One sign that ISKCON leaders are conceding defeat in the wake of the overwhelming evidence
which the IRM has presented, is their attempt to simply get rid of this evidence by changing Srila Prabhupada’s words!
We present here two examples of their attempt to do this in regard to two of the IRM’s key arguments.
“Become guru”
We highlighted in the previous article how the GBC’s authority for claiming diksha guru successors to Srila Prabhupada is shattered by the presence of the statement “It is best not to accept any disciples” in the Caitanya-caritamrta. Unable to rebut Srila Prabhupada’s clear words, ISKCON’s leadership has now decided to get rid of this troublesome quote by simply pretending it does not exist!
Book change attempt - 1
GBC-elected guru hoaxer HH Bhakti Vikash Swami (“BVKS”) proposed eliminating this unanswerable quote by claiming one word had been incorrectly transcribed:
“After all, Caitanya Mahaprabhu ordered all his followers to become guru. So the ritvik-vadis say that that means you should become a siksha guru and not a diksha guru. And in Prabhupada’s purport to Madhya-lila verse 130, which comes just after that famous verse amara ajnaya guru haya tara ei desa, “Become a guru and deliver this land”, there is a statement that “It is best not to accept any disciples”, it’s in Prabhupada’s purport. I got the original transcript of this and there are mistakes in Prabhupada’s books made by his editors, especially in the Caitanya-caritamrta, which was a rush job, and actually that should say that “It is best not…”, because Prabhupada dictated and the transcribers heard it and typed it and then they edited. That should be “It is best not to accept many disciples” not “any disciples”. One letter makes a lot of difference.”
(BVKS, lecture, February 9th, 2009)
So unable to deal with the evidence that effectively kills his bogus guru position, BVKS states that we should simply change the word “any” to “many”. He alleges he has proof to justify this change, but it is proof he has not presented, and we will see in the next section why.
Book change attempt - 2
BVKS forgets that earlier he had actually given a completely different reason for why this statement from Srila Prabhupada should be changed, as given below:
From: Dravida (das) ACBSP (San Diego - USA)
Date: 04-Apr-07 17:06 (10:06 -0700)
Cc: (BBT) Errors (in) English Books [1385]
Reference: Text PAMHO:13303610 by Brahma Muhurta Das (NE BBT)
Subject: Madhya 7.130
--------------------------
Received the following from Bhaktivikasa Swami on 1 March:
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[Quotes Madhya Lila 7:130]
Relevant section from Anubhasya: ‘ami sarvottama vaisnava sisya karile garvvarupa bhajana nasta haya’--ei utkatabhaktabhimana tyaga kariya dainyera sahita suddhanamagrahanacara o suddhanama pracararupa gurura karya
karile jadapratistharupa visaya-taranga prabala haite pare na.
NB: Srila Bhaktisiddhanta doesn’t state not to accept disciples, but the opposite: to give up the mentality by which one prefers not to accept disciples.
--------------------------
Got ot (see attached file), which confirmed BVK Swami 100%.
Your servant,
Dravida dasa
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At 03:17 PM 4/4/2007 +0200, Brahma Muhurta Das (NE BBT) wrote:
is
>> One should not try to be an artificially advanced devotee,
thinking, “I am a first-class devotee.” Such thinking should be avoided. It is best not to accept any disciples. <<
Ref. VedaBase => Madhya 7.130
should be
>>One should not try to be an artificially advanced devotee, thinking “I am a first-class devotee, so it is best not to accept any disciples.” Such thinking should be avoided. <<
Ref. VedaBase => Madhya 7.130
Dravida Prabhu,
Could you please explain why this has to be changed?
Ysbmd
Here BVKS does not allege any error in transcription, but rather claims that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati gave a different explanation, and that’s why Srila Prabhupada’s words must be changed.
Whichever way you look at it, this does show that the Caitanya-caritamrta, as it has stood for 35 years, states that “become guru” refers only to siksha gurus, and ISKCON’s leadership has recognized this, hence their desire to change it.
Srila Prabhupada must authorise
In The Final Order we show that any diksha gurus in ISKCON would need to be specifically authorised by Srila Prabhupada, by quoting the following verse from the Srimad-Bhagavatam:
“One should take initiation from a bona fide spiritual master coming in the disciplic succession, who is authorised by his predecessor spiritual master. This is called diksa-vidhana.”
(Srimad-Bhagavatam, 4.8.54, purport)
The key part of this quotation is “who is authorised by his predecessor spiritual master”. This means that the GBC cannot palm us off with some vague notion that becoming diksha guru in ISKCON is “automatic”, or that it is a “timeless order”, or that it is “tradition” and so on. Rather, they need to show authorization from Srila Prabhupada directly, and without this their current bogus gurus program is smashed. And, as we have shown repeatedly, they have been singularly unable to provide such authorization. So what to do? Simple. Just get rid of this troublesome quote! And that is exactly what Bhakti Charu Swami, another GBC-elected guru hoaxer, has done in his Bengali translation of the Srimad-Bhagavatam. He has simply deliberately MISSED OUT “is authorised by his predecessor spiritual master”, when translating the verse above – the literary equivalent of “splicing”. We say “deliberately”, because this mistake was pointed out many years ago, but the latest 7th edition, 2009, printing of the Bengali Bhagavatam keeps the omission intact, for obvious reasons.
Conclusion
The two quotes used by The Final Order discussed above, deliver a death-blow to the current ISKCON GBC guru system. Otherwise why try to change Srila Prabhupada’s words in those sentences instead of following them? Having realized that the game is up, ISKCON’s leadership can only resort to a last refuge - deliberate cheating - to try to prop up their unauthorized occupation of Srila Prabhupada’s position.
