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Let's talk about modern deviations in the Krishna Consciousness movement.
How would you analyze them?
Right now there are three deviant groups, and within each group, there are subsets
or schisms. Some are very obvious schisms; some are somewhat covert.
The first deviation was the first transformation, which took place in its
culmination. It was already . . . it already had momentum while Prabhupada was
still present. But its culmination, when this first transformation took place in full,
was in the spring of 1978. That's what we call, in the Vaishnava Foundation, we call
the first deviation or the first transformation.
We call it the fabricated, so-called “ISKCON,” and we put quotation marks
around the acronym ISKCON. This deviation had many components to it, but
the primary component, by far, was the false allegation that Prabhupada had
appointed eleven gurus. He never did appoint eleven gurus at any time.
The so-called basis--in the beginning, until it was exposed--was the May 28th, 1977
room conversation, a very cryptic conversation, in Vrindavan India, between
two leading secretaries, both of whom had the order of sannyasa. . . and
Prabhupada, in which it was supposedly substantiated that Prabhupada set the
foundation or . . . or the legitimacy, the fact of the so-called appointment. But
there is no such thing in that. When you read . . . it was called the
appointment tape in the beginning, and that name is still recognized by some of
the older devotees to be the name for that tape, but there is no appointment in it. It’s
simply talking about general principles of what . . . what constitutes guru, where
Srila Prabhupada says, “. . . But by my order,” meaning that for anyone to
become guru in the Krishna Consciousness movement, that person
has . . . has to have received the order from Prabhupada to be guru:
“But by my order.”
How does one receive that order?
Well, while he was here, it could have been done in two very obvious ways: It
could have been done verbally, and, if it was recorded or there was enough
witnesses present, then the order to be guru would be very obvious. Or it could
have been done in a written form, in which Srila Prabhupada signed the letter,
just like he signed thousands of letters. He could have signed a document stating,
“I recognize such-and-such disciple as a spiritual master.” Such order was never
given in that way while he was physically manifest.
Now that he is no longer physically manifest, the devotee, his devotee, can
still receive the order, but it has to be received. It can’t be concocted. Neither
can it be taken as a general thing. For example, yare dekha, tare kaha
'krsna'-upadesa: “Lord Caitanya orders everyone to be guru.” Well, that is not
what he is referring to in that appointment tape--“appointment tape.” That means
you become guru by becoming qualified and then receive the order from your
spiritual master. In fact, in the Folio, Srila Prabhupada, in a
room conversation, was once asked--in a somewhat, a little bit of, challenging
way--but even the question itself had an intrinsic challenge to it--that, “How did
you become guru?” And Prabhupada was very abrupt about it. But he did say--he
didn’t like the question, that was clear when you read the transcript--but he did
say, that, “My guru ordered me.” So, this is the standard set, and it makes total
sense that this is the standard, that, namely, you cannot become a diksa guru
and an initiating spiritual master until you receive the order of your spiritual master.
Now, Prabhupada no longer being physically manifest, but he is Sampradaya
Acarya, a completely pure devotee mahabhagavat, saktyavesa-avatar, while
he was with us. To say that you cannot have contact with His Divine Grace Srila
Prabhupada after he has departed is complete nonsense. Where’s there any
belief in spiritual life if you think like that? Of course, you can. Of course, you
should have such contact--the more, the better.
And it’s on the basis of when Srila Prabhupada wants to give you that
benediction that he is going to contact you. So, the order can be given now to
any disciple. And it can also be faked that one has received the order, or you can
delude yourself and say, “Well, yare dekha, tare kaha 'krsna'-upadesa: I
received the order by this generic order from Lord Caitanya.”
No, that’s not what he was saying. He never gave the order while he was
here, and that was in May 28th, the so-called “appointment tape.” In April of
1977, in Bombay before he came to Vrindavan, one of his leading secretaries,
who happened to be one of the two that was present in Vrindavan in May
28th of '77 (asking the questions), he was with them. And then there was a room
conversation--we all have access to this--where that leading secretary said,
“But, for right now, we cannot be guru, because we are not self realized.”
And Prabhupada says, “Yes.” So, from that position--April, 1977, where
Prabhupada confirms that none of his disciples have reached the stage where
they can be guru, when his leading disciple, not leading disciple, his leading
secretary at that time--says that, admits honestly (some fresh wind of a little
honesty there), he admits that no one was guru, because no one is self
realized--Prabhupada confirms it. So, from that position, April, 1977, and all of a
sudden, in November, 1977, you have eleven mahabhagavats? On the highest
platform of tattva-darsinah? No! This is nonsense, and it has been proven
to be nonsense. So, the first deviation was this idea that Prabhupada, in May of
'77, appointed gurus, which he confirmed then by name in the July 9th document,
which is simply--anyone who reads the document in an unbiased way can see it is
simply an appointment of eleven rittviks. Because there had been a long time when
there are no diksa . . . no initiations, so there was a long waiting list of devotees
wanted to be initiated by His Divine Grace, which had been done through the
rittvik process for years. But then it was suspended, because Prabhupada was
very ill. So, then the July 9th (letter) simply says,
“Here are the men to do rittvik.” Rittvik-Acarya means on behalf of the
actual Acarya, they’re rittviks. They’re priests on behalf of the Acarya to conduct
the ceremony. The initiator is His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada. This is actually
made clear in the document itself, as if it needed to be. It really didn’t need to be:
We all knew it at that time, we all knew what rittvik was. It’s no big thing. Some
sannyasi, or in some cases some temple president or some, ah, Commissioner, is
appointed to be rittvik. And so, he chants the beads on behalf of the spiritual
master. It's just a technicality, because the
spiritual master has a worldwide international movement. For him to have a
. . . “All right, I have a, I have a disciple now in New Orleans. I am here in India. I
need to fly all the way to New Orleans to give initiation? No, let a rittvik do it.”
So, the first deviation was this idea that Prabhupada appointed gurus, and then
this got embellished in a big way, by that they . . . they had to be mahabhagavats,
mat guru si jagat guru, you know where that came from? So, they had to be now,
be so-called gurus, who were never as such recognized as gurus. Maybe they
were recognized as being powerful leading secretaries, sannyasis, and things
like that, but that’s not spiritual master: tattva-darsinah.
tad viddhi pranipatena pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam jnaninas tattva-darsinah
Tad viddhi. If you want to learn the process, the viddhi, the things to do in
order to unfold the bhakti-lata-bija, which you will receive from the guru at the time
of initiation. That’s a plan, the bija is a plan that needs to be unfolded in a very,
ah, deliberate, perfect way. Then, if you, tad viddhi, if you want to know that
viddhi, what viddhis to do--in order to make that plan successfully unfold, so
that your creeper goes back to the spiritual sky-- tad viddhi pranipatena:
First of all, be very submissive. Pariprasnena. Ask some good spiritual
questions. Sevaya: Have the seva attitude. Perform service. When the guru
says, “I would like this to be done,” then not only do the service, but do it in a such
a perfect way that he is impressed, not just merely pleased.
Tad viddhi pranipatena pariprasnena sevaya upadeksyanti, they, plural. They
will, upadeksyanti, they will give you diksa, te, to you. Jnana, they will give you
knowledge. Brahma-jnana, tattva- jnana, upadeksyanti te jnanam jnaninas, of those
who have the jnana. In other words, not, ah, A-B-C-D devotees, but devotees who
are very absorbed in deep knowledge. Guru means heavy in knowledge.
Jnaninas, those who have that knowledge. Tattva-darsinah, those who
have seen the truth. Darsinah means seen the truth. Darsinah.
So, anartha? Someone who has anarthas would be tattva-darsinah? Of course not.
Impossible! Completely against the whole teaching. No disciple of Srila Prabhupada
received that order while he was physically manifest. It’s very clear (that) it
was not given to any individual disciple. Rittvik was given. That’s not . . . that’s
rittvik-Acarya. That’s not diksa guru. And then, arbitrarily, comes, ah, the so-called
appointment tape, May '77, then, ah, within March of '78—so, less than a
year—now, all of a sudden, there’s eleven gurus? Never as such recognized by the
Sampradaya Acarya, His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada.
What is the basis of they’re being guru? Oh: Rittvik-Acarya. No, that’s not the
basis of being guru--although that was said by the so-called “higher authority”
when the question was asked. “What’s the basis?”
“Oh, they were rittviks, appointed as rittvik-Acarya.”
“Oh, rittvik-Acarya, then it becomes as good as Acarya.”
No, it does not! Acarya is a neutral term; it can mean many things. You can be
Acarya in weapons. That does not make you a guru to be able give the diksa,
upadeksyanti te jnanam jnaninas. You are not a tattva-darsi at that level, you’re just
expert at weapons. So, you’re an Acarya at weapons.
This . . . this is all rascaldom, this is deviation. You asked the question, “What
were the deviations?” and I’m now delineating the deviations. The first
deviation was this first transformation of the status of guru. That, in March '78, due
to some very bad advice received in Navadvipa. The seeds needed the soil.
So, the soil was there to fertilize their material ambitions, and “the poison is
personal ambition.” And that was what they were loaded with. So then, eleven
“gurus” with no solid basis. And then, all of a sudden, all
mahabhagavats? And, all of a sudden, eleven zones, that the world was divided
into eleven zones? That these eleven “mahabhagavats” then function in? And,
if you say, “Everybody agrees now that the zonal Acarya (system) was wrong.
Everybody agrees. No one disagrees.” Fine. That’s a deviation! It’s a big
deviation! It’s a colossal, institutional anartha.
So, if everybody agrees, then what you’re saying is--if you’re honest, which you
aren't—but, if you’re honest, if you say everybody agrees that the eleven zones
were all colossal impositions, hoisting a colossal hoax, popes of the zone. So,
then if you agree that it was a deviation, then you must also agree that there was
no gurus, because guru cannot indulge in such colossal anartha. He cannot indulge
in any anartha! As soon as you say that guru can have anartha, as soon as you
say that, then anybody, everybody, every Joe Shmo, can be a guru.
Everybody could go into Caitanya-caritamrta and say yare dekha,
tare kaha 'krsna'-upadesa. Bhakta Tom comes into the temple. Second day in,
and he happens to spot that verse. “So, I’m being ordered by Lord Caitanya to be
a guru.” Rascal-dumb! Anybody can see this is not right. So, the first deviation
was the fabricated, so-called “ISKCON.” Now, when we say “ISKCON,” I’m not
referring to Srila Prabhupada’s pure movement. That’s an acronym. We all
know what that acronym means. But I'm putting quotation marks on each side of
that acronym. I’m saying it’s a different thing. The fabricated, so-called “ISKCON”
is not the same as ISKCON. The fabricated, so-called “ISKCON” covers
ISKCON. It’s a covering potency:
avaranatmika-sakti. First of all, you’re in the spiritual sky. You misuse your free
will— praksepatmika-sakti: You get pulled out. Avaranatmika-sakti: you get covered
over. This avaranatmika-sakti is everywhere in the material world, as it has
to be. So, the real ISKCON got covered over. This was the first deviation, with
such things like, “Oh, just put on the uniform, and then you will become the
soldier.” That can work on the relative plane, but that is not the absolute
process. The absolute process is diametrically one hundred eighty degrees
the opposite. The spiritual process is that, when you receive the order from
your spiritual master to be guru, when you’re qualified, that you’re free from
anartha, completely, and you’re full of knowledge: jnana-vairagya:
sa vai pumsam paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhoksaje
ahaituky apratihata yayatma suprasidati
When that jnana and vairagya is there. Because:
tac chraddadhana munayo jnana-vairagya-yuktaya
You’re linked with it, jnana, knowledge. Atma-jnana, tattva-jnana, so many
important tattva-jnana. jnana-vairagya. And because of the strength of the
knowledge--and remember, when we’re saying here jnana, we’re talking
jnana-vairagya, as confirmed in the Sixth Chapter of Bhagavad-gita. jnana-vijnana.
It’s the person who is jnana-vijnana, who sees with equal vision the stone and the
piece of gold and a clot of dirt. jnana-vijnana is in that Sanskrit.
So, tac chraddadhana munayo, the person who has firm faith, the muni. Muni
means he’s a very good thinker. Ah, tac chraddadhana munayo
jnana-vairagya-yuktaya: He’s linked up. Yukta. He is linked up with jnana-vijnana.
This is the spiritual master. Not that such a “spiritual master” would be so foolish
as to accept the slogan--the Bengali slogan “mad guru si jagat guru”--would
be so foolish as to accept the slogan, “Just put on the uniform, and you will
become the soldier.”
So, we were talking about the first transformation, hmmm, and some of the
rationales were used to, that were imported to support that transformation.
As I said, there’s three major deviations. And transformation . . . we’re talking
about change. We are not talking about making something a little better but not
changing. We’re talking about big change, and change means that the authority is
lost. It’s a different line when it’s changed, it’s a different line. It’s not the same line.
Similarly, we are seeing that now, so many . . . very difficult to comprehend ideas
that would never have had any credence whatsoever while Prabhupada was here.
So many different ways and processes. So many different . . . conceptions about
who is what and what is who. These would never have been tolerated while His
Divine Grace was here, any of them. But this is the down-line, when the movement
gets dumbed down; you get just one deviation after another. You make one
mistake. In order to cover, you make two more. In order to cover those two, you
make four more, and it goes on and on and on--devolution.
The first transformation took place. The seeds of the first transformation were
already starting to become actuated while Prabhupada was still here, but it . . . but it
became a complete, colossal hoax in March, 2000 … excuse me, March, 1978.
That was the first transformation. That was the first big deviation, namely, the
fabricated, so-called “ISKCON.” Then, the next major deviation was that
this deviation had inequities in it. It had, hmmm, wrong teachings. It had
exploitation. Eligibility, adhikar: These men were not eligible to be worshipped as
mahabhagavats. They weren't even eligible to be respected as gurus on the
most fundamental of planes. But they were taking opulent worship, as if they
were mahabhagavats: nikunjayuno ratikeli-siddhyaih. So, as if they had
actuated their siddha-deha. So, this is naturally going to produce all kinds of
negative repercussions. Envy will be one of them, faithlessness will be another,
challenge will be another. But, since “higher authority” was consulted in order
to provide a good amount of the soil necessary for these eleven weeds to
sprout, then “the authority” was again consulted, that, “They’re are not
doing it right.” And so, now we had, in 1980, at the
beginning of what I call the Neo-Gaudiya Mutt, which is the second deviation.
Neo-Gaudiya Mutt. I use the term neo, because it is not Gaudiya Mutt in the true
sense of the term, but it’s very much like the Gaudiya Mutt. If one says, “Well,
Prabhupada was a member of the Gaudiya Mutt,” for a while he was. But, if
one says that Prabhupada’s preaching mission was non-different from the
Gaudiya Mutt, we must protest and say, No!”
Even in the 1950’s, when he formed his . . . his ashram in Jhansi, India, he called it
League of Devotees. He didn’t call it Gaudiya Mutt, and it wasn’t recognized by
Gaudiya Mutt even then. And when he came to America, he didn’t call his society
Gaudiya Mutt. And we could quote letter after letter after letter--and some room
conversations, also--in relation to Prabhupada’s view of the Gaudiya Mutt,
which is not very laudatory. Now, the Neo-Gaudiya Mutt means that
Prabhupada’s disciples who were initiated by him go and adopt Gaudiya Mutt
philosophy, Gaudiya Matt process, and most importantly, worse, Gaudiya Mutt
vision of Prabhupada. Gaudiya Mutt vision of how to spread the movement, all
of these Gaudiya Mutt ways, which Prabhupada was not in harmony with,
which Prabhupada--as the Sampradaya Acarya, as the saktyavesa-avatar, who
was empowered with the bhakti-sakti--did not say, was, had any value. In fact, in the
letter of 1974, April, to one of his Governing Body Commissioners, he said,
very clearly, that, “They’re, they are very competent to harm our natural progress
in Krishna Consciousness.” And, in 1970, he referred to them as,
obliquely, as the “great sinister movement.” So, we could just go on and
on with that, but the fact of the matter is that Prabhupada did not represent the
Gaudiya Mutt. He wanted very little to do with it, and he had very little interaction
with it. Srila Prabhupada was directly saksad-dhari: When he spoke, it was
Paramatma, it was Krishna speaking. Whatever he said was to be done, is what
Krishna wanted. And he said differently from Gaudiya Mutt ways.
So, when Prabhupada’s initiated disciples (who had some influence and some power
in the movement) then went back to the “higher authority” to complain about the
eleven so-called mahabhagavats-- who were actually all pretenders and
sahajiyas, full-blown sahajiyas--then, when they went back, then, they’d
become converted to the Gaudiya Mutt way, which was an entirely different way
of viewing His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada, viewing how to spread
Krishna Consciousness, the process, and the siddhanta also had differences.
So, that’s why I use this term Neo-Gaudiya Mutt, because it’s new. It
constitutes disciples who were initiated by Prabhupada, for all practical purposes,
gave up their connection with Srila Prabhupada to adopt connection with
Gaudiya Mutt ways. And, in some cases, even took “re-initiation” from a Gaudiya
Mutt Acarya or took sannyasa from a Gaudiya Mutt Acarya or things of this
nature. This was the second transformation, but it wasn’t the
transformation of the fabricated, so-called “ISKCON,” which had already undergone
the first transformation. There . . . there was a schism. “ISKCON,” “ISKCON,”
schism with the Neo-Gaudiya Mutt in 1982.
So, the . . . wouldn’t you agree that the . . . that the zonal Acarya deviation was
resolved, ah, in the . . .when they kind of reformed it, there was reformation in the .
. . in the mid-Eighties, I think?
It was a dishonest resolution on a pragmatic, materially pragmatic, utilitarian
plane that has nothing to do with spiritual truths. It was technically resolved in that
they eliminated the zones and dropped the pretension, the profile of being
mahabhagavats, but the deviations were so egregious, the anarthas, the
institutional anarthas, the personal anarthas, were so severe that the . . . the
real necessity was not met. The real necessity was to return to
square one: “Where did it, all these deviations, start off from?” “What is the
honest position now?” “Let us get back to the honest position.” “There will be a
lot of pain involved in that, but it’s going to be more painful than if we keep going
on with the dishonesty.” This was . . . none of this was confronted
on a deep level. Second echelon and third echelon men saw an opportunity to
themselves become gurus at this more benign level with a little bit less
pretension to it. So, they jumped at the opportunity and made a compromise,
that, “Yes, we still recognize that this whole time you’ve been guru.” This is not
right. Of course, there was one minor
expansion previous to this, where the eleven expanded to fourteen, but that
didn’t resolve anything. That was due to political pressure. So, the mid-Eighties
confrontation with the zonal Acaryas simply dumbed down the deviation and
disguised it a little better.
Do you think there is any validity to the rittvik position?
The rittvik position took place on a very, very subtle plane in summer of 1988,
where the seed for the rittvik position was planted in the Will of one of Prabhupada’s
god-brothers, who happened to be that so-called “higher authority.” It sprouted in
1990, when four initiated disciples of Srila Prabhupada, all brahminically initiated,
got together in a southern state and determined that the way that Prabhupada
actually wanted was that the Governing Body Commissioner, Commission, was to
appoint rittvik-Acaryas--to recognize and appoint rittvik-Acaryas after His Divine
Grace left physical manifest existence. And then these appointed rittvik-Acaryas,
then--only given authority if the G.B.C recognized as such--were then to conduct
initiation on behalf of Srila Prabhupada, that all new people would actually be
initiated by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada. This is an anti-Vedic,
anti-Vaishnava process. This is a concocted process based on a sahajiyism
known as Karta-bhaja, one of the thirteen sahajiya sects. But, of course, this is
Neo-Karta-bhaja, because, this is within a context of the post-modern situation.
Whereas the classical sahajiyas were the time of Bhaktivinode Thakura, are those
thirteen sahajiyas, which karta-bhaja was one of them. It was specifically listed
there as sahajiya, ah, sect, by Bhaktivinode Thakura, and it is, as such,
anti-Vedic, anti-Vaishnava. The process is you develop, a person
who is uninitiated develops, enough genuine spiritual sincerity, enough
genuine seriousness in spiritual life, develops some important prerequisite
preliminary knowledge, and has to be lucky enough to be able to search out a
guru. And, when coming in contact with the spiritual master or guru, to recognize
the guru. And, then, to do enough service in the submissive attitude, as we said
before with good inquiries and with seva attitude, to be able to get the benediction
that the guru would give diksa. This is the Vedic process.
We’re in a Judeo-Christian civilization in the West, in both Europe, Australia, and
also in America, Canada. All of these countries are predominantly
Judeo-Christian, although that percentage of ratio is decreasing, but it’s still
predominant. But at that time when rittvik surfaced in 1990, the Christian way was
very prominent in the West. So, this is a type of so-called “Christianity,” where
Jesus Christ is apparently the real spiritual master of the Christians, and that
these priests are simply, are conduits, but you don’t receive anything from them
except some good advice, etc. You don’t surrender to them, but that’s
not the Vedic process. That’s not the Vaishnava process. So it’s, it’s, it fits very
well with the Western culture, which is, ah, reached such levels of deviation that
they’ve slaughter houses and, and that, alcohol and various other intoxications
are legal and can be purchased and imbibed legally, and all these other
incredible sinful activities are legal. This rittvik process has to be completely
dismissed, because Srila Prabhupada never substantiated it. It is through
manipulation of a few code words that a whole new process has come into being,
that’s completely anti-Vedic, anti-Vaishnava and does not follow the
tradition of the guru-parampara. It’s because the people who are buying into
rittvik--and also the devotees who promulgated and started rittvik and got it
rolling--ah, it’s due to their insincerity in spiritual life that this is grown.
And the nature of rittvik is that, since it’s a concoction, since it was never
established by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada--never specified how to do it,
because he never would specify it, because it’s bogus--that it’s, it’s prone to
be highly centrifugal. Meaning that it will keep spinning out of control and into
various new deviations, new, ah, permutations of the rittvik misconception,
and that’s exactly what we have. The original rittvik conception has been
completely abandoned. Nobody, nobody believes in it any more. It never got off the
ground. It was the start of it, but it never actually could take off to become
something. Why? Because, very simply, the Governing Body Commission never
accepted it. And the Governing, the Governing Body Commission had to
accept it for it to function. Because the key element was that rittviks
could not simply become rittviks because they say are rittviks and conduct
initiations, so-called, on behalf of a spiritual master who is no longer
physically manifest. But the original, ah, theory that was promulgated was that
Prabhupada established this so-called rittvik, but he established it on the basis
that the Governing Body Commission had to decide who was qualified to be a
rittvik-Acarya. But they didn’t accept it. So, therefore, it
never even went to any level. But, since that time, there’s been various
permutations and combinations of rittvik. And, right now, there’s a minimum of five
different rittvik philosophies, rittvik groups. And they are not very friendly
with one another, because they’ve a different process, each of them have a
different process, even their conception of how long it is supposed to last is
entirely different amongst some of the groups. And that’s the nature of rittvik: A
concoction will breed more concoctions. It will get more and more dumbed down. It
will get more and more deviant, because there’s no basis to go back to, to
establish what is the siddhanta of it. What is, and more importantly, what is the
actual process, how is it to be carried out. It’s not historical fact. Rittvik is not
historical fact. It was never established by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada.
Rittvik-vada is same as the Mayavada in the sense that it’s a concoction based
upon a wrong understanding, pramada, not listening properly, not hearing
properly, therefore being illusioned. Therefore, making the mistake of buying
into it and, therefore, kaitava, cheating, spreading a process that’s a cheating
process.
You don’t think there’s any value? Somebody . . .
As I described before, somebody who’s picking, ah, ah, molded bread out of
garbage can, can go to any place like any temple and learn the A-B-C-D’s and
become a little clean and get freed from some of this extremely degraded
activities. So, there’s some A-B-C-D benefit, but once we get to G-H-I--guru,
honesty and institution or guru, honesty and initiation--then it’s going to go off. It’s
going to be a deviated octave. It’s . . . it will be an ascending octave for some
time, but then it will reach a stage where faithlessness will enter. And when
faithlessness enters, it will become a descending octave.
And the person will think that he is still in the ascending octave, when it’s a
descending octave. The principle is that you stay on a complete straight course
towards the spiritual sky--if you stay loyal to your spiritual master, loyal to the
process, loyal to the seva, loyal to the siddhanta. But, if you go on a deviated
ascending octave, you’re going towards a different destination that’s not actually
what he wants, it’s not what the guru-parampara wants, it’s not what’s,
what the Supreme Personality of Godhead has actually sanctioned. And, therefore, it
goes up for a ways, then it reaches a point where faithlessness enters, and it
becomes a descending octave with the same deviated incline.
And you don’t recognize any of it, because you didn’t stay on the actual
octave. You deviated off to another destination. You thought, “Ah, this
destination is the real destination.” But it is not. All these rittvik groups can help
you if you’re very fallen. They can help you with A-B-C-D, but you need to go far
beyond A-B-C-D. You need to go through the whole alphabet and become a pure
devotee of the Lord. And in order to do that, rittvik can’t help you.
You said earlier it was all due to lack of sincerity. The . . . they . . . the, hmmm,
development of the rittvik process. Could you expand on that?
Sincerity is a word that comes from Latin. In the Latin times they had coins, but they
also did a lot more barter than we do today. Barter is not so popular due to so
much of money that we have in the West. Some barter goes on, but most people
don’t live by barter. But, at that time, in Roman times, ah, goods were bartered. If
you wanted a winter's worth of wheat in order to eat, perhaps you had a very nice
statue. And you could barter your statue for the bushels of grains and the person
who wanted that nice statue would make the deal.
So, these statues were commodities that were traded at that time. Now, if a statue
gets a chip in it--right now we see that the statues of the Roman times virtually all of
them have chips—but, when they were first made, ah, a statue was considered
extremely valuable during the Roman times if it had no chips. But, if it had chips
in it, then its value was greatly diminished, to the point that you could
hardly even barter for anything. So, because to keep a statue free from
chips was the goal in order to have this valuable commodity, if it developed chip,
a cheating processing of putting a type of covering into the chip--that looked like it
was part of the stone sculpture, when it was a, it was actually a filling of the
chips--this is called ceres, what was put in was called a ceres, c-e-r-e-s. You put it
in, and then you polished it up, and then tried to pawn off that, ah, statue, as if it
never had any chips. So sin, s-i-n, as a prefix in Latin meant
“without”; it still means “without.” So, the word “sincere” is sinceres, comes from
that, meaning without any ceres in the statues. That, when you’re bartering with
a real thing, there’s no chips in it that’d been covered by seres. That then you
bartered it off and get all this wealth from it. And then the person, the statue, then
he wants to move it. And then somebody else comes and said, “That’s a chip!”
That, and then, “I’ve been cheated!” But what’s so sin . . . if you are sincere
then, you didn’t . . . whatever you were giving was not with a flaw in it. So, if
you’re sincere in seeking out a spiritual master, that means you don’t have the
flaws within you of ulterior motivation, personal ambition, all kinds of, ah,
contaminated misconceptions of about what is the path of the spiritual life, you
are free from all these chips in you. And you are not covered with a rationalization
and with buffers, with delusions, ceres, you are not, you don’t have, your
sin-ceres, you’re without those things.
So, supposing today you met someone who came across some of Srila, Srila
Prabhupada’s original Bhagavad-gita, reads it, was interested, want to . . .
wanted to go forward, eh, with Krishna consciousness. He was on his own, and
he wasn’t really in touch with any of the groups. And you met this person, ah, he
asked you for your advice. What would you--in such chaotic, hmmm, world,
Krishna conscious world that we are in now--what advice would you
give that person?
I’d give him truth. I’d give him the historical facts. I would answer his
questions and also tell him that we have an organization. So, there is a place
where he can plug in, if he likes, and he can get his answers. He can get seva
opportunities, and he can stay free from these three deviations.
So, how is your organization, hmmm, better than the other . . . other
organizations we see around?
Because there is no apa-siddhanta connected with what we are preaching.
The process we give is without any contaminations, even though it is
rudimentary. We do not have in our organization anyone who is connected
with deviations nor will we ever have anyone nor we do . . . we compromise
with the deviations nor do we say that they are good. We do not, ah, put any
stock into watering it down. We say, “Advance in Krishna
consciousness at your own pace, at your own speed. Cleansing of the heart is not
an abrupt process. It’s a gradual process. At the same time, you can’t go to the
other shore if you leave the anchor dropped, and it's caught in rocks.” We
say, “At the very minimum, you have to have your anchor freed from being
dropped into those rocks. And you must be, at the very minimum, pulling it up to
get it back in the boat, so that you can really go somewhere.”
Supposing, in a . . . in a parallel, parallel universe, you are invited to next year’s
G.B.C meeting in Mayapur, and . . . and you’re asked to give your
recommendations to help “ISKCON.” What can you imagine that you might say
to them?
I would say to them, “You all have to return to the square one. None of you is a
genuine guru. You never were! A current still runs through it, and that current is
the current of deviation, the current of misconception, the current of pretension,
the current of deception. These things . . . these things cannot be present in a
genuine Krishna consciousness movement.
You’ve had these things in your movement from the spring of 1978,
(although they were creeping in before that time), but we can just say that was
the coup de etat moment. Now you’ve got to return (to square one) and get all of
that out. And it can be done if you understand that Prabhupada said,
'Regular guru, that’s all.' Regular guru means under regulation.
And he didn’t name any gurus. He said, 'But, by my order,' but he never gave the
order. Which means that we have to go back to square one and say that those
eleven pretender mahabhagavats were all completely bogus, and that was such a
colossal hoax and such a colossal deviation that everything went off track.
And that current is still present in the movement. It’s not been taken away. The
current of deviation has been present throughout the movement since 1978.
And you can make all the bureaucratic adjustments and compromises you want,
but this stark truth is going to remain, these historical facts are going to remain,
and there’s going to be devotees who’ve been initiated by His Divine Grace who
continue to understand them and are going to continue to let others know
about them. And you’re not going to get away with it, and you’re not going to pull
it off! So, therefore, you better return to square one.” That would be my advice.
That’s a pretty big pill for them to swallow. Hmmm, do you have any
practical suggestions how . . .
The practical suggestion is that they're not going to invite me!
(laughs) No, practical suggestions, how the square one is, how to get back to that
square one?
Yes: Shock. It’s not until devotees individually get shocked and realize just
how corrupt the whole thing’s been and how it’s getting more and more corrupt,
how it’s becoming more and more dumbed down, watered down, how it’s
becoming more and more deviant and realize that it will get worse and worse
and worse and realize that they want no part of it, they want to get back to the real
Krishna consciousness movement. And then, one by one, as devotees realize
this, then they will get strong individually. Then, they’ll start thinking, “Maybe I
should have some kind of relationship with other devotees who are a little
stronger than me and are on this path.” And then, there will be a little bit of
coalescing, perhaps some alliances. Then, there will be an actual, ah,
organization, and then things will go on and on like that. So it’s, it’d be a very
gradual process.
OK. Can you tell us a bit how you came to Krishna consciousness?
Yes, I came because I reached the stage where actually I saw the futility of even
breathing. I reached the stage where I could see that, on your own, whatever
you’re doing does not solve anything. Once you realize the question that must
take place: athato brahma jijnasa. This question is, “Why am I suffering?” And,
most importantly, “Why do I have to die?” “Why do I have to undergo all of this?
I am being forced to undergo all of this. Why?” This question I asked.
I reached the stage where I asked this question. When you ask these root
questions, you get signals from Paramatma, but you don’t know it, but
you gets signals from Conscience. When I’m speaking of Conscience here, I’m
using capital “C,” because the small conscience is different from capital “C”
Conscience. Paramatma will give you tests.
My first, ah, dictation was “Become vegetarian.” And immediately I did. I did
not know where it would lead. I did not know who was giving the order. But I
knew that that’s what I had to do. It was made very clear that I had to pass that
test. So, I became a vegetarian. Then, I was tested severely when I went home to
visit my relatives, and I was given a very, ah, stern punishment for having not met
the standard there, because I got talked out of it, partially. And, therefore, in that
punishment that solidified that this is definitely what is wanted to be done, but I
still did not know where it was all going to lead.