My Visit to Ritvik Land
BY: SHASTRA CHAKSUS DAS
Mar 22, 2014 — USA (SUN) — I was looking for something different—something besides gossip, mundane socializing, Hindu car blessings and tyrannical leaders with used car salesmen smiles—so instead of visiting the local ISKCON temple for the Sunday Feast I paid my first visit to the newly opened Ritvik Land on Main Street. I found it to be clean and well organized, and besides, it's the tallest building on the block!
At the door I was greeted by a pious-looking Mataji. "Hari bol, please come in. I'm Ritvik-lila devi dasi." That was a refreshing change. Soon I would find that everything else was also changed … though in a way Ritvik Land is much like ISKCON with its chanting, puja and discussions about spiritual life. When it came time for Bhagavad-gita class, I noticed a certain higher and lower echelon amongst the Ritviks. Inquiring, I found that the there were Ritvik initiates of different acharyas, each one according to the Ritvik devotee's personal wish; and each progressively moving up the entire sampradaya.
Sure, some of the Ritviks had become disciples of Shrila Prabhupada, while others were disciples of other past acharyas. There was a guy in the back chanting on his fingers named Ritvik das Babaji who was a disciple of Gaur Kishor das Babaji. In fact, I found that there were Ritvik initiates who went all the way back to being direct disciples of Shri Vyasadeva himself!
But the Ritvik who was delivering Bhagavad-gita class, Ritvik Kumar das, was special. It seems that he had heard the Gita directly spoken by Sanjaya to Dhritarashtra and as a result, he held a certain higher status among all the Ritviks who were present.
Then, suddenly, a hush came over the class as another Ritvik member entered the room. Everyone offered him respect in various ways as this new Ritvik took over the class and dominated the discussion. I found that his name was Swami Ritvikananda. "But why is he so special?" I whispered to Ritvik Prasad das, who was sitting next to me. "After all, what could be higher than someone who has heard Bhagavad-gita directly from Sanjaya himself?
"Yes," my new Ritvik friend informed me, "He has also heard the Bhagavad-gita directly—but he heard it when Krishna spoke it to the Sun god, Vivaswan!"
Hey you! Wanna get initiated?
Remarks: For those who are new to the Ritvik debate, or have yet to catch on, the above piece is obviously a satire. Yet, herein lies an important message that is not intended to merely ridicule the concocted and unfounded philosophy of the Ritviks. It is not for merely satirizing, but to point out the gaping flaws of the Ritvik concoction which has never had a place in any Vaishnava sampradaya.
This the most obvious flaw of the Ritvik pseudo-philosophy, that it is an artificial imposition upon the sampradaya with no acharya-supported precedent anywhere. Shrila Prabhupada preached for a dozen years in the West, establishing the growth and expansion of the sampradaya through empowering his men and women disciples. It is only through the pure devotee's galvanizing his faithful followers to continue his work long after his departure that sankirtan yagna can and will progress into the coming generations. His Divine Grace gave so many examples of disciples becoming empowered to take up the post of guru. We are all familiar with the analogy of the iron rod that becomes as good as fire if it is placed long enough in fire. There are many other similar examples: the postman who delivers the letter unchanged; the flow of electrical current through the silver wire; or the fruit picker who hands down the mango from the treetop to the next worker below, etc.
Yet the Ritviks have the peculiar audacity to claim that in his final days—and in the company of just a few disciples and with only a few words—the successor to Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati essentially threw out everything he had built up, including the transcendental message oft-repeated within his 60 volumes of parampara teachings. This phenomenal claim by the Ritviks is the height of arrogance and displays a sordid ignorance of the nature of Shrila Prabhupada. It displays not only a muddled and confused intellect, but a total lack of surrender to the true philosophical message of Krishna consciousness.
Though the Ritviks spend their days criticizing those who have taken on themselves the mantle of guru, their criticisms are actually aimed at Shrila Prabhupada because Ritvikism openly disbelieves that the representative of Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, had the potency to empower his disciples to the next highest level. Therefore Ritviks join the class of guru-drohis, offensive pseudo-disciples who are ungrateful and unenlightened.
Since the so-called Ritviks doubt Shrila Prabhupada's ability to empower his disciples, why then did he instruct his disciples to call one other 'Prabhu'? What does 'Prabhu' mean? (Spoiler alert: it means "guru"). Why did he teach us to become servants of the Prabhus? Shrila Prabhupada created devotees, brahmacharis, brahmanas, sannyasis and therefore the next step of creating diksha gurus rested entirely within his divine abilities. Only a rank pasandi (offender)—an disingenuous disciple—can doubt his potency to create qualified spiritual masters who are true to the sampradaya.
Therefore, for the Ritviks to cast suspicions that Shrila Prabhupada could not extend the sampradaya through empowering his disciples is to doubt not only the spiritual master that they claim initiated them via the fantasy of Ritvik initiation, but to doubt the entire order of the sampradaya. The sum and substance of this cancerous faithlessness in the teachings of Shri Guru is atheism, pure and simple.
One may not particularly like some individual representative of the sampradaya, and this article is in no way urging the Ritviks to "like" each individual spiritual master. This article is merely meant to point out that the principle of disciplic succession must be accepted as it is. And for those who do not accept the pure teachings without adulteration—as per the Ritvik example—there can be no link to the chain of disciplic succession. As this false understanding of Ritvikism has evolved, it has become a license to criticize, an open war against the representatives and philosophy of the entire Gaudiya sampradaya. Ritviks should know, therefore, that theirs is not the path to liberation, but to hell.
There have certainly been grounds for rejecting individuals who took the post of guru in haste and who subsequently disqualified themselves through their own foolish materialistic ambitions. Many have fallen from that post, and in a sense the misdeeds of these "Paundraks" have certainly contributed to creating the Ritvik spectacle. Much of the blame actually rests with the GBC for their twenty-year reticence to control the band of "Prabhupada imitators" they rubber-stamped in 1978. Nonetheless, personal issues that have arisen with fallen individuals do not rationalize a basis for initiating a subsequent false philosophy. Layering a new form of concoction over the misdeeds of the Paundraks and the weakness of the GBC will only ring the death knell for the Hare Krishna Movement. It is this impending tragedy, the corruption of the essence of ISKCON and destruction of the very sampradaya that is at the very root of this rootless invention of Ritvikism.
Ritvik-vada is a new-fangled notion, the very idea of which falls under the category of mental speculation. Speculating on the position of the Absolute Truth is nothing but a form of gambling and it is one of the four cardinal sins of Kali Yuga. In fact, the other three sins, namely eating of animal flesh, illicit sex and intoxication, have each grown out of this propensity to speculate oneself into the phantasmagorical position of enjoyer of sense gratification. Ritvikism is a form of subtle sense gratification, of mentally pleasing onself with a position which he does not actually occupy. The Ritviks are just like the naked Emperor marching along in the parade in his new fine garments with no one to stop them.
Laid bare, Ritvikism is thus nothing other than speculating with imperfect senses upon Shrila Prabhupada's teachings. It is a philosophical brew that imaginatively promotes itself to some higher level than the original Krishna conscious philosophy of Shrila Prabhupada and the Gaudiya Sampradaya of gopi bhartur padakamalyor dasa dasa anudasa. In a word, Ritvikism means that the shoes are trying to rise up to the head. Laid bare, it is nothing less than another "artificial imposition on the mind" that Shrila Prabhupada warned of from the earliest days.
Since the time of Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakur there has been an ongoing battle with sahajiya tendencies that have attempted to infect the line from Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu with various sorts of mental confabulations. Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur worked tirelessly to see that the genuine teachings of Gaudiya Vaishnava dharma and the Sampradaya would become elevated once again to their proper glory. Sahajiyas have attempted through mental speculation to cheapen the philosophy of the Bhagavata into a form of impersonalism by immediately going to the tenth canto, and either declaring themselves as Krishna or declaring themselves gopis. This is the nature of mental speculation; that one dreams up a position which he cannot really justify and then becomes submerged within his own illusion. Ritvikism is a similar form of sahajiyaism. It is really a form of impersonalism in the truest sense and hence it falls within the category of atheism. It is atheistic to the core because it denies the personal link—the present Shri Guru—who is the essence of serving the Supreme Lord. You cannot "jump" the disciplic succession any more than a sahajiya can jump all the way to Krishna. it is simply not the approved or bona fide process. In Nectar of Devotion we find:
In the Adi Purana there is the following statement by Lord Krishna Himself, addressed to Arjuna: "My dear Partha, one who claims to be My devotee is not so. Only a person who claims to be the devotee of My devotee is actually My devotee." No one can approach the Supreme Personality of Godhead directly (Cc. Madhya 13.80). One must approach Him through His pure devotees. Therefore, in the system of Vaisnava activities, the first duty is to accept a devotee as spiritual master and then to render service unto him."
Ritviks object to a system they call rubber-stamping, but how is rubber-stamping themselves as disciples of someone who has not accepted them going to solve the problem of rubber-stamping? They have rubber-stamped themselves. It takes an open mind that is free of prejudice and envy to recognize who the qualified individual is who is competent to represent Shrila Prabhupada. "By my works you shall know me," it is said. Therefore, how has the sankirtana movement continued to spread under the guidance of qualified spiritual leaders if there is no qualified representative of Shrila Prabhupada? Yasya prasada bhagavat-prasadah.
In the final analysis, the great flaw of Ritvik speculation is that if one can dream himself into becoming a disciple of an acharya who has not formally accepted that particular individual, then only a slight minor mental adjustment is required to dream oneself into becoming an intimate associate of Krishna, which is why Ritvikism breeds sahajiyaism. The great sages of Dandakaranya waited millions of years to see Krishna face to face, but the mental speculator thinks that personal association with the Supreme Lord (or His representive who is no longer physically present) is such a cheap thing that association can be attained on the authority of one's own whim.
Cancer begins from a single diseased cell. It is this growing malignancy on the body of the Krishna consciousness movement—this fantastic fabrication called Ritvikism—that can decimate the teachings of the Gaudiya sampradaya. In the coming generations—and with one concocted speculation leading to another—it is not too far-fetched to foresee that the scenario sardonically described above in our stopover at Ritvik Land could become a reality. Already there are groups of sex-addicted Western devotees behaving as sahajiyas in Vrindavana and other places, who have arrived at their dream destination by dint of cheap mental speculation. And Ritvikism, with its concocted form of becoming initiated without authorization—imagining oneself into the post of disciple of this one or that one—is not far behind. If this cancer is allowed to spread and is not deracinated root and branch, then it is just a matter of time…
Ritvikism is the proverbial elephant in the room that the GBC and other leaders are not dealing with as rapaciously as they should. In fact, the meager staff at the Sampradaya Sun has put more time and effort into philosophically ripping Ritvikism to shreds that the entirety of ISKCON with its hundreds of administrators and gurus. Spending Krishna's money on lawsuits is not the solution to eradicating this scourge, and neither will the infectious tumor go away by ignoring it. The solution must be a philosophical—not legal—approach. Preaching against this invented blight must be uncompromising.
Weeds in the garden and sparks in the barn must be dealt with in the earliest stage before they consume everything. The past acharyas of the Gaudiya Sampradaya were bold and uncompromising preachers who ripped up, defeated and utterly destroyed the Paundraka of Mayavada wherever and whenever it raised it ignoble head. As we have proven, Ritvikism is nothing less than the introduction of quasi-Mayavada sahajiyaism into the camp of ISKCON. And because Ritvikism thoroughly undermines the teachings of Gaudiya Vaishnavism according to the great Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya Sampradaya led by Shrila Prabhupada, it must be thoroughly rooted out from the mentality of ISKCON associates as the arch enemy of devotional principles. Ritvikism can only be wiped out through bold preaching, towards which the leaders of ISKCON have displayed an unfortunate reticence, unlike the Founder-Acharyas of both ISKCON and Gaudiya Math.
What remains abundantly clear is that the real reason for this strange invention of Ritvikism is that many of its proponents are envious of those who have taken up the post of guru. Desirous of occupying the throne of thorns themselves, they have concocted a pseudo-philosophy that retaliates against those they envy by destroying the entire teachings of the Sampradaya in a single mental speculation. Ritvikism is nothing less than a dark yet brilliant invention of Kali himself to demolish the Hare Krishna Movement and sap its potency to zero. Ritvikism is a grudge philosophy. It was originally concocted by a few members who felt they were passed over when senior disciples were appointed to initiate into the house of ISKCON.
Many Ritviks admire the progress of the sankirtana movement in Russia, but who do they think has created that movement by preaching Shrila Prabhupada's message? Do they not understand that some credit for the progress of sankirtan must go to the present spiritual masters in line from Shrila Prabhupada? Naturally, to compare anyone to Shrila Prabhupada is an unfair comparison. An acharya of His Divine Grace's stature manifests once in a million years. But if his deputed representatives act as transparent via media to Shrila Prabhupada, then that is sufficient qualification to take up the mantle of Shri Guru. One who understands this is qualified to be known as prabhu or guru.
As far as the solution to the Ritvik conundrum is concerned, the leader of the Bangalore center should himself accept his destiny as guru. He should renounce Ritvikism—which throws the leader's burden of having a disciple onto the previous acharya—and he should take the responsibility for expanding the sampradaya in bona fide way upon his own shoulders. He already knows the meaning of huge responsibilities. He has performed wondrous activities including temple building and progress, prasada distribution on a massive scale, legal issues, etc. Now taking the next step is the only logical one. His example is important to the entire Ritvik world, and as long as he simply finds fault, so will his followers be a degraded faction of anti-devotional faultfinders. Casting feelings of envy to the wind, the de facto Ritvik leader should come to grips with the reality of sampradaya and accept the burden that Shrila Prabhupada expected. Become guru.
The Ritvik's argument that there has to be a pure devotee to deliver a candidate back to Godhead is certainly a valid one, but Shrila Prabhupada solved this from the beginning by the very creation of ISKCON itself. Properly understood, ISKCON is nothing less than the sacred body of Shrila Prabhupada. Everything is there, the books, philosophy, puja, classes, bhajans, festivals and room for unlimited expansion. Obviously no one is going to equal Shrila Prabhupada in a million years. For us, the post of guru means bringing the fallen soul under the great umbrella of Krishna consciousness, which means ISKCON. That is guru and it is the guru who adds the essential element, the all-important link for the sampradaya to continue through the personal element of empowered representation of the previous acharya. The chain is as strong as the weakest link, and the Ritvik tendency to find fault is only weakening the allegorical chain of disciplic succession day by day.
Already the Ritviks are seeking Ritvik priests. Well, that is the post of Shri Guru, the only difference being that Shri Guru takes on the responsibility of the disciple whereas the Ritvik priest fools himself that he has passed on the headaches of having followers to his supposed predecessor. This is the great voidism of the intoxicated Ritvik priest. The Ritviks need to rectify their situation and become qualified to accept the personal responsibility of their followers as per Shrila Prabhupada's instructions. Then the problem will be solved. Have your own space, have your own place. Who will object? But follow the correct procedure of the great parampara and become the glory of the Sampradaya. It simply takes strengthening the one very weak link in the Ritvik chain and ridding oneself of the cancerous addiction of faultfinding. Shrila Prabhupada did not say "become Ritvik and save this land. He said "become guru and save this land." His Divine Grace wrote:
"I am very pleased that you have taken up this mission of spreading the Krishna consciousness movement all over the world. This is the wish of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu that, yare dakho tare kaho krishna upadesha, everyone you see or meet, tell him about Krishna; amara ajnaya guru haya tara ei desa [CC Madhya 7.128], and by My command you become a guru and save this land. This was also the mission of my guru maharaj and it is my mission. You will perfect your life if you make it also your mission."
(Letter to Jagajivana, New Delhi, 1 September 1976)
