Dear Braja Prabhu and respected IRM
Please accept my humble obeisances
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
First of all, thank you very much for the Back to Prabhupada magazine. I read it to-and-fro and I found it very enlightening.
I was never a big philosopher, I never knew thousands of slokas, I didnt understand lots of the points, what should have been put into practice during the process of Bhakti yoga. So instead, I put emphasis on what I could do by the mercy of Krishna and Srila Prabhupada: Sankirtan. But after a few years of book distribution, many questions started to surface in me. In ISKCON the answer to these questions is always simply "your are offensive". And since I didnt want to be offensive, I didnt force the question. These questions were: Why isnt the spiritual progress of second generation devotees as fast as that of the devotees during the beginning of the movement, those who are our spiritual masters now? Are we, 20, 30 year younger devotees, so much more fallen, than the drug and sex addict hippis of the sixties? Are our circumstances so much worse? If we chant the same Maha Mantra, and read, spread the same books then why dont we feel the same spiritual advancement, which authorized them to be sannyasis, and/or spiritual masters? Why does the practice of spiritual life become harder when we accept initiation? So these are the questions, to which I think I found the answer in the Back to Prabhupada magazine: Maybe, the connection with the disciplic succession ends at the moment of initiation, since the last member of our parampara, Srila Prabhupada wanted that all the initiations should be conducted on his behalf, is not fulfilled?
These looked like daring, arrogant, and offensive thoughts, until I got to know about the arrangements of Sivarama Swami and the leading devotees of the Hungarian yatra. And how they tried to ban the devotees from the IRM, the members of the IRM, and from reading the publications of the IRM. For me, these intentions of trying to forbid the devotees, is enough proof, that the ritvik-vada is well established.
I want you to know, that I am very grateful to you, and all the members of the IRM for the immense work, they did, in trying to expose Srila Prabhupadas real instructions on the future of initiations, and that these instructions were not followed, and were purposefuly misinterpreted by the leading personalities, so that they could keep their power.
If I can help the work of the IRM in any way, I would be grateful to help.
Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!
your servant
Szilveszter Antal (Kusum Sarovara das)
Pecs , september 5. 2008