Should we blindly follow institutional authorities?

On the one hand, our philosophy is based on following higher authorities, starting by Krsna Himself. On the other hand, Prabhupada explains that blind following is dangerous.

Should devotees blindly follow institutional authorities? On the one hand, our philosophy is based on following higher authorities, starting by Krsna Himself. Without learning from a superior person, we can't achieve anything in life, what to say about attaining self-realization. On the other hand, in his purport to Bg 4.34 Srila Prabhupada explains that blind following is dangerous: "In this verse, both blind following and absurd inquiries are condemned. One should not only hear submissively from the spiritual master; but one must also get a clear understanding from him, in submission and service and inquiries."

On another occasion he said that "you are supposed to surrender using your intelligence, not to surrender your intelligence". To surrender one's intelligence and follow someone blindly is not recommended.

There is a pseudo-Vaishnava sect called kartabhaja described by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, where the followers blindly follow the guru, who they worship as God incarnated. The problem is that more often than not the leaders of this sect deviate, doing seriously immoral things. Still, the followers continue to worship them as God, even when the situation is clear.

So, the short answer is no, devotees should not blindly institutional authorities or anyone else. We should always use our intelligence and understand what we are doing. We should also stop following a leader if he or she becomes fallen. The problem is that we often go to the other extreme, completely rejecting the concept of authority, and this can be even more disastrous.

In political systems, there is something called authoritarianism, which is quite bad, but there is also something called anarchy, which is even worse. Any good form of government has to stay clear of both extremes. In one sense we need to learn to recognize and reject fallen or deviant spiritual leaders, but on the other hand, we need to learn to trust and follow true leaders. Only one who is balanced on this matter will be able to find the right path in the midst of all confusion.

There are historical cases when the GBC made bad decisions, like in the introduction of the zonal acarya system, but on the other hand, they also protected our society in many situations where the right answer was not clear. Maybe we would not need a GBC if we would be a society of pure devotees, but unfortunately, that's not the case. Speculations appear, quarrels manifest, cases of abuse happen, and there must be some authority with sufficient power to deal with such cases.

Any kind of organized society requires a leader. This leader may be a single person or a group of persons who share the power. When a single perfect person is available, an absolutist system is more efficient, since a perfect leader can use this absolute power to do good. However, absolute power corrupts, and a corrupted leader can use this absolute power to do absolute evil. History proves that in Kali-yuga such perfect leaders are rare. Even in the history of our movement, there were cases of leaders who were accepted as perfect by their followers, just to be caught in grossly immoral acts later on.

Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura could identify this problem, and therefore he developed the concept of a governing body as the head of a spiritual institution, instead of the traditional system of a single ācārya. When Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura was about to pass away, he told his disciples to organize a governing body to take care of the Gauḍīya Maṭha in his absence. He made clear his desire that should not be a single ācārya. They tried, but the problems in putting together such a governing body proved too hard to solve at the time and they ended up electing a single ācārya. The problem is that not very long afterward the so-called ācārya fell down, paving the way for all the problems that followed. The Gauḍīya Maṭha fragmented into many smaller institutions and the infighting made the preaching practically stop.

When Srila Prabhupada passed away he left a similar instruction to his disciples, creating a GBC to collectively make important decisions in his absence. The reasoning is simple to understand: although a group of senior Vaishnavas may still commit mistakes, the frequency and severity of such mistakes tend to be lower than the mistakes that a single imperfect individual with absolute power would commit. Considering the times we live in, this is the only acceptable system for a worldwide community like ours.

One could question the necessity of such a system since we can have small communities with local leaders making decisions. This is actually another side of the question that is often overlooked. Srila Prabhupada actually wanted our movement to be based on semi-autonomous communities with local leaders taking care of things. At the same time, he envisioned the GBC as a higher authority that could oversee things and have the power to correct the situation when things go wrong. Local leaders usually do better, since they are in touch with the needs of local devotees. Still, there should also be a higher authority to where devotees can go in cases of problems, and that can act as a unifying force when the inevitable disagreements appear. We can see that there are two sides to the question and we get into problems when we are not able to balance both.

In other words, our movement should be based on semi-autonomous communities, with local devotees being empowered to take decisions and improve things, but at the same time, there must be a higher authority to oversee things and correct problems when they appear. There should not be a central power interfering too much with local affairs, but there must also not be anarchy.

Many of the problems we saw in the past in our society came from going too much to one side or to the other. However, I have faith that we will eventually find the right balance and it will allow our movement to continue working as a unified society for the next 10,000 years.