Concerning Initiation

Written by VF member Puëòarék

On May 28,1977, in respect to diksha initiations after his disappearance (less than six months later on November 14^th), Srila Prabhupada stated: “When I order, ‘You become guru,’ he becomes regular guru. That’s all. He becomes disciple of my disciple. That’s it.” Upon the command of Prabhupada, one of his initiated disciples becomes a “regular,” i.e., under rules and regulations, a madhyam diksha-guru, and those he initiates become the initiated disciples of Prabhupada’s authorized diksha-guru disciple.

They become a “grand disciple” of Prabhupada. ibid, “He is grand-disciple.”Any such authorized guru in the Madhva-Gauòéya sampradya will not consider himself a guru on any level above a madhyam, at least until he has proven himself fully obedient to the rules and regulations incumbent upon him, particularly in accord with the guru-vani which preceded him, as recorded in that May room conversation.

He will have full confidence that his position as a diksha-guru does not depend on any so-called authorization besides Prabhupada’s command and knows it will not cease unless he fails to follow, by misuse of free will, the rules and regulations incumbent upon him. He knows that he has no geographical restrictions to act as a genuine guru and may freely initiate any worthy jiva who presents himself for initiation.

Any jiva who becomes an genuine disciple in the Madhva-Gauòéya line subsequent Prabhupada’s disappearance will recognize that he has become so through the initiation of his manifest authorized diksha-guru.

He knows that Prabhupada’s disappearance excludes the possibility of his becoming an immediate diksha disciple of His Divine Grace. Such a disciple comprehends that any genuine diksha-guru takes upon himself–in his manifest, physical body–the bad karmic reactions for the next destined birth(s) of the disciple, which a jiva elevated into the Vaikuntha or no longer physically manifest cannot do.

He knows that his diksha-guru has a contract with him and has linked him to the line. He serves his manifest diksha-guru faithfully with unflinching obedience. He accords him the position of his acting as an acharya.

Prabhupada has not officially commanded anyone to assume the position of diksha-guru either before or after his disappearance. Almost everyone who claims to have the authority to initiate disciples in the Madhva-Gauòéya line (subsequent to His Divine Grace’s disappearance) attributes his elevation to diksha-guru from some other source, in particular from the Governing Body Commission (G.B.C.) of the fabricated “International Society for Krishna Consciousness” (“ISKCON”) federation.

Such bogus gurus remain in an institution which would

claim to have the authority to unilaterally appoint dishka gurus, in flagrant rebellion against the guru-vani. They have claimed immediate uttama-adihkari status, discussed subsequently, they considered their authority limited geographically.

No one has become an initiated disciple of Prabhupada since his disappearance, because he no longer assumes the duties of initiating guru. No one has become a “grand disciple” of Prabhupada, because he has not officially commanded any of his disciples to initiate disciples.

After the Ratha Yatra festival in 1970, His Divine Grace, with the assistance of an ad hoc committee, adopted principles as outlined in the charter named the Direction of Management, known by its acronym (D.O.M.). This charter became the guru-vani to manage the exponential growth of ISKCON.

The D.O.M. institutes the creation of the G.B.C. via twelve appointed zonal secretaries, who act as Prabhupada’s direct representatives. He created his Will on June 4, 1977 and further created a codicil on November 5^th, less than two weeks before his disappearance.

With the Executors appointed for life, in the case of death or “failure to act,” the G.B.C. would elect an “initiated disciple” as a replacement. The Executors must strictly follow all the rules and regulations of ISKCON as “detailed in my (Prabhupada’s) books.”

The D.O.M. instructs that one of the twelve G.B.C. members would, each month, live with Prabhupada and relay to the others his most recent instructions. The G.B.C. “oversees all operations and management of ISKCON” according to the direction of Prabhupada, who has final approval in all matters. The D.O.M. regards the G.B.C. primarily as the organizer of new temples and the maintainer of established temples in full conformity to Prabhupada’s vani.

That would include vani given either directly during his manifest presence or after his disappearance by means of his writings and spoken instructions, duly recorded. The Will essentially discusses the maintenance of the properties and other assets of ISKCON.

Concerning the management of the temples and their properties, he grants that to the respective temple presidents, secretaries, and treasurers. The G.B.C could advise or otherwise act with respect to purchase, sale, mortgage, etc. of properties, but the three aforementioned directly manage the temple and its properties.

The temple president assumes or relinquishes his office according to the vote of all local members of the temple. Prabhupada’s guru-vani does not grant any authority to the G.B.C. to appoint or dismiss gurus, temple presidents, to alter doctrine or practices, to determine eligibility of membership in temples, etc. Yet it has assumed such authority for all those things commencing from the Seventies.

The G.B.C.’s assumption in 1978 to appoint uttama-adhikari (not madhyam) diksha-gurus, and all its subsequent appointments of diksha-gurus, demonstrates its utter rebellion against the explicit guru-vani of His Divine Grace. In 1978, the G.B.C. understood the Swami B. R. Sridhar to mean that the original rittviks had become, since Prabhupada’s disappearance, dishka-guru acharyas in their own right. Whereas, in 1989, the rittviks interpreted it to mean that the 1977 rittviks, and any to follow, were rittvik-acharyas, acting in behalf of the Founder-Acharya of ISKCON (now “ISKCON”).

It also demonstrates the illegitimacy of the appointed gurus and the initiations they have performed over time. The G.B.C.’s appointment of uttama-adhikari diksha-gurus arose from its adherence to the deviant teachings of Swami B. R. Sridhar, mentioned just above and subsequently.

As Kailasacandra Prabhu elucidates in his Beyond Institutional Gurus Initiations and Party Men (Kala Purusha Publications, pp.20-21): “He {Swami Sridhar} repeated the Bengali cliche mat guru si jagat guru, indicating that anyone who performs the formalities of the initiation ceremony should be accepted by his initiated disciple as a jagat guru. A jagat guru is an uttama-adhikäré on the topmost plane of spiritual realization, a far cry from what Prabhupäda called “regular guru.”

These appointments slandered His Divine Grace by denying him the exclusive right to authorize diksha-gurus, and its assumption of his having granted the G.B.C.’s expropriation of that right. They blasphemed Sri Krsna Caitanya as the bestower of such exclusive authority to Prabhupada.

As Kailasacandra Prabhu states, ibid. pg. 8: “The Governing Body Commission must be seen for what it did and for what it has become since the disappearance of the physical manifestation of His Divine Grace Çréla Prabhupäda. It is not functioning according to its mandate prescribed in the Direction of Management (D.O.M.), which was not, and is not, an ISKCON constitution.

The G.B.C. was supposed to follow Prabhupäda’s directives detailed in that charter. It was supposed to hold elections every three years. It was supposed to function in exact accordance with the D.O.M. It is not functioning in any of those ways, and this should be obvious to all devotees free from aberration.

In other words, just as ISKCON has now been replaced by “ISKCON,” similarly, the governing body of the early and mid-Seventies has now been replaced by the vitiated G.B.C. This deviant entity has been responsible for all of the major anomalies that have gone down in the “ISKCON” movement, which it controls. “ISKCON” is the glove, and the G.B.C. is the hand within that glove.”

On April 8, 1972, Prabhupada wrote a letter to all temple presidents, which expresses his grave disappointment with unilateral decisions and actions of the G.B.C. and concludes that they “disregard” the decisions from the G.B.C. and to manage their own affairs “independently.” He suspends all G.B.C. orders to the temples until he provides further notice. This was in response to a G.B.C. action.

Less than two years from commencement of its function, the G.B.C. acted, and, in the early months of 1972, met, without sanction or approval of Prabhupada. In the above-mentioned letter, he wrote that this “upset my brain” and “very much disturbed me.” No genuine guru or disciple would grant this deviant body any authority over them or maintain any association with it or its institution.

The rittviks and their factions emerged in 1989 not long after the death of Swämi B. R. Çrédhar, who in his Will falsely asserted that Prabhupada claimed perpetual initiating capacity through a rittvik system. The Swami asserted that his chief disciple would constitute that and be the first such rittvik in his line, also. The rittviks subconsciously accepted the authority of the Swami notwithstanding his rebellion against Prabhupada’s guru-vani when he asserted “rittvik-äcärya, then it becomes as good as äcärya.” Since Prabhupada had appointed rittviks to act during his manifest presence, upon his disappearance they would assume diksha-guru status, without the command of Prabhupada.

As Kailasacandra Prabhu writes, ibid. pg. 112: “The original rittviks were hopeful that the G.B.C. would accept their proposal, because it would validate all of the previous initiations (in terms of rittvik) by legitimizing the performers of those initiations as rittvik-äcäryas.”

The initial rittviks based their heterodox ideology (and its implementation and authorization) via a deviant interpretation and false institutionalization. They slander Prabhupada in their assertion that he presently execute initiations after physical manifestation , since they thereby deny his explicit teaching that , subsequent his disappearance, he authorized , in concept, that his disciples can initiate their own disciples, necessarily implying he cannot continue to bear the bad karmic reactions of new disciples.

Sri brahma-Samhita, 5:21 teaches: “The same jéva is eternal and is for eternity and without a beginning joined to the Supreme Lord by the tie of an eternal kinship. He is transcendental spiritual potency.”

The purport of His Divine Grace Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Thakura clarifies that, “Just as the sun is eternally associated with his rays, so the transcendental Supreme Lord is eternally joined with the jévas. The jévas are the infinitesimal particles of His spiritual effulgence and are, therefore, not perishable like mundane things. Jévas, being particles of Godhead’s effulgent rays, exhibit on a minute scale the qualities of the Divinity. Hence jévas are identical with the principles of knowledge, knower, egoism, enjoyer, meditator and doer. Kåñëa is the all-pervading, all-extending Supreme Lord, while jévas have a different nature from His, being His atomic particles. That eternal relationship consists in this that the Supreme Lord is the eternal master and jévas are His eternal servants.”

All jivas have the characteristic of eternal atomic particles of Sri Krsna’s effulgence and subsist as His eternal servants. As such, the Bhagadvad-Gita, 2:20 declares: “For the soul there is neither birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying, and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.”

Srila Prabhupada confirms the same in an excerpt from a letter to Sri K. Raghupati Rao, dated January 13, 1976: “There is no question of “breaking” as you have mentioned. The jiva is eternal, sanatan. Just like the sun and the sunshine. The sun is a combination of bright molecules and both are eternally existing. Similarly, Krishna and His qualitative fragmental parts are also eternal.”

The Goudiya Mutt, adhering to the teaching of Swämi B. R. Çrédhar, deny a personal origin of the jiva in Godhead. From BIGIPM, pp. 55-56: “(Neo-Mutt) follows the deviant siddhänta. In terms of what the real Sampradäya Äcärya, Çréla Prabhupäda, had taught all of his disciples (repeatedly in his books, tapes, transcripts, walks, letters, etc.), the Gouòéya Mutt taught differently. Swämi B. R. Çrédhar had also been teaching this opposing origination theory, and he had even written, in one of his books, that all living entities had originally come from the brahmajyoti, the impersonal effulgence of the Lord.”

No authorized diksha-guru could adhere to such contrary vani doctrine. Anyone who claims such doctrine denies himself the possibility of authorized diksha status or the capacity to administer authorized initiations. The Goudiya Mutt and the rittviks both condoned (the rittviks, not explicitly) the teaching of Swämi B. R. Çrédhar, who held to this Brahman origination heresy. By doing so, it exposes their illegitimacy and rebellion against Prabhupada’s doctrine.

In conclusion, “ISKCON,” the rittviks, and Goudiya Mutt (and now, Neo-Mutt) have all deviated from the teachings of the sastras and the guru-vani of the Madhva-Gauòéya Sampradya concerning initiations and gurus. All pure devotees must flee these deviant entities. All must avoid them as commanded by Prabhupada. This command is evidenced by his orthodox doctrine and practice, his shunning of sahajiya individuals and institutions, and his clear dictate of “regular guru, that’s all,” viz., madhyam status only.

All new devotees within the Madhva-Gauòéya Sampradya must submit to Srila Prabhupada as their shiksha-guru, follow the rules and regulations of the scriptures strictly, and wait for the manifestation of the causeless mercy of the Panca-tattva in the form of the appearance of a diksha-guru Acharya.