ISKCON and Christianity
By editor - 5.12 2024
Table of Contents
1 Basic Principles and Differences
1.1 Introverted and Extroverted Religions
1.2 Big Differences in the Religious Values
1.3 Summary and Overview of the Article
2 Problematic History of Christianity
2.1 Falsely Equating Jesus to Christianity
2.2 Equating Jesus to God and Christ to Kṛṣṇa
2.3 Prabhupāda Did Not Know Western History
3 Blind Replication of Christian Practices
3.1 The Perpetuation of Christian Mythology
3.2 Organizational Corruption of ISKCON
3.3 Revolving Door of Gurus and Disciples
4 Unnecessary Bad Western Influences
4.1 Intellectual Corruption of Kṛṣṇa Bhakti
4.2 The Liberal Conception of Christianity
4.3 ISKCON Co-Opted Liberal Christianity
5 How Christianity Leads ISKCON Astray
5.1 Co-Opting Christian Ideas and Practices
5.2 Why ISKCON Has No Hope in the West
5.3 The Genuine Path to Kṛṣṇa Bhakti
6 How Western Society Deludes Itself
6.1 Adverse Influence of Propaganda
6.2 Deep Attachments to Christianity
6.3 Rowing a Boat Tied to the Shore
Basic Principles and Differences
Introverted and Extroverted Religions
From its very inception, Kṛṣṇa Bhakti in the West has been understood as more-or-less like Christianity. In an earlier article, I discussed two reasons for this—(a) Kṛṣṇa Bhakti is seen as monotheism, different from pagan religions, such as Hinduism, and (b) Kṛṣṇa Bhakti is treated as spirituality, but separated from morality, just as in Christianity. But there is an even deeper reason for this equivocation—the idea of a golden age arriving under Christianity due to the spreading of the Gospel of Christ is similar to the idea of a golden age arriving under Kṛṣṇa Bhakti due to the chanting of the holy names of Kṛṣṇa. By equating the ideas of a golden age, Kṛṣṇa Bhakti could be equated to Christianity.
Despite these similarities, Christianity and Kṛṣṇa Bhakti are fundamentally opposed. Christianity attributes problems and solutions to others: We are suffering due to the sins of Adam and Eve, our sins are forgiven by the crucifixion of Jesus, and the golden age will arrive after everyone accepts that Jesus died for our sins. Kṛṣṇa Bhakti attributes problems and solutions to ourselves: We are suffering due to our sins, the results of our sins have to be endured, we have to stop sinning, and the sinless go to the spiritual world. Kṛṣṇa Bhakti focuses on changing oneself to become sinless and Christianity focuses on changing others to accept the forgiveness of sins.
When Prabhupāda, a self-realized personality, went to the West to impart the science of changing oneself, the extroverted Christian ideas of conversion mixed with the introverted Kṛṣṇa Bhakti ideas of self-realization, and as conversion was prioritized over self-realization, Kṛṣṇa Bhakti began transforming into Christianity. The perceived similarities between these two are false since (a) Kṛṣṇa Bhakti is not monotheism because God has infinite forms based on our mood of devotion, (b) we cannot separate spirituality from morality because spirituality stands upon morality, (c) journey of self-transformation is much harder and longer than converting others, (d) the world won’t end even after the golden age in Kṛṣṇa Bhakti, which means that most people won’t take to it, or abandon it after taking it, due to the hardship in self-transformation, (e) one goes to the spiritual world based on self-transformation rather than converting others, and (f) only those who have transformed themselves can truly convince others about self-transformation since preaching is effective only after practicing.
All the above differences are rooted in the introverted vs. extroverted difference. Self-transformation is a necessary but not sufficient condition to transform others. We are in this world because of who we are, not what someone else did. All problems and solutions are external in Christianity and internal in Kṛṣṇa Bhakti. The cause is deep inside and the external world is an effect of the cause within. If we keep seeking external solutions we can never solve any problem. If we equate Kṛṣṇa Bhakti and Christianity, we will create numerous problems and never solve them.
Big Differences in the Religious Values
In the Vedic tradition, the idea of changing oneself makes Brahmanas (who have changed themselves) the leaders of society, above and distinct from the Kṣatriyas (who wield power to defend society). The Kṣatriyas work under the guidance of the Brahmanas. However, in Christianity, these two merge to become a theocracy. The idea of changing oneself is replaced by the idea of converting others, and the idea of defending society is replaced by that of attacking others. The theocratic system not only merges two classes into one but becomes its very antithesis. Outwardly, a theocratic system looks just like a Brahmanical system. But inwardly it destroys the Brahmanas. This is because when the two classes are merged, the process of controlling others is emphasized over the process of controlling oneself.
Śrila Prabhupāda who brought Kṛṣṇa Bhakti to the West, envisioned a separation between Brahmanas as gurus (teachers) and Kṣatriyas as GBCs (managers). During his lifetime, he was the teacher controlling the managers. He wanted managers to gradually become teachers, renounce management, and teach. However, after his departure, the erstwhile GBCs merged these two roles into a theocracy, just like Christianity. After that, they deemphasized teaching and emphasized managing. The emphasis on self-transformation became marginal and that on converting others gained greater importance. Self-realization was not the key criterion for someone to lead ISKCON. The capacity to run a theocratic organization became the key criterion. A good leader was identified not by his ability to improve followers. He or she was identified by his ability to increase followers. Quantity replaced quality.
Of the six qualities of Viṣṇu, Brahmanas value knowledge and renunciation, the Kṣatriyas value power and influence, the Vaisyas value wealth and beauty, and the Sudras value serving the above three to grow all values. As the values of Brahmanas were marginalized, the values of Kṣatriyas gained prominence, and the Vedic value system was replaced by the Christian value system. It was easier to change people’s dresses and harder to change their values. Outwardly things looked Vedic and inwardly they were Christian. The deeper realm is reality; its outward manifestation is an appearance. Changing appearance without changing reality is a deception.
Summary and Overview of the Article
In this article, I will discuss the history of Christianity, its theocratization at the hands of Romans, its ideology of conversion of the world that ushers in a golden age, its political mythologies of religious leadership, the Western adoption of liberalism as a solution to religious conflicts created by exclusivism, how liberalism destroys the pursuit of truth, and yet, how these were coopted in ISKCON uncritically, and how they have rained havoc on Kṛṣṇa Bhakti in the West. ISKCON leaders in the West have never tried to separate themselves from Christianity because they are themselves emulating Christianity. Their worldview is essentially Christian, even if they have outwardly changed their dress. Their inability to change their worldview ensures that as Christianity declines in the West, ISKCON that emulates it will do the same.
ISKCON in India, or other parts of the world, is not very different as it was initially managed by the Western leaders who enforced their theocratic ideologies on ISKCON. As the theocrats dominate the organization, the pursuit of knowledge and self-transformation is replaced by the pursuit of converting others and expanding an organization. With every passing day, ISKCON moves farther from the Vedic tradition and closer to Christianity. Unless it changes course, its fate will be that of Christianity.
Toward the end of his life, Śrila Prabhupāda became more and more skeptical about the future prospects of ISKCON. He once said ISKCON cannot be destroyed from the outside but it can be destroyed from the inside. At another time, he said that 90% of his followers would leave ISKCON. Later, he said that his books shall continue but his movement may die. Śri Caitanya’s forecast about the holy name being chanted all over the world pertains to prachār (propagation), not āchār (behavior). These are meant to caution people that a golden age is not guaranteed unless we are careful.
Problematic History of Christianity
Falsely Equating Jesus to Christianity
The transformation of Christianity from a process of self-change to that of world-change is rooted in its early history—Jesus was like a Brahmana who emphasized Gnosis or knowledge and Christianity was the invention of Romans who wanted a religious dogma to conquer the world. This became evident in the 1970s with the release of the Nag Hammadi Texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The real inheritor of the legacy of Jesus was his brother, James. Jesus taught love of God and brotherhood of man, in contrast to Judaism, which taught fear of God and hatred of neighbors. But the Jews were not looking to abandon fear and hate. They wanted a king who would fight the Romans, and restore their kingdom, as God’s retribution against the Romans. The Jews anointed Jesus as the King of the Jews, expecting him to wage a war on Romans. Obviously, the Romans weren’t impressed. They crucified Jesus to preempt a potential revolt by the Jews, after which James continued with the message of Jesus.
Then Paul, a Roman impostor, hijacked the crucifixion and created what we today call Christianity. In Nag Hammadi, Jesus does not resurrect. In Paul’s Christianity, he does. In Nag Hammadi, a devotee of God pursues Gnosis, but in Paul’s Christianity, he believes that he will be saved by Jesus’s crucifixion. In Nag Hammadi, the devotee of God gives up meat and alcohol, but in Paul’s Christianity, Jesus feeds his followers fish and turns water into wine. In Nag Hammadi, divinity is a male-female couple. In Paul’s Christianity, God is only male. In Nag Hammadi, the soul leaves the body to go to heaven. However, in Paul’s Christianity, the body comes alive to go to heaven. In Nag Hammadi, religion means fighting our ignorance. In Paul’s Christianity, religion means fighting our neighbors. In Nag Hammadi, a devout person lives a simple and austere life. In Paul’s Christianity, a devout person inherits God’s kingdom on Earth.
Paul’s Christianity was never a spiritual project, but a political one meant to conquer all of Europe by pretending that the ruler had the mandate of a monotheistic God, and all other rulers did not have such a mandate because they were worshipping false gods. Rulers of that time had to have some deity’s mandate to rule. As Europe worshipped many different pagan deities, no single ruler could rule over Europe. Christianity was languishing in poverty and ignominy for 300 years until Constantine recognized the power of monotheism to abrogate other rulers and establish his rule.
Under the direction of Constantine, most of the existing Gospels were burned, buried, or banned to create a Canonical Bible, presently called the New Testament. Christianity amalgamated many deities, cultures, and practices for political conquest. Constantine and the Church divided powers among themselves—Constantine making the rules for Earth and the Church making the rules for Heaven. The Church would legitimize the violence of Emperors by calling them necessary for the work of spreading the true religion, while Emperors would allow the Church to collect money for the forgiveness of people’s sins. After that, people were paying taxes to Emperors and sin penalties to the Church. Whenever the Church wanted more money, it would designate something new as sinful, and penalize people for money. Religion and politics became two sides of the same coin, supporting each other, validating and justifying each other, allowing each other to pursue their personal power, and exploiting people for money.
The teachings of Jesus were like the works of Brahmanas. They were meant for self-transformation. But under Romans, Christianity became a tool for converting others, using force if necessary, and hence deeply enmeshed with politics, like the work of Kṣatriyas. Factually, a genuine Kshatriya serves under the guidance of Brahmanas. But in Christianity, scripture became a weapon to control others, establish a large empire, destroy people’s native religions, and feel elated through such conquest. These things are still the features of Christianity. But they were never the traits of Jesus.
Within 150 years of accepting Christianity, the Roman Civilization (which had previously endured for over 800 years under a pagan religion) fell due to its corruption. That is because, under Christianity, all the sins are forgiven. Until that time, the Catholic Church was in cahoots with the emperors. But after its fall, the Church disowned the Greeks and Romans. For the next 800 years, Europe was plunged into the Dark Ages. Then parts of Europe were conquered by Islam, which had synthesized religion with Greek philosophy and Indian mathematics. To compete with Islam, Christianity revived Greco-Roman cultures, and the study of philosophy and mathematics, which they had earlier abandoned. The Greek depersonalized models of reality were applied to create modern science. Greco-Roman systems of democracy were revived after 1500 years of forgetting them. Thus, an impersonal science, philosophy, society, and culture were created rooted in the idea of contracts between man and God being extended to nature, employment, government, and family.
Equating Jesus to God and Christ to Kṛṣṇa
At present, Jesus is often described as Śaktyāveśāvatāra (an empowered incarnation) in ISKCON, disregarding two key problems. One, no incarnation is ever crucified or killed. Their Śakti is that they cannot be killed. They come on a mission and leave when it is complete. The crucifixion of Jesus contradicts this basic criterion for an empowered incarnation. Two, their appearance fulfills the goal for which they appear. There is no scenario in which an impostor like Paul overshadows an empowered incarnation. For instance, Veda Vyās is an empowered incarnation. He appeared to compile Veda into distinct texts and disappeared after that job was complete. Five thousand years later, there is no parallel to these texts, nor have they been corrupted (except for minor errors that have crept in over time due to manual copying of manuscripts). Calling Jesus an empowered incarnation is lowering the stature of empowered incarnations.
There are profound misunderstandings about the equivalence between Kṛṣṇa and Christ as well. The word Christ in Greek means “the anointed one”. The word comes from the Greek verb chrī́ō, which means “to anoint”, similar to the Sanskrit word kriya which generally means a pious action but it can specifically mean the act of initiating someone into a religious journey. All Vedic sacrifices are types of kriya.
Jesus was called Christ in the Greek Bible as the equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah. But Jesus never referred to God as Christ, nor did he ever refer to himself as God. In Nag Hammadi, he refers to God as Abba, which means father. The equivalence between Jesus and God is a later creation of the Romans during the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE which produced the Doctrine of Trinity in which the divine has three features—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—that are at once three and one. After this, Christians began calling God Christ as a result of transposing the title of Jesus to God because the doctrine of the Trinity had equated them. Still, Christ was a title and not a name. Over time, due to the continuous use of this title, Christ became the name of God, and the Father came to be called by the Son’s title, as is the case now.
When Christianity came to India, Advaita impersonalists noticed the sonic similarity between Kṛṣṇa and Christ. For impersonalists, there is no such thing as God. But if you like, you can call a self-realized man God. Advaita impersonalists postulated that Kṛṣṇa and Christ were self-realized men. The sonic similarity between the two words created the impression that they were the same. After that, a common impersonalist propaganda in India was that Kṛṣṇa, Buddha, and Christ (and sometimes Mohammed and Moses too) were the same. Gaudīya Vaiṣṇavās took this assertion at face value (did not investigate the origin of words and their meanings) and concluded that Kṛṣṇa and Christ were the same personality, although God, and not self-realized men.
This equivalence was based on a series of accidents—kriya became chrī́ō, which became Christ, which meant the anointed one, which was used as a substitute for Messiah, which after the Council of Nicaea was the title for God, which due to continued use became the name of God, sounding just like Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda Did Not Know Western History
When Prabhupāda brought Kṛṣṇa Bhakti to the West, he did not know the history of Christianity, how it had been separated from the teachings of Jesus from its very inception, how politics had been married into religion by the Romans, and how the Church was an institution for controlling people rather than elevating them. The real history of Christianity is not taught in any college or university even today. The Nag Hammadi Texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls were kept locked up for nearly three decades after their discovery in the 1940s, during which time only the Church leaders had access to them. They did not want the world to know about the real Christianity. It took humongous efforts, including litigation, to have these released to the common public. Even after their release, and despite the strong contrasts between these texts and Christianity, the Church has never acknowledged its corruption to date.
When Prabhupāda went to the West, he asked Christian priests about the meaning of Christ. Some of them said that it means the anointed one, others called it the name of Jesus, and yet others said it is the name of God. Nobody clarified to Prabhupāda that Christ originally referred to Jesus, and only after the Council of Nicaea did the name apply to God based on the Doctrine of the Trinity. Even Prabhupāda’s disciples either did not know these facts about Christianity or kept it hidden from him. Thus, arose the belief that Kṛṣṇa Consciousness was Christ Consciousness, i.e., Christianity.
Prabhupāda was often challenged about why he was introducing Kṛṣṇa Bhakti in the West, different from Christianity. Factually, he did not have a good answer because he did not know about the history of Christianity. He just said that Christians don’t follow the teachings of Jesus, which many accepted. If we took this problem to its logical conclusion, Prabhupāda should have urged Christians to follow Jesus, not introduce Kṛṣṇa Bhakti. But Prabhupāda’s followers did not raise such objections because they already knew (even if they did not say it vocally) that Christianity was a lost cause.
Prabhupāda made many attempts to deeply understand Western society and culture. He asked his disciples to educate him about Western philosophy from ancient times. He wanted to understand the ideas of modern science regarding cosmology and evolution. He had similar curiosities about Christianity. But his curiosities were never satisfied either because his disciples did not know these topics in detail or they did not want to tell him (or a combination of the two). The things that Prabhupāda did not know about Western history, his Western disciples could not or would not fix.
And yet, despite accepting that Christ is Kṛṣṇa, and Jesus is a teacher of God’s message, Prabhupāda never accepted Christianity. At every meeting with a Christian priest, he said that Christians don’t follow the teachings of Jesus, which indicated that the two were different. Prabhupāda’s disciples should have expanded on this difference, tracing the historical problems of religious corruption, but they did no such thing. Instead of demarcating Kṛṣṇa Bhakti from Christianity, they kept silent about it and whenever convenient equated the two. This makes no sense to a neutral outside observer—Why would anyone leave Christianity and come to Kṛṣṇa Bhakti if the two are so similar? That is because it was willful ignorance by omission and commission.
Blind Replication of Christian Practices
The Perpetuation of Christian Mythology
This willful ignorance of Christianity is quite perplexing (to non-Christians) unless we delve into the Western myths about how Christianity is going to change the world, usher in a golden age called the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, led by a special people, who are special because they will lead the world into the golden age.
That myth is called American Exceptionalism under which Americans are the exceptional people, whose arrival from Europe to America after crossing the Atlantic Ocean was just like the arrival of the Jews in the Promised Land (Israel) following the parting of the Red Sea, with the intended mission to lead the whole world into its golden age, following the Second Coming of Jesus. This mythology about America has been a persistent theme in Protestant thinking since they arrived in the Western hemisphere in the 18th century. The drumbeat of Exceptionalism is hummed into every American child’s ear from an early age, especially if they are of European descent. These days, even African-American politicians echo the same myth of American Exceptionalism, much to the chagrin of most other Christian nations.
Prabhupāda’s early followers saw his arrival in America through the lens of Biblical prophesies about the messiah’s arrival, combined with the myth that Americans would lead the world into the golden age. Prabhupāda became Jesus or a Jesus-like figure, his arrival in America was either the Second Coming of Jesus or just like it, Kṛṣṇa and Christ were the same, Prabhupāda’s acceptance of Jesus was his acceptance of Christianity, Kṛṣṇa Bhakti was more-or-less Christianity, and while Jesus died for the sins of Christians, similarly, Prabhupāda was going to take on the sins of his disciples.
Much of the Western excitement about Kṛṣṇa Bhakti in the early days of Prabhupāda’s movement was due to American Exceptionalism—Americans were going to lead the world into its golden age. Absent from this excitement was recognition of (a) the extent of one’s fallen condition and (b) the necessary prior task of changing oneself before changing the world. The excitement was based on the mode of passion, under which a person seeks supremacy by doing good deeds. There is great personal ambition but little intelligence, the basic trait of the mode of goodness. Kṣatriyas have ambition and little intelligence. If they are guided by Brahmanas with great intelligence, then everything is good. But if Kṣatriyas follow their own mythology, they are misled.
The traits of the mode of goodness are knowledge, detachment, and control of the mind and the senses. These things come from a long practice. One is permitted to become a world teacher only after one has perfected oneself. But in Christianity, there is no process to perfect oneself. The day you accept Jesus Christ in your heart (or in a ritual) you are already perfect and fully qualified to evangelize and convert the world. This is exactly what happened in ISKCON. Neophytes began believing that they had become perfect. Their focus shifted from changing themselves to converting others. Evangelization of others replaced self-realization. The six qualities necessary for someone to become a world teacher initiating disciples were disregarded.
Organizational Corruption of ISKCON
When Prabhupāda appointed his 12 leading disciples to the Governing Body Commission (GBC) in 1970, they were compared to the 12 Apostles, the primary disciples of Jesus in the New Testament, to become the leading disseminators of the gospel to the world. When one of them betrayed Prabhupāda by disobeying his orders, he was compared to Judas Iscariot, who had betrayed Jesus. The fact that they were all white men, appointed by Prabhupāda, was a signal to the world about the preeminent status of white men in leading the movement of Kṛṣṇa/Christ in the new age. That Prabhupāda was a brown man was exactly like Jesus was a brown man from the Middle East. Christian ideology had a home within ISKCON from the very beginning.
After Prabhupāda’s departure, those whom he had appointed to initiate on his behalf assumed that they were the inheritors of his legacy, like the Apostles of Jesus, and ascended to the status of guru. While Prabhupāda had asked the GBCs to rotate every three years, the Apostles became GBCs for life. One GBC told me many years ago, after attending an interfaith meeting, that the GBCs were just like the Cardinals of the Catholic Church. The system of rules and regulations called ISKCON Law at present was modeled after the Catholic Canon, as laws that govern the church’s organization, activities, and members. However, the lawmakers never made laws governing their conduct, which is something that Prabhupāda had asked them to do several times.
While Prabhupāda had forbidden the centralization of ISKCON, and wanted it to be run like a franchise of individually managed temples (just like Taco Bell or Pizza Hut in the business world), where the role of the GBC was just ensuring that the franchise members adhered to the standards of the franchise, the GBC took on an active role in management, appointing and dethroning leaders, exactly like the Catholic Church.
Prabhupāda had a genius business strategy for ISKCON in which if you follow the standards of the ISKCON franchise, you can make your home a temple and put an ISKCON banner on the door. The GBC cannot fire you from your home. At most, if you don’t comply with the franchise’s standards, they can ask you to remove the ISKCON banner. Every home in the world can become an ISKCON temple simply by following the franchise’s standards, with the GBC supervising if they abided by the standards. This is how the big business world works today. Nike doesn’t own production facilities for manufacturing shoes. It licenses its designs and logo to the manufacturers and does quality control. Apple doesn’t own any factories; Apple is in the business of designing rather than manufacturing electronic products. Donald Trump doesn’t make Trump Towers. He licenses his brand name to real-estate developers. Prabhupāda’s business strategy was rejected by the GBC to get control over properties and people. They weren’t just ignorant about spirituality; they also did not understand business.
When children were abused in ISKCON schools, the response was coverup, just like in the Catholic Church. When women were mistreated, trafficked, beaten, and abused, the response was just like the Catholic Church. When ISKCON was sued in courts for child abuse, the penalty was just like the Catholic Church. Christianity got a new lease on life in ISKCON, as the Christians disaffected by the Church joined ISKCON, and did the same things they were doing before, producing the same results.
ISKCON leadership did not accept the difference between GBC and Guru because they were always emulating the 12 Apostles where this distinction doesn’t exist. The spiritual and management leaders are the same in Christianity. The Pope is the King of the Vatican in Catholicism. The King of England is the head of the Anglican Church in Protestantism. Christianity has always been a theocratic system, merging the spiritual and the managerial, because it has always been a political religion. When a priest takes on management roles, he delegates philosophy to others and focuses on management. If he was inclined toward philosophy, he would have never become a manager. The hunger for power and control defines a Kṣatriya rather than a Brahmana. And yet, these two are not separated in the Catholic Church. When people remain addicted to power and control, they remain attached to the material world, never become renounced, never prioritize knowledge, and never become Brahmanas. Their sexual desires are temporarily sublimated into people management but never destroyed.
Revolving Door of Gurus and Disciples
In Bhagavad Gita 18.38, Kṛṣṇa states that the mode of passion feels like nectar in the beginning and poison in the end. That is because ambition is pursued without intelligence. The poison of the mode of passion, which comes after the initial nectar, appeared after Prabhupāda’s departure and has continued ever since then.
The leaders who became theocrats, fell from grace one after another. If they had been sincere, they would have introspected and realized that they should renounce the mode of passion and go to the mode of goodness. But their solution was spreading theocracy to others, creating many redundant theocrats, so that even if several theocrats fell, there would still be enough of them to replace the falling ones. ISKCON leaders thus took an industrial approach to religion—create enough spare parts to replace the malfunctioning parts and keep the machine running.
This is just how the Church operates. There is a great focus on quantity and little focus on quality. They want to be bigger rather than better. Of course, they don’t have a way of getting better either. But those who follow the Church also want to be bigger rather than better. They too focus on quantity rather than quality. They defocus from the process of getting better and focus on the process of becoming bigger. They are not interested in improving people. They are focused on growing an organization. This creates a revolving door of people rather than a system of continuously rising and improving people. When there is a revolving door, it is a materialistic system in which history goes in cycles. For it to be a spiritual system, people must continuously rise—not within a theocracy—but in self-transformation and spiritual development.
This revolving door of gurus and disciples has led to numerous false ideas about gurus and disciples. Some say that since we need a “living guru”, whoever can best play the role must be appointed, for otherwise, the guru-disciple succession is broken. Others say that Prabhupāda is the guru forever and no other gurus will ever be created. Both these ideas are heavily influenced by Christianity. In Protestantism, Jesus is the only guru; they don’t accept the authority of Popes and Cardinals. In Catholicism, the Popes and Cardinals are the living gurus. These ideas are quite different from the Vedic tradition where all the gurus, all the way to Kṛṣṇa (the original guru), are currently available; they are neither dead nor alive for everyone. They are available for those who need guidance. Anyone who attains perfection by following the previous guru can become a guru; Prabhupāda is not the last guru. There are often long periods when no “living guru” exists if the instructions of the previous guru are neglected. That absence doesn’t mean the disciplic succession is broken. It is revived if they follow the guru.
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa describes how Nārada Muni appeared for Dhruva and Prahalāda to protect and guide them. Brahma is himself guided in the heart by the Paramātma. Madhavāchārya received guidance from Veda Vyās. Baladeva Vidyābhuṣaṅa was instructed to write a commentary on Vedānta Sūtra by Kṛṣṇa appearing to him in a dream. There is only one criterion for guidance: sincerity. Theories of living and dead gurus, or first and last gurus, are created by people who either never read Vedic texts or never took them seriously as a role model. In that case, they should read the Vedic texts and transform their belief system. When the need arises, they will get guidance.
The problem is that people want a guru to transfer their burden. A current priest has to listen to my confessions and forgive my sins. Or an earlier priest died for my sins so I don’t need another priest. This is nothing more than Christian mythology. A guru is not the confidant of marital, sexual, health, financial, career, or other mundane problems. We cannot unburden our guilt by dumping it on someone else. We have to live with the guilt and use it to reform ourselves. Our burden is just ours. This is why we ought to not create more burden. We don’t need a guru for this because books already exist to tell us how the burden is created. A guru is required only if we can’t find the answer in the book. When we need the answer, a guru will guide us. And yet, people influenced by Christianity cannot give up their guru mythologies.
Unnecessary Bad Western Influences
Intellectual Corruption of Kṛṣṇa Bhakti
Many times, Prabhupāda talked of the need to create Brahmanas. But it never happened in ISKCON since the leaders would not renounce their position of power, and never spend the necessary amounts of time studying and contemplating, which are essential for anyone to become a Brahmana. For them, ISKCON is a missionary organization, not an educational institution. This is again due to Christianity, which offloads educational activities to subsidiary Pontifical Academies (or secular institutions) because its religious leaders aren’t interested in pursuing knowledge. Their followers look at the leaders, disregard knowledge, and pursue power.
The net result of emulating Christianity is that Western members of ISKCON have never invested effort in understanding the extent of the differences between Kṛṣṇa Bhakti and Christianity. At every available opportunity, they seek similarities rather than differences. Critique of Christianity based on Vedic texts is out of the question. In classical Indian epistemology, this is called Māyā or illusion—seeing a rope and thinking it is a snake. Dissolving, marginalizing, or ignoring the differences between the rope and the snake, as far as possible, has been the mainstay of ISKCON in the West. Creating equivalence between Christianity and Kṛṣṇa Bhakti, rather than bringing out the differences, is seen as the path toward Kṛṣṇa Bhakti in the West.
The Western members of ISKCON are far more well-versed with the writings of Thomas Aquinas than with the six different types of Vedānta. God for them is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent rather than sat-chit-ānanda. Multiple descriptions of the truth are different sects rather than multiple perspectives on the truth necessary to know the truth. Truth is one, not an infinite ladder of progressive rungs, upon which a person progresses gradually. Truth is known by the binary logic of mutually exclusive opposites rather than a non-binary logic of coexistent opposites. Religion is belief, not empirically and rationally verifiable truth. Nature is governed by mathematical laws rather than demigods. Space is the domain of body movement rather than soul movement. Time is a linear arrow rather than a cycle. Space and time are containers rather than persons. The world is objects rather than a dream of God. A species is defined by the body rather than the mind. Religion means universal rituals rather than contextual duty. Everyone has equal rights, not different duties. All people are equal rather than people in sattva, rajas, and tamas. Society is a collection of free individuals rather than a single organism. Social classes are discrimination rather than the best way to lift each person based on their qualities and activities.
When Buddhism arose in India, the stalwarts of the Vedic tradition debated and criticized Buddhism. When Advaita arose in India, the stalwarts of the Vedic tradition debated and criticized Advaita. But no such criticism, debate, or separation has occurred so far between Kṛṣṇa Bhakti and Christianity. In fact, a deep study of books, identifying the differences, and discussing which side is correct, itself doesn’t happen in ISKCON. Those who pursue such things are marginalized or neglected because separating oneself from Christianity is undesirable. They have an imaginary conception of Kṛṣṇa Bhakti in which humility also means not criticizing falsehoods. That Śri Caitanya welcomed everyone to Kṛṣṇa Bhakti, regardless of class and creed, is taken to imply that higher classes (and especially Brahmanas) are unnecessary.
The Liberal Conception of Christianity
These ideas are deeply tied to a liberal vision of Christianity championed in the 1960s by American pastors such as Martin Luther King Jr. The conservative vision of Christianity believed in segregation: Black and white churches were separate, blacks were not allowed to enter white colleges, they could not buy houses in white localities, they could not get corporate management roles, and despite the abolition of slavery a century ago, they could not vote in elections due to state laws. Martin Luther King Jr. championed black rights. The movement for other races and genders to enter the socio-economic-political mainstream became the liberal view of Christianity.
The time when ISKCON was born in the West, was a time of the Civil Rights, anti-war, and feminist movements. These talked about the end to wars, racial discrimination, and gender discrimination. John F. Kennedy (the American President who championed peace), a Catholic, was instrumental in associating liberalism with Catholicism, as opposed to the more racially motivated, gender discriminatory, and war-mongering Protestants (at that time). His assassination confirmed that distinction. However, the benign vision of Christianity did not dispense with American Exceptionalism. Americans were still going to lead the world by spreading liberal Christianity.
When applied to religion, in theory, liberalism means that no religion is better or worse. They are just personal opinions, and one should be allowed to practice their religion as the right to freedom of religion. However, in practice, liberalism means that (a) where Christianity is weak, it will use aggressive tactics to convert people to Christianity, and (b) where Christianity is strong, it will use aggressive tactics to stop people from converting out of Christianity. Since aggression is involved in both cases, liberalism, in the hands of Christianity, is an extension of war on other religions.
We can never arrive at truth with liberalism because it is founded on the principle that (a) we can never agree on the axioms (such as whether to trust a book or author), and (b) we must allow many axioms to compete. Liberalism was essential for moving away from Church-given dogmas about religion, allowing people to create their own religions. However, you can never prove which of these religions is true. Liberalism allows you to have private beliefs, not provable truths. Thereafter, instead of proving the truth and disproving the lies, liberalism equates them as merely one’s opinion. The net result is the end of critical thinking, and its replacement by an imaginary conception of “love”, which means live and let live. Don’t give your opinions on others because neither you nor the others can prove that those opinions are true.
Factually, the end of hate is not love. It is just a state of complacency, slumber, and permissiveness. After you are tired of fighting (as the West was after two World Wars), you go to sleep. To love, you have to be awake, enlightened, and knowledgeable. The binary state of love and hate is a Western belief, similar to other binaries like good and evil. However, in the Vedic tradition, there is something in between love and hate, namely, the state of cluelessness. Liberalism is not love. It is simply cluelessness. The key mantra of liberalism was “don’t judge”. Since intelligence is the judgment of truth, right, and good, not judging means not knowing truth, right, and good.
ISKCON Co-Opted Liberal Christianity
ISKCON was born in the “God is love” age, where love meant tolerating everyone without knowing the truth, right, and good. The “truth is love” equation allowed the truth to be ambiguous, or whatever you wanted it to be. People did not take philosophy seriously because as long as you could express love via dancing, singing, and eating, these replaced the hard-nosed activity of hair-splitting the differences between truth and lies, right and wrong, good and bad. Loving meant not criticizing. This was again married to the spirit of Christian Evangelization (i.e., spreading love) and disconnected from the Vedic spirit of distinguishing, demarcating, analyzing, and critiquing.
The Western liberal conception of religion is called sahajiyā in the Bhakti tradition. It means the nature you are born with. If based on your nature you think it is true, then it must be so. Of course, this nature is not your eternal nature. It is just the nature right now. Hence, it is called prākṛta-sahajiyā, which is your own nature given by prakṛti. The sahajiyā conception of religion discards the hard part of changing oneself and demands acceptance of a person as they are. The acceptance of everyone is liberalism and it is permissive, lazy, and complacent. It focuses on singing, dancing, and eating, not philosophy. It doesn’t engage in debates. Being happy is more important than being true, right, and good. It doesn’t even study Vedic texts deeply. Philosophy is called dry mental speculation, devoid of prema-rasa, the “juice of love”.
Due to the early influences of liberalism in Western society, ISKCON born in the age of liberalism, drifts toward prākṛta-sahajiyā. Criticizing people based on philosophy is called hatred. Accepting and encouraging them is loving them. Well, that’s fine if it is a parent’s love for a child. If the parent simply encourages the child but does not educate it, the parent has failed. Educated adults cannot be equated to uneducated children. The adults educate children, control them, and love them. It is not just love. But liberalism doesn’t allow anyone to grow up. That we are eternal children of God now means we never become adults and forever remain a burden on God.
Liberalism brings a person dangerously close to Christianity because once you become permissive, it is very close to saying that we are all sinful and we will be saved by God’s grace. Now there is no incentive to improve. You keep talking about love and you never improve because in your heart love means acceptance, not reformation. Your religion can be reformed (to accept you just as you are) but not you. When Christians say “Jesus loves you”, they mean that he has accepted you just as you are, forgiven your sins, and now you can discard your guilt of sinning and relax. A court of justice gives justice, rather than love; but Jesus loves you. What kind of religion is that in which God isn’t even as fair as a courthouse judge? But that is liberalism. Thus, anyone who takes to liberalism eventually becomes a Christian in behavior and character if he or she is not already one in belief. In their heart, they reject the idea of reformation and hope to be saved. Over time, the uneducated children replace the educated adults.
How Christianity Leads ISKCON Astray
Co-Opting Christian Ideas and Practices
The vacuum in knowledge created by the acceptance of liberalism and neglect of Vedic philosophy was filled by co-opting Christian ideologies. For instance, Western members of ISKCON use the Christian Fine-Tuning Design Argument against evolution, in which God designed life when the fact is that each person designs their body based on their past qualities and activities, and the collection of all such bodies was designed by Brahma, an advanced soul, not Kṛṣṇa. They prefer the Ontological Argument for the existence of God, in which the perfect idea in my mind must exist, when the fact is that everyone has a different idea of perfection, which is why different people worship different deities, personifying a different type of perfection. When arguing against the materialism of science, they invoke statements by scientists who believed that by discovering the equations governing nature, they were discovering the mind of God (i.e., that God thinks mathematical equations), when the fact is that nature is governed by demigods rather than any such equation.
The problems that Christianity always overlooked are also overlooked by ISKCON in the West. The mind-body dualism is taken for granted by Christians and by the Western members of ISKCON. Based on that, they argue that matter and spirit are different things, when factually matter is also spirit, personified as Durga. The mind is in the body (due to which the suffering of the body is the suffering of the mind) and the body is in the mind (due to which the mind knows the body). Everyone assumes that they have free will when they actually don’t have the willpower. The conflict between choice and determinism is ignored. The Problem of Evil, and how God is both good and evil, that He shows a good face to the good and the evil face to the evil, is also ignored. Everyone expects God to be kind to them, rather than reciprocate with them based on their deeds and attitudes, expecting their sins to be forgiven. Everyone is going back to Godhead at the end of this life, rather than being reborn until they attain perfection. Karma and rebirth apply to others, not to aspiring devotees of Kṛṣṇa.
Just as most Christians have now accepted the Big Bang theory (as opposed to Young Earth Creationism), ISKCON in the West wants to do the same. Just as most Christians have now accepted Evolutionary Theory for all species except humans (God created humans while animals were created by natural evolution), they want ISKCON to conform to the same ideas. By accepting these, ISKCON in the West believes that they can move away from debating difficult issues and focus on the main thing—the rituals that they believe will take them to the spiritual world upon death.
As Christianity embraces gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, there are attempts to do the same in ISKCON in the West. As debates of gender equality rage in Christianity, and attempts are made to equate genders in the West, these are considered a necessity within ISKCON too. As Christianity has accepted secular and religious education side-by-side, ISKCON wants to do the same. As Christianity adapts to local cultures (dress, food habits, marriage customs, music, art, language), ISKCON wants to adapt to the same trends. As Christianity accepts secular academic scholarship, ISKCON respects secular scholars outside the Vedic tradition. As Christianity keeps changing its dogmas to “keep up with the times”, ISKCON wants to emulate its practices.
Why ISKCON Has No Hope in the West
Kṛṣṇa Bhaktas in the West are born-again Christians, although in a Catholic and liberal sense. The word Catholic originally meant all-inclusive because it took ideas and practices from everywhere. The word Catholic today means accepting everyone just as they are. Factually, if Christianity was truly Catholic, it would not have killed millions of people during colonization. If people following Christianity were truly Catholic, they would have never fought two World Wars on European soil with other Christians. Christians were disaffected with Christianity because of its long history of violent crimes, institutional corruption, and pursuit of material wealth. They found a non-violent, renounced, and honest religion through Prabhupāda, which accepted them, which made it seem Catholic to them, and they accepted it as Christianity.
But Kṛṣṇa Bhakti is not Catholic like that. It is non-discriminatory but also meritorious. There is a ladder that everyone is welcome to climb; that is non-discrimination. But at every step, one has to leave the previous rung behind; that is meritorious. We cannot stay on the ground and expect to be high. To rise, we have to give up the previous state. We cannot go to the next level on a ladder unless we leave the previous level.
Liberal Christians want to mix whatever they like, including Kṛṣṇa Bhakti and Christianity. They create a theocratic structure like the Catholic Church. They believe in a tenuous equivalence between Jesus and Prabhupāda alongside a false equivalence between Christ and Kṛṣṇa. They believe that Kṛṣṇa Bhakti is a monotheism, while Hinduism is a pagan religion. They believe that the Christian separation of religion and culture, i.e., the separation of spirituality and morality, is the role model for the world. Just as Christianity prioritizes conversion and marginalizes education, ISKCON does the same. Just as Christianity teaches its ideas as dogmas to be accepted on faith rather than reason and observation, likewise ISKCON teaches Bhakti as a dogma. In an age filled with dozens of ideologies (including atheism), how will people decide which dogma is true? Even if they are initially attracted, how will they develop the conviction that Kṛṣṇa Bhakti is the path to stick to unless we teach it scientifically?
ISKCON has no hope in the West for the same reasons that Christianity has no such hope. Christianity began declining the day people took to science and philosophy. Its decline accelerated with the discovery of its history. Due to its rapid decline in the Global North, it is looking for new converts in the Global South. And yet, ISKCON in the West believes that it can create born-again Christian types to continue a Christianity-like movement. They don’t emphasize the differences between Kṛṣṇa Bhakti and Christianity and don’t try to establish how Kṛṣṇa Bhakti is superior to Christianity. They don’t criticize Christianity for centuries of its crimes and use Prabhupāda’s appreciation of Jesus as an excuse for this lenience. They believe that all such things happened to others in far-off lands and that they have no relation to such things when they have been the beneficiaries of all these crimes and continue to be so.
ISKCON in the West is in a sibling rivalry with Christianity, its role model for religion. The argument for everything is—if they can do it, why can’t we? The main reason is that ISKCON in the West has never distinguished itself from Christianity. In fact, the Western members of ISKCON see themselves as far more different from Hindus and Hinduism than from Christians and Christianity. When you have tied your boat to a sinking ship, you should not be surprised if the boat sinks with the ship. At the bare minimum, hope exists only if the boat disconnects itself from the sinking ship. But that requires ISKCON members to disconnect themselves from Christianity, rejecting the entire White-Western-Christian mythology they created for themselves earlier, and going back to Prabhupāda’s instructions and the Vedic texts.
The Genuine Path to Kṛṣṇa Bhakti
The alternative is straightforward—teach the Vedic texts truthfully and accurately and discard the mythology. People who are leaving the mythology and seeking the truth will come to you. They will stay because the truth is eternal. You don’t have to adjust the truth with the passing of time. Encourage people to practice the truth at their own pace. Don’t lower the standards to make people feel good about themselves. But also don’t reject people who cannot reach the standards. Think of a ladder in which people climb over a long time to reach perfection. Don’t discourage people from taking to the ladder. Don’t equate the lower rung to the higher rung. Those who love the challenge of climbing a ladder will come and stay. Others are not required. Their belief that they can attain perfection without a challenge is simply mythology.
If we focus on quality rather than quantity, quantity comes after a delay. As Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad-Gita 2.40: In this endeavor, there is no loss or diminution, and a little advancement on this path can protect one from the most dangerous type of fear. The path of Kṛṣṇa Bhakti is non-reducing, provided we take the path sincerely. Those who come to change themselves, rather than convert others, do not stop with failure. They are not hindered in self-transformation by external circumstances. Once they are convinced theoretically that there is perfection, they will dedicate their life to its pursuit.
Nobody goes to the spiritual world based on how many people they have converted to a religion. They go to the spiritual world based on whether they have changed themselves. Changing oneself is necessary and sufficient. Changing others is neither necessary nor sufficient. And yet, we teach with the aim that those who want to change themselves have the required information. We attract people to the path of self-transformation by transforming ourselves. But few people come to this path—they are those keen on self-transformation. The material world never ends because most people are not interested in self-transformation. The material world ends in Christianity because everyone supposedly goes to heaven without self-transformation. The basic mythology of conversion in Christianity is geared toward quantity rather than quality. In chasing quantity, we forget quality and remain suffering in this world.
Christian ideas of conversion are based on their Eschatology. A Christian cannot go to heaven merely by being a good Christian. He has to wait till the end of the world, when the whole world has become Christian and is ruled by Jesus (after his Second Coming) for a thousand years, which the Christians call the Heaven on Earth, or the golden period. Christians call their preaching the act of their love, which is hypocrisy because they are thinking about their going to heaven, not of others. The outward kindness is driven by inward selfishness, as their ascent depends on others’ conversion. Their collectiveness is forged by their Eschatology, not a genuine love for other humans.
In contrast, genuine love exists in Kṛṣṇa Bhakti because a Bhakta’s ascent to the spiritual world doesn’t depend on others’ conversion, and yet the Bhakta gives the knowledge of Kṛṣṇa Bhakti to others. His act is unselfish, compassionate, and loving because he doesn’t need anyone else to accept his ideas to ascend to the spiritual world. What he is doing is for the benefit of others, not his own benefit because his benefit is already assured by being a Bhakta. This is why even a pure Bhakta sitting in a cave goes to the spiritual world without converting anyone. The ideology of conversion to Christianity is selfishness, not love. Those operating under this ideology create disciples but after initiation don’t care about their progress. They deemphasize all the hard work they have to do for others’ upliftment because there is no love.
Factually, there is nothing new in what I have said so far. Everything is public information, although it may not be collated and analyzed. I have shared the same things on public forums earlier, without any objection, let alone counter. The Western followers of Kṛṣṇa Bhakti already know what they are doing. We can wake a person who is asleep but we cannot wake a person who is pretending to sleep. Therefore, whether this information will bring any change is unclear. Great introspection and courage are required to reform. Without reform, the outcomes will be the same as Christianity. Meanwhile, those troubled by the attitudes and behaviors incompatible with Kṛṣṇa Bhakti may want to detach themselves from those unwilling to change. Don’t keep your boat tied to the sinking ship. Cut the attachment and save yourself from sinking too. Sometimes, no association is better than a bad association.
How Western Society Deludes Itself
Adverse Influence of Propaganda
The main reason for the attachment to Christianity and Western culture is centuries of fake propaganda, which proclaims its supremacy over all other religions and cultures. Even if the West takes something from other societies, it tries to reformulate it in a new way to not give the appearance of having taken something and maintain its supremacy. After those things are taken, they are used against the people from whom they were taken, to keep the mythology of superiority intact. The net result of this propaganda is arrogance in Western society. It is not true. It is just blind faith, reinforced over centuries through continuous, determined, and aggressive propaganda due to which most people cannot see their own flaws, are made to think that others are worse, and keep feeling superior while getting worse, to their personal detriment.
The West remains closeted and insular because it thinks it is already the best in the world. Even if it opens itself to something outside its society, it tries to decontextualize the ideas and practices it takes (from their original context) and recontextualizes them to its own context, again becoming closeted and insular. These behaviors and attitudes make the West incapable of learning anything new because learning begins after a person accepts his ignorance but the sense of superiority prevents it. At every learning opportunity, people in the West think: We already knew this, it is more-or-less the same thing we were previously aware of, the little novelty can be disaggregated from the source and integrated into our thinking, after all, these things are pretty minor, hence we have been right all along. Minimizing the differences and maximizing the similarities is an essential process while maintaining supremacy.
At the root of the problem is Western propaganda, which obscures truths and spreads lies. Under this propaganda, initially, Greeks were the greatest thinkers, then Romans were the greatest conquerors, then Christianity was the greatest religion, then Europeans were the greatest race, then science was the greatest European invention, then capitalism, democracy, and liberalism were the greatest American exports, and ultimately, Western society as a collective is the supreme standard for everything.
Meanwhile, families are breaking down, children are abandoned, people are depressed and suicidal, heinous violence and sexual perversion keep growing, mountains of debt are created by printing money, academia is suffering from the crisis of reproducibility, government leaders are corrupt and in the pockets of the super wealthy who care nothing more than increasing their wealth, the food is poisoned, society is addicted to drugs, people are living paycheck to paycheck, and the leaders of society can think of nothing better than overthrowing other governments, starting a new war, profiting from it, and spreading their ideology to the rest of the world. Instead of fixing their own problems, they create problems for others. This is because they have no clue how to fix their own problems. They want to create problems for others so that they can feel superior to others, and keep perpetuating their supremacist mythology. There is an enormous market of people wanting to feel good without becoming good.
Deep Attachments to Christianity
Even if we tell people in the West about the enormous problems, their response is to double down on their supremacist mythology rather than take a serious look at their history of problems, accept those problems, and attempt a change in their lives. If they take to Kṛṣṇa Bhakti, they have to feel superior to Hinduism and claim that Hinduism is polytheism, while Kṛṣṇa Bhakti is a monotheism which they have always had. If they cannot follow the culture necessary for spiritual life, they justify the separation of religion and culture without a clue about how religion and culture are married to make the religion consistent and persistent. If they are disinterested in knowledge, they marginalize its importance and elevate the Christian dogmas of conversion over self-knowledge, and management over learning. Such people are not following Prabhupāda, and not even following Jesus. They are just Christians.
As time passes, Kṛṣṇa Bhakti in the West takes on more and more features of Christianity and creates an even greater distance from the Vedic tradition. As time passes, Christianity in ISKCON spreads to all parts of the world. The more things are said to change, the more they become the same as before. Just as Romans had corrupted the teachings of Jesus, the West has corrupted Prabhupāda’s movement. These two are almost 2000 years apart but even in this early stage, they seem to have the same destiny. It took Christianity 300 years to be corrupted by the Romans. ISKCON is barely 60 years old now and headed in that direction. Anyone seriously interested in not repeating history will reject Christianity. The leaders should try to end this ideological and cultural rot in ISKCON. However, if they cannot reform others, they might wish to detach themselves from corruption and just rely on Kṛṣṇa.
Rowing a Boat Tied to the Shore
The process of self-transformation is very long and difficult if we remain attached to our preexisting ideas, cultures, beliefs, religions, society, and so on. That attachment is just like a rope that ties us to the shore. We can keep rowing the boat but it’s not going anywhere until we cut the ropes of attachment. Alternatively, attachment makes the practice of Kṛṣṇa Bhakti just like an elephant’s bath. The elephant bathes in a river and pours sand on its body as it comes out of the river, effectively nullifying the bath. Attachment keeps us static and rationalizations, justifications, and modifications that happen under this attachment create complacency. They don’t progress in Kṛṣṇa Bhakti, but they stop asking why that is the case and keep trying to convert others to maintain their position of status and power, just like Christianity.
Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad Gita 18.66: Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear. The Western followers of Kṛṣṇa Bhakti should ask themselves: Can we abandon Christianity? Or are we afraid that abandoning will make us a social outcast, unconvinced that Kṛṣṇa will protect us, and try to fit Kṛṣṇa Bhakti within Christianity? Why did we really leave Christianity to come to Kṛṣṇa Bhakti when we want Kṛṣṇa Bhakti to be Christianity? Is this a genuine error of judgment, or is it something more sinister like the Roman distortion of Jesus?