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Editorial:
The Bottom Line on the ISKCON Guru Issue

Dear Maharajas and Prabhus, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

I do not know who wrote the following on the subject of ISKCON guru-tattva (I found it posted anonymously on the Hindu-religion.net forum), but to me, it makes perfect sense. I sent a copy of it to a member of the GBC “Sastric Advisory Committee” (SAC) who obviously took it very seriously because he replied as follows:

“[The Sastric Advisory Committee] is reviewing this very process and what you have sent in this regard is very helpful.”

Srila Prabhupada’s “DECLARATION OF WILL” (http://pratyatosa.com/?P=3v) states, “The Governing Body Commission (GBC) will be the ultimate managing authority of the entire International Society for Krishna Consciousness.” This fact, together with the revelations contained in the following article, would tend to explain why the original 11 “appointed gurus” tried to keep Srila Prabhupada’s will a secret from the rest of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples back in 1978.

It doesn’t take a whole book to prove that the GBC’s current initiation system is bogus. The following relatively short article, in my humble opinion, does it quite handily, and it also contains a dire warning for the GBC!

Your servant, Pratyatosa Dasa (Pratyatosa.com)

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Posted on www.hindu-religion.net, September 17, 2003, by “Guest”:

The bottom line of the [ISKCON guru] issue is whether or not any guru is subjected to the dictates and discipline of the GBC. The fact that Prabhupada established the GBC as the Governing Authority for ISKCON rules out the possibility of any diksha gurus in ISKCON except him. Prabhupada ruled out the diksha guru system in ISKCON by saying that a bona-fide spiritual master is never subjected to the discipline or restrictions of a GBC or anyone else. The fact that the GBC is in the position of having to regulate and restrict the activities of the ISKCON gurus shows that indeed there can be no gurus in ISKCON except Prabhupada. A real guru is never subjected to the control and discipline of any committee, Godbrother, disciple or anyone else. Sri Guru is a free agent independent of committee regulation or control. ISKCON clearly has a whole set of rules and laws that regulate, discipline and restrict all the diksha gurus in ISKCON. This situation is clearly in violation of the teachings of Srila Prabhupada. We find his instructions in the matter in the Nectar of Instruction text 6 purport:

"It is also an offense to consider an empowered Vaishnava an object of disciplinary action. It is offensive to try to give him advice or to correct him…The spiritual master must not be subjected to the advice of a disciple, nor should a spiritual master be obliged to take instructions from those who are not his disciples. This is the sum and substance of Srila Rupa Goswami's advice in this sixth verse."

Srila Prabhupada is saying here that in the Rupanuga sampradaya a spiritual master should not be subjected to the discipline or regulations of any committee, individual or group of individuals. A real spiritual master is not subject to such regulation.

Therefore, by establishing the GBC as the managing authority of ISKCON, Srila Prabhupada ruled out the possibility of a multiplicity of gurus in ISKCON by making the GBC the functioning authority over all ISKCON affairs. In ISKCON today there is a class of spiritual masters who are all subjected to the regulation and discipline of the GBC. This is totally incongruent with the concept of a traditional spiritual master who is above and beyond all such committee regulation.

Prabhupada said it is an offense to try and discipline or regulate a spiritual master. Therefore either the regulating of ISKCON spiritual masters by the GBC must stop or [the ISKCON] diksha guru system must stop. Refusing to do so results in offenses which will destroy devotional service and make [devotional service] fruitless and futile.

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