09/26/1998 - 2277

Several Grievances Against the Members of the GBC

USA (VNN) - by Jayadvaita Swami

by Jayadvaita Swami, 1987

The grievances listed here are meant for thought and consideration. I have tried to include only items pertaining to all or many present GBC men, not only one or two and not only those no longer active. Theextent to which these complaints are true, the depth of what they mean and the best way to respond, I leave up to the Vaisnavas, and each GBC man himself, to reflect upon and decide.

-- Jayadvaita Swami, March 5, 1987

 1. In 1977, Srila Prabhupada was lonely ("I have become poisonous"), he wanted many devotees to come be with him in Vrindaban. But the GBC falsely conveyed that what he wanted was GBC men and very senior devotees. The GBC then arranged to send only a handful of men, in rotation, and preached to the other devotees that "for service" they should stay home. The devotees stayed home, and Srila Prabhupada left the world.

 2. In 1977, most GBC men abandoned Srila Prabhupada in Vrindaban. They flew in when they heard his departure was imminent, then flew out when they found there was no way to know how long he might stay on.

 3. The GBC has shown gross incompetence and neglect in regard to the construction of Srila Prabhupada's samadhis.

 4. The GBC instituted, encouraged, and for many years belligerently and obstinately defended symbols, rituals, practices, teachings, and structures subversive to the unique importance of HisDivine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acarya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

 5. The members of the GBC have, with few exceptions, neglected their pledges to take on, in rotation, the personal seva of Srila Prabhupada at his Vrindaban samadhi and the Radha-Damodar temple.

 6. The GBC has failed to adequately implement the last will of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in regard to trusteeship of properties.

 7. The GBC has failed to adequately maintain and protect the reputation and prestige of the Society.

 8. The GBC has failed to maintain and protect the spiritual standards of the Society.

 9. The GBC has allowed the material and spiritual deterioration of ISKCON's projects in Vrindaban and Bombay.

 10. The GBC has allowed the spiritual deterioration of ISKCON's project in Sridhama Mayapur.

 11. Competing for zonal primacy and undue control over disciples and prospective disciples, the members of the GBC have helped undermine Srila Prabhupada's plans for the International Gurukula in Vrindaban.

 12. On the whole, the members of the GBC have failed to maintain in their own lives a proper standard of Vaisnava behavior.

 ("The GBC should personally observe strictly all the rules and regulations and they should become the practical example to others. Then everything will be all right." -- Letter to Bali Mardan, May 9, 1974)

 13. After Srila Prabhupada's disappearance, for many years the GBC systematically misrepresented Srila Prabhupada's teachings and instructions about carrying on the disciplic succession.

 14. The GBC instituted, encouraged, and for many years belligerently and obstinately defended symbols, rituals, practices, teachings, and structures meant to create and perpetuate for a small group an elite status to which they were never entitled.

 15. The GBC pushed and pressured disciples of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada to worship selected GBC Godbrothers as though on the same level as Srila Prabhupada himself.

 16. The GBC members have allowed, have failed to halt, or have arranged for or demanded gross misappropriation of facilities and funds for their own self-aggrandizement.

 17. Various members of the GBC have unfairly pressured devotees to accept initiation from persons the devotees were legitimately reluctant to accept, and have needlessly canvassed or competed for disciples, even against the expressed wishes of local ISKCON leaders. And this is still going on.

 18. The GBC has needlessly kept incompetent, fallen, or deviant persons as active members of the GBC body, suppressing, denying, and misrepresenting the nature of their incompetence, fall, and deviation.

 19. The GBC has failed to insure adequate shelter for distressed and wronged persons who appealed to its members for protection.

 ("If a person is able to care for or give protection to old parents, a chaste wife, children, the spiritual master, brahmanas and other dependents but does not do so, he is considered already dead, although supposedly breathing." --Krsna, Vol. 1, page 354, latest edition)

 20. The GBC and its members have allowed, have failed to halt, have defended, have encouraged, and have deliberately brought about mistreatment and persecution of innocent persons.

 21. The GBC, both indirectly by impure acts and directly by confrontation and force, has driven large numbers of Srila Prabhupada's disciples out of their service, out of their homes, and out of ISKCON.

 ("You should always deal things so tactfully that people may not fall away. Every living being is important in Krsna conscious service, and we must take all precautions that one may not fall away." -- Letter to Tamal Krsna, Oct. 18, 1969)

 22. The GBC displayed naivetŽ, incompetence, crudeness, offensiveness, and gross self-interest in dealings with B.R. Sridhara Maharaja.

 23. The GBC members have displayed gross, rampant impurity in their dealings with one another.

 24. The GBC, in neglect of its own rules, has consistently failed to promptly, fully, and accurately publish its annual resolutions. In 1986 its executive committee deliberately held back selected resolutions from the published minutes and misrepresented to the members of ISKCON that it was constitutionally entitled to do so. (In 1972, a similar act was among the GBC moves that led Srila Prabhupada to revoke authority from the GBC).

 25. The GBC, in concert with the BBT trustees and against the expressed will of the ISKCON temple presidents, deliberately suppressed publication of Srila Prabhupada's letters, even in edited form.

 26. Various members of the GBC have permitted, encouraged, or demanded the use of ISKCON funds to publish books, magazines, newsletters, records, etc., that excessively advertise their ownglories, blaspheme other Vaisnavas, propagate falsehoods, and disturb the peace of the Society.

 27. The members of the GBC have systematically misrepresented and allowed and encouraged others to misrepresent--Srila Prabhupada's teachings and instructions about business and sankirtana.

 28. The members of the GBC have neglected and misrepresented numerous other teachings and instructions of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

 ("So if there are any defects within our Society it is only symptom that the instructions of the Spiritual Master are being neglected." -- Letter to Karandhara, Feb. 10, 1973)

 29. The GBC has failed to adequately respond to just and ongoing pleas for self-reform.

 30. Faced with the above grievances, GBC men have tried to avoid individual responsibility for acts - or failures to act - for which they are clearly responsible.

 31. The GBC has lost the trust of a majority of Srila Prabhupada's disciples.

 32. By allowing, advocating, taking part in, perpetuating, and defending these and other forms of contamination and decay, the members of the GBC have brought the ultimate managing authority of the entire International Society for Krishna Consciousness to a state of disrepute and pollution.