Devotee Infighting Not Helping

PADA: Yep, Rocana has found various letters of complaints from among members of the so-called ritvik / Prabhupadanugas camp, and so he is now trying to say -- this shows that the whole Prabhupadanuga's program has been defeated. Great. One problem? Rocana has no program at all? Oh we forgot, Rocana has "the Sun staff," ok that's Rocana's wife. Rocana is saying the Prabhupadanuga program has flaws, and maybe it does, but that does not mean his idea -- lets not have any program at all, is the better idea?

Rocana also seems to say that when Srila Prabhupada was admonishing the Gaudiya Matha for not worshiping their acharya Srila Saraswati after 1936, he was "not following the tradition" -- umm, the tradition of Rocana's debauchee gurus? Notice! He never explains what his tradition is? Rocana says that Srila Prabhupada's idea that people should have continued to worship Srila Saraswati is "apa-siddhanta."

Rocana complains that the Prabhupadanugas have no centralized authority and centralized structure. Right. That is the plan. Separated independent programs is the better plan. We should avoid overly-centralized programs, umbrella corporations etc -- which Srila Prabhupada did not want. Various and diverse corporate structures are also better in the event that there are legal problems and so on and so forth. We also have a number of allies living in or around ISKCON properties, we simply cannot list them as part of our process or they will be treated harshly if not brutally, so its better to keep things loose knit for the present time.

Some structure is needed for building large scale temples, book production, training new people etc. -- and we have some of that going on. Basically, we have a blend of independent grass roots programs, and somewhat centralized programs. And that is the way ISKCON should have been functioning all along already, the corporate hub allied with grass roots nama hatta programs. Meanwhile, Rocana cannot build temples, print books, make bhaktas etc. with his "no program" idea.

Quite unfortunately, Rocana's idea of attacking the Prabhupadanugas is not helping the overall preaching effort. For example, just a short time ago a nice young lady announced that -- from now on -- she was just going to worship Srila Prabhupada. She announced that she has now given up on the GBC's and Gaudiya Matha's gurus. Yet, as soon as she announced that, various sectors of both the GBC's and so-called Prabhupadanuga's people attacked  her for "being a disciple of the PADA editor." Really?

She was actually quite shocked to figure out -- that after all the trouble she had to go through to take shelter of Srila Prabhupada -- Rocana and others are trying to discourage her from doing that. I also told her also about Prahlad das, who wants to shut down the Prabhupadanugas even more than the entire GBC, so he can stop us from making ANY followers of Srila Prabhupada. In the name of preaching about Jesus, he wants to toss the followers of Jesus into the lion's den and have them killed. In other words, there are people claiming to be in favor of promoting Srila Prabhupada, but who are working against promoting him.

The upshot is -- now this woman has decided to withdraw entirely from all devotee associations and communities, and do things on her own, finding that most of the folks in these "devotee communities" are "too venomous." In short, she simply cannot understand how folks like Rocana can claim to be a disciple of Srila Prabhupada, while dedicating his entire life to a program of stopping her (and others like her) from worshiping Srila Prabhupada? Multiply her problem by many other people who read Rocana's type sites, and we find that the Rocana process is turning many people away from having any connection to any devotees, any programs, any structure etc.

How does this help establish Lord Chaitanya's mission?

Rocana is (A) against the GBC's structure, and (B) against the Prabhupadanuga's structure, ok so he wants no structure, no programs, no preaching, no nothing. Nihilism. Neti neti neti, no nothing. Where does Srila Prabhupada order this idea? We are not too much discouraged from all this really, because folks like this woman will still go on worshiping Srila Prabhupada in any case. Various devotees in all sort of places, including many in the San Francisco Bay area -- who now worship Srila Prabhupada -- will continue on that path no matter what. These folks have figured out our main idea, acharya upasanam, take shelter of the acharya, and they will not likely surrender to any other idea anytime soon, if at all. Folks like this woman are in sum, vastly more advanced than Rocana. She knows who the current acharya is, whereas Rocana has no idea, and maybe never will for many lifetimes.

So we helped liberate her in any event, and that will set her path maybe for the rest of her life. We also got a nice message recently -- that our program saved a person from suicide. That is about as much help as one party can give another party, to save their existence. And we just now posted a letter from France from devotees there who read our sites and etc.  So we are making progress overall, its just disappointing that we have so many obstacles created artificially.

For the record, various self-advertised "Prabhupadanuga" people have also criticized PADA on various issues over the years, including: -- The poison issue; The child molesting issue; The book changes issue, and other issues. And some of them have made huge public attack on PADA editor personally, thinking this is helping the overall preaching. Its not. Its simply making more and more people like this woman withdraw from having any connection to anything. Its a scorched earth policy, if we cannot be in control of everything, then lets burn everything to the ground.

Some of these folks are for example upset that me and Sulochana did not just stroll in an take the children out of the New Vrndavana schools, and fix things quietly and gently, and instead we made a huge public scandal with the FBI raiding New Vrndavana etc. And then we had to liberate hundreds more children with another public expose later on in 1997. Why not just walk in and take over these programs and fix things on the sidelines, without making big waves?

OK, and the reason we are not able to walk in and take the hundreds of children out of there -- quietly and gently is -- probably the same reason these critics cannot go in and take Ravindra Swarupa's pals off their vyasa seats right now. In other words, at least we saved some children, whereas these critics could not save a flea, and they haven't done so in 35 years. Nor can these critics remove even one of these rogue gurus from their guru post, at least we put some of their coterie in jail.

Some of these people (i.e. various GBC, Prahlad, Rocana etc.) are feeling pretty proud of themselves for getting people to turn away from all forms of the Krishna communities, thinking this is hurting PADA. Its not hurting PADA one iota, its hurting many people like this poor woman. All these critics are doing is trying to turn away nice people like this from participating in the Krishna religion at all. Ummm, which is what the GBC did? In other words, attacking the people who are promoting Srila Prabhupada just turns innocent people away from the whole thing, and has done so for the past 35 years.  

As for Rocana's ACTUAL program, the main person he promotes is Mayesvara das. And Mayesvara advertises programs with GBC folks all the time in his home in Ojai, and he associates with the GBC's and their groupies all the time. He also got very upset that Dhanurdhara was being attacked for beating children -- and aiding the molesting program. And so Mayesvara complained that this is a witch hunt mentality, we have to be more kind to folks like Dhanurdar. In other words, Mayesvara more or less defended Dhanurdhara, which even Rocana agreed was not a good idea. OK, so Rocana's main program is, a program that is compromised with the GBC's guru program. Rocana says the GBC program is awful, then he promotes the very same program.

We also have been criticized by some ex-devotees who have run off to join the Christians, saying they are a better religion. Amazing! These people actually think we are going to join with them at the church's beef steak supper. Really! Other of our friends have gone off to become "real Hindus." A Hindu friend of ours, who is not really a big fan of the present Hindu culture, says that the real reason so many people in India think for example that Shirdi Sai Baba is a God is -- "Hindus have no discrimination." We need to take shelter of this program?

Did we forget to mention the festering rape culture (possibly connected to the bogus caste system they now have in place over there), the gendercide of female fetus', never mind the general overall attraction to Westernized life, industrialization, Bollywood, etc.? One village in India has recently opened up marriages from "pre-arranged" to "any girl you can find" -- since they have aborted so many female babies over the years, there are hardly any females left. I think Narendra Modi wants to fix some of these issues to his credit, but can he do that effectively?, that's another matter. Anyway, the Hindu program has more than a few problems with it, lets face it.

To sum up then, if someone has a better idea, lets hear it. Rocana's idea of simply trying to stop others from presenting Srila Prabhupada is not very useful. Other critics plan of going off to eat hamburgers with the Christians is not very useful. Reverting to the general Hindu's society is not very helpful. We need to see a better program, and Rocana and these other critics are simply not going ahead with any better plan that we can see at least. In any event, our idea is taking off, even Rocana admits that. So we will win in the end, satyam eva jayate. ys pd