08/04/98 - 1961

Saving Prabhupada’s Legacy

USA (VNN) - Ten Points of Reform, by Pranakrsna dasa Adhikari

A dark and troubling era has descended upon the Western branch of the great tree of Vaisnava Dharma. Beginning at the time of the disappearance of the greatest acarya of Vaisnavism in our time, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the ancient tradition of Krsna-bhakti, which he so lovingly and faithfully brought to Western shores, has been in perpetual danger of extinction. Today, more than ever, the future of the Krsna Consciousness Movement is threatened by a myriad of crises. The following document has been written with the purpose of outlining a rational and concrete program for saving the legacy which Srila Prabhupada has entrusted to his disciples, grand-disciples and followers.

The fact that Srila Prabhupada’s legacy is currently threatened is news to very few. Over the past twenty years, ISKCON has been wracked with ongoing scandals involving corruption, mishandling of funds, widespread abuses of power, immoral and criminal behavior by top officials, falldowns by alleged gurus, sannyasis and other spiritual leaders. Of the original eleven "acaryas" overseeing ISKCON’s spiritual fate, six have fallen into the oblivion of maya. And now the most powerful of these original pretenders to the throne, Harikesa dasa, has apparently joined them. It has been estimated that up to ninety percent of Srila Prabhupada’s original disciples find themselves no longer capable of being directly involved in such a troubled movement. Temples are functioning with skeleton crews throughout the world; whereas at one time in the past many of the larger temples could claim dozens of enthusiastic brahmacaris, today many temples in America do not even have enough devotees to muster up a good harinam party. To say that the gurukula system was an utter failure would hardly even suffice in doing justice to the suffering of the many hundreds of innocent children who were forced to endure the experience. Never has the public perception of the Krsna Conscious Movement been more decidedly negative. Growth in ISKCON has come to a complete standstill. Srila Prabhupada’s legacy is in jeopardy.

The purpose of the present document is to provide the disciples, grand-disciples and followers of Srila Prabhupada with several fundamental concepts which are indispensable for the salvation of the Vaisnava movement in the West. These Points of Reform are by no means comprehensive or exhaustive in their treatment of the transformation required to both purify, and thus save, the Krsna Consciousness Movement. They are only a beginning. The Points of Reform are designed to be a bare-bones, minimalist program, from which it is hoped that other legitimate concerns, ideas, and issues will arise from the within Vaisnava community. Though they are only preliminary, these points are, however, crucial measures which must be implemented immediately if Srila Prabhupada’s movement is to survive intact into the twenty-first century.

Having discussed what the purpose of this document is, let me now explain what its purpose is not. "Saving Prabhupada’s Legacy" is not designed to be a political position paper of any kind. It is hoped that the ideas presented here will contribute to an ongoing, positive and progressive dialogue about how to remedy the many mistakes and injustices that have taken place in the recent history of the Vaisnava movement in the West. This document is not in any way meant to serve as an ideological bludgeon with which one party in Hare Krishna politics can gain the upper hand over any other party. If it is used in this way, then it will have failed in its purpose. Polemics has never served, nor will ever serve, to bring about the personal and institutional reform necessary to ensure a bright and positive future for the Krsna Consciousness Movement.

Before I proceed, I should share with the readers of this document some information about who I am. Briefly: My initiated name is Pranakrsna dasa Adhikari. I have been a practicing Vaisnava for the last twenty years. I was associated with the International Society for Krsna Consciousness from approximately 1978 till 1985. At that time, I made the decision to take initiation from Srila B.R. Sridhara Gosvami Maharaja. I received first initiation in 1985, and brahmana initiation in 1986, both times in Navadvipa Dhama. Presently, I am a Advanced Opportunity Fellow working on my Ph.D. in South Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My fields of specialization include Sanskrit, History of South Asian Religion and Philosophy of Religion. I am, first and foremost, a practicing and believing Vaisnava. I am not, however, affiliated with, or a member of, any current Vaisnava institution. I am neither pro nor anti-ISKCON, neither pro nor anti-Gaudiya Matha, neither pro nor anti-Rtvik. Actually, I dislike politics in any and all forms. What will hopefully constitute the greatest strength of this position paper is the very fact that it is being presented, not by one of the many antagonists of the continuing political crisis in the Krsna Consciousness Movement, but by an objective, neutral and trained scholar who has studied this movement for the past twenty years, and for whom its survival and ultimate success is of the utmost importance.

If you are a devotee, and if you have a sincere concern about preserving the divine gift that Srila Prabhupada has bestowed upon his followers and upon all of humanity, then I urge you to read these recommendations with an open mind and heart, share and discuss these recommendations with other devotees, and help improve upon the present work.

Ten Points of Reform

1. Democratization of ISKCON. An autocratic system only works effectively and justly when the autocrat is perfect. In the absence of such a perfect ruler, such a system only leads to abuse. Srila Prabhupada, the perfect guru, established a system that worked perfectly in his presence. In his absence, however, this system has been perverted and used to injure, rather than to serve, the Vaisnavas who have taken shelter within it. The autocratic system which is present day ISKCON can never work effectively because there is no perfect devotee guiding it. The primary solution to the many abuses and injustices that have taken place in the system is to democratize the system. Each and every administrative office in ISKCON must be occupied by respected and able individuals voted into their respective offices by the majority of devotees under their jurisdiction. Rather than administrators being appointed by inept leaders who are clearly out of touch with the average devotee, devotees must choose leaders whom they trust and whose devotional and administrative propensities they have faith in. The election of leaders to governing offices, and their removal once they prove ineffectual, is not a concept that is foreign to the history of Vaisnavism, contrary to what some vested interests might have us believe.

2. Finishing the Revolution. Beginning in approximately 1986, a partial reform of The International Society for Krsna Consciousness took place. Many of the previous corrupt and ineffectual members of the Governing Body Commission (G.B.C.) were asked to resign and were replaced by individuals who were more prone to reform. What has become obvious to all impartial observers over the past twelve years, however, is that this slight changing of the guard was far from complete. The G.B.C. had, by 1986, become such a liability to the movement initiated by Srila Prabhupada that nothing less that the removal of every single member, including - especially - every member of the original eleven "acaryas", could bring about the changes necessary to reinvigorate the movement. For whatever reasons, this was not done. Many of the original deviators from Srila Prabhupada’s pristine program were allowed to stay on. As a direct result, ISKCON continues to be a stagnant and controversy-ridden organization. The time has come to finally remedy this past mistake. Each and every current member of the G.B.C. must be asked by the membership of ISKCON to step down from any position of power they may claim within the governing body of ISKCON. After an as of yet undetermined period of time, they must be replaced by a new governing body voted upon and approved by a majority of devotees. These elected devotees themselves must serve in their administrative capacity for a clearly fixed period of time, after which they must step down. There must be clearly set term-limits on how long a devotee can serve on the G.B.C. These changes will not threaten the proper functioning of Srila Prabhupada’s movement. With the clear exception of insincerity and corruption in the name of authority, nothing can threaten Srila Prabhupada’s movement. It is now the time to make a clean break with a failed past.

3. Open and Thorough Apology to all Vaisnavas Offended by ISKCON. Over the years, and to this very day, countless sincere and dedicated Vaisnavas have been offended, hurt and damaged by the direct actions and words of misguided ISKCON leaders. Whether we refer to the many ordinary devotees banished from temples due to their opposition to corruption, or great stalwart and pure Vaisnava acaryas, such as B.R. Sridhara Maharaja and B.V Narayana Maharaja, the past and current leadership of ISKCON has been guilty of committing that greatest of all offenses known to the eternal Vaisnava tradition: vaisnava aparadha. As we who are devotees of Krsna all know, there is only one remedy for such grievous offenses: an open, sincere and thorough apology to the Vaisnavas offended, followed with the unambiguous and irrevocable vow to never commit such offenses again. The current crisis gripping the Hare Krishna world is ultimately a spiritual, not merely a social, political or institutional, one. ISKCON must immediately offer a formal, open and thorough apology to all Vaisnavas who have ever been hurt, abused or offended by the institution. Only then will Mayadevi let loose her stranglehold on the Western branch of Vaisnavism. Only then will the phenomenon of ISKCON leaders and "acaryas" descending into madness cease.

4. Immediate Removal of All Criminal Elements. Let us finally get this straight: The ends never justified the means. To this day, there are many individuals who have committed illegalities - whether they abused children, women and other Vaisnavas, physically assaulted sincere devotees, engaged in drug-dealing and other corrupt activities "in Krsna’s service", or stole money from devotee and non-devotee alike - who are still being given shelter within the confines of ISKCON temples. In light of the moral, legal and karmic implications of harboring such criminals, these criminals must be immediately removed from the Krsna Consciousness Movement and not allowed to return. What does it tell the world when the movement which sets itself up as the paragon of all moral and ethical virtues cannot itself distinguish between sincere devotees and crass criminals within the sacred bounds of its own institution?

5. A Ban on Banning. Such a purging of the criminal element is not to be even slightly confused with the system of banning which exists at present; i.e., banning of individual devotees solely due to their political and philosophical differences with the current leadership. For decades, ISKCON leaders have misused their authority by apostatizing devotees who were viewed as political threats to their own personal and collective power. Contrary to what some might think, Vaisnavism is not a system that is adverse to the practice of critical thought by its followers. Diversity of opinion has always been an accepted fact of life in the history of Vaisnavism. What is required is that such diversity of thought be accompanied by deep respect for other Vaisnavas and be firmly grounded in sabda-pramana, or the Vedic revelation. If there is a difference of opinion among Vaisnavas, then such differences are discussed in an atmosphere of mutual love, respect and humility. Vaisnavas do not "ban" other Vaisnavas. The abusive practice of banning Vaisnavas must cease immediately, and every single devotee who has ever been banned as a result of his/her sincere differences of opinion with the leadership must be invited to rejoin ISKCON.

6. Complete Financial Accountability. Such a high level of corruption and philandering has existed for such a long period of time that probably no one will ever entirely discover the full extent to which the Krsna Consciousness Movement has been looted of funds by corrupt members. A complete open-book policy must be immediately implemented in order that the people who make the money for the movement can see how the money is being handled and spent. Only such a policy can ensure financial accountability. Even many materialistic corporations trust their employees enough to let them examine the books; why is ISKCON incapable of doing this with the devotees it supposedly exists to serve? Secrecy only serves the corrupt; and only the corrupt are paranoid. Until every financial record in ISKCON is completely open for perusal by all devotees, not one more cent should be given to ISKCON by sankirtana devotees, grhastas, Life Members or anyone.

7. Building Congregations. It is clear that the monastic model that Western Vaisnavism has attempted to follow for the last three decades cannot ensure the survival and growth of the movement in the future. History has shown us that only religious movements that were organized around a congregational concept have survived. We are no longer living in the 1960’s and 1970’s, when there were legions of disaffected youth roaming the length and breath of Western countries looking for alternative lifestyles to experiment with. Very few are today willing to uproot their lives and move into a Hare Krishna temple. Rather that bemoaning the fact that it has become almost impossible to make "full-time" devotees, it is time to adapt to the current situation by bringing Vaisnavism to the people, where they live and work. It is imperative that every Vaisnava temple in the Western world begin building large, active and strong congregations of house-holder devotees who are made to feel that they are integral parts of a greater Vaisnava community, a greater Vaisnava family. The current Nama-hatta system that ISKCON is attempting to organize in the West will not be successful for two reasons: 1) it is geared toward making all its members into eventual "full-time" initiated devotees, not towards assisting them in being Vaisnavas fully integrated into their surrounding environments. Thus it is not a congregational program in any real sense. 2) In the concocted hierarchical system that serves as the basis of ISKCON’s Nama-hatta program, no one will want to be known as "the person who is in the category of following two and a half principles and chanting five rounds". It is a system designed to breed duplicity. This is no more than another example of the kind of impersonal, hierarchical systems that are the result of a leadership that is thoroughly out of touch with its rank and file.

8. Stressing Education. The role of education and academia have, unfortunately, never been considered very high priorities among Western Vaisnavas. This attitude has been prevalent to the clear detriment of our entire movement. For simultaneously, we have always made a pretense of wanting to reach out to, and affect, "the intelligent classes". As is true of the indispensability of building congregations, similarly, there has been no world religion in history that has survived and thrived which did not lay a great deal of emphasis on encouraging and cultivating a powerful cadre of well-trained and committed scholars. It is the theologians and the philosophers - the brahmanas - who ultimately defend the faith in the face of all ideological and philosophical challenges. It is of the utmost importance that Vaisnava institutions in the West spare no cost or effort in encouraging qualified devotees to a) complete their education if they have not done so, b) enter the realm of academia and become Krsna Conscious scholars, teachers and professors. This will only become a reality, however, when ISKCON itself becomes an institution that has no fear of encouraging its devotees to think freely and rationally, all thought being lovingly circumscribed only by the perfect guidance of sabda-pramana. One easy and effective step that can be taken is the establishment of a scholarship program that will offer financial assistance to any devotee who is willing to take the time and make the effort to complete his or her education. The money is certainly there. It simply needs to be redirected to a program that can actually help aspiring devotee scholars, rather than being wasted, as it currently is.

9. The Unity of Vaisnavas. "A house in which the whole world can live". We have all heard this saying. It is much more than an mere empty slogan. It goes to the very heart of the universality and all-inclusiveness that makes Vaisnava Dharma what it is. When seen through the eyes of Krsna-bhakti, no living entity is our enemy. Every living entity is an eternal spark of Sri Krsna. We are commanded by Krsna and Srila Prabhupada to traverse life with such a loving and compassionate vision of reality. What then are the implications of such an equitable and compassionate vision when we are dealing with other Vaisnavas who are not necessarily members of our particular institution? Every acarya in the great Vaisnava tradition, whether Ramanuja, Caitanya and Vallabha, or Bhaktivinode, Bhaktisiddhanta and Bhaktivedanta, every great acarya has prayed and labored to bring about the unity of all Vaisnavas. How then can we not? How can we invite non-devotees into our house when our own Vaisnava home is currently so painfully divided? Considering the abysmal tract record of ISKCON over the last several decades, has the time not arrived to exorcise ourselves of our superiority complex?

It is now an irreversible fact that ISKCON has become only one of many valid and valuable Vaisnava organizations working to bring Krsna Consciousness to our troubled world. In America alone, there are now over a dozen separate Vaisnava organizations successively working to make the world more Krsna Conscious. In India, of course, there are hundreds. It is imperative that we work toward achieving a sense of common vision and cooperation between all the various Vaisnava organizations that now exist - and that we do this without politics, one-upmanship, or envy. The nascent vehicle for such a unity project now exists in the form of the World Vaisnava Association. Rather than waiting for some other unity project to come along that the G.B.C. feels that it can dominate, and rather than attempting to artificially create failed copies of the successful World Vaisnava Association, ISKCON should humbly cooperate with this courageous endeavor on the part many thousands of sincere devotees from throughout the world who are seeking unity and brotherhood, with Krsna as our common father. The first, and most important, step in bringing about unity would be an "open-temple" policy: Allow any other practicing and believing Vaisnava to visit and speak at ISKCON temples and allow ISKCON devotees to visit and speak at non-ISKCON Vaisnava temples. Almost every other Vaisnava institution in the world has been in favor of such a policy...with the almost sole exception of ISKCON. The results of such an open and cooperative policy would only be positive, as each institution would learn from the other, and devotees would be able to derive the sadhu-sangha that is the life-blood of every sincere Vaisnava. Without this first step, all talk of unity will be no more than empty words.

10. Respect for Women. I have placed this point last, not because it is of least importance, but almost because it is of most importance. A society, any society, including our society, is judged by how it treats its women and children. Ours being an overtly and consciously Vaisnava society, it is crucial that we understand that how we treat women is a clear reflection of whether or not we have properly understood the philosophy - and, most importantly, the mentality - of Vaisnavism. Instances of the Vaisnava vision can be documented throughout the millennia old history of our great tradition. For a Vaisnava, there is neither brahmana nor cow, neither elephant nor dog nor dog-eater. Gender is merely a display of the duality of maya, for in actuality we are not the body, but spirit soul.

I realize that it may appear almost silly to repeat so fundamental a teaching as aham brahmasmi, a teaching that we have all heard ten thousand times at a thousand different Srimad Bhagavatam classes. But perhaps this is when actual realization can finally supplant mere theory. Women too are spirit souls. Vaisnava women, in particular, are spirit souls who are consciously working toward realizing and living that ontological fact. As such, Vaisnavis are worthy of our respect and obeisances. Until we realize this, we will simply never get it.

Throughout our Vaisnava history, Vaisnavis have served in the capacity of leaders, gurus, acaryas, sannyasinis and saints of every description. It is time to revive this tradition, which is steeped in the vision of Vaisnavis, not as mere women whose sole purpose is to "entrap" men in grhasta life, but as empowered servants of Krsna. We need to give Vaisnava women access to the same power, respect and authority that any Vaisnava man has, including temple presidencies and even guruships. There are certainly volumes more to be said on the topic of respect for Vaisnava women. I am sure, however, that there are many Vaisnavis eminently more qualified to expand upon the subject than am I. Matajis, mothers, find your voice!

Concluding Thoughts

Maintaining a firm grasp upon Truth is always a perpetual struggle. The purity of one’s conscience, motivations and actions is never to be taken lightly. Mistakes are made, crimes committed, truths concealed. These are the hazards of our own finitude. Simultaneously, however, we are free-volitional beings, beings who are gifted with the ability to make free-will choices as to whether we will humbly traverse the path of truth, or succumb to the temptations of apparent power, prestige and pleasure. The Krsna Consciousness Movement is today at a crucial juncture. We, the members and stewards of this movement, are faced with a decision of monolithic proportions: Will we simply continue to allow this great movement, which Srila Prabhupada labored so strenuously to create, build and entrust to his sincere followers, to be run into the ground by a leadership which has time and again shown itself to be unfit for the task? Or will we find the courage, fortitude, insight and purity necessary to save this movement from the imminent disaster for which it is now headed? Courage, fortitude, insight and purity are qualities which Srila Prabhupada personified. They, in addition to this movement, are his legacy to us. Let us be worthy of Srila Prabhupada’s legacy.

Finally, I have no personal political agenda in having written this document. Consequently, in order to ensure the objective nature of "Saving Prabhupada’s Legacy", I will personally refrain from taking part in any of the ensuing discussions, debates or activities that may occur as a result of this document. I will not respond to questions or comments by either letter, phone or e-mail regarding this document. So please do not attempt to contact me. I am no one of any importance. Rather, it is my dream and prayer that this sincere cry in the wilderness will inspire you personally to bring about the positive changes necessary to preserve and strengthen Srila Prabhupada’s gift to us all. "Saving Prabhupada’s Legacy" is not my possession. It is yours. I have no copyright on it. I urge you to please feel free to forward, post, print, copy, distribute it and quote from it at will. Srila Prabhupada’s legacy is in your hands.

Dedication

"Saving Prabhupada’s Legacy" is dedicated to the memory of the late Srimad Bhakti Abhaya Narayana Maharaja of Hungary, one of Srila Prabhupada’s most stalwart disciples, one of the devotees most responsible for opening up the Iron Curtain to the saving message of Vaisnava Dharma, and one of the purest and humblest devotees I ever knew.

Pranakrsna dasa Adhikari
August, 3rd 1998