Back To Prabhupada, Issue 76, Vol. 1, 2023
Recently deceased GBC voted-in guru HH Kadamba Kanana Swami ("KKS") preached shortly before his death that ISKCON devotees' focus shouldn't only be on Srila Prabhupada: "it's good to turn to Prabhupada, but not to just Prabhupada [...] we are not the International Society for Prabhupada Consciousness" (KKS, Zoom Meeting, 21/1/23. All quotes in shaded boxes are from this meeting).
Instead, he claimed that devotees' focus should also be on their GBC voted-in gurus, such as himself: "we worship Prabhupada, and our own spiritual masters."
KKS here used a highly inappropriate and illogical argument to try to diminish Srila Prabhupada and promote himself. From 1966 onwards, ISKCON also was not "the International Society for Prabhupada Consciousness", but the focus was still only on Srila Prabhupada as the spiritual master who can lead us to Krsna. Hence, the fact that the objective and meaning of the name ISKCON is to achieve "Krsna consciousness", has no bearing on who the guru one can follow to help us achieve that objective should be. Nor does it mean that it cannot only be Srila Prabhupada, but instead must include GBC gurus such as KKS. And, if we wish to make an argument based on what ISKCON is, then we must note that this Society for Krsna consciousness is Srila Prabhupada's Society, as it is stamped everywhere via his "Founder-Acarya" title that he is the Acarya of ISKCON (in addition to its Founder), which would actually support only focusing on Srila Prabhupada. Thus, not only is KKS's attempt to try to argue against only focusing on Srila Prabhupada via using the meaning of the ISKCON acronym not valid, but, if anything, the true meaning of ISKCON means we should only focus on Srila Prabhupada as the Acarya of ISKCON who will lead us to Krsna.
KKS also stated that it is necessary to focus on GBC gurus such as himself rather than Srila Prabhupada because:
"they are with us, they are here to respond to us, you know. Prabhupada, we cannot talk to him, he doesn't talk to us. But our living spiritual master, he will respond to us."
KKS therefore claimed that, due to Srila Prabhupada having physically departed, we "cannot talk to him", nor can he "talk to us", and therefore we need the GBC's "living" (as in physically present) gurus to replace Srila Prabhupada, since they can respond to us.
However, when earlier discussing the fact that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, with very limited time remaining, KKS claimed in regard to himself that his soon-to-be lack of physical presence will be no barrier to him acting as a spiritual master:
"the foundation of everything that we do is taking shelter of the spiritual master. [...] and always consider him present. [...] The spiritual master is with us every moment. [...] how much time can we spend in the physical presence of our spiritual master? Limited. [...] the thing is this, Kadamba Kanana Swami if he's not going to live a long time then what does that mean for the future and for association and how we're going to get instruction, inspiration and how is it all going to go on? [...] I will always be there, your diksa guru."
(KKS Lecture, 23/6/22, emphasis added)
Thus, in response to the same issue of how a physically departed guru is going to "talk to us", i.e. "how we're going to get instruction", KKS gave a completely different answer now that the physically departed guru in question would be himself, rather than Srila Prabhupada! He here stated in regard to the physically departed spiritual master that we must "always consider him present" and that he "is with us every moment", and that he "will always be there". KKS had given the above explanation to justify why he conducted a rush initiation ceremony using "shortcuts" right after his terminal diagnosis, just so he could accept as many initiates as possible before his demise (see BTP 74 article "GBC Guru Proves He Is Not Needed").
Hence, KKS was stating that the fact that very soon we "cannot talk to him", nor would he be able to "talk to us", is irrelevant, and we do not need another guru who would still be physically present. But, when it came to Srila Prabhupada, he claimed this as being the very reason why we need to accept GBC gurus such as himself instead of Srila Prabhupada. Such a naked, contradictory, hypocritical and self-serving argument is itself a reason for why we actually do need to "turn to Prabhupada", and not the "living" GBC gurus. Because then we can benefit from the spiritual guidance of the perfect spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada, whose guidance will not be full of contradiction and hypocrisy.
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