Back To Prabhupada, Issue 30, Winter 2010/11, Editorial
Welcome to Issue 30 of Back To Prabhupada (BTP).
In our previous issue, in the article “How the Guru Hoax Works”, we highlighted how the guru hoax has been manufactured via the simple interchanging of diksha (initiating) and siksha (instructing) guru labels between Srila Prabhupada and a guru hoaxer. However, this does not mean that the guru hoax is simply an issue over semantics and emphasis. Rather, as we explain below, the guru hoax simply uses different labels as a cover to perpetrate power-grabs in Srila Prabhupada’s name, which ensures that one’s spiritual life is finished right at the start.
1) Interchanging labels on Srila Prabhupada’s position, so that he is now called only the primary siksha guru rather than both diksha guru and primary siksha guru, is done to usurp Srila Prabhupada’s supreme position by creating a position for oneself as diksha guru. Additionally, this act also means that one is promoting the contaminated conception that Srila Prabhupada is incapable of delivering a person back to Godhead without the absolute necessity of the agency of a GBC-authorised diksha guru. Further, as we demonstrate on pages 12-13 of this issue, rejecting Srila Prabhupada as diksha guru has also been accompanied by a wholesale rejection of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings, leading to deviation in every sphere.
2) Alternatively, the correct label can be applied to Srila Prabhupada as ISKCON’s diksha guru as an excuse to capture power and properties and/or justification to continue similar deviant agendas and projects. This, as we explained in the editorial of BTP 19, is another type of guru hoax, called “The Great Guru Hoax, Part 3”.
Thus, since the guru hoax involves deviating from Srila Prabhupada’s orders, one is in any case unqualified to act as a siksha guru:
“Then so siksa and diksa-guru... A siksa-guru who instructs against the instruction of spiritual, he is not a siksa guru. He is a demon. Siksa-guru, diksa-guru means... Sometimes a diksa-guru is not present always. Therefore one can take learning, instruction, from an advanced devotee. That is called the siksa-guru. Siksa-guru does not mean he is speaking something against the teachings of the diksa-guru. He is not a siksa-guru. He is a rascal. […] If one is disobeying the spiritual master, he cannot remain in the pure status of life. He cannot be siksa-guru or anything else. He is finished, immediately.”
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 4/7/1974, emphasis added)
Hence, though the correct labels should be used, otherwise this would be yet another deviation from Srila Prabhupada’s orders, simply adopting them does not alone fix the guru hoax.
Therefore, regardless of the labels used, both types of hoaxes involve simply using Srila Prabhupada’s name to further one’s own desires, rather than those of Srila Prabhupada. This means that these guru hoaxes ensure that one does not actually accept, obey and please Srila Prabhupada, which are all required in order to practise Krishna consciousness:
“As stated by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, guru-krsna-prasade paya bhakti-lata-bija: by the mercy of Krsna and guru, one can get the seed of devotional service.”
(Srimad-Bhagavatam, 5:14:39, purport)
“Guror avajna. First offense is guror avajna, defying the authority of guru. This is the first offense. So one who is offensive, how he can make advance in chanting? He cannot make. Then everything is finished in the beginning. […] The first offense is to disobey the orders of guru. That is first offense. So if you are offensive, how you can become advanced by chanting? That is also not possible.”
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 4/7/1974, emphasis added)
“Lord Brahma wanted to point out to the demigods that by the strength of the guru one can become most powerful within this world, and by the displeasure of the guru one can lose everything. This is confirmed by the song of Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura:
yasya prasadad bhagavat-prasado / yasyaprasadan na gatih kuto ‘pi
“By the mercy of the spiritual master one is benedicted by the mercy of Krishna. Without the grace of the spiritual master, one cannot make any advancement.””
(Srimad-Bhagavatam, 6:7:23, purport, emphasis added)
In this way we can understand that the guru hoax ensures that we are spiritually doomed right from the beginning. So clearly, understanding and combating the guru hoax in all its forms is the singular most important activity for anyone wishing to practise Krishna consciousness, since without this, everything else is rendered meaningless. Thus, even though all of us have had the great fortune due to Krishna’s mercy to find Srila Prabhupada, we must then actually make use of such wonderful mercy by ensuring we act always to only please Srila Prabhupada. So let us reject all types of guru hoaxes, and instead make ourselves worthy recipients for Srila Prabhupada’s mercy.
Please feel free to write to me at the following email address: irm@iskconirm.com.
Thank you and Hare Krishna.
Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada,
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