Ritvik Bashing or Ritviks Bashing the Sampradaya?
BY: RAVANARI DAS
Aug 07, 2011 — USA (SUN) —
Shocking, but not surprising. That was my reaction to Srimati Dharini dasi’s account of the sheer brutality that Mother Urmila dasi endured at the hands of her husband, even in the temple and before the eyes of guests. We can only try to empathize with the pain and humiliation this faithful follower of Srila Prabhupada suffered at the hands of a brute in the dress of a protector.
Not surprisingly Pratyatosa das, the “husband” of Urmila, is today a leading proponent of the lewd and counterfeit doctrine of Ritvikism. Like a silent cancer this apa-sampradaya of Ritvikism has today grown to the dubious status of a fringe sect. This strange philosophy has crawled from the test tube of mental speculation and has gained a life of its own like some demonic experiment gone bad.
Daily subscribers to Pratyatosa dasa’s Ishtagoshti e-forum find their mailboxes stuffed with the same tired voices wringing the same old rag of misinterpreted and misunderstood instruction. Indeed, from his postings, Pratyatosa appears to have very little knowledge of shastra. In the light of his oft-repeated phantasmagorical statements alleging that Srila Prabhupada “changed his mind regarding the furtherance of the sampradaya” during the final days of His Divine Grace’s manifest presence, nothing Pratyatosa says or does can be considered parampara. Not only is Pratyatosa’s concept of parampara a rudderless ship, but his understanding of Srila Prabhupada’s message is as lukewarm, tasteless and insipid as the microwave potato flakes bachelor recipe he offers on his Howard Best web site.
Through his own obedience and surrender to the chain of command of the previous acharyas, the bona fide spiritual master presents the timeless message of Krishna consciousness without adulteration, change or any hint of mental speculation. Pratyatosa and his Ritvik cronies should know that there could never be any possibility at any time of the Sampradaya Acharya “changing his mind.” The confused “disciple” who believes that Shrila Prabhupada’s thoughts or opinions might vary by as much as a single centimeter has understood nothing about Krishna consciousness.
Only a mad chap would believe that the bill that comes in the mail has been issued by the postman, and only a fool would think that Prabhupada could create a doctrine that is subject to whimsical changes. Similarly, deluded Ritviks mis-comprehend that Prabhupada altered the message of the parampara to suit some mysterious whim that arose at the end of his lila. They are like the near-sighted man who considers that all others are like him, afflicted with myopia. Their incredible aparadha against the twenty-four caret integrity of the pure devotee by his own “disciples” defies imagination.
Srila Prabhupada’s purity was based upon his handing over the same message as his spiritual master, who handed over the same as his Guru Maharaja ad infinitum. This open secret of the sampradaya has been lost to those whose minds have been dragged off course by their own enviousness.
We see that among the Ritviks there are those who were ambitious to become guru after the disappearance of Shrila Prabhupada. When their ambitions were thwarted due to their own lack of qualifications, they latched onto Ritvikism as a convenient ruse to pull the rug out from under the feet of their more qualified Godbrothers. A philosophy that is 99% correct is 100% wrong. There is no room for enviousness in the disciplic succession, and this insidious philosophy of Ritvikism is based upon enviousness.
One more colossal insult to the pure devotee that has been created by the Ritvik camp is their denial that the Krishna-empowered paramhamsa can continue to empower disciples according to his own choice and their qualification. To claim that Srila Prabhupada could not create guru is an outrage tantamount to denying the Sampradaya Acharya his place in the disciplic succession. Since the Ritviks accept Srila Prabhupada as the empowered representative of Lord Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, why then do they deny that his spiritual potency cannot be directed towards coming generations? This Ritvik minimizing of the pure devotee stands as perhaps the greatest contradiction within a doctrine that is riddled with contradictions.
The Ritviks have so little substance that whenever they find themselves running from a fair debate out of fear of the truth, they shelter themselves beneath a great banner that alleges, “RITVIK BASHING.” But in the article of Dharini dasi that we have mentioned above, we find that the very person who in the future would play the victim and claim to be bashed for propagating his false philosophy was himself a violent wife basher. Neither do we have any doubts at all that such a wife basher can come up with sufficient sastric evidence in the factory of his own mind to warrant his spousal brutality. It is the nature of misguided mentality to rationalize deviousness. Similarly, support of Ritvikism is a concoction fervently debated with misplaced evidence.
Posturing as a husband while physically abusing she whom he is avowed to protect is no different from posing as a Vasihnava while destroying the parampara he is supposed to represent. Savagery and brutality adopt different guises. But a so-called Vaishnava husband who breaks the jaw of his better half does not belong in any sampradaya. He belongs in jail.
