09/08/1998 - 2174

ISKCON Inviting Everyone Back Home

(VNN) - by Madhudvisa dasa

Dear Bhagavata Dharma Prabhu

Haribol! Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

I read your posting on VNN (2088) regarding the meeting of the Harikesha disciples at Radhadesha and I wanted to drop you a line. If you could respond I would be most grateful.

As you know many sincere disciples of Srila Prabhupada, both initiated by him personally and also after his physical departure, along with many aspiring disciples of Srila Prabhupada, are dissatisfied with the current "guru-tattva" in ISKCON. There are also many devotees within ISKCON who's gurus have fallen down or are incapable of providing the spiritual guidance necessary to take their disciples back home, back to Godhead. Many of these devotees would like to take shelter of Srila Prabhupada.

It's my personal, practical experience and the experience of many other devotees also that Srila Prabhupada is living still. His is living in his books, in his classes, in his letters and in the devotees who are seriously following his instructions. So if Srila Prabhupada is living he can certainly initiate new devotees and he is actually doing that still.

It is interesting to note even in Srila Prabhupada's physical presence he established a system enabling the ritvik priests he appointed to chant on the new disciple's beads, give them a spiritual name and the temple president or the ritvik would perform the fire yajna. Thus Srila Prabhupada was accepting new disciples in his physical presence with absolutely no physical connection at all. He was not taking any physical part in the initiation process whatsoever. He was not instructing all his disciples physically. That was the business of the temple presidents, the GBC, etc. And, of course, Srila Prabhupada's personal association and instruction was available to everyone through his books, classes, letters, etc.

Unfortunately, even now, it is still "official" ISKCON policy that devotees who accept Srila Prabhupada as their spiritual master or aspire to take initiation from him are banned from ISKCON temples, blasphemed by ISKCON leaders and even physically attacked.

Instead of being Srila Prabhupada's society, ISKCON has become a society that bans, bashes and blasphemes devotees who dare to take shelter of Srila Prabhupada!

This policy of attacking Srila Prabhupada's disciples and aspiring disciples is a great Vaisnava offence and ISKCON is actively encouraging every member of the society to take part in this attack thus the whole society has become implicated in such a huge tangle of sinful reactions and we are now seeing the results.

So is there any hope for reform? It's a simple thing. Why not let the devotees who want to take initiation from Srila Prabhupada do it in ISKCON? Then immediately thousands of devotees who are currently working against ISKCON would become big preachers within ISKCON again and the actual preaching work of Srila Prabhupada's Krishna consciousness movement could once again start. That is what the world needs now...

If the GBC could humbly apologize to all the devotees who's spiritual lives have been devastated as a result of the bogus ISKCON guru system and invite everyone back to take shelter at Srila Prabhupada's lotus feet ISKCON could very quickly be transformed into a huge world-wide society of devotees powerfully preaching one clear consistent philosophy... Everyone would benefit. Then we can be one big happy family again and get down to the real business: chanting, dancing, feasting and distributing Srila Prabhupada's books...

Looking forward to hearing from you, all glories to your service, chant Hare Krishna and be happy!

Your servant

Madhudvisa dasa