Recent PADA newsletters are available all the time at:
http://blog.myspace.com/52199499. PADA news is an information service for
the devotees of ISKCON. We do not always endorse all the letters we get
from others. Nor can we independently verify each and every statement found
in letters to PADA. And sometimes -- we write spoof for comic relief. Let
us know if you do not wish to receive this news letter. Thanks Puranjana
dasa 707-477-4102
============
Check this out, Costa Rica viva la revoluion!
harekrisnhacostarica@yaoo.com
http://golokavrindavan.com/
http://golokavrindavan.com/conspiradores.htm (check out these mug shots!
Ouch!)
* Indradyumna swami and his gurukuli female consorts (Ramesvara pt. 2):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRV5b3uNxBk&eurl
* http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Prabhupada_Jagat_Guru
* http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InspirationNewsletter
* PADA archives: http://harekrsna.org
* PADA music: http://myspace.com/trancelooper
* http://gitagita.com/en/prabhupada/018.html
* http://www.prabhupadanugaspress.com
* Jaya Radha Madhava: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGWVBLxaB14
* Jaya Radha Madhava by child: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJsqsbf7IOA
* Sita Rama bhole: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKFPuxpXdWM
==============
WHO is Jacob Vaughn (disciple of Tripurari) and where is he (he was in
Tehama county CA)? The police would like to know!
==============
Credit Where Credit's Due BY: ROCANA DASA
Jul 06, CANADA (SUN) — Here at the Sun we have received, of late, a few
submissions by none other than Puranjana dasa of PADA fame. It appears that
my article "Practical Siddhanta" has sparked his interest. In his usual
'style', he has clipped out and commented upon various aspects of the
article, providing me with a long page of his predictable rhetoric.
Admittedly, I have declined to post most everything submitted by him over
the last two years, and I continue to hold that position. We have set
certain editorial boundaries for the Sun, and they reflect our
unwillingness to promote fanatics or writers who regularly rant. So you'll
not find Puranjana dasa's submission on this site. If you really want to
read it, you can find your wa to his Blog.
[PADA: Thanks for giving PADA credit. Let us review a few historical facts
Rocana prabhu, to examine what is factually "fanatical." After 1977, we
started out by saying that there is no proper "managing" for ISKCON because
the "Governing Body managers" initially deputed by Srila Prabhupada were
now artificially catapulted to the status of "diksha" gurus and Srila
Prabhupada's "Vishnupada successors." And since the diksha guru cannot be
"managed" (as Sridhara Maharaja pointed out "none should protest") --
ISKCON was thus heading towards the same self-appointed guru -- anarchy --
that ruined the Gaudiya Matha. And more importantly, the ISKCON "diksha
gurus" were now sitting at the feet of BR Sridhara Maharaja, the founder
father of the 1936 homosexual guru imbroglio of the Gaudiya Matha. This was
a wrong-headed policy. We were and are correct about this.
The basic argument given by the deviants (that you went along with) is that
we need to have "living guidance" from "a living diksha guru," yet your
team's gurus were not qualified to act in that capacity. Meanwhile, your
program kicked out the thousands of devotees who were actually giving "the
living guidance" and nowadays many of the "gurus" live offshore and rarely
even visit their temples to provide the so-called "day to day" guidance. So
this is all bluff, they are not even giving "the living guidance."
Meanwhile you and they argue that no one can act as a proxy (such as a
priest) for the guru, we need a replacement for the guru. Yet your alleged
replacements were faulty, no kidding since if we study the actual teachings
of Srila Prabhupada, he said they were not even fit for sannyasa in 1977.
So you (and/ or Sridhara/ Narayana/ Gaura Govinda/ Tripurari swamis) have
never explained: how you came to conclude they were "diksha gurus" if they
were clearly not fit for sannyasa?
Nor have you ever explained why, if no one is allowed to act as a proxy
"because this is not found in shastra," you are yourself preaching all day
long -- acting as a proxy? You are saying no one else is allowed to preach
on behalf of the guru (the agent / ritvik concept), because this is not
found in shastra, but you are doing that yourself 24/7 -- because you are
greater than anyone else? This was also your pal Kundali's idea, "No one is
allowed to act as a proxy, but I will write ten thousand pages of material,
acting as a proxy." So you are merely trying to drive away all the other
proxy preachers by making yourselves the exclusive conduits, which makes
your whole process almost identical to the bogus gurus? No wonder you are
supportive of their deviant theology then? Srila Prabhupada wanted ALL of
us to be his proxies, whether we call them preachers, priests, or whatever,
who cares, not some artificial exclusive agents like you or the GBC gurus.
No one else can act as a proxy, except His Divine Grinch -- Rocana, or they
are not following shastra? You are the main strutting peacock around here!
We got that already!
Anyway you and Kundali et al. did a good job, you "preached up a storm"
that "no one else should preach as a proxy (just me, I'm special!), this is
bogus and not in shastra" and your policy thereby kicked out about 20,000
proxies / preachers from ISKCON. You destroyed the entire "proxy" preaching
principle and process, and you are still hard at work trying to destroy the
few preachers who are left, job well done! Everyone asks us about this,
"Why is Mr. Rocana preaching for the past 30 years -- as a proxy for the
guru, saying there is no such thing as a proxy for the guru"? And we
generally reply, well Jesus says, "Oh ye hyprocrites, sons of vipers."
Rocana Prabhu, clearly you sided with the ersatz, self-appointed diksha
gurus and their Gaudiya Matha "advisors." Yet it was clear by 1980 that
your "diksha gurus" were in fact -- lawless tyrants. And yet your team of
deviants prevailed because your ilk was backed up by powerful allies like
Sridhara Maharaja, Narayana Maharaja, Bhagavat dasa, Gaura Govinda
Maharaja, Tripurari Maharaja and many others, mainly influenced by the
Gaudiya Matha (as was your former pal Kundali). Your party's main complaint
against Srila Prabhupada -- as spoken for example by Narayana Maharaja was:
"There is no such thing as a managerial body (proxies) because there is
always a living diksha guru present." And this was the same argument many
of the same deviants gave in 1936 to create their homosexual guru
imbroglio: "We cannot have proxies, we need (artificial) replacements,"
resulting in murders and the public media discrediting the Krishna religion
in the 1940s. Of course you have promoted many side attacks on Srila
Prabhupada, you printed for example numerous of Kundali's attacks on Srila
Prabhupada's jiva tattva (also from the bogus Gaudiya Matha).
And you supported that deviant process for ISKCON, and you still do, you
still say we need the Gaudiya Matha's living diksha guru process and not
Srila Prabhupada's proxies process. You are a disciple of the Gaudiya Matha
deviants, plain and simple, which is why you are so attracted to the
Kundalis. And you follow exactly that deviant process, you helped make
bogus diksha gurus, saying there is no proxy process found in shastra
because Srila Prabhupada's preaching for forty years about the need for
proxies -- is bogus, and your policy had the same identical effect as it
did in the Gaudiya Matha, you burnt the mission to ashes. And you still
argue for the bogus living diksha guru process and discount the proxy
process that was ordered by your guru, because you are angry that maybe
four or five people are still left preaching somewhere when there used to
be thousands. You want to eliminate all the proxy preaching process and
have no one preaching on behalf of Srila Prabhupada, except maybe a few
exclusive conduits like -- yourself.
Why are you the only proxy, simultaneously saying proxy process is bogus,
when the only one who benefits are the attackers of Srila Prabhupada?
Only you can preach as a proxy, and you are saying no one else can preach
as a proxy, so you are saying basically what Hansadutta was saying in 1978?
And you are still saying Srila Prabhupada is bogus because he only
authorized proxies, saying his proxy process is "not found in shastra."
Meanwhile, you are yourself a proxy? So you are attacking your guru, and
your own self, simultaneously? Simultaneously, you and your bogus diksha
gurus began to say that Srila Prabhupada's actual "appointed living
successor," i.e. his living books, is no longer able to give "divyam jnanam
wich destroys sins" (diksha). You still cite that bogus mantra even now
every day: "My guru said he would live forever in his books, he was wrong,
my guru is dead and his books are dead." And by minimizing his books, you
created so many deviant apa-siddhantas which evolved and they even began to
change the books due to this minimizing process.
Srila Prabhupada says I will live forever in my books, that will be my
living representation / succession, and Rocana and his Gaudiya Matha pals
said, stomp on that living plant, it is dead! So there is arsenic poison
and there is preaching poison, same effect, "kill guru." And how did you
guess, Narayana Maharaja cites "there is nothing wrong" with Sridhara
Maharaja's making homosexuals into diksha gurus. "Kill guru and become
guru." History was repeating, plain and simple. The Gaudiya Matha minimized
their guru, and his books, sold their guru's book printing press, edited
his books, made false gurus, dis-mantled the Governing Body. We all knew
that -- didn't we Rocana prabhu? And you began to promote this exact same
system, saying that those of us who protest are "ranters." You just don't
get it, you burnt your guru's house to the ground with your policy, just as
"there was a fire in the matha" after 1936.
In short Rocana, you followed the bogus Gaudiya Matha's styled group of
thinkers and you clearly sided with the founder fathers of the 1936
homosexual guru imbroglio and helped them dismantle the concept of a proxy
/ managerial body for the ISKCON society, citing that "there is no such
thing as managers and priests in the tradition." And so Rocana, your team
chopped off the legs of any sort of managerial process, resulting in
massive criminality and child molesting infesting "every nook and cranny"
of ISKCON, since your process had essentially destroyed the managerial
system with bogus -- and no small amount of criminal -- diksha gurus. And
while we were pointing out the resultant victimization of devotees and
children -- thanks to your policy of chopping off the legs of the
managerial process, Rocana and his ilk said, "Who cares about these
fanatical ranters, we need to back the bogus diksha gurus." And so this put
us under the reign of folks like Hansadutta (our local "diksha guru" under
Rocana's "traditional guru" scheme).
The clear result of Rocana's policy was -- and still is -- that ISKCON
descended into a state of total tyranny, criminal chaos, a lawless anarchy.
And even during the early years we said that Srila Prabhupada had ordered
ONLY a managerial system, proxies, and not bogus diksha gurus, and Rocana
and his ilk were shouting us down citing the need for their bogus diksha
gurus. In short, we wanted law and order and managing, and manageable
proxies, whereas Rocana backed the criminal tyrant megalamanic bogus
Vishnupadas, saying that is "the real tradition." Rocana oddly still argues
that Srila Prabhuada is not qualified enough to be the current diksha guru
for ISKCON, saying that Srila Prabhupada's books are not potent enough to
give us divyam jnanam which destroys sins (diksha). From the 1960s to the
end of the 1970s these books had sufficient "divyam jnanam which destroys
sins" (diksha) to make tens of thousands of devotees, but now suddenly
Rocana magically pulled the plug out of Krishna's book's potency and he
said these books are dead and not potent, you need a living person. No
wonder the Gaudiya Matha folks cite Rocana's writing!
So your team attacked your guru's order, attacked your guru's books,
attacked your guru's devotees by saying they cannot act as proxies,
attacked the children by supporting a violent anti-children regime, and all
the while you are saying "this is the bona fide system, Srila Prabhupada's
idea of proxy managers is bogus, who needs managing when we can have a
violent bogus Vishnupada criminal enterprise?" And of course Rocana's team
had a handful of deviants in their pockets to give us to replace the pure
divyam -- diksha system, managed by proxies, given by Srila Prabhupada. And
these idiot gurus wrote all sorts of their own bogus books which
thankfully, Rocana is today exposing such as the bogus "Lilamrta." We thus
have to also give credit to Rocana for making a partial turnaround!
Who then is potent enough to be the next diksha guru? Rocana has lost his
former fire and become a little reluctant and glum here, nowadays he is
refusing to say, because we severely exposed all his previous attempts to
make bogus replacements for Srila Prabhupada. The only thing Rocana knows
for sure is that Srila Prabhupada is bogus because he said he "will live
forever" by his books which will be giving the divyam jnanam which destroys
sins (diksha), and that Srila Prabhupada wanted some system of "managers
and priests" to make an orderly, law-abiding society to distribute his
divyam jnanam -- and give people a bona fide source of diksha.
Rocana says, "My guru wasted his whole life writing books, which were
giving diksha and making thousands of devotees while he was alive, but
which will have no potency to give diksha as soon as his body is not
present" citing his pals like the bogus 1936 "homosexual diksha guru"
Gaudiya Matha leaders.
Rocana is the boss of the Vedas, he decides when the Vedas have potency and
when they do not! Anyway, good job Rocana, by your minimizing your gurus
books, hardly any of his books are being distributed nowadays and many of
the bogus gurus books are being distributed instead. And you did a good job
of saying the books have no potency to give divyam jnanam, because many
folks believe that thanks to you. Now they are reading the sahajiya books
of the Gaudiya Matha, and smoking pot, you did a great job here! Anyway,
back to the point, why can't we follow the order to have a proxy system?
OK, like a church has. A church has at least some sort of check and balance
process: a priest (ritvik), a council of elders (a brahminical board),
regional council members (a Governing body), and yet this is awful for
Rocana because it is all too much like "law and order" for apparent
anarchists like Rocana.
Hence Rocana (de facto) said, "Why duplicate the church and have a law
abiding orderly society, and worship of a bona fide pure devotee, when we
can have criminal tyrants and child molesters posing as our guru's
replacements"? Or what? "That way, people like Puranajan will maybe be
found strangled and stuffed into a dumpster, and then we won't have to deal
with his rants anymore, what a bonus"! Or what? That is how it looked from
our view point. Rocana in sum said that the only thing we find in our
tradition is: his bogus diksha gurus, and that is the plan he backed and he
still does, he still says we need a living guru and we have to abandon
Srila Prabhupada. Rocana is not happy that there are still a few people
left preaching, "Get out now, go find yourself an actual living guru,
leave"! Rocana is quite angry that three people are running some temples
here and there, he wants no one to be left at all! The de facto message:
"Get out, go find another guru, Prabhupada is bogus because he thinks we
need managers and not criminal messiahs"! There is no such thing as
proxies, not found in shastra, but I am a proxy myself, don't look behind
that curtain Dorothy!
And catch my lies and hypocrisy! Which ruined ISKCON ...
By 1986 Rocana was even part of the team that was trying to "reform the
gurus," since Rocana had no idea that gurus do not need reform, but priests
do! Interestingly, Rocana once agreed with PADA that Srila Prabhupada is
correct to say that Jesus can still be the diksha guru for the Christians
and "absorb the sins," but in the next breath Rocana is belitting Srila
Prabhupada along with the others in this group, saying our guru is nowhere
near as potent as Jesus. So Rocana is defending the Christian Church
process, saying only Jesus is potent enough to be the "post-samadhi" diksha
guru, while oddly claiming we are the "bogus church of Christians" when we
say our guru has equal potency? Rocana is confuting himself more than
anyone else. We might actually debate Rocana someday, but first he has to
quit debating with himself.
In other words it seems Rocana and his team make up anything they have to
-- as they go along -- to make their bogus diksha guru process work, as
long as it minimizes Srila Prabhupada or his books, or his orders etc. and
creates a general state of lawless disorder. Meanwhile, by 1980 we began
pointing out an odious side effect to Rocana's team's "traditional guru"
policy, many of the children in ISKCON were being abused, mistreated and /
or molested because their "guru regime" contained child molesters. As we
began to publicly protest this particular issue more vociferously, we were
met with the same argument Rocana is still giving today: "Who cares about
the victimization that Rocana's false diksha gurus are creating, this is
all fanatical ranting."
This was the same response we got from most of our God brothers over the
banning, beating, molesting: "Puranjana is a fantical ranter" and it is
amazing: some folks like Rocana are still saying that! Sorry, we have been
proven absolutely correct: worship of child abusers produces child abuse
webs and nests. The "fanatical ranters," as it turns out, are those of you
who opposed our exposing this issue, especially if we would ask the
ex-children victims. And thus Rocana's team has acted all along as enormous
three hundred pound football blockers against the ISKCON children. Just as
the kids were supposed to catch Srila Prabhupada as their diksha guru,
these big oafs knocked our ISKCON children over and barked at them, "Srila
Prabhupada is not your diksha guru, go get a 'living' guru from anywhere
else, either the bogus GBC (oh boy, some of these "diksha gurus" are child
molesters!); Or go to the Gaudiya Matha and work with Kundali's Gaudiya
Matha pals, the people who supported the 1936 homosexual guru process; Or
go to the bogus GBC's molester pooja "advisors" like Sridhara Maharaja,
Narayana Maharaja, BV and BP Puri etc.; Or else leave ISKCON and find some
living guidance elsewhere, who cares about ISKCON except the ranters?"
And now the result of Rocana's team's preaching is: many of the ISKCON
children even here in Berkeley are worshiping Narayana Maharaja (under the
umbrella of Hrdaya Govinda and Narmada) because he is their "living guru,"
following Rocana's barking orders to find any guru -- except Srila
Prabhupada. Yet we cannot help but notice there is a pot smoking problem
among them, if not a mental break down problem, in sum a problem of severe
depression due to their folowing Rocana's barking dog orders to abandon
Srila Prabhupada and find another so-called living diksha guru. More
bluntly and to the point, your team's preaching has destroyed most the
children of ISKCON, and it has bankrupted and ruined ISKCON as well. In
short, first of all your team aided and abetted the process of assaulting
the children physically by forcing them to worship child molesters as their
diksha gurus, and now you are still attacking the children of ISKCON with
your psychological warfare "reject Srila Prabhupada and find another guru,"
and it is working quite nicely.
Nobody wants your "post-samadhi, posthumous, non-living guru" as your team
INSULTS Srila Prabhupada. "My guru is a dead carcass, he has no potency to
give you anything, go to another mission and find someone else who is
living." Alright, and that has destroyed ISKCON. You tossed everyone
overboard in search of someone, anyone, as long as it is not Srila
Prabhupada. Rocana, you have now got everyone madly looking for another
guru and not Srila Prabhupada. You and your big football blocking reformers
like Bhagavat dasa are still acting as blockers from getting Srila
Prabhupada's mercy. And the result is, the poor children who were barely
able to survive your team's physical assault policy and process are going
down under your next wave of assault, psychological attacks.
Well, your team squashed them, and so now you proudly claim a victory? You
totally blocked many or most ISKCON children from getting Srila Prabhupada
as their guru, you still do that up to today, and as such you totally
ruined their future and the future of ISKCON thereby, and we were "ranting"
for pointing your incredible wanton destruction of ISKCON? You poured
gasoline on the fire, and killed tens of thousands of spiritual lives, and
that is "the tradition"? Of the Gaudiya Math deviants ....? Rocana prabhu,
with all due respect, the result of your team of "moderate reform devotees"
-- blocking and obfuscation us on the molesting issue, blocking the
children from getting a bona fide guru, was: most of the children were
molested which caused many of them to reject Krishna, and now you are
inciting them to reject Srila Prabhupada further and run off to the Gaudiya
Matha in search of your elusive "living guru" because of your fellows
discrediting our opposition as "rants."
Sorry, we have been bringing to light serious criminal and apa-siddhanta
problems, and how these problems are resulting in a peril to ISKCON and its
children. These issues are not "fanatical rants" -- to the victims. Rocana
prabhu, had your team of "reformers" heeded our warnings early on, probably
many of the children would not have have been starved, beat and molested as
was created by acquiescing with this process. And at least many of them
would have a bona fide guru by now, but your team wants to block the
children -- and empty out ISKCON. Fine, how is that pleasing your guru?
Sorry, our objecting to the mistreatment of children is not "ranting
mantras." Rather those who have attacked our cause celebre issues, the
issues we forwarded, are responsible for aiding and abetting the mess
ISKCON is in, the molesting of children in ISKCON, and the exodus of the
children to find one of your alleged "living gurus." You are madly pounding
the drum for the pied piper of false gurus, and you emptied out all of the
children from your guru's mission, and you are proud of that? Amazing!]
[** RD: That said, I do feel moved to comment on some of the content
Puranjana recently sent me. In the spirit of a swan taking some milk from
the water, I did find some of the points he's made to be valid, once I
filtered out of the vociferous mantras he's become so renowned for. In my
opinion and the opinions of many others - including his associates who
believe in the Rtvik position - Puranjana prabhu's fanatical verbiage is
found to be quite counter-productive.]
[PADA: It depends. Some of of the molested children write to us quite angry
at PADA, because they think we were not giving stronger "fanatical
verbiage." And folks like Sanat and Mukunda indeed apparently want to kill
us because they think we did not protest strongly enough, never mind they
were servants of the molester regime themselves. Now, out of frustration
that there is no process of managing or justice in ISKCON, they actually
wrote that they want to see all of the molested kids "die in a blood bath"
as well, to really give Krishna a bad name! And even worse, they are now
saying that Srila Prabhupada was somehow made the leader of a branch of the
illuminati, whatever all that is about? So this is merely one sample of
millions of kinds of madness your policy of elimination of any managing --
in favor of the tyranny of bogus diksha gurus -- has created.
In sum many folks think we should have taken vastly stronger measures. Of
course they are really more angry at you Rocana, for your party's
acquiescing with the child molester worship process for such a long time.
At least we at PADA took some measures to help. In any case, our views are
not considered as "fanatical rants" by the most of the "reasonable and
sane" folks we have met in the media, police, Federal Marshalls, Mendocino
Sheriffs, lawyers, judges, CBS TV news, the courts, Rolling Stone Magazine
writers, New York Times writers, Time magazine writers, San Francisco
Chronicle writers, Fresno Bee writers, Kathy Kuspy of West Virginia
Newspapers, Dr. Stilson Judah, Jai Narayana Singh of Houston's Hindu Radio
hour, many Brijabasis, Brijabasi doctors, the Gainseville FBI, officer Joe
Sanchez and officer Tom Westfall, audio forensic experts, poison forensic
experts, child molesting experts, local police, and thousands of PADA
friendly devotees and thousands of molested children, in sum everone else
is in the universe "a fanatical ranter" -- except Rocana and your pals?
Ummm, Rocana this hardly seems likely. Rather the above folks all agree
with PADA when we are pointing out that -- by not following the ritvik
system (managers) -- and instead making an artificial "worship of
pedophiles as gurus" process ... the children are in peril. PADA's idea of
a lawsuit also saved some children from committing suicide, and all this is
"counter-productive"? To whom? The police EVEN TODAY agree that PADA
editor's life in STILL in peril, all because we advocated for the children.
Why are children's issues, or any of the other issues we have forwarded
over the past 30 years, "vociferous rants"? Rocana you never explain this
for the past 30 years? The real question most people ask us is: why didn't
people like Rocana join PADA in complaints over these very serious criminal
issues which afflicted ISKCON and its children? "What rock were these
(Rocana) guys hiding under," that was the question we got from CBS
television. Frankly we do not have a good answer for the media, the
molested children, or anyone else, do we Rocana prabhu?]
[** RD: Still, one has to admit that he is one of the pioneers of the
protest movement. He claims he goes back to 1978. While I can't verify
that, as the saying goes: you can tell the pioneers by the arrows in their
back. Puranjana has, from a psychological point of view, probably been
severely impacted by his experiences, particularly when his good friend
Sulocana was murdered. Not surprisingly, Puranjana took great objection to
my "Church of Rtvik" paper, as did his Rtvik colleagues. Somehow or other,
he came up with the uniquely strange conclusion that in the distant past, I
was adversely influenced by Kundali dasa.]
[PADA: As we recall, Kundali was saying that Srila Prabhupada cannot be the
current sampradaya guru / diksha guru / present parampara link, and you had
agreed with him formerly, and you still say Srila Prabhupada is not the
current diksha guru. Hence you are still a de facto disciple of the Gaudiya
Matha. You said our idea that Srila Prabhupada is the current link is
"Christian Church idea" and hence you wrote "The Church Of Ritvik" -- de
facto citing Kundali's "rants." Ravindra Swarupa also says that the current
worship of Srila Prabhupada is like the Christians who worship Jesus citing
your "Ritvik Church." So you have directly or by innuendo cited Kundali and
even Narayana Maharaja. Yet your paper's title gives you away, anyone who
worships a person like Jesus (or Srila Prabhupada) is part of some mundane
"Ritvik Church." Meanwhile, your "Church" has no guru, at least we have
one! Meanwhile, a newer devotee claims that you wrote that the new people
who worship Srila Prabhupada are your God brothers, i.e. he is their diksha
guru. You seem to be all over the map here? One day you wake up and you are
on our side, the next day you are going to bat for the idea that the
acharya is the posthumous dead guy, what is up?
Anyway you and Kundali are wrong, Srila Prabhupada says it is fine that
Lord Jesus is worshipped by priests, and you personally told us you agreed!
And so you are attacking Jesus' worship, and our idea that we need to
worship Srila Prabhupada. You and Kundali said our idea of worship of Srila
Prabhupada "is not in the tradition, this is Christian Church idea." Yet it
is Srila Prabhupada who gave us the ritvik order. And why can't people
worship Jesus through ritviks, Srila Prabhupada says this is bona fide, you
say Srila Prabhupada is "not in the tradition"? Why constantly attack your
own guru's ideas as bogus -- your own guru? Rocana, you seem to be saying:
"Srila Prabhupada is the founder of the bogus church of ritviks, he must
have forgot to make some nice living deviants for us to worship, OK we have
some, the Gaudiya Matha folks that Kundali worships." "My guru says he will
be worshipped after he departs, my guru is a -- Christian"! What!]
[** RD: Frankly I've never agreed with Kundali's position, and particularly
his methodology, although I hosted him for a few days in my home. We had
some interesting discussions… when I could get a word in edgewise. I've
also published a fair bit of Kundali's material in the past in
HareKrsna.com, and I certainly agree with some of what he has to say. Over
the last ten years he seems to have dropped off the map, so I'm not sure if
his position remains the same today. I can say that he never did convince
me of anything, and that my Sampradaya Acarya position now is not at all
inline with his philosophical conclusions, as I understand them.]
[PADA: Kundali "dropped off the map" because he was saying we need to have
a living diksha guru, and when we challenged him to give us the name of his
living guru, he could not find one. He did the honorable thing and left the
debate because he was defeated. And you have been in agreement with him
saying that rejecting Srila Prabhupada as our diksha guru is "the
tradition." Rocana prabhu, why are you saying that Srila Prabhupada's books
are no longer giving divyam jnanam which destroys sins (diksha)? Is this
not sucking the life out of your own guru, guru mara vidya. "My guru is
impotent, dead, gone, finished," what makes you different from the bogus
gurus? Or Kundali?]
[** RD: Since we're talking of the past and what my influences have been
I'm happy to admit here, as I've done in my paper, just what some of these
influences have been. My association with Yasodanandana dasa, who is a very
close associate of Puranjana's, certainly helped me to sharpen my ideas on
guru tattva, and this association helped me come to some of the conclusions
I have today. The problem I had with Yasodanandana and Puranjana, and that
whole faction of the Rtvik movement, is that when I wanted to
discuss/debate with them some of the philosophical aspects of their
Rtvik-vada, I was shut down and shunned immediately.]
[PADA: You said -- and still say -- we need to have a living diksha guru.
We said, ok great, give us the name of your living diksha guru and we will
investigate his bona fides. You never gave us the name of your living
diksha guru, nor did Kundali. Kundali was at least shamed by our asking him
the question he could not answer, "Who is your current living diksha guru"?
We say Srila Prabhupada is the current living diksha guru, you say that "is
not in the tradition." Then you say: he is the current sampradaya acharya?
You are giving us complex hoops, hurdles, contrary riddles, so the result
is that the children are all running off elsewhere.
The good news is that now you are straddling the fence, you say he is the
current sampradaya link, yet you say he is not the person giving us any
knowledge (divyam jnanam), you just jettisoned his words / vani? Who
authorized you to toss out his vani as "not giving divyam jnanam which
destroys sins (diksha)"? Why are you minimizing your guru, and be warned,
do so at your peril. He said he would live on forever in his books, his
books are thus his current living successor. You say his books are dead,
there is no divyam jnanam (diksha) there, never mind his books initiated
tens of thousands of people already, people who never met him in person.
Really -- don't want to remind you of the fate of people who do this, not
pretty to say the least ...]
[** RD: I was never given the opportunity to discuss the differences I had
with them philosophically.]
[PADA: Wrong. We have asked Rocana hundreds of times to show us, "what is
the specific arrangement made by Srila Prabhupada to conduct ISKCON after
his departure"? Rocana never replied for 30 years! Kundali said we need to
go to the Gaudiya Matha, and that is what the bogus GBC also gurus said.
And so when Rocana was promoting Kundali he began to use Kundali's slogans,
"but worship of Srila Prabhupada is not in the tradition, this is the
church idea" and so on. Rocana has never shown us what are the specific
orders, whereas we have done so in many of our documents. Rocana merely
says that Srila Prabhupada is bogus because he established worship of
himself as the pure devotee for after his departure, and his books have no
potency to give divyam jnanam, so Rocana is de facto recruiting for the
Gaudiya Matha -- as was Kundali.
Rocana!, you have never answered any of our questions for the past 30
years, what more opportunity do you need? Srila Prabhupada said there will
be a Governing Body, and ritviks, and that means he will continue as the
diksha guru because his books will give the divyam jnanam, the essence of
diksha. Now you are sucking the life out of his books! And now that most of
the children were molested, many of them hate Krishna, they have almost all
rejected ISKCON, many are smoking pot, you and guys like Narayana Maharaja
think -- you won something grand?]
[** RD: They, like all fanatics, wouldn't ever consider that what they
believe in has any degree of untruth or could possibly be asiddhantic. As I
make clear in Church of Rtvik, I don't accept their Rtvik-vada position
except to the degree that they emphasize putting Srila Prabhupada firmly at
the center.]
[PADA: Now you are contradicting yourself, (a) we need to have Srila
Prabhupada in the center since he is the current living acharya, yet (b) No
one can be his follower, since then we would be worshipping a departed guru
like the The Church of ritvik -- Christians?
The good news is you are partially citing us. You originally said that our
view, that Srila Prabhupada is the current link, is apa-siddhanta
"Churchianity," yet now you are yourself using our term, that he is the
current link. If Srila Prabhupada is "firmly in the center" and "the
current link" then he is the one who is giving the "divyam-jnanam which
destroys sins" (diksha) not another as you infer. You keep saying there is
some other person who is giving us the pure divyam jnanam which destroys
sins (diksha), so you want to minimize your guru and indeed suck his living
potency out, yet you and Kundali are unable to give the name of your
alleged living person? Either give us the name of your current living guru,
or admit you have none.
You do not have the name of another person who is capable of giving the
"pure divyam jnana which destroys sins" (diksha), and so you are angry that
we exposed you as bluffers. So Kundali has backed off from his bluffing,
that is all. And Rocana's saying that Srila Prabhupada is now the current
link is good, but the link has no potency to give divya jnanam, we need a
living Pope, this makes Rocana the Churchianity person. Rocana has been
looking for his living Pope for 30 years, and he has turned thousands of
people over to the Gaudiya Matha to get a living guru, so Rocana is
Narayana Maharaja's best asset. Again, at your peril Rocana prabhu!]
[** RD: The gist of what Puranjana dasa had to say to me recently is that I
stole some of their thunder, i.e, that I used some of "their" philosophical
points in my Sampradaya Acarya theme. Puranjana points to my use of the
term "Sampradaya Acarya", which he says was first coined by his camp in the
years immediately following Srila Prabhupada's departure. In fact, the term
was coined by Srila Prabhupada himself, not by any of us followers. Upon
keyword searching the early papers published by Yasodanandana and company
that we have in hand, we discover three instances of their use of the term
"Sampradaya Acarya", as follows:
"One of the members of the self-appointed acarya party declared "Who cares
for Madhva and Ramanuja! We are followers of Srila Prabhupada's" sampradaya
acarya and how their new status had to be accepted by all of the other
members of the Acarya's mission."
The Tradition of Debate, Part 3, by Yasodanandana dasa, 1996
"4) changes the sacred Bhagavad-gita purports of the Acarya, Srila
Prabhupada, then what kind of spiritual master is he? Does he truly
represent the pure and original teachings of the Sampradaya Acarya, Srila
Prabhupada? We suggest that such a guru does not represent the original
acarya and any devotee should exercise utmost caution about hearing from
such a person.
…
And sastra has to be understood for its practical application according to
the order of the Sampradaya Acarya, Srila Prabhupada. Thus, it is the duty
of Srila Prabhupada's disciples to act as humble ritvik representatives of
the actual Acarya, Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada is the actual current
link and actual authority for the true followers of the Krsna Consciousness
movement."
Mythology Revival by Yasodanandana dasa, Nov 17, 1994
In the first quotation above, the term "Sampradaya Acarya" was actually
quoted as having been used by an ISKCON authority. In the next two
instances of use, the author certainly refers to Srila Prabhupada as a
"Sampradaya Acarya", but there is absolutely no explanation of what he
understands that to mean. We must therefore assume that he uses the term in
the same way Srila Prabhupada had used it in the past. Aside from that,
there is nothing to characterize a position regarding the Sampradaya Acarya
designation. In my paper, on the other hand, I have offered a great many
supporting statements for my positions, and have approached the Sampradaya
Acarya designation from a variety of angles, both philosophically and
practically. Granted, there may be other papers published by Yasodanandana,
Puranjana or other early Rtviks that I'm not aware of. If so, I trust
Puranjana will call them to our attention.
[PADA: We have all used the terms "sampradaya acharya" and other terms like
"eternal preceptor guru," to put an English slant on things. The point is
that Srila Prabhupada said he would live forever in his books. Rocana
disagrees, saying there is no divyam jnanam in the books, the books are
dead for Rocana. And Srila Prabhupada says his books were and are the
source of the divyam jnanam which destroys sins (diksha), and many devotees
read and became devotees without meeting Srila Prabhupada in person through
getting diksha from his books. Rocana tosses this process out, the books
are going to give divyama jnanam, how bogus, this is what the Gaudiya Matha
deviants said and Rocana is their favorite disciple
Why would Rocana now say his guru's books are not potent any longer, and
join Kundali? You Rocana fellows say his books cannot give the divyam
jnanam which destroys sins, you are the boss of Srila Prabhupada. That is
why we cannot debate you, you are saying you are your guru's boss and you
have sucked all the potency our of his books, his books can no longer give
knowledge which destroys sins (diskah) says Rocana, and his allies such as
Sridhara, Narayana, Bhagavat dasa, Kundali, ad infinitum. And while all the
children were getting molested, Rocana, Sridhara, Narayana, Bhagavat das,
Gaura govinda swami, Kundali etc. were all arguing that our guru has no
potnecy, these folks never rallied together with us to argue over the
molesting issue, trying to get a "reformer" post from the so-called guru
reform, to busy to bother with the plight of the citizens.]
[** RD: As further evidence that I 'stole their ideas', Puranjana also
points to my focus on the List of 32 Acaryas presented by Srila
Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur and Srila Prabhupada, which can best be
described as nitya-siddha shaktyavesa avatars. We all agree that Srila
Prabhupada should be represented and worshipped as just such a personality.
We also agree that Srila Prabhupada should be considered the most recent
representative of this level of Acaryas. In Puranjana dasa's presentation,
however, he claims that this List of 32 only goes back 5,000 years. But if
he looks at the list again he'll see that Lord Brahma is included, along
with other Acaryas who have been existing for uncountable years, back to
the beginning of creation. So while he believes his position is absolute,
Puranjana dasa himself makes mistakes in this regard.]
[PADA: Fine, the point is that either five thousand years or five million
years, 32 guru means there are gaps. You agree, that means you have given
up your idea that there is always a living person, goody!]
[** RD: While I understand Puranjana's wish that he and his Rtvik
associates not be forgotten for their early contribution to the debate, I
think it's clear that there is a gulf of difference between my assertion of
the Sampradaya Acarya position and his own. But at the end of the day, what
does it matter who 'coined the term'? In fact, Srila Prabhupada gets that
honor, himself. So let us busy ourselves in trying to understand who the
nitya-siddha maha-bhagavata Sampradaya Acarya is, rather than waste our
time arguing over who had an idea first.]
[PADA: Rocana, your idea is that the sampradaya acharya is unable to give
divyam jnanam which destroys sins, never mind he said he would live forever
in his books? We are not arguing "terms," we are saying the current link is
the living link, you are saying you have a current link, who is a dead
link, so you are shooting youtself in the foot and confuting yourself.
First of all, you are cobbling together bits and pieces of Sridhara
Maharaja, Kundali, Tamal and who knows what else, and you never give us any
detailed idea of what were the actual orders of Srila Prabhupada, except
you are telling us he is a bogus Christian because he said he would have
some proxies? So you are wasting everyone's time by cobbling together
pieces of speculation.]
[** RD: Puranjana mentions an interesting point on the question of the time
gaps, which Srila Prabhupada himself said we should not be concerned about
when we look at the List of 32 and the lineage. He notes that Krsna Himself
made a point of saying in the Bhagavad-gita that there are time gaps and
that He's come to reinstate the disciplic succession, and He has to come
time and time again to do so. As I've said in my paper, this is essentially
the definition, or one of the aspects of the Sampradaya Acaryas. In many
cases, they did re-establish or reinforce the Sampradaya through various
means, primarily through siddhanta.
Another interesting point Puranjana dasa makes that I agree has some
validity is what he calls "Rtvik through the backdoor". This term refers to
ISKCON's policy wherein they say that if you become initiated by one of
their voted-in gurus, it means that simultaneously one has to develop the
consciousness that they're the property of ISKCON or Srila Prabhupada. So
the disciples have to somehow or other reconcile this philosophical dilemma
and try to figure out where their absolute loyalty lies - with their
supposedly eternal diksa guru, or with the GBC/ISKCON and ostensibly Srila
Prabhupada?
Of course, ISKCON's policy on the guru issue is that they give no
guarantees, even though the guru is given their 'rubber stamp'
authorization, albeit with the disclaimer that they can't guarantee the
guru isn't going to fall down. But in the event they do, the disciple still
has Srila Prabhupada as a 'safety net'. And from their point of view, of
course, you'll still be part of ISKCON, who will strongly encourage you to
get re-initiation… just to hedge your bets. So in a sense Puranjana dasa is
right… this is really a form of Rtvik-ism.]
[PADA: So if the bogus GBC is being forced to admit that the ritvik idea is
best, why cannot Rocana? Why not agree, the disciples belong to Srila
Prabhupada (the ritvik idea)?]
[** RD: Of course Puranjana dasa and his particular camp of Rtviks have
certain distinguishing characteristics when it comes to their preaching of
the Rtvik siddhanta, namely that they like to point to the similarities
between what happened after Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati departed and
what happened in ISKCON after Srila Prabhupada left. Granted, there are
many similarities and some of their points are well taken in that regard. I
haven't made the effort to carefully study Gaudiya Matha history enough to
come to the same absolute conclusions they have, but basically my position
is that in both cases, the Gaudiya Matha and ISKCON re-established the
concept of the diksa lineages, which in itself does not siddhantically line
up with the concept of the Sampradaya Acarya level of parampara. In the
case of both institutions, they didn't make the clear distinction between
the parampara concepts which they were preaching and that of the parampara
being maintained by Sampradaya Acaryas throughout the ages. They did not
emphasize how or why we should make a clear distinction between a diksa
lineage that is branching out from these Sampradaya Acaryas, and the actual
branch or level that is constituted by the Sampradaya Acarya himself, i.e.,
those you find on this List of 32.]
[PADA: Srila Prabhupada makes it more clear, he says that because the
Gaudiya Matha deviants dismantled their Governing Body (de facto ritvik
system) they were "severe offenders, cock roach gurus, hog and dog
disciples, bugs sitting on the King's lap - biting the King, asara, black
snakes, snakes with jewels, rascals, envious, motivated, foolish, and so
on. Why not just cite Srila Prabhupada?]
[** RD: Another aspect of the diksa lineage concept promoted in both groups
of disciples (Gaudiya Matha and ISKCON), is that they made some glaring
mistakes in the sense that they voted in or appointed personalities who in
short order, completely exposed themselves as being imitation or fallen
personalities. These mistakes undermined the whole principle that both
Sampradaya Acaryas tried to establish and arrange to have held in place
during their post-samadhi period -- in other words, the cooperation of the
sadhana-bhaktas under the concept of a GBC, so that their missions would
not be undermined and diluted.]
Puranjana dasa often makes statements I find quite humorous, and the follow
statement struck me as being both funny and accurate. He referred to the
fact that the GBC are now forming a committee to discuss who is Srila
Prabhupada, saying they're: "only just now opening a discussion called,
"Who Is Srila Prabhupada -- Actually"? So they have been imitating him for
30 years, but just now they are trying to figure out, who are they
imitating? "We have been printing counterfeit money for 20 years, maybe we
should try to understand: what is real money, and why is everyone so upset
at our counterfeit gurus"?"
Of course, Puranjana dasa has many themes that he harps on, one of them
being the voting-in of gurus. We both agree this is asiddhantic. That was
also a Gaudiya Matha idea. Puranjana claims that a lot of these ideas --
whether it's voting in gurus or re-initiation -- have been implanted in
ISKCON on account of their association with various Gaudiya Matha
personalities. This may be true. He doesn't give any real evidence one way
or the other. Granted, it is suspicious that this happened in both eras,
but at the same time after the departure of personalities who are
Sampradaya Acaryas or maha-bhagavatas, in our tradition or other
traditions, we see the phenomenon of religiosity replacing pure
spirituality established by advanced devotees. Whether or not that can be
prevented entirely is another matter, because until and unless someone of
siddha status defeats the religionists, it's hard to hold back the tide.
In our circumstances today, we still have an opportunity, as individuals at
least, to make the discernment between what is contaminated siddhanta and
what is the pure siddhanta coming from Srila Prabhupada. So long as we're
ready to seriously study Srila Prabhupada's teachings and be able to humbly
extract from our own consciousness any contamination that has already been
planted on account of impure association, we can develop that degree of
discernment.
Although Puranjana dasa in his presentation tries to avoid it, the real
difference between my understanding and his is essentially the heart of
Rtvik-vada - the concept that we have been given permission by Srila
Prabhupada to actually take diksa initiation from him, post-samadhi. I say
that this concept is not supported by direct evidence from Srila
Prabhupada, nor is there anything in the past teachings of the Sampradaya
Acaryas to support this idea. Nor do I feel it is necessary or absolutely
essential in order to carry on the parampara or Srila Prabhupada's
spiritual mission. According to my position, to be connected to the
Sampradaya is the main point, and to deny or restrict Krsna is impossible.
After all, it's up to Krsna to empower a guru to purely represent the
Sampradaya Acaryas, and to say that Krsna cannot empower someone to be a
diksa or siksa, or to empower them through the heart as Caitya Guru is, in
itself, an asiddhantic concept. You cannot restrict Krsna.
[PADA: Yet Rocana restricts Krishna, he says that Krishna cannot have a
"post-samadhi" repesentative? Rocana says Krishna's words are dead, the
Bhagavat Gita gave thousands of diksha initiations, but now -- Krishna is
dead! Notice Rocana cites his real authority, Mr. Ravindra Swarupa's "post
samadhi guru." Ravindra Swarupa says Srila Prabhupada is posthumous, and
Rocana has picked up his terminology. Wasn't Ravindra one of your dear
reformer pals? "All glories to Posthumous pada, Ravindra Swarupa"!]
[** RD: In today's circumstances, from my personal experience, I haven't
detected anyone that I would consider an absolutely pure representative of
Srila Prabhupada or any of the previous Acaryas. I do admit and concede
that there are a lot of very sincere sadhana-bhaktas who are attempting to
follow the process and understand the siddhanta to the best of their
abilities. And to that end, Krsna is reciprocating with them. Given that I
haven't been traveling extensively over the last ten years, there are
undoubtedly many more such individuals than I'm aware of.
My position is that in this day and age, one of the ways we can protect
ourselves individually or institutionally from going astray is that we
humbly open ourselves up to being challenged by other sincere followers of
the Sampradaya Acaryas. In a spirit of humility, we must be ready to
discuss and defend our position or perspective and be open to the fact that
we have not reached perfection, therefore we may be making mistakes through
contamination. Whether it be hard-core Rtviks, hard-core ISKCON-ites, or
fanatical disciples from any of the various camps that have manifested
today, we don't find this humble spirit. And that goes for Puranjana dasa,
as well. I've made numerous attempts to debate guru-tattva with the Rtviks,
but they have never been willing to engage in a debate with me. And that
includes the Rtvik camp Puranjana and Yasodanandana prabhus associate
themselves with. I have posted a lengthy exchange I had with them regarding
my challenge to debate. Perhaps one day in future they'll come forward and
respond, upholding the Vaisnava tradition of debate that Yasodanandana
himself has so eloquently described in the past.
[PADA: Well thanks, your ideas ruined the whole mission. and you are proud!
Amazing. thanks pd]
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