28TH MARCH 2001
Following our accurate report here of how the GBC resolutions ended up achieving nothing, the faithful GBC apologist Badrinarayan has been forced by our damning expose to try and issue a weak rebuttal. He attempts to spin-doctor that the meetings actually presented a 'positive alternative' to the calls for GBC reform. Well, we have just analysed most of them, and devotees can make their own minds up as to how 'positive' they were. But in order to assess Badri's 'report' of the meetings, one does not need to go any further than read the blatant misrepresentation he gives of the 'ritvik idea' with which he tries unsuccessfully to compare the attempts at GBC restructuring which were proposed at the meetings.
He states:
| "As for why the GBC decided as it did, there are several reasons. One was the opinion that this proposal attempted to do to the GBC system what the ritvic idea would do to the guru system. The ritvic idea is based on the premise that we are all inherently and perpetually flawed." |
WRONG! The Ritvik idea does NOT have this as its premise, as anyone who has studied our position knows full well. Its premise is simply that we need to follow the orders of Srila Prabhupada, rather than follow some notion of 'tradition' which we have learned from the Gaudiya Matha.
| "It assumes that no one is or ever will become qualified as a genuine guru..." |
WRONG AGAIN! It simply states that we can all be genuine gurus if we teach what Srila Prabhupada has taught. But, we have not been authorised to take disciples.
| "...and that we therefore need a system to provide for guruship without personal qualification: a spiritual system minus spiritual qualification, if you will." |
How can a system that has as its basis the fact that there are NO other Diksa Gurus other than Srila Prabhupada, be proposing "a system to provide for guruship"? We propose that we only need one qualified Diksa Guru - Srila Prabhupada - and he states that we are saying the opposite, that we want a whole system of Gurus who are not qualified! Rather, it is HE who proposes this - that the one qualified Diksa Guru, Srila Prabhupada - be replaced by a system of guruship that does not require qualification; it simply requires that the necessary votes of endorsement are received at the annual GBC meetings.
| "Ritvicism is based on a negative and builds a system from there." |
WRONG FOR THE 4TH TIME!! "Ritvikism" builds from the POSITIVE - the flawless Guru Srila Prabhupada - and builds a system from there, as ordered by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada on July 9th 1977. Badri's system starts from the negative - the idea that Srila Prabhupada is now 'dead' and unable to give diksa - and builds from there a bogus, unauthorized system of guruship based on no spiritual qualification: a material system minus spiritual qualification, if you like.
It is amazing how Badri blatantly states that the Ritvik position is actually the exact OPPOSITE of what it really is. Badri has been on the previous Ritvik sub-committee, and so he should know what the Ritvik position actually is. So either he is unable to understand English, or pretends to deal with an issue he knows nothing about, or is just an outright liar. We will let you decide which. But he definitely does not have a clue what he is talking about.
Amazingly he ends with a statement which epitomises the hypocrisy which oozes from our GBC:
| "But I would offer that listening only to the voices heard on these conferences or in meetings held only with like-minded individuals will give one a limited and slanted sampling of the opinions in ISKCON." |
This from the representative of a group that does NOTHING but ONLY meets with 'like-minded individuals' and disciples, and very rarely wanders forth into the realms of grass-roots ISKCON.