Back To Prabhupada, Issue 65, Vol 1, 2020
An
increasingly popular practice in ISKCON today is leaders and
followers jumping over Srila Prabhupada and studying the works
of the previous acaryas directly. This is considered
authorised since it is argued that it is good to respect our parampara
and the acaryas have a wealth of knowledge. Thus, a
"core member" of the GBC's Sastric
Advisory Council, Hari
Parsada Dasa, argues:
"you need to go to the previous acaryas,
and they have so many realizations and they didn't write
their books so those books could be kept in a museum. [...]
the treasure of our Gaudiya-Vaisnava-sampradaya."
(Hari Parsada Dasa, podcast published 20/4/19)
Hence, the belief is that restricting and limiting
knowledge is bad, because the more knowledge one
has, regardless of the source, the
more knowledgeable one becomes. All emphases below added.
However, Srila Prabhupada has taught that limiting
oneself to only his direct teachings is what he wants:
"You say that you would read only one
book if that was all that I had written, so you teach
others to do like that. You have a very good
determination."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 14/11/73)
"Just read Srimad-Bhagavatam, our three
volumes regularly and repeatedly. It is no use reading
many books, it is better to assimilate one book and that
is sufficient."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 10/6/68)
"Regarding reading Mahabharata, why divert
your attention in this way? Bhagavatam is also Mahabharata.
There are so many books I have presented already, so
whatever you have got, just become expert in that."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 29/4/73)
And, following the previous acaryas means
to submit to the current link:
"There are many such Mahatmas, or great
souls, in the past, and if we follow in their footsteps
carefully, that is the perfection of fulfillment of our
human form of life. To follow in the footsteps of the
Mahatmas means to give submissive aural reception to the words
and instructions of the bona fide Spiritual Master in the
line of disciplic succession from the Lord Himself."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 21/10/69)
That current link in the disciplic succession is
Srila Prabhupada, and satisfying him is the only
qualification for attaining Krsna:
"If a student tries to satisfy his
immediate Acarya or the Spiritual Master, that is the
only qualification for advancing in Krsna consciousness."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 17/6/70)
Indeed, the Bhagavad-gita teaches that
this satisfying of the spiritual master is the "secret of
advancement in spiritual life". This satisfaction of the
spiritual master is what allows us to gain
knowledge, which comes directly from the
spiritual master:
"Satisfaction of the self-realized
spiritual master is the secret of advancement in
spiritual life [...] when he sees the genuine desire of the
disciple, he automatically blesses the disciple with genuine
spiritual understanding."
(Bg., 4.34, purport)
The above can be proven by the following fact. In
every BTP issue, we show that, despite immersing
themselves in all sorts of books not directly given and
explained by Srila Prabhupada, even the seniormost leaders of
ISKCON still end up talking deviant nonsense, having not
understood even the basics on a variety of subjects, including
everything from the four regulative principles to guru-tattva.
And we are able to do this because we stick to only following
POP or the Prabhupada-Only
Paradigm system. Thus, fidelity to Srila Prabhupada, by
restricting oneself to only his teachings as he asked, will
lead to being blessed by Srila Prabhupada to understand all
that is required in spiritual life.
 |
It is actually this issue of desiring "more
knowledge" from non-Prabhupada sources that had led many
former ISKCON members to defect to Gaudiya Matha gurus like Narayana
Maharaja. For, his selling point was that he gave people
access to all the scriptures, supposedly above and
beyond what Srila Prabhupada gave.
"He (Srila Prabhupada) wanted to preach all of
these things in the western countries also – that which Rupa
Goswami has given in the Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu
and the Ujjvala-nilamani, and that which has been
written by acaryas like Raghunatha dasa Goswami
and Krsnadasa Kaviraja Goswami. He wanted to give all these
things in western countries, but he could not do
it."
(Narayana Maharaja, Lecture, 10/11/92)
Thus, the danger in thinking that one is "missing
out" on knowledge is that one will not care from where
one will acquire this knowledge, and thus not remain faithful
to Srila Prabhupada as the only authorised source of
knowledge. Getting the 11th and 12th cantos of the Srimad-Bhagavatam
from guru hoaxer HH
Hridayananda Dasa Goswami is also motivated by a similar
thinking. But, the receiving of spiritual knowledge is a
transcendental process, not something one can achieve without
accepting the current-link spiritual master:
"If you want to learn that science, the
transcendental science, then you have to approach a
bona fide spiritual master. [...] he's coming in
disciplic succession by hearing process. This is
very important."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 15/3/67)
And that person is Srila Prabhupada. We can only
learn the transcendental science directly from him,
because that is the spiritual process. It is not
mechanical, whereby one can just read anything from anywhere
and one will become realised in spiritual knowledge.
We therefore have:
1) A mechanistic worldview
whereby only the quantity of what you read,
regardless of the source, is all that matters.
2) A spiritual worldview in which
satisfying the guru by following his order to only accept his
direct words, is all that matters. For this is the "secret" of
advancement, and thus will lead to one being blessed by the
guru. Hence, it is this fidelity to Srila Prabhupada
which will automatically lead to the correct spiritual
understanding, rather than just reading many books not given
by Srila Prabhupada.
Return
to Prabhupada-Only Paradigm Index
Return
to Discipleship Index
Return
to Srila Prabhupada's Books Index
Return
to Hridayananda Dasa Goswami Index
Return
to Sastric Advisory Council Index
Return
to IRM Homepage