Satsvarupa Das Goswami From December 1977

December 1, 1977: On this date in history 45 years ago, Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, one of the eleven ritvik priests who later revealed himself as a primary apologist for the eleven, had been thinking about his self-appointed position as an initiating spiritual master and shared his thoughts with his godbrothers in a December, 1977 letter. It is interesting to note that he felt that the new ISKCON gurus should not be permitted to receive worship in their spiritual master’s temples. Satsvarupa explained:

[begin quote] (SDG): How can some of Prabhupada’s disciples presume to become gurus after Prabhupada? The answer is that there’s no way that they can become acharyas equal to His Divine Grace, Shrila Prabhupada. Probably no one like him will appear for centuries. If any of his disciples think that now they have become acharyas like Shrila Prabhupada, they would commit a great offense. 

But that they can become gurus is already a fact since he has empowered them to do so. I thought of the historic example of Ramanuja. After Ramanuja there was no question of anyone immediately equaling him, but this did not mean that there were not gurus in his line following Ramanuja. Still gurus and disciples of that line worship the great acharya Ramanuja, although only those who were living at the same time as he could accept him as their initiating guru. . . .

When Shrila Prabhupada first made disciples in America, he was the only person responsible for taking care of the new disciples. As ISKCON grew, however, he began to share the responsibility of upbringing his disciples with the temple presidents and GBC and sannyasis. . . . 

The disciple will be grateful to his guru for bringing him in contact with the great acharya, Shrila Prabhupada, and thus through disciplic succession in touch with Lord Chaitanya and Krishna. . . .

As for myself, my policy would be that I would only allow worship of Shrila Prabhupada in any ISKCON temple, and not the worship of any new initiating guru. Only Shrila Prabhupada’s picture should be on the vyasasana and guru-puja should be [only] to Shrila Prabhupada. . . . 

It may be that disciples will be present of a guru, although the other devotees in the temple will be worshiping Shrila Prabhupada. We’ve seen this work in a natural and harmonious way in Vrindaban. There, one sannyasi — Narayana Maharaja — performs guru-puja to his guru, Keshava Maharaja (the sannyasi who awarded sannyasa to Shrila Prabhupada). During this worship disciples of Narayana Maharaja are present and it appears that they take pleasure in seeing their guru worship his guru. 

So what is the harm if, in an ISKCON temple everyone worships the greatest guru, Shrila Prabhupada, to whom we are all eternally indebted? . . .

The above reflections are my own, which I have arrived at in discussion with Hrdayananda Maharaja and Tamal-Krishna Maharaja. They do not form any official policy. The official policy is simply that the eleven chosen men may initiate disciples and they [the eleven] are actually the guru of that disciple. [End quote]
Eleven Naked Emperors, Chapter 5, “A Take-Over Conspiracy,” p. 174-175.

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