Why Sridhar Swami resigned from the GBC as told by Suhotra Swami

This talk took place sometime in the early 2000s.

Suhotra Swami:

                                                                                           

I had a long and intimate talk with Sridhar Maharaja yesterday. He is one of my Godbrothers with whom I can reveal my mind in confidence. He jokingly says it is because our initials are the same, "SS." In many ways he and I have the same mind about a lot of things. For example, he resigned from the GBC a few years ago, just as I resigned this year. His "excuse" for resigning is that he has a liver condition that endangers his health.  

And that is true. Twice he went into a coma from this condition. But now he is doing better, has lots of energy, travels around the world, preaches, and his major project is to raise funds to build the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium in Sridhama Mayapur. It is to this project that he has dedicated the rest of his life.  

But his liver sickness is not the deepest reason for his resignation from the GBC. He told me he used to be "a company man." That is an expression that refers to a man who totally identifies with the company he works for, who is unquestioningly loyal to the management. But after 10 years or so on the GBC, after seeing how the Governing Body Commission of ISKCON works from the inside, he began to have questions. He sees that too much institutionalization stifles the spontaneous enthusiasm that Srila Prabhupada liked to see in his disciples. But at the same time Maharaja remains an ISKCON man. He quit the GBC feeling that his participation on that Body was not very fruitful, but he continues to work for ISKCON as Prabhupada taught him. He does not point a finger of blame at anyone.  

After all, the GBC is made up of devotees who are also trying to serve Srila Prabhupada and Krishna. Their service in the difficult and controversial area of management of the Society is sure to be problematic. Yes, they do make mistakes. I recall so clearly the meeting at which they made Harikesha Prabhu the GBC chairman for 3 years straight. The Body was completely convinced that this would help solve many of ISKCON's long-standing problems. But Prabhupada had clearly established that a GBC chairman may only hold office for one year. Within half a year, Harikesh Prabhu not only left his post as GBC chairman, but left his position as ISKCON guru, BBT Trustee, and sannyasi. Indeed, he left the Society itself. Since then he has been an advocate of New Age-ism. His dropping out of ISKCON left a good portion of the Society in chaos. At the time the GBC voted him into 3-year chairmanship, I abstained from casting a vote because I sensed a big mistake was being made. And I was right.         

                           

But who doesn't make mistakes? Even Srila Prabhupada once said, "You can finds faults in me too" (that is to say, if you are the type of person who looks for faults in others to explain away your own faults.) But that isn't healthy psychology; it is a process of the mind that is called projection, in which one projects deficiencies inside himself upon others. "I can't get along with this devotee because he gets too angry," one may argue; but all that means is that you have anger inside yourself to begin with, and your anger is rubbing against his, causing friction. As Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati said, "Because my vision is so honeycombed with faults, wherever I look I see only faults." We must all find a way go on trying to serve Guru and Krishna despite the faulty nature of our collective conditioned existence. And we must avoid the offense of criticizing Vaishnavas.

  

I feel exactly the same way as Sridhara Maharaja does about institutionalization. I too used to be a company man; I used to think that all of ISKCON's problems are "manageable." But as we saw Lord Krishna Himself explain in a verse I quoted in the last Transcendental Psychology essay, so-called external problems are really internal problems.  

A disciple once started to ask a question of Srila Prabhupada, that "If devotees are transcendental, then..." Prabhupada cut him off: "Devotees are trying to be transcendental!" The members of the GBC are no exception. They are trying to be transcendental, but as I have personally seen, many of the problems they are trying to solve are problems they created themselves in the first place. So-called external problems are really internal problems. You can't manage away anomalies that are inside of you.                        

To see this truth, which is explained by Krishna himself to Uddhava, is not to be offensive to the GBC or to any devotee manager. And it is not to say that there should be no management in ISKCON whatsoever, just some smiley walking-on-clouds spiritual anarchy. Management in ISKCON is necessary; Srila Prabhupada made no doubt about that. However, to be loyal and respectful to ISKCON management does not mean to ignore or dismiss as unimportant those areas, those qualities, of Krishna consciousness that management cannot actually manage!  

For example, how can your taste for hearing and chanting the holy name of Krishna be managed? Now, it is true that we can manage to get ourselves into the temple in the morning, and manage to get our hands in the beadbag, and manage to perform 16 rounds of japa. But that doesn't guarantee you will chant good rounds with rapt attention. Still, there is a connection between good management of the circumstances of chanting on the one side, and taste for chanting on the other. Srila Prabhupada indicated this nicely in these words:  

There is a English proverb that "God helps him who tries to help himself." That is a English proverb. So to become Krishna conscious is not very difficult thing. People have no taste. They do not understand the importance of this Krishna consciousness movement. But this is the only way by which one can become perfect and happy.  

Maybe you did not catch the point Prabhupada is making here. It is that even though people have no taste and thus cannot understand the importance of Krishna consciousness, God will help them if they help themselves. Thus "to become Krishna conscious is not very difficult thing." We "help ourselves" by trying to manage our spiritual activities nicely. We don't have taste, but we should try to get it. We don't understand, but we should try to. This is what sadhana-bhakti is all about. Still, in the final analysis, whatever we do or don't do, the taste "by which one can become perfect and happy" comes to us by the grace of God.  

In the practice of sadhana-bhakti, we realize that this grace becomes more apparent in our lives as we try to help ourselves attain it. So because there is a connection between God's help (His mercy) and our helping ourselves (by nicely managing our devotional activities), it may seem that if we are not getting that taste, then it is a problem of management. Well, certainly if we lack taste in Krishna consciousness, something has come up between ourselves and Krishna. But is that "something" really only just external management--our temple president for example, or the GBC? Has anyone ever had the experience that just by blaming the management as being bad their taste for chanting the holy name improves?  

In reply to that question, someone may reasonably answer, "No, of course not. That's not the way. Let's not talk about blaming anyone. But we have to take steps to create a pure atmosphere in which we can try our best to make advancement and thereby attract the Lord's mercy." That is a good answer. But...even if we do that, the mercy of the Lord that we attract by our efforts may manifest in a way we don't expect. Maharaja Bharata nicely "managed" to leave his throne and go to the forest to cultivate his taste for Krishna consciousness. But God arranged that he became attached to a deer instead. Not that God forcibly attached his mind to the deer, but He made the arrangement by which Maharaja Bharata's latent material attachments came up in his heart to focus upon the deer. The result was that even though he had attained the exalted state of bhava-bhakti, Maharaja Bharata had to take birth as a deer in his next life.  

But while he was in that deer body, the Lord permitted him to remember his previous life's devotional service. And so, as a deer, Maharaja Bharata took to hearing about Krishna with the greatest urgency. Then he was blessed with the full measure of higher taste. Thus after giving up that deer body, he became the spiritually famous Jada Bharata. Obviously, Krishna's plan for delivering His devotee and Maharaja Bharata's own plan for getting himself delivered were a little different!  

We are not being offensive to the principle of good management in ISKCON by reflecting upon these truths that are so plainly stated in Srimad-Bhagavatam.

  

Offenses are created by the way we express ourselves, and by the way we act. If we express anger and frustration and act impetuously (i.e. in the mode of passion), denouncing other devotees for faults that we ourselves carry in our own hearts, then we commit offenses. 

We should persevere. This word means "to persist in or to remain constant to a purpose, an idea, or a task in the face of obstacles or discouragement." I personally find institutionalization discouraging. So discouraging I was forced, by a condition of depression, to resign from the GBC. But I remain constant in my purpose as a disciple of Srila Prabhupada and as a servant of his Society. It is a question of finding the position and service for yourself in which you can best persist.  

There is another state of mind called obstinacy. It can look a lot like perseverance. But obstinacy is defined as: "the state or quality of being stubborn or refractory." Refractory means "to be resistant to authority." Therefore it is said: "The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't."  

Another English saying is, "Where there is a will, there is a way." Conversely, where there is a won't, there isn't a way. If we look at the ISKCON institution only in terms of "I won't," then there is a good chance we won't find our way back to Godhead. "I won't surrender to these power-hungry ISKCON managers! I won't tolerate their hypocrisy! I won't listen to their classes, which are just the same old dry preaching over and over! I won't obey their instructions, I won't cooperate with them, I won't associate with them!" This insistent "won't" is just a weed in the heart choking the life of the devotional creeper.  

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of; they just turn up some of the ill weeds on to the surface.  

Anyway, I so much appreciate Sridhara Maharaja's mood. He has realized that management can't solve our most fundamental problems in Krishna consciousness. Only Krishna can do that. And Krishna does that in His own way, according to His own plan, because He is independent and supreme and all-powerful, and charmingly clever, too. But Maharaja does not take Krishna's supremacy over all as an excuse to be obstinant towards management. Rather, Maharaja perseveres. He has a strong will, not a strong won't. And thus he continues to go forward. Seeing his example, many devotees are inspired in their own spiritual lives. I am one of them...

I pray, pray, pray to Sri Sri Jagannatha-Sudarshana that what I am experiencing here in my talks with Godbrothers like Sridhara Maharaja, Keshava Bharati Maharaja, Bhaktividya Purna Maharaja, and Prabhupada Prabhu, is the start of a spiritual revolution. I feel incredible spiritual nourishment whenever I get the mercy of their association.