Back To Prabhupada, Issue 71, Vol 4, 2021, Editorial
Welcome to Issue 71 of Back To Prabhupada (BTP).
Srila Prabhupada states that philosophy must be understood without prejudice:
"don't be blind, but try to consider it a little liberally [...] Without any bias, prejudice. Don't be carried by prejudice. Try to understand the philosophy of Caitanya Mahaprabhu and be happy."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 2/3/75, emphasis added)
Prejudice means to already arrive at a conclusion blindly without first considering the evidence with an open mind.
Yet, the approach of ISKCON's leadership to understanding the philosophy of guru-tattva, or the truth about the guru, is based entirely on prejudice. This prejudice is that, due to their desires, they have decided in advance that there must be successor diksa gurus at all costs – the evidence be damned.
1) Initially, when Srila Prabhupada clearly said he would be appointing "rtviks" on May 28th, 1977, and later, on July 9th, 1977, Srila Prabhupada did appoint 11 rtviks, prejudice blinded the GBC to see the word "rtvik" as "diksa guru"! And the zonal acarya fiasco of 11 "appointed" diksa gurus was born.
2) Then, when it became clear that Srila Prabhupada had not appointed 11 rtviks to become 11 diksa gurus, the GBC's prejudice that they must still somehow be diksa gurus struck again. Even though the GBC had just got it all wrong, they still didn't let that affect their guru program. Now they claimed – forget what we told you before, the new theory is that the "law of disciplic succession" states that everyone can be a diksa guru as long as we vote you in.
3) But later, their prejudice that everyone can become a diksa guru meant that this "law of disciplic succession" was also now ditched and instead even "grand-disciples" could become diksa gurus in the physical presence of their spiritual masters, even though the same "law of disciplic succession" had forbidden this.
Actually, as we showed in BTP 64 (please see "The GBC's 10 Contradictory Guru Systems"), the GBC has changed its guru system at least 10 times. So many twists, rationalisations and contradictory flip-flops are possible only because the GBC's starting position is always that somehow there must be successor diksa gurus, rather than letting the evidence dictate if this should actually be the end point.
4) The BTP ISKCON Leaders Special Issue documents ISKCON leaders themselves effectively saying many times that Srila Prabhupada is the diksa guru of ISKCON, rather than themselves. Yet their prejudice that they must be diksa gurus, somehow, anyhow, blinds them to the truth of their own statements.
5) Indeed, as we show on p. 15 of this issue, one ISKCON guru has become so blinded by prejudice that he puts forward evidence for supposed diksa gurus that he had written a whole book to reject!
6) Others have also engaged in straightforward bodily prejudice. Being unable to philosophically defeat our arguments, those opposed to the IRM have simply attacked me on the basis of racial and national prejudice, by referring to my birth as being somehow relevant to whether or not the arguments put forward by the IRM are correct. Thus, I have been denigrated for being a "Gujarati" (Western Indian – see BTP 34), a "South Indian brahmana" (see BTP 39), and "British" (see BTP 37). Hence, they are not even clear on what bodily prejudice they should have, just as long as it is some prejudice!
The prejudice of ISKCON's leaders is further exposed by the laughable attempts that they engage in to try to hide this prejudice. Thus, for example, they will claim that their desire for successor diksa gurus is based not on prejudice but only on a wish to adhere strictly to "tradition". But then, with a straight face and in the same breath, they will also state that therefore they must have a GBC guru system which is "unique" (GBC Res. 318, 2014) and thus not adhering to "tradition" at all!
ISKCON's leadership needs to follow the orders Srila Prabhupada actually gave, rather than being blinded by prejudice and just assuming they must somehow be successor gurus.
Thank you and Hare Krsna.
In Srila Prabhupada's service,
Krishnakant
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