Back to Prabhupada, Issue 27, Spring 2010
By Krishnakant
In the last issue of BTP, we demonstrated how the recent series of climbdowns by ISKCON’s leaders has expanded from the arena of public lectures to the medium of mass broadcasting via a public video proclaiming the IRM’s philosophical position that Srila Prabhupada is the current guru of ISKCON. We can now report that this climbdown has gone one step further, with an ISKCON television broadcast announcing:
“I received one book and this book was On the Way to Krishna and the moment I read this one line in this book I immediately realized, I said ‘This is the guru I have been looking for throughout my life.’ I met so many gurus, I met so many religious people, but nobody could convince me. But one line which Prabhupada (wrote), when I read, I immediately got convinced. “At that time I wanted to meet Swami Srila Prabhupada…so this was the person I want to see, but on the back of the book it was written ‘Srila Prabhupada departed in 1977’, and immediately tears started coming from my eyes – exactly like you’re feeling, I felt the same way. But then I thought even Srila Prabhupada may have departed (in) 1977, but still his teachings would be there, […] so immediately I started reading these books.”
(Ramanuja Das, “Hare Krishna Culture”, January 3rd, 2010, MATV, audio can be heard here: www.iskconirm.com/sounds/ HKCulture_MATV030110.mp3)
Produced by devotees from ISKCON UK HQ, with guidance and support from HH Giriraja Swami. Ref: “Hare Krishna Culture Comes to Satellite TV”, ISKCON News Weekly, April 11th, 2009)
This televised admission makes it clear that though Srila Prabhupada may have physically departed, such is the transcendental potency of Srila Prabhupada’s words that just one line from his books is sufficient to convince one to accept Srila Prabhupada as the guru one has been searching for throughout one’s whole life. No mention is made of the need for any other “living” spiritual master. In this way it is describing Srila Prabhupada as one’s eternal bona fide spiritual master:
Indian Lady: ... “is that spiritual master still guiding after death?”
Srila Prabhupada: “Yes, yes. Just like Krsna is guiding us, similarly spiritual master will guide us.”
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, September 23rd, 1969)
“Eternal bond between disciple and Spiritual Master begins from the day he hears.”
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, September 4th, 1972)
Hence, Ramanuja Das, who has taken initiation from HH Giriraja Swami, is confessing on television that it is actually Srila Prabhupada who is his real spiritual master!