Kulapavana

So, you are saying that Prabhupada appointed a gang of neophytes to imitate an acharya.

 

No, IMO Prabhupada appointed a gang of neophytes to initiate new disciples in order to carry on with his preaching mission, most likely hoping that eventually some of them will actually become qualified for the position... just like with those he gave sannyasa.

Prabhupada used the word acharya to denote a leader of a matha. He himself started accepting disciples even before taking sannyasa, that had nothing to do with the post of an acharya.

These are heavy words of someone who has the details from hearsay. If we look more close and listen what realy happened things might look different.

No. I have seen firsthand the various cooks and crooks dressed as 'hand picked leaders', sannyasis, and gurus.

Prabhupada most certainly chose himself the people authorized to initiate in his absence. We can argue about the semantics, whether they were 'gurus', 'ritviks', or 'flying saucers', but these guys were chosen by him to perform initiations. And just like the sannyasis-in-training, the gurus-in-training had a chance to perform, or to fall flat on their face. Prabhupada had every intent for his disciples to become gurus, just like he wanted to have real sannyasis in his movement.

Are there any gurus within Iskcon today that can be trusted and are legit? I thought srila gour govinda maharaja was very good.

Srila GGM was certainly very good. There ARE very nice and qualified gurus in Iskcon, but there are also real rascals.

Sometimes new people ask me what I think about a particular guru they are considering and I give them my opinion, always qualifying it with the phrase: 'but this is just my opinion based on what I know - you are the one who must decide'.

and please don't ask me for a list

He accepts the money, and entrusts Gurukripa with great responsibilities henceforward.

 

And this is not blessed by the Lord? It was his internal potency that allowed these rascals to get away with what they did as part of the purification of their demoniac hearts due to their rather indirect service to his avatara.

 

You are entitled to your opinion, but it defies logic..

The logic is that all these crooked activities blew up in our face even before SP passed away. And the fall out was severe. We were no longer seen even by the hippies as the 'good guys'. It was proof positive that our society was at least just as corrupt as the one outside..

To imply that SP would try and "pass someone off" as Diksa guru who didn't actually have the capacity as an uttama adhikari to transfer Divya Jnana on their own is rather insulting to his intelligence. Such is an impossibility by spiritual principle, and if I know that, he knew it.

Let's not kidd ourselves... They were passed off as diksa gurus just like the sannyasis were passed off as the real McCoy swamis. It was a work in progress, cooks and crooks dressed in pretty uniforms and shipped out to the battlefield after a crash course training in bhakti yoga...

Srila Prabhupada could offer "sanyassa" to anyone, whether they would be able to maintain the standards of the order or not.

And he did exactly the same with the function of initiating gurus. The same risks, the same characters...

Prabhupada never cared much about the formality of initiation - before or after his passing. He knew the knowledge and siksa in our movement were coming primarily from him and that was the important part.

And just like most of the sannyasis fell flat on their face, so did the gurus - for very similar reasons: first the initial desire for fame, profit, and distinction - then gross illusion and sense gratification.

Gurukripa abused his power just like the rest of this bunch... and I'm not sure if I have done any better if I was in their shoes... sans the criminal part as I just hate criminals.

The key to understand the 'size' of the Universe is the correct understanding of space, akhasa or ether. Vedic space is non linear and multi-dimensional - you can travel with the speed of mind for years and you will still not reach the edge of the Universe, and each world (loka) has it's own space which surrounds it completely, preventing access to other worlds.

All measurements of the Universe given in the Puranas are meant to help us imagine the proportions and location of the various worlds within the Universe.

In western countries the academia in the universities all respect the Hare Krishna movement as an authentic religion from India.

 

Amongst intellectuals and scholars the KC movement has well been established as a very legitimate spiritual movement.

 

I have no idea where you get such information. Cherry picked quotes from Iskcon published book reviews?

Anyway... this is a totally separate subject...

It was Krsna's arrangement, he blessed it, the money is clean.

The way I see it is that Krsna did not bless it at all... He slapped us silly on the face and told us to never do it again...

but anyway... I think we have all learned a valuable lesson in that.

The reason I brought it all up is the issue of Gurukripa's personal character and credibility. While I certainly do not buy the 'zonal acharya by appointment' fairytale, I see a different reason for Gurukripa's name not being on the list, and for Srila Prabhupada not adding his name to that list - Gurukripa was thoroughly disgraced by his criminal activities and would not pass as an initiating guru even among the gullible bhaktas. He was just a simple soldier.

I think his analysis of his con-men godbrothers is pretty close to the truth - it takes one to know one, even as his con game was different. I also do not doubt his loyalty to Prabhupada: a loyalty of a soldier to his commanding officer - simple and honorable.

so all in all a very interesting tale...

That Gurukripa stuff is old news.

Nobody gives a hoot about that stuff anymore.

 

Let's hope so.

From time to time I run into various 'anti-cult enemies of our movement' that continue to use these old news as an example of the cultist nature of our movement.

You call me disgruntled, but why bother when you know you are, and for good reason. You faithfully served a very crafty and devious personage who got one over on you. But remember it was your good intentions, lack of malice and lack of duplicity, good qualities, plus lack of worldly experience, that blinded you to Hurry Cash and his true nature. You still keep your good qualities and move on, but your wound is now a scar that aches a bit in the winter.

Thank you for the kind words... I have learned very early on not to trust people in our movement too much, even as I might have repected them for their preaching efforts. And I did not fall for the Iskcon fairytales of pure devotees by decree and other assorted foolishnes. Being independently thoughtful served me well over the years and I am not about to give it up for anybody.

I probably know more about it than you do.

I had some nice conversations with one of the top boys in the party in Japan.

I knew about Gurukripa's scams back in the mid-seventies when most of ISKCON was totally ignorant of what he was doing in Japan.

And you still think we should not make a big deal out of it?

Perhaps you are right. Speaking openly about this issue places our movement in a very bad light. After all, Srila Prabhupada knew this money was not raised in a clean way. I'm not sure if he knew all the nasty details but he knew enough to suspect what was going on and start asking questions.

Btw. I was hoping Gurukripa starts talking before he dies. IMO this issue needs to be resolved, not swept up under the carpet. Dirty money most certainly polluted our movement, just like the shastras say.

And you have historically used this real fact to argue that Srila Prabhupada's methods and "strategies" at properly cultivating people were a failure.

Actually I always admired Prabhupada's ability to cultivate people and use them in his mission. For example, he would take common thieves and engage them in raising money for his projects. Even though they stole part of what they raised for their own maya, they allowed Prabhupada to build many important projects, like Mayapur or New Vrindavan. This tactic got many things accomplished, even as it generated bad press for Iskcon and a serious backlash with the society in general.

Yogi-ji, thanks for speaking up for me, but I am pretty thick and very little offends me, especially when it comes from a disgruntled devotee. On more than one occasion some of these guys even threatened to kill me. I usually laugh at that because I know they are just all mouth.

We become blind when we think that only we can properly understand what is right and wrong. That is actually just ego and ignorance speaking. We can always learn from others, even it is just learning from their mistakes.

Dandavat pranams to all devotees - big or small, wise or foolish.

Srila Prabhupada knew Gurukripa was using some very risky fundraising practices but never removed him as GBC of Vrindavan which was part of his last will and testament which could have easily have been changed before his passing.

LOL @ "Gurukripa was using some very risky fundraising practices" ...that is a true 'euphemism'

on top of typical Iskcon street scams... another example of the 'end justifies the means' doctrine imported from Talmud...

I wonder if he will also explain his criminal fundraising schemes from the late 1970-s.

From your writings on this thread it is obvious you adhere to the perverted idea of compassion that is based on making a person feel comfortable about their material choices so they don't feel offended or encouraged to do anything but keep doing what they are doing. Far left liberal nonsense.

And where do I say that?

Prabhupada's compassion was to engage in the process of KC even people with extremely low class behavior. All hippies were low class, but the homosexual hippies were extremely low class, by any standard. He certainly was expecting them to change. How? By gradually becoming purified. He did not tell these people about 4 regs until AFTER initiation. He did that by posting a notice on a wall in the temple. Can you imagine an uproar all of you ritviks would raise if any of the current gurus did such a thing?

People are not joining our temples and congregations in great numbers because they are not being properly cultivated. I see Hridayananda's email as an attempt to cultivate the congregation in the spirit of compassion Srila Prabhupada exemplified, that's all.

In our tradition when a saintly person shows compassion to the fallen people he is glorified by all... but not so in Iskcon... if he shows compassion to gay people, he is vilified and ridiculed... you bigots make me sick...

Prabhupada knew about the high risk he was taking. But was there any other choice except returning to Vrindavan? Since there wasn't any other choice Prabhupada did it that way and prayed that things ultimately may work out.

There were plenty of other choices as Prabhupada had a lot of disciples to chose from. Perhaps he did not see homosexual background of his disciples as very dangerous. He certainly did not make a very big deal out of it.

I go with Prabhupada and we do not need to take any more lazies or crazy in the name of doing the best with a bad bargan as Srila Prabhupada abviously had to do and willingly did. Time to grow!

 

We aren't Prabhupada and it is not 1965/66 in the village.

 

Yes, you will justify whatever Prabhupada did as "doing the best with a bad bargain" - even when ultimately such a move caused a lot of problems for our movement (like with K-swami and Bhavs), but you will not give ANY benefit of a doubt to a simple email Hridayananda Swami sent to a couple of congregational members for encouragement... you are obviously blind and prejudiced.

Many religions have been turned simply into mechanism of enforcing arbitrary morality and social order benefiting priests and other 'chosen' people. Thoughtful people often rebelled against such fake religions, turning to atheism.

Instead of trying to prove to them the existence of God it is better to present them with a practical path of self-realization. This is the vedic model. Alas, some people turned this vedic model into another variety of semitic religion - dogmatic, rigid, and purely based on faith and fear.

Quote: "Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have."

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A very natural reaction to repressive semitic religions which only emphasize the benefits of life after death.

Unless the religion can give you higher taste and true fulfillment HERE AND NOW you should be suspicious about it.

I agree with the Pope - homosexuality is an evil perversion which must be crushed and destroyed in the best interests of a sound and civilised society.

Then you know nothing about how the Vedic culture looked at that issue.

I think you confuse making the best use of a bad bargan with purposfully cherry picking the helpers that came.

Srila Prabhupada had compassion and tremendous faith in the purifying power of the holy name. That is why he did not hesitate to use very degraded people for very important jobs in his movement. That strategy did not always produce good results, but I can appreciate Prabhupada's compassion for these people.

Some people here show very little compassion, just like the Bible influenced primitives who think all gay people should be stoned to death. That is un-Vedic, and un-Vaishnava.

I do not think that gay marriages are something our society should embrace with open arms. But I also do not want such people to be treates as untouchables. ANYONE can practice Krsna consciousness and ALL should be encouraged to do so. That is what H.S was doing in this email.

This was exactly the attitude of the Catholic Church, meanwhile they found out what great damage and havoc homosexuals caused to the church.

And do the only right thing, to immediately kick out anything that looks homosexual.

Yes, Srila Prabhupada should have kicked out the entire Mott Street boys club early on in New York: Kirtanananda, Hayagriva, Umapati and their various boyfriends... instead, he gave Kirtananda the first sannyasa in our movement and made Hayagriva his chief editor... then we had Bhavs and a few other fags that made life miserable for a lot of folks in Iskcon...

Fast forward to present.... well... remember, this was just a blessing conveyed by an email to two people who are at most just congregational members of a local preaching center. So... relax a little... they were not initiated or given important jobs at the BBT...

So could anyone tell me, how to have prayers heard? I have hope as for now. Whatever I do and did was not working somehow. I was wondering what went wrong....

God may hear our prayers but that does not mean He will do what we want Him to do in these prayers. He has His own plan. Our life is a lesson from Him, meant to help us develop spiritually. Be patient my friend...

H.H. Hridayanandadas Goswami conferred this blessing, via e-mail:

 

• "Ourlove for each other is a reflection of God's love for us. Thus, theperfection of every relationship is to see God in each other.
  MayGod bless Joshua Norman Einhorn and Stanley Earl Harris, both devotedsouls, as they commit themselves to each other in the spirit of God'slove for them. May Joshua and Stanley always please God through truelove for each other.
  Bysuch true spiritual love, may they always be, each for the other, asource of spiritual inspiration and happiness. May their relationshiplead them, patiently and steadily, back to our real home in thespiritual world, where all relationships become eternal and perfect."

 

So what? You are offended that he gave a blessing to a gay couple? Did these two hurt anyone? Steal from anyone? Hridanayanda Swami saw this as an opportunity to preach, so he sent them a nice inspirational email... Srila Bhaktisiddhanta was ready to serve meat during preaching programs.

Run for the hills... they were both over the edge...