Pariprashnena — Q&A Archive

thats not my experience, that if i say anything against ISKCON authorities its considered blasphemy. it may depend a little on how you voice your criticism. usually i try not to offend, neither GBCs, managers, or anybody else.

i can see two reasons why they are disappointing so often:

1. theyre not perfect, not even close to, mostly;
2. our expectations are too high: srila prabhupada was pretty much perfect, and since the GBC have taken over his job, they ought to be, too;

ys phani.

depends on what they disappoint you...

a) their personal character
b) their performance as preachers
c) their managerial skills

If you answered:

a) Try to see the other way and remember "api cet suduracaro",
b) maybe they are not trained on that
c) brahmana is not supposed to be a good manager anyway

If you answered only
a) you must be envious

b) and c) :
do it better yourself, then talk

all of them:
c) this movement is self purifying and perfect, so nothing to worry

and what about the blasphemy part?

I actually was too cynical and it sounded like real!!!

Read between lines I see all this things ridiculous, and yes, if you do not find an authority to rely in and work with, just do your own with likewise devotees, do not wait for "saviours", self proclaimed zonal authorities nor pay heed to blind or quasi blind followers.

Blasphemy is for God or pure devotees, let the imperfect get down from their cloud and accept criticism and advice from the base devotees.

mishra prabhu (yes, i mean it) is right: you cant "blaspheme" an ordinary, fallible human being. fanatical followers might take it as such, but thats their problem.

anybody who knows that hes fallible shouldnt consider criticism an offense; otherwise hes more fallible than the job-description of an ISKCON authority should allow for ...

on the other hand, if you say "ISKCON is completely useless," or some such thing, that might be considered blasphemy. ISKCON isnt different from srila prabhupada, and i dont believe he would reject todays ISKCON, in spite of difficulties, mistakes, and mismanagement.

theres still a lot of good things going on which usually dont get the attention the scandals and errors do.

ys phani.

> you cant "blaspheme" an ordinary, fallible human being.

Yes. But my realization is that Krsna doesnt like a non-constructive (i.e. not meant to help, uplift, improve) criticism even of the smallest devotees and gives quite heavy reactions for that.

True. You really see the reactions which Krishna gives when you do something which is not in favor of the devotees

but there is also the mentality that says:
dont say anything about them because they are prabhupada disciples and it is aparadha. shhhhh!!!

thats also true, hehe

true, veda prabhu, with criticism i meant the constructive sort; otherwise id call it bad-mouthing.

as far as disciples of srila prabhupada are concerned, i would try to be sure that my criticism really seems justified to me and be careful to offer it in an appropriate way. there is an injunction somewhere that says you should offer your gurus godbrothers the same respect you offer him.

apart from that, though, SP disciples are not above criticism. why should they?

ys phani.

SP disciples or not everyone must have the same respect as you offer your respect to Srila Prabhupada.
A devotee (initiated) a very kind and wise Vaishnava, black, once was at a Rath Yatra in Guyana. Last year. He was from Suriname and was he with a few other devotees. They got a house to stay in for the night (all the devotees from Suriname , 12 devotees). He came a little late from the temple and all the other devotees said,: " there is no space left for you." None of those devotees were initiated and they spoke like that to the prabhu, who was initiated, but he was black. So he had to stay in a motel in a strange country.
Even an initiated devotee should have the same respect as a Swami.
When I heard this I got angry, cause I knew the prabhu pretty well, very kind and humble.
But then I thought: " Krishna always takes care of his pure devotees."
Maybe this story had nothing to do with the theme but it is very devastating to hear this, at least I thought so

I am talking about giving your opinion, for example on some aspect of management, not insulting or minimizing anyone. That goes many times in the category of blasphemy and you all know it happens all the time. You just have to have your mouth shot except for taking prasadam.

And the sad part is that all this fear comes justified, cause some bad examples Prabhus have been ostracized, chastised ,etc, so you better take care of yourself if you want to stay "in".

That happens in all religions, what is sad is that we have become such a "religion".

Next question is.." what we are going to do about that" nothin?.... :(

I also want to know why is that people complain about authorities so often?
It is like no matter what they do people will complain?
or maybe that there are no rules and training to be an authority and everybody just does what they think is the best.

> It is like no matter what they do people will complain?
> or maybe that there are no rules and training

both, i think.

ys phani.

yes but what photo will you put on the altar?
:)

> That goes many times in the category of blasphemy and you all know it happens all the time.

thats exactly what i dont know from my own experience. but i also thought maintaining temples by hook and by crook was something from the bad old days, not practiced very much nowadays anymore - you and ekendra told me otherwise.

i assume that managers who maintain their temples in that way cant be very open to criticism. if you are a thief, you cant have people go around telling everybody about it, after all; makes some nasty sort of sense ...

what to do about it?

sita-pati has asked for assistance in formulating the ideas in his leadership-book so they can be presented to the ISKCON constitution committee. that sounds like a good start. ive read through his book yesterday and find it great. hes got a knack for analyzing and expressing these things.

this type of management, maintaining by cheating and prosecuting criticism, is a clear symptom of the hierarchical management structure emplyoed in most of ISKCON. in his book sita-pati shows that such a structure cant be expected to perform well and proposes to replace it with a network-type structure.

personally i cant see how to make that palatable or acceptable to a committee that, being part of the hierarchy, has already decided that hierarchy is the only way; much of ISKCON / GBC probably cant perceive of any other way of management.

is worth trying for, though, and they did ask for broader input from outside the GBC / deputies.

ys phani.

Because they are not actually leaders,their primary business is what ever it is they enjoy doing most,for example: GBC members should manage and solve their
temples problems when the Temple President is not availble ( very common now days ).what they do instead is create a silly " Iskcon Resove ",creating more trouble
than there was to begin with.