There are many levels of deviations on the path of devotional service.
The simple sense gratifier, while doing disservice to himself, also serves to lower the “devotional frequency” of his or her entire community by introducing impurities of body and mind.
The person who utilizes the Holy Names, the scriptures, the Deity worship, and other devotional activities to invite glorification of the self, relegates Krishna and the devotional processes to the servant’s quarters. This is the person who chants kirtan to show off his musical proclivities and gain fame and followers. This is the person who chants ślokas in the mood of achieving some adoration and distinction, stepping on the heads of these transcendental gems for his or her own aggrandizement. This is the person who sits on the raised seat and uses scriptural renditions to advertise his academic eloquence. This is the person who will only perform an ārati ceremony when the temple room is full so that they can show off their cāmara waving techniques. This is the person who takes scriptural instruction out of context and twists it to support his or her own mental and behavioral anomalies. This person is easily recognizable by his or her air of conceit and arrogance, and is usually not taken very seriously.
Then, there is the hypocrite. He or she speaks strongly and expounds the glories of the devotional processes while secretly maintaining the “skeletons in the closet” of non-compliance to those very principles. (It is better to be honest and humbly aspire for greater purity by following the process and begging the previous ācāryas and the Lord Himself for strength.) This person cannot preach with full potency, and eventually becomes exposed. This is a shameful position because it is based on falsity, and affects the person himself, his followers, and the entire devotee community. It masks the glow of pure devotional service, like light trying to come through tinted, or even opaque, glass.
Then, there is the imposter, the infiltrator. This personality is the worst of the worst of cheaters. This personality is not a hypocrite, as he or she is firmly fixed in his or her demonic agenda, which is to destroy the preaching mission of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
In a letter to Hansadutta dated Sept. 2, 1970, Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote-
It is a fact however that the great sinister movement is within our Society.
Śrīla Prabhupāda also told his disciple, Nanda Kumar,
“There are those in our movement who dress like devotees- śikhā, tilaka, neck beads, and dhotī, but they are not devotees. They are agents of Kali. We must find them and weed them out.”
(It was not done, and chaos ensued…)
And, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura himself wrote, in Sajana Toshani, 18.2.13-14,
“After the time of Sri Caitanya Mahāprabhu, those faithful to Him kept apart from non-devotees, to avoid contamination. Seeing this, the personality of Kali sent his representatives in disguise to pollute the Vaișņava sampradāya. Posing as Vaișņava, they spread their wicked doctrines, and appeared so intelligent and devoted that only pure devotees could detect their real identity.”
It is not to be faulted that these personalities could not be easily recognized. They were personally chosen, placed, and disguised by the personality of Kali himself. As Krishna sent His right hand man, who we came to know as His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda, to give the gift of the topmost transcendental literatures and spread the mission of Mahāprabhu, Kali had to also hand-pick and send his best men to try to thwart Prabhupāda’s efforts.
These personalities have spread their toxicity throughout the Krishna Consciousness movement. Their influence has led to personal and collective compromise on the devotional path and the infiltration of impersonalism. It has banned, ridiculed, and driven out most of the sincere followers of Śrīla Prabhupāda who could have had any influence on steering things rightfully, and called them things like “offenders,” “far right conservatives” or “Prabhupāda fundamentalists.” It has disheartened many devotees, led to the changing of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books beyond basic, valid corrections that partly arose from misunderstanding of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s accent from the dictaphone recordings, and led to a collective minimization of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s own persona and unique position as the head of this branch of the Caitanya tree.
(In the past, if a personal assistant of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s felt that he was getting too familiar or starting to see Śrīla Prabhupāda as ordinary, he would immediately ask for a replacement in order to protect his own devotional creeper. Now, it is sadly, and very painfully, common to see irreverent and arrogant discussion questioning Śrīla Prabhupāda’s stature, and looking at him and his accomplishments and managerial insights from the perspective of the neophyte, undisciplined, and conditioned mind.)
These personalities are expert in mind control techniques, black mystic arts to a large degree, emotional and physical torture, and worse. They work hand-in-hand, shoulder to shoulder, with some of the top demonic personalities on the world stage, some of whom are not even human as we would recognize. Even though relatively small in number, they have had great influence upon the innocent masses by their expertise in dark, subversive sciences, and have worked to compromise and throw everything that Śrīla Prabhupāda so painstakingly gave us off track. Their goal is to annihilate anything good and Godly, and destroy the real disciplic succession by concocting and upholding their own institutionalized rendition of it. They are the greatest of cheaters, for they strive to cheat us of our deepest connection to Śrīla Prabhupāda and our predecessor ācāryas. There is no greater crime. These personalities will soon be exposed, and more easily recognized, by dint of their own blunders, and by the perfect arrangement of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, according to His impeccable timing.
This may not seem like relevant information to some of you or even what you might want to hear. It is heavy and distasteful, indeed, but not against what our Śrīla Prabhupāda and his most venerable Śrīla Prabhupāda both noted. I am simply presenting what I know from personal experience and observation, and it may prove valuable to some of you in the right time.
On one hand, all the deviation from what Śrīla Prabhupāda intended for us should never have transpired, and on the other hand, it could not have been any other way. Individually and collectively as a society of devotees, we will never again make the mistake of accepting and following such impurely motivated personalities. The most valuable lessons are not easily learned. We are being set up to retrieve our devotional enthusiasm, autonomy, inspiration, strength, and spirit, under the victory flag of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda and our predecessor ācāryas. The evil ones could cover the pure essence of the Vaișņava philosophy and create diversions and distractions from it, but they could not destroy it. It is still available to the sincere followers. Krishna knows our hearts, and even if we have been influenced by the charismatic charm of the imposters or other cheaters, we have the Lord’s personal shelter and also the most merciful shelter of Śrīla Prabhupāda if we choose to claim it.
Please continue to chant purely and fervently study Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books. In 1970, when there was some concocted understanding about the position of our Śrīla Prabhupāda, that he was really God, being preached by a few errant sannyāsīs, it was the devotees who had studied Nectar of Devotion who were able pinpoint the serious discrepancy. Please become educated. Honor your “gut” feelings as long as they are aligned with śāstra and devotional precedent. Krishna’s mercy upon us is that He sends His pure representative, and the mercy of that pure representative is his instruction. Devotional service, uncompromisingly executed under the direction of that pure via-media personality, the bonafide spiritual master, is the recipe for the sincere jiva to be liberated from this most dangerous material world and return to his real home, the eternal, blissful abode of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
