cbrahma

When generalizing about guru puja one should be careful to determine the level of guru that is being worshipped. In one sense all Vaisnavas are worshippable. If one believes one's guru to be uttama-adhikari then he does manifest Krsna - is as good as Krsna. But belief and reality are two different things. That Jagat-guru, pure devotee should be worshipped is not a myth. That what the ISKCON GBC is pawing off as uttama-adhikari is worthy of the same worship is not a myth - it is a calculated fraud.

You don't know anything about me. That's your speculation. I am simply responding to boasting about past accomplishments as somehow a qualification for present judgments of how things are. FYI , mine are the more mudane achievements which I manage to carry out daily - like the full morning program, sixteen rounds, the 4 regulative priniciples, prasadam , hari-nama and other sevas.

A vague mysterious conspiracy of what myths perpetrated by what dark infiltrators?

Uhh...the GBC does.

With that attitude, I wonder.

I eat popcorn when i go...you guessed it ... to a (shudder) movie.

Credentials noted. The investment at this point, Maharaja, is at most nostalgia.

It went to the role of the GBC and the authenticity of the ISKCON gurus which is quite relevant to ISKCON and the thread topic.

More like Monday morning quarterbacking. After all the bodies are counted.

How easy it is from the sidelines.

The article is about ISKCON the institution not Krsna Consciousness in general.

This was written 10 years ago and it applies even more today.

Yes but who propagated the myths? The ones who had the most to gain from them. The zonal gurus - the then GBC.

When you wish upon a star....

This triage of gurus by an adjudication committee is quite ridiculous. It's like being processed by a government bureau. The ISKCON gurus are GBC gurus and as such are ritviks for the GBC. It is essentially the GBC that all ISKCON members account to and obey. Therefore it is GBC that is acarya. Therefore it is bogus. The Gurus are ritvik to a bogus collective acarya. What a mess! And you're piously defending this atrocity.

I don't know what happened but I responded and the post just vanished. Quite simply. Prabhupada was criticized by his godbrothers but he came to the West anyways. The idea that its' ritvik or the GBC contradicts everything I've read on Rocana prabhu's site hare-krishna.org, which BTW has the link to this blog. A guru is not a post to which one is appointed. The appointment system failed miserably in the zonal acarya fiasco. These acaryas WERE the GBC and they fell down. How did the new GBC reform? By election. NO. By self-appointment. Everything you caution about gurus can be said about the GBC. Simply being a collective doesn't make you an authority. Resistance is not futile. The GBC is taking on the role of acarya. That is not it's function. The GBC is rogue. The GBC has taken over so much control it's turned ISKCON into a religious institution -which is definitely not bone fide. The gurus are the ritviks of the GBC who have final jurisdictional authority. Virtually one is initiated by them. Why bother with the gurus. Eliminate the middle man. Your rhetoric is unconvincing. And if it is so benign, why don't you join up?

"Like in installing a deity or murti?" No like hiring somebody for a post. The process is exactly the same. In fact gurus have been de-commissioned or 'fired'. The GBC doesn't sanction gurus. They just sanction that the guru can be guru within the ISKCON institution. Now that's word jugglery if I ever heard it. "That system is actually quite in line with the Gaudiya tradition" Proof please. "There has to be some oversight or the whole things turns into a free-for-all." If oversight is required at some totalitarian level, then there is something very wrong and immature about the judgment of the members. That is how can they be trusted without daddy telling them what to do? I for one am not going to be initiated by a guru that needs a watchdog(s).

They are installed as gurus. Of course they voluntarily submit. How would they get disciples otherwise? The GBC is the ultimate authority. There is even an oath of allegience everybody has to take.

Giving permission, electing, regulating - these are subtle distinction for a body that claims oversight authority. Did Prabhupada have to answer to an oversight committee? In fact did any acarya? Any body that has authority over acarya other than his spiritual master and Krsna, is acarya. So the gurus are simply ritviks for the GBC which is the final authority.

Do you have any quotes from guru, sadhu or sastra to support this?

ISKCON is not a Church, sect, corporation or institution. It is a society which is what the S stands for. A society of devotees cannot be delimited by the material boundaries just mentioned.

So what in your long disertation proves that the spiritual master has to be physically present?

The paradox of the one vs the many has generated philosophical discourse for centuries in the history of Western thought, dating from Parmenides. In fact most schools of philosophy can be classified according to how this discourse, this dialectic has resolved. Of Dualism, monism, pluralism, the latter has been the most promising and is still widely accepted, being the basis of Enlightenment democratic thought. It's still a struggle, inconceivable, because Western thinkers are bound by binary logic such as the Principle of the excluded Middle and the Principle of Non Contradiction.

The power and glory of Sri Nama shines forth even more brilliantly in the darkness of Kali Yuga. Thus was the mission of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu who liberated even the tigers and deer that heard him.

So guru is not a post? A job one can apply for to the GBC? I for one cannot accept a disciple/guru who has to answer to a governing body. The only authorities a bona fide guru should have to answer to are his guru and Krsna. Whatever superior authority an acarya has to answer to, then that authority is acarya. Why don't we just surrender to the GBC and get initiated by that mysterious group, eliminate the middle man and be done with it. Of course this is preposterous. If the GBC understands the bhakti-marga even slightly then they should be the first to admit it.