Below are comments I sent in to Dandavats.com shortly after they posted the GBC announcement of authorizing women diksa gurus within ISKCON. That was in mid October. The article they posted was prominently displayed on their website for at least two months, but is no longer there. Whatever the reason is for that Dandavats only allowed three supportive comments on that article. With such a controversial decision it’s very likely several more comments were sent in. From past experience I knew Dandavats doesn’t accompany views that conflict with their authoritative position. Nonetheless I sent these comments in, urging the GBC to find another solution which won’t create further and deeper divisions within the movement. As expected, these comments were not posted:
Since there is evidence in sastra such as Narada Pancaratra, as well as statements from Srila Prabhupada which restrict women from being diksa gurus, a win win solution for the GBC would have been to promote women as primary gurus in the siksa role. Historically this was a common practice, such as Narottama das Thakur took diksa from Lokanath Goswami, but his primary guru was Jiva Goswami as his siksa guru. The diksa guru role has been overemphasized within ISKCON and it is a philosophical misunderstanding. To keep more ISKCON devotees on board and in agreement with policies generated by the GBC it is wise to come up with solutions which are bonafide as well as acceptable to most at least. Making conditional arrangements to implement something objectionable to a section of the society is not ideal.