Podcast transcription:
On and For the Record
A multi-part series
Analysis of Eleven Naked Emperors
(Review of Chapter Eight)
by Kailäsa Candra däsa
HARIÙ OÀ NAMAÙ
There are perspectives you need in order to really conceptualize and assimilate what went down in Prabhupäda’s branch of the Hare Krishna movement after he departed physical manifestation. You will not get any of these perspectives from the “ISKCON” movement, nor can either Neo-Mutt or Rittvik help you to attain them. These perspectives crystallize understanding of the actual narrative of the saga in accurate context leading to further progress in genuine spiritual life.
The history of anything, big or small, is generally based upon the interplay of powerful personalities in conjunction to events. We would certainly find this to be the case in the history of the Western world just prior to the colonization of America by European citizens. Just to give one example of many, the Peace of Westphalia was a major event that has ramifications and repercussions effective to this day everywhere in the West. It created a new paradigm, but how many people are even aware of this event?
Of course, our study here in almost entirely focused upon the Hare Krishna movement, and all of us could name and acknowledge any number of major and important events in its timeline: Prabhupäda’s arrival, the establishment of his first center, his first initiations, the incorporation of ISKCON, the Columbus standing lecture and kirtan, the creation of the Governing Body Commission, etc.
Yet, there were events—both during his presence and the aftermath—that were just as important but are unrecognized today as being such. The aborted attempt to centralize his movement (the centralization scheme) by eight of the G.B.C. in 1972 would be one such example. We have discussed it repeatedly over the decades in our articles, videos, and podcasts. As such, we have not allowed it to major into oblivion.
It was not, for all practical purposes, even known about by any but a handful of leading secretaries when it went down and what it was on the verge of accomplishing (if Prabhupäda had not—in very forceful terms—aborted it before it could gain real traction) been disastrous. Almost entirely, it became known to the rank-and-file well after Prabhupäda had already left the scene, but the secretaries and the temple presidents knew about it in April of 1972 when it was nipped. They kept it secret.
This is a good example of what I shall be communicating to you today. I shall be discussing an event of major importance that went down in Raman Reti, India at the Krishna Balaram center in the first weeks of 1979. Many of you do not know of it, but that will not remain the case now. Of those of you know about it as an event, but little otherwise, that will also change when you finish assimilating this month’s podcast. Be assured: Virtually none of the rank-and-file in today’s “ISKCON” know about it. You will soon understand why that must be the case.
As far as Neo-Mutt and Rittvik are concerned, most of there followers—and even some of their leaders—do not know about it, what to speak of its actual repercussions in terms of historical cause and effective. However, despite its relative anonymity, you cannot put the pieces of the puzzle of the narrative together without knowing this event: What went down, why, what was the antecedent leading up to it, and, most importantly, what it ACTUALLY accomplished, you must know.
It led to today’s Rise of the Independents that many of you are taking advantage of, but could not otherwise do so. In other words, because, whether you acknowledge it or not, today’s general freedom in Krishna consciousness is dependent upon that event.
We continue with our chapter-by-chapter analysis of Henry Doktorski’s Eleven Naked Emperors (hereinafter, ENE), and we have now reached Chapter Eight, entitled “Crushing the Opposition.” Succinct and accurate title. Let us say that this chapter had not been included. Let us postulate that the book had skipped this almost unknown event and went straight to the effective rebellion of the North American temple presidents in their toppling of the zonal äcäryas–and all of that obscene worship and power falsely bestowed upon them. Would anyone have noticed?
Hardly anybody knows about the subject of Chapter Eight, but everyone in or out of “ISKCON” knows the history of the presidents’ rebellion and the installation of The Second Transformation, led by Ravéndra Svarüpa (yes, he was a temple president), a.k.a., the Collegiate Compromise. The relative obscurity of what preceded it and led to it has not been skipped by ENE, however. Now you are going to receive even more specifics about this event, allowing you to understand the repercussions and ramifications that it spawned.
Before we get into all of those specifics (many, but not all, of them covered by Chapter Eight) an important—nay, essential—point must be made and assimilated by the listeners and readers of this month’s podcast. In a nutshell, it is this: You must acknowledge and realize that confronting the leadership of any cult—and we only deal with Krishna cults here—is not the same as attacking Krishna consciousness itself. A confrontation can be an attack, granted, but it is not necessarily so. In the case of the event in the winter of 1979 in Raman Reti at the Krishna-Balaram mandir, the eleven zonals were attacked. They were confronted for the first time by a handful of their godbrothers, which can be called the opposition for the sake of the excellent title chosen by Doktorski for Chapter Eight.
They were punished in different ways for that so-called attack. They were cursed. The vast majority of them were forced to humiliate themselves and publicly apologize to the “new gurus” in front of the assembly. As a side note, your host speaker (and three others, of thirty-six) did not humiliate himself and apologize. There was nothing to apologize for, and I did not do so. This made my life very tough as far as the so-called Krishna movement was concerned, obviously, and I was singled out in the G.B.C. Resolutions of 1979 for allegedly promulgating “poisonous activities.”
The zonals fully deserved to be confronted, or if you prefer, attacked. They actually had no legitimate basis for what they had done and what they were doing in the late Seventies. They had successfully hijacked the movement by taking over the vitiated G.B.C. and dovetailed its imprimatur to rubber stamp their so-called appointment. It was an appointment that never was. Prabhupäda only appointed eleven rittviks in the second week of July, 1977 in a written notice to all temple presidents.
That was no big deal. In point of fact, he did not even dictate the one-page document. It was drawn up by T.K.G. who, intent to include his close buddy Bhavananda as one of the eleven, had to hear Prabhupäda check him by also adding Hansadutta, who T.K.G. abhorred. Of course, that sentiment was mutual, but there was no clause in the document stating that these rittviks would then automatically become dékñä-gurus after Prabhupäda departed physical manifestation.
Yet, T.K.G. was confident that this is what he could pull off when that time inevitably came, even sooner than most expected. It was T.K.G.’s document as his initial effort to manipulate the rittviks into dékñä-gurus. Prabhupäda merely signed it on a line labeled “Approved.” T.K.G. was the person who actually signed it since it was his letter.
However, no one knew this. It is even somewhat debatable that the other ten rittviks knew that Prabhupäda never appointed any of them as dékñä-gurus. It is possible (if not probable) that they believed the hype that Prabhupäda appointed gurus in July of 1977, what to speak of the inarguable fact that everyone else in the movement believed it. Actually, it was not even a question of belief; it was an accepted fact movement-wide. But it was not a fact: IT WAS A BIG LIE.
As such, the document which was issued to confront these so-called äcäryas in the winter of 1979 at Raman Reti conceded that they were all appointed as dékñä-gurus, despite the fact that none of them were appointed by Prabhupäda to the post. That this error was contained in the confrontation paper should be understood in that context. Nevertheless, it weakened it, because presentation had to be mistake-free in order for it to be fully potent.
T.K.G. basically chose not to speak during the confrontation, which was divided into two sessions by an unnecessary lunch break. Something as important as it was supposed to be, but T.K.G. insisted during the session that it be so divided so that everyone—especially, it is presumed, the enjoyer “new gurus”–could relish some “lunch prasädam.” The other time he spoke was when he bellyached about Pradyumna announcing to the assembly that he was leaving it. When T.K.G. whines, let me tell you, it is the most disgusting, nauseating, and agitating sound made by man! “Pradyumna, I have traveled thousands of miles for this, and now you are leaving to attend to your Deities?”
Although Pradyumna did not, and does not, have a warrior bone in his body, he can be adamant once he makes up his mind. And he was. Despite the bellyaching, he was justified to leave, and he made the decision. The word “decision” comes from the Latin root decere, which means “to cut.” When you make a decision, you cut off any and all options which are not part of it. Hådayänanda had decided to play the EMOTE AND DEGRADE card in his debate with Pradyumna. Hådayänanda was losing the debate, and you could feel the consternation of the zonals in that atmosphere of faithlessness and opposition.
He picked up on it and decided to throw down. A very proud man, he knew he could overlord Pradyumna emotionally, because Pradyumna was strong intellectually but had no real following and was fully brahminical. Hådayänanda decided that the debate should degenerate into conflict, and that was that.
Pradyumna had no chance once the parameters of the debate—which was not a debate anymore when Hådayänanda emoted—had radically changed into a kind of rancor. “Who cares about the Rämanuja sampradaya? Are you saying that you know more than us? Are you saying that Prabhupäda’s selected men, his gurus, are to be subordinate to you?”
This may not be exactly the word-for-word translation according to my memory, but it is close to it. As such, Pradyumna gave up on them, and he also gave up in the confrontation. No one else could take his place. Yaçodanandan could not do so. He had been Guru-kåpä’s wingman for years, and he was no match for Hådayänanda. Debate was not within the wheelhouse of his expertise. Guru-kåpä had completely failed to show. He could of went toe-for-toe with any of them (including Hådayänanda), but instead, he was in Western Europe getting incarcerated at a Netherlands penitentiary for drug-dealing.
After all, he was the G.B.C. for the Krishna-Balaram mandir. He was the one who earlier the previous year had successfully confronted both Bhagavän and Bhävananda when they demanded the inmates there worship them. Guru-kåpä said no.
He said no to big seats. He said no to foot worship. He said no to any kind of special worship. He rejected the pomp and circumstance of the zonal äcärya takeover, and he could confront with the best that any of the so-called zonal äcäryas could offer.
But, he didn’t. He left it to Yaçodanandan, who did not have Guru-kåpä’s confrontation skills. Nor was Yaçoda an abrasive personality. He was a pukka-sannyäsé, while Guru-kåpä was anything but. The man of the hour should have been Guru-kåpä, but he turned out to be an epic fail when push came to shove. Once Pradyumna defied all of them and left the asat-sabhä, Yaçoda was no match, Akçayänanda was no match, and Johnny-come-lately Jagad-guru was no match to the bellicosity that many of the eleven then unleashed. The rout was on.
ENE describes all of this in Chapter Eight, so let us now segue to some of those excerpts. Your host speaker, as was the case in Chapter Seven, is quoted also in Chapter Eight, but none of those will be reproduced.
“Finally, Yaçodanandan Swami challenged the zonal acharyas to a debate at the February 1979 G.B.C. meetings in Vrindaban, India. Kailasa-Chandra dasa, who was regarded as a philosophical pundit, was asked to write a position paper for the challengers. Two years earlier in 1977, Kailasa-Chandra had served as the personal secretary for Balavanta dasa, an aspiring politician and president of the Atlanta temple. Kailasa-Chandra recalled, ‘It was there that I was privy to the politics that was going down amongst the power players just prior to, and just after, the implementation of the zonal acharya scam.’
In preparation for the debate, the Vrindaban temple president, Aksayananda, gave Kailasa-Chandra a typewriter and a room at the Krishna-Balarama Mandir. When Kailasa-Chandra completed his twenty-page paper, Yaçodanandan Swami, who was respected for his strict sadhana, canvassed thirty-six devotees to sign it. The paper was copied and presented to the zonal acharyas prior to the debate. Ravindra Svarupa confirmed, ‘In 1979 questions about the gurus’ position had burst out in major eruptions at ISKCON centres at Vrindaban and Juhu Beach, ejecting over the rest of the movement thick fascicles of photocopied papers.’
Although Yaçodanandan had issued the challenge to debate the new gurus, and Kailasa-Chandra had written their position paper, it was Pradyumna—a scholar whose knowledge of logic and shastra was formidable—who was chosen to be the spokesman for the reform party. All eleven new gurus showed up for the Vrindaban debate. The atmosphere was tense.
The chief points of contention by the reformers were: 1) The new gurus were not entitled to accept worship from their godbrothers and/or godsisters; 2) Any worship of the new gurus should be held in some kind of private quarters, not in front of the deities in a temple established by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda; 3) The worship of the new gurus was far too lavish, and they did not deserve to accept such worship whatsoever;
4) To perpetuate the line of ISKCON, the current arrangement for the disciplic succession (by the G.B.C., which was dominated by the Acharya Board) was a counter-productive concoction, and had to be immediately reversed before it was too late; 5) There were other godbrothers who deserved to be able to initiate new disciples into Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda’s branch of the disciplic succession, and some kind of accommodation needed to be made.
The strategy of the reform group relied, in great measure, on the presentation of Pradyumna, who would represent them in the debate. They also relied upon the confrontation remaining civil and conducted in brahminical fashion but, unfortunately for the reformers, the debate was not conducted this way, except during the first ten minutes.”
Of course, the author of ENE was not present for this meeting, and I was only present for the first half of it. The first half was immeasurably more important then what went down after the lunch break, as that was nothing but an apology-fest.
Only males at Krishna-Balaram were approached for their signatures. All of the male devotees residing at the complex signed it, except for Rüpa-viläsa. He, on the contrary, made substantial efforts to undermine its initiative. I could go into minute detail about all of that intrigue but, for now, I am choosing not to do so.
Treachery and betrayal at the Raman Reti complex preceded the arrival of the zonals. Such was not just in relation to a suggestion (adopted briefly, then reversed) made by Rüpa-viläsa. It also took place at Bombay, where T.K.G. turned Giriräj around from a pillar of the opposition aligned with Yaçoda and Pradyumna to a loyalist with Ocean’s Eleven. That was not known until the meeting ensued, however.
TATTVAMASI
As far as the Raman-Reti treachery was concerned, Yaçodanandan (then Swämi) resorted to a sickness ploy in order to gain sympathy and rejuvenate all the local signatories (who Rüpa-viläsa had turned) on the position paper. I never wavered nor did the men who were part of my team at that time. Most of the others did. Of course, Yaçoda could not convince
Rüpa-viläsa to sign it, and he reported all that went down to Satsvarüpa upon his arrival at the complex, probably the first to reach there.
Yaçoda had sent a friendly, one of the signers, to find me in Varanasi in January, 1979. The message the young man carried was a request to meet with him at Raman Reti and discuss how to confront this situation going down worldwide in the form of the zonal äcärya takeover.
I was willing to oblige. Yaçodanandan got approval to set me up in my own room. I banged away at the document for hours each day, and, on most days, Yaçoda would come to my room and read what I had typed. He agreed with virtually all of my writing and proposals. There was little to negotiate. We were of the same intelligence, and he took particular delight in the format that I had employed.
His secretary then typed up the formal document, although she expressed her unhappiness in receiving that assignment. Yaçoda got all of the initial signatures. I signed the document as the fifteenth signature. Pradyumna did not sign it. He read it. He told me that he liked it, but in case it had a flaw somewhere (it had two of them), he did not want to risk that being exploited by the zonals in order to take away his assignment from Prabhupäda to continue the translation of the Bhägavatam.
Turns out, that went down anyway. They punished him for having the audacity to confront Hådayänanda in debate. And, as it turned out, the G.B.C. took away Pradyumna’s seva and gave it to that very man, Hådayänanda. That tells you, in one sense, all you need to know about the ethics of those eleven men. It was the ethics of the savage.
I was pounced upon by Jayatértha at the very end of the first session of the meeting. The stampede was on by that time, and it would increase exponentially (from reports that I heard about it) during the second session after the frivolous lunch break. However, I noticed something just as things were breaking down in the first session.
Two of the zonals (only one of which spoke) were not approving how the other nine were crushing of the opposition. Harikeça spoke up about it, imploring the other men to listen to the points being made, i.e., that there was validity to many of them. Hansadutta did not speak, but his facial and bodily gestures conveyed quite a bit. It was clear that he was intuitively picking up that this was the beginning of the end. He was picking up that, despite all of this going down in Prabhupäda’s quarters of the complex, that His Divine Grace did not at all approve of how the opposition was being treated.
Hansadutta’s dread of the situation proved to be justified in the long run. The position paper was not perfect, but it deserved a completely different response. The opposition deserved to be respected. Yet, Paramätmä wanted more. He wanted the zonals to be destroyed, but it would take time. This was the first crack in the dam, but that would not be recognized until the summer of 1980, when the second crack emerged (and yes, I was later heavily involved in widening that crack, as well).
Paramätmä recognized the two flaws in the opposition’s position paper. One has already been mentioned: The concession (which never should have been made) that Ocean’s Eleven had been appointed by Prabhupäda as dékñä-gurus. We have already covered this one adequately. Everyone in the room that fateful day believed it, although T.K.G. knew very well that it was not true. T.K.G. knew that Prabhupäda had only appointed eleven rittviks, not gurus.
The position paper granted them all guru status, and Paramätmä was not satisfied with that. The appointment that never was would first be exposed in the summer of 1980, but time had not yet changed that major misconception. The second flaw in the document was urging the eleven zonals to once again go to Swämi B. R. Çrédhar for advice. Were the fourteen points made by the plaintiffs bona fide? Should they be given due consideration? Everyone—or most everyone—was still bamboozled by the Navadvipa Mahant in February of 1979.
He was still considered, very wrongly, to be an elder godbrother of Prabhupäda who was his well-wisher. Most definitely, that was not the case, but no one recognized that harsh fact at the time. As such, the position paper advocated a resort for more bad advice that should have never been even suggested. The opposition was punished for doing so by being wiped out . . . with myself also being scapegoated by Jayatirtha just before the lunch break.
ENE continued in Chapter Eight:
“The eleven revealed, by their behavior during the debate, that they were most likely not on the topmost uttama-adhikari platform of spiritual development as they claimed. In a Srimad-bhagavatam purport written a few years later (There is this entry): ‘Being puffed up by his own ceremonial worship, . . . a kanistha-adhikari cannot imagine that anyone is more pious or religious than he, and he is not even aware that other devotees are more advanced. Thus he cannot understand the madhyama or uttama standard of devotional service, and sometimes, because of his false pride, he criticizes the more advanced devotees of the Lord, neglects them or simply has no understanding of their exalted position as preachers or completely self-realized souls.’”2
Actually, the eleven great pretenders were far from neophytes. They were all sahajiyäs by the time that confrontation rolled around. They were all taking undeserved worship in front of open Deities on elevated, imitation Vyäsäsans. They were all accepting mahä-bhägavat adulation from not only their improperly initiated disciples, but also from their own godbrothers and godsisters.
The position paper pointed out this discrepancy, and that fact deeply irritated them. This was because their delusion was so great that they had actually forgotten that, in the beginning, they all intentionally decided to imitate Prabhupäda, which is completely forbidden. They had bought into the so-called legitimacy of their showbottle imitation and, under the influence of mahä-moha, they believed themselves to be pure devotees.
ENE shared then this anecdote:
“In the end, Guru Kripa, Pradyumna, Yaçodanandan, Kailasa-Chandra, and a number of others who challenged the zonal acharyas in Vrindaban, India, all left or were forced out of ISKCON. Guru Kripa explained, ‘Most people [including ISKCON devotees] are basically sudras who want a master to tell them what to do. They do not have sufficient intelligence, or spiritual knowledge, therefore they accepted [what the zonal acharyas demanded]; and the more realized devotees left, after trying to correct things. They were told to leave because they were disturbing the faith of the new disciples. Because they could not take it any more, they left.’”
This was the developing situation at that time. You could argue that 1979 was the peak of the power of the zonals. No reform was at all likely, because the centers had been stacked with improperly initiated disciples. The godbrothers who accepted the new arrangement were allowed to stay, but the command and control was now shifting to new people. The zonals simply wanted to travel and enjoy all the luxuries made ever-ready to them. They parlayed all the work and promulgation activities off to their favorable godbrothers in the beginning. Still, the zonals knew that, on the whole, they could never really and fully trust them. By 1979, the newcomers were becoming influential and sometime soon would even become temple presidents.
This was addressed to a significant degree in the position paper, of course. The non-guru G.B.C.s were on islands. They had virtually no followers. The new people followed their gurus, and the temple presidents did not remain so if they were not cent-per-cent also kowtowing. The temple presidents who did not have, as their G.B.C. a guru-G.B.C., placed their allegiance in the guru of the zone, not in the G.B.C. zone.
As such, with all the territory of the world now carved up into eleven zones, the G.B.C. zones were nothing more than anachronisms that overlapped guru zones but were otherwise meaningless.
The G.B.C. of any such zone—the non-guru G.B.C.—had to go along to get along. He was hoping for guru expansion, of course, but in 1979 there were no such prospects. With the guru contingent, led by the aggressive pseudo-debating style of Hådayänanda, effectively crushing the opposition at Raman Reti in early 1979, prospects for non-guru G.B.C.s becoming appointed to guru-dumb looked bleak. Whose territory would any such new äcärya have given to him? Ocean’s Eleven all wanted to keep the share that they already had stolen via vitiated G.B.C. imprimatur. None would be willing to give up a slice of their own pie.
However, time changes things. There would be falldowns. Even previous to that, their would be in-house punishments of zonals who went too far, stretched the rubber band, and felt it snap in ways that embarrassed the remaining big guns. The power of the institution would creep back in, as it was always lurking underneath the whole facade anyway.
This was not at all apparent during the 1979 confrontation at Raman Reti, however. That was an exaltation of the greatness—so-called greatness, of course—of the glorified pretenders. ENE describes it as follows:
“Tamal Krishna, along with the other ten, falsely depicted the doubters to be little more than ‘malicious barking’ dogs. He explained, ‘Since the disappearance of our beloved spiritual master, . . . disenchanted persons come forward trying to cast doubt on the legacy left by Srila Prabhupäda. When Srila Prabhupäda appointed from among his senior disciples eleven persons to continue the process of initiation, and when after their spiritual master’s departure those whom he selected assumed their duties by his command, the critics began to bark their discontent.
Though they leveled their remarks against the successor gurus, in reality their criticism was aimed at Srila Prabhupäda himself. . . . The critics may argue that appointment alone is not a guarantee that one has actually achieved this perfectional stage of life; Prabhupäda might have appointed disciples for lack of anyone better, or hoping that they might one day achieve the desired realization. To such irresponsible criticism we answer a decisive ‘NO!’ Srila Prabhupäda chose them because they merited his confidence.’”3
Such a rascal hypocrite T.K.G. was! As we pointed out last month, he (along with Kértanänanda) were the evil taproots primarily responsible for destroying Prabhupäda’s branch of the Hare Krishna movement in late 1977 and throughout 1978. T.K.G. did not know it at the time, but the other gurus and the rest of the G.B.C. were about to come down on him. However, in February, 1979, he was flying high but soon to be shot down. He was soon to receive his first punishment, but that is another story for another time. We must stick with the immediate meanings, ramifications, and repercussions of the fateful confrontation at Raman Reti.
As already pointed out, although not all of the eleven great pretenders may have known it by that time (they all would soon come to know it, as would the rest of the movement), none of them had been recognized, selected, or appointed as dékñä-gurus. Ocean’s Eleven had only been appointed rittviks. There was no transitive device authorized by Prabhupäda to automatically convert them into full-fledged gurus.
T.K.G. knew this. He concocted and engineered that device, which was one of his own creation. He did so in advance. He planned it from the second week of July, 1977, and it worked like a charm. It got further empowered when the Navadvipa mahant made a similar statement backing the concept in the Spring of 1978.
Just see the hypocrisy! He knows what the actual fact is, but he claims the exact opposite in his “barking dogs” spiel. He knew that Prabhupäda never selected any of them to be gurus, yet he intentionally claims otherwise. Then, adding injury to insult, he throws in the line about all of them being Successors and not merely appointed to give initiation as madhyams (which was not the case either, because they were all sahajiyäs causing only damage to the Krishna movement).
T.K.G. alleges that these so-called Successors merited Prabhupäda’s confidence, and that is why he specifically and intentionally selected all of them to be his Successors. T.K.G. knew it that everyone would buy into this propaganda, although a handful of malcontents (he tags them as barking dogs) would not. This was the attitude.
The points raised by the opposition were valid. They should have been considered, but Paramätmä did not allow any such reasonable dealing. Pride cometh before the fall. They were all going to be exposed, and the zonal debacle would crash and burn by the mid-Eighties.
As pointed out earlier, with (amongst the “ISKCON” leaders) Hansadutta being the only exception, none of them could foresee that eventual outcome at the time. T.K.G.’s rant represented where most of them were at. They were triumphalists in the winter of 1979. Hådayänanda had led them to a major yet ultimately phyrric victory. He was rewarded by the stealing Pradyumna’s seva and giving it to him, the great debater of rancor. Not all of the signatories apologized, but most of them did.
We have pointed out one flaw in this chapter, yet something else must be again considered. It deserves reiteration. Doktorski could have skipped this episode entirely, and the vast majority of his readers of ENE would have been blissfully unaware of it.
He did not skip it, however, nor did he merely mention it in a couple of paragraphs in the next or previous chapters. He dedicated a whole chapter to it. He thus put the incident on and for the record. It would not merge into oblivion. This was and remains yeoman’s service to the cause of the accurate historical narrative of Prabhupäda’s branch of the Hare Krishna movement of Krishna consciousness.
As such, I give Chapter Eight a straight-A grade for that alone.
The colossal hoax known as the fabricated, so-called “ISKCON” confederation is a pseudo-spiritual scam. Evil men took over after Prabhupäda’s departure. He gave them numerous chances to rectify themselves voluntarily, but none of that took. The training was far from complete. None of the eleven great pretenders were genuine gurus and none of their disciples were or are genuinely initiated.
The world is now flooded with hundreds of bogus gurus and improperly initiated disciples posing as advanced bhaktas when they are no such thing. The final chance for rectification went down in Raman Reti in the winter of 1979. It was rejected, and the result is one transformation after another. They showed their true colors at that asat sabhä in Prabhuapda’s quarters that fateful day, and you can read all about it in Chapter Eight of ENE. I highly recommend that you do so.
SAD EVA SAUMYA
ENDNOTES
1 Doktorski, Henry. Eleven Naked Emperors: The Crisis of Charismatic Succession in the Hare Krishna Movement (1977-1987) (pp. 210-211). Kindle Edition.
2 Ibid, p. 161, Kindle Edition;
3 Ibid, p. 161-162;
4 Ibid, p. 163;