Letter from Tripurari swami to PADA

Tripurari swami Dear Puranjana,

Although I do not philosophically agree with the ritvikism, I agree with the fact that ritviks have the civil right to practice ritvikism. Furthermore, practicing ritivikism in itself does not make one an aparadhi, but publicizing false and defamatory statements about Vaishnavas (including myself) does. If anything I have ever said has caused threats against you, I apologize. I do not want to continue personal attacks against each other, but instead want to move forward in a away that allows us to practice and, when need be, defend our respective philosophies in a non-threatening manner. If I have published anything that threatens your safety, please let me know and I will be happy to address it. 

Sincerely, swami bv tripurari

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[PADA: Thanks very much prabhu. Yes, all our camps of vaishnavas should all be able to preach our respective ideas without feeling coerced or threatened. And we should develop more respect amongst all the various vaishnava groups since its very hard to convince the regular mundane citizens we have the better idea, if we are ourselves unable to get along. This in-fighting hurts the preaching of all our camps simultaneously. As the devotees and brothers are fighting, the conditioned souls are not being helped, this was the lamentation of Srila Prabhupada all the time, he was worried that the preaching work might be stopped due to infighting among his followers. He said that all the time, this was his greatest anxiety.

I would very much like to bury the hatchet between us, especially on the issue of personal attacks towards each other, and deal only with philosophical issues. That would be great. We should be very concerned that Srila Prabhupada's wish -- that we should not fight among ourselves -- and thus stop the preaching work of Lord Gauranga -- as occurred in the Gaudiya Matha mission -- has evolved in his ISKCON anyway despite his warning us. Srila Prabhupada was practically crying to us about this all the time, "do not let it come to this" (fighting among the God brothers like the Gaudiya Matha did).

Anyway, hopefully we can all enter a new era of more productive relationships where we are using our valuable time to preach to the conditioned souls and not so much preaching against one another. I feel a lot of relief after getting your letter and hope we can work more together on preaching the message of Lord Gauranga rather than wasting time fighting between the brothers. So I welcome your letter and hereby offer to reciprocate by helping resolve issues that are coming from our camp that you think we need to address. Anyway thanks again for the offer to help resolve things cooperatively, this is a great leap of forward progress. If there is any cause you feel needs to be addressed, you can also call me at 707-477-4102. your eternal servant, puranjana dasa]