Back To Prabhupada, Issue 79, 2024
We have previously mentioned that ISKCON India has set up a "Scholars Board" to be its "brain" by providing "brahminical" guidance to it. A member of this Board and also its convenor – and thus the "brain behind the brain", if you will – is HG Krsna Kirti Dasa ("KKD"). However, rather than providing anything "scholarly", he has merely embarrassed ISKCON India by speaking contradictory gibberish whilst undermining Srila Prabhupada's teachings. The quotes in the shaded boxes are from an interview given by KKD on 18/8/23. (Emphases added.)
Srila Prabhupada 'not reliable'
"because you can also like find a Prabhupada quote to support almost any idea that you want, so there has to be some sort of like better, you know, like a more elevated way of approaching this [...] purport to Caitanya-caritamrta, Madhya-lila, Chapter 20, Text 352 [...] sastra is the center of all [...] there's a hierarchy of pramanas"
KKD claims that Srila Prabhupada's statements can be used to support almost anything, and therefore one needs a "better" way to understand, rather than relying on Srila Prabhupada's statements. KKD claims that this "better" way involves consulting "sastra", as there is a "hierarchy" of evidence ("pramanas"), with sastra being the most superior, as it is the "center of all". He references the purport to Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Madhya-lila, 20.352 as providing the proof for his claim.
However, the purport mentioned above simply states that:
"One should accept a thing as genuine by studying the words of saintly people, the spiritual master and sastra. The actual center is sastra, the revealed scripture. If a spiritual master does not speak according to revealed scripture, he is not to be accepted. Similarly, if a saintly person does not speak according to the sastra, he is not a saintly person. Sastra is the center for all."
(Cc., Madhya-lila, 20.352, purport)
Thus, the statement that "sastra is the center for all" means:
1) That sastra is the reference material used to test that one who claims to be a guru or sadhu is genuine.
2) If the claimant fails this test, then he is to be rejected.
Thus, this quote has absolutely nothing to do with evaluating Srila Prabhupada or his statements, since it is already established that he is the Acarya, and thus there is no question of using sastra to ‘test' him to see if he is "genuine" or should not be accepted. Hence, this quote does not at all support KKD's claims that:
a) Since Srila Prabhupada's statements can support "almost any idea";
b) Therefore, we need a "better" way, involving using sastra.
On the contrary, Srila Prabhupada teaches that, as he is a bona fide guru, his statements will be "identical" to what sastra states:
"Therefore sadhu and guru and sastra, they are identical."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 13/11/72)
"Guru means who follows the sastra and sadhu. So there are three, the same."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 30/11/76)
Thus, the fact that "sastra is the center for all", does not mean that sastra must be consulted as being superior to Srila Prabhupada's statements.
Indeed, later on in the same interview, KKD reverses himself, and agrees with our points.
1) Firstly, he accepts that Srila Prabhupada's words are always true and therefore as good as sastra:
"the words of the Lord's empowered servants are always true [...] we have to take Srila Prabhupada's words as true [...] our point is that because Prabhupada said it and as a dharmajna this is to be taken as good as sastra."
KKD uses the word "dharmajna" to refer to Srila Prabhupada, and this word is translated by Srila Prabhupada to mean "one who knows the principles of religion" in SB, 1.7.46.
2) KKD also states that not only is Srila Prabhupada "as good as sastra", but he can actually be better than sastra:
"So that's the position of a dharmajna. So therefore that assumption is made, that's why he can say, that's why he's considered competent to make decisions on points that are not found in the srutis or the smrtis."
"Srutis" and "smrtis" between them mean sastra, and, as we just noted, KKD accepts that Srila Prabhupada is a "dharmajna". Thus, KKD states that Srila Prabhupada is "competent" to go beyond the sastra and give us authoritative teachings for anything that is not mentioned in the sastra. Thus, by accepting that Srila Prabhupada is as good as, and can go beyond, the sastra, KKD is accepting that actually, for us in ISKCON, it is Srila Prabhupada who is effectively and practically at the centre!
KKD has been peddling this idea of needing a sastric-based "better" way than only relying on Srila Prabhupada, as part of his attempts to defeat the IRM. KKD wrote a paper wherein he specifically attacked the idea of making Srila Prabhupada the only authorised source of knowledge. As an example of this supposedly errant approach of receiving knowledge only through Srila Prabhupada, he referenced the IRM's foundational paper, The Final Order:
"Another important example of ISKCON's members accepting Srila Prabhupada as the only source of legitimate knowledge is the paper titled "The Final Order", by Krishnakant Desai. This paper continues to be the intellectual basis of "ritvikism" – the idea that Srila Prabhupada only wanted representative acaryas called "ritviks" to initiate on his behalf after his passing, not full-fledged diksa-gurus in his absence."
(KKD, "The "Buddhification" of Srila Prabhupada")
However, since KKD has now finally agreed with us regarding the sufficiency of Srila Prabhupada's teachings – by stating that Srila Prabhupada's words are not only as good as sastra, but can even be a fuller source of knowledge than sastra – KKD's previous objections can easily be defeated by simply quoting these admissions here back at him!
Thus, relying just on Srila Prabhupada is bona fide, as anything he says is as good as sastra. Hence, the claim that we need to go outside Srila Prabhupada's recorded teachings – i.e. outside the "Prabhupada Only Paradigm" or POP – has again been shown to be false.
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