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EDITORIAL  The Headless Society BY NAROTTAMA DASA EDITORIAL, Nov 21 (VNN) — On Novermber 14, 1977 at 7:30pm, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada left his mortal body. During the last twelve years of his life, he had established the worldwide mission of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Several years before his departure he had established a governing body of individuals in hopes that they would be able to properly take over the leadership of ISKCON. These individuals were known as Governing Body Commissioners (GBCs). A few months before Prabhupada passed on, some of his GBCs approached him asking how they should continue the leadership of ISKCON after he left. They specifically wanted to know who would become the future leaders or gurus. Prabhupada was the sole guru of his society. He was the only person who would give initiation, expanding the number of his disciples of students. Since he had thousands of students, his leading disciples asked who would become the next gurus. Prabhupada answered them, giving various details and instructions. After Prabhupada left, eleven of his prominent disciples took exclusive leadership of ISKCON. They became known as the zonal acaryas. The zonal acaryas divided the world into eleven zones and governed them respectively. Any person who joined ISKCON in a particular zone was required to become a disciple of that particular zonal acarya. There were many other written and unwritten laws that were formed at this point that would serve to change ISKCON in a major way. One Prabhupada disciple named Pradyumna spoke out at the apparent mistakes made by the new leaders. He wrote to one of them explaining how the positions they granted themselves would lead to the destruction and fragmentation of themselves as well as ISKCON. Prabhupada was fond of Pradyumna and considered him a scholar amongst his many disciples; in fact, Prabhupada commissioned Pradyumna to finish his life's work of translating Srimad Bhagavatam, a voluminous Sanskrit religious text. Because Pradyumna wrote the letter exposing the defects of the new leadership, the zonal acaryas managed to push Pradyumna out of ISKCON. Another relevant point is that one of the leaders wanted to finish the Bhagavatam, which gave further rationalization to kick Pradyumna out. Little did the zonal acaryas know that Pradyumna's letter would serve as a prophecy as to what lay ahead for ISKCON. His letter was exactly like the advice given to Dritarastra to kill his first-born, for the advice fell upon deaf ears. The zonal acaryas took a monopoly of ISKCON's leadership and assets, including human beings. They divided up the world into eleven zones of which each ruled like a royal king. In fact, some of them even had golden cups studded with jewels! Srila Prabhupada had proprietorship of all this money, man power, real estate and vehicles, yet he was completely detached, pure, and devoted to utilizing everything in God's (Krishna's) service. Prabhupada was not tainted by these material facilities in any way. The zonal acaryas on the other hand, were not pure and they became corrupted by these facilities in gross and subtle ways. One of the most grave mistakes of the zonal acaryas was their demand of submission to their equals. As mentioned before, Prabhupada had thousands of disciples, yet only eleven became leaders in his place. They demanded subordination from their equals and if submission wasn't given, the so-called offenders were ostracized from ISKCON in various ways. Prabhupada had spoken about the contrast of material and spiritual society. He explained how modern society was headless and how spiritual society provided the solution. Prabhupada was the head of his society and when he left, ISKCON became headless. In many ways his disciples corrupted ISKCON before Prabhupada left, and it is debatable whether or not Prabhupada was aware of all the mistakes. Prabhupada had purposefully left many instructions and teachings about how ISKCON should be maintained after he left, but due to the abuse of leadership positions, his instructions fell through the cracks. Historically we see that when the leader of a material or spiritual organization or institution dies, his or her legacy falls into chaos. This happened in Rome when Caesar was murdered, it has happened in many ways to Christianity and it also happened to ISKCON. Ironically this phenomenon of chaos is practically guaranteed when a founder dies, yet the question is, at what point does the second generation become liable for their mistakes? This is a legitimate question. The answer is that initially people may not know that they have taken a wrong turn. Once they do realize it, they must do what they can to rectify their position to get back on course. In regards to ISKCON, we see that immediately after the zonal acarya system was set up, there was a warning made by Pradyumna. We see that this warning was ignored. Later in ISKCON, as the mistakes of the zonal acarya system became blatantly obvious some means were taken to try to rectify them. Yet, even then, the majority of the zonal acaryas opposed the challenge to their sensual facilities, finding scriptural rationalizations or Prabhupada quotes to back up their position. So when the wrong turn has been clearly proven, if the leadership continues to go the wrong road, then they are fully responsible for their mistakes. Another observable fact about institutions that go astray is that once the original teachings become obscured a follower may leave the hollow society to form a new group centered on the proper directions the institution should be following. This is the reason for so many branches of Christianity, as well as other world religions and organizations. Conversely, people fed up with compromised leadership, may veer off onto yet another wrong turn to establish a further perversion of false doctrine. ISKCON's version of this is known as Ritvikism. The Ritvik leaders, most of whom are Prabhupada's direct disciples, were fed up with submitting to impure, hypocritical leaders. They managed to invent a new philosophy stating that Prabhupada was everyone's guru, even though Prabhupada was no longer present. The doctrine of Ritvikism was essentially a simple request for a share in the leadership of ISKCON. Ritvikism would've never existed if there had not been a monopolization of the position of guru. According to the ancient scriptures upon which ISKCON was based, there is a line of teachers and students known as parampara. The current students of a guru are the next gurus. There has never been an institution governing who can and who cannot become a guru. If the Ritviks were free to the legacy of becoming gurus, then Ritvikism wouldn't be the prominent force it is today. After approximately ten years of abuse by the zonal acaryas, ISKCON was in dire straits. The temples were no longer full of vibrant spiritualists, and the morale was at an all time low. Many Prabhupada disciples had joined forces to tear down the thrones the zonal acaryas' built for themselves. Only one zonal acarya had the humility to go against the system as well and apologize for his mistakes. The hope of the reform was to dissolve the monopoly and properly establish Prabhupada's instructions. The so-called reform however, became nothing but a spread out version of the zonal acarya system, increasing the number of gurus and increasing the zones for them to rule. Keep in mind that Prabhupada did establish the GBC and it was almost as if the GBC was meant to be a type of checks and balances system like the United States legislation is to congress. Unfortunately the zonal acaryas themselves comprised 90% of the GBC members and the when the zonal acarya system was changed, increasing the number of zones and leaders, the number of GBC men increased as well. ISKCON's leaders now scrambled to keep the fledgling numbers the membership had dwindled to. The leaders insisted that disciples of fallen gurus take shelter of a current guru and if the current guru fell away, then they should take re-initiation again. Although this was a means to try to help ISKCON, it simply added insult to injury. There were still several hundred Prabhupada disciples who scripturally had every right to become gurus, yet guruship was almost like a governmental position. Worse than that, at least one has to be qualified to work within the government; in ISKCON if you simply are a Ôyes man' to the best of your ability you are practically guaranteed to rise up the social ladder to become a guru yourself! The simple solution to govern who can and who cannot become a guru is to simply educate everyone on who is and who is not a qualified guru. ISKCON, however has never seen it that way; in fact, if ISKCON's leaders to educate their followers properly about guru tattva, many of the followers would have their eyes opened to the fact that their guru's may not be qualified gurus at all! ISKCON as we know it is to this day headless and continues to promote non-traditional Vaishnavism by requiring laws such as: conformity to a sole institution, picking a guru from a list, (i.e. having your guru chosen for you), making offenses towards other Vaishnava groups and so on. The current flaws are numerous and Tacitus has described this phenomena perfectly, "The more corrupt the state, the more laws." ISKCON's Law Book (aka: the Flaw Book) is further proof of this. There have also been many books written as well as studies done, proving that ISKCON needs major reform. There are many problems that ISKCON's leadership has caused its members. These problems include: child abuse; psychological and physical abuse to its members; abuse and mistreatment of women; no social structure or support; false doctrines currently opposed to ISKCON such as Ritvikism (of which the Poison Theory is an off-shoot); many members have gone to other Gaudiya Vaishnavas for guidance; and many have sincerely experienced the outside world to be less abusive than live within ISKCON. In conclusion, if we read and understand Prabhupada's teachings, we will see that he didn't leave this world happy with his institution. There were many of his instructions that had been unfulfilled or ignored. Some of these instructions were: boil the milk (educate the members rather than just trying to increase the numbers); establishing spiritual educational degrees for various responsibilities; that the GBC should rotate zones; that the GBC, gurus and sannyasis should provide proper public financial records; varnasrama, self-sufficient farms; ISKCON should be based on love and trust; etc. Prabhupada had found that despite his emphasis on various practices the only thing his disciples could do (often times illegally) was to sell his books. Realizing that this was all they could do, he encouraged book distribution, possibly in hopes that the knowledge would fall into good hands in the future. Questions, comments, corrections or challenges? I realize that this essay may bring about various responses, so I invite all correspondence to be directed to me at narottama@usa.com. Otherwise, counter essays might be published by VNN, although I can't guarantee that. I don't plan on participating on the VNN forums, so again, please send any correspondence to me. I would like to have the opportunity to personally address all responses to this paper. I'm sure that the ISKCON fanatics will be more than proud to post articles on Chakra in hopes of defeating this paper. Unless Chakra writes me directly, stating that they will publish my counter articles, I don't plan on participating on their one-sided forum. In other words I would hope that the readers would have the intelligence to see that one-sided articles are simply a form of weakness. It is easy to fight a war you easily win because the other side will not be given a chance to respond. This is standard for ISKCON behavior. So please, send all correspondence to me. Thanks. Suggested Reading Prabhupada Guide Dreams to Rock My Soul by Dhanistha Dasi Something Happened on the Way to Heaven by Douglas Monckton Nectar of Discrimination by Kundali Dasa Is Discrimination Jnana Yoga by Kundali Dasa Supersoul Realization by Kundali Dasa Our Mission, Volumes 1-4 by Kundali Dasa In Vaikuntha, Not Even the Leaves Fall by Satyanarayana Dasa & Kundali Dasa The Hitopadesh by Satyanarayan Dasa The Yoga of Dejection by Satyanarayana Dasa  Comment on this storyContact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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