Dear Ajamila Prabhu,
PAMHO. AGTSP.
Every single posting you open with how you are anchored in 'guru, sadhu and sastra', and yet the whole of your offering does not contain a single piece of 'guru, sadhu and sastra' evidence. Rather you simply recycle the same claims you have offered throughout the whole debate, but again no supporting 'guru, sadhu and sastra' evidence is quoted. Instead the only evidence you offer is the evidence of 'tradition', which as well as being fallacious, you have already yourself rejected, saying that major principles, and not tradition alone is evidence:
| "There are things in Vedic tradition that can be changed and things that can't. Details of the past like skin colour and giving women gayatri will of course differ from the present but the major principles cannot change." |
Yet again you say:
| "I have proof that every acarya in our line took diksa from a living guru to set the example for us. Thus my position is supported by sastra. Now you show me proof from sastra to support your idea. Show me just one example in our line of disciplic succession of anyone taking diksa posthumously? You can't, because there is none. Thus you are defeated." |
In fact you have simply defeated yourself and the GBC again. For if the lack of an 'example' from sastra is proof, then the current guru system is already 'defeated' by your own logic since there are no examples of 'non-indian' gurus or 'voting in gurus' in sastra either. Nor are there any 'examples', for that matter, of so many other things, such as women initiated with gayatri mantra etc. By your logic these things are also similarly 'defeated'. Yet you are only 'defeating' Srila Prabhupada since he introduced many things for which there are no sastric 'examples'. You are simply offering the same arguments as the smarta brahmanas who say that Srila Prabhupada is bogus since he introduced so many things for which there is no sastric 'example'.
So you really do need to make your mind up. Which is the evidence - Tradition, or the existence of a major principle. If it is tradition then we win since there is no tradition of foreign gurus. If its the existence of a major principle then you need to state by reference to guru, sadhu and sastra which principle we are violating. So far you have not been able to locate any quote from Srila Prabhupada that we violate. You have tried to say its the 'law' of disciplic succession, but when we ask you how we are violating it you simply go silent and restate that we are - just as we predicted. So either way we win.
Also regarding our N.C.I.P. (No Change in ISKCON Paradigm) position, you again offer up another fabrication:
| ['In running ISKCON, the GBC can only implement instructions directly issued by Srila Prabhupada."] "This proves you can't be trusted. This is different from what you've said all along. Before you said, "GBC can't change anything" and now you saying the opposite." |
How can this be 'different and opposite' to what we have said before when:
- The above statement was quoted in our introduction at the outset of the debate.
- The above statement is simply the complement to the statement that the 'GBC cannot change anything already given by Srila Prabhupada'. In other words only do what Srila Prabhupada tells you, and do not change what he has told you (unless of course he has told you to do so).
What I objected to was you purposely quoting 'the GBC cannot change anything' as if that was the whole quote, deliberately leaving out the phrase 'already given by Srila Prabhupada'.
The system of using representatives to continue initiations in ISKCON was 'given by Srila Prabhupada'. This system should not be changed. The only way one can ensure that it is not changed is by keeping it maintained through the addition/replacement of representatives as necessary, otherwise the system will die.
Thus the addition of more representatives is not only authorized, but also consistent with the statements we have made from the outset of this debate. Of course Ajamila can continue to pretend that all we said was the 'GBC cannot change anything' and nothing else, but fortunately the readers have the ability to read complete sentences and not only the 4 words in the middle that Ajamila picks out for them.
Now for my third question to you:
When the GBC made the following statement:
"We must assume that as Founder-Acarya, Srila Prabhupada had the vision to set down a law --a law suitable for that unique institution, a law we would transgress at our peril."
(Devotees Initiating Before Their Guru's
Physical Departure - An Official GBC Paper, Part of 'Gurus and Initiation in ISKCON', GBC, 1995)
- Which 'law' are they speaking of?
Make sure you quote 'guru, sadhu and sastra' and the GBC to substantiate this law. Please also bear in mind the GBC had only just quoted the 'law of disciplic succession' before the above quote, and also have quoted no other law in the whole document.
Either way you are stuck. If you say it is the 'law of disciplic succession' the GBC were speaking of then you have a law that is not sastric, nor a part of vaisnava tradition, thus eliminating your main evidence, since you said the 'law of disciplic succession' was both sastric and part of vaisnava tradition.
If you say the GBC are speaking of some other law, you are also stuck, because no such 'other' law is mentioned by the GBC, nor will you be able produce 'guru, sadhu and sastra' to support this non-existent law.
After refusing to answer my first two questions, let's see if you will try and answer this one.
Good luck.