Philosophy: Is there a strict procedure with a fallen sanyyasi or can we apply "api cet suduracaro"?

and he can be reinstated in the renounced ashrama?

physical falldown more than anything, controversial article will qualify him for a medal from the base devotees these days.

merriam-webster online on "base":
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synonyms BASE, LOW, VILE mean deserving of contempt because of the absence of higher values. BASE stresses the ignoble and may suggest cruelty, treachery, greed, or grossness <base motives>. LOW may connote crafty cunning, vulgarity, or immorality and regularly implies an outraging of one's sense of decency or propriety <refused to listen to such low talk>. VILE, the strongest of these words, tends to suggest disgusting depravity or filth <a vile remark>.

since you don't qualify "controversial," caballero_vaishnava, i agree with your last post.

ys phani.

phani: I found the first meaning in my mother language (spanish) being --> Base = COMMON, so I was referring to common devotees.
If you are looking for synonyms to meet your ends, that is another thing.

ENGLISH SPANISH
EXACT RESULTS (23)
base [beɪs] adj común [koˡmun] adj
base [beɪs] adj infame [inˡfame] adj
base [beɪs] adj vil [bil] adj
basa n base [ˡbase] f
base [beɪs] n base [ˡbase] f

> Can disciples really look to a fallen guru as a maha-bhagavata still? (scratch, scratch)

that's up to the disciples, isn't it? sastra provides pretty clear description of the type of behavior that entitles a disciple to reject his guru, but it leaves a lot of leeway for the disciple to wait for his guru's return, or try to help him.

ys phani.

> The question was about what society has to do, and what is procedure for fallen sannyasi, stick to ashram and guruship or get a white regular dhoti.

here's my understanding of this issue:

procedure is pretty clear: someone who doesn't follow the rules of an asram shouldn't pretend to belong to it. here in india brahmacaris are supposed to put on white once they start thinking or talking about marriage. many places i know enforce this rule pretty strictly - in regard to brahmacaris.

once you get to sannyasis and especially gurus, other considerations come into play: effect on ISKCON's reputation, the society as a whole, and on the disciples in particular.

i can understand the reasoning, particularly if it's not a major offense the sannyasi was involved in and everybody thinks he'll straighten himself out again really quick. (not raping anybody, just talking to someone too often, riding on a motorbike, something like that.)

trouble is this never works; somehow these things have a way of surfacing sooner or later, and whatever negative effects one wants to avoid get aggravated by the attempted cover-up. has happened a million times and is one main reason for people to loose faith in 'the leadership.'

IMO it'd be much better to 'face the music' straight away and have the leaders lead by example: if something even seems fishy, then put on white. the sannyas-ministry can review everything and, if warranted, reinstate the person. what's the harm? we're supposed to be 'more humble than a blade of grass,' after all.

regarding guruship, that depends. from the institution's side, the GBC procedures for approving gurus should be applied again, probably: so many senior devotees to give 'no objection,' and whatever else is required to become a guru nowadays. disciples have to decide for themselves, of course, if they still have faith in their guru, even in white.

now. we'll see what are going to be the consequences for the involved. I hope not the usual mild chastisement (if any) for fallen, big problem for disciples and stampede in "zone".

i'm afraid your pretty accurate in your predictions, abhiram prabhu. i'm also afraid you're wrong that we'll have to wait 5 years for a repetition.

and i still don't want to hang the managers. (if pedophilia is involved, i might want to hang the guy in question, though.)

people will make mistakes, will fall down from their vows, except very, very few, like srila prabhupada. that's a fact of life, and hanging anybody won't change it.

it's not the managers personally who are at fault. the problem is that at some point in ISKCON's expansion they should have thought how this would work out in the long run, just using the corporate system of management and organization that sort of 'naturally' was taken over from other companies and organizations.

after the first wave of devotees, many from hippy and new-age background, the leading positioins were taken over by people who had training and background in the corporate world, or at least subscribed to the ideas from that world. hippies aren't very good at pushing themselves into front positons (and neither are humble devotees, by the way). people with corporate elbows are, and a lot of ISKCON's structure reflects this.

we want to expand, we want to make money (all for krsna, of course), so we'll do it like all the other guys who expand & make money. seems simple enough, but we ended up where we are now.

the whole idea is at fault, and i don't think any single manager, GBC, or guru can do anything about it unless the whole idea changes. hanging everybody won't achieve that, i'm afraid.

ys phani.

> I am sure you know at least one case

honestly, I don’t. i’ve read about cases, of course, but mostly they came from people using a lot of polemic and subscribing to crazy ideas like ritvikism, which disqualifies them from the very beginnning, in my eyes. (not polemic, but the r-thing.) i have to admit that i wanted to lump you in with the r-crowd in the beginning, but reading your comments carefully i had to revise that opinion.

i also have to admit that there are many things in the ISKCON world i know nothing about, and you’d probably be right to say that i have been consciously ignoring them, running away.

i joined in ’82 (madras, india) and was fortunate enough to be in a protected, family type of environment: small temples run by good old SP disciples, who weren’t into any crazy schemes or excesses.

i’ve been TP for some seven years, in a pretty insular situation again: bangladesh. what problems we had didn’t come from the top-hierarchy, but were created by ourselves: ambitious managers, petty politics, etc. i never experienced situations like you describe, never had to deal with autocratic or abusive regional secretaries or GBCs. i’ve heard about problems in other parts of the world, of course, but it was easy to put them away as irrelevant, having enough on my plate as it was, without worrying about far-out places like US or europe.

later i came to mayapur and was involved for some time in local management as a dept.-head. again, what fried me wasn’t the top-administration, but local-level politics, my inability and unwillingness to deal with them, and involvement in a family situation that was more than chaotic at times.

now i’m looking after the congregational development ministry’s web sites, and while still not liking it, i can’t really ignore what’s going on any longer. but my ability to help, you in particular or the world at large, is very limited, i’m afraid. i’ve removed myself successfully from most connections to ISKCON, locally and globally, dealing only with devotees i can easily relate to. one of them is my present ‘boss,’ kaunteya prabhu, secretary of the cong. dev. ministry and, since this year’s GBC meetings, GBC for iran. he is an intelligent and decent devotee, but being the newest member in the GBC-club i’m not sure how much he could do for you, or even wants to—i know that he has many things to worry about already.

i can say what i think, revise my ideas as i learn more, and try to tell those few people who’ll listen to me what i think should be done. what else am i supposed to do?