A Word and a Staple, Part Three
BY: ROCANA DASA
Jul 20, 2011 — CANADA (SUN) — In Part One and Part Two of "Word and a Staple", we have been addressing Madhudvisa das's article, "The Truth is Very Powerful”. Thus far we have made several points, defeating the notion that the July 7th Conversation was a "dictation" of the July 9th Letter; that the July 9th Letter memorialized a rtvik system that had already been going; and that in the July 9th Letter, Srila Prabhupada was setting down his final instructions for future initiations, instituting a post-samadhi diksa ritvik system. All these assertions are proved to be false. Prior to addressing Madhudvisa dasa, we also pointed out a pattern of falsification of the July 9th Letter text.
In yesterday's segment, we pointed out the fact that the July 7th Conversation was not comprised of Srila Prabhupada instructing a ritvik diksa system for future initiations after his departure. Rather, he was addressing a specific problem Tamal Krishna had raised: that there was a bottleneck of aspirants seeking initiation, which had formed because the leaders had arbitrarily stopped engaging in the process for initiations Srila Prabhupada already had in place. Without authorization, they had stopped processing initiates because, they said, they were worried that it would cause further problems to Srila Prabhupada's health. Therefore, Srila Prabhupada instructed them to go forward – not to stop or delay – and he added a few adjustments to further streamline the process.
Although Madhudvisa das would like us to believe that in the July 7th Conversation, the adjustments Srila Prabhupada made were "obviously in preparation for the time when he would be no longer physically present with us", we have clearly shown that to be a speculative and false statement. This is underscored by several facts we didn't mention yesterday. First, in his July 7th remarks, Srila Prabhupada indicated that his health was not at issue with respect to initiations by instructing that initiations go forward. Please note that Tamal Krishna had introduced this discussion by suggesting (albeit not very succinctly) that the concern was about Prabhupada taking on the karmic burden of more new disciples.
Tamal Krishna: "You know, he takes on the... He has to cleanse the disciple by... So we don't want that you should have to... Your health is not so good, so that should not be... That's why we've been asking everybody to wait."
It was not that the problem Tamal raised was the burden of receiving letters or picking names, therefore the adjustments Srila Prabhupada made did not relate to the real problem at hand – a bottleneck caused out of concern for the negative health effects of taking on karmic burden.
Again, this clearly demonstrates that the July 7th Conversation, and the July 9th Letter in which Tamal Krishna memorialized that meeting in his own words, were not about Srila Prabhupada making plans for his future absence. In fact, just the opposite is indicated. He instructed them to carry on with initiations, not hold them up; in other words, he would continue to carry the added karmic burden.
In fact, when we consider the adjustments made in the July 7th Conversation, we see that Srila Prabhupada is arranging it in such a way that he is even willing to continue receiving letters and giving names:
Tamala Krsna: So if someone gives initiation, like Harikesa Maharaja, he should send the person's name to us here and I'll enter it in the book. Okay. Is there someone else in India that you want to do this?
Prabhupada: India, I am here. We shall see. In India, Jayapataka.
Tamala Krsna: Jayapataka Maharaja.
Prabhupada: You are also in India.
Tamala Krsna: Yes.
Clearly, Srila Prabhupada is including himself on the list of persons who would receive letters and pick names in India under this new arrangement, along with Tamal Krishna and Jayapataka.
There is no specific indication in the July 7th Conversation as to why Tamala Krsna and the senior men had stopped the established initiations process, except their statement about concern for Prabhupada's health. But history shows that immediately after the Spring 1978 Mayapur meetings, when the Zonal Acarya scheme emerged, all the new acaryas headed directly back to their zones and began initiating all those thousands of disciples waiting in the queue, as their own direct disciples. We have written about this many times in the past, suggesting that the interruption of initiations before Prabhupada's departure in 1977 was very likely tied to a long-range takeover plan among the senior men. We can only speculate about it, but personally, I think it's a very likely scenario.
So even though the July 9th Letter came out, no initiations took place as a result from July to November, when Srila Prabhupada left his mortal form. All those people who wanted to get initiation from Srila Prabhupada didn't get initiated by him. And given all that is known about the consciousness of these Zonal Acaryas, I think we must consider the May 28th Conversation, the July 7th Conversation and the July 9th Letter in the context of that knowledge, since they introduced each one of these communicaes – not Srila Prabhuapda. We'll hold further comment on this point until a later segment. For now, let us return to Madhudvisa prabhu's position.
In Part One of "A Word and a Staple, we addressed Madhudvisa's response to a number of questions posed by Yasodanandana dasa on evidence supporting the Rtvik conclusion. We ended our paper with the following statement:
"Madhudvisa is making what appear to be contradictory statements in the above. On one hand he says that Srila Prabhupada established a system for rtvik diksa initiations after his departure, for all time. On the other hand, he says the Rtviks are wrong to promote the notion that Prabhupada didn't intend any of his disciples to go on to become qualified diksa gurus. We wrote to Madhudvisa prabhu and asked him to explain this seeming contradiction, and he kindly replied with a detailed explanation. His logic, and the conclusions he has arrived at, will be the subject of Part Two of this article."
This observation referred to Madhudvisa's comments in "The Truth is Very Powerful":
"So everything is spoiled because many of the ritviks are trying to use Prabhupada's July 9th letter to "prove" that Prabhupada did not want any of his disciples to become qualified gurus, and the other side, ISKCON, the gurus, are trying to prove that Prabhupada can not continue to accept disciples after his physical disappearance.
Both sides are trying to establish a lie... "
Although Madhudvisa prabhu, as part of his Rtvik position, accepts the notion that Srila Prabhupada can continue to accept disciples after his physical disappearance via rtvik initiations, he doesn't answer the standing questions about the mechanism for this to take place, supposedly set down in the July 9th Letter. For example, does Madhudvisa conclude that post-samadhi diksa initiation is only via the 11 named rtvik priests -- which would mean only while they're still living? Does he believe that it carries on even after the 11 ritviks have become incapacitated by falldown? Does he believe that when the 11 rtvik priests leave their bodies, Srila Prabhupada's branch of the disciplic succession ends permanently?
Like Madhudvisa, none of the Rtvik-vadis offer any concrete answers to these questions. In fact, these questions are their Achilles heel. They insist that the July 9th Letter was Srila Prabhupada's final instruction for how diksa initiations will go on in the future (some say for the next 10,000 years), but the Letter itself names only 11 men to act as "rittik". Even if one were to accept that Tamal Krishna's "henceforward" means forever and ever, the rittik process would end when these 11 men leave their bodies.
Of course, when one presents this conundrum to the Rtviks, they'll likely get one of a small selection of answers, the most common of which is that, "The 11 men are fallen, and if the GBC functioned properly, they would name new men. But the GBC isn't functioning, therefore the devotees have a right to pick their own new Ritvik priests." Of course, such a response is the height of hypocrisy. The Rtviks demand that we follow the letter of the law set down in the July 9th Letter, Srila Prabhupada's absolute final instruction for the infinite future – but at the same time, they've already changed it totally to suit their own conceptions. They have appointed their own Rtvik priests, outside of the institution, and are busy conducting Rtvik diksa initiation ceremonies.
A small contingent of Rtviks have finally faced the reality that such a position represents maha-hypocrisy, and they have cozied up to the only one among the 11 men who will still talk to them today – Hansadutta. Regardless of the fact that he's every bit as fallen as all the others on the list, he's still living. He's on the ‘outside' of ISKCON, he's still hungry for power and prestige, and he's more than willing to step up and serve as the one and only active "rittik" priest for Srila Prabhupada's movement. In fact, there's nothing he'd like better.
Of course, some of the more intelligent among the Rtvik camp were completely appalled when this strategy emerged. For example, Nara Narayana Viswakarma prabhu – who had been a staunch defender of Rtvik-ism for years – renounced Rtvik-vada and the Rtvik community on account of their strategy to embrace Hansadutta as a "solution" to their dilemma.
While we applaud Nara Narayana's sensible decision to repudiate Rtvik-vada, the point must be made that one could swing a deal with any one of the 11 men, convincing them to come into the Rtvik fold and serve as their bona fide Ritvik priest, but the problem still wouldn't be solved. Not only would such a program have to be undertaken within the ISKCON institution and under the auspices of the GBC, even if it were, it would still come to an end upon the priest's death.
So although the Rtviks are constantly heard to say that the July 9th Letter establishes Srila Prabhupada's solution for diksa initiations in ISKCON for the next 10,000 years, there is absolutely nothing to substantiate that claim. It is a complete farce, as obvious and fundamentally dishonest as the plethora of falsified July 9th Letter texts that have been floated around the world.
Madhudvisa's contradictory statements
In his original article, "The Truth is Very Powerful", Madhudvisa did not address any of the issues mentioned above. Instead, he opened his own unique backdoor to the July 9th Letter, by suggesting that Srila Prabhupada did want his disciples to become initiating gurus:
"This "ritvik" preaching has been damaged a lot by fanatical devotees who, instead of simply establishing that Prabhupada established a system to accept disciples via ritvik priests and intended that same system to continue after his apparent disappearance they spend all their time and energy trying to establish that Prabhupada did not intend any of his disciples to go on to become qualified diksa gurus. Which is a lie. Actually Prabhupada's very strong desire, his mission, is to create at least one and hopefully many pure devotees who can do what he has done, become acharya, initiate disciples, preach Krishna consciousness all over the world. If someone can actually do that that would be the most pleasing thing to Srila Prabhupada." (emphasis added)
On this point, we sent the following letter to Madhudvisa prabhu asking him to clarify the issue, and also to provide copies of the evidence he had put forward in that article, but without citations. We wrote:
Dear Madhudvisa das,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
I have been following with interest the recent discussion thread on
Rtvik-vada, and your comments and challenges to the Rtviks. I'll be
adding my own comments in the next day or three.
First, I want to be crystal clear about what you're saying. Would you
kindly give citations for these pieces of evidence you mention:
#1
"…there is an instruction from Srila Prabhupada to Ramesvara that he
should immediately duplicate the July 9th letter and his final will and
put them together and mail them to all the ISKCON centers and GBC
members."
#2
"This is confirmed by at least 3 letters Srila Prabhupada had TKG send.
Two to Hansadutta and one to Kirtananda. And there may be more letters
also, these are the only ones we know about."
I would also appreciate your clarification on a point that Vidura and
Mahesh Raja both appear to be confused on, and frankly, I am as well.
You say that the July 9th Letter established Srila Prabhupada's system for
diksa initiations via Rtvik after his departure.
You also say that the Rtviks are wrong to assert, based on the July 9th
Letter, that Srila Prabhupada was to be the only initiating diksa guru
from here on out. You say that is false. (And of course, I agree). You
provide statements from Srila Prabhupada that he wanted his disciples to
become initiating gurus.
But what's not clear is what you're suggesting re: the disciples who DO
rise to become bona fide diksa gurus, as Srila Prabhupada wanted them to.
If the July 9th Letter is accepted and in place, Srila Prabhupada is the
only initiator. How or where are you suggesting the bona fide initiator
diksa gurus coming from Srila Prabhupada's branch carry on? Where do they
become diksas? In ISKCON? Outside of ISKCON? If the latter, are you
offering evidence that Srila Prabhupada said, please become bona fide
initiating diksas and start your own maths, leaving ISKCON to me as the
only initiating diksa guru, via post-samadhi Rtvik?
Kindly clarify.
Hoping this finds you well,
Your servant,
Rocana dasa
Madhudvisa prabhu's reply to this letter appears as a stand-alone article in today's Sun: "Evidence and Clarification". In our next segment of "A Word and a Staple", we will offer a detailed reply to the points he makes in this new article. In the meantime, the reader will see that we have already soundly rebutted a good many of the points made in this new article, i.e., those related to the July 9th Letter and evidence in support of it.
The main thrust of our next segment will be a reply to Madhudvisa's vision for the parallel lines of a ‘henceforward post-samadhi diksa rtvik' program, along with a ‘Prabhupada wanted disciples to become initiating gurus' program.
SEE ALL ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES
A Word and a Staple, Part One
A Word and a Staple, Part Two
A Word and a Staple, Part Three
A Word and a Staple, Part Four
A Word and a Staple, Part Five
A Word and a Staple, Part Six
The Truth is Very Powerful
Evidence and Clarification
Ritvik Lies and ISKCON Lies
