Writing "Position Papers" for the GBC's Gurus?
Bhakta Ernest : It is always interesting to know more about those early actions against the deviations. Recently Eric Johanson prabhu posted an interesting comment (shared here with his permission):
[PADA: Right. Kailash Chandra wrote a paper for the GBC in 1990, saying that our idea of promoting Srila Prabhupada as the acharya is "the ritvik deviation." And that is why various GBC folks circulated his paper as a wonderful example of the correct siddhanta (that we cannot worship the "departed / posthumous" pure devotee, we have to worship their "living" conditioned souls).]
His strategy or hope was that the ISKCON institution leaders would reject it, leading to an ongoing conflict between the ISKCON institution and the, then new, dispensation, something that would sap the energies of both over time.
[PADA: This makes no sense? Kailash writes a paper saying that our worshiping pure devotees is the bogus ritvik deviation, and that would start a war among the GBC's gurus? Nope, they already united on this point in 1978. The GBC ilk already pretty much agreed that our worship of the pure devotee is the ritvik deviation.
All Kailash did was pour gasoline on us by calling us deviants, and helped the GBC light the match to take us down. Kailash said the GBC's idea is the right idea (we need to worship the living person) and this helped the GBC's attack our program.]
Being kind of prescient about the potential of deviations to become popular, Kailasa foresaw the benefits of the institution taking on rittvik.
[PADA: Hee hee! Yep, there are many benefits to stopping people from worship of the pure devotee and have them worship half baked neophytes instead. Of course, this what also happened in the Gaudiya Matha, they attacked the worship of the pure devotee and established the worship of conditioned souls as gurus. This is amazing, Kailash helps the GBC with their idea that we need to STOP the worship of pure devotees, and worship conditioned souls instead, and this is going to benefit ISKCON and human society.]
This was way back when the ISKCON institution was still requiring mandatory "reinitiation." Indeed his sense of how things might go turned out to be correct as the institution has now made reinitiation voluntary with the idea that so-called disciples of disgraced "gurus" are still linked by "virtue" of their service to the GBC. Of course there is no virtue because there is no sastric backing for such people to serve some questionable institutional governing diplomats in the place of a self-realized soul.
[PADA: OK but Kailash says we need to replace the worship of self realized souls with his living conditioned souls. And worse, he writes a paper favored by the conditioned souls gurus, and the fake gurus circulate his paper as a foundational position paper to back the GBC's conditioned soul guru's system.]
Anyway the real reason the GBC made reinitiation voluntary was that almost everyone whose "guru" became disgraced was going to the rittviks instead of accepting another neophyte institutional appointee.
[PADA: So we cannot worship Srila Prabhupada, then de facto, people will go to worship the neophyte institutional appointee. PADA's friend in India lives near an ISKCON temple, who said anyone who does not worship the local institutional guru there is banned, vilified and kicked out. "There is no other option, we all have to surrender to the local temple's neophyte guru, or we cannot participate in ISKCON." Of course, this friend is glad to meet PADA and find out this process is totally bogus.]
What has resulted from dropping mandatory reinitiation, however, is what even some institution inmates admit is a kind of "soft rittvik," thus proving Kailasa's point. I am proud to have played some small part in this pivotal moment in ISKCON history.
[PADA: Pivoting to what? The GBC says we cannot worship pure devotees, Kailash agrees and says we cannot worship pure devotees, and both of them are part of the club that says pure devotees are -- posthumous, post samadhi, post mortem etc.
And worse, worship of the pure devotee is "the bogus Christian's idea." Oddly, Kailash has largely removed himself from the Krishna devotee's association and he lives in American cities -- full of Christian ritviks? If you can't beat em, join em'? Hee hee. So their ground breaking major new position paper, is simply recycling the same old same old GBC stuff around. Been there, done that. ys pd]
PADA: This is the shiksha guru of Torben, Ajit Krishna, Hanuman Croatia and so on. Kailash was requested by several GBC gurus (like Trivrikram swami) to write a paper for the GBC, and he did. 1990 was also when the GBC got Narayan Maharaja to help them write the "ISKCON Journal," which cited NM as their authority. 1990 was also when the guru ghost busting was going on etc. Anyway, Kailash was part of that mob at the time.
ReplyDeleteAnd Kailash wrote many other articles (sometimes using a fake name) for Rocana's site. Bottom line, we cannot a worship pure devotee, because then we would be like the bogus Christians -- who worship a pure devotee. Yes, everywhere in the Vedas it says we cannot become liberated without worship of the pure devotee, and then they chop that whole process out -- and criticize that worship of the pure devotee process as the posthumous, post samadhi, post mortem process. Jeepers, since Krishna is the leader of this parampara, that would also make God post mortem. Really guys? That is your best argument, God and His gurus are post mortem. Hee hee! ys pd