A Few Words About Parting From ISKCON - Daiva Sangam

A Few Words About Starting Apart from ISKCON


Many will ask why it is that we feel it necessary to leave ISKCON and establish our own spiritual organization, and we deem it necessary to reply.

I must preface my remarks by saying that it is not at all my opinion that ISKCON is bad through and through and therefore there must be an alternative. ISKCON is by now a huge organization and as such there are all kinds and all levels of devotees who serve there. There are many wonderful devotees and many wonderful activities. But there is need of an alternative, and I have been guided within over the course of many years to contemplate, and now finally create, this alternative. It is not my desire to do so to compete with ISKCON, as there is no such thing as competition when serving the Godhead. We shall serve and they shall serve. We shall be overjoyed to see their success, and we hope for such goodwill in return.

There are some disagreements and some important areas that require rectification, in our humble opinion. The reasons are significant enough that we deem it necessary to strike out on our own, depending cent-per-cent on the mercy of the Lord. Whatever success we may have is up to Him. We serve Him not for the sake of success necessarily, but because we feel compelled to do so by His constant urging. Time will show what is to become of this effort. In all ways we aim solely to serve the Supreme Absolute Truth, Sri Krishna. May He bless our endeavors.

For those who want to know the whys and wherefores we enumerate them below. But again we stress that this is not to begin a campaign against ISKCON, but rather, for the positive principles of the Sankirtan Revolution. 

The reasons are significant:
  1. The original “Movement” is lost. There is no Movement in the “Movement” any longer
    1. Some see this as a natural outcome of the maturity of the society. However I disagree. ISKCON has lost its bearing, has no sense of being a Movement, and a Movement is necessary to save the world.
    2. This is especially true with regard to the yuga-dharma—harinam sankirtan—the street chanting of the holy names of God.
    3. A new leadership is needed to again invigorate the membership with a sense of purpose and a sense of Movement.
  1. ISKCON leadership seem not to understand where to lead the society in the coming years to continue to develop what Srila Prabhupada created and gave to us. Where do we go from here?
  2. Having become the "official" leadership, the GBC and temple authorities have in many cases lost the following of the devotees (see the quote from the Centennial Report in the sidebar above). Why have they lost the trust of the devotees? Because they are seen as self-serving rather than serving the members and have thus lost their credibility. Leadership is, and must always be, dynamic. Love and following must be free, and to be free means there must always be a choice. The Daiva Sangam does away with the monopoly on spreading Krishna consciousness giving freedom to individual expression in leadership and preaching.
  3. ISKCON has become overly compromised, and even integrated into the dominant culture, thereby losing sight of how the two cultures are antithetical, and how the atheistic and materialistic dominant culture is hostile to the purposes of Krishna Consciousness. In the process the society seem to have also lost the idea that every member of the society should (and can) come to the level of prema bhakti, or presumes that it is an impossible task for only some select few.
  4. The infiltration of ISKCON by unwanted, subversive elements has side-railed the society and may account for many of the problems observed. Srila Prabhupada recognized this and wrote about it as “a sinister movement within our society”. He also accused his newly formed GBC of “Godless plan making”, and that “You kill guru and become guru”. The leadership seems to have ignored this dire warning with the result that the Movement has been misdirected. This has not happened by chance, by immaturity, or by well-meaning incompetence. It has happened by guile and malice on the part of some, covered with a suitable veneer of piety that has bewildered the less-intelligent and indiscriminate. These demonic elements will in time attempt to destroy the spiritual potency of the society, to control the application of the principles, and to alter and render impotent the treasure house of Srila Prabhupada’s writing.
    1. ISKCON is not unique in this regard. Every organization is infiltrated by the powers-that-be and generally controlled from within. Niranjana Swami has two disciples in Ukraine who state that they were sent by the KGB to infiltrate the society, but after learning in depth what it was all about they “blooped” from the KGB instead. Perhaps.
    2. Several devotees have told me that they were informed by government agents that ISKCON had been infiltrated by intelligence agencies. The KGB supposedly infiltrated our Movement all the way to the GBC from New York City in the early 70s.
    3. Those subversive elements have sought to kill the founder, alter his writing, and make impotent his society. This has happened earlier in history and is in the process of being repeated. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur has written in detail how the agents of Kali use every method to destroy the progression of God consciousness in this world.
    4. We can observe now, 45 years after Srila Prabhupada first went to America, that his mission has been rendered impotent. Although there may be thousands of members, they are compromised by their activities in the dominant culture, the spiritual ideals are lost, and the principles are the object of jokes. Things need to be again set aright.
    5. The proposals presented here are meant to take all of this into consideration, and with a view of preventing future heresies, create the circumstances that will allow the unhindered flowering of the spiritual principles and truths to unfold everywhere.
  1. We see the need to establish the varnashrama model of social organization as given to the world by Sri Krishna Himself. However, in our opinion, establishment of the varnashrama and Daiva-varnashrama culture has become impossible within ISKCON due to the fact that the leadership have no understanding of Daiva-varnashrama, consider it as a sub-set of the ISKCON culture, and due to its own now well-established culture which is antithetical to the spirit and principles of Daiva-varnashrama.
  2. Against Srila Prabhupada’s several severe admonishments to the contrary, the GBC continue to create a centrally-controlled, top-down hierarchical system (corporate model) that thwarts individual inspiration and initiative and is antithetical to Daiva-varnashrama culture. This has destroyed the enthusiasm of thousands and thwarted the spread of the spiritually potent Movement.
    1. The GBC misinterpret their mandate as “the ultimate managing authority” to mean either “the managing authority” or “the ultimate authority,” neither of which fits with the intention of Srila Prabhupada in establishing the GBC. He wanted the body to act as the final arbiters of and dissention and thus promote smooth dealings within and between the members of the society. In other words, he wanted the GBC to replace him and act in his stead, as he did—to travel and insure that proper standards are maintained and to settle disputes that may arise, and although he put this in writing it seems the GBC men have had another idea.
    2. Instead of sticking to this mandate, due to strong a desire to command and control money and the actions of others, they attempt to define every aspect of what Krishna Consciousness means, and to control the results of all members. In other words, they have developed an “I and mine” mentality that destroys their credibility as spiritual leaders, dampens the enthusiasm of the followers, and insures a revolving door, ignoring those that leave, content to live off of, and exploit those that stay.
  1. The GBC’s ignoring of, and selective acceptance of, Srila Prabhupada’s Direction of Management (DOM).
    1. In the DOM Srila Prabhupada wrote: “I am getting old, 75 years old, therefore at any time I may be out of the scene, therefore I think it is necessary to give instruction to my disciples how they shall manage the whole institution. They are already managing individual centers represented by one president, one secretary and one treasurer, and in my opinion they are doing nice. But we want still more improvement in the standard of Temple management, propaganda for Krishna Consciousness, distribution of books and literatures, opening of new centers and educating devotees to the right standard. Therefore, I have decided to adopt the following principles and I hope my beloved disciples will kindly accept them.”
    2. It is with the DOM written on July 28, 1970, that Srila Prabhupada created the GBC, a part which the GBC themselves accept, however, they refuse to accept the remainder of the document, which in essence is a constitution that disperses power.
    3. “There was a meeting in San Francisco during the Ratha Yatra festival 1970 and many presidents of the centers were present. In that meeting it was resolved that an ad hoc committee be set up to form the constitution which is taken into consideration.” To this day, more than 40 years later there is no constitution. However, the DOM itself is a partial constitution sharing power with the temple presidents.
    4. Srila Prabhupada wrote there that the temple presidents will determine the GBC members and that the GBC members were to be temporary positions: “2. In the succeeding years the GBC will be elected by a vote of all Temple presidents who will vote for 8 from a ballot of all Temple presidents, which may also include any secretary who is in charge of a Temple. Those 8 with the greatest number of votes will be members for the next term of GBC.” And:
                        “3. The commissioners will serve for a period of 3 years, and they
                  may be re-elected at the end of this period.” And:

                   “8. Removal of a Temple president by the GBC requires support by
                         the local Temple members.”
  1. The subsequent determination that the GBC appointment shall be for life, and that they are to be not elected by the temple presidents, establishes conditions that give the GBC absolute authority over the society creating an unhealthy circumstance. Subsequently we see the GBC engaged in “empire building” far beyond their original mandate. As we have noted above, the GBC has been infiltrated by the “intelligence agencies” whose primary interest is that of control. The dismissal of the instructions of His Divine Grace as per the DOM indicates the influences of these agents.
  2. Srila Prabhupada later referred to the DOM in a letter sent to all temples July 22, 1974 with the words TOPMOST URGENCY written in all caps across the top. This letter of topmost urgency has been totally ignored.
  1. Srila Prabhupada gave clear succession instructions of what to do, but I submit that he was ignored because they did not suit the desires of those who had taken control of the society. This is clearly obvious if one follows the history of the DOM.
Indeed, Srila Prabhupada did clearly indicate who would succeed him to Indian guests who came to query him on this matter. He told them that anyone who follows his instructions is his successor. By this effort we are acting on those instructions.

On the other hand one may argue that Srila Prabhupada did not give more detailed succession instructions due to being instructed not to by Sri Krishna. Why? Because the Lord in the heart knows everyone’s thoughts and motives and knows past, present and future. Knowing the ill-motivation of those who had taken control of the society He knew that in the future ISKCON would fail in its purpose and that this would become obvious through the actions of time. Indeed it has. Since that is the case clear succession instructions were not given so that the actions of those who purport to succeed him would be all the more clear.

  1. The GBC have blatantly violated the principle of guru-shastra-sadhu and have concocted “spiritual” principles, misleading thousands of trusting dependents. Case in point is the GBC’s position on the guru-disciple relationship, where they have failed to accept the results of their own Shastric Advisory Committee. Failing to follow guru-shastra-sadhu they have deviated from Vaishnava siddhanta and have disqualified themselves as authorities.
  2. The present gurus fail to spend any time giving instruction their disciples, fail to bring them to the stage of spiritual perfection, and even recognizing the situation, do nothing about it; yet they continue to initiate more and more. Why initiate more? For what purpose? There are thousands of devotees who are lost for want of genuine spiritual guidance.
  3. The Movement has been infiltrated and co-opted. Yes, I accept that the world is controlled through conspiracies. Not theories. There is ample reason to believe this. We need to organize in such a way as to make it impossible to control from the top. A decentralized, non-organization, so to speak, in which objective standards are established and individual initiative is encouraged. We need this to create a sankirtan revolution.
  4. There was once a need for an organized society to take the teachings of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu around the world. That has been accomplished. Now the need is to focus on the local to teach and train devotees to quickly come the transcendental platform and anarta-nivriti, and go on to achieve success in developing love of God.
  5. To create a sankirtan revolution, a spiritual revolution to save the world. To make harinam sankirtan and Daiva-varnashrama culture the most important activities. Now, they are the two most neglected activities.
  6. It is important to understand the role ISKCON Communications Journal (ICJ) is having in the implementation of academically contrived religious pluralism into ISKCON. If you visit their official web site, the reader can access numerous articles (dating back to the early nineties) advocating the necessity for ISKCON to embrace this religious pluralism in order to ensure its acceptance and survival in the world. In that setting any adherence to an Absolute Truth is ridiculed and all participants must at least pose as relativists.This is yet another compromise with the dominant culture that destroys the ideological purity of Srila Prabhupada's siddhanta since many of these academics are ISKCON gurus.
  7. Finally, the reason why I must move on from ISKCON is that I have been denied room to grow in devotional service. Specifically I have been denied initiation into the sannyasa ashrama on political grounds. I say political because the reason has nothing to do with my qualification, with my service, with my preaching, or siddhanta. In fact, I was told that if I signed a paper, lying, and against my conscience, to the effect that I believed that Srila Prabhupada was not poisoned that I would be allowed to take sannyasa. How can I, in an effort to move further into renunciation, further into preaching, speak a lie? I refused. Two additional times I applied for the sannyasa ashrama and was told the same thing each time.
    1. But it is the next step in my spiritual growth, and it is needed. Not only sannyasa but also taking disciples. It is time for that. It is also needed. Therefore I must move on, and as any disciple of the departed guru, I have the right to create my own math, or preaching mission.
    2. I do not do this based on any material calculation of my supposed success. I have little qualification, and many past failures. Therefore if we were to judge the future based on the past then anyone would give no chances of success. But any material estimation of success is not the basis of my endeavor. Success or failure in spiritual pursuits are, after all, up to Sri Krishna. My determination is simply to do my duty, to the best of my ability, and depend on Krishna for the result. We take succor in the fact that there is no loss in Krishna Consciousness. Every endeavor made for the satisfaction of Sri Krishna becomes a permanent asset. Finally, my desire is to please my guru, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the parampara, and if it is at all possible to please the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna.
The final comment in all of this is that I want to communicate is that I am not against ISKCON. I do not consider ISKCON as an “enemy” or an adversary. There are without a doubt thousands of sincere and dedicated devotees in the society who are doing the world a great service by their selfless efforts. Whatever faults are there should be overlooked since the society of ISKCON does a great deal of good. However, like myself, others who find that ISKCON no longer provides them with a place to grow are required to find a fertile field in which to continue their spiritual development until reaching that highest pinnacle of pure love for Krishna. I pray that everyone in this world, in and outside of ISKCON, will be so fortunate to receive the blessings of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and achieve that treasure of all treasures, Krishna prema.
ISKCON's centennial report “has shown conclusively that the authority (or lack thereof) of ISKCON's gurus and the GBC represent the most significant predictors of member commitment to ISKCON.  Quite simply, it is clear that many ISKCON member's (temple devotees, congregational members) and former members alike place minimal trust in ISKCON's leadership.”


start_the_hk_movement_again_-_visaganus_220809.mp3
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This is a lecture I gave in Lithuania about the great need for starting the Hare Krishna Movement again. The best part is the question and answer period, so don't miss that.

Start the Hare Krishna Movement Again!