Later History of ISKCON Bangalore (1999 onwards)

July 19, 2011 - PRLog -- Part 1:    What happened in ISKCON after the passing away of Srila Prabhupada in 1977?

1.    Srila Prabhupada did not appoint any spiritual successor or successor Acharya to himself as he found his disciples, mostly Westerners, were young, ambitious and spiritually insufficiently developed. The well established, inviolable and traditional bedrock Vedic principle is that an Acharya has to be appointed by the predecessor Acharya to become the next Acharya. Srila Prabhupada too taught this principle in his writings, lectures, recorded room conversations, again and again.

2.    But soon after his disappearance  in 1977, his leading disciples, transgressing his directions, conspired to declare themselves as his spiritual successors and began to control the institution, devotees, money and properties.

3.    The practice is continuing till date, although the methods of recognizing someone as a successor Acharya has undergone changes. Today in ISKCON, there are about 80 self-proclaimed Acharyas (in the sense that they were not appointed by Srila Prabhupada as per Vedic tradition) and their coterie of disciples. The disciples are taught to offer their life and soul to these Acharya gurus, as this is also another basic principle of the Vedic teachings.

4.    The disciples offer good food, comfortable homes and money as guru-dakshina to their gurus. These self-proclaimed Acharyas have become fabulously rich, and the ISKCON as an institution has become poor, especially in the Western countries.

5.    Some of these self-proclaimed gurus have had disgraceful fall downs from spiritual standards, and left the institution with loads of money. This has disenchanted and disillusioned their followers who have left the ISKCON institution in large numbers. This has brought disrepute to ISKCON institution apart from loss of property and people.

6.    Any one who has opposed these corrupt practices of the self-proclaimed Acharyas have been marginalized, expelled, tortured and even murdered!

Part 2:     Later History of ISKCON Bangalore (from 1999 onwards)

7.    In 1999, the devotees of ISKCON Bangalore under the leadership of Madhu Pandit Dasa, along with the leaders of ISKCON Kolkata and ISKCON Singapore took up the matter with the International Governing Body Commission (GBC): how have they become Acharyas when Srila Prabhupada had not ordered them to be?

8.    This GBC body had 34 members. Out of them, 30 were acting as the self-proclaimed Acharyas. This was a unique situation: Madhu Pandit Dasa was appealing before the body who are themselves the accused! The accused and the judges were the same group of persons! Hence one cannot hope to get fairness and justice from such a body!

9.    The GBC body expelled the Temple President of ISKCON Kolkata and forcibly took possession the temple property.This resulted in a major media expose!

10.    To prevent such a disturbing occurrence in Bangalore, the devotees of ISKCON - Bangalore approached the court for protection.

11.    The Bangalore City Civil Court gave a confusing interim order.

12.    However, in April 2002, the High Court of Karnataka clarified and gave a stronger interim order restraining ISKCON – Mumbai from interfering with the affairs of ISKCON – Bangalore.
Read more - http://iskcontimes.com/node/166
Visit ISKCON Bangalore Website - http://iskconbangalore.org/