nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
Dear Srila Prabhupada,
Please accept my humble obeisances unto the dust of your lotus feet, and All Glories to Your Divine Grace.
This year is historic as Krishna showered His mercy on this planet by providing an amazing opportunity to its inhabitants. By the monumental judgement of the honourable Supreme Court on 16 May 2025, upholding ISKCON Bangalore's claim, Krishna mercifully solidified the rarest opportunity possible for a human being in this age.
That opportunity is that anyone on this planet can take shelter at your lotus feet and become your proper Diksha disciple.
That opportunity is that Srila Prabhupada can be a diksha guru for anyone who wants to become attracted to Krishna.
That opportunity is to be part of Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON, just as Srila Prabhupada ran ISKCON.
That opportunity is that anyone can fearlessly hear your Transcendental Vani, your pastimes, and practice devotion to you, even while practising under the ISKCON brand.
That opportunity is that anyone can discuss and practice the 9 July 1977 directive, "Ritvik," and initiation from you directly without fear of offences.
That opportunity is to get freedom from "re-initiations," "guru fall downs," and anxiety over the guru's well-being!
That opportunity is to free oneself from the self-appointed Guru system and its continuous experiments.
That opportunity is to be free from concocted theories of Guru Parampara, like "a diksha guru can fall," A diksha guru should be physically present," etc.
That opportunity is to freely spread the glories of you and Krishna with a simple organisational framework that Srila Prabhupada set up free from awkward and bureaucratic structures.
That opportunity is that ISKCON can be free from self-appointed Gurus and their awkward activities and can expand steadily all over the world with Srila Prabhupada as the centre, and thus giving everyone a chance to become a lover of Krishna.
Finally, that opportunity is for ISKCON to become stronger year by year, generation by generation, by steadily increasing its disciples without the fear of losing any of its strong soldiers due to the fall of self-appointed gurus. ISKCON can emerge as a global force, finally!
When you were physically present, you made more than 10,000 disciples and strong soldiers who are passionate about expanding ISKCON worldwide. However, as per the report of the VNN, ISKCON lost a lot of its initial army:
“By the next 10 years, only about 500 of Srila Prabhupada's disciples were left in the movement. The rest were new disciples of the 11 self proclaimed gurus.” (VNN, 10 October 1999, by Tarun Krishna Dasa)
Imagine the force of ISKCON if Srila Prabhupada's first generation army of 10,000 disciples survives in ISKCON! In the last 50 years, these 10,000 Army would have multiplied Srila Prabhupada's disciples to lakhs and even crores! But, alas, what a loss to ISKCON due to some selfish and self-appointed gurus.
Due to this impractical, unauthorised, and offensive guru system, many sincere disciples of Srila Prabhupada left ISKCON, and that trend continues even today. As a Guru falls, ISKCON loses thousands of its army and worst, these disgruntled members may even file cases on ISKCON. Further loss of time, money and energy of ISKCON.
ISKCON's apparent growth and expansion are like bubbles in an ocean. Sometimes bubbles grow to a large size but burst soon. Similarly, ISKCON may experience a growth bubble centred around a self-appointed guru, and, as everyone knows, it can burst at any time with the guru's fall or death. When you go on increasing gurus, the illusion of growth appears everywhere, but ultimately, ISKCON never benefits permanently from such bubbles.
In ISKCON, everything appears to be happening under the banners of "Tradition" and "Physical presence," which have no basis in the transcendental practice of Krishna consciousness.
Srila Prabhupada rejected mundane traditions and introduced the tradition of utilising everything in the service of expanding the Lord's Holy Name. He altered traditional practices (while preserving the principles) to serve Lord Chaitanya's mission. Srila Prabhupada's orders are the tradition of ISKCON. No other mundane tradition, however much it is glorified, can be proposed against Srila Prabhupada's desires and wishes.
Coming to physical presence, Srila Prabhupada said during his physical presence:
"Yes, I am so glad that your center is doing so well and all the devotees are now appreciating the presence of their Spiritual Master by following His instructions although He is no longer physically present—this is the right spirit." (Letter to Karandhara -- Calcutta 13 September, 1970)
Srila Prabhupada upholds the presence of the Guru by Vani rather than waiting for physical presence! The right spirit is to cultivate the presence of the Spiritual Master by Vani.
Without considering these key concepts and the final wishes of Srila Prabhupada, self-appointed Gurus have taken on bizarre roles, starting with Zonal Acharya and culminating in City Acharyas in recent months. Their shameless activities have ruined the ISKCON of talented Vaishnavas who got pulled into the offensive guru system. With ISKCON GBC not taking any responsibility for self-appointed gurus (they only provide NOCs for gurus) and Gurus not taking any responsibility for the deliverance of their disciples, ISKCON is left with an unaccountable and irresponsible layer in its organisational structure, which is against the laws of material nature. This unauthorised guru system, lacking accountability, is such a pain in the organisation that it creates all sorts of troubles: spiritual, social, moral, financial, and everything else an organisation has to deal with.
Why are such talented devotees with millions of online views unable to understand these key concepts? Srila Prabhupada explains:
“So these two things are always side by side—Maya and Krsna—Krsna is service and Maya is sense gratification, so every moment we are prone to be subjugated by either of them. Our duty is therefore to be very, very careful. The poison is personal ambition.” (Srila Prabhupada letter, 1 November 1970)"
“We have worked very hard and established a great institution, but if we think for our personal benefit then it will become ruined. This is my only concern.” (Letter to Cyavana -- Bombay, 1 November, 1974)
With Krishna's blessings on this planet, ISKCON has hope. With Bangalore winning the case, Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON will emerge and become a global force, delivering millions of eagerly waiting souls with the Holy Name, Prasādam, and transcendental teachings, thus bestowing eternal life with surety and steadiness. Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON will grow by accumulating an army of unified and committed disciples of one Spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada!
There is one interesting conversation with Srila Prabhupada about whether his true disciples can spread the movement all over the world:
Upendra: We may develop at least maybe half of your energy to continuously preach someday?
Prabhupāda: Continuously?
Śyāmasundara: He says that someday he hopes that the devotees, your disciples, may acquire half of the energy that you have for preaching.
Prabhupada: Why not full, or double? You may have doubled.
Upendra: It's inconceivable.
Prabhupada: Just like my Guru Mahārāja did not travel all over the world, so I have got double energy than him. So you must triple energy, four times energy than me. Then actually disciple. My Godbrothers are envious because they could not do. They could not do even half of Guru Mahārāja's work, and I am doing ten times. So therefore they are envious. So if an ordinary man like me can do ten times, you are Americans---[laughs] twenty times, then you are successful.
Devotee (1): If we can do twenty times, it's only because you gave us the energy.
Prabhupāda: Yes. My blessings are there; you do it, try. Just like Guru Mahārāja gave blessings to everyone, but if they do not try, if they remain Kuñja Babu, then let him remain Kuñja Babu. What can be done? If he's satisfied only one building in Māyāpur and two buildings in Vṛndāvana, that is his only ambition. The ambition is poor." (720402 - Conversation - Sydney)
Srila Prabhupada's blessings are already with his disciples. He says that our ambition should not be poor, and we should try. Srila Prabhupada and Gauranga will take care of the rest to produce astonishing results.
“Yes, as I have taken this work as my life and soul on the order of my Spiritual Master, similarly if you take my desires as life and soul, then the whole thing is immediately connected with Krsna. That is the meaning of Parampara system.” (Letter to Bali Mardana, 15 July 70)
One is in Parampara, if one takes one's desires regarding the initiation system as directed by the 9 July 1977 directive to the entire movement, to expand the mission of Lord Chaitanya all over the world.
Actually, in Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON, everything is done by Srila Prabhupada, even now, in a transcendent manner. We all assist him in his endeavours to fulfil his guru's desires.
We do not qualify to serve Sri Radha Krishna; we can only assist Srila Prabhupada, who mercifully gave us some assisting services. Srila Prabhupada explained:
“Yes, you do not know how to serve Krishna, so you simply assist your guru--we must always think like this, that I do not know how to serve Radha and Krishna, but my Spiritual Master knows so I am assisting him.” (Letter to Madhavananda, Tokyo, 25 April 72)
On this auspicious day of your appearance, please bless us with the capacity to think big and endeavour to spread the dust of your lotus feet so that humanity can turn its attention towards the Lotus feet of the Lord.
I beg your Divine Grace to forgive me for all the offences I have committed at your lotus feet and keep me always in your service. I also beg all my godbrothers to forgive me for any offences I have committed against them so that I can improve my services to you.
Your insignificant servant,
Satya Gaura Chandra Dasa,
GBC Member & President, Hare Krishna Movement – Hyderabad.