By Yaduraja das, IRM UK

5^th January 2002

My previous article – Madhudvisa’s Defeat of Madhudvisa (VNN Editorial Dec 26)- demonstrated how Madhudvisa's assertion that Srila Prabhupada ordered all his disciples to become Diksa Gurus for the world, contradicted his simultaneous assertion that Srila Prabhupada also ordered he remain the sole Diksa Guru for his world wide movement via the Ritvik system. In his response "Prabhupada Did Instruct Disciples To Become Qualified Diksa Gurus" (January 1, 2002 VNN Editorial) Madhudvisa not only re-states his two contradictory, mutually exclusive positions, but then has the audacity to claim my pointing them out is somehow irrelevant! He does this under the smokescreen of hurt feelings, even though he had only just attacked another devotee as being ‘crazy’ for presenting just one, self-consistent position based on Srila Prabhupada's signed directives!

Not content with making a fool of himself, he also tries to argue that Srila Prabhupada shares his proclivity for self-contradiction, as quoted in my previous article:

It seems Madhudvisa prabhu does not even read his own articles properly since he states:

He then re-produces just the three ‘opening’ paragraphs. What he seems to have already forgotten is that the ten quotes he produces from Srila Prabhupada are followed in his article by ten lengthy paragraphs written by, yes you guessed it, Madhudvisa prabhu. In these paragraphs he desperately attempts to show that Srila Prabhupada wanted all his disciples to go on to become diksa gurus, this in spite of the fact that not one of the quotes even mentions the word ‘diksa’! The most famous call to be Guru (the Amara verse in the C.c) carries the following clear stipulation from Srila Prabhupada: "It is best not to accept any disciples"; yet Madhudvisa tries to prove the very opposite, that Srila Prabhupada directly ordered all his disciples to succeed him as the next links in the parampara:

However, since Madhudvisa agrees that Srila Prabhupada personally authorised a Ritvik system of initiation, how could he simultaneously have authorised his disciples to have succeeded him as Diksa Gurus? To do this would create the following absurd scenario:

1. Srila Prabhupada would be initiating at the same time and in the same place as his disciples (since Madhudvisa has claimed that Srila Prabhupada instructed his disciples to become Diksa Gurus of the whole world). Thus you would have the spectacle of Srila Prabhupada having to compete with his own disciples for recruits to initiate.
2. This would mean that, contrary to Madhudvisa's assertion that Srila Prabhupada has ordered his disciples to succeed him, no succession would have taken place, since both Guru and disciples initiate simultaneously.

Disciplic succession would be replaced by 'disciplic competition', where the Guru and disciple battle it out for current link supremacy. In other words a complete madhouse.

What Madhudvisa inadvertently proposes is even more lunatic then the GBC's idea - he wants the Guru *and* the disciples to initiate simultaneously: at the same time and in the same place. At least the GBC are proposing what is theoretically possible - that Srila Prabhupada ordered his disciples to succeed him as Diksa Gurus. It just didn't happen - that's all. Madhudvisa proposes that it simultaneously did and did not happen - that yes Srila Prabhupada ordered his disciples to succeed him as the next links in the disciplic chain, and that he also does not do this because he continues to initiate for as long as ISKCON exists (which is supposed to be for the duration of the Sankirtan Movement, or approximately 9,500 more years)!

Not content with accusing Srila Prabhupada of contradicting himself, with his bizarre speculations Madhudvisa is trying to foist on Srila Prabhupada the mother of all contradictions. Don't be misled.

Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada

Yaduraja das