another guru in trouble

[Guest guest]

I am posting the following text because it may be relevant to the plans for

development of Varnasrama in ISKCON.

YS RK Mex

 

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Another Guru Bites the Dust

By Radha Krsna dasa

Mexico City

 

Lately the country of Costa Rica has been immersed in turmoil over the

falldown of local regional secretary, sannyasi and guru Bhakti Abhay Charan

Swami. Originally from Spain, Bhakti Abhay Charan is a Srila Prabhupada

disciple who lived in South America since the late 1970's. He then moved to

Costa Rica, the Switzerland of Latin America, just in time to cash in on

the Multiple Acarya Succession System established by the GBC in the mid

1980's. According to various reports, for years his clique of submissive

followers endured his neurotic behaviour and illusions of grandeaur as he

sought to establish himself as supreme authority, big papa, and reservoir

of all qualities and benedictions. He wrote various books of poetry and

diaries that (predictably) spoke of his alleged realizations and

transcendental separation from Krsna.

 

The ashram and temple at the ISKCON farm in Costa Rica are of a far lower

standard than the excellent personal facilities of Bhakti Abhay Charan.

There he has demanded total servitude from his subordinates through endless

bouts of screaming and cursing. In the process he has jeopardized the

spiritual lives of many sincere souls who approached Srila Prabhupada's

movement in a humble and cooperative mood.

 

BACS, as he is known, recently contacted the GBC through their private COM

conference where he aknowledged his illicit affair with a lady friend of

Krsna since 1996, as well as affairs with two female disciples since 1997.

He proposed to give up his dress and title of sannyasi, expressed his

regrets for the situation, and hoped for the blessings of the GBC. He

stated that currently he is following very strictly and thus he can

continue guiding as guru those who wish him to do so.

 

Yet sources close to the case believe his regret to be insincere. This is

because he confessed only when pressured by devotees who were so fed up

with all his nonsense and confronted him. Without this pressure he would

have continued with his debaucherie. Fiftysomething, this guy could be the

father of the young female disciples involved in the affair, making this

one more case of spiritual incest. But then again, who is counting?

 

Through it all, Bhakti Abhay Charan still imagines that he can continue to

be a spiritual guide to those that he tormented with lies and abuse for

years. He just came to Mexico trying to negociate a comfortable future with

visiting GBC Chairman Bir Krsna Goswami. He is still dressed as a

sannyasi!!! We can only pray that the GBC has the sensibility to listen to

the Costa Rican devotees first instead of making secret pacts with him

behind their backs. Last minute reports indicate that he is negociating

being allowed to pose as a vanaprastha and stop initiating just for five

years. Better get a life... and a decent job.

 

It is unlikely that someone who had illicit relations with those under his

direct spiritual guidance can actually help anyone in any way. But in

ISKCON we have seen repeatedly that many leaders who have proven to be

totally useless spiritually and otherwise try to preserve their privileges

at any cost. This parasite mentality makes them try to live off a corrupt

and flawed system... and often they succeed due to the network of

complicities already in place.

 

Hopefully the devotees in Costa Rica are intelligent enough not to settle

with whatever morsels are offered to them. It is an evident fact that a

mentality of colonialism is prevalent in ISKCON, but it is about time that

the devotees in Costa Rica, and for that matter the devotees all over the

world, put and end to this and start taking charge of their yatras' destiny

and help end the chaos in the Society. The current leadership can only

deepen the crisis.

 

The important revelation of Bhakti Abhay Charan's affair is, again, the

complete lack of qualification of the gurus under the current system, which

is simply the bastard offspring of the mother of all perversions, the

original Acarya system. Still more amazing is the determination of the GBC

to support this guru system at all costs by certifying the authenticity of

individuals who are actually a fountainhead of anarthas and who munch-off

the institution pretending to represent it in ways completly beyond their

qualifications.

 

A devotee in Mexico just asked Bir Krsna Goswami what is the GBC doing to

regain the trust of so many discouraged devotees in ISKCON. His reply was

that it is a matter of letting the dust settle. But nothing will settle

until two issues are settled first, namely, 1) That the current guru system

is a failure because it is a lie, Bhakti Abhay Charan being the latest

proof of it, and 2) That the GBC has to be completly revamped, not from

within like in previous timid attempts at reform, but from a grassroots

revival process in which the new GBCs represent the interests of their

congregations and are accountable to them. I guess these could actually

bring some confidence to the devotees.