Feb 22, 2013 — AUSTRALIA (SUN) —
I am in full agreement with the article by Gadadhara prabhu, "Use "Everyone Become Guru" in its Context". All through my early years in book distribution and 15 years as Temple President, I always thought of myself as vartma-pradarsak guru in trying to assist in bringing the less fortunate souls to Srila Prabhupada's books and teachings. He is our prime Siksa Guru, and at best we are simply passing on his teachings 'As They Are'. We knew nothing, born into the darkness of ignorance, before Srila Prabhupada forced us to open our eyes with the torch of knowledge. Srila Prabhupada also used little Sarasvati dasi as an example of vartma-pradarsak guru by her simply telling people who Krsna is. Does that make her an initiating diksa-guru?
Srila Prabhupada makes it very clear in a letter to Rupanuga prabhu, April 28, 1974, about the exalted position of the Acharya, with regards to his Guru Maharaj's instructions. This letter was written shortly after the Mayapur festival, where Srila Prabhupada severely chastised his senior men for not challenging the disparaging remarks made about him by his godbrothers when we went on parikram to Sridhara Maharaja's Math for prasadam. It's very important to read this two-page letter in full.
Excerpt from letter...
"Actually, he left this world earlier, otherwise he would have continued to live for more years. Still he requested his disciples to form a strong Governing body for preaching the cult of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He never recommended anyone to be acarya of the Gaudiya Math. But Sridhar Maharaj is responsible for disobeying this order of guru maharaj, and he and two others who are already dead unecessarily thought that there must be one acarya. If Gurumaharaj could have seen someone who was qualified at that time to be acarya he would have mentioned. Because on the night before he passed away he talked of so many things, but never mentioned an acarya. His idea was 'acarya was not to be nominated amongst the governing body'. He said openly you make a GBC and conduct the mission. So his idea was amongst the members of GBC who would come out successful and self effulgent acarya would be automatically selected. So Sridhar Maharaj and his two associate gentlemen unauthorizedly selected one acarya and later it proved a failure. The result is now everyone is claiming to be acarya even though they may be kanistha adhikary with no ability to preach. In some of the camps the acarya is being changed three times in a year. Therefore we may not commit the same mistake in our ISKCON camp."
Also often 'taken out of context' is Srila Prabhupada's purport to verse #5 of Sri Upadesamrta, where he states "a neophyte Vaisnava or a Vaisnava situated on the intermediate platform can also accept disciples......".
Srila Prabhupada is not ordering or giving 'carte-blanche' for all his kanistha and madhyama disciples to go out and initiate (Sri Mahaprabhu also warned against this), but rather is strictly warning against such action, as he goes on to state that "such disciples must be on the same platform and it must be understood that they cannot advance very well towards the ultimate goal of life under his insufficient guidance. Therefore a disciple should be careful to accept an uttama-adhikari as a spiritual master.
Earlier on the same page Srila Prabhupada states..
"However, one should not imitate the behaviour of an advanced devotee or maha-bhagavata without being self realized, for by such imitation one will eventually become degraded. In this verse Srila Rupa Gosvami advises the devotee to be intelligent enough to distinguish between the kanistha-adhikari, madhyama-adhikari and uttama-adhikari. The devotee should also know his own position and should not try to imitate a devotee situated on a higher platform."
And how many have we seen become degraded from the unauthorised param-titles, footbathings, excesses of daksine etc, etc. All imitations of the uttama-adhikari.
How clear are Srila Prabhupada's words 'As They Are', not only on this issue but all the issues that trouble the progress of Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON, from Mayavadi huggers to humanitarians, welfare works, FDGs, Hinduism-Interfaiths, etc., etc.
Begging forgiveness for any offences committed,
Yhs,
Balaram das
