“Cheating oneself and cheating others is called kaitava. Associating with those who cheat in this way is called duùsaìga, bad association.”
Caitanya-caritämåta, Madhya Lélä, 24.99

“Kaitava means cheating. To cheat God or to be cheated by God, this kind of religion is rejected. But people are very much fond of that kind of religion by which the God is cheated, and he is cheated.”
Morning Walk, 11-12-75 in Bombay

“You can't help people being right for the wrong reasons.”
Arthur Koestler

When the accomplished pathologist Henry Lee examined some wrongly labeled and mishandled wet swatches that were supposed to be evidence against the defendant in the O. J. Simpson trial, he noticed glaring discrepancies. When asked about these by the defense in the direct, Lee's reply, in a kind of broken English, was “Something wrong.”

By the mid-Eighties, in what was still considered by many to be the Hare Kåñëa movement, a lot of devotees, especially after the shock of the assassination of Sulochan, began to consider that something was very wrong in their movement.

The problem was that, for most of them, this mass realization (if you can call it a realization) was too superficial. All of Çréla Prabhupäda's initiated disciples (initiated by him 1966-77) should have, by that time, come to the conclusion that there were root issues that had to be confronted. The cat had to be walked all the way back; there had to be confrontation! Something was dreadfully wrong at the deepest level, and all the wallpaper that was covering the need to confront that had to be ripped away.

Better late than never. Let us begin with the eleven pretender mahäbhägavats and their imitation of The Real Äcärya, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedänta Swämi Prabhupäda. We cannot pin our hopes on solving any of this, either individually or collectively, by accepting wrong reasons in order to realize the solution. If you are driven by the right reason, then—and only then--will you want to get to the root of the problem. That requires confronting the root issues, and that confrontation has always been our motto.

Eleven Great Pretenders

“ . . . out of enviousness toward a pure devotee, the brähmaëa threw himself on the ground and feigned ecstasy. Furthermore, he interrupted my dancing. Since he disturbed me and tried to imitate the pure devotee, I punished him severely.”
Çré Caitanya-bhägavat, Ädi-khaëòa, “The Glories of Haridäs Öhäkur”

“One should not imitate the activities of great personalities.”
Caitanya-caritämåta, Ädi Lélä, 7.92, purport

“No lies can live forever.”
Thomas Carlyle

It was a big lie. No one should have fallen for it, but the field had been softened up for years beforehand. As a result, in the spring of 1978, almost everyone did fall for it. An important room conversation with Çréla Prabhupäda at the Kåñëa Balaräm mandir, attended by the governing commissioners in May of the previous year, had been kept secret. The G.B.C. always had that penchant, but it eventually came back to bite them.

In that year, propaganda circulated that an appointment of new gurus had been made in July, although everyone should have known that it was nothing more than a mere appointment of rittviks, re-establishing a system that had been previously utilized. Prabhupäda never authorized any of his disciples to be an initiating guru during his manifest, physical presence. Re-establishing the rittvik system—a system that only remains viable while the guru is physically manifest—had nothing to do with recognizing dékñä-gurus.

Yet the lie lived on and even flourished . . . for some time. There are many reasons why it was able to do so. One of them is that ISKCON, as the years flew by, more and more functioned like a prison paradigm. In the Big House, there are two kinds of inmates: The intimidators and the intimidated. Although Prabhupäda's branch of Lord Caitanya's tree of Kåñëa consciousness was never meant to create such an environment and operate like that, crypto-Talmudism was insidiously injected into it in the mid-Seventies.

It forcibly instituted so-called spiritual advancement on the basis of hierarchical management and hierarchical pseudo-varëäçrama position in the social order. It was established by force, viz., fear in the form of intimidation. Its beneficiaries utilized the weapons of fear and guilt, cemented in doubt and bewilderment. Via vibe or verbiage, they imposed an atmosphere. That attitude entailed “aparädha” against Prabhupäda's “dear devotees,” if you doubted them, leading to ostracism and hell. You had to recognize the hierarchy as advanced or you were intimidated and experienced a kind of hell.

Those who recognized them for what they were, those who did not fall for the recrudescent institutionalism of the new organized religion—what would soon become the fabricated, so-called “ISKCON” confederation—were considered inimical. In actual fact, it was men like the Eleven Great Pretenders, and the Party Men who kow-towed to them, that were the enemies of the Kåñëa consciousness movement, having turned Prabhupäda's branch topsy-turvy for the sense gratification of but a handful of sahajiyäs.

Yet, the low-information fanatics were invigorated, loving this new “ISKCON.” They pushed it and their the zonal äcäryas with great zeal, that is until those fanatics were knocked down a notch or two, replaced by even more fanatic and competitive disciples of those new, bogus gurus. Because the original fanatics were not deeply rooted in genuine Kåñëa consciousness, they either accepted a covert form of humiliation (and a lower status), or they left the institution with their tails between their legs. Of course, they superficially departed having already been infused with the “ISKCON” béja--with no way out! For the enviousness that they heaped upon the real workers of the movement, the fallen fanatics got just what they deserved, and we need not feel at all sorry for them.

Another reason the make-show flourished was that some of the eleven pretender mahäbhägavats were adept at imitation. Prabhupäda never encouraged imitation; he always encouraged following in the footsteps of the great devotees (such as himself). Some new gurus (not adept at imitation) had to utilize institutional charisma--in combination with fear and guilt--in order to control Bhakta Joe and Bhaktin Josephine. Imitating Prabhupäda was a sure ticket to all kinds of opulence and sense gratification via social control within the “ISKCON” echo chamber. It also produced a kind of intoxication for those who came under its spell. Unlike Joe Six-pack, the great imitators did not have to make a purchase at the quik stop in order to get buzzed.

There were different degrees of this claptrap, of course, and some of Ocean's Eleven were more brazen than others. Nevertheless, many (if not all) of them may have believed that it was their duty to imitate Prabhupäda. Led in this illusion by Swämi B. R. Çrédhar and The Scholar, they believed that their disciples had to be cheated in this way (“somebody has to cheat them”). There is one çästric reference, specifically one purport, that can be interpreted like that to some extent, but that purport (and that interpretation) was not at all applicable to The Magnificent Eleven.

They should have remembered “regular guru, that's all,” but they didn't.

If the argument is made that this injunction of limitation flew over the heads of everybody (read, all the commissioners), then the counter-argument remains that it was THEIR DUTY to have clarified just what he meant when he ordered it. There was plenty of cross-referencing already in his books to have gleaned what he meant. All the power and amenities they had for years, but they did not fulfill their end of the bargain!

Instead, they imitated. We must ask some deeper questions regarding their rationalizations for such brazen imitation. Did they believe that imitation was all that could be done? Did they believe that they were following some kind of lowered paramparä standard in Kali-yuga, because it is a fallen age? Did they believe that the only way that newcomers would remain in their so-called Kåñëa movement was to imitate uttama-adhikäré? Even though they deserved no such glorification, did they believe that they were obliged to imitate and take the same worship that Prabhupäda accepted? And (perish the thought!) did they believe that Prabhupäda himself was imitating uttama-adhikäré?

Do you already know within yourself the answer to all of these questions? Are these all prone to obvious answers? Say it ain't so, Joe!

On Scale and Perspective

“I came here alone in 1965. Gradually the young men here took the philosophy very nicely, and now they themselves are spreading and opening many branches, even without my presence. Similarly, you can do this also, under my instructions. Just begin with a small endeavor, and gradually it will spread.”
Letter to Mr. Kair, 7-8-69

“Our program for Krishna consciousness is solid and backed by most authoritative literature—Bhagavad-gétä, and Çrémad-Bhägavatam. There is no question of our not being popular to the world. Simply, we have to present ourselves in true perspective.”
Letter to Janärdana, 2-7-68

“Everybody's got their dues in life to pay.”
Aerosmith, “Dream On”

No one should think that the Hare Kåñëa movement is a new movement. Such wrong thinking means wrong knowledge and lack of perspective. As confirmed by Bhagavad-gétä and Çrémad-Bhägavatam, it is actually a very old movement. The process that Çréla Prabhupäda gave us has been passed down to and through him, and it is not a new process. It is very, very old, and it must remain standard. It cannot be changed. As soon as anyone tries to change it, then the potency is lost.

Both “ISKCON” and Rittvik have changed it.

This yoga system, the Bhagavad-gétä yoga system which Prabhupäda gave us, is very old. It was first spoken to the sun-god an extremely long time ago. After that, it was spoken to Manu over two million years ago. We must have this perspective, because the paramparä system has now been diverted in the Western world. It is now almost lost. Lord Kåñëa had to rejuvenate it over five thousand years ago, because it was lost in Bhäratavarña even at that time. Try to understand all of this according to scale.

The people at that time were very aware of Vedic culture. The politics and sociology of that time were mostly Vedic. Astrological calculations were a daily affair for most of them. Universal knowledge and advanced Vedic philosophy was readily available. There were sages at that time far superior to the “pandits” of today's Western milieu.

Yet, even at such a superior scale, Kåñëa consciousness had been lost. Try to see this in the right perspective. How could it not become lost at this degraded time? It is almost certainly on the verge of being lost again, especially since the man-animals of the so-called Kåñëa movement are controlling it. Sahajiyäs all. See it as the demigods see it. See it according to universal cosmic scale, and see it according to degeneration intrinsic to Kali-yuga:

“Gradually, it is reduced. Reducing, reducing, reducing. By the end of Kali-yuga, the duration of life from twenty years to thirty years will be considered very, very old age, very, very old. If a man is living for twenty-five years, he will be considered a very grand old man. Yes. That is coming gradually.”
Platform Lecture on Caitanya-caritämåta, Ädi Lélä, 1.15 on 3-4-75 in Dallas

We must continue to repeat that the same yoga system given to Sürya, Manu, and to Arjuna-- which is very, very old--is the basis of Prabhupäda's branch of this Kåñëa consciousness movement. It is based on Bhagavad-gétä As It Is. It is not based on a so-called Bhagavad-gétä as it has been changed by the BBT(I). Prabhupäda did not manufacture anything.

“ISKCON” has manufactured many things!

Rittvik has manufactured a new apa-sampradäya out of whole cloth!

Neo-Mutt has nothing to do with Prabhupäda's branch of Lord Caitanya's movement.

You require this true and absolute vision, i.e., you require superior perspective. And you need to see things on scale, in terms of the devolution of human consciousness.

Prabhupäda did not manufacture a new type of religious sect or a new method of Indian philosophy. It is very old system that he gave to us, the Kåñëa consciousness system, process, and teachings. He introduced it in the West for the first time, granted, but it had been extant in India since the advent of Kåñëa, at least for the last five thousand years. Considering it in terms of modern and post-modern history (in America and the other Western countries), it was started in 1966 from New York City. Nevertheless, his movement is actually very, very old, although hardly anyone sees that now.

If you follow it and adore it from the proper perspective, you can get full knowledge from it. His movement is old and standard, and it is never changed—but it has been changed by the apa-sampradäyas now in the ascendant. As soon as they wrought their changes, the potency of his movement was diminished. It is now hanging on by a thread. Develop this perspective and see how tiny and insignificant “ISKCON” actually is. See how puny and deviated Rittvik actually is. See them in terms of time and universal scale.

You will still have to settle your karmic accounts, of course, although this vision will help to minimize the scheduled payment. Indeed, since you will be persecuted in various subtle ways by “ISKCON,” Rittvik, and Neo-Mutt, you will get the advantage of paying back your vikarmic dues via the suffering that these deviations direct your way. Such a transmutation of vikarmic reactions, combined with the real vision of Kåñëa consciousness—in terms of scale and perspective—is the best of all worlds!

Dharma, Lies, and Organized Religion

“Everyone should adore our members as honest.”
Letter to Rupänuga, 1-9-75

“. . . other things, lies, they will not help us to train ourselves in truthfulness.”
Letter to Çré Govinda, 12-25-72

“I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.”
Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye

It is said that man is a lying animal. Of course, in this fallen age, man is but another version of the beast, viz., a two-legged animal. Engagements in meat-eating and abortion are sub-human acts and abominable, but, in virtually every nation-state in the world, they are, to one extent or another, legal. Even Ireland, the most Catholic nation in the world, is on the verge of legalizing abortion.

We are not referring to such social animals here. Instead, we are referring to those engaged, legitimately engaged, in the devotional service of Kåñëa consciousness. For them, sattva-guëa is very much necessary, since Çréla Prabhupäda's branch of Lord Caitanya's movement was meant for training and creating perfect brähmins:

“Peacefulness, self-control, austerity, purity, tolerance, honesty, knowledge, wisdom, and Aryan theism are the work of a brähmin born of his nature.”
Bhagavad-gétä, 18.42

Those who appear to be so engaged are a different entity, as such brähminical nature does not evolve for those entangled in lies, thus deceiving both themselves and others. They may show superficial symptoms of being either a brähmin or a sannyäsé, but, if they are liars—if they are implicated in, and materially benefiting from, personal, social, or institutional lies—they are anything but brähmins. The fabricated, so-called “ISKCON” confederation is loaded with such pseudo-brähmins, many of which are not even initiated into Kåñëa consciousness--although they pose to be so.

“One who is not properly initiated may present himself as a great devotee, but, in fact, he is sure to encounter many stumbling blocks on his path of progress toward spiritual realization, with the result that he must continue his term of material existence without relief. Such a helpless person is compared to a ship without a rudder, for such a ship can never reach its destination.”
Caitanya-caritämåta, Ädi Lélä, 1.35, purport

“This is, in the real sense, a theistic cultural movement, and the facility or opportunity shall be open to everyone whatsoever he may be.”
Letter to Sardar Patel, 2-28-49

Open to everyone, and a house in which everyone can live. “ISKCON” is a house in which no genuine transcendentalist of the personalist line would ever live in.

“Our institution, as above mentioned, is a philosophical and cultural movement originating long ago in the Vedic period of history of your friendly neighbor, India, and it is meant for awakening peoples' dormant acceptance of the Absolute Truth or God-consciousness, without which a human society is no better than animal society.”
Letter to Minister of Education and Culture, 6-7-72

A philosophical movement: Philosophy--transcendental and theistic philosophy--is the very essence of Prabhupäda's branch of the Kåñëa movement. It is not the essence of “ISKCON,” however. Perhaps that's one of the reasons that the BBT(I) has changed all of the books, in order to take away their absolute authority. Such changing means devotees will not be inclined to read them as much. After all, if they are changed, how can you trust what they are now communicating? And worse than that is what such a deceptive development encourages, viz., taking shelter of the institution rather than the books.

“ . . . we are an international society, not for any particular creed, race, or nation. Show them that we are a cultural movement.”
Letter to Hådayänanda, 5-28-75

Not for any particular creed means not for any organized religion, because organized religion always means, directly and/or indirectly, a particular creed.

“You should present Kåñëa consciousness not as a religion, but a science of God realization. Try to convince them that it is not just a kind of faith. It is a chance to understand God.”
Letter to Påthu-putra, 11-2-76

Not as a religion would certainly include not presenting it as an organized religion. The Kåñëa consciousness movement of Lord Caitanya is not a creed based upon faith in the form of an organized religion. It is very different from that. It is an occult, philosophical, and cultural movement meant for self-realization and God-realization.

It is not a religion. It is theistic, of course, because it is in the personalist line, i.e., its disciplic succession is opposed to the advaita of Çaìkaräcärya. It is, instead, a Vaiñëava line, and organized religions are not only different from it but invariably opposed to it. The inter-faith movement of the fabricated, so-called “ISKCON” confederation is not in the interest of spreading Lord Caitanya's cultural movement in its true spirit and form.

Your dharma is your eternal, inherent characteristic, and it has nothing to do with organized religion, which will never reveal it nor help you to realize it. When you associate with the mis-leaders of “ISKCON,” you associate with very powerful liars.

Of course, there were many big lies in the late Seventies that far too many devotees fell for, but the biggest lie was that Prabhupäda appointed successors. He never did any such thing. In point of fact, he never appointed anyone as an initiating spiritual master, i.e., he never officially recognized any of his disciples to be an initiating spiritual master during his lifetime, although he could have very easily done so.

He appointed rittviks, and there are two big lies that spun off from that. One was that the appointment of rittviks was a covert appointment (or a covert recognition) that those eleven men (rittviks) would then become bona fide initiating spiritual masters after he departed. How did that work out?

The other lie is that the appointment of rittviks (in July of 1977) was the institutionalization of how Prabhupäda's branch was to carry out initiations in the future. He said “regular guru.” He said that the newcomer becomes “disciple of my disciple.” Not only did he say this in his quarters in Våndävan in May, 1977, but his books say it in any number of places.

A regular guru is all he generically authorized, but he did not recognize any of his disciples to have even reached that intermediate platform. This goes to show just how big a lie it was that they were uttama-adhikärés. In point of fact, they were nothing more than either sahajiyäs or covert Mäyävädés. Time has conclusively proved that.

With the fabricated, so-called “ISKCON” born and bred in lies, seeped in so many lies, how can real brähmins either remain in it or be developed within it? It takes effort to learn how to tell the truth; in Kali-yuga, the default position for the conditioned soul is to be a spontaneous liar. When pretender mahäbhägavats pose to be the best thing to ever happen to Prabhupäda's movement—to be eleven empowered beats replacing him as the sole heartbeat—then everyone who associated with that turns out to become very degraded in due course of time. That lie will never assist our dharma as pure spirit soul.

Our dharma is not to associate with, or follow, the fabricated, so-called “ISKCON” confederation, but to, instead, work to help expose it for just what it was and what it remains. There can be no effective reform within it, because the “ISKCON” paradigm itself is warped beyond the power of anyone to ever reform it. It is contaminated beyond repair, because it is fully invultuated with lies at every level.

It is nothing but another organized religion which works—more effectively than the others—to squelch the appearance of the real theistic impetus at its incipient manifestation. It is a new thing in terms of universal perspective, and its very foundation is a lie.

The Cheshire in the Rite

“For satisfying our sense gratification, we require money, and generally we perform religious rites, ritualistic ceremonies, yajïa, dharma for getting some economic development.”
Platform Lecture, Bhagavad-gétä, 7.1 in Madras, India

“There is a hereditary class of brähmaëas called the smärta-brähmaëas, however, who are of the opinion that, even if such persons who are chanting the Holy Name of the Lord are accepted as purified, they still have to perform the Vedic rites or await their next birth in a family of brähmaëas so that they can perform (them).”
Çrémad-Bhägavatam, 3.33.7, purport

“Most hierarchies are nowadays so encumbered with rules and traditions . . . (that) they simply follow precedents, obey regulations, and move at the head of the crowd. Their employees lead only in the sense that the carved wooden figurehead leads a ship.”
Lawrence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, The Peter Principle

In Lewis Carroll's adventures of Alice, as she travels through a so-called wonderland, she eventually comes across the Cheshire Cat. He is an all-knowing crypto-Hierophant with a wry smile, observing everything going on around him with over-confidence and utter contempt. This picture is analogous to what goes on in the upper echelon of “ISKCON.” Its leaders are like—nay, make that exactly like—the smarta brähmaëas, who represent an obnoxious slice of sahajiyä condemned by Bhaktivinode Öhäkur. They perform basic rites and rituals motivated only by their desire to remain secure atop their chosen pyramid.

Through the force of deviation generated by organized religion in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, secularism was off-loaded. The Enlightenment was primarily a reaction to the cheating and injustices perpetrated by the Church. Mostly, it was based upon rebellion, but that rebellion was more than a little justified. Western theistic belief thus underwent radical change, and the oppressive edifice of organized religion, in the form of the Church, was forcibly compromised. That also compromised its systematic, quasi-theistic rites based upon shaky scriptural “authorization.”

This spoiled Europe for the Church. As a result, with competing Catholic and Protestant preachers in Western Europe, a new field had to be found and cultivated. India became a target for rather obvious reasons. In a relatively insular field, European missionaries worked on the Hindoo intelligentsia, which protested (to a limited extent in the beginning) but capitulated to the print culture of “Christianity” by accommodating it.

The overconfidence of the Christian missionaries to win India to their faith, along with an incubating form of Western “civilization” (that naturally accompanied their preaching), covered the uncertainty of the priests and preachers about the ultimate validity of their scripture and its rites. Those doubts were justified. Modern Western man, of the coming Nineteenth Century especially, would have no use for anything that smacked of the theistic, and the same thing is happening now, especially in America.

“ISKCON” is the chief force making it happen, although not everyone has enough intelligence to realize that. The “ISKCON” rites and rituals, its parades and festivals, its snarky hierarchy, and its compromises, oppressions, and deviations are all piling up. Yet, people are catching on. They will continue to do so.

We're all in this mess, because Western organized religion has been imposing a Church paradigm as the best way to spread theism. The result is that the supplicant congregations in these organized religions, including “ISKCON,” are basically uneducated peasants. That is what is presumed and assumed that they are, and that is how they are thus treated. As such, their buddhi (or buddhi-yoga, if you can even call it that) is stunted instead of being expanded and upgraded. It remains at an extremely shallow level for such low-information chelas. The leaders of “ISKCON” operate on many such retrograde assumptions.

Judge by the results: What is the performance rating of “ISKCON?” It's the duty of genuine theistic leaders to create and implement a system of Kåñëa consciousness that is both honest and fair. That is not easy, of course, but the model was presented by Prabhupäda, both in his writings and by his example. As such, it should have been followed unchanged. However, injustice and dishonesty are now hard-wired into “ISKCON,” neuro-linguistically programed into the physical and astral bodies of its upper echelons and their misguided followers.

As the early Greeks viewed it, Hubris (they personified such qualities) is always unforgivable. Unprecedented hubris entered and took over the Hare Kåñëa movement in early 1978, and the cockiness of the eleven Chesire Cats was off the charts! Vikarmic reactions caught up with them in due course, or, as the Greeks would have put it, Hubris was inexorably followed by Nemesis. There are those of Prabhupada's disciples who represent that counter-force.

It was far harder to stop something (which had already developed its own momentum) than to rejuvenate something bona fide. For those who argue that there was a kind of justification underlying the zonal äcärya era, that doesn't hold water. The pretense was exposed, yet most of those high profile pretenders were allowed to keep their disciples! The later wave, which got added to the mix in the mid-Eighties before and during the Second Transformation of the “ISKCON” Church (despite their previous implication in the zonal deviation), were considered brave, honest, and sincere devotees. Some of them were even considered revolutionaries! On the basis of that delusion, they were believed to be deserving of the status of initiating äcärya in a reformation that was also a concoction.

The spiritual master must be perfect, which also means that he will be a very honest man. All of the institutional gurus of “ISKCON” were anything but, and the governing body continued to buttress the original deviation by “authorizing” more and more wallpaper. Was the zonal äcärya scam actually stopped? Superficially, that could be answered in the affirmative, but such superficiality means nothing. It is high time to rip off all the wallpaper which continues to shroud Kåñëa consciousness. The deviation must be revealed for just what it is.

“ISKCON” influence must be terminated, and then
the “ISKCON” pretense itself must be destroyed.

OM TAT SAT

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