Reform Your Fellow GBCs or Walk Away

Open Letter to His Holiness Danavir Goswami

Dear Danavir Maharaja,

Please accept my humble obeisances, All glories to Shrila Prabhupada. My greetings to you are not mere words—I sincerely put my head into dust of your feet and beg that you convey the blessings of your spiritual master. 

For years you have been soldiering on, serving Shrila Prabhupada in all sorts of capacities. And first and foremost you have continued to speak the message of His Divine Grace as it is … the simple, basic and essential formula for extricating fallen souls from the excruciating bonds of material Nature. Your article linked as Part 56 of this ongoing series (at least the article is attributed to you, so we assume that it is genuine) reveals that you have spoken up to oppose nonsense so-called “yoga” in ISKCON. Your words demonstrate your loyalty to your spiritual master and the Gaudiya parampara.

ISKCON’s current corrupt practice of deceiving the public with “yoga lessons”—and thereby bastardizing Shrila Prabhupada’s entire movement—got its grand boost with the GBC’s acceptance and promotion of Radhanatha’s The Journey Home. Not only does this vile Diary of Guru Aparadha glorify Mayavadis—many of whom would rank among the world’s sleaziest characters—but the book has a Brijabasi print of the Supreme Lord Shri Gopal Krishna sitting next to a mountain of skulls! In the history of the aparadhas, this ranks as supreme—and it is going on under your leadership since you are a GBC member. 

Does the GBC no longer care for the teachings of the Founder-Acharya? Do your fellow GBC members no longer fear the terrible reactions that they will have to face by promoting such abhorrent pseudo-literature? Does the GBC only concern itself with policing others and not themselves? Is this not a first class symptom of hypocrisy?

Since you have wisely spoken out against cheating the public with gymnastic exercises that pretend to lead to self-realization and enlightenment, I am addressing these issues to you. We are absolutely positive that Lord Shri Krishna and Lord Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu have taken note of your dedication to Their message, the selfsame teachings that have been delivered by Their pure devotee representative Shrila Prabhupada. 

As things stand today when the Movement is teeter-tottering on oblivion, you still need to boldly speak out against the sorry dilemma created by your fellow GBC member Radhanatha. His book The Journey Home sits at the very root of ISKCON’s Great Yoga Deception now prevalent in centers all over the world. First of all, Radhanatha’s memoirs from his Richard Slavin days as a vagabond Mayavadi collector should never have been written by a presumed member of the fourth order. Vedic culture absolutely proscribes that any sannyasis should dally like that while reflecting on his past supposed glories. Therefore I would like to put before Your Holiness how it is that your GBC has allowed the wool to be pulled over the eyes of millions of devotees worldwide through the publication of a Mayavadi-oriented book that glorifies one deviate impersonalist after another?

If Your Holiness has been following this series aimed at dismantling the asphyxiating influence of The Journey Home on the Hare Krishna Movement—and I hope that we can count you and your fellow GBC members among our readers—then you have seen the evidence regarding the duplicitous, dishonest and double-dealing characters of bogus yogis whose photographs appear alongside our worshipful Shrila Prabhupada, Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura and Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Three or more of these duplicate sadhus—whose likenesses appear in The Journey Home—were accused by dozens of ladies of sexual molestation and rape. Another is an avowed bi-sexual promoter of brain-destroying intoxicants. Has the GBC lost its collective intelligence and become deaf, dumb and blind to the state of ISKCON? What other explanation can there be when they promote demons in the dress of yogis?

As devotees we are avowed to avoid the association of non-devotee demons—except when as preachers we take the risk of giving them Krishna consciousness. Do your fellow GBC members think that everything is hunky-dory with a book that pictures Lord Krishna alongside a pile of skulls, and which glorifies rapists who demand money in exchange for the right to “become God?” Only a non-devotee Mayavadi could think for a nano-second that such villainous reprobates should be featured in a book sold worldwide in Prabhupada’s ISKCON temples?—a society wherein (and forgive me for reminding you once again) you sit on the GBC. Since as members of ISKCON we are avowed to eschew the association of such non-devotee demons, your job should be either to straighten out the lot of your fellow GBC members, or just flat-out resign and walk away. If they refuse to retract this offensive book, then, hey, these people do not deserve your association, and you should not contaminate yourself with theirs.

Rupanuga Vedic College, Kansas City, Kansas. www.rvc.edu

Over the years we have observed your struggles in developing your Rupanuga Vedic College. How much have your fellow GBC members supported your efforts? Probably that figure is an amount equal to the goal of the Dalai Lama—zero You have written a wonderful and enthusing book about Shrila Prabhupada-lila entitled His Divine Grace. How many of your fellow GBC members have considered translating this book into a dozen languages instead of the much-translated swill contained in The Journey Home?  

Your Guru Maharaja often said that that a diamond merchant gets maybe one customer a week while the seller of imitation diamonds attracts thousands. You have worked hard to give the genuine message of Shrila Prabhupada to the devotees, yet only a few are taking part. It appears that the GBC is intent on attracting watered-down personalities and is content to let the Hare Krishna ship with the real McCoy on board simply drift rudderless out to sea. 

Cheap preaching has compromised the entire character of the Hare Krishna Movement and ISKCON has morphed into a shadowy reflection of itself. As Prabhupada stated, demons are at work on the inside of the Krishna consciousness society. These satanic yet charismatic entities feel more content serving and doing the bidding of their lord Kali than serving Lord Shri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. 

Your spiritual master—His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness—said it best when he issued the following instructions in a letter to Satswarupa Goswami on November 5, 1972, 

“Advancement in Krishna Consciousness is not the result of material conditions. I shall not expect to find some perfect circumstances of occupational duty which will cause me to be automatically Krishna conscious, no. So why shall I think that by changing this, going here or there, doing something else—why shall I expect that I will become happy by adjusting material conditions in this way? They have not understood. Real attitude of devotional service is, whether I am here or there, whether I am doing this or that, it doesn't matter, just give me little prasada, little service, or if you make me big leader, that's all right—that is devotee, satisfied to serve Krishna in any circumstances of life. So try to impress this fact, we should kill this restless spirit. Enthusiasm and patience, these things required. If under changing conditions, I lose my enthusiasm, if I cannot endure the difficulties of my duty, therefore I go away—then how I can be leader? These things must be understood. Otherwise the whole thing will fall.”

The conclusion is that a leader must lead, and leading means that the leader must unequivocally follow his leader. When this programme—the disciplic order—becomes corrupted by changes and transgressions, then the battle for Krishna consciousness has been lost and Maya emerges as the winner. And that is the current situation with the poison now spreading in the form of The Journey Home. 

You must save the movement, but if you cannot do that, then you must at least save yourself. Again, I entreat Your Holiness: Either reform your fellow GBC members or walk away and leave them to their own vainglorious fate. You are precious to Shri Guru and Krishna and you do not deserve to go down with a ship that the GBC is willfully sinking.

Thank you very much for reading this. It has been my pleasure to write to you.

Your servant,

Kaliya Mardana dasa Brahmachary