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26TH
AUGUST 2000
1.
BBC Glorifies Srila Prabhupada to the World
2.
Blasphemous GBC Boasts that Srila Prabhupada "is
Dead"
3.
Classic Quotes
It really is
amazing what faith in Srila Prabhupada's lotus feet can do. It can
move mountains. Here we are in the midst of ISKCON's worst publicity
nightmare - with the movement facing a 400 million dollar lawsuit
for child abuse - and the world's largest and most famous media
organisation approaches an IRM follower to broadcast the glories of
Srila Prabhupada and Krishna to the world!
On August 22 at 12:45 pm GMT, and on August 23 (which was, of
course, the festival of Sri Krishna Janmastami) at 5:45 pm GMT *and*
11:45 pm GMT, (GMT
= Greenwich Mean Time) the BBC World Service broadcast three
15-minute shows on Lord Krishna's Advent. The astonishing fact is
that according to official reports the World Service reaches a
staggering 150 MILLION LISTENERS, a significant proportion of
whom will have caught at least one of the 3 programmes. Indeed the
show's producer estimates that *each* of the three programmes
was listened to by over 100 million people around the world.
The person who
put the show together was UK IRM member Deepak Vohra who has been
working with the BBC for sometime (see later). The main piece of the
show was a dramatic presentation of the birth of Lord Krishna, which
had been written by another UK IRM member Yaduraja Das, and which
was based on Srila Prabhupada's Krishna Book.The play allowed
everyone to hear about the transcendental birth of Lord Krishna, and
as Lord Krishna states in the Bhagavad Gita:
"One who knows the
transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon
leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but
attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna."
(Bhagavad Gita, 4:9)
However a
special Janmastami present for the world was that Deepak also
managed to add an introduction glorifying Srila Prabhupada, as well
as the congregational chanting of Hare Krishna both at the beginning
and at the end of the show. We cannot imagine a more auspicious
start to the first Janmastami of the new millennium, as the chanting
of the Hare Krishna mantra was heard simultaneously all over the
planet. Millions of people from Northern Europe to Southern
Afghanistan will have heard the glories of Prabhupada and Krishna
for the first time, on the actual day of Lord Sri Krishna's Advent
over 5000 years ago.
The following is an extract from the introduction to the show that
was broadcast, which allowed us to glorify Srila Prabhupada to the
world:
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"...In the West, too, the festival of
Janmastami is also widely celebrated by devotees of ISKCON -
the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, more
commonly known as the Hare Krishna movement. It's a
worldwide missionary movement established nearly 40 years
ago by India's greatest saint and spiritual emissary - His
Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
His mission was to lead people throughout the world back to
a spiritual existence based on India's ancient Vedic
scriptures. Prabhupada taught that Krishna is the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, and that the goal of life is to
reawaken our forgotten loving relationship with Krishna,
primarily through chanting His Names.
"Although Prabhupada only lived for a further 12 years after
going to the West from India in 1965, he ensured that his
spiritual legacy would continue through his books and
instructions to guide and teach, and to take disciples."
"In this programme, we'll hear part of the story of Lord
Krishna's Advent based on the books of Swami Prabhupada. The
Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, who is the cause
and shelter of the entire cosmic creation. We believe that
God has incarnated in the sound of His Holy Names which can
conquer all evil. That's why at Janmastami you'll hear the
Hare Krishna mantra being chanted in temples all over the
world." |
Please note
that though the GBC are keen to promote throughout ISKCON that Srila
Prabhupada is 'dead', (please see the shocking next article) at
least the BBC have now informed hundreds of million of people
throughout the world that:
"Although Prabhupada only lived for a further 12
years after going to the West from India in 1965, he ensured that
his spiritual legacy would *continue* through his books and
instructions to guide and teach, and to ***take disciples***."
Its official -
Srila Prabhupada lives, and he is continuing to teach and take
disciples! After all how much more official can you get than having
this fact announced by the BBC, the most famous and reputable
broadcaster in the world. People still say today that - "it must
be true, since I heard in on the BBC"!
The driving force behind the BBC broadcast Sriman Deepak Vohra, an
UK IRM congregational grhastha devotee, describes how the project
came about:
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"I've been broadcasting Krishna conscious
programmes with the BBC World Service Religion Department
for nearly 10 years now. It's not my main job, though. I
work as the Head of Marketing in the London office of an
American newspaper publishing and media organisation. In
1991, I went along to a training day at the BBC where I
presented a script on the philosophy of Krishna
consciousness. They were suitably impressed that they called
me in again a few weeks later to actually broadcast a series
of programmes on Vaishnavism. The programmes weren't very
long, so I suggested they might want to consider a more
theatrical presentation of the philosophy. So, I adapted the
First Canto of the Bhagavatam for a half-hour
semi-dramatisation. Just imagine, for half-an-hour the
airwaves were filled with the sublime conversations between
Sukadeva Goswami and Maharaja Pariksit, and Suta Goswami and
the Sages at Naimisaranya! Actually, it was more than
half-an-hour because the programme was repeated a few more
times.
Then a
new producer came in and wanted to do more of the same. This
time, I decided to give the bulk of the project to Yaduraja
das, another UK IRM member, and a very nice devotee,
brilliant actor and scriptwriter, and infinitely more
talented than me! We decided to produce "The Advent of Lord
Krishna" for radio. Yaduraja wrote the majority of the
script and rounded up devotees from the Bhaktivedanta
Players theatre troupe from the Bhaktivedanta Manor temple.
The production was so well received, that the producer was
dying for us to do more. However when this ISKCON child
abuse scandal broke, I thought that was the end of our
relationship with the BBC World Service, particularly
because they - like every other media organisation - had
carried news items on the child abuse lawsuit.
Indeed only a few weeks ago, the BBC came to the Manor to
interview the devotees about their reaction to the child
abuse affair. And very recently in the UK, we've had the
photographs and addresses of convicted paedophiles splashed
across the front pages of the newspapers, and mobs of a
hundred people or more have taken to the streets and
physically attacked these child abusers and their homes. So
you don't expect the world's biggest broadcaster to be
knocking on your door asking you to glorify Krishna when
that same organisation has covered in its news items the
horrific abuse perpetrated by so-called devotees of Krishna.
But I firmly believe that when you put Srila Prabhupada in
the centre of your devotional life, then all obstacles to
glorify Krishna and His pure devotee are immediately
smashed.
And I also felt that Srila Prabhupada had *personally*
blessed this project because there is a very specific
purport in the First Canto of the Bhagavatam about using
modern technology, in particular the radio, to broadcast
glories of the Lord:
""In modernized human society there are great advancements
of material science, and they have invented the radio to
distribute sound in the air. So instead of vibrating some
nuisance sound for sense enjoyment, if the state arranges to
distribute transcendental sound by resounding the holy name,
fame and activities of the Lord, as they are authorized in
the Bhagavad Gita or Srimad-Bhagavatam, then a favourable
condition will be created, the principles of religion will
be re-established, and thus the executive heads, who are so
anxious to drive away corruption from the world, will be
successful. Nothing is bad if properly used for the service
of the Lord.""
(Srimad Bhagavatam 1.18.6, purport)
I think this purport is particularly apt because we are
literally
*broadcasting* the glories of the Lord! The Executive
Producer of the Religious Broadcasting Unit said he
definitely planned to do more, and even *lengthier*
productions with myself and Yaduraja.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Sri Sri Radha
Gokulananda!" |
This amazing
preaching project is the just the latest in a series of efforts by
the ISKCON Revival Movement to glorify both our Spiritual Master,
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and the
Supreme Lord Sri Krishna. As our previous newsletters have detailed,
the IRM has gone from strength to strength in establishing all over
the world the status of Srila Prabhupada as the eternal Guru for
ISKCON. In the space of just *a few months* we have:
* Opened a brand new preaching centre in
Manhattan, dedicated specifically to re-igniting book distribution
on the streets of Manhattan, as per Srila Prabhupada's instructions.
* Preached the glories of Krishna to the massive Chinese community
in Singapore for the first time in history, through cultural and
educational programmes sponsored by the government authorities
there
* Held the biggest Rathayatra festival of all time - this year over
1.5 million people came together in Calcutta (Srila Prabhupada's
birthplace) to worship Lord Jagannath and Srila Prabhupada
* Witnessed the flowering of the biggest temple and preaching
project in India, namely the ISKCON Bangalore temple headed by IRM
Secretary, Madhu Pandit das
* Conducted a hugely successful nationwide media campaign in India
to defend the honour and reputation of Srila Prabhupada so
disgracefully dragged through the mud due to the misdeeds of the
ISKCON leadership involved in the current child abuse lawsuit
*
Established a permanent memorial plaque in honour of Srila
Prabhupada in Tompkins Square Park, New York, where Prabhupada began
the sankirtan movement in the West in 1966.
While all these achievements have been on national scales, the BBC
programme is the start of our *global* mission to glorify and
reinstate Srila Prabhupada as the Guru for not only ISKCON, but the
whole planet!
So there you have it. This BBC project is yet another arrangement by
Krishna to both glorify Prabhupada and once again ignite a spiritual
revolution in the hearts and minds of people throughout the world.
And this in the midst of the darkest period for ISKCON.
As we have seen
from the above story, whenever the IRM presents something in the
media, it is with the *positive* aim of informing the whole
world that Srila Prabhupada *LIVES* and that he is still to
be glorified and worshipped today. Please contrast this with the GBC
Gurus use of the media. As we will see from the following shocking
press release that was published throughout India on the FRONT
PAGE of a national newspaper, Jayapataka Swami boasts how he has
managed to get the Asian Age - a national Indian newspaper - to
print an article he wrote, in which it is stated that Srila
Prabhupada is "dead".
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From: Jayapataka.Swami@pamho.net
[mailto:Jayapataka.Swami@pamho.net] Sent: Monday, July 24,
2000 10:12 PM To: ICI (ISKCON Communications India);
Anuttama (das) ACBSP (IC N.America); Amrta Gaurangi (dd) JPS
(Mayapur - IN); Parijata (dd) RNS (IC Mumbai - IN)
Subject: News article responding to Adri's Asian Age
interview
Home
Base: Sri Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir, Navadwip Dham, Nadia,
WB, INDIA
The
following article was published on the Front Page of Today's
Asian Age Newspaper. I copied this off of internet where it
is also still there today.
It is in response to Adri's interview against ISKCON
leadership and pro-IRM.
Shankarshan das and Nitai Prasad das delivered the press
release and cultivated the press. I drafted the press
release and it was edited by our lawyers. The newspaper
edited it themselves as they always do. Still the main gist
is there.
Front
Page ---- Asian Age news. 24th July, 2000.
Iskcon: What are we to do with Ritvikism?
By Dhiman Chattopadhyay and Kounteya Sinha Calcutta, July 23
On the defensive for months after the sex abuse scandal
rocked their world, authorities at the Iskcon Mayapur Ashram
have now struck back with a vengeance at their Calcutta
counterparts, the Iskcon Revival Movement.
The Mayapur general manager has ridiculed the revival
movement president's doctrine of "Ritvikism" calling it "a
strange and concocted idea". In a signed statement issued to
all Krishna bhaktas around the world, Mayapur general
manager Dham Nitai Prasad Dasa has accused revival movement
president Adridharana Dasa of "behaving in a deviant manner"
and unleashing an onslaught of false, offensive, and
derogatory publicity". Mr Adridharana Dasa is propagating a
delusive doctrine known as Ritvikism, where he believes that
all devotees wanting to receive diksha within Iskcon should
still receive it from founder-acharya of Iskcon, A.C.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Srila Prabhupada, and become
his direct disciples, in spite of
*** him being dead for the last 23 years ***," the
letter says. |
Please note
that though Jayapataka Swami claims that the Asian Age 'edited' the
press release he wrote, here they are quoting *directly* from
the press release in question. And Jayapataka Swami does not object
to what has been written, rather he boasts to everyone how the 'main
gist' is there - with the main gist being that Srila Prabhupada has
been 'dead for the last 23 years' - so that we must instead
approach impostor Gurus such as himself.
It also seems ludicrous that persons could possibly accuse the IRM
of being 'offensive' when it is pieces such as the above
which are given the GBC/Guru rubber stamp. It seems that in the
above article, Jayapataka Swami's envy for Srila Prabhupada has
forced him to object to the idea that devotees may prefer to take
Diksa from Srila Prabhupada rather than him by emphasising in such
graphic terms Srila Prabhupada's supposed defect compared to him
- "hey, don't you know that he has been dead for the last 23
years!"
Please compare the 2 media 'stories' above. They could not be more
different in terms of their glorification and appreciation of Srila
Prabhupada's contribution to the world.
One states that he *continues* to live. The other states that
he has been 'dead for the last 23 years'.
In this regular
column we shall be highlighting the bizarre and contradictory world
of our GBC and 'Gurus', who have occupied Srila Prabhupada's
position on the pretext of being able to guide us out of darkness
and back to Godhead. However as this column will show over the
coming weeks, these personalities would be better advised coming
into the light themselves, and to move out of the way from blocking
the clear and transcendental light which is emanating directly from
Srila Prabhupada.
Physician heal thyself!
*** Classic Quote - No. 4 ***
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*GBC Chairman States ISKCON Has No Brain* |
"I also have my
own views on the application of varnasrama-dharma, for I too have
thought about the subject, but I assure you, that whatever I speak
or write will not go uncontested by someone else in ISKCON.
Nevertheless, I will venture here to propose the major reasons why
ISKCON is having such a difficult time coming to grips with this
matter. *** The first and foremost is that ISKCON - I put it
starkly - has no brain ***."
("ISKCON and Varnasrama Dharma: A Mission Unfulfilled", GBC
Chairman, Ravindra Svarupa Dasa, 29/1/99)
I would venture to suggest that maybe our esteemed chairman deserves
the award for the 'Understatement of the century', for this
little gem!
And we hate to point out the obvious - but if ISKCON has
'no brain' - then isn't it even remotely possible, that the GBC
could have got it all wrong when they decided that Srila Prabhupada
was 'dead', and that instead they should replace him as substitute
Gurus? Stranger things have been known to happen!
And yet the ONE
thing that the GBC are claiming that they could not possibly be
wrong on, which they have concluded through the use of something
OTHER than a brain - which we have now been informed they do not
possess - is that one way or another Srila Prabhupada definitely
wanted himself to be replaced by his disciples as successor diksa
gurus in ISKCON.
Thank you for
taking the time to read this newsletter, and please keep your
letters, and e-mail addresses of other devotees who should be added
to our list, flowing in.
A hard copy of
our main position paper
'The Final Order' is available on request.
If you would like to receive any of the back issues of the
Newsletter please let me know.
No 1.
Invitation to Srila Prabhupada's Vyasa Puja
No 2.
GBC Lose First Round of Court Case
No 3.
The Story VNN Refused to Publish
No 4.
Poison Theorists Accuse Adri of Complicity
No 5.
Iskcon Continues to Promote Child Abusers
No 6.
Invitation to Malaysia
No 7.
United World Body Formed
No 8.
Does Srila Prabhupada Support Poisoning Theory?
No 9.
PADA Attacks IRM Position
No 10.
PADA Continues to Present False Evidence
No 11.
GBC Funded Video says Ritvik Spiritual
No 12.
Child Rapist Selected by Gurus to Defend their Legitimacy
No 13.
GBC Facing Perjury Charge in Calcutta High Court
No 14.
Sahajiyaism Makes a Comeback in Iskcon.
No 15.
Govt. Minister Inaugurates Bangalore Rathayatra
No 16.
Iskcon Calcutta Triumphs Following Arson Attack
No 17.
Fighting Lies with Truth Not More Lies
No 18.
GBC Resolutions Continue to Provide Laughter
No 19.
Indian Leaders Endorse IRM Position That GBC Confused
No 20.
Convicted Child Abuser Officially 'Returns' To Parampara
No 21.
GBC Chairman Admits ISKCON 'Disintegrating'
No 22.
Krishna Confirms ISKCON Re-Birth
No 23.
Hare Krishna Explosion Begins In New York as IRM Temple Opens
No 24.
IRM Launches Media Campaign to Defend Srila Prabhupada
No 25.
GBC Teaches That 'Living Gurus' NOT Required
No 26.
BBT Admits Books Changed To Fit GBC Philosophy
No 27.
Big Breakthrough For Krishna In Singapore
No 28.
Bangalore Tops World Book Distribution
No 29.
City of New York
to Honour Srila Prabhupada
No 30.
Gurukula Lawsuit Special - The Facts |