Back To Prabhupada, Issue 66, Vol 2, 2020
GBC-elected guru HH Jayadvaita Swami ("JAS") gave a seminar titled "Srila Prabhupada's Kirtan Standards" in Mayapur in December 2019, in which he ends up making some surprising admissions as we shall now document. Statements in the shaded boxes below are from this seminar. Emphases added.
JAS admits that if ISKCON adopted the position preached by the IRM – that everyone in ISKCON would only be Srila Prabhupada's disciple – then it would solve "every problem you can think of":
"it would be so much easier if everybody could just be Prabhupada's disciple and then you'd have absolute unity, and absolute infallibility, and it would just solve every problem you can think of"
Thus, it is admitted that if ISKCON followed the IRM's position, all problems in ISKCON would be solved.
However, JAS claims in regards to his statement just quoted – that keeping Srila Prabhupada as ISKCON's diksa guru would solve everything – that we cannot accept this because it is not Srila Prabhupada's philosophy:
"in the name of honouring Prabhupada they toss out his philosophy"
JAS claims that if Srila Prabhupada continued to function always as the Acarya of ISKCON in the same way – which means him continuing to also be the sole diksa guru of ISKCON – then this would mean that you have to "toss out" what Srila Prabhupada taught. However, after establishing himself as the Founder and Acarya of ISKCON, Srila Prabhupada did not add an addendum that he will stop functioning as the Acarya of ISKCON in the same way due to his physical departure. Nor did he order that some of his functions as Acarya must be replaced by some of his disciples. Rather, JAS and others became GBC-elected diksa gurus, thus taking Srila Prabhupada's role as ISKCON's diksa guru, due to the GBC, and not Srila Prabhupada, ordering it.
We saw above that allowing Srila Prabhupada to continue to function without change as the Acarya of his own institution was falsely claimed by JAS to be against what Srila Prabhupada has taught. However, it is actually JAS himself who does not follow what he claims is Srila Prabhupada's philosophy. For example, he claimed that Srila Prabhupada taught the following the "entire time he was with us":
"That a spiritual master initiates until his departure and then his disciples initiate next is the normal system. On this we are all in agreement. This is what Srila Prabhupada taught the entire time he was with us."
(JAS, "Where the Rtvik People Are Wrong", 1996)
However, just a few years later, he himself decided to "toss out" what he claimed is Srila Prabhupada's philosophy by allowing his disciple, HH Kadamba Kanana Swami, to initiate in his physical presence, rather than after his departure as he claimed Srila Prabhupada "taught the entire time".
To emphasise the importance of his seminar on "Kirtan standards", and why everyone should follow the standards for kirtan given by one's guru, JAS quotes:
"Guror avajna. [...] Kaviraja Gosvami, has sung like that, and my guru has sung, we should follow that. We should not make any deviation. That is guror avajna [...] So it comes to be one of the items of the dasa-vidha-aparadha. Guror avajna. [...] The principle is: don't try to manufacture. Because you are not experienced, so what nonsense you will manufacture, that will be offensive."
(Srila Prabhupada, Garden Conversation, 6/9/76)
This quote states that violating kirtan standards given by one's guru would be considered "guror avajna", or offense to the guru. This type of offense is considered the "most grievous" type of offense:
"In the chanting of the holy name of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, this gurv-aparadha is considered the most grievous offense. Guror avajna sruti-sastra-nindanam (Padma Purana)."
(SB, 4.21.37, purport)
However, JAS also states in the seminar, in regards to all the deviations to kirtan standards which he planned to point out, that:
"I have some fairly negative things to say [...] devotees I most admire [...] regularly do one or another of the things I'll complain about. So I don't intend to attack anyone personally or insinuate that anyone is spiritually defective. Please don't think that if your guru does something you hear about in my seminar, you have to ditch him and look for someone else. But [...] It's our premise here that Srila Prabhupada did give us standards to follow in kirtan. [...] it's not that anything goes. There are standards, there are instructions, and we should know them."
1) JAS states that if an ISKCON diksa guru violates Srila Prabhupada's standards, it does not mean he is "spiritually defective", and one should not reject such a guru, meaning he should still be worshipped ‘as good as God'.
2) Thus, JAS is stating that it does not matter if an ISKCON guru is a most grievous offender to his own guru.
3) Additionally, JAS is implying that a ‘good as God' guru may not even "know" the standards, thus making them ignorant as well as offensive!
Therefore, to get people to take him seriously and listen to him, JAS emphasises, in very strong terms, how what he is teaching, if not followed, constitutes the most grievous offence. But at the same time, to prop up the GBC guru system of which he is also a part, he hypocritically states that such deviations don't even mean that one is spiritually defective!
1) JAS accepts that Srila Prabhupada's system of keeping only Srila Prabhupada as the Acarya and diksa guru of ISKCON is perfect. We are happy to inform him that Srila Prabhupada did not order that this should be abandoned.
2) Although JAS professes to give seminars to teach the rest of ISKCON how to maintain fidelity to Srila Prabhupada and not deviate, he is not even able to follow his own teachings in this regard!
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