Rocana's new writing partner Torben Nielsen came out "guns a blazing" attacking us here at PADA, saying we are bogus for allowing people to accept Srila Prabhupada as their guru. Yes this is a horrible deviation! Why?
*** Torben says there is no need to worship a specific person as our guru because we vaishnavas worship "the concept of guru" and not necessarily an actual person as our guru. Right, suppose we eat only "the concept" of rice, dahl and chapattis -- and not the actual real and specific items? Right, we'll die. Yep little children, eat your "concept of rice and dahl" -- no need to eat the real thing! Is this what happens when people associate with the GBC / Rocana process, they think concepts are to be worshiped and not actual personalities?
Ooops! No one can live by eating "the concept of food." Hey, I just put "the concept of gasoline" in my car, why won't it run now? Hee hee. Worse! Srila Prabhupada never mentions this concocted process, "we are going to worship the concept of a guru ... and not a specific and named guru"? We are going to have the concept of a book about Krishna, but not the actual book? We are going to worship the concept of God, but not the actual person God?
This is total speculation.
Sorry! We need to worship the specific guru who represents Krishna, read the books of the specific guru, offer bhogha to the specific guru, and indeed offer everything via the specific guru. And this is how we have our services offered up the parampara chain to the specific personality of Godhead and so forth, that is the process. Of course, the same type argument has been made by mayavadas about the worship of God, we worship "the non-specific concept of God" -- and not the specific named person, ok like Krishna, yep -- this is called mayavada-ism.
And Srila Prabhupada also confirms that, he says we cannot say "all glories to Sri Guru," this is mayavada, we need to name the specific guru. How can we start a religion based on the worship of a "concept of guru," while having no actual specified guru?
*** Torben says we need to follow the tradition of the parampara. OK but isn't that the tradition, to worship a specific guru and not the concept of a guru?
*** Torben says there is nothing wrong with Rocana's "constitutional" guru process. OK their gurus are voted in, voted out, censured (for deviations), monitored, suspended, removed and so forth. Worse, their guru is supervised by the GBC's "judicial committee" to manage and supervise their gurus. This is a "relative platform" (mundane afflicted) guru, and not an absolute platform guru -- which means he is at best a priest / ritvik de facto. A priest / ritvik is monitored by the church council committee, not the acharya.
*** Then Torben says that there is no difference between his constitutional / judicial managed guru, and our guru? Where is any of this stated? Which previous acharyas have been managed and supervised by a judicial committee of a Governing Body? There is no difference between the "GBC managed" guru and the parampara gurus? Again, not stated anywhere in shastra? Nor do we even find ANY bona fide gurus who are subordinated to a managerial body?
*** Then Torben says the ritviks should not have made brahmanas to worship the deity, we should not have even started to worship these deities. OK wait a minute, there is no need to worship Krishna's deity anymore? Again, where does Srila Prabhupada say that after he departs the deity worship will be stopped? Sorry, he installed all of these deities expecting they would be worshiped ad infinitum, he never said this process should be halted.
Anyway, we hope Torben will re-think his arguments and come back when he has better answers. Torben also wanted to know if Rocana has been asked these same questions, and what was his response. The answer is, Rocana is a co-founder / architect of the 1986 "guru reform" where they concocted the guru voting / guru suspending / guru censure etc. process, he has no answer for where this is found in shastra because -- its not. ys pd
*** Torben says there is no need to worship a specific person as our guru because we vaishnavas worship "the concept of guru" and not necessarily an actual person as our guru. Right, suppose we eat only "the concept" of rice, dahl and chapattis -- and not the actual real and specific items? Right, we'll die. Yep little children, eat your "concept of rice and dahl" -- no need to eat the real thing! Is this what happens when people associate with the GBC / Rocana process, they think concepts are to be worshiped and not actual personalities?
Ooops! No one can live by eating "the concept of food." Hey, I just put "the concept of gasoline" in my car, why won't it run now? Hee hee. Worse! Srila Prabhupada never mentions this concocted process, "we are going to worship the concept of a guru ... and not a specific and named guru"? We are going to have the concept of a book about Krishna, but not the actual book? We are going to worship the concept of God, but not the actual person God?
This is total speculation.
Sorry! We need to worship the specific guru who represents Krishna, read the books of the specific guru, offer bhogha to the specific guru, and indeed offer everything via the specific guru. And this is how we have our services offered up the parampara chain to the specific personality of Godhead and so forth, that is the process. Of course, the same type argument has been made by mayavadas about the worship of God, we worship "the non-specific concept of God" -- and not the specific named person, ok like Krishna, yep -- this is called mayavada-ism.
And Srila Prabhupada also confirms that, he says we cannot say "all glories to Sri Guru," this is mayavada, we need to name the specific guru. How can we start a religion based on the worship of a "concept of guru," while having no actual specified guru?
*** Torben says we need to follow the tradition of the parampara. OK but isn't that the tradition, to worship a specific guru and not the concept of a guru?
*** Torben says there is nothing wrong with Rocana's "constitutional" guru process. OK their gurus are voted in, voted out, censured (for deviations), monitored, suspended, removed and so forth. Worse, their guru is supervised by the GBC's "judicial committee" to manage and supervise their gurus. This is a "relative platform" (mundane afflicted) guru, and not an absolute platform guru -- which means he is at best a priest / ritvik de facto. A priest / ritvik is monitored by the church council committee, not the acharya.
*** Then Torben says that there is no difference between his constitutional / judicial managed guru, and our guru? Where is any of this stated? Which previous acharyas have been managed and supervised by a judicial committee of a Governing Body? There is no difference between the "GBC managed" guru and the parampara gurus? Again, not stated anywhere in shastra? Nor do we even find ANY bona fide gurus who are subordinated to a managerial body?
*** Then Torben says the ritviks should not have made brahmanas to worship the deity, we should not have even started to worship these deities. OK wait a minute, there is no need to worship Krishna's deity anymore? Again, where does Srila Prabhupada say that after he departs the deity worship will be stopped? Sorry, he installed all of these deities expecting they would be worshiped ad infinitum, he never said this process should be halted.
Anyway, we hope Torben will re-think his arguments and come back when he has better answers. Torben also wanted to know if Rocana has been asked these same questions, and what was his response. The answer is, Rocana is a co-founder / architect of the 1986 "guru reform" where they concocted the guru voting / guru suspending / guru censure etc. process, he has no answer for where this is found in shastra because -- its not. ys pd
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