Nimai Pandit dasa
“the Ritvikites' inability to work together, their splintering into
multiple groups, demonstrates that they have no solution to ISKCON's troubles.”
- HH Bhakti Vikas Swami on Sampradaya Sun
January 19, 2013
For decades, we
Prabhupadanugas, instead of having the better understanding regarding
Guru-tattva, have not been able to work together. There are constant
dissensions, disagreements, arguments, public criticizing each other for small
things,----we are an uninspiring laughing stock for most devotees worldwide as
HH is pointing out above. One can point a finger at him saying“oh, he is
pretending to be a Guru and what not”, but the fact remains that what he is
saying is correct.
As Srila Prabhupada says: “So we have to all cooperate
amongst ourselves, otherwise what will
people think if we ourselves fight with one another? (In Letter to
PatitaUddharana, 12 December, 1974)
The hour of the need is to
FIRST bring the Prabhupadanugas together so that the devotees actually feel
more inspired, hope, good guidance and taste in the process of KC.
Unfortunately for the Krishna
Consciousness Movement and Prabhupadanugas in particular, we have tried and
tried but we have had strong disagreements on even small things.
I have been in meetings 10+
years back where even whole day we had discussed on 1 common name for the
Worldwide Society of Prabhupadanugas---with practically no agreement. There are
many regional groups of Prabhupadanugas without working together, without much coordinating
together, instead many times sniping at each other.
WHERE IS THE WORLDWIDE SOCIETY OF DEVOTEES REPRESENTING
SRILA PRABHUPADA THAT HE TALKS ABOUT IN HIS BOOKS?
Srila Prabhupada’s society
also was to provide equal level and senior level association (see SB 4.8.34)to the
leaders, who in their own regions would be seniors and Siksha gurus.Without
this equal and senior association among them,the tendency among many leaders
among the Prabhupadanugas, including mine,is that anarthascome up and that
results in stunted growth of preaching, which is quite visible worldwide if we
are honest with ourselves. One worldwide organizational platform can help us be
protected by providing the organizational induced association, the devotee
association which is Lord Caitanya’s method to guard against anarthas, the
bijas of karma, jnana, yoga.(seeCc. Madhya 19.157p)
We have seen too many
devotees falling away, too many devotees suffering without good like minded
association, new devotees not able to advance smoothly and not able to feel the
inspiration and the taste of good association, of participating in large
festivals with fellow devotees ----- we want to assist Srila Prabhupada in
bringing this about, like many many other devotees around the world do too.
What is the SOLUTION to bring
this about?
We are proposing that we come
together on the organizational platform given by Srila Prabhupada, the International Society for Krishna
Consciousness, Inc. (Or ISKCON, Inc.).It seems likely that this is the only
name ISKCON, which we CAN all agree upon. It seems likely that the Direction of
Management, written on the letterhead of ISKCON, Inc. is the only management method
that we CAN all agree upon. As we are seeing it happen in many parts of the
world.
More one can read in these
articles –
1. Advantages of being
part of a Worldwide Society
http://prabhupadanugas.blogspot.in/2013/01/advantages-of-being-part-of-worldwide.html
http://prabhupadanugas.blogspot.in/2013/01/advantages-of-being-part-of-worldwide.html
2. Why Affiliate with
ISKCON, Inc.?
http://prabhupadanugas.blogspot.in/2013/01/why-affiliate-to-iskcon-inc.html
http://prabhupadanugas.blogspot.in/2013/01/why-affiliate-to-iskcon-inc.html
We are also traveling and
holding Prabhupadanuga festivals to discuss in istagoshtis and receive direct
feedback and listen respectfully on how better to work this out.
Our humble plea to all Prabhupadanugas, is - If not ISKCON, Inc., then please propose another
solution for all of us, another organizational platform that can convince all
Prabhupadanugas to come together and we will follow you in it.
We need your constant
association, and all need each others. After taking care of our divisions, we
need to provide an example to all. We owe this to Srila Prabhupada.
But this regional groupism
ought not to continue
We end with HH BhaktiVikas
Swami again to be inspired by him – “the
Ritvikites' inability to work together, their splintering into multiple groups,
demonstrates that they have no solution to ISKCON's troubles.”
As Srila Prabhupada says: “So we have to all cooperate
amongst ourselves, otherwise what will
people think if we ourselves fight with one another?