THE GBC'S BIGGEST MISTAKES

[Pratyatosa Das ACBSP]

Why is almost no one completely satisfied with the current state of affairs within ISKCON (the Hare Krishna Movement)? Could the following be the reasons?:

Four times, the ISKCON GBC disobeyed Srila Prabhupada! Is the GBC going to be able to get away with it? No. It's not possible. "The truth always wins out in the end."

Maybe it seems like they've gotten away with it, for now, but the longer they take to correct these obvious anomalies, the more they are going to have to suffer!:

1. In 1970, they completely ignored the "3-year term/TP vote" mandate. Foolish GBC men will say, "But Prabhupada tolerated this." What choice did he have? The crazy, former "drug addicted hippies," with their LSD addled brains, is all that he had to work with!

2. In 1978, they completely ignored the "ritvik henceforward" mandate. Instead of Prabhupada's ingenious ritvik system of initiations, which had been practiced successfully for years, the GBC came up with their own "voted-in guru" concoction! Time has proven that it doesn't work very well. The most famous person to become a Hare Krishna was ex-Beatle, George Harrison, but he wanted nothing to do with ISKCON after some of it's leaders tried to become "gurus like Prabhupada." But they didn't care: "I wanna be a guru like Prabhupada, and no one, not even George Harrison, is going to stop me." Also, Srila Prabhupada, in 1977, when he was on his deathbed, said that he was being poisoned! A sane person would have thought, "If I show the world that I wanna be a guru like Prabhupada, that would provide a motive for murder, and would, therefore, make me a murder suspect! But I don't care! I wanna be a guru like Prabhupada so badly that even being a murder suspect is not going to stop me!"

3. Beginning in 1987, they began to completely ignore the "retirement at age 50" mandate. Foolish GBC men will say, "But Prabhupada said that GBC is for life." Where is that in writing? Prabhupada said that only once, on May 28, 1977, before he had made a final decision on such things, simply to get a bunch of "I wanna be a guru like Prabhupada" madmen off his back! It was never put in writing. (As Hansadutta would say, "Srila Prabhupada didn't pass down instructions on how ISKCON should be run, through the agency of hissing tapes! He passed down such instructions through the agency of signed, written, legally viable documents.")

4. In 1988, the GBC formed the BBTI (Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, Inernational), which is not actually a trust, but is a California corporation. and which, in 1995, stole the copyrights for Srila Prabhupada's books from Prabhupada's original BBT, which he formed in 1972. This obvious fraud also resulted in the BBTI publishing changed versions of Prabhupada's books, which is a great insult to Srila Prabhupada.

[rainer hahn]

See pic, why the GBC has an army of lawyers? Why is the GBC stressing these neophyte gurus (fall down rate 80%) is evident. According to Prabhupada's statutes temples are owned by the local temple congregation. Prabhupada wanted every temple autonomous, "decentralized". In other words, every temple that was bought should be owned by the local temple community. But when there is a guru then it is slightly different, then he is the legal owner of the properties. Legally the gurus are the successors, legal heirs of Prabhupada's movement. When a guru falls down the ex-disciples are driven away and the GBC lawyers transfer the ownership structure of a temple to be the property of the GBC headquarter. This explains why the GBC has no problem with fallen gurus. They seize all the properties of a yatra when a guru falls down. This was the GBC ambition from the beginning, already in 1972, to centralize ISKCON. To use Vaishnava philosophy as a clever tool to disappropriate people and create real estate for free. 
"Regarding your points about taxation, corporate status, etc., I have heard from Jayatirtha you want to make big plan for centralization of management, taxes, monies, corporate status, bookkeeping, credit, like that. I do not at all approve of such plan. Do not centralize anything. Each temple must remain independent and self-sufficient. That was my plan from the very beginning, why you are thinking otherwise? Once before you wanted to do something centralizing with your GBC meeting, and if I did not interfere the whole thing would have been killed. Do not think in this way of big corporation, big credits, centralization—these are all nonsense proposals."
When Karandhar has read this letter (22 December, 1972) he immediately left.

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[Harinam Dasa]

The facts of the matter is that U.S. nonprofit 501c3 federal IRS corporate law states that real property is owned by the nonprofit corporation exempting it from most federal, state, and county taxes which can be a lot of Laksmi. The local congregation are the members of the corporation and that is why membership records must be kept to ensure membership benefits of voting for temple presidents and officers, employment (devotional service), room and board, etc. are maintained as allowed in the articles of incoporation and corporate bylaws.

In my last attempt to reform ISKCON, I advised that ISKON is breaking frederal and state nonprofit corporate laws by not maintaing current membership lists of all  local congregations in each ISKCON temple. IRS law requires a rank and file membership (beneficiaries) in the corporation as well as their officers to manage the day-to-day business of the corporation. That is where Srila Prabhupada had each of his temples incorporate locally in each state individual nonprofit corporations separate from ISKCON in New York to be managed and run by the local member congregation. This is what the criminal GBC stopped in order to centralize their political and financial power. The only protection that the ISKCON members have in temple management is their right to vote for their temple president as Prabhupada repeatedly ordered even the GBC cannot choose the TP. 

Then of course there must be regular elections to keep the management in order for the ultimate benefit of the corporation because the government is against graft and political favoritism in the corporation's members. The corporation exists perpetually until it is disolved by the members or the state government where it is incorporated.

So decentrlalization of ISKCON's financial business and management is what Prabhupada ordered. That indiividual freedom

is also in the U.S. constitution as opposed to communist and socialist dictatorship ownership by the central government. The centralization of ISKCON is spiritual based on his books and personal instructions which was to be continued forever. Decentralization is material and also required.

I incorprated my own nonprofit so I know a little for their daily functions.

Your humble servant.

[rainer hahn]

Prabhupada often mentions Jesus yet lately Iskonites altogether reject Jesus, "Jesus never existed, Prabhupada mentioned Jesus Christ out of politeness because Western culture is based on 2000 years Christianity". What happened is they realized that the performance of their living God's direct representatives doesn't stand up to the rather steady concept of Christianity — not to appoint a successor Jesus. What to speak of appointing a false successor. For Christians, this is a sacrilege.  Thus Western Vaisnava leaders managed that they put themselves checkmate. Christianity won in this regard. In order to get out of this debacle they proclaim that Jesus is a fabrication, he never existed. However, there are followers of the bible who refer to Moses. So even if they reject Jesus, still, the followers of the bible won. So what we will see in the future is that Vaishnavism will be more and more relocating back to India. Prabhupada's mission in the West was destroyed. Of course, the Hindus have no problem with this. They might use the temples for karmakanda activities or other Hindu celebrations.

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