KCD’s Monthly Podcast – November 2023

Podcast transcription:

Glaring Flaws in the Old Guard Narrative

by Kailäsa Candra däsa

HARIÙ OÀ NAMAÙ

In the early Eighties, just before The Second Transformation went down in the fabricated, so-called “ISKCON” confederation, a popular game was invented. It today serves as an analogy to our theme. This game centered around many four-sided wooden sticks, which we shall call blocks. Those blocks create what is, in the beginning, a solid Jenga tower.

Each participant in the game has to remove a block from below and place it on the top level until the structure eventually collapses due to lack of solid underpinning. When one block is pulled which collapses the tower, that contestant loses the game.

There was a box office hit in 2015 called “The Big Short,” and one scene in it featured a Jenga tower. This scene illustrated how some banks and investment houses were on the verge of collapse due to propping up a faulty derivatives scheme. With but a few valuable bundles or blocks of mortgages, each derivative had hidden within it many worthless and shaky sub-prime mortgages bundled together.

The Jenga tower in the movie represented mostly low-grade mortgage bonds (actually becoming or already worthless) at its bottom and middle. Each block consisted of many mortgages bundled together, most of them shaky or worthless, while the few actually valuable bundled mortgages were all triple-A bonds and were placed at the top.

They appeared to make the financial instrument valuable, but it was not. These mortgages had all been bundled together as a collateralized debt obligation, a complex derivative. Hedge fund managers at investment houses and banks had previously made—and were still making–many millions of dollars by leveraging, promoting, and marketing such financial entities until the housing bubble (of thousands of these concocted derivatives) went busto in 2008.

However, just before that went down causing a serious recession, a handful of investors, knowing how those schemes worked and how their market would soon crater, took out what were called credit default swaps from some major banks. These swaps were also derivatives, but they were newly created in order to offset the credit risk intrinsic to the other popular but risky derivatives. In essence, these default swaps were a form of shorting the derivative mortgage market.

Applying this analogy, we expose false facts and mistaken knowledge. They are represented by individual Jenga blocks of a different construct. These so-called facts are self-serving and flawed pre-suppositions still held and propagated by the “ISKCON” Old Guard. They are the principles of that cult’s rickety Jenga tower.

The Old Guard formerly controlled the cult or cooperated with all of its deviations. Those deviations led to its current shaky status, and the tower could crater at any time. In point of fact, there was at least one occasion in the mid-Eighties in which it almost did.

The Old Guard of “ISKCON” is still influential in propping up today’s version of that organized Eastern religion. They have helped to erect a flawed structure of what still appears to be a bona fide bhakti super-structure. The blocks of its pseudo-spiritual tower have varying degrees of importance within it preventing its collapse. As per this analogy, exposing each of the blocks—each of those false facts or rationalizations–for what they really are is akin to removing them from your mind, one by one, and from the foundation of “ISKCON.”

One of the “ISKCON” blocks is of particular importance. Near the conclusion, we shall spend more time and font space exposing it. If critical mass is achieved in exposing this particular myth, the “ISKCON” Jenga Tower will topple, bringing joy to all the devotees who have been harassed by the cult’s rationalizations for decades.

That particular block is of essential value to the Old Guard. Indeed, their reputations are more or less dependent upon it. They pushed it just after Prabhupäda left the scene. Their basis for doing so is ever-increasingly obvious now. We propose realization of how obvious it is will increase as each devotee reads and assimilates the message delivered here.

The “ISKCON” Jenga Tower is a narrative. It is the narrative of the cult’s Old Guard, and is, for all practical purposes, accepted by everyone in their institution. It is not disputed within it, because, if it was contentious, there would immediately be a major schism. That would jeopardize their whole make show. There already is a kind of subterranean split in it between the liberal faction and the quasi-conservative faction. This split took many years to form, because the organization’s illusion of unity was considered essential by both camps and still is considered essential.

However, with the institutional approval of female dékñä-gurus less than a decade ago, the schism exacerbated. Nevertheless, it is kept in-house and hidden from the public—especially the Hindu public, which still subsidizes the organization to some degree—because any noticeable internecine war would prove fatal to that revenue flow.

The “ISKCON” Old Guard narrative buttressed the vitiated G.B.C. back in the day—during the heady late Seventies and Eighties–when the zonal imposition was implemented; indeed, to a significant extent, the Old Guard were members in that G.B.C. Some of them benefited from The First Transformation, but not all of them did. Some benefited from The Second Transformation which replaced it, but not all of them did.

They were all dependent upon what may be called THE “ISKCON” NARRATIVE, and that is what constitutes the analogous “ISKCON” Jenga Tower as per this month’s presentation. They remain dependent upon it for their reputations, which some consider to be exalted.

We do not at all share that view. On the contrary, we hold the Old Guard responsible for all the major deviation that went down before and since the first major deviation of March, 1978. It could not have gone down without their help and if there were not many misconceptions they upheld about what Prabhupäda had actually authorized.

The various blocks underpinning the “ISKCON” Jenga Tower constitute those misconceptions, rationalizations, and flawed pre-suppositions. They deserve to be pulled out from underneath the tower, seen for what they are, and then thrown into the trash can. In the process, the reputations of the Old Guard also deserve to be trashed since their statuses are not more important than Lord Caitanya’s Golden Age.

Indeed, their reputations deserve to be tainted in order to remove their influence from the “ISKCON” super-structure, a dome which is compressing the re-emergence of Lord Caitanya’s movement. There is little need to get into either Neo-Mutt or Rittvik here, because they, in different ways with different flawed perspectives, already do not honor many of the blocks constituting the “ISKCON” Jenga Tower. They do, however, recognize a few such misconceptions which still benefit them.

It is the “ISKCON” Old Guard which is the chief problem holding those blocks of its Jenga Tower in place. Their shared narrative differs from those pushed by Neo-Mutt and Rittvik. However, it would compound the difficulty to elucidate if we chose to get into a comparative study; as such we choose to instead target the “ISKCON” narrative only.

Let us now consider who are the members of the Old Guard of “ISKCON,” and who are not. First of all, its active members must be alive; the dead have no title and no membership. Some of the Old Guard has died off, as could only have been expected, although most of them are still living. As such, those men continue to exert their influence.

Neither the third echelon nor the newcomers are (or can be) members of the Old Guard. Eligibility was cut off even before His Divine Grace left the scene. They are all current or former members of the higher two echelons of the cult. All of the great pretenders were G.B.C. members, but some betrayed the narrative and lost their status in the process.

Hansadutta was one of these. Four great pretenders, including Hansadutta, are dead, and one other is in bad shape, although his membership is still viable. Only one member of the Old Guard is still on the G.B.C., as it has had almost a complete turnover since the late Seventies.

One of the protocols of the Old Guard is not to advertise the blocks of their Jenga Tower openly. These misconceptions and rationalizations are highly contagious on the astral plane, and, as such, they prefer to vibe them. Still, every now and then, they will verbalize one . . . particularly, the chief block. If that one is removed, the their tower collapses.

Hansadutta sometimes defied this tactic. In other words, sometimes he was blatant. For example, he openly preached that, if you were under the command of a devotee in the movement here on Earth, that subordination would continue in the spiritual world. Those who bought into this (with whomever they did so with) were little more than silly putty in the hands of that particular member of the Old Guard.

If your svarüpa was to be a follower of some particular devotee in the eternal world—and a special arrangement had been made for you to be his disciple in this world–then you foolishly considered yourself privileged and fell in line every time and all of the time. This was one of the blocks of the cult’s Jenga Tower, but it was and is not an essential one.

It could be removed without the structure collapsing, but Hansadutta made it known, and this was not approved. This tendency of his, along with a firearm fetish, criminal activity, gambling, drunkenness, and sexual connections with his godsisters and female disciples, got him de facto excommunicated by the governing body in May of 1983.

It had come down heavy on him three years earlier along with T.K.G., but The Machiavellian Manipulator had kept a trump card at the bottom of his deck that he could play. He made it clear that he was about to do so, and both he and Hansadutta were accepted back. T.K.G. lasted until he was violently taken out in 2002; Hansadutta soon became a Rittvik leader and therefore permanently lost his status in “ISKCON.”

Each member of the Old Guard was an expert cult manipulator. They were well-trained in this, but not by Prabhupäda. He wanted all of his real workers to become self-realized and then God-realized, but the great cult manipulators made sure that did not come to pass. They knew how to hit the psychic buttons at the right time in the perfect way, they knew when to throw the psychic toggle switches, and they made sure that they stayed on top of the turtle tank by doing so.

They manipulated their godbrothers effectively, turning some of them into sycophants who carried out their orders and became just like them–but at a lower level of power, of course. Many of their godbrothers were easily manipulated, because devotees scored high in being ultra-compulsive. This was drilled into them on a daily basis, since following orders was inculcated by Prabhupäda. There was no fault in that, but when the process got converted into following egotistical orders given by the cult manipulators for their own aggrandizement, then the system became both rigged and deviated. Consider this excerpt from 9-9-72:

“Regarding your questions you say that amongst the elder disciples there are still symptoms of greed, anger, strife, bickering, etc., but you are one of them. You are one of the old students, so you fall in that group. So, the fighting is among that group, but not amongst the real workers.”

Its recipient was one of the first tranche appointed in 1970, but he was the best of the lot. Seeing how things were going, he resigned from the Governing Body and should be praised for doing so. Nevertheless, this reply establishes that the first and, indirectly, the second echelon men were not the real workers. That is how they got their in-house training, but this was never what Prabhupäda wanted for his movement.

The Old Guard were G.B.C. men, sannyäsés, and temple presidents, almost without exception. It is to be expected that not all G.B.C.s, sannyäsés, and temple presidents were part of what today still functions as the Old Guard, and some of them were not. As late as the early Nineties, there was a temple president of a major West Coast center who was not part of that, and your host speaker had personal experience of being treated well by both he and his wife.

At the current time, there may only be one key Old Guard (a very big one) who is still a temple president, but, except for him, I am unable to determine whether there are any others from the presidents. They all are institutionalists, of course, but most of the party men are not full-fledged members of the manipulative Old Guard. They buy into the false narrative and, to some extent, they also buy into the chief myths, but many temple presidents are not heavy-handed cult manipulators.

As far as the sannyäsés are concerned, those who are part of the Old Guard are warlocks with daëòas. Sure, they can be all smiles, turn on the charm, and love bomb with the best. That is generally part of their skill set. However, as mentioned in last month’s presentation, when they carry that rod of chastisement, they know the black art of how to manipulate and intimidate others with it. They are in a stronger position.

As far as the newcomers are concerned, some are being trained to carry on in the eventual absence of the Old Guard. Most are not, however, nor can they ever reach the same level of power and manipulation despite whatever direct training they receive. Separately from them, although they enforce it, the hatchet men can and will never be part of this overlord sector, because they do not have the psychological skills to meet the criteria. In summary, as far as the newcomers are concerned–those who came after the gold rush–they were and are low-hanging fruit.

Not all of the Old Guard is active in “ISKCON.” Some live completely outside of it and, to a rather insignificant extent and at the margins, criticize how it has been run and continues to be run. What they all have in common, however, is propping up the “ISKCON” Tower of Power by pushing the same flawed narrative. It particularly depends upon one of those blocks. We shall get to that one near the end of the presentation, and all of the Old Guard has an essential, vested interest in maintaining it.

TATTVAMASI

The first myth discussed can be summarized as follows: Prabhupäda chastised his leaders sometimes, but he was mostly very much pleased with them and pleased with his Governing Body Commission. He was confident that the movement was in good hands and in no jeopardy of failure or degradation.

There were a few excerpts from letters which provide evidence of this self-serving pre-supposition, but let us consider three factors which belie it. First, why did he even mention that his movement could be ruined? If it was in good hands, there would be no need to bring up such a negative provisional development. However, he often did. Here is an excerpt from a letter to one of his leaders in the African yatra, dated 11-1-74:

“I pray to Krishna that you all may use your intelligence for Krishna’s service and not for any personal ambition. We have worked very hard and established a great institution, but if we think for our personal benefit, then it will become ruined. This is my only concern.”

The poison is personal ambition. In hindsight, we know now, beyond any doubt, that many if not most of his leaders were loaded with egotistical, personal ambition. The zonal äcärya debacle ruined the movement, and all eleven of those men were chock full of personal ambition. This is indisputable. More evidence of the bad management that pervaded his movement in the mid-Seventies, dated 6-4-75:

“One thing is though, if the management continues to be so nasty, then that place will also be ruined. Management must be done very nicely, otherwise it is useless.”

Notice, he says “also be ruined.” It was not a one-off, i.e., other centers were similarly ruined. Let us proceed to a warning about ulterior motives given very early in his movement to one of his first disciples, dated 7-1-69:

“If you adulterate our Sankirtana Movement with some business motive, then it will be spoiled immediately. Be careful in that way.”

Business motive is one thing, but self-aggrandizement qualifies for the same result, as evidenced by what went down later. Here’s another warning from the early days to one of his first disciples, dated 9-1-69:

“But one thing is you must stop this fighting between brothers. Otherwise the whole program will be spoiled. Yourself, Tamal Kåñëa, Brahmänanda, Satsvarüpa, you should do everything combinedly. . . if amongst ourselves there is friction, it will be very dangerous.”

Soon thereafter, the G.B.C. was formulated and formed. It did well in the beginning, but then it slipped badly in early 1972. From the perspective of your host speaker, it never fully recovered from that, although the specific crisis referred to in the upcoming quote was temporarily overcome by Prabhupäda. Here is an excerpt to one of the ringleaders of that ad hoc centralization scheme, dated 4-11-72:

“I cannot understand why, instead of one G.B.C. man, a person outside the Commission was given so much power, and there was to be immediate action without divulging the matter to the devotees. And I am surprised that none of the G.B.C. members detected the defects in the procedure. It was detected only when it came to me. . . What will happen when I am not here: Shall everything be spoiled by G.B.C.?”

This was the first major crack, and it is a long story. We have covered it threadbare in videos, articles, and in my 2009 book. The point is that Prabhupäda was not impressed with the G.B.C. The myth that he was is certainly nothing more than a self-serving imposition, and it is one of the blocks in the “ISKCON” Jenga Tower. The related myth that Prabhupäda invested the G.B.C. with an automatic self-correcting mechanism is certainly a false pre-supposition, because he suspended it when the centralization scheme went down.

He was never really confident that his movement was in good hands, although he may have once stated something like that as encouragement. He was never very confident that the G.B.C. would turn the corner and not ruin his movement in due course of time, which is exactly what it did. He was not all that pleased with many of its members, what to speak of what his reaction would have been in the Spring of 1978 when the Commission went off the rails approving the zonal imposition.

He was able to foil the centralization scheme in 1972, but here’s what he had to say later in that same year to one of its chief ringleaders:

“Do not centralize anything. Each temple must remain independent and self-sufficient. That was my plan from the very beginning, why you are thinking otherwise? Once before you wanted to do something centralizing with your G.B.C. meeting, and if I did not interfere, the whole thing would have been killed. Do not think in this way of big corporation, big credits, centralization—these are all nonsense proposals.”

Another myth constituting a block in the “ISKCON” Tower of Power is the idea that the cult’s leaders were men of great knowledge. Certainly they were not ordinary men, but Prabhupäda indicated that they lacked knowledge, and he gave this warning to one of his leading men about that very fact, dated 6-22-72:

“I want you leaders especially to become very much absorbed in the philosophy of Bhagavad-gita, Srimad-Bhagavatam, and become yourselves completely convinced and free from all doubt. . . but if there is lack of knowledge, or if there is forgetfulness, everything will be spoiled in time.”

In last month’s presentation, we came down heavy on the myth that Prabhupäda wanted the plainclothes pick. No need to go over all of that here, but it does constitute a major block in the “ISKCON” Jenga Tower. However, also consider this excerpt from a letter to one of his leading secretaries, dated 10-15-76:

“In all our dealings, we should be above suspicion. They say first impressions are lasting. If someone feels cheated by our men because they are using dubious methods of distribution and collecting money, our purity may be doubted and reputation spoiled.”

It was spoiled very quickly by the pick. Dishonesty became rampant by 1978, in no small part because the zonal imposition of the eleven great pretenders, but also because all G.B.C. men were shot through with dishonesty. The plainclothes pick, initiated in late 1973, helped set the stage for this. It was a factor in why so many devotees bought into the zonal scheme and were unable to see it for what it was. Here is another important excerpt for your edification and realization, dated 12-22-72:

“Krishna Consciousness Movement is for training men to be independently thoughtful and competent in all types of departments of knowledge and action, not for making bureaucracy. Once there is bureaucracy the whole thing will be spoiled.”

As most of you know, the current version of the fabricated, so-called “ISKCON” confederation is chock full of bureaucracy, and this has been ever-increasingly the case for decades. It only began to form a bit while Prabhupäda was still here. He was unable to nip it entirely, but he did delay it to a significant extent. This just read excerpt clearly demonstrates how much he disapproved of it.

He wanted all of his sincere and serious disciples to not only become expert, but to become fixed in transcendental knowledge in order to become spiritual masters as regular gurus. He then wanted them to become siddha and empowered to spread pure Kåñëa consciousness to every town and village of the world. He did not want a heavily stratified institution that existed in order to glorify a few megalomaniacs absorbed in self-apotheosis. Instead, he wanted his leading men to train the devotees to become as good as or even better than them.

However, that first echelon did not take the training and did not become self-realized. It instead hijacked the movement, culminating in the imposition of the zonal äcärya era. In due course, in less than a decade, the backlash came in the form of The Second Transformation, the collegiate compromise, with its related bureaucracy integral to its reactionary movement, leading to the current deplorable situation.

You may object to this. You may claim that the politics in “ISKCON” is not bad, and that the devotees, on the whole, are tolerating one another, getting along and cooperating nicely. Superficially, this is only partly true, but, even with that concession, what about Neo-Mutt and Rittvik?

These two splinter groups spun off from the Mother Ship. “ISKCON” is responsible for them, at least indirectly, because it did not remain bona fide after Prabhupäda departed. No one will dispute the fact that there is intense internecine fighting between and amongst the fanatics attached to and representing either “ISKCON” or Neo-Mutt or Rittvik. You can’t just come to a right conclusion on the basis of the Mother Ship alone.

Do any of these excerpts just discussed indicate that things were proceeding well in Prabhupäda’s branch of the Hare Krishna movement, even while he was physically present? Yet, the pretense is to believe that these misconceptions were essential to his branch. However, none of the blocks thus far discussed is the really big one.

None thus discussed and exposed is the one which, if removed, collapses with certainty that cult’s Tower of Power. Earlier in our presentation, we promised to discuss the one that does, and now we do just that. It can be summarized by a mere four words: “BUT I WAS THERE.”

There are two psychic divisions to this meme, but only one of those will be described in detail and emphasized here. The one we are not going to emphasize will be briefly described now. It constitutes a general or generic ambiance or atmosphere which pervades all of “ISKCON,” but which is rarely verbalized. It combines itself with posts held, letters received (as Sulochan wrote: “Count the Letters”), and time of service. It does not, however, constitute a block in the “ISKCON” Jenga Tower.

The other one does. It constitutes the most important block, because it is applied specifically to one key event in the Hare Kåñëa movement before Prabhuapda left the scene. It is applied to a mal-interpretation of that event—make that a dreadful, self-serving mal-interpretation.

The BUT I WAS THERE meme is printed on all sides of that Jenga block. It helps to keep it in place. We are making every attempt here to remove it from the cult’s Tower of Power, and this is not the first time we have exposed this particular and flawed pre-supposition nor the meme used in order to keep it in place.

Understanding it will require background information. As most of you know, the key room conversation in the whole movement’s history took place in Prabhupäda’s quarters at the Krishna-Balaram temple on May 28, 1977 in Raman Reti. We have previously discussed that long conversation held between Prabhupäda and all of his Governing Body Commissioners; they came to India especially for it. We are not going to go over the whole thing here, but, to the degree that you are interested, engage in necessary research to know it. Seek it, and ye shall discover it.

The totality of the Commish was not privy to all of the conversation, however. This was not known for a long time due to the G.B.C.’s well-established penchant for secrecy, but it is becoming known now. The transcript and essence of that room conversation was not revealed until 1980, which was outrageous. However, that is par for the course for these men, who regularly engaged in hiding whatever they thought would benefit them and their schemes by such deception.

Before that essential part of the May, 1977 room conversation was undertaken, it had been decided that Satsvarupa and T.K.G. would ask the raw nerve question about how to conduct initiations after Prabhupäda left the scene. They botched it, badly. However, hardly anyone directly witnessed this.

Only six leading secretaries were allowed into a private part of Prabhupäda’s quarters when that all-important question was asked and answered. Most of you have read that short transcript; some of you have even studied it. When T.K.G. said “These rittviks, they’re giving dékñä . . .” why did not the other five speak up? They were there, and they were there for a reason. They were not there to remain mum and simply accept. They were there to represent all of the devotees, but they failed to do so.

When the whole thing got bollixed up in the middle, and Prabhupäda said, “Why consider? Who?” (because everything had become muddled and unclear), why did not one of those other men speak up? They were there. They should have seen that the purpose of this difficult but necessary discussion was being blown. Yet, despite being there, they all remained silent. Not a peep. Silence means acceptance, but they had no business accepting any of it. It was their duty to demand real clarity!

When T.K.G. said, “That’s clear” in his obvious attempt to truncate and abort the topic–because, in his estimation, he had heard what he could manipulate and wanted to hear–why did not at least one of the other five speak up? None of them did, but Prabhupäda wouldn’t let it end there. He made a final attempt to summarize what was meant to be gleaned throughout the interview.

The Old Guard did not come through in that ultra-important meeting. Two of them are now dead, and none of the others is active in “ISKCON.” Yet, one of them was recently interviewed for some kind of Prabhupäda remembrance video, and, in it, he said he knew what Prabhupäda wanted in the matter of appointing dékñä-gurus.

He reiterated the party line that the eleven rittviks were to become the first initiating spiritual masters. Prabhupäda appointed rittviks just over a month that essential room conversation. He said that he would create some gurus late in it with all commissioners on May 28^th, 1977.

This was related to that key part of the room conversation, which was severely mishandled. However, this former leader and G.B.C., being one of the six who witnessed the raw nerve question—not at all involved but just sitting there—now claims that he knew what Prabhupäda wanted. He has claimed in the past that he knew the “mood” of Prabhupäda, he knew the intention of Prabhupäda. We are supposed to simply accept.

Now, he still claims the same thing in relation to the May conversation and the appointment of rittviks. And his basis is: “But I was there.” Yeah, you were there, but you didn’t do your duty! You were asleep at the switch! You didn’t do the job!

Today, he still backs the party line that the eleven rittviks were meant to automatically become dékñä-gurus after Prabhupäda left the scene.

There is no proof of this, and there is no real evidence of it, either. His evidence is “But I was there.” And how can we be confident that Prabhupäda never intended any such thing when he appointed those rittviks? Phalena-paricéyate: Judge by the results. Look what they did! Look at all the havoc they caused!

Besides the basic logic that Prabhupäda never said that those rittviks were gurus, despite the fact that he could have directly appointed them as gurus in July of 1977, we are supposed to accept the “ISKCON” party line. We are supposed to accept, because each party man of the Old Guard backing it does so on the basis of “But I was there.”

The colossal hoax known as the fabricated, so-called “ISKCON” confederation is a pseudo-spiritual scam. In its Jenga Tower of Power, the key block holding the whole thing up is the false pre-supposition that the eleven rittviks of 1977 were appointed, covertly, as gurus in July of that year. On that key block, we find the words “But I was there.”

We are to accept this myth on that basis, but now all of you know better. Reject the myth and reject the Old Guard narrative. They allowed the movement to degenerate, and their narrative simply rationalizes that. Time to let the whole structure topple. Make it happen!

SAD EVA SAUMYA