Where did my guru go?

This text might by surely considered by some daringly open-minded, as if questioning the parampara system in place we see in ISKCON today.

As deranged and arrogant the ritvik dogma may be, "forbidding" the Supreme Personality of Godhead to empower anybody who comes after Srila Prabhupada, as sad the fact is that the points raised by this deviant group are often true. They shouldn’t be true.

As there are those amongst my godbrothers who advocate that the return of a disciple back home back to Godhead depends on a collective endeavor of all his or hers assistants, there are also those who entirely ignore this fact.

Srila Prabhupada, the Founder of ISKCON, the center and the maintainer of the mission of Lord Caitanya, stresses repeatedly that His disciples depend on a system of siksa gurus. I personally grew up in ISKCON exclusively under the daily guidance of my godbrothers who without exception gave me the best they could according to the level of their Krsna Consciousness. Even some of "the best" was retrospectively proven to be wrong, still none of them tried to harm me in any way and supported me to preach and distribute Srila Prabhupada’s books only. The mission statement in the days I joined was clear, even occasionally poorly executed.

Again and again Srila Prabhupada urged the new initiates to take shelter under the older ones. Of course he also stressed that the older ones should be aware of the responsibility they carry in form of giving good or bad advice.

That system was strongly established and it brought about great results in the preaching field. The word disciple was automatically connected to the word discipline and so naturally the chain of command was maintained, resulting in an largely united preaching carried by boldness unknown today.

Srila Prabhupada stressed the need of cooperation between the sannyasis and temple presidents, the GBCs and the rest. His vision was that of a constantly traveling GBCs who assisted those in need spiritually, free from personal agenda and worry for personal maintenance. Personal presence was absolutely required; nobody could manage from a desk far away from the preaching field. Leader meant the one who was present and not absent as if always busy "with something else elsewhere".

What to speak of a leader who obviously follows his agenda only, predominantly engaged with self maintenance, never accepting any sort of responsibility for the actions he initiated by his preaching. A leader entirely freed from conscience and introspection, a leader of a "Teflon-quality" as we see occasionally today. (Teflon is a material nothing sticks to. )Such leaders deriving their financial security from service of innocent souls are very common, especially in religious institutions. Srila Prabhupada warned us not to become like them.

Even being the absolute leader, Srila Prabhupada refused more and more to initiate without the recommendation of the local authority, which is After all a common sense approach, a system which protects both, the initiate and the initiator.

Even today this system is partially still in place its also largely violated by voraciously initiating gurus who seem to follow the so wrong proven doctrine that they are the single agents for "channeling the mercy" as one of them said. The autocratic "channeling of mercy" results in something one of my godbrothers defined as "fragmented zonal acharyaism", meaning that except having a large domain to play with , as the dismissed zonal acharya used to have, today such mini-zonal-acharya is satisfied to have a little one, sufficient to cover his personal needs.

The result is that the locally active preachers and managers are openly or discretely turning into GBC-cynics or worse , uncontrolled local autocrats as they have no feedback or protection or assistance or correction regarding their actions. Indeed, the word "GBC" means in most areas of this world… nothing.

Srila Prabhupada had other expectations, viewing the GBC body as the most sacred body of purely brahminical advisers and supervisors free of monetary considerations, ready to correct any deviant kind of management and deviant preaching to be found on the way. Envisioning such brahminical guides to be by no means managerially involved, Srila Prabhupada empowered this body to stay purely in brahminical field, ready to declare any deviant to be non-ISKCON representative if the culprit was obstinately refusing to be corrected by dint of guru-sastra-sadhu evidence.

Unfortunately the reality of today is very different.

Even basic morality seems to be at present by various GBC members to be disputable, declared to be relative. Words like "circumstantial divorce" and other humanistic inventions are rampant. In name of "mercy" all kinds of deviant forms of behavior go uncorrected and ignored. In collaboration the "mercy channeling" initiators, who distribute spiritual names to their superficial worshipers as if distributing some "nicknames", invited the most deranged class of individuals to enter the ranks of ISKCON devotees persons who do embarrass by their absurd type of actions not only the initiator, but their godbrothers and the movement at large.

Srila Prabhupada warned His followers not to turn His mission into a "lunatic asylum". Starting ISKCON from scratch, He had to pay His price as well for the lunacy of some of His followers. But the results easily compensated this price. Gigantic book distribution and the Holy Name being broadcasted all over the planet, Srila Prabhupada took the risk that some may "not to be up to the standard". Today the non-standard is the standard and more and more largely unqualified initiates are in a more and more uncontrolled way creating a profile of a "lunatic asylum" movement.

Even the warnings of the local managers go often unheard and their issues unattended by those who actually should vigilantly watch over the standards Srila Prabhupada established. Repeatedly He warned us not to allow this "cheapening" of His mission to happen. Even the history of ISKCON demonstrates how easily the "fragmented zonal acharya" can vanish along his followership; again and again hardly any stress is given to the cooperation of the local preachers and managers along the initiating gurus.

Everybody is being locked up so to say in his "individual club", the "GBC-club", the "temple-president-club", the "struggling-grhasta-club" and finally the largest community, "the ever-complaining sudra-club", the speeches advocating unification sound rather cynical in view of the reality of an entirely fragmented movement.

The disunities propagators of unification often forget to offer a practical formula for unification: action in Krsna Consciousness. Those who are truly united see no need of such unification declaration as they are working hard every day in form of:

• Hare Nama
• Book Distribution
• Prasadam Distribution

Such preaching heroes, often entirely ignored and unrecognized by the official ISKCON dignitaries, need no blessings of the "visionaries" as they already are fulfilling the vision of Srila Prabhupada of an united effort of hard working chanters of the Holy Name. As demonstrated directly by the Supreme Lord, after Bhagavad Gita was spoken on the Kurukukshetra Battlefield, Arjuna didn’t "set back in his chariot and smoke ganja", as Srila Prabhupada pointed out, but he actually started to put the words of Bhagavad Gita into action.

And so the question is still relevant:

As they say, action speaks stronger as words. Less paperwork, more personal presence and more personal assistance would protect the "leaders" from their isolation. Most devotees are very simple people and so they can be very simply inspired by personal presence, personal assistance and personal concern. As Srila Prabhupada vocabulary destroyed His body by traveling constantly, "giving His personal association", those who want to follow in His footsteps have no other means to achieve something substantial as to do the same.