Thema: 31 - BBC Glorifies Srila Prabhupada to the World
Datum: 26.08.00 11:46:48 (MEZ) - Mitteleurop. Sommerzeit
From: Adri@cwcom.net (Adridharan das)
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;;

Newsletter of the Iskcon Revival Movement (IRM) Issue 31

1. BBC Glorifies Srila Prabhupada to the World
2. Blasphemous GBC Boasts that Srila Prabhupada "is Dead"
3. Classic Quotes


1. BBC Glorifies Srila Prabhupada to the World
It really is amazing what faith in Srila Prabhupada's lotus feet can do. It
can move mountains. Here we are in the midst of ISKCON's worst publicity
nightmare - with the movement facing a 400 million dollar lawsuit for child
abuse - and the world's largest and most famous media organisation
approaches an IRM follower to broadcast the glories of Srila Prabhupada and
Krishna to the world!

On August 22 at 12:45 pm GMT, and on August 23 (which was, of course, the
festival of Sri Krishna Janmastami) at 5:45 pm GMT *and* 11:45 pm GMT, (GMT
= Greenwich Mean Time) the BBC World Service broadcast three 15-minute shows
on Lord Krishna's Advent. The astonishing fact is that according to official
reports the World Service reaches a staggering 150 MILLION LISTENERS, a
significant proportion of whom will have caught at least one of the 3
programmes. Indeed the show's producer estimates that *each* of the three
programmes was listened to by over 100 million people around the world. The
person who put the show together was UK IRM member Deepak Vohra who has been
working with the BBC for sometime (see later). The main piece of the
show was a dramatic presentation of the birth of Lord Krishna, which had
been written by another UK IRM member Yaduraja Das, and which was based on
Srila Prabhupada's Krishna Book.The play allowed everyone to hear about the
transcendental birth of Lord Krishna, and as Lord Krishna states in the
Bhagavad Gita:

"One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities
does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material
world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna."
(Bhagavad Gita, 4:9)

However a special Janmastami present for the world was that Deepak also
managed to add an introduction glorifying Srila Prabhupada, as well as the
congregational chanting of Hare Krishna both at the beginning and at the end
of the show. We cannot imagine a more auspicious start to the first
Janmastami of the new millennium, as the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra
was heard simultaneously all over the planet. Millions of people from
Northern Europe to Southern Afghanistan will have heard the glories of
Prabhupada and Krishna for the first time, on the actual day of Lord Sri
Krishna's Advent over 5000 years ago.

The following is an extract from the introduction to the show that was
broadcast, which allowed us to glorify Srila Prabhupada to the world:


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"...In the West, too, the festival of Janmastami is also widely celebrated
by devotees of ISKCON - the International Society for Krishna Consciousness,
more commonly known as the Hare Krishna movement. It's a worldwide
missionary movement established nearly 40 years ago by India's greatest
saint and spiritual emissary - His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada.

His mission was to lead people throughout the world back to a spiritual
existence based on India's ancient Vedic scriptures. Prabhupada taught that
Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and that the goal of life is
to reawaken our forgotten loving relationship with Krishna, primarily
through chanting His Names.

"Although Prabhupada only lived for a further 12 years after going to the
West from India in 1965, he ensured that his spiritual legacy would continue
through his books and instructions to guide and teach, and to take
disciples."

"In this programme, we'll hear part of the story of Lord Krishna's Advent
based on the books of Swami Prabhupada. The Supreme Personality of Godhead,
Krishna, who is the cause and shelter of the entire cosmic creation. We
believe that God has incarnated in the sound of His Holy Names which can
conquer all evil. That's why at Janmastami you'll hear the Hare Krishna
mantra being chanted in temples all over the world."

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Please note that though the GBC are keen to promote throughout ISKCON that
Srila Prabhupada is 'dead', (please see the shocking next article) at least
the BBC have now informed hundreds of million of people throughout the world
that:

"Although Prabhupada only lived for a further 12 years after going to the
West from India in 1965, he ensured that his spiritual legacy would
*continue* through his books and instructions to guide and teach, and to
***take disciples***.

Its official - Srila Prabhupada lives, and he is continuing to teach and
take disciples! After all how much more official can you get than having
this fact announced by the BBC, the most famous and reputable broadcaster in
the world. People still say today that - "it must be true, since I heard in
on the BBC"!

The driving force behind the BBC broadcast Sriman Deepak Vohra, an UK IRM
congregational grhastha devotee, describes how the project came about:

"I've been broadcasting Krishna conscious programmes with the BBC World
Service Religion Department for nearly 10 years now. It's not my main job,
though. I work as the Head of Marketing in the London office of an American
newspaper publishing and media organisation. In 1991, I went along to a
training day at the BBC where I presented a script on the philosophy of
Krishna consciousness. They were suitably impressed that they called me in
again a few weeks later to actually broadcast a series of programmes on
Vaishnavism. The programmes weren't very long, so I suggested they might
want to consider a more theatrical presentation of the philosophy. So, I
adapted the First Canto of the Bhagavatam for a half-hour
semi-dramatisation. Just imagine, for half-an-hour the airwaves were filled

with the sublime conversations between Sukadeva Goswami and Maharaja
Pariksit, and Suta Goswami and the Sages at Naimisaranya! Actually, it was
more than half-an-hour because the programme was repeated a few more times.
Then a new producer came in and wanted to do more of the same. This time, I
decided to give the bulk of the project to Yaduraja das, another UK IRM
member, and a very nice devotee, brilliant actor and scriptwriter, and
infinitely more talented than me! We decided to produce "The Advent of Lord
Krishna" for radio. Yaduraja wrote the majority of the script and rounded up
devotees from the Bhaktivedanta Players theatre troupe from the
Bhaktivedanta Manor temple. The production was so well received, that the
producer was dying for us to do more. However when this ISKCON child abuse
scandal broke, I thought that was the end of our relationship with the BBC
World Service, particularly because they - like every other media
organisation - had carried news items on the child abuse lawsuit.


Indeed only a few weeks ago, the BBC came to the Manor to interview the
devotees about their reaction to the child abuse affair. And very recently
in the UK, we've had the photographs and addresses of convicted paedophiles
splashed across the front pages of the newspapers, and mobs of a hundred
people or more have taken to the streets and physically attacked these child
abusers and their homes. So you don't expect the world's biggest
broadcaster to be knocking on your door asking you to glorify Krishna when
that same organisation has covered in its news items the horrific abuse
perpetrated by so-called devotees of Krishna. But I firmly believe that when
you put Srila Prabhupada in the centre of your devotional life, then all
obstacles to glorify Krishna and His pure devotee are immediately smashed.
And I also felt that Srila Prabhupada had *personally* blessed this project
because there is a very specific purport in the First Canto of the
Bhagavatam about using modern technology, in particular the radio, to
broadcast glories of the Lord:

""In modernized human society there are great advancements of material
science, and they have invented the radio to distribute sound in the air. So
instead of vibrating some nuisance sound for sense enjoyment, if the state
arranges to distribute transcendental sound by resounding the holy name,
fame and activities of the Lord, as they are authorized in the Bhagavad Gita
or Srimad-Bhagavatam, then a favourable condition will be created, the
principles of religion will be re-established, and thus the executive heads,
who are so anxious to drive away corruption from the world, will be
successful. Nothing is bad if properly used for the service of the Lord.""
(Srimad Bhagavatam 1.18.6, purport)

I think this purport is particularly apt because we are literally
*broadcasting* the glories of the Lord! The Executive Producer of the
Religious Broadcasting Unit said he definitely planned to do more,
and even *lengthier* productions with myself and Yaduraja.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Sri Sri Radha Gokulananda!"

This amazing preaching project is the just the latest in a series of efforts
by the ISKCON Revival Movement to glorify both our Spiritual Master, His
Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and the Supreme Lord Sri
Krishna. As our previous newsletters have detailed, the IRM has gone from
strength to strength in establishing all over the world the status of Srila
Prabhupada as the eternal Guru for ISKCON. In the space of just *a few
months* we have:

* Opened a brand new preaching centre in Manhattan, dedicated specifically
to re-igniting book distribution on the streets of Manhattan, as per Srila
Prabhupada's instructions.

* Preached the glories of Krishna to the massive Chinese community in
Singapore for the first time in history, through cultural and educational
programmes sponsored by the government authorities there

* Held the biggest Rathayatra festival of all time - this year over 1.5
million people came together in Calcutta (Srila Prabhupada's birthplace) to
worship Lord Jagannath and Srila Prabhupada

* Witnessed the flowering of the biggest temple and preaching project in
India, namely the ISKCON Bangalore temple headed by IRM Secretary, Madhu
Pandit das

* Conducted a hugely successful nationwide media campaign in India to defend
the honour and reputation of Srila Prabhupada so disgracefully dragged
through the mud due to the misdeeds of the ISKCON leadership involved in the
current child abuse lawsuit

* Established a permanent memorial plaque in honour of Srila Prabhupada in
Tompkins Square Park, New York, where Prabhupada began the sankirtan
movement in the West in 1966.


While all these achievements have been on national scales, the BBC programme
is the start of our *global* mission to glorify and reinstate Srila
Prabhupada as the Guru for not only ISKCON, but the whole planet!


So there you have it. This BBC project is yet another arrangement by Krishna
to both glorify Prabhupada and once again ignite a spiritual revolution in
the hearts and minds of people throughout the world. And this in the midst
of the darkest period for ISKCON.



2. Blasphemous GBC Boasts that Srila Prabhupada "is Dead"

As we have seen from the above story, whenever the IRM presents something in
the media, it is with the *positive* aim of informing the whole world that
Srila Prabhupada *LIVES* and that he is still to be glorified and worshipped
today. Please contrast this with the GBC Gurus use of the media. As we will
see from the following shocking press release that was published throughout
India on the FRONT PAGE of a national newspaper, Jayapataka Swami boasts how
he has managed to get the Asian Age - a national Indian newspaper - to
print an article he wrote, in which it is stated that Srila Prabhupada is
"dead".


----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Jayapataka.Swami@pamho.net [mailto:Jayapataka.Swami@pamho.net]
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2000 10:12 PM
To: ICI (ISKCON Communications India); Anuttama (das) ACBSP (IC N.America);
Amrta Gaurangi (dd) JPS (Mayapur - IN); Parijata (dd) RNS (IC Mumbai - IN)
Subject: News article responding to Adri's Asian Age interview

Home Base: Sri Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir, Navadwip Dham, Nadia, WB, INDIA

The following article was published on the Front Page of Today's Asian Age
Newspaper. I copied this off of internet where it is also still there today.
It is in response to Adri's interview against ISKCON leadership and pro-IRM.
Shankarshan das and Nitai Prasad das delivered the press release and
cultivated the press. I drafted the press release and it was edited by our
lawyers. The newspaper edited it themselves as they always do. Still the
main
gist is there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Front Page ---- Asian Age news. 24th July, 2000.
Iskcon: What are we to do with Ritvikism?
By Dhiman Chattopadhyay and Kounteya Sinha
Calcutta, July 23

On the defensive for months after the sex abuse scandal rocked their world,
authorities at the Iskcon Mayapur Ashram have now struck back with a
vengeance at their Calcutta counterparts, the Iskcon Revival Movement. The
Mayapur general manager has ridiculed the revival movement president's
doctrine of "Ritvikism" calling it "a strange and concocted idea". In a
signed statement issued to all Krishna bhaktas around the world, Mayapur
general manager Dham Nitai Prasad Dasa has accused revival movement
president Adridharana Dasa of "behaving in a deviant manner" and unleashing
an onslaught of false, offensive, and derogatory publicity". Mr Adridharana
Dasa is propagating a delusive doctrine known as Ritvikism, where he
believes that all devotees wanting to receive diksha within Iskcon should
still receive it from founder-acharya of Iskcon, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada, Srila Prabhupada, and become his direct disciples, in spite of
*** him being dead for the last 23 years ***," the letter says.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please note that though Jayapataka Swami claims that the Asian Age 'edited'
the press release he wrote, here they are quoting *directly* from the press
release in question. And Jayapataka Swami does not object to what has been
written, rather he boasts to everyone how the 'main gist' is there - with
the main gist being that Srila Prabhupada has been 'dead for the last 23
years' - so that we must instead approach impostor Gurus such as himself.

It also seems ludicrous that persons could possibly accuse the IRM of being
'offensive' when it is pieces such as the above which are given the GBC/Guru
rubber stamp. It seems that in the above article, Jayapataka Swami's envy
for Srila Prabhupada has forced him to object to the idea that devotees may
prefer to take Diksa from Srila Prabhupada rather than him by emphasising in
such graphic terms Srila Prabhupada's supposed defect compared to him -
"hey, don't you know that he has been dead for the last 23 years!"

Please compare the 2 media 'stories' above. They could not be more different
in terms of their glorification and appreciation of Srila Prabhupada's
contribution to the world.
One states that he *continues* to live. The other states that he has been
'dead for the last 23 years'.



3. Classic Quotes

In this regular column we shall be highlighting the bizarre and
contradictory world of our GBC and 'Gurus', who have occupied Srila
Prabhupada's position on the pretext of being able to guide us out of
darkness and back to Godhead. However as this column will show over the
coming weeks, these personalities would be better advised coming into the
light themselves, and to move out of the way from blocking the clear and
transcendental light which is emanating directly from Srila Prabhupada.
Physician heal thyself!


*** Classic Quote - No. 4 ***


*GBC Chairman States ISKCON Has No Brain*

"I also have my own views on the application of varnasrama-dharma, for I too
have thought about the subject, but I assure you, that whatever I speak or
write will not go uncontested by someone else in ISKCON. Nevertheless, I
will venture here to propose the major reasons why ISKCON is having such a
difficult time coming to grips with this matter. *** The first and foremost
is that ISKCON - I put it starkly - has no brain ***."
("ISKCON and Varnasrama Dharma: A Mission Unfulfilled", GBC Chairman,
Ravindra Svarupa Dasa, 29/1/99)

I would venture to suggest that maybe our esteemed chairman deserves
the award for the 'Understatement of the century', for this little gem! And
we hate to point out the obvious - but if ISKCON has 'no brain' - then isn't
it even remotely possible, that the GBC could have got it all wrong when
they decided that Srila Prabhupada was 'dead', and that instead they should
replace him as substitute Gurus? Stranger things have been known to happen!
And yet the ONE thing that the GBC are claiming that they could not possibly
be wrong on, which they have concluded through the use of something OTHER
than a brain - which we have now been informed they do not possess - is that
one way or another Srila Prabhupada definitely wanted himself to be replaced
by his disciples as successor diksa gurus in ISKCON.


Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter, and please keep your
letters, and e-mail addresses of other devotees who should be added to our
list, flowing in. A hard copy of our main position paper 'The Final Order'
is available on request. All other IRM papers can be accessed through the
EDITORIAL SECTION of the IRM website at

http://www.come.to/irm


Your comments, questions and feedback are appreciated. Please write to me at
adri@cwcom.net

Your Servant, Adridharan das

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