Dear Devotees,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
The Annual General Meeting of the ISKCON GBC Society will begin in February 2024. Following the ISKCON GBC Society’s Rules of Order, the GBC Secretariat requests proposals, duly sponsored by two GBC members, to be submitted by December 15, 2023. Note that no proposals will be entertained after this date.
Please follow the format for GBC Proposals linked as a fillable PDF here:
By Anuttama Dasa
The Governing Body Commission (GBC) of ISKCON has released a decision clarifying initiation standards in ISKCON. The decision came, in part, as a response to a thorough paper produced by ISKCON’s Sastric Advisory Council (SAC) entitled “Brahma-gayatri Mantra in ISKCON -Varnashrama, Bhakti – Principle or Detail?”
The SAC paper was studied in detail by the GBC in plenary sessions and by an ad hoc GBC Committee. The committee drew from the paper what they considered the essential
Dear Devotees,
Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
On several occasions, Srila Prabhupada expressed the desire for an ISKCON Constitution, to guide his followers in the future.
In 1971, for instance, he wrote: “We are in the experimental stage but in the next meeting of the GBC members they should form a constitution how the GBC members manage the whole affair.” (Letter to Giriraja, 12 Aug 1971)
Through the years, various attempts at writing the ISKCON Constitu
GBC Annual General Meeting (passed on February 11, 2023)
[Category] – Administrative Order
Whereas the GBC body has encouraged the establishment of continental committees (GBC Resolution 404/2002. Regional and Continental Governing Bodies)
Whereas North America has been designated as a ’Region’ with 5 ’Zones’ encompassing the United States and Canada.
Whereas the North American GBC members and other leaders have been functioning as a continental governance group prior to the 2002 resolution but
By Ananda Tirtha Das
The 2023 GBC’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) was only partially completed during the February gathering
in Mayapur. The three resolutions linked below were passed at the February meetings, reviewed by the
SABHA, and are now being published. The titles of the three resolutions are: Amendment to Deputies Duties 2023, Informed Decision-making by GBC Members is a Solemn Duty, and Formation and Recognition of the North American Governing Body.
The AGM will continue online using
The Bhaktivedanta Research Center (BRC) was established in Kolkata in 2009 by Hari Sauri Das and Pranava Das. Currently, the administrative affairs are under the supervision of Gauranga Das and Balaram Lila Das. Pranava Das and Dr. Sumanta Rudra direct the BRC’s academic affairs.
The mission of BRC is “to be a leading global institution” by collecting, preserving, researching, teaching, exhibiting, and publishing the work of the previous acaryas.
The BRC library has over 30,000 books and 4,000
By Thomas Haribol
The GBC College for Leadership Development has recently begun its next Zonal Supervisor Training course that includes thirty leaders from nine different countries worldwide.
The GBC College has successfully offered this training fifteen times worldwide in different languages since 2015. It aims to train candidates to become zonal supervisors who will assist their local GBC in managing their zone. Each candidate is hand-picked by their GBC and carefully vetted by the GBC Coll
The following is a letter accompanying today’s release of the “Review of Safeguarding and Child Protection in ISKCON Mayapur and Vrindavan schools” Report
Dear Devotees,
Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
In pursuance of our commitment to dealing robustly with child protection, in December 2022, the GBC Body authorized an independent review of the governance and leadership in the Mayapur and Vrindavan gurukulas. The report was submitted to us in February, and
During its AGM meetings in Mayapur this year, members of the Governing Body Commission and members of the Indian Bureau spent an entire day together discussing relevant topics for both leadership groups. Several members of the Indian Continental Committee also joined the meeting.
Approximately fifty devotees met in one of the meeting rooms within the Temple of Vedic Planetarium for two three-hour sessions in the morning and the afternoon.The meeting was facilitated by ISKCON Resolve leader Vraj
By Devakinandana Das and Devasri Radhika Devi Dasi
The following letter from two ISKCON legal experts explains the current effort to seek input from ISKCON devotees worldwide in formulating a Constitution for ISKCON. ISKCON News encourages all devotees to open the link, review the draft, share their thoughts, and help build the foundation for our society’s future.
ISKCON Constitution – Your Chance to Participate!
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acarya of the Int
By Ananda Tirtha Das
The *2022* GBC Resolutions have finally been released. Unfortunately, due to the global pandemic, the GBC Body couldn’t conduct in-person meetings, and therefore the 2022 AGM (Annual General Meeting) was conducted online. Thankfully, the 2023 AGM, however, began as a regular in-person meeting in Mayapur and will continue online in the upcoming months.
The GBC met online weekly throughout 2022 (and continues to do so in 2023) to discuss matters of global importance and vote
Dear Devotees,
Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
The *2022* GBC Resolutions have finally been released. Due to the global pandemic, it was not possible for the GBC Body to conduct in-person meetings and therefore the 2022 AGM was conducted online. The 2023 AGM, however, began as a regular in-person meeting in Mayapur and will continue online in the upcoming months.
The GBC met online weekly throughout 2022 (and continues to do so in 2023) to discuss matters o
Dear Devotees,
Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
In Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya 22.128, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu explains that of all devotional practices, five are most potent. The life of HH Kadamba Kanana Swami was an ideal illustration of all five of these most potent limbs of bhakti: sadhu-sanga (association of the Vaisnavas), nama-kirtana (chanting the holy names), bhagavata-sravana (hearing Srimad-Bhagavatam), mathura-vasa (residing in the holy dham),
The GBC meeting opened with Srila Prabhupada Guru Puja prayers followed by a reading from the Srimad Bhagavatam (6.5.27-28) by Prahladananda Swami.
Twenty-five members attended the meeting in Mayapur. Dina Sharan Devi Dasi, and Emeritus members Mukunda Goswami, Gopal Krishna Goswami, and Guru Gauranga Das joined online.
The first agenda topic taken was a presentation about Sri Caitanya Culture World Heritage Centre which is a 740 acre project, incorporating most of what is known as the Mayapur
The GBC meeting opened with Srila Prabhupada Guru Puja prayers followed by a reading from the Srimad Bhagavatam by Bhaktimarg Swami.
The EC Chair, Bhanu Swami, shared a brief report of some assignments overseen by GBC EC. Some of these assignments include:
* Development of Global Property Office
* Coordinating with the Legal office which was active with several tasks including Will for GBC members and improvising systems
* Actively working with Shastri Advisory Council
* Assisted to oversee C
The GBC meeting was opened with prayers led by HH Bhanu Swami Maharaja, Chairman of the GBC Executive Committee. Nrisimha Kavaca dasa, ISKCON Deity Minister, followed with a reading from the Srimad Bhagavatam.
The GBC began by updating a few committee assignments that needed clarification from 2022. (Assignments for 2023 will be completed during the Annual General Meeting [AGM] in Mayapur.)
Next, the GBC Body discussed and finalized its selection of representatives to dialogue with the India Bu
* A New Year Message from the ISKCON Governing Body Commission *
Dear ISKCON Members and Friends,
Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Looking back on 2022, we want to thank you for your many continued services to Srila Prabhupada, and to Lord Caitanya’s mission of spreading Krishna consciousness to every town and village in the world.
After several years of differing degrees of being isolated from one another and from our communities due to the pandemic, we loo
This GBC resolution has yet to be reviewed by the SABHA. However, the GBC felt this resolution is of such importance that at least the administrative processes outlined below should begin as soon as possible, and can be modified pending the review of the SABHA.
On December 28, 2022, in response to recent revelations of abuse connected to the ISKCON Mayapur school, during its weekly online meeting, the ISKCON Governing Body Commission (GBC) resolved to establish a formal inquiry to “identify the
At its November 2, 2022 meeting, the Governing Body Commission (GBC) of ISKCON resolved to again put a moratorium on women devotees accepting disciples in ISKCON. (The resolution can be found at the end of this article.)
The topic has been debated and discussed in various forums in ISKCON for twenty years and has evoked strong feelings (as well as lengthy papers and lists of oppositional sastric [scriptural] references) on all sides of the issue. In 2014, for example, the GBC held a special 3-d
