Summer 2007
In their desire to replace Srila Prabhupada with themselves, ISKCON's
gurus continue to concoct new philosophies. One such recent instance is
by GBC voted-in guru HH Sivarama Swami (SRS) who claimed that accepting
Srila Prabhupada as the diksa Guru of ISKCON would mean Srila
Prabhupada is not real:
| "[...] the Srila Prabhupada that some
people refer to who is the only person who initiates, the only
person who you can trust, is not the real Srila Prabhupada, it
is just a reflection of the real Srila Prabhupada." (SRS podcast, May 20th, 2007) on January 28th, 2007 |
Yet this was exactly the situation which
prevailed for 11 years between 1966 until 1977, when everyone accepted
that Srila Prabhupada was the only person who initiated, the only person
who could be trusted.
One such participant of this was SRS himself, and no one ever thought
there was anything unreal about Srila Prabhupada then. But then, of
course, SRS was not jockeying to replace Srila Prabhupada as diksa Guru. Now he is, the same state of affairs will cause Srila
Prabhupada to suddenly become unreal. SRS also implies that Srila
Prabhupada is not living
| “[...] we worship Vaishnavas, we don’t
only worship Srila Prabhupada and all the guru parampara after that. We worship living Vaishnavas, that is perfection and
happiness for us” (SRS podcast, May 20th, 2007) |
For SRS, worshipping Srila Prabhupada and the
guru parampara is not sufficient because we must also worship
“living” Vaishnavas, such as himself.
In addition to this offensive minimization of Srila Prabhupada’s
position, in the same lecture SRS also states
| “So the body is the institution and
Srila Prabhupada is the life and soul of that institution.” (SRS podcast, May 20th, 2007) |
In order to be the “life and soul” of anything, Srila Prabhupada would first have to have LIFE, i.e. be living!
 |
So as and when it suits SRS, depending on how it helps him concoct a
philosophy which fits in with his need to justify his position as a diksa guru replacement for Srila Prabhupada, Srila Prabhupada
flip-flops like a ping-pong ball between being real and unreal, living
and non- living. Such contradiction will automatically arise when one tries to justify that which cannot be justified, which is a deviation from Srila Prabhupada’s orders. Only strict adherence to Srila Prabhupada’s orders to keep him as the diksa Guru of ISKCON can result in a position which is free from self-contradiction, error and offence. |
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