Krishnakant, editor Back to Prabhupada, IRM: The ISKCON Studies Journal is currently ISKCON’s only vehicle by which they dialogue with academia and the wider secular world (having replaced the ISKCON Communications Journal). That the inaugural issue of this journal opens with not one, but two reviews of the IRM / GBC debate book published by Martin Luther University, Germany (available to read at the IRM homepage: www.iskconirm.com) is significant in that it shows that the IRM is now firmly established as the main scholarly and ideological adversary to the current GBC. We analyse one of these reviews here, with excerpts from it contained in the paneled boxes.
IRM success due to consistency
“Krishnakant Desai has from the beginning been the ideological leader of IRM, so it is only natural that he presents their case. […] A second edition of The Final Order was released in 2002; the differentes between the two editions are small, reflecting the strength of his original thesis. […] No doubt consistency is one of the reasons for Desai’s success.”
This recognises that our success is due to our position being strong and unchanging. GBC position always changing.
“On the other hand, as Desai never fails to show, the GBC position has changed many times over the years, both on details and on larger principles.”
This alone condemns the GBC position to failure, since if someone’s position is continually changing, then there is no guarantee that the current position will also not again change, meaning effectively that there is no position.
Unprecedented Objection
“One of the ‘GBC objections’ that Desai deals with in his paper is that the rtvik System is unprecedented. […] Desai counters this by arguing that Prabhupada did many other unprecedented things in his preaching mission, […] he also points out that if a guru never sets any precedents, nothing will ever be unprecedented, since no precedents would exist in the first place to act as a comparative standard! That aside, Desai does have a point here. For all practical purposes, Prabhupada founded a movement of his own, and he could certainly have done with it whatever he wanted.”
This accepts that the GBC’s main objection is defeated – because one cannot use precedent as a standard by which to determine the activities of an institution which itself is unprecedented.
Physicality doctrine defeated
“Another common anti-rtvik argument also noticeably absent is that of pariksa, the mandatory time of mutual examination between guru and disciple. If the guru is not physically present, how would this be possible? Desai soundly defeats this argument by pointing out that Prabhupada’s constant travel very seldom gave him the chance for personally examining his students. Rather, this task fell to senior students, who would recommend those they felt to be serious candidates to Prabhupada for initiation. If pariksa could be done in that way back then, why not now also?”
The above is very apt in keeping with the theme of this issue of BTP and the utter defeat of the physicality doctrine ( please see pages 5, 6 and 14-15, issue 25 ), which is another common GBC objection to the IRM’s “ritvik” position.
Cantradictory conclusion
“So who wins the debate? In my opinion, Shannon (GBC spokesman) does. Desai does score some good points, but to me, there is not enough evidents to support his position. Since the rtvik system would be an unusual way of continuing the succession – to say the least – the burden of proof falls on him, and apart from Prabhupada’s will and the 9 July letter, he really doesn’t have much evidence to support his case. Most importantly – and this isn’t covered in either of the papers – his thesis presupposes a huge conspiracy.”
Of course, it is not possible for an in-house ISKCON Journal to publish that the IRM is “right”, but the reasons given for the GBC “victory” are contradictory:
a) Having said that the IRM’s evidence is only the July 9th directive and Srila Prabhupada’s Will, the reviewer states regarding the GBC’s position:
“If Prabhupada wanted the rtviks to become full gurus, why did he not clearly say so?”
So having claimed the IRM does not have enough evidence, our reviewer effectively admits the GBC position has NO evidence due to there being no order for the ritviks to become gurus. Yet “some” evidence supposedly loses to “no” evidence!
b) The “burden of proof” by definition falls an whomever is seeking to prove something.
The IRM seeks to prove that: Srila Prabhupada appointed ritviks to continue initiations in ISKCON. The GBC seeks to prove that: Srila Prabhupada appointed ritviks to continue initiations in ISKCON, and that these ritviks later transmogrified into diksa gurus. (“The Great Guru Hoax, Part 1 “).
The IRM’s burden of proof is therefore already automatically contained within and satisfied via the GBC’s position. But the GBC have the additional burden of proving their transmogrification claim, which the reviewer has admitted above is not satisfied.
c) The”most importantly” reason presupposes a conspiracy theory. But The Final Order actually states the opposite:
“We have no interest in conspiracy theories.”
(The Final Order, Introduction)
Because our position is only that the GBC made a huge mistake, and this is possible even without a conspiracy.
De facto victory
In Weber’s terms, the guru in ISKCON is today more of a priest than a charismatic prophet; […] None of the deceased disciples of Prabhupada have had clear successors. If this continues to be the case, one may very well question whether the rtviks actually did not win out after all.”
This echoes the same points made by BTP, first in BTP Special Issue No. 2 about how the ISKCON guru has now been re-defined in principle as a ritvik (priest); and in BTP issue 12 about how it is actually the GBC that has stopped the parampara (disciplic succession) with none of their deceased gurus having successors – thus leading to the IRM “winning” after all!
Conclusion
For an official ISKCON publication to publicise that we may not be severe offenders but have points of reasonable merit represents a marked sea-change. This is consistent with the climbdowns and U-turns which ISKCON gurus have been pushed into by the IRM as highlighted in the BTP Special Issue No. 2 and recent BTP issues.
To say that Krsnakant’s idea presupposes a huge conspiracy is an invalid way of defeating him. First of all, it uses an ad hominem strategy, name calling, “conspiracy”, to make its point. Second, it is a straw man type argument because it misrepresents what really happened. It’s a phoney pressuposition.
Prabhupada said that Tamal was the only one of the GBC that had intelligence but that the problem was, Tamal wanted to control. In the final days, Tamal was in the closest proximity to Srila Prabhupada and many assumed he was the topmost devotee. For sure too, Tamal had an evil side to him and spoke very nasty about Prabhupada behind his back. Tamal was capable of criminal activity too, plus he lied and forged documents, “lost” Srila Prabhupada’s last months’ tapes, etc., etc., and MORE.
Once Prabhupada left, Tamal jumped into Prabhupada’s quarters and tried to establish a vyasasana higher than Prabhupada’s. It all came down immediately upon Prabhupada’s departure, when the movement was mourning and we were all wondering how the leadership would continue. He cunningly exploited our vulnerability.
Tamal, being “intelligent” used argument and coercion at the beginning to get the “11” on board. I remember Ramesvara didn’t want to be a part of it but he was strongarmed into it. Once the guru thing was in place it was virtually impossible to reverse the trend without causing all kinds of embarrassment for the leaders and shaking up the power structure that Tamal had proposed and imposed. Consequently, everyone was prey to Tamal’s deviated philosophy and Tamal was predator, par excellent.
“Conspiracy” has become one of those words that when identified with an idea immediately nullifies the idea. Like saying “That’s a ‘liberal’ idea so it is no good. “Conspiracy” has become a “stink” word, but in reality, there is such a word and there have been conspiracies, and it doesn’t have to be “huge” to be effective. Look at “Bush”, “Chaney”, and “Rumsfeld”. It only took this triumvirate in the right place at the right time to cause economic collapse to our country and siphon off billions of dollars to cronies. So, that was a small conspiracy with a huge effect, as was Tamal and the two or three head honchos that agreed with his takeover idea of “now WE are GURU.”
Yes, there have been a lot of conspiracies in the past, but today’s conservative politicians like to scoff at the word as if it is a pipe dream of liberals. ISKCON has become a conservative, money driven institution and, exspectedly, they too laugh at the word “conspiracy”, mostly because they are conservatives that is what they are now guilty of.
There are people of every religion and movement in the material world twisting the original Truth found therein.
The most successful devotees of God were not found spending time in trying to revive old institutions.
Let us not forget that Prabhupada was not a member of ISKON. There was no ISKON before Prabhupada came over here with 7 dollars and created it to help us. ISKON is a tool, given by Prabhupada, but like any tool in the material world, tools can break.
Whether or not ISKON is broken is not a claim I am trying to make. Only that it is a tool, and it should be remembered as such. All the people we love in ISKON are also independent of ISKON, and so is our relationship with them.
It is not ISKON that will awaken individuals, but Krishna and devotional service, both completely independent of ISKON. Unlike ISKON, an organization or idea, Krishna and our devotional service to Him have no starting point or ending point, no creation date, or birth date- whatever ISKON is can only be a reflection of our relations in the spiritual world.
There are plenty of people out there ready to hear the message of God- the poorest of the poor, who know nothing of ISKON, and they don’t need to know anything of ISKON.
In fact, if you have trouble talking about God and devotional service outside of ISKON, and its terminology, I begin to think either one is very bad at communication through talking, or one must not actually be living the words they are trying to speak. As Prabhupada says in The Teachings of Lord Caitanya, A Krishna Conscious devotee will have so much to say about Krishna, 24 hours a day is not enough.
24 hours a day, not enough to talk about Krishna. So lets spend more tme bringing the consciousness back on Him directly. Lets take the straight way
We to protect innocent people from ISKCON bogus gurus. That is the most important thing. Someone seeking Krishna should not be mislead by a bogus guru cheater. That is the worst thing possible.
Don, very, very good point. After all it is called Krishna Consciousness, not Guru or Rtvik Consciousness.
Mukunda das, you don’t need to worry about innocent people being mislead. There are reams and reams and reams of accusations and counter-arguments already on the Internet, so you need not waste your time writing anymore. All the guru-rtvik nonsense has been discussed over and over and over again. Let’s move on.
Any sincere person interested in KC can read the various claims by both the Rtviks and ISKCON and make their own decision.
People seem more interested in gossip and finger-pointing than actual devotional service. ISKCON is gone, poof, forget about it. Let us lead our lives the way Prabhupada has shown.
pamho prabhus agtACBSP, krsna consciousness is already there in the heart of all living entities,
nitya siddha krsna-prema ‘sadhya’ kabhu naya
sravanadi-suddha-citte karaye udaya
“Love for Krsna, devotion for Krsna, is within everyone’s heart, but we have forgotten. So this Krsna consciousness movement is simply meant for awakening that dormant love, by giving everyone the chance to hear about Krsna. This is the process.” [Madhya 22.107]
Our material situation can break at any time. Therefore when one actually understands that he is trapped in the jailhouse of the material world he will engage himself 24 hrs a day in devotional service.
In this way we become connected with the spiritual world beyond institution.
Sometime people forget that the real tool to use to become free is our own body, mind and intelligence.
“If one engages himself seriously in devotional service, working with body, mind and intelligence, he is sure to be successful in going back home, back to Godhead.” [SB4.21.33]
At present the world cannot be saved by deviant Vaishnava institutions, but we can at least save ourselves with devotional service to SRILA PRABHUPADA who is independent too because HE already got all that mercy while we are still on the way out.
Therefore it is better to leave all the gossip behind and getting liberated by daily sadhana bhakti, how Prabhupada taught us.
agtys ys
a.c. seva das
haribol
Dear Prayag das,
by your philosophy, since Prabhupada has written everything and said everything, we don’t need to do anything. wrong. as long as there are bogus gurus ruining peoples lives today, and therefore ruining the legacy of Srila Prabhupada, I need to defend him in whatever small way i can. i cannot sit back, I must serve srila Prabhupada by exposing those who want to offend and ruin his movement. this is my duty to Srila prabhupada, to protect and promote his real mission. If you want to do something else, you can. but why try to be guru and tell me what my service to Srila Prabhupada should be? I’m not telling you that you should start a farm, write a book or anything else, why would you want to advise me in that way? I cannot stand by and chant Hare krishna while my guru is being kicked and beaten, maybe you can, but i cannot.