Hare Krsna. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I have been reading some of the posts here about the book changes. My first  impulse was to severely chastise those responsible for the Mad Elephant offense against  our spiritual master. That "letter" will never see this website because it is too inflammatory, caustic, angry, antagonistic, and most likely not written to the liking of Srila Prabhupada. Besides exactly repeating what our spiritual master has spoken, we are also intended to speak in a palliative way which will evoke a listener to proper action.

However, sometimes I wonder if the former (tough talk) approach would work better. Anyway, it goes without saying, and everyone who knows Prabhupada, knows without a doubt that he told us: "DON'T CHANGE A WORD."  This was something I learned early on after joining this great movement of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. It is the ONLY position for one who wants to be solidly established in the parampara.

Prabhupada once was being glorified by someone for all that he had done, and his comment was -- 74-05-16 "I have not done anything personally, very wonderful. I am simply serving my spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Goswami Maharaja and all the acaryas in the disciplic succession. If I have done anything of credit it is that I have not changed their teachings. I have not added anything of my own interpretation."  720902VP.NV  Lectures 246431/549557.

So that perfect knowledge can come from God. And one who distributes that knowledge exactly as God has said, he is perfect. Just like a post peon comes and delivers you, say, one hundred dollars. So he is not delivering that one hundred dollars. Your friend has sent you one hundred dollars, and his business is to hand over that one hundred dollars as it is, without any change, without taking one dollar from it, no, or adding. No addition, no subtraction. His honesty, his perfection, is that he delivers you that hundred dollars which is sent by your friend. That is his honest..., perfection. He may be imperfect in so many others ways, but when he does his business perfectly, he is perfect.

I do hope, as do probably thousands of vaisnavas worldwide, that the BBT officers, will take their blinders off, and at last do the right thing. Return printing of Prabhupada's books to their original unedited format-pre'77.

The BBT and Iskcon had to go through a very costly and embarrassing lawsuit in which they were ordered by the California court to give KBI (Krishna books Inc) the right to print the books in the pre edited style that Prabhupada personally approved of and read from on a daily basis. This lawsuit should NEVER have happened if the disciples there at the BBT were not asleep at the helm, nor attached to their Iskcon rice bowls in the form of unauthorized salaries and so called positions. But it did, and now we have a major mess with millions of unauthorized books all over the world.

Do we really think those books with thousands of unauthorized Jayadvaita swami changes are pleasing to Srila Prabhupada? Of course not!

What are the losses we have experienced since Prabhupada's departure? How can you calculate the value of even one vaisnava? A friend of mine left his body last Friday, and besides missing him I was thinking... 'the world has lost another soldier of Krsna Who is going to replace him?' And that was just one soul. What to speak of the THOUSANDS OF disciples that iskcon LOST due to their mismanagement, and horrible, highly offensive attitude towards  their own god brothers and god sisters-what to speak of the offenses to Srila Prabhupada.  That loss is not able to be calculated.

So, we should not go on with offenses against Srila Prabhupada. We should stop all unauthorized printings and immediately print only the approved versions that were used personally by His Divine Grace while he was with us here. And besides doing the right thing, you would think that those there are the BBT would want the "business" which selling pre '78 books would generate.

There is a saying, 'love makes the world go 'round but money, greases the wheels."  So if they at the BBT really don't care a fig about doing the "right thing", at least print the pre'78 books because THAT is what  everyone really wants anyway.

Hare Krsna,

Damaghosa das

Mar 6, 2003