Haripada dasa, Feb 14 2009, Mexico: In the Bhagavad-gita 4.42, at the end of Srila Prabhupada’s purport he says: “A genuine spiritual master is in the disciplic succession from time immemorial.” (Please note that this quote comes from the English version of the Gita.) In the Spanish Gita, which was translated by Virabahu, it says: “A spiritual master forms a part of the eternal disciplic succession.” This is something quite different from Srila Prabhupada’s original statement. So I asked Virabahu why he changed it, and I never received a reply.
A question arises from this: have the 100 gurus in ISKCON been in the disciplic succession from time immemorial? In the Caitanya-caritamrta Madhya lila 7.130 it is stated there that it is better not to accept disciples. This is the pastime of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu with Kurma. So I asked the ISKCON gurus what they thought about this, and one of them responded: “Kurma wasn’t a mature devotee and we are very mature devotees, that is why we are gurus.”
So Kurma was a nitya-siddha, a perfect devotee, and he wasn’t mature, but the gurus in ISKCON are conditioned souls and are mature? As I mentioned earlier, the requisites to be an initiating guru are the following:
1) One should be a Maha Bhagavat (Caitanya-caritamrta Madhya lila 25.9), and;
2) One should have received the order from a previous acarya (Srimad Bhagavatam 4.8.54)
I have asked 27 ISKCON gurus where Srila Prabhupada ordered that his disciples be initiating gurus, and so far not one of them has responded to this question. In Srila Prabhupada’s Testament he ordered that all the ISKCON properties should be in the name of 3-5 directors, and if one should die or resign then he would be replaced by another, and the only requisite was that they should be his disciples. How are we going to fulfill that desire? Here one can clearly see that in the mind of Srila Prabhupada, he ordered that all the devotees were to be his disciples, initiated by another devotee on his behalf. Is there another answer to this question? Does anyone have another answer?
A devotee who was in Srila Prabhupada’s room with him in Vrindavan told me something very interesting. One day a Bengali doctor was visiting him and he told him: ‘Srila Prabhupada, I know what illness you have got’, and Srila Prabhupada said ‘Tell me what is my illness?’ The doctor said: ‘You have a lot of anxiety due to the big disaster your disciples are going to cause when you leave here.’ To this Srila Prabhupada responded: ‘You are the only one who has guessed my illness.’
The same thing is mentioned in Srimad Bhagavatam 4.8.24 in the purport, where Srila Prabhupada mentions that when the Acarya leaves disorder reigns again, but the perfect disciples of The Spiritual Master will try to sort out the situation by following his instructions.
If ISKCON doesn’t sort out these two issues, then:
1) Establish the original translations of Srila Prabhupada’s books (this means removing any unnecessary changes which have been made in Srila Prabhupada’s books). When I saw the Gita which was published by Macmillan in 2005 I was amazed at the differences. The Ritvik devotees no longer distribute the Gita translated by Jayaadvaita Swami.
2) Establish the issue of Guru Tattva.
Whilst these two issues still remain unclear, ISKCON will be a society of cheaters and the cheated.
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