Jayatirtha Dasa - Withdrawal From ISKCON

Withdrawal From ISKCON

At the 1982 meeting, the GBC instructed Jayatirtha Maharaja that he must forgo any contact with Sridhara Maharaja or else leave ISKCON, otherwise he would be condemned for "failing to cooperate with the ISKCON movement". To stabilize Jayatirtha's zone, the GBC turned it to another guru, Bhagavan, who reinitiated some of Jayatirtha's disciples. Under Bhagavan's leadership, Hare Krishna devotees in UK went on a year-long marathon to collect funds to save British ISKCON properties. Unable to pay high mortgage payments, Bhagavan eventually had to sell Croome Court estate. ISKCON in the absence of jayatirtha’s managerial skills was becoming unviable. Some of Jayatirtha's disciples fled from London to India and joined their guru, creating "the first formal schismatic offshoot from ISKCON". Jayatirtha's new splinter group became based in London and he renamed his former ISKCON disciples with biblical names. Finally, he left his London temple and went to Nepal with a small group of students and founded The Order of Pilgrims which later became established in South Africa.