>>Mark: When asked by his GBC leaders in May of 1977 to clarify how formal initiations would be conducted after his disappearance, he confirmed that the ritvik system would continue, and that there should be no change in management. Thus he clearly ordered the continuance of the ritvik system of formal initiations after his disappearance before formalizing the policy in July.
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Giri Nayaka: It is true, that Srila Prabhupada didn’t intend abrupt change of initiation procedure after his departure. It was a practical ritvik system, which enabled him to offer initiations to devotees. Based on this alone, one can conclude from this, that ritvik initiations are to continue “henceforward,” forever.
[PADA: First of all, its been forensically proven that the May 28th appointment tape is a splice job (after it was totally hidden until 1984). This was confirmed by Norman Perle, whom -- oddly -- the GBC wanted us to have the tape analysed by him, and he said it was "consistent with tampering."
Notwithstanding that, on the tape it says a person may become a guru when the training is complete. I think this is an accurate stand alone statement, however we find that when kindergarten children are given the task of doing brain surgery, their "lack of taining" becomes evident very soon, just as we see that the GBC gurus are not yet "trained" brain surgeons either.
So yes, there is a general order (letter to Tusta Krishna etc.) for everyone to become pure and then gurus, but that does not mean either one, any, some etc. -- will do so.
One or some might become pure, but its called mental speculation to say that there is a SPECIFIC order for one, some, or anyone to be gurus. We are not arguing the general order "all you kindergarten kids become brain surgeons" -- what we are saying is -- there is no specific order for anyone to start doing the surgery now. Then again if the GBC had to go to the trouble of splicing the tape, there was no specific order for sure.]
GN: But, taking into account Srila Prabhupada’s wide perspective, there is possible another conclusion, that eventually there will be gurus, which is based on fact, that Srila Prabhupada extensively described guru-disciple relationship, based on humble service and submition.
[PADA: OK so there is a general order for everyone to become pure, just like there is a general idea for all the kindergarten children to become PHDs. That does not mean any specific child will become a PHD, its a hopeful ideal, thats all.]
GN: Clearly, GBC’s rubber-stamping institutional guru system didn’t turn out fine. Neither did 11 zonal acaryas before that. Still, it will be hard to prove, that Srila Prabhupada discouraged, or even forbid initiating gurus, “henceforward.”
[PADA: No, IF AND when there is another pure devotee, i.e IF the training is complete and one attains the proper PHD levels, or if a person descends from Vaikuntha, then they can be gurus.
Its a question of internal purity. "Henceforward" simply means the indefinate future, from now until there is some reason to change, but it may not change, we might not have another pure devotee appear. So the real instruction is to just continue henceforward, this could be a short time, a long time, or maybe 10,000 years, its not specific. And its speculation to guess, just like the Christians who think Jesus is coming soon, so these fools like CC Craker jacks who think Jesus will soon appear or re-appear in ISKCON, they are speculators.]
GN: I hope devotees will eventually see, that there is no good or bad guru. There is Guru, and results of serving Guru are described by Srila Prabhupada in detail. Either one is going in right direction, or he is not! One can allways judge by results, by sincere self-analysis, whether he is on the right path. Srila Prabhupada described how to understand this properly.
The point is in connection of the soul with Krsna, through Parampara. There are dry (disconnected) branches on the sampradaya tree, and disciple must be inteligent enough to know who he is following. Such inteligence may be result of some causeless mercy, and it seems it is not very common, but it is essential.
Finally, all those, who approach Krsna through Sampradaya, are in good hands. In our case this means that both GBC and Ritvik camp are right. But at the same time they are both mistaken, because fighting and separatism is really not approaching Krsna through Sampradaya, and while doing so, they are going in a wrong direction. Instead of seeing differences, they would do well to appreciate similarities and cooperate. But that takes some realization, which cannot be faked.
[PADA: Well right now the GBC has done us a huge favor by spending $15m dollars suing us, this has got our story all over the press media of India, now millions of people are being exposed to the poison case and so forth, they have given us millions of dollars of free publicity. I say that is great, there is no way we could have got this publicity without their spending a fortune on helping us get into the media there. ys pd]
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Giri Nayaka: It is true, that Srila Prabhupada didn’t intend abrupt change of initiation procedure after his departure. It was a practical ritvik system, which enabled him to offer initiations to devotees. Based on this alone, one can conclude from this, that ritvik initiations are to continue “henceforward,” forever.
[PADA: First of all, its been forensically proven that the May 28th appointment tape is a splice job (after it was totally hidden until 1984). This was confirmed by Norman Perle, whom -- oddly -- the GBC wanted us to have the tape analysed by him, and he said it was "consistent with tampering."
Notwithstanding that, on the tape it says a person may become a guru when the training is complete. I think this is an accurate stand alone statement, however we find that when kindergarten children are given the task of doing brain surgery, their "lack of taining" becomes evident very soon, just as we see that the GBC gurus are not yet "trained" brain surgeons either.
So yes, there is a general order (letter to Tusta Krishna etc.) for everyone to become pure and then gurus, but that does not mean either one, any, some etc. -- will do so.
One or some might become pure, but its called mental speculation to say that there is a SPECIFIC order for one, some, or anyone to be gurus. We are not arguing the general order "all you kindergarten kids become brain surgeons" -- what we are saying is -- there is no specific order for anyone to start doing the surgery now. Then again if the GBC had to go to the trouble of splicing the tape, there was no specific order for sure.]
GN: But, taking into account Srila Prabhupada’s wide perspective, there is possible another conclusion, that eventually there will be gurus, which is based on fact, that Srila Prabhupada extensively described guru-disciple relationship, based on humble service and submition.
[PADA: OK so there is a general order for everyone to become pure, just like there is a general idea for all the kindergarten children to become PHDs. That does not mean any specific child will become a PHD, its a hopeful ideal, thats all.]
GN: Clearly, GBC’s rubber-stamping institutional guru system didn’t turn out fine. Neither did 11 zonal acaryas before that. Still, it will be hard to prove, that Srila Prabhupada discouraged, or even forbid initiating gurus, “henceforward.”
[PADA: No, IF AND when there is another pure devotee, i.e IF the training is complete and one attains the proper PHD levels, or if a person descends from Vaikuntha, then they can be gurus.
Its a question of internal purity. "Henceforward" simply means the indefinate future, from now until there is some reason to change, but it may not change, we might not have another pure devotee appear. So the real instruction is to just continue henceforward, this could be a short time, a long time, or maybe 10,000 years, its not specific. And its speculation to guess, just like the Christians who think Jesus is coming soon, so these fools like CC Craker jacks who think Jesus will soon appear or re-appear in ISKCON, they are speculators.]
GN: I hope devotees will eventually see, that there is no good or bad guru. There is Guru, and results of serving Guru are described by Srila Prabhupada in detail. Either one is going in right direction, or he is not! One can allways judge by results, by sincere self-analysis, whether he is on the right path. Srila Prabhupada described how to understand this properly.
The point is in connection of the soul with Krsna, through Parampara. There are dry (disconnected) branches on the sampradaya tree, and disciple must be inteligent enough to know who he is following. Such inteligence may be result of some causeless mercy, and it seems it is not very common, but it is essential.
Finally, all those, who approach Krsna through Sampradaya, are in good hands. In our case this means that both GBC and Ritvik camp are right. But at the same time they are both mistaken, because fighting and separatism is really not approaching Krsna through Sampradaya, and while doing so, they are going in a wrong direction. Instead of seeing differences, they would do well to appreciate similarities and cooperate. But that takes some realization, which cannot be faked.
[PADA: Well right now the GBC has done us a huge favor by spending $15m dollars suing us, this has got our story all over the press media of India, now millions of people are being exposed to the poison case and so forth, they have given us millions of dollars of free publicity. I say that is great, there is no way we could have got this publicity without their spending a fortune on helping us get into the media there. ys pd]
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/india/indias-gurus-conflict
ReplyDelete"The turf war over land in Bangalore erupted in fisticuffs in June last year when ISKCON members beat each other up in front of the Krishna temple and drowned out the chiming of temple bells and chanting with their abuse and foul language," Ramachandran writes. "India's Supreme Court is expected to give its ruling on that dispute in a fortnight from now. It will decide whether ISKCON Bangalore is a legal entity and has rights over the disputed property. "