Back To Prabhupada, Issue 54, Winter 2016/17
uring this year's GBC meetings held at ISKCON's world headquarters in Mayapur, GBC member Malati Devi Dasi ("MDD") gave the morning Srimad-Bhagavatam class on February 10th. During the class she read out verbatim extracts from two of Srila Prabhupada's letters. Some of the extracts she read out are given below (all emphases added):
1) "A Spiritual Master is always liberated. In any condition of His life He should not be mistaken as ordinary human being. This position of a Spiritual Master is achieved by three processes. One is called sadhana siddha. That means one who is liberated by executing the regulative principle of devotional service. Another is krpa siddha, one who is liberated by the mercy of Krsna or His devotee. And another is nitya siddha who is never forgetful of Krsna throughout his whole life."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter to Tamala Krishna, 21/6/70)
"actually a bona fide Spiritual Master is never a conditioned soul."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter to Mukunda, 10/6/69)
In this letter to Mukunda, an extract not read out by MDD also states:
"Unless one is a resident of Krishna Loka, one cannot be a Spiritual Master. That is the first proposition. A layman cannot be a Spiritual Master, and if he becomes so then he will simply create disturbance. [...] A Spiritual Master must be liberated. It does not matter if he has come from Krishna Loka or he is liberated from here. But he must be liberated."
Thus, MDD is reading out, and therefore accepting, all the statements from these letters where Srila Prabhupada clearly teaches that the spiritual master must in all cases always be a liberated soul.
2) However, as a GBC member, MDD is presiding over and in full agreement with the GBC guru system in operation which does not require the spiritual master to be liberated:
"By adhering to Srila Prabhupada's instructions, even the non-liberated guru acts as one liberated, (although he must constantly be aware of his position relative to the liberated guru, and conduct himself accordingly, being attentive to avoid accepting any inappropriate modes of worship)."
(GBC Resolution 409, 1999)
Fellow GBC member and ISKCON guru, HH Sivarama Swami ("SRS") explains it more explicitly:
"And therefore in that way those who are not liberated souls, but even conditioned souls can take the position of guru."
(SRS Podcast, 3/11/08)
"And we can see that our present day gurus are not necessarily self-realized souls, otherwise we wouldn't be falling down, what to speak of even leaving the path of Krishna Consciousness. And particularly that deviation takes place when you're talking about such conditioned souls".
(SRS Podcast, 13/12/09)
3) MDD had read out extracts from Srila Prabhupada's letters, some of which we quoted above, to demonstrate that Srila Prabhupada is a liberated soul, and a nitya-siddha in particular, which of course is correct. Thus, in order to "show" how Srila Prabhupada is being glorified in ISKCON, Srila Prabhupada's teachings are accepted, and it will be emphasised that the spiritual master must be liberated. However, the GBC also does not want such glorification of Srila Prabhupada to interfere with the self-glorification of the unauthorised GBC gurus. Therefore, when it comes to the GBC guru system, it is claimed the spiritual master no longer needs to be liberated, and the same teachings from Srila Prabhupada are denied to ensure they do not prevent GBC members and others from becoming unauthorised diksa guru successors to Srila Prabhupada. In the last BTP issue, the Editorial, "Deception, Not Delusion", explained how the guru hoax is a result of deliberate cheating rather than ignorance. Here we have a perfect example of such blatant cheating, where there is no ignorance involved. Rather, the modus operandi of the cheating is that Srila Prabhupada's teachings are regarded as being nothing but a tool to be used or discarded depending on one's personal agenda.
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