Next Step 4: Zonal Secretaries

[Guest guest]

Bhaktarupa wrote: (portions omitted)

 

> You should have read the whole paragraph as a unit instead of only looking

> at the first three sentences. When I used the terms sudra and brahmana I

> was only talking about the ideal varnasrama descriptions of the

> Bhagavatam. Only at the end of the paragraph did I connect the matter with

> ISKCON, and I did not at all suggest that there should be some process of

> discernment of varna.

 

I thought your points was meant as a unit. I thought that this was exactly

what I did (read the paragraph as a unit).

 

Is it connected or is it not? Are you speaking about ISKCON or not? I don't

get it. Sorry, but for me it is confusing.

 

> This is exactly the point I am making. A conditioned soul cannot know the

> heart of another. But somehow or other some group has to be chosen to sit

> on the GBC Body so that ISKCON can run. Regardless of which method of

> choosing is in operation there will be always be some sort of fault there,

> and as such the GBC Body which is chosen will not be perfect. As a general

> rule, if the choosing is done by those who are more senior, then the

> faults will be minimized.

 

Yes but if we don't know who are senior then if we just pick out some people

and put a GBC batch on them and then from there have a GBC club who will

vote in members for all the time to come, then we will just have the old

boys club again.

 

As I see it there has to be a school where devotees are getting educated to

do the GBC job and when someone has passed the exam then he can apply for

getting a post within the field for which he is educated for.

 

If a person is not educated for his job then it doesn't matter who choose

him or what kind of system is used for choosing him. The faults will not be

minimized in any case.

 

When he has showed that he has passed an exam and have grades for the job

then he can become a candidate to be voted on by the devotees who should

have him as their leader. The leader has to be liked by their subjects

otherwise there will not be a situation of love and trust between the

leaders and their subjects. After all, that is supposed to be the basic

principle in ISKCON.

 

First qualification is that he has to be educated for his job. Second

qualification is that he has to be liked by the people he should guide.

 

Those two things should be the factors to rule who should be on a GBC or

not. This is my opinion.

 

It is not enough that someone has been a temple president for a certain

amount of years. In fact that can be the reason why a person is not

qualified as a leader because he might have learned all kinds of nasty

tricks and developed a very bad attitude to both devotees and people in

general by his own speculated method of managing.

 

Thus such a person could be more difficult to teach proper management and

proper behaviour because he would think that he already knows everything

about how to manage because he have been a temple president for so many

years.

 

It is easier to teach someone to play piano who have never played piano then

to teach someone who has taught himself wrong.

 

To make things right from the root level there is required a school so that

leaders can get proper education. Without that things will just continue to

be a mess. (I think this is one of Janesvara Prabhus points)

 

Apart from this there could also be a system where a board of "senior"

devotees could make their say by blessing or protesting the results of the

votes. In this way the "seniors" can give the voters a chance to vote again

if it is found by the "seniors" that they think the person at hand is not

the right person for the job.

 

But if the voters insist to have their man as their leader even after the

"seniors" have protested then the "seniors" should leave it at that. In this

way history will show if the "seniors" are seniors only in name or not.

 

Because the voters are only allowed to vote on people who have passed an

management exam they will not vote on someone who doesn't know anything

about management even if they don't vote on the best candidate. So in this

way there is some check and balance in the system.

 

If it is shown again and a again that the "seniors" are actually always

right in their judgement then naturally people will take the "seniors"

advice more and more.

 

In this way the seniors can remain unattached and the juniors can only blame

themselves if they are doing something wrong. In this way the respect for

the seniors can also be developed in a natural way.

 

The position of being a "senior" is not something one can just be labeled

at. Resepect is something which has to be developed. It is something which

has to be shown by time.

 

One can be both an old and wise man and also an old fool.

 

Now if it is shown that the voters are always getting blessed by the seniors

when they are voting then the "juniors" will obviously be found to be

qulified to vote because they always vote for people which the "seniors"

approve.

 

By this system not only "juniors" can develop respect for "seniors" but

"seniors" will also develop respect and trust for the "juniors".

 

An important principle in the society is also that the "seniors" come to a

position where they can feel proud of their "juniors". If the "seniors" do

everything themselves they will gradually start thinking that the "juniors"

are useless. The "seniors" should rather try to make the "juniors" more and

more "senior" by giving the "juniors" more and more responsibility.

 

If the "juniors" feel that the "seniors" look upon them as unintelligent and

unqualified without real reason then there will never be a relationsship of

love and trust developing between "juniors" and "seniors".

 

Those who are real "seniors" are naturally loved by "juniors".

 

By this system a situation of love and trust can develop naturally by time.

Love and trust is not something which can be forced upon people. It has to

be cultivated.

 

It is especially needed in a situation where the trust have been crushed. In

such a situation it is wrong to introduce a system where people just have to

accept someone as their leader without their own involvment. That will only

make the crack bigger.

 

> All kinds of seniors are declared by Krishna to

> be laukika (general) gurus. Thus I have more faith in a process whereby

> the GBC Body members themselves choose their successors (co-successors).

 

I do not have much faith in that process as long as there is no system or

principle to find out who the seniors are. If someone just sticks around for

some years and at some point buys himself some bambo sticks and puts them

together with a cloth then he has suddenly become accepted as senior

although he maybe still have the qualification and mentality of the same

drug addict or whatever he was when he joined ISKCON. This I have come to

conclude by looking at the history. People have been accepted as seniors

without being qualified. If a blind man leads another blind man they will

both fall in the ditch.

 

Education is needed.

 

> But this process should be adequately supplemented by both formal and

> informal consultative processes. A formal process could be what I wrote

> previously about the ISKCON Mgrs. meeting. And the informal process is the

> general rule that was discussed earlier about how the (non-sannyasi)

> managers should take advice from the sannyasis and other seniors, as well

> as knowing the pulse of the general body of devotees, before taking their

> decisions.

 

This consultative process will just be an extension of the same boy club if

there is no system of education for both the leaders and the consultants.

 

Education is what is needed. And then when someone is educated then he

should be voted in by those who he are supposed to rule.

 

If I was in need of a body guard I would naturally select a person who I

knew had the adequate education for such a job. I would not choose a person

who have studied to become a ballet dancer or someone who have not gone to

school at all.

 

> These are all very nice quotes, but I don't see much relevance to the

> specific topic at hand. Srila Prabhupada is talking about how to reform

> systems which are already democratic along Krishna conscious lines. He is

> not talking about converting existing non-democratic systems to democracy.

 

Well, he is speaking about a acceptable system among people who are Krishna

conscious.

 

Srila Prabhupada's point is that those who are leaders should be educated

and qualified for that post. If they are educated and qualified then they

can be elected for it.

 

The reason why Srila Prabhupada is upset about the modern so called

democratic system is that people vote for leaders who are not educated and

qualified for taking a leadership post. This is because both the voters and

the candidates are not educated. That is all. The system of voting is in

itself not bad if it is applied with Krishna conscious rules and

regulations.

 

In fact if we put people as leaders in ISKCON without considering whether

they are educated and qualified for that according to some rules and

regulations then that is as bad as the materialistic system regardless if it

is done by democratic, autocratic or whatever system.

 

> If corrupt people are using the system then probably it it doesn't matter

> what system you use. There will be problems in any case.

 

> So then why change the system?

 

In the old boys club the boys could easily keep their position even without

being qualified but in a democratic based system they could easily be voted

out if they showed that they where not qualified for the job. This I see as

a valuable plus point. Especially in the present day situation where

unqualified and uneducated people are to be found in abundance.

 

> The Maharaj Vena story can also be seen allegorically as follows: Srila

> Prabhupada spoke against the leadership of the modern materialistic

> scientists, and by the purity and force of his words convinced us that we

> should no longer accept their authority. So he "killed" the "king" through

> uttering sacred "mantras". Also, we are seeing at the present moment that

> the largescale dissatisfaction with the leadership of ISKCON is provoking

> the senior members of ISKCON to speak words meant to change the leadership

> system and personalities, and they will certainly have an effect

> (hopefully sooner and not later).

 

Yes, by the grace of e-mail systems devotees can raise their voices and in

this way have an effect.

 

> I don't see any gross inconsistency between the GBC system and solid

> varnasrama principles, provided the GBC role is understood as a ksatriya

> one. But this is another discussion which we have all agreed to put aside

> for the time being in this conference.

 

Yes, if GBC is just a label for the leading ksatriyas then it could fit in.

 

Y.s.

Svarupa das