From 1966-1977, only 20% of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples were initiated by Srila Prabhupada personally. The other 80% of his devotees were initiated by his appointed ritvik acharyas on Srila Prabhupada’s behalf. If a Srila Prabhupada disciple is only a devotee personally initiated by Srila Prabhupada, then only 20% of the devotees are actual Srila Prabhupada disciples, which is of course total nonsense!
Srila Prabhupada gave disciples their initiated names by mail, and the ritvik acharya initiated his disciples on Srila Prabhupada’s behalf.
I traveled with Srila Prabhupada as his bodyguard from 1973 thru 1976 in North America. I was also fortunate to be able to associate with Srila Prabhupada in all the temples we were in, during the midnight hours, when Srila Prabhupada was translating his books.
I spent more time physically with Srila Prabhupa than all his servants or secretaries did.
Your servant,
Raksana dasa
raksanadasa@yahoo.com, (336)593-3203
pamho agtACBSP,dvadasi ki jai,
yes that’s true i know some of them but they are still so proud they haven’t got enough brain to understand that everyone who follows the regulative principles of Krsna consciousness by reading SRILA PRABHUPADA’S books daily is already an initiated devotee by the causeless mercy of our guru maharaj.
Vani seva of SRILA PRABHUPADA is more important than vapu seva, as we can see a lot of people associated with SRILA PRABHUPADA in vapu seva but they did so many offenses by taking HIM for an ordinary person that they are still conditioned.
Not just us but all the future generations of devotees are disciples of SRILA PRABHUPADA for the next 9.500 years of golden age of SRI HARINAM SANKIRTAN YAJNA.
In fact SRILA PRABHUPADA will stay on the altar with the guru succession until the time of the golden age will expire, our guru maharaj also used to say that vapu seva is less important than vani seva because all the acharyas did the spiritual revolution through vani seva of SRI SRI GURU GAURANGA.
Physical association is temporary while satsanga of vani seva lasts forever.
“Although according to material vision His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada passed away from this material world on the last day of December, 1936, I still consider His Divine Grace to be always present with me by his vani, his words. There are two ways of association-by v and by vapuh. Vani means words, and vapuh means physical presence. Physical presence is sometimes appreciable and sometimes not, but vani continues to exist eternally. Therefore we must take advantage of the vani, not the physical presence.” (ANTYA-LILA – Concluding Words Concluding Words)
agtSP ys haribol