Challenging the Zonal Acarya System, Part 5

BY: SUN EDITORS - 9.5 2023

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"IT'S NOT AT ALL GOING WELL" – THE CALCUTTA DREAM

All initiated disciples of Srila Prabhupada are aware of his statements to the effect that, after his disappearance, dreams about him may be taken as reality. We present the following example not to just whimsically grab everywhere and anywhere for verifications of our conclusions, but because the time and circumstance of this specific dream is very unique. There are those who accept this dream, there are those who have twisted it, and there are those who utterly reject it. Nevertheless, in regard to this most important item of Srila Prabhupada's pleasure or displeasure with the new guru situation, those who accept this dream feel strongly that His Divine Grace may have used this Calcutta businessman to say something about the present affair.

The background substance and aftermath of this dream is as follows. A Calcutta life member, who very infrequently visits the West Bengal ISKCON temples, saw Srila Prabhupada in his dream one night while visiting the Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir. His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada appeared to this man in the form which this man knew previously. The Calcutta businessman had only met Srila Prabhupada once, during Prabhupada's early years of sannyasa. Prabhupada travelled throughout India at that time, collecting rather meager donations on the street for his preaching activities and subsistence. At the time of that meeting, this man had given Srila Prabhupada a small donation of about two rupees. So, in this dream, Prabhupada looked relatively young compared to how we remember him looking. Prabhupada said to the man, "Do you remember me?" The man replied affirmatively, "Yes. You are that nice sadhu I gave a donation to that day in Calcutta." Prabhupada then said, "So, How are you?" The man replied that he was fine. Then Prabhupada asked, "And how is ISKCON?" The man replied casually with the automatic response, "It is fine." Then Srila Prabhupada changed his form in the dream. He now looked as we remember him. "No," he said. "It's not at all going well. I have simply given these men a service, and now they are sitting on elevated seats. This is disturbing my disciples within the movement. And now they are saying they have become acarya. They will not be accepted unless they take up some menial services." [-->]

The Calcutta businessman was very affected by this vivid dream. The next morning, since he could only speak Hindi, he elected to first detail this dream to a foreign devotee of long-standing service there, who took care of secretarial duties and also knew fluent Hindi. The man detailed it to him only, and then left. As fate would have it, this dream took place late last fall, right during the time that Giriraj's letter was "creating a controversy" all over the ISKCON movement. The Calcutta businessman knew nothing of the inner workings of our movement or the controversy. That he may have been used as an instrument in the hands of Srila Prabhupada, someone who could not be accused of having any political motive and therefore dismissed, is apparent. The ways of the Supreme are sometimes strange and mysterious.

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There is some disagreement as to the exact wording of the exchanges in this dream. To exactly record the discussion would require a personal interview with this Calcutta resident. Nevertheless, we have not changed the contents or concepts of this dream. The discussion touched more issues than we have recorded here, and we have not attempted to do anything with those. Simply we have presented the core of this dream's message in a guileless way.