BY ADRIDHARAN DAS

Jan 27,  2000 —  When someone has been defeated in a debate, they have two options. They can be a gentleman and concede, or they can try to change the subject in some way to avoid answering the other person's argument. The self acclaimed scholar Kundali opted for the latter approach when he wrote:

This has to be the most pathetic excuse for not answering our points we have ever seen. Kundali then sets out to refute, not what we wrote- but:

He then proceeds to attack a straw man distorted 'gist', instead of our actual position. And this man thinks he is a scholar! What sort of scholar would consistently set out to defeat things he has never read, and clearly knows little about. It seems he would rather launch into irrelevant and illogical ad hominem attacks than simply answer our points directly. If this is scholarship, then it is heavily tinged with passion and ignorance. It is strange that he should take this approach since he himself whinges:

This is exactly what Kundali has done in his posting.

As for the question of whether or not Rupa Goswami supports the 'ritvik' concept, if Kundali had any idea what the 'ritvik' idea was then he would not even ask such a silly question. We assert that Srila Prabhupada is the diksa Guru for ISKCON (based on his final instructions on initiation). Rupa Goswami fully supports the notion that bona fide spiritual masters can initiate disciples. Indeed it is Kundali who has proposed his own idea - that Bona Fide diksa Gurus can *only* initiate based on considerations of time and space - as defined by Kundali Muni. It is this *restriction* on the activities of the Bona Fide diksa Guru that *Kundali* needs to support from the teachings of Srila Prabhupada.

So now Kundaliji is back on line, at least technologically, perhaps he would like to directly deal with the points we made. To make it easier we shall number them so everyone will see whether or not he actually answers us next time:

1. Kundali wrote previously:
    

Had Kundali studied the ritvik position (as expressed in The Final Order and the No Change papers) he would not have written the above, since it is demonstrable nonsense. We clearly state that one could dispense with the word 'henceforward' (notice our 'scholar' cannot even get the word right) and our position is not altered or damaged one jot. Let us quote from the paper Kundali refuses to read:

"Furthermore the argument that the whole ritvik system 'hangs' on one word - henceforward - is untenable, since even if we take the word out of the letter, nothing has changed. One still has a system set up by Srila Prabhupada four months before his departure, with no subsequent instruction to terminate it. Without such a counter instruction, this letter would still remain intact as Srila Prabhupada's final instruction on initiation." 
(The Final Order (1996) page 3)

2. Also Kundali has never actually shown how Srila Prabhupada's continued status as ISKCON's current link to the succession puts him or us 'at odds with the parampara conclusions' of Srila Rupa Gosvami. It seems that to Kundali's mind, unless Srila Rupa Goswami directly mentions something, then it must be bogus. Yet he did not directly mention the GBC, nor ISKCON, nor giving gayatri by magnetic tape, nor the BBT, nor pre-samadhi ritvik, nor Sanyasis giving marriage ceremony etc etc. For some peculiar reason Kundali singles out the ritvik system (which Srila Prabhupada personally installed) as something that must be stopped at all cost. Our question is:
   
   -On what basis has Kundali decided which instructions of Srila Prabhupada not mentioned by Srila Rupa Goswami we can follow, and which we cannot?-
3. Kundali confirms his lack of understanding with the following: