The biggest “guru” in ISKCON:
Case study of HH Jayapataka Swami

Autumn 2006

Of all the gurus who currently hold sway in ISKCON, none can match His Holiness Jayapataka Swami (henceforward "JPS"), in terms of the number of disciples he has amassed (approximately 5000 and counting). He has therefore stolen more disciples from Srila Prabhupada than anyone else, via masquerading as Srila Prabhupada's "appointed successor". Here we trace the history of his false guru programme.

JPS was one of the 11 ritviks, or officiating priests, appointed by Srila Prabhupada in his signed institutional directive of July 9th 1977 to initiate new disciples into ISKCON on his behalf. Immediately on Srila Prabhupada's physical departure from this world in November that year, the 11 appointed ritviks unauthorisedly discarded their spiritual master's directive, abandoned their appointed roles as priestly representatives, and claimed instead that they had been appointed as Srila Prabhupada's "good-as-God" guru successors. Thus the Great Guru Hoax, part 1 was created. The new "gurus" knew, however, that simply inventing a radically new guru system would be an extremely difficult hoax to foist on the movement without any sort of authorisation. Since this authorisation clearly did not come from Srila Prabhupada, the 11 decided rather cleverly to approach one of Srila Prabhupada's senior Godbrothers, HH Sridhara Swami, and get him to lend some semblance of spiritual authority to their deviant plans. The meeting was recorded, and the following conversation transcripts illustrate how JPS seriously misled Sridhara Maharaja with the lie that Srila Prabhupada had appointed 11 guru successors:

Above we see that in addition to lying about the appointment of 11 gurus, JPS also misled Sridhara Maharaja that Srila Prabhupada had given "explicit desires" for his disciples to approach him for advice on "matters of philosophy". This piece of fiction is directly contradicted by Srila Prabhupada himself:

"Actually amongst my Godbrothers no one is qualified to become acarya. So it is better not to mix with my Godbrothers very intimately because instead of inspiring our students and disciples they may sometimes pollute them."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 28th April, 1974)

JPS once claimed in a Vyasa Puja offering to Srila Prabhupada:

JPS has not allowed the fact that the above instruction is not mentioned even once, not to speak of "repeatedly", in any of Srila Prabhupada's "literatures" to deter him from amassing over 5,000 disciples, far in excess of any other ISKCON guru hoaxer. Indeed, in the same year as this statement above, the GBC body (ISKCON's Governing Body Commission) had issued a warning about JPS' ambitions in acquiring disciples:

If a "siksa disciple" of Srila Prabhupada has direct access to and the full mercy of Srila Prabhupada, pray tell for what reason does anyone need to take initiation from JPS? It cannot be to "connect" to Srila Prabhupada, since we already have direct access, just by taking siksa from Srila Prabhupada, according to JPS. And since such a disciple is also getting the full mercy of Srila Prabhupada, they are totally set in their spiritual life, and there would be no need to additionally surrender their life to JPS. They could just stick with Srila Prabhupada, which is what we recommend!

Note: The newspaper quotes directly from the press release drafted by JPS ("the letter says"), delivered by Nitai Prasad, and which JPS also agrees contains the "main gist".

The following newspaper reports refer to the suicide of an ISKCON devotee who was falsely implicated in a false rape case:

JPS ran into trouble with the GBC, the body that illegally maintains he is a bona fide guru successor to Srila Prabhupada, when he started approaching and writing to the disciples of other ISKCON gurus, sending them his blessings and offering to act as their spiritual guide:

He was cautioned by the Executive Committee (EC) of the GBC in an extraordinary meeting to deal with the crisis, but to little avail. Here is one angry complaint from Indradyumna Swami, whose disciples were so propositioned:

JPS’ website biography states the following:

JPS’s biography also states:

Given the above miraculous cure, it is surprising that according to his guru Godbrother, HH Bhanu Swami, JPS is suffering skin diseases today, along with a host of other ailments:

Perhaps JPS needs to follow the GBC's recommendations from its 1998 "guru appraisals" and "call on the name of God" more often.

The following is taken from the official initiation oath form for those who wish to take initiation from JPS:

Please note that nowhere in Srila Prabhupada's instructions is it stated that "His Divine Grace Srila Jayapataka Swami" is authorised to be an initiating spiritual master even in this life, not to speak of "forever". The GBC cannot even accept Srila Prabhupada as the diksa Guru in ISKCON for anyone for even ONE DAY -

- yet they are more than happy to grant* diksa guru* status to Jayapataka Swami for ETERNITY!