he GBC is making new gurus all the time and the total number is now up to 102 and counting! Here we will turn our attention to one of these brand new GBC gurus, HG Madana-gopala Dasa ("MGD"), who was made a GBC guru just a few months ago. He will serve as a good sample of what we can expect from the new generation of GBC gurus. The statements in the shaded boxes are comments posted by MGD (on social media, between 21-23/5/24), in which he is trying to oppose the "rtvik argument" or the position of the IRM that Srila Prabhupada is ISKCON's diksa guru. Emphases added.
MGD bases his argument against the IRM's position on trying to give a "correct" definition of the term "rtvik-acarya", which he claims will help "explain every single thing" that Srila Prabhupada "wrote and said" – thus basing his whole understanding of guru-tattva (the truth of the guru) on this one term:
"The crux of the confusion lies in the definition of the phrase Ritvik Acharya. [...] Ritvik Acharya refers to the person who is BOTH performing the ritual and also becoming the guru. [...] This is clear and explains every single thing he wrote and said. There is no need to deny or ignore any of his statements when you understand what the term Ritvik Acharya means. [...] I'm not defining the term Ritvik Acharya in "my preferred way" but rather explaining what it means literally. As It Is."
However, his whole argument is invalidated by the fact that the GBC, his authority on whom he depends for his guru position, has deemed that the term "rtvik-acarya" does not even exist! Below is a statement from the GBC paper "Prabhupada's Order":
"The significant point here is that terms such as rtvik-guru and rtvik-acarya simply do not exist. There is no such term in any Sanskrit dictionary, nor in any recognized Vedic literature, [...] our friends are proposing something that does not exist"
(For the record, Srila Prabhupada himself never used the term "rtvik-acarya" and hence the IRM does not either).
So, either:
a) MGD's explanation of guru-tattva depends on a term that does not even exist;
b) Or the GBC is talking nonsense.
If it is a), then it is MGD who is talking nonsense about guru-tattva and thus cannot possibly be qualified to be a guru;
If it is b), then it would mean that his authorisation to be a guru depends on a GBC body which does not even understand the basics of guru-tattva, and thus his guru authority depends on a nonsense body.
Either way, his position as a diksa guru is not bona fide. However, MGD is still not done contradicting the GBC. He also claims:
"In April he said that he will select some gurus. And in another place he said that he will RECOMMEND a few of them. The word recommend is not the same as APPOINT."
MGD refers here to Srila Prabhupada stating he will "recommend some of you" at the outset of the May 28th, 1977 conversation –
"I shall recommend some of you. After this is settled up, I shall recommend some of you to act as officiating acaryas."
– which MGD interprets as referring to diksa gurus, who were not appointed. However, the GBC minutes book claims that the above refers to Srila Prabhupada appointing:
"Srila Prabhupad said he will appoint several devotees who shall perform initiations in the future, even after his disappearance."
(GBC minutes of the May 28th conversation)
Thus, in again contradicting the GBC, the conclusions regarding alternatives a) and b) given above again apply, and MGD further invalidates his GBC guru position. Hence, in keeping with the first two articles in this issue, we see again how the power of contradiction completely obliterates one's position.
Like his "senior" GBC guru colleagues, MGD is determined to demonstrate that he also does not know how to read. He claims that:
"In the letter where Srila Prabhupada lists the initial set of recommend [sic] gurus he uses the term Ritvik Acharya. If these were meant only to be officiating in the future then he would not have used the additional term Acharya."
He refers here to the July 9th, 1977 letter, wherein he claims that those named are actually recommended to be diksa gurus. He bases his whole claim for the existence of these supposed diksa gurus on insisting that in this letter, Srila Prabhupada uses the term "rtvik-acarya". But he does not. The term used is "representative of the acarya". The term "rtvik-acarya" is nowhere to be found in the letter, and thus exists only in MGD's fevered imagination. If anyone thinks we are wrong, please send us the part in the July 9th letter where the term "rtvik-acarya" magically appears.
"regular guru. That is the exact word Srila Prabhupada used when describing his followers who will eventually become guru. [...] So he clarified several times that after his departure his disciple would become regular guru."
Srila Prabhupada only ever uses the term "regular guru" once, as follows:
"When I order you become guru he becomes regular guru. That's all. He becomes disciple of my disciple."
(May 28th, 1977, conversation)
1) Thus, it is impossible for Srila Prabhupada to have clarified "several" times about the entity referred to by the "exact word" "regular guru", when he only ever used the term once!
2) Nor does Srila Prabhupada even state here once that "after his departure" "his disciple would become a regular guru". Rather, Srila Prabhupada only states that one would become a regular guru if and when he gives an order for one to become a diksa guru. And he never went on to give such an order.
3) Srila Prabhupada cannot be referring here to an order he had already given in the past, since he states that when such an order is given one becomes a diksa guru. And such a thing never happened, since Srila Prabhupada was still, at the time of the above conversation, ISKCON's sole diksa guru.
Thus, Srila Prabhupada had not ordered regular gurus in the past, nor does he order them here, nor did he order them in the future!
We will let our readers decide whether this "new" brand of GBC guru is any worse than the older ones. But it is clear that he does at the very least talk complete rubbish.
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