Back To Prabhupada, Issue 30, Winter 2010/11
The GBC have argued from the outset that Srila Prabhupada can not act as ISKCON’s diksha guru since this would violate the principle of parampara or disciplic succession. This argument is encapsulated by GBC-elected guru hoaxer HH Jayadvaita Swami (“JS”), who writes:
“That a spiritual master initiates until his departure and then his disciples initiate next is the normal system. On this we are all in agreement. This is what Srila Prabhupada taught the entire time he was with us.”
(Where the Ritvik People are Wrong, Jayadvaita Swami, 1996, emphasis added)
JS states emphatically that not only are “all in agreement” with the above, but also that this was what “Srila Prabhupada taught the entire time he was with us”, and the present ISKCON GBC at least, are in such agreement.
We will demonstrate that the GBC’s guru hoax system is a mixture of 4 different systems, with each of these systems being a deviation from the principle of the disciplic succession as taught either by Srila Prabhupada or the GBC themselves. Furthermore, it will be demonstrated that only by having Srila Prabhupada as ISKCON’s diksha guru will we have a bona fide parampara.
The GBC’s standard for the disciplic succession involves the guru initiating “until his departure”, and then the guru stops initiating on his departure so that he can then be followed by his disciples who would initiate next in his absence (“then his disciples initiate next”).
In this way the disciple “succeeds” the guru in initiating. However, the guru hoax turns the disciplic succession on its head by having not a disciplic succession, but a disciplic supplementation, whereby both the guru and disciple initiate at the same time, competing with each other for disciples! This, therefore, becomes not a “guru-disciple parampara”, but a “guru-disciple-guru parallel”. Examples of this phenomenon within ISKCON’s guru hoax are:
• HH Hridyananda Das Goswami and his disciple-guru HH Chandramukha Swami.
• HH Sivarama Swami and his disciple-guru HH Mahavishnu Goswami* (now deceased).
*a different Mahavishnu to the one featured in BTP 29
A variation of the GBC system occurs when the disciple actually does succeed his guru, but the succession occurs before the guru departs. This not only contradicts the GBC standard quoted at the outset, which states that the disciple only initiates after the guru departs, but also the following “law of disciplic succession” which the GBC quote in their many papers on “guru-tattva”:
“But as a matter of etiquette it is the custom that during the lifetime of your spiritual master you bring the prospective disciples to him, and in his absence or disappearance you can accept disciples without any limitation. This is the law of disciplic succession.”
(Srila Prabhupada Letter to Tusta Krsna, 2/12/1975)
An example of this is practised by guru hoaxer HH Jayadvaita Swami and his disciple-guru HH Kadamba Kanana Swami.
A number of ISKCON guru hoaxers have passed away now (7 at the time of going to press – Gaura Govinda, Tamala Krishna, Sridhara, Bhakti Tirtha, Suhotra, Bhakti Svarupa Damodara and Purnachandra). Though the GBC standard would then call for their “disciples to initiate next”, and thus “continue the disciplic succession”, this has not occurred in a single case where the guru has departed, even though it has now been some 15 years since the first ISKCON guru departed. Indeed, as we can see in the quote below, following the departure of one such guru, HH Bhakti Tirtha Swami (“BTS”), no such succession can even possibly occur:
“Gurudeva did not leave, or could he possibly leave a successor.”
(BTS disciples forum, 8/7/2006)
In this way, the disciplic succession “stops”, according to the GBC’s own standard.
Other ISKCON gurus have simply taken up the position of succeeding their guru without any authority from their own guru, as is the requirement according to sastra (scripture):
“One should take initiation from a bona fide spiritual master coming in the disciplic succession, who is authorised by his predecessor spiritual master. This is called diksa-vidhana.”
(Srimad-Bhagavatam, 4.8.54, purport)
The example of this is the disciples of Srila Prabhupada who replaced him as ISKCON’s diksha guru without Srila Prabhupada having authorised them to do so. To date, no such guru hoaxer has been able to bring forward any such “guru succession” order from Srila Prabhupada authorising him to act as diksha guru in ISKCON. Rather, as we have documented in BTP, they have taken up such a diksha guru position either via self-appointment or a GBC vote.
We can see that all of these types of practices, which constitute ISKCON’s current guru hoax system, are deviations from the principle of disciplic succession as taught by both Srila Prabhupada and by the acting GBC Body. The current ISKCON guru hoax system can be contrasted with the characteristics of a real parampara as stated in the Srimad-Bhagavatam by Srila Prabhupada:
“…in order to receive the real message of Srimad-Bhagavatam one should approach the current link, or spiritual master, in the chain of disciplic succession.”
(Srimad-Bhagavatam, 2.9.7, purport)
As long as one is approaching the current link spiritual master in the chain of disciplic succession, we have a real parampara or disciplic succession. Such a disciplic succession is represented currently by the current link, Srila Prabhupada, who:
a) was established as the current link for the disciplic succession for all members of ISKCON in 1966;
b) has remained in this position ever since, with no order for either the succession or termination of his current link position; and
c) who is giving us “the real message of the Srimad-Bhagavatam” via his voluminous purports, which is the only method by which everyone in ISKCON receives the message of the Bhagavatam.
So the real disciplic succession only exists and continues in ISKCON with Srila Prabhupada as the current link, just as he established and ordered, and does not continue via the many deviant hodgepodge concoctions that the GBC and their 70-odd gurus have cooked up.
So take your pick :
1) The current link - Srila Prabhupada,
or
2) The current mess - GBC guru hoax.
The choice is not that difficult!
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