Back To Prabhupada, Issue 81, 2024
GBC voted-in guru HG Kripamoya Dasa ("KMD") has produced a book titled The Guru & Disciple Q & A Book (which is a follow-up to his earlier book titled The Guru & Disciple Book). The book promotes ISKCON's guru hoax and thus presents a number of arguments against Srila Prabhupada's order that he remain ISKCON's diksa guru. These arguments are presented below in the shaded boxes. (Emphases added.)
"In July of that year he [Srila Prabhupada - Ed.] chose some of his senior disciples, who were already performing most of the elements of the initiation ceremonies, to begin deciding who of the new candidates to initiate, and in addition to choose their spiritual names. They would be ‘disciples of my disciples' or ‘grand-disciples.'"
KMD refers to the appointment made in July, 1977 by Srila Prabhupada of 11 of his senior disciples to perform initiations. KMD claims that the initiations they performed would result in those initiated becoming their disciples and granddisciples of Srila Prabhupada. This would mean that they were appointed as diksa gurus.
However, KMD has demolished this claim, since he stated earlier that those appointed in July were only appointed as rtviks or representatives, rather than gurus:
"In July 1977, he [Srila Prabhupada - Ed.] lists eleven names of disciples [...] The letter does not appoint the eleven as gurus, it merely appoints them as continental representatives."
(KMD, The Guru & Disciple Book)
Thus, KMD had made it clear that these persons could only be considered gurus based on an "assumption" that they were promoted to guru, rather than authorised as such:
"It was a simple assumption to make that Srila Prabhupada's passing automatically promoted those eleven into the role of guru."
(KMD, The Guru & Disciple Book)
"the strict meaning of the term rtvik would suggest that it was a temporary arrangement"
In the previous section, we quoted KMD admitting earlier that the rtviks appointed in July were to act as "continental representatives". But a continent is not temporary, nor does KMD state that they were appointed as representatives only temporarily. Thus, by his own words, these persons' appointment was not a "temporary arrangement", as they would be acting as rtvik representatives for a continent continuously.
"Since Srila Prabhupada's physical presence is no longer available, his acceptance of a candidate is no longer possible, and therefore initiation by him is not available."
KMD claims that acceptance of a candidate for initiation by Srila Prabhupada requires his physical presence. However, KMD has demolished this claim, since he stated earlier that Srila Prabhupada's physical presence is not required for such acceptance, as Srila Prabhupada deputised it to others, having never met many of his disciples:
"In ISKCON many of the most spiritually advanced [...] are often faced with the prospect of initiating disciples they have not personally scrutinized [...] the culture of testing the guru in absentia has been in place since the extensive travelling of Srila Prabhupada himself and his deputising of the task."
(KMD, The Guru & Disciple Book)
"There was insufficient time for meeting every disciple [...] He eventually initiated 4,800 disciples"
(KMD, "Encouragement in Spiritual Life")
"You, all my disciples, everyone should become spiritual master. It is not difficult...Keep trained up very rigidly and then you are bona fide guru [...] that will make me and Krishna very happy [...] Spiritual master, simply, sincerely, follow the principles and speak to the general public."
(Vyasa-puja Lecture, London, 22/8/73)
In the above excerpt, KMD has spliced together two different quotes from Srila Prabhupada. The part in bold in the middle is a quote (with the part of the quote denoted by [...] given in full by KMD) from a letter to Tusta Krsna, dated 2/12/75, which KMD has spliced into the middle of a Vyasa-puja lecture from 1973. He has needed to manufacture such a quote, so that he is then able to immediately go on to falsely claim that:
"Again on his birthday, [...] Srila Prabhupada raises the issue of continuing the succession, urging the followers gathered around him that they will have to become gurus, but that they must be ‘trained up very rigidly.'"
However, KMD has exposed that this is a manufactured quote and that the part in bold is actually from the above mentioned letter to Tusta Krsna, because he had earlier accurately referenced this letter in his book The Guru & Disciple Book (pages 298-299 of print version). By not being able to accurately quote Srila Prabhupada, KMD has also disqualified himself as a guru, since KMD states:
"How knowledgeable must a guru be, and how would I know? [...] he should be able to quote texts in order to support his presentations"
"When someone suggested that the books of the spiritual master were non-different from the guru, he [Srila Prabhupada - Ed.] laughed and reached forward and grasped a disciple's ear and pulled it: ‘But the book cannot do this!'"
KMD claims that a "living guru", as in physically present, is required, because he claims via a non-POP, unreferenced "story" that Srila Prabhupada supposedly "said" that only such a guru can personally chastise the disciple. However, KMD has demolished this claim, since he stated earlier that he was never chastised by Srila Prabhupada, but that rather such chastisement can be given by others:
"Did Prabhupada ever personally crush me, rub me, boil me, break me, chastise me? No. But did others? Yeah, you bet!"
(KMD, Lecture, 4/8/12)
Thus, a "living guru" is not required for this purpose.
Hence, the key arguments made by KMD's book to support the replacement of Srila Prabhupada by GBC gurus, such as himself, have already been demolished by KMD. In this way, it is shown that not only has he defeated his own book but that also:
1) The guru hoax is false;
2) It is also known to be false!
And yet, he is still going around selling and promoting this book!
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