Sridhara and the GBC pt.3 (11 equated with Prabhupada)

March 1, 1978

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Jayapataka: So we wanted to take your advice on some points as to various details of how these initiating spiritual masters should deal with certain questions. If we could ask questions to you then?

Srila Sridhara Maharaja: yes, you may ask.

Jayapataka Maharaja: He (Srila Prabhupada) has given explicit desires, but he told us that, on other technical points and other matters of philosophy, it there was question we should approach you. He said that during his ... when he was very ill, he had appointed eleven ritviks and he said that after he disappears that these ritviks would continue as initiating spiritual masters and that they could be increased later, that would be decided by the GBC or Governing Body Commission.

[PADA: (A) Srila Prabhupada appointed successor gurus, (B) but since these successors had no idea how to be successors, (C) they had to "consult" with someone else who (D) has a history of appointing bogus people as successors? Is this making ANY sense? How could Srila Prabhupada appoint gurus, who needed to go somewhere else to learn how to be gurus? Have we ever seen any examples of this in the history of our guru parampara; A person is our guru, but he has yet to take actual lessons on how to be a guru? The VEDAS say -- a guru is ALREADY a self-realized PHD level soul, he has already realized the truth, he is not a person who still needs to go take kindergarten level lessons from others?  

And if a student still has to take lessons, that means he has not yet passed the PHD test. Why doesn't Sridhara Maharaja ask the obvious question here, "excuse me but if you still have not yet learned how to be a guru, how can you be gurus?" Suppose the GBC said, "We were told to be brain surgeons," and then Sridhara Maharaja says, "OK, here is a buzz saw, go open up some skulls and learn from there"? No, the obvious question is, "Since you are just being weaned from eating hamburgers, smoking cigarettes, having illicit sex with men and women, and so forth, how could you jump from that level to being Jesus like saints and acharyas in no time at all"? 


So Sridhara Maharaja never understood what an acharya is, or he would know that people from this degraded (sudra / mleccha) back ground could not catapult to be at the level of fully realized acharyas in just a few years? That is not how it works, even fully functioning brahmana priests are not considered as acharyas in a few years despite they follow all the prescribed rules of the Vedas. In sum, Sridhara Maharaja did not even realize that it is not possible for people from this back ground to be acharyas in such a short time.    


And despite our asking since 1977, there is no evidence that Srila Prabhupada EVER asked his leaders to "consult with Sridhara Maharaja over the philosophy." Where is this "explicit order" mentioned above by Jayapataka? Where is this documented? Instead "the evidence" is: that Srila Prabhupada had severe doubts about Sridhara Maharaja's having the ability to help his movement? In fact, Srila Prabhupada said Sridhara Maharaja's advice was very likely to HARM his movement. 


And later on (in 1982) Jayapataka was helping the GBC put together their "position paper" citing all of the negative quotes from Srila Prabhupada about Sridhara Maharaja. Thus the GBC began "proving" our idea that "all of the evidence" points to the fact that -- Srila Prabhupada does NOT want Sridhara Maharaja to be the GBC's "shiksha guru advisor." If there is ANY "specific evidence" we were supposed to go there, how come a few years later Jayapataka was found saying -- the only specific evidence is: We were told NOT to go there? 


In addition we find that Jayapataka is admitting above that the GBC had only been appointed as ritviks or priests. Where is the evidence these ritviks would "continue as initiating spiritual masters"? And since Srila Prabhupada had said in January of 1977 that his leaders are not fit even to be in the post of renounced monks (sannyasa), why are Jayapataka and Sridhara saying these people are fit to be "spiritual masters" merely one year later, March of 1978? How did the same people unfit for basic monk life become messiahs in just one year? 


Next, Jayapataka says the number of spiritual masters would be increased because acharyas would now be subject to the [ecclessiastical?] votes of the Governing Body aka GBC. That means the GBC would now be in the role of the over-lords and "the masters" of the spiritual master? The GBC over-rides and over-rules the spiritual master by votes? The GBC is the master of persons who are supposed to be on the same level as Jesus? How can the GBC be the over-lords of persons like Jesus? And why would any actual pure devotee want to be subordinated to the votes of these very neophyte conditioned souls like the GBC? And why didn't Sridhara maharaja ask at this point, "But the 'numbers of pure devotees' on planet earth is not determined by the votes of a Governing Body"? Sridhara maharaja does not even know that pure devotees are not under the juristiction of a panel of defective conditioned souls?]  

JAYAPATKA: The first question was, we wondered that some of the disciples had been initiated by Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja. But this Harinama, so they will be taking diksa from one of his disciples, so they wondered, what is their relationship in this type of situation with each of the spiritual masters. So, those who are initiated by our Srila Prabhupada with Harinama, then when they approach one of these eleven and take second initiation, then they would like to know what is the, who is the guru, spiritual master amongst these eleven.

[PADA: This shows that Sridhara maharaja was being told right at the beginning that the 11 were being equated with Srila Prabhupada. Some of these Gaudiya Matha folks are now trying to weasel out of this imbroglio by saying "Sridhara Maharaja did not know the 11 were being equated with Srila Prabhupada." Sorry, he did know. Notice Jayapataka is juxtaposing both the 11 and Srila Prabhupada as "spiritual masters."]

Srila Sridhara Maharaja: A Disciple, he may like one - first or third or fourth or fifth, how to solve that.


[PADA: Instead of Sridhara Maharaja asking the real question, how can ANY of the 11 be equated with Srila Prabhupada?, Sridhara Maharaja instead starts to wonder how the new people of ISKCON will be able to select one guru from the pack of 11? That means he simply skipped over the actual point at hand, that these 11 are being equated with Srila Prabhupada. In other words, Sridhara Maharaja did not even see that having the 11 compared to Srila Prabhupada was the first problem out of the box, rather "the problem" was: how to make the system of 11 acharyas function? 


This is merely another foolish idea, that all 11 successor gurus were designated to be worshipped all at the same time, by the original acharya. There has never any instance where a matha had 11 acharyas being worshiped simultaneously? Each of our acharyas has his own mission / matha once at a time, and he is worshiped there individually, not along with 10 other successors all at the same time. In other words, Sridhara Maharaja did not even investigate, why were 11 acharyas appointed all at once since that is never done in our system? Are we going to have 11 vyasa seats, and 11 photos on the altars, are we going to offer bhogha to one, some, or all 11 and so on, this was a few of hundreds of questions about the obvious flawed  issue here which Sridhara Maharaja does not even seem to notice? Instead Sridhara Maharaja wanted: lets vote in more and more acharyas, .... so before figuring out how the 11 system is going to work, he wants to expand the problem a hundred times larger? 


Which previous acharyas appointed successors? None. Which previous acharyas appointed 11 successors at the same time? None. And Sridhara maharaja did not even know that none of this is ever done previously in vaishnavism? Srila Prabhupada said many times, the guru is not appointed, he is self-effulgent. Sridhara maharaja does not know the guru is not appointed? He does not know anything about these issues? So Sridhara Maharaja began to concoct a system where the 11 would have their own separate vyasasana seats, their own separate pranam prayers, and so forth, instead of just saying, there are no examples of 11 acharyas being appointed at once, this is a myth, there was no appointment of 11 acharyas? Neither there are any examples of 11 sudras and mlecchas catapulting to the status of acharya in just a few years, and so on and so forth. Sridhara Maharaja never raises these issues, only we (dissenters) did. At our extreme peril.]

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