Dearest Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept our grateful obeisances at your lotus feet. All glories to Your Divine Grace!
In 2018, the GBC’s Organizational Development Committee created SABHA (Spiritual Advisors Bhagavata Assembly) to strengthen unity among ISKCON’s spiritual leaders and provide checks and balances on the authority of the GBC. Your Divine Grace planted the seed for these purposes in March 1976, when you rejected several proposals the GBC had passed that greatly disturbed your Society’s temple presidents. Chastened by your action, on March 1, 1977, the GBC formally established a system of review for its decisions:
After the agenda has been completed, the Temple Presidents’ meeting will be held. If by a 2/3 majority the presidents vote any suggested amendments to the resolutions or make new resolutions, these will be referred back to the GBC, who will meet to vote on them, and that decision will be final. Śrīla Prabhupāda will then review these decisions for ultimate decision and/or approval.
As Your Divine Grace knew, your “ultimate decision and/or approval” would not be long for this world. Yet you liked the temple presidents’ review of the GBC’s resolutions and indicated that it could go on after your physical demise – which it did, until the number of ISKCON temples grew so large that it became impractical for all the presidents to meet and review the resolutions.
Inevitably, Your Divine Grace’s departure triggered many disagreements, which years before you had given the key to resolving: “If we keep Krishna in the center, then there will be agreement in varieties. This is called unity in diversity. I am therefore suggesting that all our men meet in Mayapur every year during the birth anniversary of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. With all GBC and senior men present we should discuss how to make unity in diversity.” (Letter to Kirtanananda, 18 October 1973)
To achieve unity in diversity, SABHA offers the GBC an opportunity to hear from other qualified Vaiṣṇavas and tap their collective wisdom. SABHA can also suggest issues the GBC could consider for discussion or solution. Again, there is precedent for this during Your Divine Grace’s presence. A GBC resolution dated March 7, 1977, stated: “Concerning topics to be presented each year at the GBC meeting in Mayapur, the temple presidents should submit topics to their GBC representative 45 days prior to the meeting, and the GBC representatives will present those topics 30 days before the meeting to the three GBC officers” (today called the GBC Executive Committee).
Overall, SABHA collaboratively works with the GBC by reviewing and proposing legislation and by suggesting topics for discussion with the aim of improving the quality, legitimacy, and acceptance of GBC resolutions. SABHA adds value to ISKCON’s governance by offering sound śāstric advice and expressing the will of the constituencies they represent. Hence, the sacred duty of SABHA is to, together with the GBC, act as an instrument of Your Divine Grace’s transcendental will.
As an advisory body, SABHA cannot enact or implement any legislation independently. At the same time, we have the ear of the GBC, Śrīla Prabhupāda, ISKCON’s “ultimate managing authority,” who want to better understand the needs, interests, and concerns of your Society’s members. Indeed, it is only by communicating and cooperating – your final measure of our love for you – that we can give everyone the opportunity to know and love Kṛṣṇa.
As Your Divine Grace told the Rādhā-Dāmodara Saṅkīrtana Party in Mayapur: “It is simply by cooperation we can do very big thing. ‘United we stand; divided we fall’ … There is hope in our Society, combination. There are Hindus; there are Muslims; there are Christians; there are black, white. Combine them. That looks very beautiful, just like combination of many flowers … Each and every flower take alone, it is not beautiful, but when they are combined together, it looks very beautiful. It is attractive. And that is wanted.” (Room conversation, Mayapur, March 16, 1976)
Thank you, Śrīla Prabhupāda, for guiding us and your sincere followers to find the cooperation we’ll need to please you and take Kṛṣṇa consciousness to every town and village.
Your grateful servants at SABHA