Back To Prabhupada, Issue 62, Vol 2, 2019
"In BTP 57, due to a number of requests, you exposed a video by an ISKCON devotee named Hanuman Dasa (Hrvoje Marjanovic), showing how he committed a great blasphemy against Srila Prabhupada by declaring that accepting Srila Prabhupada as guru is "dead guru-tattva" and "zombie guru nonsense". He now claims that:
"Christians claim that Jesus is the only guru, rtviks, who are nothing more than new-age Christians, are trying to destroy the parampara by claiming that Srila Prabhupada is the only diksa guru." (3/2/19)
Could you please help us again by answering these points.
Thank you and keep up the good work. Hare Krishna."
- Shankar Lal, Bangalore, India
Editor replies:
1) Srila Prabhupada approves of the Christians accepting Jesus as their only guru:
"The spiritual master has to take the responsibility for all the sinful activities of his disciples. Therefore to make many disciples is a risky job unless one is able to assimilate all the sins. [...] He takes responsibility for all the fallen souls. That idea is also in the Bible. Jesus Christ took all the sinful reactions of the people and sacrificed his life. That is the responsibility of a spiritual master. [...] Actually, one who is guided by Jesus Christ will certainly get liberation."
(Perfect Questions, Perfect Answers, Ch. 6 & 9)
"When you read the Bible, you follow the spiritual master. How can you say without? As soon as you read the Bible, that means you are following the instruction of Lord Jesus Christ. That means that you are following the spiritual master. [...] Spiritual master is eternal [...] As you say that "by reading Bible", when you read Bible that means you are following the Spiritual Master represented by some priest or some clergyman in the line of Lord Jesus Christ."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 2/10/68)
"You must follow one acarya, like Christians, they follow Christ, acarya. [...] You must follow some acarya [...] Evam parampara-praptam."
(Srila Prabhupada, Room Conversation, 20/5/75)
There is no statement from Srila Prabhupada stating the opposite of the above, and that instead of following Jesus Christ as the spiritual master, Christians should be following a "living" successor spiritual master to Jesus Christ.
2) If one claims that Srila Prabhupada remaining as the diksa guru can "destroy the parampara (disciplic succession)", one would need to support this claim with a quote from Srila Prabhupada teaching this. But Srila Prabhupada has never taught that the presence of a bona fide guru such as himself as the current link in the parampara causes it to be destroyed. On the contrary, he has taught that it is the presence of false gurus in the parampara that causes it to become broken:
Lokanatha: "...five thousand years back, until now, there's only thirty acaryas..."
Srila Prabhupada: "Chain is broken when there are false spiritual masters. Otherwise it is not broken. Chain is broken if a so-called spiritual master speaks something manufactured. Then the chain is broken. Otherwise, chain is not broken."
(Morning Walk, 2/9/76)
Srila Prabhupada directly responds to the point that there are "only" 30 links in the parampara chain. Srila Prabhupada states that this does not matter, since the chain is only broken if there is a false spiritual master. "Otherwise it is not broken". Therefore, Srila Prabhupada remaining the current link for ISKCON's lifetime would not cause the parampara to be "destroyed", since he is not a false spiritual master.
It is very easy to claim anything, but the test is whether the claim can be directly supported by a quote from Srila Prabhupada. Thus, some people simply make claims that are supported by nothing other than insults, such as "zombie", "new-age Christian", etc. Such insults do not make one's claims true.
One needs to quote Srila Prabhupada directly in order to support one's claims.
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