Srila Prabhupada, His Movement & You

Call for Action

From Gupta das aka Joseph Fedorowski of Oxford Law Firm
Inglewood, California
25 October 1993

Dear Hansadutta Prabhu:

Jai Nitai. Hare Krishna.

Regarding your fax dated 10/25/93: I also pledge US$1,000. Send details re transfer. No small financial struggle this quarter (Saturn retrograde, you know), but by week’s end I may be able to commit more Lakshmi per your request. Based on review of fax excerpts, I have no need for any further content approval, but appreciate your offer.

I admire your efforts in taking on this leadership role. I only wish all of us now associated on these issues had been able to co-operate earlier to begin to put a halt to the insidious, criminal misuse of Srila Prabhupada’s assets and legacy.

With regards,
Gupta das

From Bhakta das, Bangkok, Thailand
4 November 1993

Dear Gour Mohan das Prabhu:

Please accept my most humble obeisances at your feet. All glories to His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada! Thank you very much for your letter of yesterday.

Hansadutta is printing his booklet Srila Prabhupada, His Movement and You professionally in Singapore right now. I believe it will be done today. 3,000 copies are being printed, and there are numerous additions which probably not in the copy you have received. So, although there is certainly no harm for you to circulate what you have, if you wait a little while you’ll have a super first-class presentation to give. Prabhupada made Hansadutta a LIFETIME BBT TRUSTEE because he is one of the most creative men in the publishing field.

We will look for Brahmarata Prabhu in Vrindaban and take advantage of his association.

I really feel there is no use in discussing ISKCON anymore. It is wasted energy. We know what Prabhupada wants, and we are willing to submit to his final orders, i.e. HE is the acharya, he is present in sound vibration, and we should teach the entire world how to become his followers. ISKCON will dry up and die just like a tree that is not watered, because ISKCON does not follow Prabhupada’s final instructions on this most crucial point.

When we don’t follow the acharya, we feel the effect of the modes of material nature upon our minds and therefore constant problems and no bliss. When we are serving the acharya’s order, then we remain always in a liberated state.

Devotional relationships are based upon mutual desire to serve the Supreme Lord by serving His servants. All that needs to be known about relationships is explained by Rupa Goswami in the 4th verse of the Nectar of Instruction. Revealing our minds to each other, exchanging gifts, giving prasada and accepting prasada. My own experience with the ISKCON devotees is that they are always ready to take my money, my time, my life, but they are never willing to give anything. I can say with honesty that in the last 12 years I have gone to ISKCON maybe 50 times and practically have never been offered prasadam, but am always asked to give Laxmi! So it is one sided and therefore not palatable for very long. This morning I listened to Srila Prabhupada speaking in NY in 1966, and he strongly stresses that we must not only accept but must give. Then there is proper reciprocation.

But because we are all influenced by false egoism, we all want to think we are saintly persons, when the truth is that our hearts are full of ambition, we hide behind the posture of being a great soul. When we see another advancing in devotional service, instead of being happy for him and seeking his blessings, we become envious and start to be critical and look for faults.

The leaders of ISKCON are the worst examples. They are universally pretending to be something they are not. How can they possibly relate to each other or to the masses? As far as I am concerned, their association is worse than death.

Because they all desire to be number one, they do not help each other. Instead, they help destroy one another while promoting their own projects. Why? Because they are all on the mental plane, due to not following the acharya, Srila Prabhupada! It is very simple to understand. Spiritual life means to serve the order of the acharya. Anything else is mental speculation. Since November 1977 they concocted their own way and the result is slow disintegration, chaos, etc. KRISHNA is not reciprocating purely with these men or their followers.

Now the Nama Hatta movement is to present Prabhupada as the acharya and us as humble souls trying to serve him, not become him. We agree that we are all fallen, sinful, full of holes and faults, but Prabhupada is perfect, and by following him we too will become perfect.

I know that these “relationship” conferences, etc. are going on all over. I am not much interested, and I know that Yasodanandan, who is very close with the leaders of this, finds it totally without spiritual basis. Relationships are for service, not for sense gratification. We are not meant to just flatter one another and tell each other that we’re OK. No. We are meant to help each other serve the acharya. If someone is not willing, then we can just pray for them, wish them well, but not become sentimental. My own experience is that if devotees chant Hare Krishna always and eat nice prasada, then they remain enthusiastic and happy. When they neglect attentive chanting and hearing and try to enjoy, then the taste for devotional service evaporates, and they try to find some happiness in material relationships again.

Prabhupada said that 95% of his students were not interested in going back to Godhead. They just wanted a peaceful life in goodness and a birth on the heavenly planets. That’s all right, but for those who want to go back home, that association is not beneficial.

It is a shame you are not able to go to Vrindaban and hear from Puri Maharaja.* His purity is so strong that he can quickly remove all confusion from our hearts if we are submissive.

The devotees should of course meet together as often as practical and hold gigantic harinam and prasada. But we should also know that if we are serving the orders of Srila Prabhupada, then we are always united beyond time and space. Prabhupada always told us how he never felt separation from Bhaktisiddhanta Thakura, so similarly if we are sincerely serving then we will never feel the pangs of material life.

It takes time. If we have surrendered to Prabhupada’s instructions, then in time our consciousness will be revived. Prabhupada says that it is just like planting the tree. When the seed is planted, we don’t see anything for some time. Then finally a tiny sprout appears, then a small tree, etc. We cannot jump to the high level any more than that little seed can give fruits. Enthusiasm, patience, perseverance, etc. is required.

We are all impersonalists in the sense that we have all come into this world to imitate KRISHNA. I know that I am definitely an impersonalist, and I am trying to become a personalist. I am always concerned with my sense gratification first. It is a diseased condition, and I am taking the medicine of harinam to get better.

The problem with ISKCON’s leaders is they don’t seem to know that they are sick. They think they are cured already!

If you will simply continue what you’ve been doing the past 8 years, chanting, reading, preaching, serving prasada, teaching your family to be nice devotees, then the whole world will follow you. Prabhupada has blessed you already fully, that is sure.

Tomorrow night I am off to Vrindaban! Can’t wait to roll in the dust.

Your humble servant,
Bhakta dasa

*Editor’s note: This BV Puri Maharaja is not to be confused with Bhakti Pradeep Puri Maharaja.