupada and him on these two points and we send a GBC delegation to dance with and 'mutually respect' him? Maharaja, I ask you, "What's wrong with this picture?" Why pass laws against using honorific titles of pure vaisnavas, which painfully restrain sincere spiritual aspirants who have understood that glorifying His dearest servants, the pure vaisnava, is the quickest, easiest, surest, safest and sweetest way to please Lord Krsna, the sole objective and purpose of the International Society for Krsna Consciousness? Chakra claims it is independent and it is not controlled by the GBC. Madhusudani dasi says she cannot use honorifics for Srila Gour Govinda Swami because of GBC resolutions. So instead of being duplicitous, Chakra should let its readers know honestly whether they are in fact controlled by GBC or not. That way we know who is responsible, the GBC or Chakra for the policies and decisions which affect the submissions and articles of the site. Or if such decisions are just left up to the whims of envious and less-intelligent women, we should be informed of this, also. Put it in writing: "Editorial decisions are left up to the whims of envious and less-intellignent women so submit at your own risk." Since you are one of the important persons at Chakra.org, I just thought to bring this all to your attention. First Madhusudani dasi edited my The Real Truth letter to remove all the Srilas for Srila Gour Govinda Swami. Then she wrote Hi Holiness instead of His Holiness (and judging from her attitude I can't help but doubt whether it was an accident). Then in the index of articles, she put GG Swami and Narayana Mah, again minimizing Srila Gour Govinda and maximizing an outsider. Recently Chakra published long articles by Dravida and Bhadrinarayana Prabhus which said Srila Narayana Maharaja dozens of times What's with that? A pure vaisnava servant of Srila Prabhupada who fully dedicated his entire life to helping the ISKCON devotees understand and follow Srila Prabhupada and Sri Sri Gaura Nitai, is refused the title Srila, but a person from the Gaudiya Matha, whose obvious intention is to take over ISKCON as Srila Prabhupada's self-advertised "spiritual and transcendental successor" gets Srila everywhere. Has Chakra become infected with Narayana Maharaja fever?...Or do they just hate ISKCON's pure devotees....or both? What are we supposed to conclude? Madhusudani dasi says she doesn't have time to correct her editing mistake or even to answer Mother Sadhika's email letters, which ask her to remove the letter or correct the letter mistakenly attributed to her, which should have been attributed to me, and yet she finds the time to become rudely corrective in email to me about what she will accept in personal letters just because I accidentally sent along something respectful and true about Srila Gour Govinda Swami. Usually with my godbrothers and sisters I am careful to not say glorification of Srila Gour Govinda Swami because they feel insignificant when they compare their purity to his. Unable to bear this feeling of insignificance in their pride-filled hearts, they react in an envious way toward him, which is very painful for him and me and not at all good for them. It was just an honest accident on my part that she had to read and burn in my glorification of him. Maharaja, I don't even know all the laws and rules the GBC has come up with. Although I usually try to keep Srila Gour Govinda Swami Srila Gurudeva's pure name out of the way of offenders, as far as I am concerned, despite this new and poorly conceived resolution, if a person behaves like a Divine Grace it is offensive to not call him by a title respecting that. Actually, from what I have read by GBC, at the time of Srila Gurudeva's divine passing, they all accepted and proclaimed him as being Divine: "GBC Resolution on the Demise of His Divine Grace Gour Govinda Goswami Maharaja: We the undersigned members and servants of the Governing Body Commission of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, today, the 11th of February, 1996, in Sridham Mayapur at the ISKCON Sri Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir, express our profound bereavement on the passing of our dear Godbrother and fellow Governing Body Commissioner his Divine Grace Om Visnupada Sri Srimad Gour Govinda Goswami Maharaja, the beloved disciple of ISKCON Founder- Acharya His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Sri Srimad Gour Govinda Goswami Maharaja dedicated his life to fulfilling Srila Prabhupada's order to spread Krishna Consciousness throughout the world and specifically among the people of Orissa. He translated Srila Prabhupada's transcendental literature and fulfilled Srila Prabhupada's desire for a Krishna-Balarama Mandir in Bhubaneswar. He was not only a topmost devotee but he was also a great and learned scholar. In this time of their great grief, we pledge ourselves to the service of his disciples and followers who are determined to carry on his great service to the mission of Srila Prabhupada. With feelings of separation we note that Sri Srimad Gour Govinda Goswami Maharaja departed this world February 9, 1996, on the auspicious Appearance of Om Visnupada Paramahamsa Parivrajakacarya Sri Srimad Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur Prabhupada, while reciting the pastimes of Lord Sri Krsna, in spiritual world headquarters of ISKCON, at the conclusion of a full day of unalloyed devotional service to his spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada. His departure shows all auspicious symptoms and his success fills our hearts with admiration. His life and disappearance pastimes shall remain a great inspiration to all members of ISKCON. GBC Resolution #2 Whereas his Holiness Gour Govinda Maharaja was a great devotee of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Srila Prabhupada, Whereas His Holiness Gour Govinda Maharaja passed from this world in Sri Mayapura Dham on the holy appearance day of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur, on the occasion of the Centennial Celebration of the appearance of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Whereas His Holiness Gour Govinda Maharaja passed from this world while preaching the intimate glories of Lord Jagannatha, Radha and Krishna Therefore it is proposed that the disappearance day of His Holiness Gour Govinda Maharaja be observed on the ISKCON GBC and BBT Calendar every year." Now we are going to assume that nobody held a gun to anybody's head or paid any sum of money as a bribe to get the GBC to speak such praise. Nor was there any call to flatter Srila Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja in hopes of getting flattery back at some later time. And everyone knows that none of his disciples had sufficient standing in ISKCON to warrant the GBC's making resolutions just to placate them. The plain and simple fact is that Srila Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja totally deserves all the glorification which Lord Krishna inspired the GBC to offer after he enacted his pure, dedicated life and then disappeared so gloriously. And he has not done anything to warrant a reduction in the GBC's admiration and glorification of him since his glorious disappearance, so why be mean-hearted and insist on removing his honorific titles? Actually, if Madhusudani devi and others like her wish to get stuck in technicalities, according to the wording in this law 6.4.8.2 of 1999, the GBC have also forgotten that Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada is also His Divine Grace and a member of ISKCON. So she has brought it to my attention that both my diksha and siksha gurus are being cruelly and unfairly minimized to try to fit them in on the same level as some hopefully sincere but much less-qualified persons who perhaps do need to keep their self-esteem down for their own protection. If you think on it, you might agree with me. This is very disturbing and intolerable. Where are Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva going to go if the GBC kicks them out of ISKCON by increasingly minimizing their glories and position? Will they have to shift their transcendental presence like Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur and Srila Prabhupada shifted away from the Gaudiya Matha to continue conducting Lord Caitanya's sankirtan movement? Please tell me. Will ISKCON become a dried-up branch of the Caitanya Tree like Srila Prabhupada says the Gaudiya Matha did? Before it is too late, I seriously propose that the GBC should amend this resolution 6.4.8.2 to allow His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada and any other qualified vaisnavas including our predecessor acaryas, to use the honorific titles. Would you kindly suggest it to whoever makes the motions to amend resolutions? Then, due to glorification of the bona fide acharyas, we may be able to get out of the mess we are so deeply sunk in. I notice the ISKCON calendar has taken this resolution to extremes and many are not getting an honorific title in front of Their name, not even Srila Narottama das Thakur nor even the Supreme Lord Sri Nityananda Prabhu. How could that be pleasing to Sri Bhakta Vatsala Sri Gaura Hari, the One who loves His devotees? Especially at this time when Kali is attacking this movement from all directions and we are holding together by a thread, it is counterproductive to try to keep persons who are having direct experience of what is 'Divine Grace' from acknowledging and glorifying that experience wherever and whenever they can. Strictly speaking, that is the meaning of devotional service. Such inspiration manifests in humble, truthful and loving hearts where the Supreme Lord resides and guides. Legislation against it is absurd, particularly in a society which is 'supposed to be' for pleasing Lord Krishna. Hare Krishna Maharaja. Thank you very much for your help and concern. Recently some persons I just met at Rathayatra spoke very highly of you. I have never had any dealings with you before and it would be so nice to have that experience myself. Hoping for a timely, favorable reply, I beg to remain Lowly servant of the servants of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva, Mother Rasamanjari devi dasi ACBSP Madhusudani's letter: Maria Ekstrand wrote: Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 09:36:22 -0700 To: rasamanjari devi From: Maria Ekstrand Subject: Re: The Real Truth "This is to confirm that I wrote the letter which was mistakenly submitted under Mother Sadhika's name. This is to let you know it is okay with me if you put my name on the article. Lowly servant, Rasamanjari devi dasi ACBSP" OK. Thanks for writing. "All glories to Sri Gauranga Prema Acarya Shiromani His Divine Grace Srila Gour Govinda Swami Srila Gurudeva" The 1999 GBC resolutions state: ISKCON law 6.4.8.2, "Restricted Titles," now reads: "A guru cannot use or allow his disciples to apply to him the honorific title "His Divine Grace" or the honorific endings in "pada" in written public documents or on open public forum. However, such titles may be used in communication among disciples or from disciples to their guru." It shall be amended to read: "No one in ISKCON will be addressed either publicly or privately with honorific title "His Divine Grace" or the honorifics ending in "-pada". Disciples may address their ISKCON diksa or siksa gurus as "Gurudeva" or "Guru-maharaja"." If you want to violate these in private or with other devotees, that is your business, but please refrain from doing so in your letters to me. Ys, Madhusudani dasi Comment on this story  Contact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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