To My Godbrothers and Sisters

BY: SWARUP DAS

Dec 30, USA (SUN) — Here's what I've got to say .....

ISKCON ceased to exist November 15, 1977. The organization that has been using the name ISKCON for the past 30 plus years is so polluted, infected and screwed up that it's too late to even attempt correcting it from within. Like a house that is so infested with termites and roaches it has to be torn down to its foundation --- the same goes for the so-called ISKCON that exists today.

Seminars, committees, ops improvement, marketing strategies, elections, court cases, retired gurus, retired sannyasis --- this adjustment, that strategy ---- I mean to say --- has everybody gone nuts? I don't get it. All of you -- my godbrothers -- who are continuing the charade -- are you blind? Is it a matter of apathy? Ambition? Institutionalization? How can you go on, year after year, maintaining the status quo when you're living in a house that is crumbling all around you?

Let's start with the obvious. Just as "we are not our bodies" is an elementary, integral part of our message and preaching .... so is the fact that a Vaisnava guru is NEVER appointed, selected or elected by an ecclesiastic council such as goes on in the Vatican when it's time for a new Pope to replace the old one. If I had a dime for every time I explained that to somebody in the letters I wrote as ISKCON Secretary between '69 and '78, I'd be a wealthy man today.

So what have you guys done? When the appointment absurdity was an obvious failure, you changed the process to elections (or as you call it, majority approval process or some such thing). It doesn't matter what you call it or how many adjustments and high level meetings you have in Mayapur -- you can't change the fact that two plus two equals four and not five.

Furthermore, the ritvik idea that Srila Prabhupada continues on as diksha guru after his departure is the other side of the craziness. They say that two plus two equals three and over the other side of the boat they go. Splish Splash! The only reason they have such a big following is because they are half right (in regard to what they refer to as the "guru hoax"). They're pretty much right on about what shouldn't be, but they're way off about what should be. Sometimes being half right is worse than being all wrong.

Anyway ... anyhow and any port in a storm .... what then could have and should have taken place after Srila Prabhupada departed? I'll give you a hint with a quote from one of Prabhupada's letters -- and aside from that letter, he alluded to this idea so many times and in so many ways throughout the years (and yet he gave us enough rope to hang ourselves, which is often what Srila Prabhupada would do so that we would hopefully learn and grow up).

    ".... Still he requested his disciples to form a strong Governing body for preaching the cult of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He never recommended anyone to be acarya of the Gaudiya Math. But Sridhara Maharaja is responsible for disobeying this order of Guru Maharaja, and he and others who are already dead unnecessarily thought that there must be one acarya. If Guru Maharaja could have seen someone who was qualified at that time to be acarya he would have mentioned. Because on the night before he passed away he talked of so many things, but never mentioned an acarya ..."

When Satsvarupa asked, "When we initiate somebody whose disciple would they be?" it was something like one of my sons asking me, "Dad, when I have a kid whose kid will he be?" Stupid questions, perfect answers. Next thing you know my beloved ISKCON -- my sanctuary -- my home -- my alma mater since I was a 17-year old kid joining the New York temple in '69 -- turned into the Mickey Mouse Club. Just about everybody left. In desperation so many went looking for inspiration and association and ended up in the camps of Sridhara Maharaja or Narayana Maharaja. Of course, just about everybody split. The atmosphere in our ISKCON became intolerable. Suddenly eleven knuckleheads were being worshiped on Vyasa asanas. Unbelievable. It was surreal. It was insane. I tried to speak out in the late 70's and early 80's against the craziness, to no avail. I was labeled a heretic and blacklisted. So I did the only thing I could think of doing. I became a drug smuggler -- ended up in federal prison -- got out a year later and became a heroin addict.

Why was it so imperative that diksha initiations had to continue in some fashion after Srila Prabhupada left? Through his books and tapes (vani association) Prabhupada remains Siksha guru for one and all, forever and a day. As far as diksha initiations -- that's a transcendental process of the heart. By the mercy of Krishna one will eventually find his guru and by the mercy of the guru, one gets the seed of love of God planted in his heart. Srila Prabhupada wasn't initiated until years after he met his Guru Maharaja. What was the big rush to tightly wrap three strands of beads around every new recruit post-1977 and give them a new name? Were we running an assembly line? Such immaturity! Such short-sightedness. Such foolishness.

If any of you remaining "leaders" want to get honest and real -- look me up. I'm not hard to find. Let's talk. It's not too late to get it right. Is anybody man enough to step up? What have you got to lose? Stop deluding yourselves and bullshitting the naive newcomers. It's gone on long enough. It's sickening. It's embarrassing. Stop it. It's disgusting what's going on in Srila Prabhupada's name.

All glories to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
All glories to Sri Sri Guru and Gauranga.

Sincerely,
Swarup das



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