Podcast: ISKCON Membership (Updated)

Here's a podcast that David Jorm and I recorded this morning. We talked around ISKCON membership, covering the Chocolate incident, and some wider ISKCON Constitutional issues.

• Podcast: ISKCON Membership (mp3, 55 mins, 65MB)

Some related resources:

• David's blog

• H.H. Prahladananda Swami's 2006 paper "Duties of GBC and Guru"

I've also attached a copy to this post, in case the other link goes dark at some point.
Here's the section I quoted in the podcast:

The absence of a strong GBC Body and management system has created a authority vacuum within ISKCON. The devotees who join ISKCON often are more loyalty to their initiating guru than to the management structure of the Society. We have seen big temples such as in Bangalore leave ISKCON, and without learning from our mistakes, we do not sufficiently supervise our leaders or the Society’s projects. In some places, the strategy of a charismatic leader and experienced managers has encouraged many devotees to join and take initiation. However, when the devotees do not identify themselves as subordinate to the authority structure of the ISKCON society, in the future, when the current gurus leave their bodies, it is not clear what will to happen to such projects.

- Why ISKCON is in danger of failing, Duties of GBC and Guru, H.H. Prahladananda Swami, 2006

• H.H. Sivarama Swami podcast on Chocolate, May 26, 2006

Here is a transcript of the section about chocolate (from 4.42):

In answering this question I should point out.... that there was some discussion about this topic not long ago, in the GBC, and it was pointed out that the information that was given to Srila Prabhupada, and that is that chocolate contains coffeine [sic] was incorrect, ah, and it's not a [sic] intoxicant on the same level as coffee, tea, etc. So Srila Prabhupada had told devotees not to take chocolate on the basis of the information that they had given, ah therefore, ah, chocolate does not contain caffeine. Having said that, it's a substance that is cooked and prepared by karmis. Vaisnavas generally do not eat karmi foods. If someone were to ask whether they could eat bread cooked by karmis, the answer, Srila Prabhupada's answer is 'no'.

[Maharaja discusses not going nuts on eating chocolate, and discusses using cocoa butter to make preparations for the Deity]

[7:42]
...the information is there that they do not contain caffeine, and they are no longer a banned substance.