| Adi's Ad-Hominems Don't Add Up
|
by Krishnakant
This is in response to Adikarta's response to our article
'Respecting the Order of the Guru' which has been prominently posted
on CHAKRA for over a week. In his article Adikarta prabhu commits
the classic logical fallacy of argumentum ad hominem, by insulting
and denigrating proponents of Srila Prabhupada's final order on
initiation, rather than defeating them through philosophical
argument, (which is, after all, the proper Vaisnava procedure). Thus
not only is his article hopelessly irrelevant to the current
discussion, it also betrays a disturbing and unreasonable
unwillingness to comply with a direct order from his own spiritual
master.
Excerpts from Adikarta prabhu's paper shall be numbered:
| 1) "An Answer to Krishna Kant by Adi Karta Dasa. Response to the
reply of Krishnakant to my previous paper entitled "Respecting the
Guru Principle." |
From the title the reader might be excused for believing that they
are about to read an 'answer' and 'response' to my previous rebuttal
of Adikarta prabhu's original paper. This impression is strengthened
by the following:
| 2) "This letter is an open response for the benefit of those who may
be bewildered by the clever word jugglery of Krishnakant." |
Had Adikarta actually fulfilled this early promise we would have
been as interested as anyone to know precisely how we are
bewildering people with 'clever word jugglery' since it is certainly
not our intention to do so. As a conditioned soul I am certainly not
beyond the four defects and am thus grateful when more senior
devotees such as Adikarta take the time and trouble to correct any
misconceptions I might have, (based, of course, on Srila
Prabhupada's teachings and institutional directives). Indeed we have
been waiting patiently since October 1996 for such guidance from the
GBC, which they promised would be immediately forthcoming on receipt
of 'The Final Order'.
A little further into his article and our hopes in this regards are
quickly dashed:
| 3) "Arguing all the specific points in Krishnakant's paper is a
waste of time. I could, but he will simple counter argue and we
could go on with this for many lifetimes." |
How then how can Adikarta call his paper a 'response'? In doing so
he is misleading his CHAKRA readership, (an experience they must be
growing accustomed to by now). Instead of responding point for point
in a gentlemanly way, he simply asserts that anyone who is sincere
would never accept anything that is written by myself and that if
they do, then they must want to be cheated:
| 4) "I can't be bothered because if anyone accepts his arguments, all
I can say is, 'You want to be cheated, here he is.' I really do not
believe that Krishna would let a sincere, humble devotee without
grudges accept someone who displays such a puffed-up mentality as
his siksa guru." |
His 'I cannot be bothered' attitude is very surprising as he later
accuses us of not having any 'compassion'. What about all those poor
devotees who need saving from all our nasty word jugglery? Is
Adikarta saying he can't be bothered to save them because they all
want to be cheated? If so is that not a rather sanctimonious and
arrogant position in itself? If he can't be bothered then why did he
start the ball rolling by attacking our position in the first place?
Some might conclude that he is actually incapable of countering
Srila Prabhupada's final order, and so instead rather petulantly
pretends that it is all beneath him now.
The rest of his article continues in the same vein. He does not
answer a SINGLE philosophical point. In fact he does not offer any
philosophy at all in his article. Instead he simply argues that we
MUST be wrong because we are "puffed up". We MUST be wrong because
how can all the GBC be wrong?:
| 5) "How is it that he and his fellow advocates are privy to the
truth, and others, who really love Prabhupada and have proved their
love by serving him faithfully, for probably as long as Krishnakant
has been alive, are all wrong? It just doesn't make any sense."
|
He then tells us to leave and start our own movement. What's
interesting is that this approach was EXACTLY the tactic used to
enforce the zonal acarya system. "We MUST be right because we are
Srila Prabhupada's most senior disciples. You are just envious
snakes. And if you do not like it just get out." No philosophy, no
evidence, no debate. If we are wrong then why not demonstrate this
through reasoned argument?
When Adikarta Prabhu does try and venture into an area that isn't
just offering fallacious argumentum ad hominem attacks (trying to
discredit a person's philosophy by discrediting THEM), he makes
still more mistakes. For instance he states:
| 6) " ... 'Why not let Srila Prabhupada initiate,' without at all
considering Srila Prabhupada's own desire, which by all accounts was
that his disciples become gurus in their own right, as shown by
numerous quotes in my previous paper." |
If anyone wishes to check back to Adikarta's original article they
will find just ONE quote that in any way relates to the issue of
Srila Prabhupada's disciples becoming diksa guru's, and this was
comprehensively answered in our response. It is clearly misleading
to describe ONE quote as 'numerous'. The word 'numerous' means-
'consisting of many units or parts', not just ONE unit or part. This
error is particularly embarrassing for him since he later accuses me
of having poor math:
| 7) "It seems that his math is about as good as his understanding."
|
He earlier had boldly claimed:
| 8) "Contrary to Srila Prabhupada's clear instructions to his
disciples to become guru, he has somehow decided that his and his
associates' paper "The Final Order," is the ultimate sastra on the
whole topic." |
The only thing 'The Final Order' does is ask to see these 'numerous'
'clear instructions to become guru'. The same instructions that
Adikarta prabhu could not be 'bothered' to produce. The same
instructions which miraculously became 'numerous' when only ONE
irrelevant one was offered in his original article. Without this
evidence Adikarta prabhu can argue for as long as he likes as to why
the ritviks MUST be wrong because they are all arrogant, puffed up,
do not really love Srila Prabhupada etc etc; but he will not have a
legitimate case, and will thus fail to convince the intelligent
class of men. He further agues that:
| 9) "... Krishnakant and his followers don't really care about what
Prabhupada wants, all they care about is to prove that they are
right and therefore they read everything as a confirmation of their
own convictions, inevitably seeing their opposing party as totally
wrong and misguided, even though far more senior in terms of years
and devotional service." |
But we are the only ones who are bringing 'what Prabhupada wants' to
the table. The Final Order deals specifically with what Srila
Prabhupada wanted for the 'purpose of performing initiations'
(quoted from the opening line of the July 9th letter) in ISKCON.
Where is Adikarta's evidence to counteract Srila Prabhupada's final
directive on initiation within ISKCON?
Adikarta is the one who needs to demonstrate 'what Prabhupada
wanted', (if he can be bothered to do so). Instead the response is
similar to the previous occasion CHAKRA posted a so-called
'response' (which was exposed in our article 'Chakra's Champions
Evade Combat') i.e. just an attack on the author's character and no
attempt to deal with the actual PHILOSOPHY or points made.
Unfortunately Adi Karta prabhu needs to understand that the zonal
acarya years are now over. Attacking a devotee's character will no
longer serve as a substitute for well argued and reasoned philosophy
and evidence. I accept that I have many faults and am extremely
lowly in every way, but this is all the more reason to provide me
and others like me with proper philosophy and evidence. If you just
insult us we will not be convinced. At least give some philosophy
and evidence along with the insults.
| 10) "My first point was that who initiates is not the main criterion
because out of 5,000 direct disciples of Srila Prabhupada, only
about 1,000 are still active in Krishna consciousness, whereas the
number of those initiated by followers of Srila Prabhupada and still
active is much higher." |
If someone can explain to me what the above statement means I would
be very grateful. I say again if it does not really matter who
initiates then why not follow the July 9th letter and let Srila
Prabhupada initiate?
The following is a brief summary of some of the other faults in
Adikarta's paper.
Once again Adikarta makes the absurd suggestion that the ritvik
system is really 'Krishna's Trick'. Once more he fails to explain
why The Supreme Lord would deliberately mislead His own devotees via
a directive from His own pure representative.
Adikarta disputes our estimation that 95% of Srila Prabhupada's
disciples were driven out. This figure was admittedly an
approximation based on the figures that Srila Prabhupada had ten
thousand followers (including five thousand initiated) at the time
of his departure, and that only 500 currently remain active (thus
giving a figure of 5% remaining). It is generally acknowledged that
the bulk of those who left did so during the zonal acharya system.
Of course Adikarta was very happy during these years and never in
any way opposed a system that everyone now recognises as completely
bogus. Those who did oppose this system were systematically abused,
bullied and even shot. Adikarta himself says that only 1000
disciples out of 5,000 are now active, which means that even by his
own glossy estimation 80% have left. He may believe that these
devotees were not driven out, but others feel differently:
'ISKCON gurus have opposed, oppressed and driven out many sincere
Godbrothers and Godsisters.'
(Jayadvaita Swami Maharaja, Where the
ritvik people are right' 1996).
Ironically Adikarta tries to drive us out of ISKCON even in his own
article:
| 11) "Finally to Krishnakant and his associates I would say, if you
really are right, fine, go ahead and start your own movement." |
Thus Adikarta is continuing a long tradition of driving away
devotees who may well be right, but who are not prepared to toe the
party line.
Adikarta asks how many books ritvik sympathisers are distributing?
There are several points to be made here:
- The BBTI refuses to supply known ritvik centres.
- Ritvik centres DO distribute books when they
can get hold of them. If he likes we shall arrange a visit for him
to observe this for himself.
- Many ISKCON gurus do not personally go out
and distribute books, is Adikarta saying they are all off too?
- This same argument was used to support the zonal acharya
system.
Bhagavan used to intimidate his detractors by boasting about
how he was keeping the BBT healthy. Maybe Adikarta learnt this form
of fallacious argument from Bhagavan since he served unquestioningly
in his zone for many years.
Adikarta rather unconvincingly claims:
| "From the bottom of my heart, though, I do sympathise with all of
them (ritviks)." |
This after he has just said he can't be 'bothered' because we all
want to be cheated. This is a clear contradiction. If he really does
sympathise why won't he take the time to show us the error of our
ways, instead of just dismissing us all as people who 'want to be
cheated'.
He says if we are right then we should start our own movement.
Another contradiction. If we were right we would have to try and
reform ISKCON not abandon it, since we say ISKCON is the 'most
important society on this planet' (opening page of the Final Order)
and that it needs reforming. Thus he is asking us to do the exact
opposite of what we should do if we are right. How silly!
Adikarta also accuses us of disturbing the faith of those who are
expanding 'Srila Prabhupada's mission'. How is it that by simply
presenting Srila Prabhupada's instructions to devotees we are
'disturbing their faith'?
Having told us to stop 'disturbing the faith' of those who are
'expanding Srila Prabhupada's preaching mission', he then ends by
telling us that the very same people will be 'untouched' by our
words. So why is he writing this article ?
We really feel that CHAKRA needs to seriously review its editorial
policy since it constantly posts items which are nothing but
nonsense from start to finish. |