Who Will Listen:
Open Letter to His Holiness Shripad Bhakti Bichar Bishnu Maharaja
Open Letter to His Holiness
H.H. Shripad Bhakti Bichar Bishnu, Acharya
International Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mission
Oriya Math, Sridham Mayapur, West Bengal, India 741313
bvbishnu@gmail.com
Your Holiness:
I beg you to kindly accept my dandabats at your lotus feet. All glories to Shri Guru and Gauranga. My dear Maharaja, I am writing to inform you that a great offence is being committed to the Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya sampradaya by the Governing Body Commission (GBC) of ISKCON. They are propagating a book entitled The Journey Home by a member of their GBC council and an appointed ISKCON Guru named Radhanatha Swami. This offensive book has numerous stories and episodes of Radhanatha Swami’s pre-sannyasa days—which a sannyasi should never write about. In The Journey Home there are countless glorifications of his meetings with many Mayavadis and false so-called “swamis”—many of whom were actually accused of serious crimes against their followers. These offensive personalities posing as Swamis have been exposed in my series on the subject in the online Vaishnava journal Sampradaya Sun and this letter to you will appear as Part Forty of that series.
Naturally it would be wrong to expect Your Holiness to become involved in the affairs of ISKCON and its GBC. As the old saying goes, “They made their bed so they can now sleep in it.” However, in this most odious book there are photographs of not only His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, but also the Founder-Acharya of Gaudiya Math, Om Vishnupada (108) Shri Shrimad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura. These pictures of recent Gaudiya acharyas are presented in an equal way alongside many Mayavadi so-called Swamis. Therefore it would be proper for any leading member of the the Gaudiya Math and its extended missions to inform ISKCON’s GBC that offences against the Founder-Acharya of Gaudiya Math—even those that may have been committed in ignorance—should be immediately removed. To make things worse, this book, The Journey Home has near page 110 a Brijabasi print of Lord Shri Krishna as Murlidhara standing next to a pile of skulls on the page opposite Him. How the GBC has sunk to this low level of offending the Gaudiya sampradaya and the Supreme Lord Shri Krishna is anybody’s guess, but the bottom line is that they are in no way representing Lord Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s Sankirtana Movement.
This is the photograph of His Divine Grace Shri Shrimad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura that appears near page 239 in The Journey Home.
This book has already been translated into around a dozen languages with more translations in the process. A letter of guidance from any leading members of Gaudiya Math and its divisions explaining that offences to their Parama Gurudeva are aparadhas and will carry karmic reactions to the mission of ISKCON might put to rest the GBC’s ugly offences in the form of this despicable book The Journey Home.
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada was purely devoted to the message of his spiritual master to the extent that he gladly risked life and limb to spread the glories of sankirtana and the Holy Names of the Supreme Lord Shri Krishna all over the world. History records that he was the pioneer of the Sankirtana Movement in the Western world. He preached strongly and boldly against Mayavada and pointed out time and again that impersonalism is a symptom of envying the Supreme Lord Shri Krishna. Naturally, His Divine Grace would in no way ever approve of such a book as The Journey Home that minimizes his Guru Maharaja and the entire Gaudiya Sampradaya in such ugly and offensive ways.
I beg Your Holiness to kindly forgive me for involving you in this problem, but the book is so offensive to the message of Mahaprabhu and His pure representatives that I fear oly the worst as a reaction to this maha-Vaishnava-aparadha in the form of The Journey Home. Shrila Prabhupada’s work has suffered enough in the past due to the arrogance, impudence and callousness of an immature GBC, and they are courting the Society’s doom with this book The Journey Home.
If Your Holiness would like to see a copy for your self, I am sure that they are on sale at ISKCON Mayapura as this offensive pseudo-litersture is heavily publicized throughout ISKCON. Otherwise it is widely available online
https://www.amazon.in/JOURNEY-HOME-AUTOBIOGRAPHY-AMERICAN-SWAMI/dp/9381283095.
I offer you my humble apologies for writing this letter to you. This is my offense. But in such times as these, when the work of ISKCON’s Founder-Acharya is teetering in the balance, if the genuine saints of the Gaudiya sampradaya do not come forward to offer their guidance to the neophytes on the GBC, then who will? Thank you for reading this.
I beg to remain,
Yours in the service of the great Gaudiya sampradaya,
Kaliya Mardana dasa Brahmachary