Back To Prabhupada, Issue 63, Vol 3, 2019
adrinarayana Swami ("BAD") is a member of ISKCON's GBC (Governing Body Commission). In a lecture given on 27/5/19, he claimed that:
"If we want to know, you need the spiritual master, living physical spiritual master in front of you to clarify. [...] But the spiritual master, the living spiritual master who gives diksa serves that purposes of clarifying the message."
BAD claims that you need a living, as in physically present ("in front of you"), diksa guru, because in order to know, such a person is necessary to "clarify the message". We represent these claims by BAD as a) and b) below, and then we see what is the natural consequence of BAD's claims:
a) You need a physically present diksa guru;
b) And the reason for this is that he is needed to "clarify the message" so that you can know.
c) From a) and b), this means that the physically present diksa guru himself needs to have a physically present diksa guru to clarify the message for him, so that he can know, and thus be able to clarify the message for others, or a) and b) are false.
d) However, virtually all of the physically present diksa gurus in ISKCON (the disciples of Srila Prabhupada) have no physically present diksa guru themselves, nor have they had one for 42 years.
e) This means the condition for c) is not satisfied, thus rendering a) and b) false. Hence, it is proven that you do not need a physically present diksa guru in order to know.
Statement e) requires statement c). And statement c) relies on statements a) and b). And statements a) and b) were given by BAD. Therefore, it is actually BAD who has effectively helped to prove that you do not need a physically present ("living") diksa guru in order to know. Take a bow, Sir. Let us call this the "Badri Proof".
Of course, this same conclusion could also have been reached by consulting Srila Prabhupada:
1) Srila Prabhupada never states that you need to have a diksa guru who is physically present, who is necessary to clarify the message to allow you to know. That alone is enough to show that the claim that one needs a physically present diksa guru is false – because this is a concept that is not given by Srila Prabhupada, and it is therefore not an authorised teaching.
2) In addition, Srila Prabhupada actually directly refutes the claim that you need a physically present spiritual master to clarify the message for you so that you can know, since such guidance can also come without the guru's physical presence:
"Physical presence is immaterial; presence of the transcendental sound received from the spiritual master should be the guidance of life."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 19/1/67)
"I shall remain your personal guidance, physically present or not physically, as I am getting personal guidance from my Guru Maharaja."
(Srila Prabhupada, Room Conversation, 14/7/77)
BAD also states:
"So it is not that Prabhupada is locked up in a little box only for his disciples. You need a diksa guru, to guide you and direct you and snap you out of maya and all that stuff".
Since BAD –
a) States that Srila Prabhupada is not restricted ("locked up in a little box") to only his current disciples;
b) Has already ‘proven' that the diksa guru does not have to be physically present to guide you;
– his statement that you need a "diksa guru" to "guide you and direct you and snap you out of maya and all that stuff" can also be satisfied by accepting Srila Prabhupada, just as BAD himself has supposedly been guided by Srila Prabhupada for so many decades without Srila Prabhupada's physical presence.
The GBC's guru system is sometimes promoted with the claim that we must accept one of its gurus rather than Srila Prabhupada as the diksa guru, because they are physically present, whilst he is not, and such physical presence is necessary in order to be guided. This can now be refuted with a proof that arose from a GBC member himself - the "Badri proof"!
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