Back to Prabhupada, Issue 21, Autumn 2008
In the last 3 issues of BTP we have presented two themes:
a) That ISKCON leaders have now basically begun agreeing with the IRM virtually in toto to try and bait followers with the plea that they are following Srila Prabhupada and accepting him as the Guru, while they are just like ritviks (officiating priests) – please see BTP Special Issue #2.
b) That this tactic of agreeing with the IRM is part of The Great Guru Hoax, Part 3, where a guru re-defines himself like a ritvik to distract from the fact that he is actually taking all the benefits and worship of a regular diksa (initiating) guru (or a ritvik re-defines himself like a diksa guru to get all the benefits of a diksa guru) – please see BTP issues 19 and 20.
These two themes are dramatically illustrated here in a lecture entitled “The Importance of Accepting a Guru in one’s Spiritual Life”, given by ISKCON GBC votedin guru HH Hanumatpresaka Swami (“HPS”), excerpts from which will be given in the tinted panels below. (The videos of the lecture are available here - there are 8 parts in all [archived August 14th, 2008]).
Srila Prabhupada is the diksa Guru – stupid!
“Of diksa, right, um, if I am serving Srila Prabhupada’s mission, chanting 16 rounds and following everything, why do I need to accept initiation from a spiritual master? Because Srila Prabhupada says that this is necessary to serve his mission […] we know, who diksa guru is ….. we need a diksa guru, we pretty much already know who he is, because he is the person who’s telling us that we need a diksa guru, that’s how stupid we are.”
HPS here tells us that Srila Prabhupada is our diksa Guru because he is the one who tells us we need a diksa Guru, and if we do not understand this, we must be “stupid”.
Srila Prabhupada is the diksa Guru – it’s natural!
“Sometimes for different reasons, that person who is instructing us, this is very natural that we can see that has got the qualifications to …… So has Prabhupada, reading Prabhupada’s books, understanding from him, just take initiation from Prabhupada.”
HPS here says that it is very natural that we should “just take initiation from Prabhupada”, meaning Prabhupada should be the diksa Guru.
Srila Prabhupada is the diksa Guru – Krishna’s representative
“This is the parampara, so who is the diksa guru? Do I mean by diksa guru the person who is giving me the beads, the person who is giving the name, or do you mean the person who establishes the contract with Krishna and, you know, the person who is the representative? Then Prabhupada is the diksa guru.”
Here HPS states that, using the correct definition of a diksa Guru as the person who represents Krishna and establishes the contract between us and Krishna, then Srila Prabhupada is the diksa Guru.
Srila Prabhupada is the diksa Guru – fail-safe option
Guest: “In that case, who will be, I mean, are we considered having diksa guru if your initiating guru falls and doesn’t chant 16 rounds?”
HPS: “Again, if you take Prabhupada as the diksa guru, yes.”
HPS here says that it is permissible for those whose ISKCON gurus have fallen to then take Srila Prabhupada as their diksa Guru.
I am not the diksa Guru – 1
“The contract, like that, it is not that he takes shelter of his previous acharya, but am I a diksa guru or not? No, I am not.”
Having already stated multiple times that Srila Prabhupada is the diksa Guru in ISKCON, HPS now makes it clear that he himself is not the diksa Guru.
I am not the diksa Guru – 2
“So we should only accept a self-realized person as a spiritual master. […] I am a madhyama- adikhari still full of material desires.”
HPS reconfirms that he cannot possibly be the diksa Guru since he is not self-realised, but rather a madhyama-adhikari* still full of material desires.
*a devotee whose advancement in spiritual life is midway between the neophyte (kanishtha) and advanced (uttama) stages.
I am Ritvik
“So I don’t talk with Krishna that much. […] You know on a higher level, like that, so apparently some people in ISKCON, may be on the position where they are having like this intense relationship with Krishna and being guided very intensely by Krishna. No one would say an uttamaadikhari, but even they, publicly and stuff, they won’t, you know, present that as your qualification, like that. So, you know, other than people that, yeah, some people in ISKCON in that sense are ritviks. I am a ritvik! How to define the term? Like that.”
HPS now goes further and says that actually he is only a ritvik, since he is not someone who has an intense relationship with Krishna.
I am a diksa Guru in a sense
“And in terms of some somebody like myself being diksa guru because I can’t handle, hang on to people like Prabhupada, he was strong enough to deal with all kinds of madness, myself at some point I just have to tell people I can’t be your diksa guru in a sense, you have to be more strict.”
HPS here claims that he can be a diksa Guru for some people in some sense, depending on how much he can “handle” and “hang on” to them.
Srila Prabhupada is diksa Guru only “symbolically”
“There is no limit, it is just the idea for taking initiation from somebody in ISKCON, taking names and stuff, we have to be convinced that I am taking initiation from Prabhupada. If there is some doubt about that then that is not. This is an initiation from Prabhupada. And Prabhupada is so clear on that, from me it is an initiation from Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, I am nothing.”
So now HPS claims that initiations in ISKCON today are actually coming from Srila Prabhupada. But whenever Srila Prabhupada gave initiations he considered them as coming from his spiritual master. Therefore the ISKCON diksa gurus are diksa gurus in the same sense as Srila Prabhupada was for his disciples, which means a full diksa guru. They simply consider that their initiations are coming from their spiritual masters.
I am the diksa Guru
“So on Sunday we are going to have second initiation, gayatri diksa, with Chaitanya Vijaya Das.”
In the middle of the lecture HPS announces that he is actually a diksa Guru since he will be giving a second initiation to a disciple!
I won’t answer
Guest: “Maharaj, re initiations in ISKCON we see that Prabhupada disciples, they are becoming initiating guru, and there are some that argue on the basis of the letter of ritvik representative. So what is the conclusion and real understanding of that?”
HPS: “Ritvik, it is interesting in terms of diksa guru in ISKCON. Kadamba Kanana who was originally initiated by Bhavananda prabhu and then took initiation from, you know, Jayadvaita Maharaja, under the approval of his guru he is now taking disciples.
So there are grand disciples of Prabhupada in ISKCON who are initiating. Krishna Das Maharaja, he was initiated by some very nice Vaishnava in India and came to London as an engineer. Met Prabhupada’s movement, met Prabhupada, wrote to his guru to see if he could participate in Prabhupada’s movement, and his guru wrote back, “Why are you asking this kind of question?” Of course, all bona fide acharyas respect A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. It would be a great honour for me if he accepts you to help his movement. So after Prabhupada left his body he took sannyasa from Sivarama Swami and he is also is initiating in ISKCON. He did not have first or second initiation from Prabhupada, only sannyasa initiation in ISKCON. He is an initiating guru in ISKCON.”
HPS is here asked about the “conclusion and real understanding” regarding those who argue about the need for everyone to only be “ritvik representative” based on Srila Prabhupada’s July 9th, 1977 letter. HPS answers this by saying ritvik “is interesting”, and that’s all! Instead, he goes off on a tangent about the fact that in ISKCON even the disciples of Prabhupada’s disciples are also initiating.
No one actually knows who is the diksa Guru
“Yes, so we realise, you know, I have a diksa guru. Even in ISKCON the GBC give up on this, gave up, on that couldn’t figure it out, yeah, you can give up, the person got the name from and beads, he has some problem not initiating any more, you know, and he has to tell you this whether you can take shelter of someone else or not. Some people do and some don’t, and some people come and say I really want this, I really need this clear connection with authority for my mind and stuff like that. Okay, so sometimes I do it and sometimes I avoid it because of the situation. If it feels proper, sometimes I do it. So it is individual.”
HPS states that actually the GBC could not even figure out who is the diksa guru if an ISKCON guru falls, and just gave up trying to do so, and basically now allow a free-for-all.
The reality
Regardless of the schizophrenic self-contradictory nonsense he has spoken here, in practise HPS knows exactly what he is doing, attempting to act as a fullfledged diksa Guru for his disciples, with worship, Vyasa-puja offerings and all the other benefits which go along with acting as a “good-as-god” ISKCON diksa guru. In practise, he does not act as a ritvik at all, nor allow people to become initiated as Srila Prabhupada’s disciple, with himself acting as the ritvik priest for such an initiation. Rather, he simply gives every possible answer that someone could wish to hear, to be “all things to all men”, and keep the guru show on the road. Anything can be said, as long as in practise the same guru hoax can continue to be perpetuated.
Conclusion
In the SAME lecture, which was supposed to specifically address the issue of surrendering to a diksa guru, HPS has run the full gamut of all possible answers claiming:
Srila Prabhupada:
The one initiating Guru for ISKCON
HH Hanumatpresaka Swami:
Identity crisis
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a) Srila Prabhupada is the diksa Guru
b) HPS is not a diksa Guru
c) HPS is a ritvik
d) HPS is a diksa Guru
That someone who is supposedly acting as a diksa guru in ISKCON himself, as the transparent via medium to Krishna, could speak such contradictory gibberish in the same talk merely illustrates the entangling nature of the guru hoax. The Great Guru Hoax has, therefore, as it moves into its third phase, evolved in such a way that ISKCON has had to develop multiple personality disorder to even be able to explain and justify it. What makes the situation even more farcical is that the guru hoaxers also have the temerity to tell us that Srila Prabhupada’s desires for initiations after he departed are also very “clear” to them! The only thing which is clear is that they are literally making this up as they go along, as evidenced by the same guru giving every possible answer in the same talk.
The true and clear unchanging path is that given by Srila Prabhupada himself, as documented in his books, conversations, directives for ISKCON and his Last Will and Testament – that the system of initiation he established for ISKCON (the representative ritvik system of initiations, with himself as ISKCON’s sole diksa, or initiating, Guru), would be identical in ISKCON for all time to how it operated when he was on the planet.
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