Dec 16, 2013 — WALES, UK (SUN) — I must write to concur with Prahlada Nrsimha Prabhu in his article about the IRM, Ritviks and all. Some Ritviks have now reached the point of no return in their perfectly non-transparent interpretations of English words on paper. They have coloured the enquiries and answers so much now that it is unlikely they will ever get to understand the Guru Tattva issue from an all-encompassing angle.
On the Prabhupadanuga.eu site I recently wrote a challenging article concerning their interpretation of the July 9th Letter. They seem to think that one word, "henceforward", is equal to the phrase " after Srila Prabhupada is no longer physically existing". So I challenged that interpretation and offered up a more reasonable meaning, that "henceforward" referred more to the change in the initiations protocols and that the whole July 9th Letter was not so absolutely enforcing that protocol, rather it was a choice for the Temple Presidents of the day and a response to the huge queue of devotees waiting for initiation. Also that the word "henceforward" in the context of the July 9th Letter did not apply holistically to the whole letter.
Then I quoted a piece from Srila Prabhupada's Cc 1.58, regarding the manifestation of a liberated Shiksa guru in front of the external senses of the devotee sent by Krishna Himself. This was to illustrate the need and actual help we all get from the Supersoul, Krishna, through His mercy via a physically present Spiritual Master.
"Since one cannot visually experience the presence of the Supersoul. He appears before us as a liberated devotee. Such a Spiritual Master is no one other than Krishna Himself." (Caitanya-caritamrta Adi 1.58)
And then the whole purport by Srila Prabhupada:
"It is not possible for a conditioned soul to directly meet Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but if one becomes a sincere devotee and seriously engages in devotional service, Lord Krishna sends an Instructing Spiritual Master to show him favour and invoke his dormant propensity for serving the Supreme. The preceptor appears before the external senses of the fortunate conditioned soul, and at the same time the devotee is guided from within by the caittya-guru, Krishna, who is seated as the Spiritual Master within the heart of the living entity."
This quote illustrates how Lord Krishna and the Spiritual Master work in tandem to help the conditioned souls on their journey back to Godhead. The liberated Shiksa guru appears before the external senses of the devotee. Or to put it another way, the Spiritual Master is physically present before the devotee sent by Lord Krishna and is no one other than Krishna Himself.
The Prabhupadanuga devotees accused me of being a Vapuh vadi because of this statement from Srila Prabhupada's Cc. And that I was going to redefine Srila Prabhupada's clear ritvik order for the future initiations into Iskcon. Then they made up a whole article that essentially character assassinated me and called me names. Exactly what they criticise ISKCON leadership of doing... exactly the same.
But I had written all this in a reply panel under an article they had written. The panel section is for invited readers to comment on good, bad or ugly and then that reply is published underneath the original article for all to see. Then more replies come in from others either supporting it or rebutting it. But they did not do this to my article, they just made up a whole new article that was not at all representative of what I wrote. They just took bits out of context and lambasted me. In fact, they did not represent me in truth and I wrote back again in a new panel linked with this article that lambasted me, saying how un-representative they had become and it was no good just character assassinating me and calling me names.
What they did not do was to publish the quotes from Srila Prabhupada's Cc Adi 1.58 and then prove that the Ritvik theory was still applicable, with substantial quotes from Srila Prabhupada. In fact they cannot do that, and now they have deteriorated so much that they have reverted to all the tactics they accused the GBC of years ago: character assassination, calling devotees names and pure mis-representation. What comes around goes around. And their example of how they deal with devotees and their relationship with devotees who don't agree with them exemplifies exactly how they have had no training with a Spiritual master, who has not guided them and chastised them. They are now out of control with themselves and a real danger to society.
Over the years I have submitted articles to the Sampradaya Sun, under the editorship of Rocana Prabhu and the Sun staff that have been challenging and with my own opinions intact. And they have been published with rebuttals from them. And in this dynamic of debate, which is exactly what we are engaged in here, then we either have to bite the bullet and realise what a mistake we have made or we just go awol in Krishna Consciousness, we sink or swim. If we take a humble path and try to work out exactly where we have gone wrong then that's acceptable to all devotees, we all make mistakes, but if we become so arrogant and puffed up with what we think is the Truth and in the face of monumental disagreement we don't back down then we just sink into the material ocean of illusion.
Since "The Final Order" has been deconstructed by just about everyone on the other side of ISKCON, and if we go through the comprehensive booklet there are so many mistakes that it could all be re-written, isn't it about time that we just leave the Ritviks in their own bubble to enjoy being in that self-imposed illusion? There is no point in "debating" with some of them because they don't know how to debate. They don't know how to "hear" anymore, they have gone beyond hearing. And they have got hugely fanatic persons on the Ritvik side that think they can now imitate Srila Prabhupada Himself and even go beyond Him. They have got to be the most unfortunate souls on the planet; they could not be any more small-minded and merciless even if they tried to be.
