CLEANING HOUSE AND CLEANING HEARTS                     
 REFORM AND RENEWAL IN ISKCON    
 
BY RAVINDRA SVARUPA DASA   
        
 
This paper was delivered at the Vaishnava Academy 
conference, entitled "Twenty-Five years of ISKCON in
Germany", held in Wiesbaden, Germany in January 1994.
Ravindra Svarupa prabhu was addressing the historical 
development of what became known as "the reform movement"
in ISKCON, its impact on ISKCON's administrative and
social structures and how ISKCON has adapted to ongoing 
norms of self-analysis and renewal. Ever since the 
explosive and charged internal debates of the mid-
eighties and the extensive changes they brought about in 
ISKCON's self-perception, scholars and researchers have
been waiting for someone to comment about what happened, 
why it happened and how it happened....haven't we all.
Ravindra Svarupa breaks the unintentional, yet uneasy
silence by sharing perceptions and developments, which 
although nearly ten years old, open the door to an ISKCON 
that has survived a storm.  
 
     In 1971 I underwent the profoundly wrenching change 
of becoming a member of the International Society for 
Krishna Consciousness, leaving one life and embarking on 
another. I abandoned old associations to immerse myself 
totally in the life of a tight-knit temple commune; I 
radically restyled my exterior to compliment my utterly 
changed interior. I became a stranger in my own land.  
     I undertook such an arduous passage because I was 
convinced that I was thereby effecting an ontological 
crossing: I was leaving the material dimension for the 
spiritual, awakening from the nightmare of history to the 
peace of eternity. ISKCON temples were embassies of the 
kingdom of God. Although apparently located in maya's 
realm, they were under direct divine jurisdiction. There 
the powers of material conditioning and desire had no 
sway. This is what I believed.       
     Looking back at that younger self of mine--twenty-
six years old at the time--I am appalled by his naivet--
"stupidity" would be appropriate-- and at the same time 
awed by his sacrificial commitment. Foolish and ignorant 
though he was, I am more than ever convinced that, by the 
grace of God, he made the right choice. That decision of 
my younger self is indeed the spiritual capital on which 
I still live. My self-doubt, rather, is whether I would 
at this time have the courage to make such a decision, 
knowing what I know now.       
     What I know now, of course, is that transcendence is 
not so easily attained, that history does not so easily 
release us from its grasp. What I know now is that the 
line that separates the godly from the ungodly is not 
congruent with the line dividing ISKCON from non-ISKCON. 
I know now that, like most in this world, I am committed-
-in my case deeply committed--to an institution that has 
done things that make me appalled and ashamed.       
     I joined ISKCON in my youth, when ISKCON itself was 
new-born. Over the last quarter-century both of us have 
matured together. I can no longer be called by any 
stretch of the term a "youth", nor can ISKCON be called a 
"youth-religion." Through struggle and difficulty ISKCON 
has attained--has been forced to attain--concrete 
awareness of its own limitation, and has, on the 
institutional level, enacted structures of self- 
criticism and self-correction. I want to set before you 
what I think is the central problem ISKCON has faced in 
that struggle. That problem arises out  of both the 
internal dynamics of its spiritual endeavor and of the 
historical situation it has found itself in.       
     ISKCON aims at creating "pure devotees" of God, that 
is to say, people who serve God without any personal 
motive and without any interruption and who are free from 
all material desires. It is not thought in ISKCON that 
this is an ideal we must all, inevitably, fall short of. 
On the contrary, ISKCON has the ability to present this 
ideal as a practical aim to its members and potential 
members in a extraordinarily vivid manner. Its members 
internalize this ideal for themselves, an ideal that 
demands an exacting and unremitting standard of purity in 
deeds, in words, in thought.  ISKCON says to people that 
pure devotional service, though an extremely elevated 
condition, is an attainable goal. Whenever ISKCON is 
powerful in recruiting new members and drawing from them 
a high level of commitment, it is because it can preach 
this with great confidence. People join and people remain 
because a very high ideal seems feasible of realization.       
     Much of the power with which ISKCON is able to 
present this ideal as both a desirable and an achievable 
aim depends upon the concrete, physical presence of a 
successful devotee who functions as an exemplary model, a 
paradigmatic individual. This personage--the guru, or 
acarya (one who teaches by his own behavior), not only 
embodies the ideal for all to see, but also delivers the 
divine grace by which others can become similarly 
advanced. Thus the institution itself requires devotees 
who appear to have realized the ideals.       
     The problem for ISKCON has been to deal 
constructively with its own failures to live up to its 
ideals. Many more people have been attracted to the 
principles of Krishna consciousness than are actually 
able to follow them. Its more public shortcomings or 
scandals have resulted from a somewhat protracted refusal 
or inability to recognize its problems. In the minds of 
many devotees, they were simply not supposed to happen.       
     The difficulty for ISKCON was exacerbated from the 
beginning, however, by the marginal social position of 
most of the early recruits. They were very young and very 
alienated, and in joining ISKCON they became double
dropouts--from mainstream society into the countercuture, 
from the counterculture into ISKCON. At the same time, 
certain attitudes of the 60s counterculture were retained
and became part of the unofficial culture of ISKCON. 
 
"EASY AND SUBLIME"          
 
     When A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami--known later by the 
honorific title "Srila Prabhupada"--began preaching in 
New York City in the second half of the 60s, he 
characterized Krishna consciousness by a hendiadys that 
became something of a catchphrase: Krishna consciousness, 
he said, is "simultaneously easy and sublime." The 
combination seems unlikely, for the easy is usually 
common and ordinary, and the sublime, difficult of 
realization. Yet in presenting this unlikely conjunction, 
Srila Prabhupada was quite faithfully representing his 
received Vaishnava (monotheistic, devotional) tradition 
from India.        
     That tradition, called "Gaudiya Vaishnavism," had 
attained its distinctive identity in sixteenth century 
Bengal, as a reformed branch of a much older Vaishnava 
tradition. This reformation was the achievement of Shri 
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486-1533). Somewhat like his 
European contemporary, Martin Luther, Mahaprabhu stressed
a direct, intimately personal relationship with God, 
unmediated by the traditional priestly offices and ritual 
formularies, and Mahaprabhu was vigorous in extending 
this relationship to everyone, even the outcasts, the 
untouchables, and the fallen.        
     These two tendencies were consonant with Vaishnava 
tradition in general. Vaishnavism had always propounded, 
as the highest salvation, a relationship with a 
transcendent person, whom it viewed as ontologically 
higher than the undifferentiated Brahman attained by a 
mysticism of negation (Bh.G. 14.27). And Vaishnavism had 
always extended spiritual enfranchisement to 
traditionally disenfranchised people (Bh.G. 9.32). 
Mahaprabhu developed both tendencies further. He taught, 
and practiced, the process of entering into a 
relationship with God in his most private and 
confidential feature.        
     According to Gaudiya Vaishnava theology, God has 
both a public and a private face. When he manifests his 
power and majesty (aisvarya), he is known as Narayana and 
is served perforce in awe and reverence. However, when he 
sets aside his lordship, and allows his beauty and 
sweetness (madhurya) to overpower his majesty, he is 
known as Krishna, the all-attractive. In order to enjoy 
intimate exchanges of love, Krishna causes his 
confidential devotees to forget that he is God, so that 
they may serve him in a fraternal, parental, or conjugal 
mood. The attainment of such intimate  service, Chaitanya 
taught, is the highest achievement of spiritual life. 
That achievement was not at all relegated to a future 
life: pure devotees could fully experience such ecstatic 
relationships even in this existence. The correct 
practice of devotional service results in direct 
experience of the divine paresanubhava (S.Bh.11.2.42). The
person of Mahaprabhu himself underwent the extreme 
physiological alterations (sattvika-bhava) that
accompanied such ecstasies.        
     The other side of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's endeavor 
was to extend this relationship with Krishna to all, 
included those considered degraded and uncultured by 
birth or habit. Some of his most prominent followers came 
from beyond the pale of orthodox Hinduism. For instance, 
Thakura Haridasa, whom Chaitanya made the exemplar 
(acarya) of chanting the divine names, was born a Muslim, 
and his great lieutenants Sanatana and Rupa Goswami had 
become outcasts by serving as ministers in the Turkish 
government of Hussain Shah. This liberality was an 
affront to the position and prerogatives of the 
hereditary caste Brahmins, who were shown scriptural text 
that stated, for example, that a pure devotee, no matter 
how low-born, is superior to the most well-qualified, but 
non-devoted, Brahmin (S. Bh. 7.9.10).        
     Mahaprabhu could justify his liberal policy by 
citing Vaishnava texts that claimed the practices of 
devotional service to possess such spiritual power as to 
elevate  untouchables (sva-paca) (S. Bh. 3.33.7) and 
aboriginal peoples (S. Bh. 2.4.18) to the highest 
position of Vedic culture. Furthermore, the specific 
devotional practice of congregational chanting of the 
names of God, which Chaitanya made the centerpiece of  
his reform movement, is natural and pleasing and requires 
no prior qualification whatsoever. Yet it posses immense 
purifying potency.        
     Thus Chaitanya Mahaprabhu offered direct entry into 
what amounts to the private life of God, and, by virtue 
of a process practicable by all, could liberally extend 
that offer to the low as well as the high, the ignorant 
as well as the learned, the unworthy as well as the 
worthy, the fallen as well as the saved. All this Srila 
Prabhupada's encapsulated in his conjunction "easy and 
sublime."        
     However, it must be stressed that "easy" did not 
mean "cheap." The "easy" process was supposed to make one 
fully qualified for the sublime position. The verifiable 
symptom of advancement in chanting is the the 
disappearance of lust, greed, and anger from the heart; 
full qualification for the higher stages of devotional 
service is complete absence of all material desires 
(virakti). For example, the conjugal pastimes of Krishna 
cannot be understood by anyone still affected by mundane 
sexual desire. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's liberality did not 
stop him from enforcing very strict standards of conduct 
among his followers.        
     This particular mixture of elements, transmitted 
quite faithfully by Srila Prabhupada to America, did much 
to determine the inner tensions that produced the dynamic 
of ISKCON's development in the West. 
 
PREACHING TO "WHITE ABORIGINES" 
 
     The demotic thrust of Vaishnava teaching provided 
theological justification for Srila Prabhupada's coming 
to the West--for, by orthodox Hindu standards, all 
Westerners are ipso facto untouchables. Even so, Srila 
Prabhupada had initially envisioned his mission as 
directed toward the West's political and cultural elite. 
Several years before his missionary journey, Srila 
Prabhupada had written in his English translation and 
commentary on Srimad Bhagavatam [League of Devotees: 
Vrindaban and Delhi, 1962], that the work was "a
cultural presentation for the re-spiritualization of the 
entire human society" (i), "meant for bringing about a 
revolution in the impious life of a misdirected 
civilization of the world" (P. 259). At that time, 
however, he envisioned such a cultural revolution as 
coming from above: 
 
    We are confident if the transcendental 
message of  Srimad Bhagwatam is received only 
by the leading men of the world, certainly 
there will be a change of heart and naturally
the people in general will follow them. The mass
[of] people in general are so to say tools in
the hands of the modern  politicians and leaders
of the people. If there is a change of heart of
the leaders only, certainly there will be
a radical change in the atmosphere of the world
situation [_sic_].
(261)          
 
     As it turned out, the American establishment proved 
quite immune to the attractions of Krishna consciousness, 
but Srila Prabhupada unexpectedly found a sympathetic 
reception among the hippies--"the spoiled children of 
society," as he once called them (S.Bh. 4.12.23,
purport)--who had emerged as a group in the year of
Srila Prabhupada's arrival. Srila Prabhupada was often to 
note that the hippies were "our best customers" (Letters 
to Gaurasundara dasa, 1969, and to Satsvarupa dasa, 
1971), "immediate candidates of our Krishna 
Consciousness" (letter to Govinda dasi, 1969). The reason 
for such receptivity, according to Srila Prabhupada, was 
that "the youth in the West have reached the stage of 
vairagya, or renunciation. They are practically disgusted 
by material pleasure from material sources" (S.Bh. 
6.16.26, purport).  In a 1971 Bhagavad-gita lecture Srila 
Prabhupada said that "these American boys" are: 
 
"... fed up with this materialistic way of life.
They want something spiritual. But because 
there is no such information, there is no such 
leader, they are becoming hippies, frustrated 
and confused. And  because here is something 
substantial, they are taking it. This is the 
secret of success of this  Krishna 
Consciousness movement."
 
      In spite of having "reached renunciation," (S. Bh. 
6.16.26, purport), American youth, for want of spiritual 
direction, disastrously took refuge in sex and drugs. The 
hippies appeared to Srila Prabhupada as "morose" (S.Bh. 
4.25.11, purport), "distressed," "wretched," "unclean,"
"without shelter or food," (S.Bh. 4.25.5, purport), 
"irresponsible and unregulated" (S.Bh. 5.6.10, purport), 
"lying idle, without any production," (Bhagavad-gita
lecture, 1976), and so on. While the counterculture at 
one point made something of an icon of Srila Prabhupada, 
he himself remained vigorously opposed to its standards 
and practices and frequently exhorted his followers to
renounce all allegiance to it. This, for example is from 
a letter of 1969 to Hayagriva dasa: 
 
    Anyway, we should be very much careful 
[not] to publish anything in our paper which 
will give  impression to the public that we are 
inclined to the hippy [_sic_] movement. In
our papers nothing should  be published which 
has even a small tinge of hippy  ideas. I must 
tell you in this connection that if  you have 
any sympathies with the hippy movement you 
should kindly give it up. 
 
     It is surprising that Gaudiya Vaishnavism could have
been transplanted into the modern West at all. Yet it 
should not be surprising--especially to those acquainted 
with the history of religions--that its earliest American 
followers should have largely been drawn from radically 
marginalized and alienated youth. Although Srila 
Prabhupada may have hoped for a hearing from the 
establishment, he accepted the receptivity of the hippies 
as providential, and relied on the potency of the holy 
name, vigorously preached, to achieve the requisite 
effect. And indeed, the movement increased with 
extraordinary rapidity.      
     It may seem strange that someone like Prabhupada, 
with a message so essentially traditional and 
conservative, should have attracted such radicalized 
youth. What was his appeal? His sustained and systematic 
critique of modern material civilization, undertaken from 
a spiritual perspective, resonated strongly with his 
young hearers' own disillusionment. But the deep 
attraction, in my judgment, was Srila Prabhupada's 
ability to implant in us an extraordinary hope: He was 
able to establish the ideal of sainthood as a viable goal 
of life, a practical vocational aim. Young western men 
and women became convinced that they could attain direct 
experience of God in this life. Srila Prabhupada made it 
very clear that such an achievement demands an 
uncompromising standard of purity, and yet his followers 
became convinced that, in spite of their own past actions 
and present conditioning, they could be elevated under 
Srila Prabhupada's tutelage to that requisite standard of 
purity.      
     Srila Prabhupada's success in establishing his 
beachhead  in the counterculture soon produced problems 
within his movement. His early followers were young, 
immature, untrained, and inexperienced. Many of them had 
suffered mental, moral, and spiritual disorders as a 
result of their sojourn in the counterculture, if not in 
post-war America itself. In short, Srila Prabhupada 
constructed his movement out of dubious raw material. He 
was convinced that his efforts were a matter of spiritual 
life or death, and he was animated by a sense of extreme 
urgency. In a raging storm one must construct a shelter 
with whatever comes to hand. Later, architects may 
criticize. Indeed, Srila Prabhupada knew very well the 
defects of his handiwork. In the mid seventies, a certain 
ISKCON leader showed me a letter that Srila Prabhupada 
had sent him. As I recall it, Srila Prabhupada, writing 
about his difficulties in managing his movement, had made 
the striking statement: "Krishna did not send me any 
first-class men. He sent me only second and third-class 
men." Another leader told me Srila Prabhupada had written 
to him in nearly the identical language. (I should note 
that I have not been able to find either letter in the 
present archive collection of Srila Prabhupada's 
correspondence.)      
     The movement's early explosive growth created a 
further problem. New people, without much material or 
spiritual maturity or even training, had to assume 
positions of leadership and responsibility. For example, 
I moved into the temple in Philadelphia in January, 1971, 
and by October I had been made President, with twelve or 
fifteen devotees under my material and spiritual care. My 
qualifications were that I was a bit older than everyone 
else, that I had held down regular jobs, that I had three 
years of post-graduate education. But I had never managed 
anything or anyone, and spiritually I was still very much 
occupied with my own struggles. The disciplined world of 
spiritual life was completely new to me, and I was only 
beginning to absorb the heritage Srila Prabhupada was 
giving us. But there was no one else to do the job, so I 
received on-the-job training with no immediate trainer.  
I can hardly remember my performance without shuddering. 
I think that this was rather typical of ISKCON at the 
time.       
     Another difficulty arose from the inter-generational 
warfare of that era.  A contempt for society and its 
institutions was a countercultural trait that was 
absorbed into ISKCON in the early days (and in some parts 
remained for a long time). As a result, devotees were 
often unnecessarily hostile to and confrontational with 
established authorities, (including their own parents); 
when those authorities responded in kind, it only 
confirmed one's worst estimation. In some cases, the 
countercultural hostility became combined with elements 
extracted from Krishna consciousness philosophy to 
produce a virulent antinomianism--something you will 
hardly find in, say, the Bhagavad-gita. This 
antinomianism later produced the disaster in the West 
Virginia New Vrindavan community.   
     Yet with all these early difficulties the movement 
still  grew and developed, and even in the most trying 
times an extraordinary degree of spiritual discipline was 
available to those who sought it.     One could say, in 
retrospect, that Srila Prabhupada should have put the 
brakes on the expansion of his movement, held back his 
preaching, until his leaders could be properly trained by 
him. One could say that he was doing a very risky thing. 
I am sure he knew the risks, but from his perspective it 
would have been inconceivable not to respond as 
energetically as possible to the God-given opportunity to 
save souls. The positive results would be eternal, the 
bad temporary. For my own part, I am deeply grateful for 
the risk he took in allowing the rapid expansion of 
ISKCON with all its attendant hazards and shortcomings. 
It saved me. 
 
 DEALING WITH SPIRITUAL FAILURE 
 
     It seemed to his early followers that Srila 
Prabhupada offered them something  unavailable in the 
religions they had been raised in. He offered direct 
spiritual experience of  God (vijnana, or "realized" 
knowledge), as opposed to mere doctrinal or "book"  
knowledge (jnana). Bhakti-yoga is a spiritual discipline 
that aims to alter or "purify"  consciousness through 
deliberate cultivation so that the divine can eventually 
become  directly present to it, become a reality of 
immediate perception (pratyaksa. See Bh.G. 9.2).   
      This systematic aim at experiential results gives 
bhakti-yoga a common feature with  modern material 
science, and indeed Srila Prabhupada often used the word 
"science" to  translate vijnana. As the title of a
popular ISKCON book puts it, bhakti-yoga is "The  Science 
of Self Realization." The practice of the science of 
self-realization requires that one make oneself the  
subject of an experiment in the progressive purification 
of consciousness, an experiment  that entails a fairly 
rigorous program of spiritual practices (sadhana) which 
includes rising  each day before dawn to spend the first 
four or five hours in intense devotional exercises  ("the 
morning program"). During this time, two hours is set 
aside for individual chanting  on beads in fulfilment of 
a daily commitment to repeat the Hare Krishna mantra in 
this  way 1,728 times as a minimum.  
     Furthermore, one has to strictly observe four 
prohibition. The first prohibition  against eating meat, 
fish, or eggs means, in its most rigorous understanding, 
that one ought  really to eat only food that has been 
sanctified by first being prepared for and offered to  
Krishna. The prohibition against taking intoxication 
means eschewing even the milder  anodynes like tea and 
chocolate. The injunction not to gamble is meant to 
exclude  participating not only in wagering and games of 
chance but also in time-wasting diversions  like sports, 
cinema, television, and so on. Finally, the injunction 
against illicit sex forbids  not only sex outside of 
wedlock, but even within marriage if it is not 
exclusively intended  for procreation; for that purpose, 
sex can be engaged in one time in a month, within the  
period of the woman's fertility. The goal is to get 
through life with a minimum of  involvement in sex, and 
not only in deed, but in speech and thought as well. 
Srila Prabhupada called these rules "the regulative 
principles of freedom" (Bh.G.  2.64, purport).  
     He made it starkly clear that self-realization and 
sense-gratification are  mutually exclusive, and he 
refused to compromise on this matter. His followers 
tended to  attribute the lifeless, dispirited condition 
of the routinized religions of their childhood  precisely 
to institutional accommodations to sense-gratification. 
Consequently, the very  stringency of ISKCON's regulative 
principles became to many a hallmark of ISKCON's  
validity and acted as an attractive, rather than 
repellent, factor.   
    In addition, the emphasis on stringent practice was 
closely linked in the movement  to a charismatic 
outpouring of enthusiasm, manifest especially in 
sankirtana, group  chanting of the names of God while 
dancing to the rhythm of drums and cymbals, either  
within a temple or in public places. This central 
practice (sankirtana is said to be the  yuga-dharma, or 
dispensation for this age) illustrates the ability of 
devotional activities to  produce an intense 
concentration of consciousness through the expressive 
engagement of  the senses and feelings, a fundamental 
principle of bhakti-yoga. 
     The compelling energy  generated by sankirtana, 
which easily engenders a contagious enthusiasm and a 
sense of  exaltation, is greatly boosted in the 
participants by the affective channelling caused by the  
asceticism of the regulative principles. Conversely, the 
ability of devotional activities like  sankirtana and 
Deity worship (arcana) to engage one's feelings and 
senses can make  adherence to the principles not an 
exercise in barren abnegation but rather a natural  
displacement of material activities by spiritual ones. At 
any rate, not only did young people vigorously committed 
themselves to the  regulative principles of Krishna 
consciousness with great self confidence, but they also  
rallied around the principles as kind of shibboleth, a 
distinctive validating feature of  ISKCON that set it 
apart both from other, competing new religious movements 
from the  East and from the mainstream denominations of 
the West.
     From the beginning, ISKCON has excelled in causing
its members to internalize an  extremely high ideal: that 
of a "pure devotee of Krishna," one totally engaged in 
God's  service without any personal motive and without 
interruption. Such a standard was visibly  exemplified in 
Srila Prabhupada himself, an acarya, or model for all to 
follow. Initiated  devotees, who must strictly observe 
the regulative principles, are to conform themselves to  
the standard of a pure devotee, if not out of spontaneous 
love for God, at least out of  dutiful obedience to the 
commend of scripture and guru.   
     It is only natural to expect that it would take a 
great and often protracted struggle  for young men and 
women, raised in the lax and increasingly permissive 
moral climate of  urbanized, secular America, to live up 
to their newly-adopted standard. Yet in the early  
culture of ISKCON such difficulties were not to be easily 
acknowledged. The shibbolethic  role played by the 
regulative principles, and the fact that taking 
initiation vows was the only  acceptable means of 
socialization within ISKCON, made strict following the 
regulative  principles a sine qua non of allegiance to 
Srila Prabhupada. At the same time, members  who were 
themselves fairly new looked for validation by seeking 
and producing swift  conversions, conversions that 
entailed, in the devotee's mind, a complete break with  
outside society and total immersion with the culture of 
an ISKCON temple.*  
     Naturally, the  temples became filled with premature 
and tentative candidates, who were under great  internal 
and external pressure to profess a degree of commitment 
far in excess of the  reality. Further, a lack of mature 
devotees, who had passed successfully through the trials  
of spiritual development, left most of the movement 
without experienced practical guides  and counsellors. 
All these factors combined to produce in the movement an 
inability to deal  in a healthy and constructive manner 
with the spiritual failings and failures of its members.   
     Those problems could hardly even be acknowledged, 
let alone discussed. The climate of ISKCON in those days 
strongly discouraged any frank and open  confession of 
difficulty in following the principles. This was true not 
only on the  institutional level, but quite often on the 
personal one as well. For example, when soon  after 
joining the temple I confided my own normal problem in a 
slightly senior devotee,  hoping for some  forgiveness, 
practical advice, sympathy, and encouragement, my  
confessor showed alarm, astonishment and anger; becoming 
aloof and stern, he simply  delivered the judgment that I 
"could not be a devotee." Such experiences seemed to have  
been all-too typical. Concealment became the dominant 
mode of reaction. Devotees  became isolated from each 
other, and real fellowship was baffled. The various forms 
of  concealment that are the unfortunate by-product of 
any religious group with a high demand  for sanctity 
surfaced within ISKCON: bluffing, hypocrisy, intolerance, 
fanaticism,  punctiliousness, fault-finding, and the 
substitution of minor for major virtues. 
     A steady stream of devotees joined the movement, and 
a steady stream left. In  ISKCON jargon, they "blooped," 
fell back into illusion. All too often the exit scenario 
went  something like this: A devotee would simply 
disappear, without any forewarning, in the  middle of the 
night. Sometimes this removal would be proceeded by a 
period of  withdrawal and depression, but often there 
would be no clue at all. A close inquiry would  
subsequently disclose a few devotees who had ascertained 
that the "blooped" devotee had  been having problems 
following the principles. He could not bring himself to 
admit it, and  his sense of isolation and guilt drove him 
in silence from the community. In the early days, each 
such departure tended to created a community crisis. It  
rocked the faith of many members, whose own hold on 
Krishna consciousness was none  too strong. Sometimes the 
temple members covertly envied the "blooped" devotee. At 
any  rate, the community reacted to the departure as to a 
betrayal.  
    Usually a communal post-mortem would spontaneously 
take place, in which the faults and shortcoming of the  
departed devotee were analysed and condemned to the point 
at which the remaining  members felt more secure about 
themselves and their values. To the bewilderment and, 
frequently, annoyance of the temple residents, many  
"blooped" devotees did not utterly vanish. They would 
instead establish some sort of  contact with a temple 
member; they would become part of a social network of 
other  former temple residents. They would show up 
regularly at the Sunday feast and other  public 
functions. They were always about, just on the periphery: 
I remember one temple  resident who referred to them as 
"the shadow of ISKCON." In ISKCON's  jargon these  
liminal persons were called "fringies,", a term, by the 
way, one now rarely hears.  
    Because  of the anger and resentment many temple 
devotees felt toward the "fringies", the treatment  they 
received was often unfriendly, and they were subject to 
cutting or sarcastic remarks of  the temple residents. At 
best, the temple devotees were indifferent, because "you 
could not  preach to fringies." Preaching meant in this 
context to persuade someone to join the temple  
community, and the fringies were inoculated against such 
appeals. They maintained an allegiance to Krishna 
consciousness, but had stabilized  themselves on what the 
temple residents considered an unsatisfactory platform, 
for the  most part compromising to some degree with one 
or more of the regulative principles and  participating 
in a reduced or irregular program of devotional 
activities.  
     Over the years the  population of fringies steadily 
increased, but ISKCON leaders and temple devotees did not  
acknowledge any duties or obligations toward them, nor 
concede much validity to their  continuing allegiance. 
They represented failure, and the establishment wanted 
simply to  disown them. Only over the last five or seven 
years, at different rates in different locations,  has 
the ISKCON leadership began to acknowledge the "fringies" 
as "our people," as a  genuine congregation to whom the 
temple should minister. The belated recognition of a 
congregation illustrates the unwillingness to confront  
the fact of a wide spread failure of its member to 
maintain a long-term commitment to its  own standards of 
spiritual purity.  
     But the movement as a whole was forced to face the  
problem when the fall-down of a number of senior members 
who had taken on the role of  initiating gurus after 
Srila Prabhupada passing away in 1977 finally lead to a 
crisis. All these gurus were sannyasis, those who had 
taken final and supposedly  irrevocable vows of celibacy 
and renunciation, and their fall from the standards 
became the  crowning event in what had been a continuing 
failure rate of those who had taken  sannyasa vows, a 
rate that approached 90%.  In 1969, three householder 
couples (grhasthas) very successfully launched the  Hare 
Krishna movement in London. Impressed by the way that 
householders could preach,  Srila Prabhupada encouraged 
marriage as a matter of policy. He explains his position 
in  this 1971 Bombay Bhagavad-Gita lecture (March 29): 
 
Om Visnupada Paramhamsa Parivrajakacarya 
Asttotara Sata Srimad Bhaktisiddhanta  
Sarasvati Maharaja Prabhupada [Srila 
Prabhupada's spiritual master]: He was creating  
more brahmacaris and sannyasis for preaching 
work, but I am creating more  grhasthas 
[applause], because in Europe and America the 
boys and girls intermingle so  quickly and 
intimately that it is very difficult to keep 
one brahmacari. So there is no  need of 
artificial brahmacaris. . . . So married life 
is called grhastha-asrama. It is as good as 
sannyasa-asrama.  Asrama means where there is 
bhagavad-bhajana [glorification of God]. It 
doesn't  matter whether one is sannyasi or one 
is grhastha or a brahmacari. The main principle  
is bhagavad-bhajana. But practically also, I 
may inform you that these married  couples, 
they are helping me very much . . . .For 
practical example, I may say that one  of my 
Godbrothers, a sannyasi, he was deputed [in the 
1930s] to go to London for  starting a temple, 
but three or four years he remained there, he 
could not execute the  will [of his spiritual 
master]; therefore he was called back. Now, I 
sent [three] married couples. All of them are 
present here. And they worked  so nicely that 
within one year we started our London temple, 
and that is going on very  nicely. [applause]     
So it is not the question of a brahmacari, 
sannyasi or grhastha...... One who knows  the 
science of Krsna and preaches all over the 
world, he is guru, spiritual master. It  
doesn't matter. So in Europe and America I am 
especially creating more grhasthas,  families, 
so that they can take up this movement very 
seriously and preach, and I am  glad to inform 
you that this process has become very 
successful. Thank you very much.  [applause]  
 
     Then, when I joined ISKCON it was assumed that 
everyone would become  married, and indeed, devotees were 
urged to do so. Marriages were arranged, usually  without 
courtship, and each had to be approved by Srila 
Prabhupada. But as early as 1971  Srila Prabhupada was 
becoming concerned, as shown by this letter of July 5th 
to  Hridayananda, one of his leaders: 
 
So far as R-------- getting himself married, 
you must first discuss with him that this  
marriage business is not a farce, but it must 
be taken very seriously. There is no  question 
of divorce, and if he will promise not to 
separate from his wife, then my  sanction for 
the marriage is there; otherwise not. Recently 
too many couples have been  drifting into 
Maya's waters, and it is very discouraging. So 
if he will agree on these  points, then you can 
perform the marriage with my blessings. 
 
     Srila Prabhupada's discouragement with the outcome 
of marriages continued to increase.  Finally, in 1974, 
Srila Prabhupada simply refused to sanction any further 
marriages. (In my  temple, there were no marriages 
between devotees for nearly a year, and then they were  
performed under my local sanction with a civil 
ceremonies.) . Srila Prabhupada's policy seemed to change 
as a result of his discouragement.   
     Throughout ISKCON, householder life began to undergo 
a radical devaluation. Scriptural  statements condemning 
married life as "a dark well" and so on became 
prominently  quoted. Male devotees were strongly urged to 
remain brahmacari (celibate), which now  seemed to be the 
norm, and sannyasa was a kind of reward of achievement. 
The number  of men initiated in to the sannyasa asrama 
increased dramatically. A genuine desire for  
transcendence, often co-mingled with a urge to acquire 
prestige, position, and power within  the institution, 
had propelled most of these young men into a rash and 
improvident heroics.  The persistence of desires they 
could neither acknowledge nor control started to manifest  
as intolerance and fanaticism.  
     The social climate began to turn ugly: Some of these  
sannyasis embarked on preaching campaigns against 
householders and even more so  against women, whose life 
in the movement at this time became extremely trying. 
Feeling  grew so heated that in 1976, a clash between 
householder temple presidents in North  America and a 
powerful association of peripatetic sannyasis and 
brahmacaris escalated  into a conflict so major that 
Srila Prabhupada called it a "fratricidal war." As one 
would expect, over the long run many of these young 
sannyasis found it  impossible to maintain their vows.
There was a steady, even growing, exodus. In most  cases, 
an extreme sense of disgrace and shame, amplified by the 
merciless condemnation of  the sannyasi community itself, 
propelled them into exile into the fringe or beyond.   
     Although the problems of grhasthas and sannyasis 
became well-known by the agency of scandalized gossip,
the devotees in the movement could not bring themselves  
collectively to acknowledge the scope of the difficulty 
and its significance. This was more  or less the state of 
affairs when Srila Prabhupada passed away in November of 
1977, at the  age of eighty-two, and ISKCON was 
transferred to the hands of his students, none of  whom 
had had more than a dozen years training.  
     Eleven select members of the GBC were  elevated to 
the position of initiating guru. (The two householders 
among them were quickly  persuaded to take sannyasa.) 
However, the empowerment of the next generation did  
nothing to abrogate the trend of sannyasis' falling down, 
a trend that did not spare the  group of new gurus. Some 
were soon in trouble. Within ten years of assuming the 
role of  living exemplars and via media to God for 
thousands of new devotees, six of them had  quite 
spectacularly plummeted, and ISKCON's survival was in 
doubt. 
 
"GURU REFORM" 
 
      The crisis of authority that shook ISKCON to its 
foundations in the years after Srila Prabhupada's demise-
-and led finally in 1987 to a restructuring of the 
position of guru in ISKCON--was not exclusively due to 
the spiritual and material immaturity of the leaders, 
although that was serious enough in itself. Those 
shortcomings were linked, both as cause and effect, to a 
profound "structural" problem in ISKCON.
    This problem concerned the way in which the position 
of initiating guru had become institutionalized in ISKCON 
after Prabhupada. The problem arose when the conception 
of guru was implicitly based on a traditional model of an 
inspired, charismatic spiritual autocrat, an absolute and 
autonomously decisive authority, around whom an 
institution takes shape as the natural extension and 
embodiment of his charisma. Indeed, Srila Prabhupada 
himself was such a guru. Yet starting in 1970, Srila 
Prabhupada had worked diligently to established a quite 
different sort of leadership structure in ISKCON, a 
structure he repeatedly emphasized that would continue 
after him.  
      This is a model of management found in distinctly 
modern institutions, that of a corporate board of 
directors, called in ISKCON "the Governing Body 
Commission." The practical problem facing ISKCON after 
Srila Prabhupada's demise was this: How do gurus, who are 
God's direct representatives and according to fundamental 
Vaisnava theology to be worshiped by their disciples "on 
a equal level with God," fit within an organization 
functioning through modern rational and legal modes under 
the direction of a committee? This is the institutional 
and philosophical dilemma that ISKCON faced. Although 
ISKCON's crisis of leadership and authority was 
precipitated by the falldowns and deviations of some of 
the gurus, that crisis was to a large extent resolved by 
a structural revisioning and reordering of the 
institutionalization of gurus in the society.        
     On May 28, 1977, during what turned out to be Srila 
Prabhupada's terminal illness, the Governing Body 
Commission deputed a committee of seven members to 
question their spiritual master about the delicate matter 
of guru succession: how would the function of initiating 
guru be carried out in ISKCON after Srila Prabhupada's 
departure? In response to this question, Srila Prabhupada 
said he would select some disciples to begin immediately 
performing all of the activities involved in giving 
initiation--approving the candidate, chanting on the 
beads, giving the name, and so on--acting as an 
officiating priest ("rtvik") on Srila Prabhupada's
behalf. Those so initiated during Srila Prabhupada's 
physical presence would be Srila Prabhupada's disciples. 
After his demise, however, those same officiating gurus 
to be selected by Srila Prabhupada would, if qualified, 
become gurus in their own right. Those whom they 
initiated would be their own disciples, and Srila 
Prabhupada would be their grand-spiritual master.        
     In July, Srila Prabhupada selected eleven members of 
the GBC (then twenty in number) to begin acting at once 
as officiating gurus. Thus the GBC understood Srila 
Prabhupada to have chosen the first initiating gurus to 
succeed him.        
     After Srila Prabhupada's demise in November, 1977, 
those eleven members quickly became elevated in an 
extraordinary way above all other devotees in the 
movement, even their colleagues on the GBC. Within
the GBC, the gurus formed a special sub-committee,
which had jurisdiction on all matters concerning gurus
and initiation, including the exclusive power to
appoint any new gurus and to deal with any problems
concerning gurus.          
     The new gurus received the same ceremonial treatment 
that was accorded Srila Prabhupada. In every ISKCON 
temple room, there was reserved for Srila Prabhupada an 
elevated ceremonial seat, called a vyasasana, that 
represented the spiritual authority of its occupier. 
After Prabhupada's demise, most temples installed a life-
size statue of Prabhupada on the vyasasana. During the 
daily morning order of service, Srila Prabhupada was 
honored at that vyasasana with a ceremony called guru-
puja, during which the devotees would gather at the 
vyasasana and sing a traditional hymn in praise of guru 
while a priest would perform the formal arati ceremony of 
worship. In addition, after Srila Prabhupada's demise 
new, lower vyasasanas were installed next to Srila 
Prabhupada's, and there the new gurus daily received puja 
at the same time that Srila Prabhupada was offered his.        
     Each of the new gurus was allocated his own 
geographical area to initiate in and preside over. Srila 
Prabhupada had organized the GBC so that each member was 
responsible for the movement's activities in a particular 
geographical area, or "zone." With the advent of new 
gurus, those 20 or so GBC zones became part of eleven 
greater zones, each of which had one of the eleven 
initiating gurus as its head. That guru's zone would 
consist of the zone he managed as a GBC member, and then 
in most cases the zone or zones of other GBC members who 
were not initiating gurus. To all new recruits, the local 
zonal acarya was presented as "the" spiritual master.
Although in principle a new devotee was free to chose his 
initiating guru out of the eleven, formidable social and 
institutional pressures directed his choice to one place 
only. Typically, a new devotee strongly attracted to 
taking initiation from another guru would be relocated to 
that guru's zone.        
     In point of fact, in each ISKCON temple room two--
not one--vyasasanas were established for new gurus. The 
two smaller vyasasanas flanked Srila Prabhupada's. The 
one on Srila Prabhupada's right was consecrated to the 
exclusive use of the local zonal acarya. The one on the 
left, referred to as the "guest vyasasana," was occupied 
by any of the initiating gurus from outside the zone who 
might happen to be visiting.        
     The zonal acarya naturally exercised great de facto 
power, and the relation between the guru and the GBC 
(both individually and collectively) soon became a 
difficult and troubling issue. It seemed to many that 
Srila Prabhupada had established two authority 
structures--that of the GBC and that of the gurus. 
Indeed, the gurus, with their status as sacred persons, a 
status constantly emphasized by formal deference and 
ceremonial honors, and their growing numbers of 
personally devoted followers, quickly eclipsed the GBC. 
Many of the gurus felt that the GBC was a temporary, ad 
hoc expedient until the movement could be unified under 
the charismatic leadership of a single, "self-effulgent 
acarya", who would emerge among the gurus in the course 
of time, in the way that an emperor would gradually be 
recognized among a group of kings. Further, many gurus 
tended to feel that the essential characteristic of a 
guru as an absolute authority (being the representative 
of God on earth) was vitiated by the give-and-take of 
collegial relations among the GBC. Indeed, in response to 
the question about such a compromise of the guru's 
position, it was at one point officially stated that for 
the sake of the movement's unity and harmony the gurus 
"voluntarily" set aside the natural exercise of their
absolute position and accepted the relativity of working 
with the GBC.        
     Yet it is interesting that the true position of the 
guru in ISKCON was most  honestly proclaimed to the 
devotees in symbolic terms, in the language of furniture, 
as it were, rather than in explicit verbal utterance. I 
have already mentioned that two vyasasanas, or ceremonial 
seats, were provided in each temple for the gurus coming 
after Srila Prabhupada. This system of twin vyasasanas 
was established without any explicit articulation of its 
meaning to the devotees in ISKCON. Indeed, I am convinced 
that even those who established the system had not fully 
articulated its meaning even to themselves; for what ever 
reason, they were not all fully conscious of what they 
were doing, but were acting more on instinct or 
intuition. Why could there not have been only one 
additional vyasasana upon which any new guru could sit? 
Why two? This question was not asked until the reform 
movement raised it in 1985. In fact the exclusive 
vyasasana, reserved for the sole use of the acarya of 
that zone, symbolized the seat of that guru as the head 
of the institution. The exclusive vyasasana indicated the 
traditional absolute and autocratic guru of Hindu 
tradition. And it is that particular conception of the 
role of guru which was indeed essentially in conflict 
with the GBC system of management as set up by Srila 
Prabhupada.        
     The Sanskrit word acarya was commonly used in ISKCON 
as a designation, as a title, for the initiating gurus, 
but the word has several meanings, and this ambiguity 
became the source of much difficulty. The  most basic 
meaning is "one who teaches by example." It is synonymous 
with guru. However, acarya tends to convey a more 
honorific sense. The outstanding teachers and leaders are 
called acaryas, and the word is encountered as a title, 
and incorporated into the names of teachers who were 
founders of institutions or communities: Sankaracarya, 
Madhvacarya, Ramanujacarya, and the like. Finally, acarya 
is specifically used to denote a guru or teacher who 
resides at the head of the institution.         
     The acarya in this last sense denotes a prominent 
and traditional form of religious leadership in India: in 
which a single, charismatic individual attracts others to 
him and by a natural process an institution forms about 
him. In this typically premodern style of leadership, the 
organization is very much a personal extension, a 
veritable embodiment, of that charismatic individual. 
(Srila Prabhupada is often quoted as having said that 
ISKCON was "his body.") The viability and spiritual 
credibility of the institution is largely a function of 
the perceived spiritual potency of the acarya. In India, 
the current acarya would appoint his successor from among 
his followers, and in this way the charisma would be 
transferred. Upon the demise of his predecessor, the 
successor acarya would take the seat at the head of the 
institute. That successor acarya would be ritually 
elevated over all other disciples of his guru (his "god-
brothers"), and all of them would bring new members to 
him for initiation.        
     ISKCON, however, represents a departure from this 
archaic form of organization. Srila Prabhupada repeatedly 
stressed his intention that ISKCON would not, after his 
departure, be managed by a single acarya, but rather by 
the board of directors, the Governing Body Commission, 
that he formed and began to train in 1970. Srila 
Prabhupada's intention, and his departure from the 
tradition of the institutional acarya, is shown in a 
striking way in his will. Traditionally, it was in the 
first article of his will that an acarya named his 
successor, passing on his institution to his heir as if 
it were his personal property, The first article of Srila 
Prabhupada's will reads: "The Governing Body Commission 
(GBC) will be the ultimate managing authority for the 
entire International Society for Krishna Consciousness." 
(To speakers of American English, "Governing Body 
Commission" has a distinctly British ring, revealing at 
once the colonial provenance of the phrase. Indeed, 
"Governing Body Commission" turns out to be the title of 
the board of directors of that great British contribution 
to India of modern efficiency and management, the Indian 
Railways.)        
     With its corporate form of organization, ISKCON thus 
represents a modernization of a religious tradition. That 
modernization is the culmination of several generations 
of effort and it was not easily accomplished. 
Bhaktivinoda Thakura (1838- 1914) was the first acarya in 
the tradition to receive a western-style education and
to write in English. A visionary, he saw a reformed and 
revitalized Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition operating as a 
unified world-wide preaching mission in the modern world. 
He instilled this vision in his son, Srila 
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura (1874-1937), who was to 
became Srila Prabhupada's guru. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati 
had constructed a preaching mission of over sixty centers 
throughout India called the Gaudiya Matha. He tried to 
push beyond the boundary of India by sending a missionary 
sannyasi in the 1930s to Europe (but without much 
success). The Gaudiya Matha was a large, vital, and 
growing concern, yet soon after the demise of its 
founder, the organization fragmented. Srila Prabhupada 
explains how this happened: 
 
      Such disagreement among the disciples of 
one acarya is also  found among the members of 
the Gaudiya Matha. In the beginning, during the 
presence of Om Visnupada Paramahamsa 
Parivrajakacarya Astottara-sata Sri Srimad 
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada, 
all the disciples worked in agreement; but just 
after his disappearance, they disagreed. One 
party strictly followed the instructions of  
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, but another 
group created their own concoction about 
executing his desires.  Bhaktisiddhanta 
Sarasvati Thakura, at the time of his  
departure, requested all his disciples to form 
a governing body and conduct missionary 
activities cooperatively. He did not instruct a 
particular man to become the next acarya. But 
just after his passing away, his leading 
secretaries made plans, without authority, to 
occupy the post of acarya, and they split in 
two factions over who the next acarya would be. 
Consequently, both factions were asara, or 
useless, because they had no authority, having 
disobeyed the order of the spiritual master. 
Despite the spiritual master's order to form a 
governing body and execute the missionary 
activities of the Gaudiya Matha, the two 
unauthorized factions began  litigation that is 
still going on after forty years with no 
decision. (Caitanya Caritamrita, Adi-lila, 12. 
8, purport) 
 
      Other accounts, from Gaudiya Matha sources, say 
that a Governing Body Commission was formed and operated 
for a while before the attempt to establish an acarya at 
the head of the institution shattered the organization. 
In any case, it is clear that the previous generation 
came to grief on the same issue that confronted ISKCON: 
of forming a unified preaching mission that did not 
depend on the direction of  any one individual but rather 
on a collegial body, functioning cooperatively. Indeed, 
the acarya first established over the main body of the 
Gaudiya Matha suffered the same fate as that which befell 
a number of the ISKCON acaryas: after being raised so 
high, he fell down from the principles of Krishna 
consciousness. From Srila Prabhupada's perspective, all 
these spiritual problems must be considered as the 
consequence of the disciples' disobedience of the order 
of the spiritual master.  
      Because the Gaudiya Matha had failed, Srila 
Prabhupada had to work independently, establishing his 
own society and becoming its sole acarya. Had things gone 
better, he would have been one of many missionaries and 
preachers within a unified Gaudiya mission. In other 
words, Srila Prabhupada's position as the autonomous guru 
at the head of ISKCON, was, from his point of view, a 
second-best arrangement, the consequence of failure. 
      Learning from that failure, Srila Prabhupada set up 
a governing body and watched over its operations as it 
tried to manage the society. He taught the GBC how to 
function. For example, in 1975 he took the body through 
its first regular annual meeting, showing how the GBC 
should strictly follow parliamentary procedure (as set 
forth in Robert's "Rules of Order"), how proposals should
be put forward, discussed, voted upon (Srila Prabhupada 
himself voted on each item, acting as one among many), 
and those that passed entered into a minutes book. As 
time went on he tried to turn as much management over to 
the GBC as possible, intervening only when there were 
crises. He made sure the whole movement understood that 
the GBC was being trained to continue at the head of the 
society after he was gone.  
       The GBC did carry on, and no one had tried to 
establish a single acarya over ISKCON. Yet the division 
of ISKCON into private initiating zones, the installation 
of the exclusive vyasasana, the ritual elevation of the 
gurus far above their own god-brothers, had implicitly 
established eleven acaryas of the traditional 
institutional type, each bearing the same relationship to 
his zone as Srila Prabhupada had borne to the entire 
movement.        
      The manner in which the first eleven were selected 
as gurus became interpreted in accordance with the 
paradigm of the acarya's appointment of a successor to 
the head of his institution. For example, in a book of 
homages to one of the new gurus, published in 1979, we 
read this: "Desiring to prepare his disciples for his 
departure, His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada very wisely 
selected eleven of his most intimate disciples to become 
both his material and spiritual successors." 
       At the same time, a growing number of Srila 
Prabhupada's disciples felt there was something wrong 
with the position of new gurus in ISKCON. Many felt their 
god-brothers, or most of them, anyway--were simply 
unqualified for such a position. Yet when several
acaryas began to engage in questionable or even 
scandalous behavior, it was only with some difficulty 
that the GBC established its right to exercise any 
authority over gurus, who were seen, after all, as Srila 
Prabhupada's hand picked successors. Even after the GBC 
established its authority, its control in most cases 
remained more de jure than de facto. 
       After two gurus, Hamsadutta and Jayatirtha, were 
expelled from ISKCON, many Prabhupada disciples were in 
constant anxiety, fearing it was only a matter of time 
before some one or other of the remaining acaryas fell 
down or deviated. A group centered in California began 
circulating papers around the movement arguing that none 
of Srila Prabhupada's disciples was fit to be an acarya. 
These dissidents refused to believe that Srila Prabhupada 
could have hand-picked to be gurus any of these (to them) 
obviously unqualified people, and they argued that the 
archival tape recording of the May 28, 1977 conversation 
had been doctored by the gurus. This group proposed that 
no one should be initiated in ISKCON until the "self-
effulgent acarya" would emerge. The idea of putting all 
initiations on indefinite hold did not appeal to most 
devotees, however, and this group eventually dissolved.  
      Yet the notion that ISKCON needed a "self- 
effulgent acarya" to lead it adequately became the shared 
presupposition of what I would describe as the extreme 
right and the extreme left. The extreme right constituted 
those partisans who fervently believed that some one or 
the other of the current zonal acaryas, say Kirtanananda 
or Jayatirtha or Bhagavan, was indeed the awaited "self-
effulgent acarya", lacking only full recognition to take 
his place at the head of all ISKCON as Srila Prabhupada's 
legitimate successor, a recognition unfortunatly thwarted 
by "ambitious and envious god-brothers." The extreme left 
was composed of those who held that none of Srila 
Prabhupada's disciples is qualified to be an acarya, and 
until such a qualified acarya emerges and is 
spontaneously recognized by everyone ("self-effulgent") 
no one should claim to be a guru in his own right.         
        In the fall of 1984 a routine meeting of the 
temple presidents of North America turned into a 
collective and public acknowledgement that nearly 
everyone held deep private misgivings about the manner in 
which the position of guru had been established in 
ISKCON. They organized an immediate second meeting to 
further consider the issue, and thus the "guru reform 
movement" was born. With the engagement of a significant 
number of second-tier leaders, men whose loyalty to 
ISKCON was not in doubt, a credible and potent movement 
was established. The temple presidents in North America, 
almost to a man, deeply believed something was 
drastically wrong, yet there was no clear idea of exactly 
what it was. At the second meeting, I was assigned the 
task of preparing a research paper which would precisely 
locate what had gone wrong in the establishment of the 
gurus. 
        In my research, I happened upon a 1978 letter 
written to a GBC member by Pradyuma dasa, a scholarly 
devotee who had been Srila Prabhupada's assistant in his 
translation work and who was familiar with Vaishnava 
traditions; the letter spelled out objections to the 
newly established guru system. That letter provided the 
clue as to the precise problem. Building on Pradyumna's 
insight, I was able to present a paper that combined 
analysis and polemics to argue that in violation of the 
desires of Srila Prabhupada, the traditional post of the 
"institutional acarya" had been established in ISKCON and 
that this acarya system was essentially in conflict with 
the GBC system so carefully established by Srila 
Prabhupada. This paper received the endorsement of the 
North American temple presidents.     
        By this time, the "reform moment" had broadened
among Prabhupada's disciples, far beyond the core group 
of the temple presidents. To many in that movement, the 
really vital issue was not one of structure but of the 
spiritual qualifications, or rather the perceived lack of 
them, in the present gurus. As a leader of the reform 
movement, however, I tried to focus our political effort 
on rectifying the structural problem.  
        I was not blind to the spiritual shortcomings of
some of the gurus. I even recognized that the structural 
problem was in part an institutionalization of a serious 
spiritual defect--that is, unacknowledged personal 
ambition in some of ISKCON's leaders. However, it was 
clear to me that the gurus held no monopoly on spiritual 
deficiency. I was not sure that the reform movement was 
that much purer--as many of the attacks on the gurus were 
weighted by a generous load of envy, vengefulness, and 
ressentiment. In my view, what had gone wrong in ISKCON 
constituted a collective judgment on all of Srila 
Prabhupada's disciples. After all, it is Vaishnava 
doctrine that one advances by the grace of guru, and the 
guru's grace is equally available to all his disciples. 
Those who became gurus were among Srila Prabhupada's 
"best men." If they were not good enough, each critic 
like me had to ask himself: "Why wasn't I any better?" 
Thus the first part of "guru reform" had to be personal 
reformation, a renewed dedication to the cultivation of 
spiritual life by all Srila Prabhupada's disciples, 
reformers most of all. It would not do to try to purify 
ISKCON without purifying oneself.   
        Among those who focused on the lack of qualified 
people to be gurus, some thought the solution was to 
devise a way to continue the movement and yet eliminate 
the position of guru as far as possible. Initiations 
would continue, but the guru would be considered some 
sort of apprentice or merely a formal ecclesiastical 
functionary. To my mind, these people were proposing an 
essential change in the tradition, not merely an 
adaptation to new circumstances. Typically, this group 
also awaited the coming of the "self-effulgent acarya" to 
lead ISKCON, which, in the interregnum, would make do 
with semi- or demi-gurus. Captivated by the image of the 
acarya as an absolute and decisive authority, whose 
judgments were indubitably correct, and needing such a 
person for their own spiritual security, the give-and-
take of a collegial body did not appeal to them any more 
than it appealed to most of the gurus they ostensibly 
opposed.        
       It was my conviction that we could retain in 
ISKCON the full-fledged position of guru, as delineated 
by the Scriptures, a position that did not essentially 
involve being the autonomous autocratic head of an 
institution, did not esentially disallow discussion, 
consultation, revision and adjustment, and did not forbid 
collegial decision-making as a kind of lese majeste.   
         The zonal acarya position had asserted it was 
intrinsic to the position of guru to be absolute, and it 
professed that the gurus would voluntarily sacrifice that 
position for the sake of the movement. This implied that 
by working with a GBC the gurus were doing something 
unnatural or artificial, and of course their "voluntary 
sacrifice" seemed increasing pro forma. To counter this 
conception of the guru, I argued that there was a 
significant way in which it was essential for the bona-
fide guru to be relative. After all, Vaishnava doctrine 
holds that the essential qualifying characteristic of a 
guru is that he strictly follows the order of his guru. 
He never becomes the master, but always remains the 
servant. Consequently, to be qualified to be a guru in 
ISKCON it was essential to strictly follow the order of 
Srila Prabhupada, who had decreed that all of us must 
serve cooperatively under the authority of the GBC. 
Accepting the authority of the GBC board was not a 
voluntary option. Because it was Srila Prabhupada's 
order, it was necessary to guru-hood itself. 
        The first effort of the "guru reform movement" 
was to urge a strengthening commitment to spiritual 
purification on everyone's part. The second effort was to 
persuade the GBC to dismantle the "zonal acarya system" 
efficiently and decisively. We were able to put forward 
two proposals to the GBC, which, taken together, would 
dismantle the system. The first was to make the process 
of receiving authorization to initiate radically more 
open. Initially, the "initiating acarya standing 
committee" had the power to appoint new gurus; in 1982, 
it was changed to a three- fourths vote of the GBC. Up 
until 1986, only some half-dozen new gurus had been added 
(and a couple removed).  
       From my perspective, the central intent of this 
proposal was to eliminate a de facto "property 
requirement" for becoming an initiating guru. Since a 
guru had to have his exclusive initiating zone, one or 
more of the established gurus had to lose territory to 
create a zone for any new gurus. Such a major change, 
sometimes entailing the migration of large numbers of 
disciples, required negotiations at the highest level. 
And many gurus were reluctant to shrink the area of their 
authority. The paradigm of the institutional acarya 
envisioned a zone unified and made coherent by a common 
devotion and submission to a single person. The guru 
zones became more unified than ISKCON as a whole, which 
was becoming increasingly fragmented, turning into a kind 
of amphictyony of independently empowered leaders. The 
paradigm of the reform movement, in contrast, envisioned 
ISKCON temples in which the disciples of many different 
gurus could all work together for their common cause. The 
unifying personality was to be the founder-acarya of the 
institution, Srila Prabhupada, the master of all 
subsequent gurus and disciples. This could be achieved 
only by eliminating the implicit property requirement for 
being a guru, something that would happen if the 
authorizing process were opened up and the number of 
gurus increased.  
      The second proposal was simply that there should be 
only one other vyasasana than Srila Prabhupada's in 
ISKCON temples, and any of the initiating gurus could sit 
on it. This proposal abolished the exclusive vyasasana, 
the symbol of the zonal acarya's sovereignty. It is 
characteristic of religions that symbols and that which 
they symbolize are tightly unified; they could be said to 
interpenetrate. I realized therefore that if the symbol 
of the system is eliminated, it would go far to eliminate 
the system. The destruction of the symbol was a necessary 
if not a sufficient condition for the destruction of the 
reality. The proposal also dealt with a difficulty within 
the reform movement: there was little agreement on what 
to do about the rituals involving the gurus, and a 
particularly militant segment wanted badly to remove all 
symbols of spiritual authority from them. The proposal 
simply to remove the exclusive vyasasana received a 
consensus and satisfied the need to rectify the rituals, 
but it left the further issue of guru-ritual until later. 
It was surgically precise. It would do the job.        
      Eventually, both these proposal were put into 
effect by the GBC. There are now fifty-odd initiating 
gurus in ISKCON, all of them serving under GBC direction 
and fully accountable to the GBC. ISKCON regulations go 
out of their way to assure that new members are able to 
freely decided who their guru will be, and most temples 
have a diverse mix of disciples of different gurus 
working together. I believe we now have a movement 
organized the way Srila Prabhupada wanted it. That by 
itself does not guarantee purity of the members, but it 
is a necessary condition for it.   
     It has taken time for confidence in ISKCON to be 
restored. The reform movement was consolidated in 1987, 
when four more fallen or deviated gurus were removed and 
fifteen new members were elected to the GBC, among them 
leaders of the reform movement. For a number of devotees, 
the loss of faith in ISKCON leadership, the spectacular 
fall of six gurus, called into question their faith in 
Srila Prabhupada, although such a doubt was usually 
unacknowledged and unarticulated. They could not believe 
Srila Prabhupada had intended the original eleven to be 
gurus, and the "appointment tape" continued to be 
reinterpreted. The left-wing challenge to gurus has 
undergone two further incarnations, resting on conspiracy 
theories, stories of suppressed instructions of Srila 
Prabhupada, whom they claim wanted the "officiating guru" 
system to continue after his demise, so that Prabhupada, 
(contrary to all Vaishnava teaching), would continue to 
initiate disciples posthumously. These stories have been 
crafted to get Prabhupada "off the hook."  
      There is a failure to appreciate the problem Srila 
Prabhupada faced in his last days. We can be sure that he 
knew his own disciples better than they knew themselves; 
he had no illusions about their spiritual qualification. 
Yet they were pressing for a selection of successor 
gurus, the ultimate position to the ambitious. Hamsadutta 
and Kirtanananda had already been rebuked by Srila 
Prabhupada for receiving guru-puja "in the presence of 
the spiritual master," a serious transgression. Without 
any indication from Srila Prabhupada in this manner, 
there would likely have been chaos. Yet Srila Prabhupada 
clearly did not want to give his sanction to unfit 
people, a spiritual error. So he selected them without 
endorsing them. In response to the question of initiation 
after his departure, Srila Prabhupada gave a list of 
"officiating gurus," designating them in an indirect or 
oblique manner. He expected them to become "regular 
gurus" in the future, but there was no "hand-picking of 
successors," no laying on of hands or anointing with oil, 
no transfer of power to some special and exclusive group. 
He also knew that some, like Kirtanananda, would initiate 
with or without his sanction, so he named them. If not 
there would likely have been a schism in 1978 instead of 
1987. To me, Srila Prabhupada's solution was brilliant, 
the best that could have been done under the 
circumstances. The result would depend upon Krishna.   
     I have come to recognise that what ISKCON had to 
achieve, through much conflict and suffering, was no easy 
thing. The problem is to take an ancient religious 
tradition, long isolated from the impact of modernity, 
and retrofit it for the modern world while at the same 
time transplanting it from its native soil into multiple 
outside cultures and civilizations--all without vitiating 
or distorting its essential practices and doctrines. The 
process has been the endeavor of two generations, and it 
is far from complete.  
       I joined ISKCON for spiritual life and not 
anything else. At the time, I did not know what would 
become of that part of myself that was an academically 
trained scholar of religion. But Krishna has both used 
and instructed that part, giving me a ring-side seat to a 
fascinating instance of dynamic religious growth and 
change. My life in ISKCON has had unsurpassably wonderful 
times and times of abysmal torment and dread, but in any 
case not one day has failed to be consummately 
interesting.        
       Our work of reform and renewal continues. It has 
to be perpetual. As part of that work, ISKCON is 
beginning to look back at itself, engaging in its own 
process of honestly coming to terms with its past. Only 
by so doing can it have a viable and progressive future.  
 

Delivered as a lecture at, "Twenty-five years of ISKCON
in Germany," held in Wiesbaden, Germany, 29th. January
1994, organised by the vaishnava Academy, Bonn.   
 
Ravindra Svarupa das was initiated by Shrila Prabhupada 
in 1971. He has been a member of ISKCONs Governing 
Body Commission since 1987, he is currently also the 
president of ISKCON Philadelphia, and an initiating 
guru. He holds an MA and Ph.D. in Religion from Temple 
University and a BA in philosophy from the University 
of Pennsylvania.

Copyright by ISKCON Communications Journal 1994. 
