KCD’s Monthly Podcast – September 2024

Podcast transcription:

On and For the Record

(Part Three of the Review of Doktorski’s Eleven Naked Emperors)

Analysis of Chapter Four

by Kailäsa Candra däsa

HARIÙ OÀ NAMAÙ

The process of Kåñëa consciousness is known by many terms, each of which signals the particular emphasis of a prominent trait in it. For example, you have all read and heard that Kåñëa consciousness is called bhakti-yoga. Bhakti technically refers to bhäva, an extremely advanced stage of Kåñëa consciousness. Yet, every devotee who applies himself or herself to the process experiences fleeting moments of bhäva or ecstasy within, often even at the beginning of the neophyte stage. It is thus not a misnomer to call the overall process by the term bhakti-yoga, and Prabhupäda advertised it as such.

It is sometimes called sädhana bhakti. It is sometimes called vidhi-sädhana bhakti. It is sometimes called rägänuga-sädhana bhakti. It is sometimes called sädhya-bhakti, and that is at bhäva. Siddhänta Sarasväté, in a purport to his commentary on Brahma-Saàhitä, has also called it jïäna-bhakti yoga, as per that preliminary stage.

Kåñëa consciousness is also sometimes called mantra-yoga, and this is because—especially in Prabhupäda’s branch of the Caitanya sampradäya—The Hare Kåñëa mantra is emphasized and integral to an obligatory ritual for all disciples under his direction and guidance. Chanting sixteen rounds daily–every day of every week of every month of every year—is no mean feat. As such, the yoga can appropriately be called mantra-yoga.

Kåñëa consciousness is also sometimes called seva-yoga. Seva means service. No devotee in the branch of the line that Prabhupäda established was ever unaware of his stress upon—indeed, demand for—each of them to serve him and his institution. There was a chain of command in Prabhupäda’s Kåñëa conscious movement.

You received your marching orders to serve each day from that chain of command. It was as if being in military discipline, and you tried with due diligence to be successful in the service deputed to you. Now and then, you were given some opportunity to serve Prabhupäda directly. However, for most of the rank-and-file—for most of the real workers—you received your deputed service from the temple president or the collection commander or your sannyasi and carried it out.

Kåñëa consciousness is also sometimes called buddhi-yoga. This has been a bit misunderstood over the years. I shall not delve heavily into that, although I have touched upon it in the past. An ultra-elevated status of buddhi-yoga, particularly mentioned in the Tenth Chapter of Bhagavad-gétä, is not what is being referred to here. Instead, what is being referred to is the working principles of buddhi-yoga. In this system, you fully apply your intelligence to your service to the guru and the prosecution of your sädhana. This generally leads to success in your objectives, all of which are dovetailed to the orders of the spiritual master as given and carried out by disciples in his hierarchical chain.

Pardon me for this somewhat lengthy prologue, which serves not only as knowledge but mostly as an example. It is an example that the name or label does not matter—at least, not very much—as long as the genuine process and system of the topmost yoga given us is being referred to by use of any of these terms. This system only works when that hierarchy giving the orders is not deviated . . .

. . . and we shall certainly more than merely touch upon this truth (we always do) as the presentation proceeds.

When action via the working principles of buddhi-yoga is prosecuted in the right way, your intelligence (the word buddhi means intelligence) will become more powerful, more determined, more purified, and sharper. When a hierarchy in so-called Kåñëa consciousness is deviated, however, utilizing any of these abovementioned terms to refer to it is not describing what it purports to describe. Determination of the intelligence is integral to its prosecution, and it is particularly applicable to the transcendental system. In due course, buddhi becomes so purified that it transmutes itself into prajïä, but understanding this requires a long explanation. That would be diversionary at this point and will not be undertaken.

In the line of disciplic succession brought to us by Prabhupäda, in whichever name you wish to label that spiritual process, you are emphasizing a prominent trait of the process. There is nothing wrong with that. However, integral to whichever label you choose, the process you are referring to must be completely bona fide at any of its stages.

If it is so, then it is linked to the disciplic succession through the most recent Äcärya (capital “Ä”), the great man who delivered the devotional process to the Western world. Initiation into the line of disciplic succession provides a link for the prosecution of the yoga given to the disciple via his or her dékñä-guru. Initiation is integral to any yoga system, and it was also integral to Prabhupäda’s movement. Everything previous to genuine initiation has less value when compared to when genuine initiation is empowering an individual devotee (one who follows) further.

The initiated devotee is empowered to prosecute yoga during his or her probationary period within the transcendental system. Bhakti-yoga equals mantra-yoga equals seva-yoga equals buddhi-yoga as long as they are all actual yoga. The name utilized to describe the yoga emphasizes what is only a secondary consideration, if even that.

In terms of the initiation process, Prabhupäda introduced something new in the early Seventies. His movement was growing fast. The number of his temples was expanding rapidly, especially in the United States where he first established his movement. He could not at all easily continue to personally perform the rituals of initiation ceremonies, and thus he introduced rittvik initiations.

In these ceremonial processes, he no longer performed the initiation rituals. Instead, he had one of his elder disciples perform it on his behalf. In some cases (the minority), he was personally present on the Vyäsasäna to witness the initiation. When this was the case, he gave the beads to his new disciple and informed him of the new spiritual name that the devotee would now be known by throughout the movement.

In most cases, once this rittvik system of initiation was introduced, the temple president would receive a package containing a letter from Prabhupäda, wherein the Western names were juxtaposed to a spiritual name. The japa mala beads, often chanted on by Prabhupäda in advance, would be included in the package. The devotee assigned to be a rittvik and conduct the initiation ceremony would then make all of the arrangements: He would determine the date of the ceremony (always held in his temple, obviously), and everything would be carried out in this way, which was fully authorized. It was fully authorized, because the Founder-Äcärya created and thus authorized it.

In due course of time, this became known as rittvik initiation. However, in the early to mid-Seventies, every devotee receiving initiation in this way knew perfectly well that Prabhupäda was his dékñä-guru. No one considered rittvik initiation to connote anything else. The devotees receiving initiation were cent-per-cent fixated upon Prabhupäda as their initiating spiritual master, although he was not physically present at the ceremony. When asked, a devotee may say that he received a rittvik initiation, but everyone knew what that meant.

As just alluded to, you could say that there was a kind of in-between initiation for those who received the Harer Näma or even brähmin initiation. I have personal experience of this. In my Harer Näma initiation (wherein I received my spiritual name and my beads), Prabhupäda was on his Vyäsasäna. Two rittviks chanted on the beads just below him and then handed the beads up to him. In other words, he deputed them to chant on the beads on his behalf.

It was a very large ceremony, and I came up to him from the end of the line. Prabhupäda then handed me my beads and gave me my spiritual name. However, I learned later than my name had been selected by his personal secretary (Pradyumna), and Prabhupäda accepted what Pradyumna determined to be my new spiritual name. A rittvik performed the actual fire sacrifice after all of this.

At my brähminical initiation, Prabhupäda draped the brähmin thread around my head, neck, and shoulder, and he showed me how to count on the interior indexes of the finger joints of my right hand. The Gäyätri mantra that is chanted by brähmins in his branch was given to me either a bit before this (when I was alone in that private room with him) or immediately afterward.

You can say that there were different processes back in the day connoting different ways and means for the process of initiation to be conducted. There was what could be called direct initiation, wherein Prabhupäda conducted everything personally himself. Then, there were different varieties of initiation, one of which could be called rittvik initiation with Prabhupäda active and physically present. And then there was the rittivk initiation where Prabhupäda was not physically present. This initiation became the main process for the majority of devotees by the mid-Seventies, as could only have been expected.

Nevertheless, they were all equal. Whatever label you chose to use, they all were genuine initiation processes offered by a bona fide spiritual master, one who was personally manifest somewhere in the world, even if not directly present at the ceremony or transmitting the Gäyätri mantra. I have illustrated this principle by delineating previous yoga labels.

Our presentation this month is in continuation of analyzing Eleven Naked Emperors (henceforward, ENE), a book authored by Henry Doktorski. We are now at Chapter Four. The book covers everything connected to the zonal äcärya takeover of Prabhupäda’s branch of the Hare Kåñëa movement in the late Seventies and much of the Eighties.

We have thus far analyzed its first three chapters. We now proceed to Chapter Four, entitled “Ritvik Priests.” How Doktorski spells this word is not the technical Vedic spelling, but I am not at all criticizing him for that. The spelling “ritvic” is what is employed in his book, but even that is not technically accurate. The actual Sanskrit is “rtvic.”

A rose by any other name. Those who fault-find based upon the spelling of this term are superficial beings only posing as transcendentalists. They are prone to find any little thing that they can concoct in order to cast aspersions, especially against those who expose their institution. It is nonsense to get hung up about this word’s spelling.

As many of you know, I spell the word differently from all of these other spellings. I apply phonetics in my spelling: Rittvik. You will thus pronounce the word how it should be pronounced when you read it in any of my articles. It was spelled like this by many (if not most) devotees back in the day, especially once rittvik initiation became predominant, which was the case no later than 1971.

As such, throughout this month’s review of Chapter Four, I shall present the spelling of rtvic, ritvic, or ritvik as rittvik. This means that, whenever ENE refers to the word—which obviously is very often—I am modifying what is in the book’s text. This should be considered inconsequential, especially since I have explained why I spell the word the way that I do and have also specifically explained what my spelling is.

“After considering the recommendation, these representatives may accept the devotee as an initiated disciple of Çréla Prabhupäda by giving a spiritual name, or in the case of second initiation, by chanting on the Gäyätri thread, just as Çréla Prabhupäda has done. The newly initiated devotees are disciples of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedänta Swämi Prabhupäda, the above eleven senior devotees acting as his representative.”

This excerpt is contained in the letter which re-established the rittvik system of initiation in the second week of July, 1977. This letter is quite important, but it was not dictated by Prabhupäda; that becomes immediately obvious when reading it. It was created by the notorious T.K.G., who was the evil gatekeeper of Prabhupäda for almost all of that final fateful year. Prabhupäda simply signed his name on a line near the left bottom of the letter, listed as “authorized.”

In and of itself, the letter is not flawed. Eleven senior men are named to again provide rittvik initiations to newcomers coming to Prabhupäda’s movement. For months, there had been no initiations, and now initiations were resuming. The only change was of no major consequence: The nearest rittvik would approve the recommendation that a newcomer be initiated, which meant that Prabhupäda would not be consulted.

Despite being recommended by his temple president, I am aware of at least one devotee who Prabhupäda refused to initiate prior to 1977. He approved almost all recommendations sent to him by temple presidents and sannyäsés. Everybody knows this. He depended upon the discrimination his temple presidents; in his final year with us, it was still the same system with one intermediate step vacated. No big deal.

In ENE, the following example of one of the very first rittvik initiations is given, and there is something to glean from it:

“From Georgetown, Guyana, we wrote Çréla Prabhupäda asking him to give Vaikunthanath brähmin initiation so we could worship deities as I had been given Gäyätri initiation previous to marriage. In his return letter, Çréla Prabhupäda said that any brähmin could perform the ceremony and give Vaikunthanath Gäyätri. He said Saradiya, or any brähmin could do it. So I performed the sacred fire sacrifice before a few dozen guests . . .” 1

It was always well known by all devotees in the movement that rittvik initiation made the new disciple an initiate of Prabhupäda, not an initiated disciple of the rittvik performing the ceremony. In point of fact, that duty was nothing more than a temporary seva. The newly-initiated devotee owed the rittvik no allegiance nor did he have to be concerned about any of the technicalities of the ceremony.

Once the rittvik process was re-established in 1977, that the new initiate was Prabhupäda’s disciple was made clear, viz., “The newly initiated devotees are disciples of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda, the above eleven senior devotees acting as his representative.”

ENE presents a quote from Prabhupäda verifying this fact:

“Prabhupäda reminded him that the disciples he initiates are not his disciples; they are Prabhupäda’s disciples. ‘They shall, of course, still be considered as my disciples, not that they shall become your disciples, but you will be empowered by me to chant their beads, and that is the same effect of binding master and disciple as if I were personally chanting.’” 2

As Chapter Four unfolds, ENE lists how, during a two-day period and one after another, various senior men were selected and authorized to be

 rittviks. It was, once again, an example of outstanding research by Doktorski, but there is no need to repeat any of those historical details. Of course, at the very beginning, we were given the example of a female devotee (who had received brähminical initiation) authorized to act as a rittvik in order to have her husband share the Deity duties, which require a brähmin. Always keep the rittvik in perspective, and that particular example should certainly help you to do so.

In the Seventies, Prabhupäda wanted the rittviks to expand in number, although not every Tom, Dick, or Bhakta Harry would qualify for the post, obviously. ENE points this out as follows:

“In 1974, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda indicated that any G.B.C. member or sannyäsé could chant on a new candidate’s beads and initiate disciples on his behalf.“ The beads may be chanted upon by a sannyäsé or G.B.C. man.” 3

Your host speaker has thus set the historical background, and now it is time to confront the chief issue that is raised in Chapter Four. As could only be expected, that issue was the product of the Machiavellian Manipulator, T.K.G. After all, he wrote that rittvik letter (merely signed by Prabhupäda), which was then snail mailed to all temple presidents. It was a list of eleven names, but did it imply more than what was clearly stated within it? T.K.G. claimed that it did:

“Çréla Prabhupäda said he would appoint several devotees who shall perform initiation in the future, even after his disappearance. The disciples they accept shall be their disciples and Çréla Prabhupäda would be their grand spiritual master. . . . Çréla Prabhupäda clearly appointed eleven successors for giving initiation. . . . Everything is clearly documented, either by tape recordings or signed letters, so there is no room for any doubt whatsoever. Anyone who expresses doubt or disbelief is in ignorance of the facts.” 4

TATTVAMASI

Successors? No room for doubt? Horsecrap!

It can be argued that, at least technically, this is the initial source of the nescience that led to the smash-and-grab takeover by the eleven pretender zonals in the Spring of 1978. When T.K.G. claims that “everything is clearly documented,” he is making a drastically false claim. There is no documentation whatsoever that establishes this transference appointment of power from rittvik to dékñä-guru to Successor. It is a malefic myth, but almost everyone in the movement in the late Seventies and early Eighties believed it. It had the power of The Big Lie.

Everyone accepted it. No one could even think that the “ISKCON” leaders were lying when they alleged that they had been appointed by Prabhupäda to be gurus in both May of 1977 at Raman Reti (in theory) and according to transitive acknowledgment in July of 1977 via the aforementioned rittvik letter created by T.K.G. The idea that the appointment of eleven rittviks was the covert appointment of eleven dékñä-gurus is a devastating, false pre-supposition. As such, the initiations that these so-called rittviks prosecuted later—because they were no longer rittviks after Prabhupäda departed–were completely unauthorized.

On the other hand, it is a major misconception—indeed, a heresy—to advocate the counter pre-supposition that they remained rittviks and were to conduct rittvik initiations after Prabhupäda disappeared. This dichotomy has created a binary of two major deviations via the dreadful sahajiyä cults of “ISKCON” and Rittvik.

Each is based upon a different and conflicting pre-supposition to what the appointment of eleven senior men (to the position of ritual conductors) was and entailed during the four-plus months that Prabhupäda remained manifest on the physical plane in 1977. ENE expresses doubt that the eleven rittviks were meant to automatically become dékñä-gurus by their rittvik appointments in July of 1977:

“Did Prabhupäda intend, as Tamal Krishna claimed, that the eleven should be automatically promoted to the position of full-fledged dékñä gurus after his passing? Perhaps not. It is more likely that Prabhupäda merely gave the eleven the first opportunity to prove that they could function as dékñä gurus. As a group, he never gave them a direct or official order to function in that capacity . . .” 5

There are two considerations here: The transitive claim is most doubtful, and no one received an official order to be a dékñä-guru. ENE goes on to mention claims allegedly made by some devotees that Prabhupäda authorized each of them privately. Then, why didn’t these “gurus” speak up when the deviation was rolled out and implemented? They had a duty to do so, but they remained silent!

They were not gurus, because a genuine guru would not shrink from explicitly and boldly defending his spiritual master’s movement by railing against all that went down in the Spring of 1978. On the other hand, if they were gurus—which is not the view of your host speaker—then each and every one of those cowards fell down immediately in 1978 for the anartha of dereliction of duty.

ENE then segues into a diversion about missing tapes and some personal servant’s having overheard—allegedly–that Prabhupäda created a brand new system of Rittvik to be implemented after his physical departure. The missing tapes were supposed to have verified this system, which Prabhupäda would never have created. No guru can create such an unprecedented system wherein he remains the only initiating spiritual master for many years, or many decades, or many centuries or for the remainder of the Golden Age or for the remainder of Kali-yuga. It is a defect in this chapter that any of this diversion was even explored at all, and that is a flaw but not too serious.

ENE then provides two examples of where T.K.G. keeps other senior men from approaching Prabhupäda to seek clarification as to what was to be done—especially in relation to initiations—after he gave up his manifest body. These examples are both valuable. You can read the book if you want to know the specifics connected to these anecdotes, and I urge you to do so. T.K.G. was the agent of Kali in virtually everything he did and did not permit in those final months. One of his close buddies informed him that there would likely be really big problems up the road if the clarification he wanted was not attained.

That can be called the understatement of the century!

Next, ENE delves into a raw nerve topic: After Prabhupäda departed, how to determine whether or not a devotee was to become an initiating spiritual master, a dékñä-guru. This part of the chapter contains two opposing views and also is a product of painstaking, meticulous research:

“Vaishnavas believe that the personal order from the spiritual master to initiate disciples can also come after the spiritual master has departed, as in a dream. For instance, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada accepted the sannyasa order on September 17, 1959 because of the urging of his godbrothers and recurring dreams of his spiritual master Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Prabhupäda appearing to him and ordering him to take this important step.

Other advanced Vaishnavas and Vaishnavis have also received orders during dreams to initiate disciples. When the King of Orissa, Mukunda Deva (who reigned as monarch from 1559 to 1568), requested Vaishnava initiation from Ganga-Mata Thakurani, the saintly princess daughter of Naresha Narayana (the Raja of Puntiya), she at first refused. But when Lord Jagannath, the principle deity at his temple of Jagannath at Puri, appeared to her in a dream and ordered her to initiate the king, she relented.” 6

This except verifies what you should be able to immediately glean from it: Prabhupäda can contact any of his disciples whenever he wants at any time he wants. He is a mukta-jéva. He is like Närada Muni; indeed, he has those same powers. If he wants to come to you in a dream, that dream is no longer astral—it is spiritual. Can he today give you an order? Certainly!

Those who dispute this do not believe it are faithless, and how can such a person be a guru? Such a materialistic devotee thus ignores what Prabhupäda clearly enjoined in that all-important May, 1977 room conversation with his governing commissioners: “When I order you become guru, he becomes regular guru, that’s all.”

The purport is self-evident, and ENE presents examples. There are many more than those, but what was presented in this chapter suffices to make the point: YOU HAVE TO GET HIS ORDER in order to be an initiating spiritual master in Prabhupäda’s branch of the Hare Kåñëa movement, in his disciplic succession of Gaudéya Vaiñëavism.

It is not optional!

Of course, the institutional gurus of “ISKCON” reject this. They say that you can become guru after you wait in queue for one or two or three years and then receive G.B.C. imprimatur to be a guru in their cult. Institutional guru means bogus guru. ENE gives an example of this deviant mentality:

“Still others claim that Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda does not have to give a personal order in the flesh or in a dream for a disciple to begin initiating; he had, in his books, already given blanket orders to all of his disciples to become initiating spiritual masters. (One of these others) explained, “He has already given us the order. To the degree that we follow strictly and can explain the science of Krishna . . . to that degree we are guru. It’s not that we need some separate appointment. The appointment is in every one of his books.” 7

However, it does not actually work that way: 1) a devotee who is a Party Man in “ISKCON” cannot on his own make the determination and immediately begin initiating newcomers, although he considers that he is strictly following and does not need to receive Prabhupäda’s direct order in order to be a dékñä-guru, and 2) Even if some Party Man concludes that he is strictly following (and that would only be superficially) in the “ISKCON” confederation, he still needs outside help: He needs to be recommended by a senior man to some kind of guru selection committee, one which is assigned to consider guru eligibility in the massive and complex bureaucracy of that dangerous cult.

As such, whether someone buys into the rationalization (just quoted above in ENE) or another fool and deviant buys into the cult stricture of waiting in queue after first being recommended, all of that is not in accordance with Prabhupäda’s order. That order is crystal clear. If some genuine devotee receives the order to become dékñä-guru directly from Prabhupäda, that fortunate devotee would become unfortunate if he then kow-towed to the “ISKCON” institution and waited for a year or years in order to begin initiating disciples who approached him. He would immediately fall down by making such a compromise.

ENE then segues to the final days of Prabhupäda’s disappearance. Obviously, a whole book on this topic would be required in order to cover the event comprehensively, and ENE makes no such attempt. That is understandable and wanted. It does, however, delve into an exchange in the very last days between Prabhupäda and one of his very few favorable godbrothers, namely, B. V. Puri Mahäräja. He was under the false impression that Prabhupäda appointed eleven initiating spiritual masters, and Prabhupäda attempted to disabuse him of the notion:

“’After your demise, the institution will be nowhere. At least you must put them in line. They should have some tradition. In India, there is some tradition, but in Western countries, no tradition.’ Then he said, “What to do? Everything Krishna’s Will.’ And he passed away. Previous to that occasion, I asked, ‘Mahäräja, you have established eleven gurus. There is no harmony. This can be no harmony. Guru must be one. You have selected eleven gurus.’ He said, ‘I have not selected. I have appointed eleven ritviks.’”8

Still, that self-serving and false pre-supposition—that Prabhupäda had appointed eleven dékñä-gurus–was believed, promulgated, implemented, and enforced from July, 1977 onward. It was particularly stressed, obviously, after Prabhupäda left the scene. Even though B. V. Mahäräj was told directly by Prabhupäda that he did not appoint gurus, that godbrother still said that Prabhupäda had appointed dékñä-gurus. So it was with everybody, because THE BIG LIE was spread and contaminated everyone like a kind of crypto-occult Ebola virus.

ENE gives a brief recap of the final day of Prabhupäda’s actual passing, along with lamentation felt by his disciples. The fourth chapter of this book then closes in the following way:

“Yet, even as Prabhupäda’s followers mourned their loss, some of his leading disciples had already begun to plan how they were going to become initiating spiritual masters themselves. Prabhupäda’s greatest fear—that after his death ‘there will be chaos’ in his Society—had begun to manifest.” 9

Prabhupäda knew well that his movement could (and would) break into factions via pseudo-spiritual tribalism. That is the case at this time. However, in the immediate aftermath of late 1977 and early 1978, the chaos that ensued was covert and of a different variety, what one prominent “ISKCON” leader called “the sole acharya system.”

Technically, there were eleven princes in their designated principalities (zones), but within each of those enclaves, its wheelhouse revolved around the sole äcärya system of governance and culture. Before this dreadful implementation surfaced, a loose planning stage was required. We shall next month analyze it threadbare for your edification and realization.

Chapter Four closes by quoting E. Burke Rochford, Jr.:

“The scholar of ISKCON and Professor of Sociology and Religion at Middlebury College in Vermont, E. Burke Rochford, Jr. explained, ‘Prabhupäda’s death . . . was a major turning point for ISKCON’s development. . . Over the next several years, ISKCON faced continuing and often bitter sources of internal conflict. Prabhupäda’s death left ISKCON with no one legitimate heir or power structure to lead the movement.’” 10

Over the next four-plus decades. The internal conflict stemmed from bad leaders inducing hatchet men, sycophants, fanatics, space cadets, kick-mees, and blind followers to accept all kinds of deviations. What has been emphasized in this month’s presentation is that, if you walk back the cat, it all had as its fulcrum the false pre-supposition that Prabhupäda appointed gurus before he departed physical manifestation.

Be assured, he never did this.

Near the end of that fateful May, 1977 room conversation with his G.B.C. men, Prabhupäda said that he would appoint some gurus. He didn’t either in May or in July, either. He only appointed rittivks. Why?

The reasons why are interrelated and two-fold: 1) No one was qualified, so he could not appoint or recognize any of his disciples to the post, either then or for the future, and 2) He changed his mind and decided not appoint gurus. He had every right to do so, and he did so.

Furthermore, there is no question that he recognized a Successor nor did he recognize eleven of them, although that parody played out for awhile.

I give Chapter Four of ENE is a straight A.

The colossal hoax known as the fabricated, so-called “ISKCON” confederation is a pseudo-spiritual scam. It is all based upon eleven seeds of self-apotheosis sown into the fertile soil of Gouòéya Mutt in the Spring of 1978. This event itself was based upon a major misconception—nothing more than a false pre-supposition without standing—that, when Prabhupäda appointed rittviks in July of 1977, he also appointed them as initiating gurus for the future after he departed.

There is no solid evidence of this. The idea that rittviks automatically become gurus has no çästric verification. The current Rittvik movement—centrifugally divided into endlessly mutable groups and tribes—is based upon evidence so weak that it can barely be called evidence.

Similarly, the so-called evidence that Prabhupäda recognized gurus in July of 1977 in a letter that he did not even dictate—and which focused on ceremonial rittviks with Prabhupäda remaining the only initiating spiritual master of his organization—is just as weak, false, and deviant.

If you want to keep your spiritual life healthy (or to even remain sane) amidst all of this massive deviation and chaos, reject the whole kit-and-kaboodle. “ISKCON” is not bhakti-yoga nor buddhi-yoga nor seva-yoga. It is imposter yoga. It is a colorful, plastic rose. It is nothing more than a showbottle! It is colored water in a bottle advertised as medicine, but when you take it, it does not work!

SAD EVA SAUMYA

ENDNOTES

1 Doktorski, Henry. Eleven Naked Emperors: The Crisis of Charismatic Succession in the Hare Krishna Movement (1977-1987) (p. 88). Kindle;

2 Doktorski, Henry. Eleven Naked Emperors: The Crisis of Charismatic Succession in the Hare Krishna Movement (1977-1987) (p. 89). Kindle;

3 Doktorski, Henry. Eleven Naked Emperors: The Crisis of Charismatic Succession in the Hare Krishna Movement (1977-1987) (p. 90). Kindle;

4 T.K.G. letter to a godbrother (Upänanda), dated 12-13-78;

5 Doktorski, Henry. Eleven Naked Emperors (p. 91). Kindle Edition;

6 Doktorski, Henry. Eleven Naked Emperors: (p. 100). Kindle Edition;

7 Doktorski, Henry. Eleven Naked Emperors: (p 101). Kindle Edition;

8 Doktorski, Henry. Eleven Naked Emperors (p. 102). Kindle Edition;

9 Doktorski, Henry. Eleven Naked Emperors: (p. 104). Kindle Edition;

10 Doktorski, Henry. Eleven Naked Emperors (p. 104). Kindle Edition.