What do you think damaged Srila Prabhupada’s movement most?
Q: What do you think damaged Srila Prabhupada’s movement most?
A: It is the same type of consciousness that damaged the movement of his spiritual master: the concept of “me” (the body) and “mine” (whatever belongs to this body is mine).
It is this concept that led to the introduction of the zonal acharya system and that, to a great degree, prevails until today in a more fragmented form.
“The area I preach in is mine, the congregation I collect money from is mine, the disciples are mine,” etc.
Any time this consciousness prevails, preaching stops, as much energy is spent on defending one’s territory and one’s “possessions.”
In the name of cooperation, alliances are made—and broken again; godbrothers are exiled, and disciples are indoctrinated with the same possessive mentality. The extended version of this capitalistic idea, the pseudo-democratic idea of “now it is ours,” where anybody sincerely serving Srila Prabhupada’s mission can be “voted out” by a majority vote of a few disturbed ladies and one envious revolutionary, hardly offers any alternative to the dogmatic, oppressive zonal acharya system, where disciples become tools in the hands of a zonal owner to remove uncomfortable critics.
In such an atmosphere, hardly any conditioned soul will be attracted, as the concept of “me and mine” is well practiced and well known in the material world. Why join something one has been suffering from one’s whole life?
As demonstrated on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, finally the “owners” have to face the reactions to their abusive activities, and the servants of the Supreme Lord, however few they may be, prevail.
It truly pays not to sell one’s conscience to the owners who somehow believe that the law of karma applies to others and not to them.
One after another, they go insane and die miserably, only to be replaced by another “owner.”
Meanwhile, the righteous and sincere ones gather themselves in the saving boats Srila Prabhupada provided for us and chant his glories.
Reaching the islands where Srila Prabhupada’s legacy is still preserved, they become invigorated, abstaining from the hypocrisy and deceit of the dying occupants of Srila Prabhupada’s property.
As one such survivor told me:
“At least I cannot be blamed for not warning the others, and I was part of the theft.”
Often, there is little more to do than use every opportunity to associate with and encourage the righteous ones and avoid the hypocrites.
Srila Prabhupada did the same.