Back To Prabhupada, Issue 67, Vol 3, 2020
In the previous article, we analysed GBC voted-in guru HH Sivarama Swami ("SRS") opposing the GBC authorising female diksa gurus ("FDG").
1) Whilst formulating his arguments against FDG, SRS also stated that:
"I will not use the hundreds of unqualified statements about everyone being a guru, spoken by Srila Prabhupada, but that could be siksa guru, diksa guru, vartma-pradarsaka guru".
(Video talk, 14/10/20)
He thus accepts that Srila Prabhupada's many statements urging everyone to become a guru are "unqualified" and could be referring to siksa guru or vartma-pradarsaka guru, rather than diksa guru. This has been the IRM's position all along, yet ISKCON's leadership has always maintained the quotes definitely referred to diksa guru as their "evidence" that Srila Prabhupada ordered diksa gurus. Thus, for example, the GBC used many of these quotes in the GBC-authorised paper "Prabhupada's Order", which is titled as being "A reply to The Final Order by the Ministry for the Protection of ISKCON", with The Final Order being the IRM's foundational document. Another ISKCON leader who used such quotes as being definitive evidence of orders for diksa gurus was SRS himself in his paper "Continuing the Parampara" (see section 2.7 in this paper)!
2) However, once these quotes are removed as being definitive evidence for diksa guru orders, then in terms of the "evidence" that ISKCON's leaders rely on to try to support their guru hoax, all we are left with are a handful of private letters wherein Srila Prabhupada directly refers to the ambitions of his disciples to become diksa gurus in his physical presence, and also the May 28th, 1977 conversation referred to in the article on pages 6-7 of this issue. However, in order to argue against FDG, SRS now also dismisses them as evidence! He claims now that all letters and conversations cannot be relied on as evidence at all:
"Srila Prabhupada disqualifies actually the evidence upon which the Vaisnavi diksa guru proposal stands. Let me just introduce you to this. Prabhupada stated that he didn't want the letters or the conversations to end up in the public forum. [...] So here we summarize that the primary evidence on which the concept of Vaisnavi diksa guru is based is just those letters and conversation, but Srila Prabhupada discounts them as valid evidence, so at least the use of such evidence becomes highly questionable, and for me and some others it becomes invalid."
(Video talk, 14/10/20, emphases added)
Which means SRS would basically be left with nothing to try to argue for the guru hoax which he supports and is an active participant of!
3) SRS further emphasises, in order to support his arguments against FDG, that we should only accept the Srimad-Bhagavatam, as it "overrides" all other evidence:
"Our system is that Srimad-Bhagavatam and its commentary overrides all other evidence".
(Video talk, 14/10/20)
However, SRS has been a big promoter of the idea that the diksa guru does not need to be self-realised. In the previous article, we quoted him claiming that a male diksa guru such as himself can be a conditioned soul at "the stages of sadhana". Yet the Srimad-Bhagavatam states –
"tattva-darsi refers to one who has perfectly realized the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Such a person can become a guru"
(SB, 5.15.4, purport, emphases added)
– which would then demolish the final pillar of his guru hoax arguments – the conditioned diksa guru!
4) The above statements from SRS, in addition to demolishing his own support of the guru hoax, also show what cheaters ISKCON's leaders are. SRS will adopt one set of arguments to try to justify his position as a diksa guru. He will then simultaneously reverse them to try to oppose FDG. This is cheating, plain and simple. One will say and do anything to achieve one's agenda, with no concern for the actual truth. And, ironically, such reversal in this case means accepting that the IRM's arguments have been right all along, and SRS should not be a diksa guru either! In BTP 64, in the article "Guru Proponent Accepts IRM Arguments", we profiled another example of this. Basu Ghosh Dasa, the vice chairman of the ISKCON India governing bureau, the organisation that has authority over ISKCON in India, and supporter of the guru hoax, also had to similarly finally accept that the IRM's arguments have been right all along, but only for the purpose of trying to defeat FDG!
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