Srila Prabhupada asserts rather strongly that when there appears to be a difference between his general instructions in his books and his DIRECT ORDERS - his Direct orders are to be taken as the actual and final "prescription".

You are pure - when you strictly follow the instructions of the spiritual master

Just some thoughts, Prabhus...

Srila Prabhupada writes in his Bhagavad Gita 9.26 purport to this most famous verse the following:

"If one wishes to engage in devotional service to the Supreme in order to be purified and reach the goal of life—the transcendental loving service of God—then he should find out what the Lord desires of him. One who loves Krishna will give Him whatever He wants, and he avoids offering anything which is undesirable or unasked for. Thus, meat, fish and eggs should not be offered to Krishna. If He desired such things as offerings, He would have said so. Instead He clearly requests that a leaf, fruit, flowers and water be given to Him, and He says of this offering, 'I will accept it.' Therefore, we should understand that He will not accept meat, fish and eggs. Vegetables, grains, fruits, milk and water are the proper foods for human beings and are prescribed by Lord Krishna Himself. Whatever else we eat cannot be offered to Him, since He will not accept it. Thus we cannot be acting on the level of loving devotion if we offer such foods."

There are two legal maxims in Latin that are a component of our Common Law system that accurately express the conclusion of Srila Prabhupada succinctly expressed in the above purport:

Expressio unius est exclusio alterius: "The expression of one thing is the exclusion of another".

Expressum facit cessare tacitum: "What is expressed renders what is implied silent."

They are likewise pertinent to the DIRECTIVES of Srila Prabhupada. What he did in fact express or DIRECT IS in fact to the exclusion of the other. What he did in fact express - in formal written form - as a DIRECT ORDER does in fact "silence" all speculation as to what could have been or could be - taken as "implication".

The discussion between HDG Srila Prabhupada - and the GBC on March 27th 1975 is pertinent to this matter. I suggest anyone can look it up on the folio and read for themselves. Srila Prabhupada asserts rather strongly that when there appears to be a difference between his general instructions in his books and his DIRECT ORDERS - his Direct orders are to be taken as the actual and final "prescription".

"and are prescribed by Lord Krishna Himself..."

"and he avoids offering anything which is undesirable or unasked for..."

"One who loves Krishna will give Him whatever He wants..."

and conversely - one who insists upon offering what is either unasked for is rejected.

"Thus we cannot be acting on the level of loving devotion..."

The question of purity - within the context of what is identified as being representative of "ISKCON" - must present itself in harmony with what is PRESCRIBED by HIS DIVINE GRACE SRILA PRABHUPADA.

On June 2nd 1977 Srila Prabhuapda DIRECTED TAMAL KRSNA GOSWAMI to see that all his ISKCON OFFICERS (TP'S, GBC'S and SANNYASIS) take and sign his previously DICTATED OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. He stated that this OATH should be maintained.

What was ordered or "expressed" automatically "EXCLUDES" any other interpretation as to the significance of this mandated OATH OF AFFIRMATION.

SO - in all discussions of what constitutes a "pure devotee" - within the context of Srila Prabhupada and HIS ISKCON mission - the agreement of his deputed "agents" to correctly "represent" his DIRECTIVES - to the "exclusion" of all interpretations, imagined implications, or wishful thinking on the part of anyone not tethered to the Oath of Affirmation given by His Divine Grace - must serve to inform anyone understanding of what lies at the very core of the purported "purity" - of any devotee in general and assigned leader in particular.

Srila Prabhupada established, on a walk in Chicago in the summer of 1975, in a response to a simple question asked of him by myself the following:

PRAGHOSA DAS: Srila Prabhupada, do they not take books from us - despite all our efforts to convince them - because we are not pure enough? Or is it because they are not pure?

SRILA PRABHUPADA: No! No! You are pure - when you strictly follow the instructions of the spiritual master. THEY are not pure. They are all envious... like snakes. BUT you must become like the snake charmer. Do you know what is a snake charmer?"

We all smiled when he asked that. He looked around at us all...

SRILA PRABHUPADA: "So you must learn the art of charming them! Then despite their nonsense snakelike minds - you will be able to help them. Do you understand?

So our "purity" was to be understood in a very simple and straightforward manner. "You are pure - when you strictly follow the instructions of the spiritual master. This would then include following all the simple principles of sadhana bhakti - as well as making all efforts to "charm" the innocents - in our efforts to deliver to them - what Srila Prabhupada had so "charmingly" delivered to us!!

My own view is that anyone who is completely PURE simply could not possibly ignore the WONDERFUL CHARMING ARRANGEMENTS of Srila Prabhupada's JULY 9TH LETTER AND HIS MANDATED OATH OF AFFIRMATION or ALLEGIANCE.

My own understanding - as a direct consequence to my simple exchange with His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada in Chicago in the summer of '75 - is that despite their best efforts in every other area - anyone's resistance to these two wonderful DIRECTIVES of OUR dearmost and most CHARMING Srila Prabhupada - prevent their being seen - at the least by myself as CENT PER CENT PURE DISCIPLES and "Thus we cannot be acting on the level of loving devotion - since as Srila Prabhupada stated above in his purport - a completely pure devotee "avoids offering anything which is undesirable or unasked for".

That being said - I am sure that Lord Krishna and Srila Prabhupada will do whatever is needed to straighten all this out in the long term.

The positive option needs to be there and provided to the innocents - and as the saying goes "Good Money - always replaces Bad Money" where there is the chance for it to do so.

Already ISKCON has to deal with the fact that more than 1000 of its members have rejected their "initiating guru" and simply reject or ignore any hint that they are to seek "re-initiation". And likewise - ISKCON is faced with the very real task of "taking to task" those "gurus" who fail to live up to their claims of "qualification". This has lead over the last years to everyone more and more talking and walking and serving as "ritviks" even if they are loathe to use the terminology Srila Prabhupada gave us - to define this post and its responsibilities within his mission.

Debating whether "both systems" can function within ISKCON is not needed.

We are what we are always. We can never ever be more or less than that.

If the pure devotee is defined by Srila Prabhupada above as "One who loves Krishna will give Him whatever He wants, and he avoids offering anything which is undesirable or unasked for" then in due course of time - what Srila Prabhupada ORDERED - will be fully recognized as "what Krishna wants".

Those who render Him that will then be seen as pure devotee.

We don't have to trouble ourselves with trying to understand what Srila Prabhuapda "meant" or whether or not his orders stand for a particular period of time in the future. His orders - for each successive generation - will be pertinent to the "here and now" and in reading them - they will read the same:

Expressio unius est exclusio alterius: "The expression of one thing is the exclusion of another".

IF Lord Chaitanya needs to make any adjustment - Srila Prabhupada said "ONLY HE" can make that adjustment - and we should not concern ourselves with THAT FUTURE. We would be wiser to concern ourselves with OUR PRESENT.

We should be pure - according to this simple maxim:

"No! No! You are pure - when you strictly follow the instructions of the spiritual master."

Respectfully,
Praghosa Das

Madhudvisa dasa <madhudvisa@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Varaha Prabhu,

Hare Krishna! Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

We do need a united front and we do need a "guru tattva" that does not contradict Srila Prabhupada's teachings. That is my objection to the "guru tattva" presented in The Final Order, for example.

As far as I can see the mistake has been spending practically all our time and energy trying to prove that Srila Prabhupada does not want his disciples to become diksha gurus. Which is a false statement that ISKCON can very easily prove to be false.

If we would spend our time and energy to establish the fact that Prabhupada established the ritvik system for the initiations in ISKCON particularly after he disapeared from our material vision in the July 9th letter that is a fact and that can not be disproved by anyone.

And everyone in the ritvik camp agrees on this.

This "hard ritvik" and "soft ritvik" was invented by Jayadvaita Swami who introduced Krishna Kant to the idea and KK introduced it to the "ritviks" as a very successful "divide and conqure" technique.

We cannot say what will happen in the future. But we can say for an absolute fact that Prabhuapda established a ritvik system for the continuation of initiations in ISKCON.

We may have different opinions on how the future may turn out but that is not important because our opinions are not important.

So we can unite on the July 9th letter. In the pre-Krishna Kant days when the ritviks were preaching on the strength of Srila Prabhuapda's direct written orders in the July 9th letter, there was no way at all to defeat this. So along comes Krishna Kant and he presents a bogus philosophy, "Prabupada does not want any of his disciples to become diksha gurus, ever." Many outside ISKCON loved it, but it is a lie. And a very easily defeated lie. And if you look at all the "ISKCON defeats the ritviks" papers it is this point they are defeating, not the July 9th letter.

My humble request is that we give up these speculations that have no basis in the teachings of Srila Prabhupada and simply preach the truth based on Srila Prabhupada's direct written orders in the July 9th letter. This cannot be defeated by anyone.

As I have said I am completely tired of the ritvik side presenting weak and in some cases completely bogus arguments and seeing it being completely defeated by ISKCON. That is what has been happening.

All these well-intentioned ideas like "No more gurus for 10,000 years" have completely destroyed the credibility of the ritvik system. These ideas are completely bogus and complete speculation.

Anyhow, I think this is my final comment on this topic for the time being but I hope someone at least gets a bit of an idea what I am trying to say. I am trying to point out that the preaching of the ritviks is failing and I am showing that is because we are presenting bogus ideas that are not actually coming from Prabhupada at all and really Prabhupada does not agree with many of these ideas we are presenting.

No matter how "nice" these ideas sound, they will never be successful, nor will they be pleasing to Srila Prabhupada. Just like Arjuna's idea of non-violence on the Battlefield of Kurukshetra sounds nice, but Krishna was not impressed...

We have to accept that Prabhupada hopes all his disciples will become qualified to be awarded the title of Bhaktivedanta and then they can initiate disciples.

Of course as Puranjanan Prabhu and Dhamagosh Prabhu point out this is a very rare thing. So Prabhupada hoping that all his students will become qualified to accept the title of "Bhaktivedanta" is like a high school teacher hoping that all his students get staight A's and get scholorships to the best university. Naturally the teacher hopes like this. But he also knows that in reality such a great student is very rare.

Anyhow, chant Hare Krishna and be happy!

Your servant,
Madhudvisa dasa

On 2/28/08, Khadigar@wmconnect.com wrote:

Haribol Prabhus, pamho, agt Srila Prabhupada.

I didn't realize that I was going to be hitting such a hornets' nest when I sent out the guru training seminar to you all. Sorry about that, it just seemed kinda funny that bonafide diksha gurus would have to be trained somehow or other. It certainly has sparked some debate. I hope that no one's toes get stepped on too badly in the back and forth discussion that this seems to have taken on. BUT, maybe this difference of opinion is an issue that needs to finally be resolved in the ritvik camp???

Some of the prabhus that are on this list and I were involved in a online debate with some of the ISKCON vaphuvadis like Krishna kiriti, Bhasu gosh,etc. KK made a comment to me "that even the ritviks can't agree, that there are soft ritviks and hard ritviks. So if you can't agree on the guru issue how will anyone believe what you have to say? There are different ritvik camps, and they find it hard to cooperate with each other and do anything. At least we are putting up a united front and are preaching the same thing." While I feel we do agree on most things, there may be some truth to what he said.

There was a "invitation only" meeting in Vrndavan a while back in 07 and some ritviks attended from different parts of the world. For some reason unknown to me and others that are my senoir, many ritviks were excluded. Why was that???? From what I hear one of the topics of discussion was "uniting the ritviks". BUT HOW CAN YOU HAVE A MEETING ON HOW TO UNITE THE RITVIKS WHEN IT WAS A INVITATION-ONLY MEETING?????????? It doesn't make any sense to me. If anything, a move like that would have the opposite effect. So anyway we really need to put forward a united front on this point. How to get that done I leave to others more senior and advanced than myself. But it would be nice to see it get done in my lifetime.

As for me I consider myself a hard ritvik. ISKCON is Srila Prabhupada's ashram and is for His disciples and followers only. That is the only way that the Acharya can be kept in the center as Prabhupada requested. If there are any other Acharyas in ISKCON at any time from now to 9,999 yrs from now it will only create chaos. (Kinda like the present day ISKCON with it's 100 diksha gurus---CHAOS) All prospective disciples/devotees should be directed to take shelter of Prabhupada's lotus feet, that is the way the system is suppose to work. This system should be clearly and thoroughly explaned to the future bhaktas so that there is no mistake, then if they want a "living guru" (even tho in reality Prabhupada is more alive than we are) then they must look elsewhere to find one, which means outside of ISKCON.

If sometime in the future there is a devotee, that thru the practice of sadhana bhakti, reaches the top most platform, becomes a pure devotee, and feels directed somehow or other to take on the service of becoming a diksha guru, then they would have to start their own ashram, just like Srila Prabhupada started ISKCON. After all there is only ONE diksha guru per ashram not 2 or 3 or 4 etc,etc,etc. Srila Prabhupada is the Founder-Acharya for Iskcon, no other diksha guru is needed, as is stated in the July 9th letter. The current ISKCON management can't seem to put their heads around this one and so the gurus are using Prabhupada's books, good name and reputation to lure in innocent souls and then, pulling a fast one on them, substituting themselves in His place. They are using HDG assests for their own benefit. We all know this. But what can we do about it??? Big, big lawsuits just don't appeal to me. I don't know about everyone else.

I would like to thank everyone for their input tho, it is nice to be able to associate with you all some how or other even if it is over cyberspace.

Ys,Varaha das.