| The
biggest “guru” in ISKCON: Case study of HH Jayapataka Swami |
Autumn 2006
Of all the gurus who currently hold sway in ISKCON, none can match His
Holiness Jayapataka Swami (henceforward "JPS"), in terms of the number
of disciples he has amassed (approximately 5000 and counting). He has
therefore stolen more disciples from Srila Prabhupada than anyone else,
via masquerading as Srila Prabhupada's "appointed successor". Here we
trace the history of his false guru programme.
| 1978: JPS leads Guru Hoax delegation |
JPS was one of the 11 ritviks, or officiating priests, appointed by Srila Prabhupada in his signed institutional directive of July 9th 1977 to initiate new disciples into ISKCON on his behalf. Immediately on Srila Prabhupada's physical departure from this world in November that year, the 11 appointed ritviks unauthorisedly discarded their spiritual master's directive, abandoned their appointed roles as priestly representatives, and claimed instead that they had been appointed as Srila Prabhupada's "good-as-God" guru successors. Thus the Great Guru Hoax, part 1 was created. The new "gurus" knew, however, that simply inventing a radically new guru system would be an extremely difficult hoax to foist on the movement without any sort of authorisation. Since this authorisation clearly did not come from Srila Prabhupada, the 11 decided rather cleverly to approach one of Srila Prabhupada's senior Godbrothers, HH Sridhara Swami, and get him to lend some semblance of spiritual authority to their deviant plans. The meeting was recorded, and the following conversation transcripts illustrate how JPS seriously misled Sridhara Maharaja with the lie that Srila Prabhupada had appointed 11 guru successors:
| JPS: | “Maharaja, when our Srila Prabhupada left, then he has given instruction that for initiating and for carrying on the sampradaya there would be eleven - in the beginning, he appointed eleven devotees, his disciples, to be initiating spiritual masters or to accept disciples and in the future that number would also be able to be increased. So we wanted to take your advice on some points as to various details of how these initiating spiritual masters should deal with certain questions. If we could ask questions to you then?” |
| Sridhara Maharaja: | “Yes, you may ask.” |
| JPS: | “He has given explicit
desires, but he told us that, on other technical points and
other matters of philosophy, if there was question we should
approach you.” (GBC conversation with HH Sridhara Maharaja, Mayapur, March 1978) |
Above we see that in addition to lying about the appointment of 11 gurus, JPS also misled Sridhara Maharaja that Srila Prabhupada had given "explicit desires" for his disciples to approach him for advice on "matters of philosophy". This piece of fiction is directly contradicted by Srila Prabhupada himself:
"Actually amongst my Godbrothers no one is qualified to become acarya. So it is better not to mix with my Godbrothers very intimately because instead of inspiring our students and disciples they may sometimes pollute them."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 28th April, 1974)
| 1998: JPS invents "instruction" from Srila Prabhupada |
JPS once claimed in a Vyasa Puja offering to Srila Prabhupada:
| "In your transcendental literatures you
repeatedly mention how you hope for the day when all your
followers will be initiating spiritual masters, initiating even
10,000 or more disciples into the guru parampara." (Jayapataka Swami, Vyasa Puja offering to Srila Prabhupada, 1998) |
JPS has not allowed the fact that the above instruction is not mentioned even once, not to speak of "repeatedly", in any of Srila Prabhupada's "literatures" to deter him from amassing over 5,000 disciples, far in excess of any other ISKCON guru hoaxer. Indeed, in the same year as this statement above, the GBC body (ISKCON's Governing Body Commission) had issued a warning about JPS' ambitions in acquiring disciples:
| "We note that (Jayapataka) Maharaja has
already made adjustments in his approach to the question of
siksa relationships in ISKCON and accept his assurance that
he is not initiating discussion on the establishment of siksa
relationships with those devotees who are not his disciples
unless they themselves broach it." (Final GBC Appraisals, 1998) |
| 1998: GBC encourages JPS to chant on his beads |
| "We also note he (JPS) has made
positive efforts to improve the visible chanting of his japa
and attendance at the morning program and encourage him to
continue with this." (Final GBC Appraisals, 1998) |
| 1998: JPS talks himself out of a job |
| "As such he (Srila Prabhupada) is the Foundational
siksa guru for all
ISKCON devotees. […] Whether as disciple, grand-disciple, and siksa
disciple everyone has a direct access to Srila Prabhupada and His Divine
Grace's full mercy." (Ritvik Theory - Out of The Question, JPS, 1998) |
If a "siksa disciple" of Srila Prabhupada has direct access to and the
full mercy of Srila Prabhupada, pray tell for what reason does anyone
need to take initiation from JPS? It cannot be to "connect" to Srila
Prabhupada, since we already have direct access, just by taking siksa
from Srila Prabhupada, according to JPS. And since such a disciple is
also getting the full mercy of Srila Prabhupada, they are totally set in
their spiritual life, and there would be no need to additionally
surrender their life to JPS. They could just stick with Srila
Prabhupada, which is what we recommend!
| 1999: JPS's finances average "70,000 per month" |
| "To give you a brief of myself before going further, I am the secretary
of GM ('GM' = 'Guru Maharaja', in this case referring to JPS - ed.) by
mainly taking care of all the finances […] This year the expenses in travel alone have gone to the tune of over 60,000 dollars plus […] The average bills for GM's travels, secretary and other expenses come to about 70,000 per month." (Date: Sun, 12 Dec 99 04:44 +0000, From: "COM: Mahaguna (dd) JPS (Atlanta, GA - USA)", Text 2850317) |
| 1999: JPS upset at anti-sastric (scriptural) GBC |
| "Actually the scriptures mention that the guru can be called by such
names as Visnupada, Prabhupada, Acharyadeva. Nonetheless the GBC felt
that being attached to this particular scriptural instruction has been
counter-productive as many devotees felt that it was artificial to
accept such names. [...] At first I was quite upset because this was not according to Srila Prabhupada's instructions given in his books. [ …] Considering the time, place and circumstances we are in there is some merit in this decision although it apparently contravenes a direct instruction of Srila Prabhupada given in his books. " (JPS Letter to Disciples, March 24th 1999) |
| 2000: JPS declares Srila Prabhupada "dead" |
| “The following article was published on the Front Page of Today’s Asian
Age [...] 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: ‘In a signed statement issued to all
Krishna bhaktas around the world, Mayapur general manager Dham Nitai
Prasad Dasa has accused […] |
Note: The newspaper quotes directly from the press release drafted by
JPS ("the letter says"), delivered by Nitai Prasad, and which JPS also
agrees contains the "main gist".
| 2000: JPS implicated in false rape and suicide case |
The following newspaper reports refer to the suicide of an ISKCON devotee who was falsely implicated in a false rape case:
|
THE TIMES OF INDIA |
| THE TELEGRAPH Calcutta, 10 August 2000: WARRANTS OUT FOR 8 ISKCON MONKS The case of the Iskcon monk’s suicide took a dramatic turn on Wednesday with the court ordering the police to arrest 8 monks of the order. One of them, the chief of Iskcon’s Mayapur centre, is said to be absconding. |
| 2004: GBC attempt to rein in JPS fails |
JPS ran into trouble with the GBC, the body that illegally maintains he
is a bona fide guru successor to Srila Prabhupada, when he started
approaching and writing to the disciples of other ISKCON gurus, sending
them his blessings and offering to act as their spiritual guide:
| "Happy Birthday to you! You are in my regular prayers whenever I pray to
the Deities. (…) Please find attached a picture of myself sending you
blessings. I hope this finds you blissful in Krishna consciousness and
healthy. Your well wisher always, Jayapataka Swami" |
He was cautioned by the Executive Committee (EC) of the GBC in an
extraordinary meeting to deal with the crisis, but to little avail. Here
is one angry complaint from Indradyumna Swami, whose disciples were so
propositioned:
| "I would like to request you not to send such letters to any of my
disciples in the future. I feel these letters are in the mood of
canvassing for followers and are contrary to the restrictions imposed
on you recently by the EC." (HH Indradyumna Swami to JPS) |
| 2004: JPS declares himself a divine associate |
JPS’ website biography states the following:
| “HH Jayapataka Swami Maharaja was glad to see that his name - Gordan
John (Gour Dhan Jan) - already suggested what Srila Prabhuapda
confirmed, that he and two other devotees were formerly associates of
Lord Caitanya and that they had taken their birth in the west to
facilitate spreading Krishna consciousness around the world.” (www.jpsoffice.com/biography.html, archived August 2006) |
| 2004: ISKCON guru calls JPS a “sick, obsessed, duplicitous liar” |
| JPS is “a sick person” and “obsessed” who “makes lying or duplicitous
behaviour fully reconcilable with service to Prabhupada.” (HH Sivarama Swami on JPS) |
| 2006: “Miracle cure” wears off |
JPS’s biography also states:
| “When Jayapataka Maharaja was eleven years old, at the suggestion of his grandfather he cured himself of a skin disease by calling on the name of God.” |
Given the above miraculous cure, it is surprising that according to his
guru Godbrother, HH Bhanu Swami, JPS is suffering skin diseases today,
along with a host of other ailments:
| “overweight, BP, urinary problems, skin rashes and allergy, and you will
have a shortened life span […] I have noticed that all the diets he has followed for the last ten years have not reduced his body weight by 1 kg. A real program will get the weight down 20 kg. in 5 months." (HH Bhanu Swami, report on JPS' health, July 24th 2006) |
Perhaps JPS needs to follow the GBC's recommendations from its 1998
"guru appraisals" and "call on the name of God" more often.
| 2006: JPS "diksa guru forever" |
The following is taken from the official initiation oath form for those
who wish to take initiation from JPS:
| "1. […]I HEREBY SOLEMNLY MAKE THE FOLLOWING VOWS: I accept Srila Jayapataka Swami to be my initiating (diksa) and instructing (siksa) spiritual master (Guru) forever, even life after life." ("Initiation Acceptance Oath", archived August 2006) |
Please note that nowhere in Srila Prabhupada's instructions is it stated
that "His Divine Grace Srila Jayapataka Swami" is authorised to be an
initiating spiritual master even in this life, not to speak of
"forever". The GBC cannot even accept Srila Prabhupada as the diksa Guru
in ISKCON for anyone for even ONE DAY -
| "Unfortunately for all of us, he (Srila Prabhupada) is not physically
present and so is no longer giving diksa to anyone" (GBC's Sastric Advisory Council, March 18th, 2003) |
- yet they are more than happy to grant diksa guru status to Jayapataka Swami for ETERNITY!