BY: ROCANA DASA
Apr 4, CANADA (SUN) — A weekly response to Dandavats editorials.
Over the last few weeks we've been commenting on individual lectures/classes by various members of the GBC during the annual Mayapur festival meetings. In today's segment of Obeisances, I'd like to respond to the final Mayapur meetings report, entitled "GBC Final Days Overview". This report provides something less than the Reader's Digest version of what actually took place at the GBC meetings. Many important issues that the GBC had to deal with were condensed down into the last few days of their conclave.
I was interested to read that the GBC are now doing "straw votes" on various proposals and issues being put before them. This is an interesting managerial strategy. For those not familiar with the 'straw vote', here's a brief Wikipedia definition:
"A straw poll or straw vote is a vote with nonbinding results. Straw polls provide important interactive dialogue among movements within large groups, reflecting trends like organization and motivation.[1][2] In meetings subject to rules of order, impromptu straw polls often are taken to see if there is enough support for an idea to devote more meeting time to it, and (when not a secret ballot) for the attendees to see who is on which side of a question. However, Robert's Rules of Order prohibits straw polls, calling them "meaningless and dilatory."[3] Among political bodies, straw polls often are scheduled for events at which many people interested in the polling question can be expected to vote. Sometimes polls conducted without ordinary voting controls in place (i.e., on an honor system, such as in online polls) are also called "straw polls".
The idiom may allude to a straw (thin plant stalk) held up to see in what direction the wind blows, in this case, the wind of group opinion."
Of the two main reports mentioned here, one is about what's euphemistically referred to as the "Youth Fund", which in reality is about meeting the judgment demands and deadlines on the Turley lawsuit settlement. The GBC gives a brief report on their disbursement of funds to the 700 youth who sued ISKCON for the way they were treated in the gurukulas.
Admittedly, we have not done much research into the current status of the settlement payout, although we hope to get better educated on the matter as time permits. In the GBC's report, we read that out of the approximately $9.5 million payable, nearly $4 million has now been dispersed. As we understand it, the members of the class action are being paid based on the severity of the abuse they experienced. As a general measure, however, if the funds were dispersed equally, each claimant would have received approximately $5,600 by now, and when the final payment is completed, they would have received approximately another $7,900.
Not surprisingly, the GBC report says as little as possible on the issue, reporting in a tone that makes it sound like they're giving this money out of the goodness of their heart… "reaching out to our hurt youth". They seem rather self-congratulatory about the fact that, according to them, they saved ISKCON by negotiating this deal. They say it's nothing short of a miracle, and give praise to the two Zonal Acaryas who came up with $1.5 million for the settlement. Bhakti Caru Swami came up with a million, and Radhanath Swami "arranged" half a million, which we presume means he got his rich congregational members to come up with the money. There's also mention that the Los Angeles temple contributed 'above its quota', but we don't have any idea what that means. We're also informed here that the GBC members still don't have a plan for how they're going to come up with the other $5.5 mil, which is more than they've given so far. I don't know how many more rich Swamis they can depend on to make good on these daunting figures, but time will tell.
Of course, the whole impression being given is that the GBC have absolutely no culpability for the fact that the youth filed this case in the first place, or that it's one of the many repercussions of the Zonal Acarya period. They don’t mention that there were many occasions when the GBC could have addressed this issue prior to the youth having to go to court, but they simply ignored all the warning signs until it reached a fevered pitch. Instead, we're supposed to think that it's the GBC who are now "saving" Srila Prabhupada's movement. They're still taking no blame themselves for having creating this situation.
Another big issue that's highlighted in the Final Days report is the Vedic Planetarium project. Ambarish Prabhu is now the Chairman of the project committee. His close friend Abhirama, who was previously in charge, was recently ejected from the project due to a huge disagreement over how the monies were been spent. Ambarish has now stepped in, and is availing himself of the assistance of the notorious homosexual pedophile, Bhavananda, who is happily ensconced back in Sridhama Mayapur.
We should keep in mind that Srila Prabhupada asked us to get this Vedic planetarium up and running some 40 years ago, and now still in the planning stages. Ambarish states that the project will manifest in six years, which is a little hard to believe, actually. Interested readers can visit the Mayapur website for details.
The report indicates that a presentation was also given to the GBC by the Bhaktivedanta Institute, another of Srila Prabhupada's personal projects which he empowered the late Bhakti Svarupa Damodar to head up. This was the only project that Srila Prabhupada authorized giving a percentage of the BBT funds to in order to ensure that it goes on. The main focus is to be challenging the scientists on their concept of Darwinian evolution. At this point, it seems that the Institute's activities are primarily centered on traveling around in India, holding seminars on the topic of science and religion in colleges. While we applaud their efforts, it seems that there is still a long way to go to achieve what Srila Prabhupada expected of his Bhaktivedanta Institute.
One thing that strikes me as bewildering about this year's GBC meetings is that in the final two days, they appear to have such a long list of things left to deal with. It's been reported that the members took a whole day off to have a love-in seminar, and they engaged in some sentimental pastime with the International School, having the students come in and playact as if they're GBC's. The members told the children that one day, they'd have to take over as GBC's. While this is very touching, let's keep in mind that these "old Swamis" who are holding most of the power within the GBC are now in their 50's and 60's. They haven't yet seen fit to pass on their GBC responsibilities to anyone else. In fact, as this article reports, when they announced the GBC Executive Committee, every one of them was a Swami. Wouldn't you expect that by this point of time, the Swamis would be trying to avoid this kind of duty so they can focus on the real meaning of being a Swami? Instead, it appears that being a Swami in ISKCON today means that you have an opportunity to be on the GBC and engage in administrative activity. In other words, it's kind of a pre-requisite for getting a sweet position in the institution.
The only way to become a Swami in ISKCON today is to be vetted by Prahladananda Maharaja, who heads up the Sannyasa Ministry. While it would be very interesting to get some real details about his area of responsibility, no such details were forthcoming in this report. Other than simply informing everyone of how many candidates are now allowed to be Swamis and how many are still waiting in the 'Transcendental Swami Queue', there's no information being made public about why certain devotees are being benedicted with the Swami title while others are not.
Of course, the other big area of rubber-stamping activity is the GBC-approved position of Guru. If you're chosen to be a Diksa Guru, you can then go to some of the seminars they're now holding and learn to become a better guru (or whatever it is they do at these guru conventions).
Amongst all those items on the list of things to be handled in the last few days of meetings, one that seems to be very important is the discussion of Srila Prabhupada's puja and murti care standards. From what I've gathered, there have been a lot of complaints made to the GBC lately about what some consider to be the neglect of Srila Prabhupada murtis and puja that's traditionally part of the morning program. Now the GBC have to implement a standards book so that everyone knows what the standards were back in the early days. The standards didn't have to be spelled out back then, but now obviously because of neglect, the GBC have to institutionalize such standards. This simply means that there's not enough Srila Prabhupada consciousness in the temples.
There are a number of other interesting philosophical issues that I would love to hear from the GBC on, such as initiations where there are no temples. Nowhere in sastra is it mentioned that a guru can only initiate where there's a temple, so that shouldn't be a constraint. In fact, nowadays individuals are encouraged to have their own temple room in their home, and many householders living on the temple property even have their own home Deity worship, although this is not what Srila Prabhupada recommended. So what does the GBC have to say about this issue? You'd hope they would share this with the public rather than leave us guessing.
The policy for the past many years has been that the gurus fly in, initiate devotees, and fly back out again. They relegate the responsibility of actually training the disciples to the local temple authorities. Sad to say, this often doesn't happen, as evidenced by the great numbers of untrained diksa disciples found throughout the movement today. Unfortunately the temples aren't structured like they were in the early days, when training was a fundamental function of the temple community. Today's ISKCON gurus are not accustomed to actually taking responsibility for the training and spiritual development of their disciples. So we can assume that the issue here is really about what the guru should do when there's no local temple to take charge of training his disciples up for him. Of course, that's not stated here in the report. It's just my speculation and interpretation of what's between the lines.
There are a few other items mentioned in the report that leave one to wonder what was actually stated… and what was not stated considering that the GBC crammed so many issues into the last day or two of the meetings. One of the issues is the absence of a central office for ISKCON fundraising. Of course, we all know the controversy surrounding Srila Prabhupada's statements about centralization or bureaucracy, although that hasn't stopped the institution from centralizing. In this case, it appears that the GBC are having problems getting enough money together to support their central office (which Srila Prabhupada didn't want them to have).
The annual World Holy Name Week got little mention in this year's report. Of course, this is the essence of Srila Prabhupada's concept of ISKCON -- that every day is Holy Name Day, 24x7x365. That's supposed to be our theme.
Of course, there's a GBC committee to review GBC appointments. The way the GBC's structured today, they have all sorts of assistants, secretaries, regional secretaries, and so on. In other words, the GBC has a whole crew of people underneath them that do the jobs Srila Prabhupada originally assigned the GBC members themselves to do, like visiting the temples and seeing that the standards are maintained, and motivating the members to participate fully in Krsna consciousness. Now there's an institutional secretary to do that sort of thing on behalf of the GBC members who are assigned certain areas or temples. Today we also have a number of GBC members who are 'free range', if you well. They don't have much of a portfolio, but have been sort of grandfathered in, like Hridayananda.
While some GBC members have very large portfolios, others have dwindled down to only a temple or two. Of course, it's very hard to get rid of a GBC member who doesn't want to voluntarily step down, even though they're not doing much in terms of assuming responsibilities. Hari Vilasa is a good example. I don't think he's even bothered attending the GBC meetings over the last two years. Of course, he's busy holding "peace dances" and fund-raising for his new temple, so one can hardly expect him to put too much focus on GBC activities.
All in all from what I can gather, the GBC meetings have become just a façade to make everyone believe that the GBC are active and doing great things. In reality, however, most of the activity is decentralized. In many parts of ISKCON the Zonal Acarya/guru/sannyasi reigns supreme. They may hold the GBC title, but in reality they run their own localized ISKCON, be it little or big. Because this circumstance has been allowed to flourish, there's not much outside influence exerted upon them, let alone any accountability to the institution as a whole. While they remain autonomous, some of these temples are actually flourishing today. Just see how Bhakti Caru and Radhanath Swami were the big contributors to the Youth Fund. So really, ISKCON has two parallel organizations going on: the so-called GBC institutional, church-like version, and the traditional eastern version of religiosity, namely the Zonal Acarya. Unfortunately, neither follows Srila Prabhupada's model for his desired spiritual mission.
Obeisances to Dandavats and to the members of the Governing Body Commission.
