BY: ROCANA DASA
June 4, CANADA (SUN) — A weekly response to Dandavats editorials.
Today's Obeisances is in response to Ravindra Svarupa dasa's recent article, Bylaws and Centralization - The Facts".
Dandavats has chosen to publish this article, which was also sent out to the North American Temple Presidents and GBC prior to the meeting in Houston. Ravindra Svarupa's main goal in writing this was to counteract the discussions going on in the Sampradaya Sun and elsewhere in and around the time this letter was carefully composed on the request of the Executive Committee of the North American Temple Presidents/GBC, who were obviously getting negative feedback on the bylaws proposal.
Of course, there's a reason why they got Ravindra Svarupa to write this article. He's become the official propagandist for ISKCON. In earlier days this position was filled by Hridayananda and Satsvarupa, who wrote these kinds of letters, but now that duty has gone over to Ravindra Svarupa, for obvious reasons. Having been trained in mundane university, he knows how to be a word juggler and is expert at appearing very authoritative and knowledgeable. But at close scrutiny, the whole article is simply a smokescreen. It's full of contradictions and outright manipulations in the way it uses history and fact.
Right from the very beginning, the author decides to focus on Vyapaka's letter, quoting his sensational title, "Our Whole Movement Could Be Killed". This was actually an excerpt from one of Srila Prabhupada's letters, but Ravindra Svarupa doesn't mention that source. So it was Srila Prabhupada who said this, not Vyapaka.
Of course, Vyapaka was entirely correct in quoting what happened during Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON lila period, when he clearly set down his viewpoint on how ISKCON cannot be centralized. Ever since Srila Prabhupada made his position abundantly clear, the GBC has been looking for 'weasel clauses' that will allow them to get past this obstacle Srila Prabhupada put in their path. Here, Ravindra Svarupa is trying to assure everyone that they're to abide by this prohibition while at the same time doing what they're doing, which is to ride the fine line between centralization and trying to gain as much power as possible, and the line wherein Srila Prabhupada made clear they didn't have that kind of power.
The GBC are not only trying to take power by way of the North American bylaws, however. If one reads the latest GBC Meeting reports, you'll see the very same trend going on. The GBC as a body and the individual GBC members are trying to get as much power as they can over what remains of Srila Prabhupada's movement, which is the assets - in other words, the real estate. Like all real estate in North America, temple properties have increased in value far beyond anyone's initial expectations. So in the guise of trying to protect Srila Prabhupada's property by these bylaws, they are essentially trying to legally control the assets.
In his opening presentation, Ravindra Svarupa introduces his main point, which is that ISKCON's history is 'so hazy and distorted' to what he calls 'a distressing degree'. Of course, if the history was actually told it would cast a very bad light on the leadership, so they've made it their business to make sure this history is never officially written down. But much to their consternation, many others are recording it for history. Even so, ISKCON's history is primarily in the minds and memories of the individuals who participated. In this case, Ravindra Svarupa is simply giving us his version of history. As someone who participated in an identical capacity as he did during that period, however, I have an entirely different perspective, as do many others. Regardless, Ravindra's position is that he's going to clear up once and for all ISKCON's history as it pertains to the GBC.
In fact, Ravindra Svarupa's perception is such that it casts a disparaging light on Srila Prabhupada himself. He writes that: "Although Srila Prabhupada formed the GBC in 1970, he did not fully establish the modus operandi of the GBC until 1975, at the beginning of the first of its official annual general meetings." In other words, Srila Prabhupada allowed five years to go by before he fully empowered the GBC. As Ravindra Svarupa has said in his previous articles, it is his perception that Srila Prabhupada was 'experimenting'. Now at this point I could launch into my own perspective of the history of the GBC during that period, but that would be a long article in itself. In fact, this article of Ravindra's touches on so many points I could embellish upon. For now, I'll just say that you could encapsulate Srila Prabhupada's original conception of the GBC in these few words: "Do as I am doing". And the GBC didn't do that. They wanted to get into hands-on management.
Today, Ravindra Svarupa is disobeying Srila Prabhupada's instructions by being both a GBC and a Temple President. Just like his associates in the early days, he is unable to give up management because he isn't spiritually advanced enough. For example, even though some of Srila Prabhupada's GBC men were ostensibly Temple President's in the 1970's, they didn't take on the prestigious title of Temple President. For example, Rameswar was effectively the Temple President of Los Angeles, but Jayatirtha was given the title (Jayatirtha was not a GBC at the time). Similarly, Jagadisa was both a GBC and effectively a Temple President in Canada, but did not take on the Temple President title. This was the case because they were following Srila Prabhupada's orders and policies, which were that the GBC were intended to be just like him - to let go of management and to travel and preach. However, history shows that they couldn't surrender to doing what Srila Prabhupada originally intended them to do. Today, we seen them taking on both the GBC and Temple President titles, as Ravindra Svarupa and Hari Vilasa are doing.
My main point here is that Ravindra Svarupa is attempting to convince everyone of what Srila Prabhupada's intention was in terms of how the GBC should function, and he's using his version of history to prove the point. This goes to the main issue of the day, which is these bylaws, although the bylaws are just the tip of the iceberg. Clearly, the overall move is to insidiously put more and more power into the hands of the GBC. This was not Srila Prabhupada's original intention, at all. Beyond the smokescreen that Ravindra Svarupa and the GBC are trying to create in terms of justifying their position, they are seen to be deviating from Srila Prabhupada's overall concept of what real spiritual management consists of, which is to have very advanced devotees preaching constantly, as he did. That is how he managed ISKCON, and that's why ISKCON expanded in the way that it did - due to his spiritual potency and this dynamic being in place.
Ravindra Svarupa attempts to give us an idea of what happened in 1975 at what he says was the 'first official GBC meeting'. According to him, Srila Prabhupada essentially nullified his own original Direction of Management (DOM) simply by having that meeting, which in itself contradicted some of the principles of the DOM. Of course, there's no direct statement made by Srila Prabhupada that this is a fact -- it's just Ravindra Svarupa's spin on things.
In his article, Ravindra Svarupa says that "none of the writers seem to know or remember clearly the actual management structure for ISKCON that Prabhupada set up." He makes it sound like none of the people who are protesting the bylaws (including myself) have any experience or remembrance of this history. In fact, I attended every GBC meeting as a Temple President during the 1970's, and had first hand experience.
Ravindra Svarupa's next major point is that we writers are completely unaware of what's going on in ISKCON today, and that if we had simply had some idea of what's taking place, we would totally agree with him and his position. He paints this picture that the North American GBC and Temple Presidents are working in such an ideal way together now, and if we were only aware of this we wouldn't have any objections to what he and his friends are trying to accomplish in changing the bylaws. But I for one know exactly what's going on, and have had plenty of recent personal experience of being excluded from this 'ideal circumstance' by the very members of his group. We're all seeing first-hand what's going on in our local temples, and it's not the pretty picture that Ravindra Svarupa would like us to see.
The fact is that over the last thirty years, since Srila Prabhupada's departure, the landscape has been completely changed by the GBC. First of all, it was the GBC who approved the Zonal Acarya system, and when that program could not be maintained, it was the GBC who set up the present system, which tries to establish the GBC body as the collective Acarya of ISKCON, both materially and spiritually, essentially replacing Srila Prabhupada, who was the most important factor in the original 1975 meetings that Srila Prabhupada established. In other words, he had complete veto power, and he used it to keep the GBC in line.
Now Ravindra Svarupa would like us to believe that there's a big crisis because one small temple, namely Long Island, managed to hold off the GBC's attempt to replace the authorities there. There's a whole side of that story, of course, that Ravindra Svarupa doesn't like to tell us about, but we have published. Essentially it was the GBC's fault, not because of bylaws, but because of the way they mismanaged dealing with the local authorities. And for everyone's information, the temples that left ISKCON, namely Bangalore and Long Island, are still fully functional and are focused entirely on Srila Prabhupada and preaching vigorously. But if we took a true look at history, we see that due to GBC management, many temples have been closed altogether.
But now Ravindra Svarupa is proposing that we should have bylaws giving the GBC even more power, although as a body and as individuals they have caused more temples to be negatively impacted, and in many cases closed altogether, due to their mismanagement - not due to local devotee's mismanagement. Taking into consideration the fact that we're all conditioned souls, we're in the age of Kali, Krsna consciousness is being introduced into the western world for the first time, we have to admit that there's going to be problems and mistakes made. But from a true historical perspective, it's the GBC that have caused and exacerbated so many problems, not local temple managers. It's primarily the GBC that has had the most negative impact on ISKCON. Yet they will not admit this. Instead, they want to make it look to us like it's all the local management's fault for all these problems.
In a second article, I will address many of the issues Ravindra Svarupa has made in this paper. As he says, this is a 'reader's digest' version. While he's saying how important these bylaws are, he doesn't explain why it's taken 30 years for them to get around to changing them, or why they have been discussing these bylaws amongst themselves for the last three years and to this very day, can't agree on them. That in itself speaks volumes.
Obeisances to Dandavats, and to HG Ravindra Svarupa dasa.
