Where the Rtvik People Are Wrong Again
by Jayadvaita Swami
Bombay, March 1998
Two years ago, when Krishnakant Desai and Yaduraja Dasa came out with their supposed refutation of my paper “Where the Rtvik People Are Wrong,” I was more amused than annoyed. Their arguments, I thought, were so bad that hardly anyone would take them seriously.
I was naive. Some people have taken them seriously, and been bewildered.
Still, I wasn’t going to waste time on a further response. Rule One for dealing with fanatics: Don’t. But recently my respected friend His Holiness Giridhari Swami earnestly requested me to respond. So I said, “Ok, I won’t write a paper, but I’ll give you some arguments, and you can do with them as you like.”
So I scribbled out some arguments (ok, I typed them in WordPad). And by the time I was done, I thought, “Well, all right. Might as well go ahead and publish the scribbles.”
So here they are. I apologize for the lack of polish—sometimes the rtvik people are referred to as “they,” sometimes as “you,” and so on. But in one sense I think this is the right form. Graffiti does not deserve to be answered by Sanskrit poetry.
If at the end of reading this paper you’d rather quit reading papers, leave controversies aside, and go back to reading Srimad-Bhagavatam and chanting Hare Krsna, I will consider these scribbles something of a success.
Hare Krsna.
Jayadvaita Swami
Bombay, March 1998
Part 1
This paper has two parts because I wrote it pretty much in two sittings. Throughout, I give a quote from the supposed refutation of “Where the Rtvik People Are Wrong,” followed by a response.
QUOTE:
“We shall use the term ‘Multiple Acarya Successor System’, or M.A.S.S., when referring to your favoured method of continuing the parampara - . . .”
RESPONSE:
Straw-man argument. The focus of my paper is that the rtvik theory is bogus. The details of how the parampara should continue is a subject my paper doesn’t deal with. So they are dragging in a red herring (a fish we shall run into several times in the course of their paper).
QUOTE:
“According to your analysis we are supporters of the ‘hard rtvik doctrine’ with a subtle modification (underlined):
“Srila Prabhupada should be the only initiating acarya for ISKCON, for as long as the society is extant. All members of ISKCON should, in our humble view, aspire to act as instructing spiritual masters, or siksa gurus.”
RESPONSE:
J Swami identified only three flavors of rtvik theories. But fertile is the mind, and infinite are the possibilities for concoction. So here we have a fourth. And other flavors could surely be invented. Baskin-Robbins, here we come.
(NOTE: After going further down in the paper, we find that their supposedly subtly different theory—shall we call it the “semi-hard” theory?—is really not different from the “hard” one. But that’s ok, even if you don’t have a different flavor, no harm in advertising that you do.)
QUOTE:
“All members of ISKCON should, in our humble view, aspire to act as instructing spiritual masters, or siksa gurus.”
RESPONSE:
A very humble view indeed. Here’s Krishnakant Desai, not even initiated, and Yaduraja Dasa, a second-generation devotee, advising Srila Prabhupada’s disciples, including GBC men and sannyasis and Srila Prabhupada’s most senior devotees, how they should aspire to act. Very humble indeed.
As Srila Prabhupada said, “Our Krishna Consciousness movement is based on complete fellow feeling and love, but there is a word maryada which means respect which should always be offered to the Spiritual Master and elderly members.” (Letter to Jayapataka, 17 April 1970)
As Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu explained (Caitanya-caritamrta, Antya 4.130 -131):
tathapi bhak ta-svabhava—maryada-raksana
maryada-palana haya sadhura bhusana
“[I]t is the characteristic of a devotee to observe and protect the Vaisnava etiquette. Maintenance of the Vaisnava etiquette is the ornament of a devotee.
maryada-langhane loka kare upahäsa
iha-loka, para-loka—dui haya nasa
“If one transgresses the laws of etiquette, people make fun of him, and thus he is vanquished in both this world and the next.”
And (166):
maryada-langhana ami na paron sahite
“I cannot tolerate transgressions of the standard etiquette.”
But I suppose that this must be an emergency. Srila Prabhupada’s philosophy has gone to the dogs (his senior disciples—woof! woof!), and only brave souls like Krishnakant and Yaduraja can save it.
Great. But if you’re wrong and you’re really just violating etiquette and committing aparadhas, may Lord Siva and his legion of ghosts have mercy on your wretched and miserable souls.
QUOTE:
“Anyone wishing to initiate on their own behalf should do the honourable thing and form their own institution.”
RESPONSE:
Among the devotees serving as gurus in service to Srila Prabhupada, how many have expressed a wish to initiate “on their own behalf” anyway?
Again, here our friends have defeated only their own straw man.
QUOTE:
“The type of ‘spiritual master’ Srila Prabhupada constantly encouraged all his disciples to become, was siksa, not diksa.”
RESPONSE:
An authoritative statement from the Krishnakant Samhita.
QUOTE:
“This is clear from the purports to the ‘amara ajnaya guru hana’ section of the CC: It is best not to accept any disciples’. (CC.Madhya Lila 7:130)”
RESPONSE:
They chose a great purport but the wrong quote. This one would have been better:
[T]here is a class of sahajiyas who think that these activities [making disciples and writing books] are opposed to the principles of devotional service. Indeed, they consider such activities simply another phase of materialism. Thus opposing the principles of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, they commit offenses at His lotus feet. They should better consider His instructions and, instead of seeking to be considered humble and meek, should refrain from criticizing the followers of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu who engage in preaching.
Apart from that: It’s best not to accept any disciples. That’s why Srila Prabhupada accepted 5,000 of them, right?
QUOTE:
“To kick off there are two basic assumptions in your paper which we feel are seriously flawed. The first of these is that p.s. rtvik, by definition, means the end of the disciplic succession, or guru parampara. This is a false assumption.”
RESPONSE:
My paper doesn’t assume this at all. In fact, it makes clear that according to the “soft” rtvik doctrine, the parampara system is supposed to continue, as soon as one or more “self-effulgent acaryas” appear on the scene.
It would be nice if our friends would argue against the assumptions I made, not the ones I didn’t.
QUOTE:
“ISKCON will only last for 9,500 more years. Compared with eternity 9,500 years is nothing, a mere blip. That is the time period in which Srila Prabupada shall remain the current link within ISKCON. “
RESPONSE:
So their doctrine is now clear. It’s not the “hard” rtvik doctrine “with a subtle modification.” It’s simply the unmodified hard rtvik doctrine, as defined in my paper:
Srila Prabhupada is the only initiating spiritual master for all ISKCON devotees, and he shall continue to be so forever. Acting as rtviks on his behalf, certain disciples may initiate new devotees, who then become not their disciples but his. ISKCON shall follow this system, and only this system, forever.
Ok, “ISKCON shall follow this system forever” means “as long as ISKCON exists.” But that’s obvious, isn’t it? Well, I guess for guys who need to be told that “henceforward” need not mean “for all eternity,” figuring out that in this context “forever” means “as long as ISKCON exists” might come as something of an intellectual breakthrough. Congratulations on your satori, men.
BY THE WAY:
Nearly all the rtvik people I’ve met have tried to sell me on the “soft” rtvik theory (or the “hard/soft” one), in which pure devotees sooner or later reappear and the disciplic succession continues.
Those rtvik people get no help from Krishnakant. In fact, he’s their opponent. As our previous paper showed, the “hard” and “soft” brands of rtvikism are mutually exclusive. If one is true, the other must be false.
So even if Krishnakant’s arguments were strong enough (which they’re not) to prove that his “hard” rtvik theory is right, they’d also prove that the “soft” rtvik theory is wrong. So either Krishnakant is right and the soft people are wrong, or I’m right and both he and they are wrong. Either way, the “soft” rtvik theory is wrong.
(The “hard” one, of course, is wrong too.)
QUOTE:
“Previous acaryas have remained ‘current’ within the parampara for hundreds or even thousands of years. For example Srila Vyasadeva.”
RESPONSE:
You picked a great example, didn’t you guys?
According to a well-known verse, Vyasadeva is among several ancient persons still alive even today. “Some of the sages, saintly persons, are still living. Still living. They are tri-kala-jna. They have no past, present, future. When this whole universe will be annihilated, then they will go to Vaikuntha or spiritual world personally. So Parasurama, Vyasadeva, and many others, they are supposed to be still living.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam lecture, Los Angeles, 25 September 1972)
Even more to the point:
Regarding parampara system: there is nothing to wonder for big gaps. Just like we belong to the Brahma Sampradaya, so we accept it from Krishna to Brahma, Brahma to Narada, Narada to Vyasadeva, Vyasadeva to Madhva, and between Vyasadeva and Madhva there is a big gap. But it is sometimes said that Vyasadeva is still living, and Madhva was fortunate enough to meet him directly. In a similar way, we find in the Bhagavad-gita that the Gita was taught to the sungod, some millions of years ago, but Krishna has mentioned only three names in this parampara system—namely, Vivasvan, Manu, and Iksvaku; and so these gaps do not hamper from understanding the parampara system. We have to pick up the prominent acaryas, and follow from him. There are many branches also from the parampara system, and it is not possible to record all the branches and sub-branches in the disciplic succession. We have to pick up from the authority of the acharya in whatever sampradaya we belong to.” (letter to Dayananda, 4 December 1968)
That does a lot to support the posthumous rtvik doctrine, doesn’t it?
QUOTE:
“The second point we need to urgently address is your ‘regular vanilla’ concept. If there is one feature which most distinguishes diksa transmission in our guru parampara, it is that it is almost entirely devoid of regularity. . . .We feel the ‘regular vanilla’ frame is drastically incomplete, and hence potentially misleading.”
RESPONSE:
The “plain vanilla” they’re so unhappy about is merely a statement, in the plainest possible terms, of Srila Prabhupada’s basic teachings on the subject of parampara, the teachings His Divine Grace repeated again and again and again.
In the rest of their paper, our friends will devote an inordinate amount of effort to trying to pierce holes in those teachings, by coming up with “exceptions,” “irregularities,” and whatever else they can scrape up.
In this way, they will take Prabhupada’s teachings—clear, simple, and standard—and try to turn them into something equivocal, complicated, and full of ifs, ands and buts. “Potentially misleading” indeed!
By the way, I said “plain vanilla,” not “regular vanilla.” “Plain” as in “simple,” “clear,” “unadorned,” “easily understood.” They change it to “regular vanilla” so that they can play their little word game of contrasting “regular” with “irregular.” Ho hum. Are we having fun yet?
QUOTE:
“According to you the regular form of diksa involves a guru teaching his disciple everything he needs to know about Krsna Consciousness. The disciple cannot just enquire philosophically from the guru, he must personally approach and serve him as well - (we are not sure if you mean this service and approach must be to his physical body, one to one. If so that was certainly not Srila Prabhupada’s modus operandi - many of his disciples never met him physically at all). After the guru leaves the planet, the disciple is connected to him largely through his indebtedness and is immediately free to act as a diksa guru, initiating his own disciples.”
RESPONSE:
Step one in attacking what JS said: Change it.
Step two: Attack the changed version.
“According to you the regular form of diksa involves a guru teaching his disicple everything he needs to know about KC.” Well, that’s not quite how I put it, is it? Where are you getting this from?
“The disciple cannot just enquire philosophically from the guru, he must personally approach and serve him as well.”
Is that also supposed to be “according to Jayadvaita Swami”? (Hmm. One must surrender to the guru, enquire from him and serve him—those of us who’ve been at least through the new bhakta program probably recognize the verse that idea comes from.)
“(we are not sure if you mean this service and approach must be to his physical body, one to one. If so that was certainly not Srila Prabhupada’s modus operandi - many of his disciples never met him physically at all).”
Of course you’re not sure, because, it seems, you’re looking for some sort of hidden meaning in what JS wrote. JS meant what he said, that’s all. Why are you unsure whether JS means that the service “must be to his physical body”? Because that’s not a topic the JS paper is talking about.
“After the guru leaves the planet, the disciple is connected to him largely through his indebtedness. . . .” Again, you’re replacing what JS actually said with something of your own concoction. Or reading into his words something he never intended.
Well, that’s not surprising, is it? For our friends, this seems to be the regular stock in trade: Take an author’s words, screw your own meaning from them, and then misrepresent your screwed-up version as being what the author intended.
Well, maybe they can get away with that with Srila Prabhupada, because he’s no longer physically present to protest. But, unfortunately for them, this time the author is still physically on the scene, and here’s what he says: “Krishnakant and Yaduraja, you’ve misrepresented me. What I really said and what you say I said —what I intended and what you say I intended—are entirely different. You’re full of prunes.”
Free advice: Next time you want to misrepresent an author’s intended meaning, do it the way you did with Srila Prabhupada: Wait till he’s no longer physically around to say you’re wrong.
What JS actually said:
The genuine disciple feels everlastingly indebted to the spiritual master and continues to serve him forever. In this way, even when the master leaves this world, the master and disciple are connected.
The author’s own explanation: “Yes, the spiritual master and disciple are connected by that feeling of indebtedness. But, more important, they’re connected by service. The disciple who sincerely serves the spiritual master is always connected. If you have a problem with that, tough beans.”
“After the guru leaves the planet, the disciple is . . . immediately free to act as a diksa guru, initiating his own disciples.” Well, look in the essay again: JS didn’t say that either.
Again, the strategy: Modify what the author said, then attack the modified version.
QUOTE:
“Perhaps we are in deeper trouble than you thought.”
RESPONSE:
Yes, we certainly are.
You’ve now completely misrepresented what JS described as “plain vanilla,” and you’re going to proceed to tear apart the misrepresented version. And some people are going to take you very seriously, not realizing that you are leading them into deep doo-doo.
QUOTE:
“The very first example you give involves interplanetary diksa, (Bhagavad Gita 4.1).”
RESPONSE:
The authors here begin to argue—seriously!—for interplanetary diksa. “We. . . know that as a Mahabhagavat Srila Prabhupada is at least as powerful as demigods like Iksvaku. So transferring or transmitting diksa to receptive disciples should present him no difficulty at all, from whichever planet he may presently reside.”
Interplanetary diksa—does my memory fail me?—is not a course of action Srila Prabhupada recommended. But our authors are very bright and creative people. So why not? Hold onto your hats, ladies and gentlemen! You’re in for quite a ride.
QUOTE:
“[Interplanetary diksa] seems to be slightly more mystical than mere feelings of ‘indebtedness’. . . “
RESPONSE:
The authors are to be commended for this astute observation.
QUOTE:
“If you really do believe 4.1 is an example of ‘regular’ diksa then maybe we are not so far apart after all. [Some people say] that off-world diksa transmission violates sastra. And yet by using 4.1 as your only sastric example of the parampara you imply it is quite the thing to do.”
RESPONSE:
Huh?
I start off quoting the standard verse from Bhagavad-gita, and by the time KK and YD are through with me, I’m implying that people should seek diksa from gurus on other planets. Wonderful!
QUOTE:
“We have observed that violations of ‘regular vanilla’ fall into five basic categories, although we do not deny there could be many others:”
RESPONSE:
Again, the strategy is made clear: Take Srila Prabhupada’s standard teachings and shoot them down by finding diverse “violations.”
QUOTE:
“1) Gaps.”
RESPONSE:
For our friends out there, “Gaps” affords an opportunity to get creative. For those more sober, Srila Prabhupada’s answer to Dayananda Dasa is enough to put the matter to rest.
Note also:
This subject of “gaps”—how Srila Prabhupada dismisses it and how our friends seize upon it—demonstrates a clear difference between what Srila Prabhupada was doing and what our rtvik friends are up to. Srila Prabhupada was in the business of extinguishing needless doubts. Our friends are in the business of igniting them.
QUOTE:
“These [gaps] are all the occasions when an acarya in the parampara leaves, and there is no next link to immediately start initiating. Or the person who is to become the next link does not immediately receive authorisation from his spiritual master to initiate on, or straight after, his departure. For example there was a gap of some twenty years between the departure of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta and the next bona fide initiation in our sampradaya. Gaps of more than one hundred years are not uncommon between members of the disciplic succession.”
RESPONSE:
The logic here is intolerably bad. Srila Prabhupada was initiated in 1933, in the physical presence of his spiritual master. But the fact that he himself didn’t initiate until 20 years later is somehow proof of a “gap,” akin to the supposed gap between Vyasa and Madhvacarya, and evidence for the cuckoo-bird philosophy of post-samadhi rtvikism.
Put in another context, the argument would go like this:
Sons take birth from fathers and themselves become fathers. But sometimes fathers have no sons until 20 years or more after their own fathers have passed away. This is clearly a gap—a “violation”—and it demonstrates that a son need not be born of a father. He can just as well be born of his grandfather.
Right.
QUOTE:
2) Reverse gaps. . . .
3) Siksa/diksa links. . .
4) Mode of initiation. . .
RESPONSE:
The arguments here amount to virtually nothing.
QUOTE:
“5) Successor systems.
“This refers to differing successor acarya systems within our sampradaya. For example Srila Bhaktisiddhanta adopted a ‘self-effulgent’ successor system. As far as we know Srila Prabhupada opted for an officiating acarya system with his books as the successor.”
RESPONSE:
As far as you know. We’re glad you said that.
QUOTE:
“With such abundant variety as this it is a challenge to identify what ‘regular vanilla’ actually means.”
RESPONSE:
In other words: When Srila Prabhupada spoke of parampara, “disciplic succession,” he was speaking of something so complex or so obscured by violations and exceptions that we can barely make out what he meant. Srila Prabhupada gave no plain, standard teaching. The real truth is “tutti fruti”—almost anything goes.
Yes indeed.
Our friends proceed to argue further along this line. The arguments are just more of the same. No need to waste time on them.
QUOTE:
“If by ‘regular vanilla’ you are referring to the general principle of accepting a current link guru who is an authorised member of the disciplic succession, then we are in total harmony.”
RESPONSE:
By now it’s clear you haven’t a clue what I’m referring to.
The rest of your paragraph is just rhetoric. “The p.s.rtvik system allows unlimited numbers of people to approach, enquire and serve Srila Prabhupada, who is just such a spiritual master. The mechanics of how such acceptance takes place may vary according to time place and circumstance, but the principle remains the same. This principle is certainly not compromised in any way by p.s.rtvik.”
Ok, Srila Prabhupada is the siksa-guru of everyone. That’s not compromised by the p.s. rtvik doctrine, any more than it would be by the Telehone Pole doctrine (as long as you accept Srila Prabhupada as your siksa guru, you can get initiation from the telephone pole of your choice). So what? Does that mean the p.s. rtvik thing is legitimate? No.
QUOTE:
“According to the cover of the Bhagavad Gita (1983 edition), which you yourself revised, Srila Prabhupada is the current representative of the disciplic succession. Despite being clearly stated on your own revised book, when we last met, you adamantly insisted in the strongest possible terms, that Srila Prabhupada was in fact not the current representative of the disciplic succession.
“To justify your dramatic shift in position since ‘83. . .”
RESPONSE:
The sales copy on the book jacket (and did Jayadvaita Swami write it, or edit it, or even see it?) is now supposed to be a clear statement of his philosophical views.
QUOTE:
“To justify your dramatic shift in position since ‘83 you invoked the injunction that ‘in order to be a current link the guru must be physically present’.”
RESPONSE:
What our friends dive into after that is an account of a discussion they had with JS, with a batch of arguments about “current link.” Conveniently, our friends are now able to argue against points they selectively remember from a conversation.
But we thought, from their opening words, that they were going to be responding to JS’s paper. In that paper, “current link” isn’t even mentioned.
We don’t blame them. If we had to argue against that paper, we’d look for a way out of it too.
Anyway, here’s what their argument is leading up to. . . .
QUOTE:
“As the current link, it is Srila Prabhupada we must approach for initiation.
[emphasis in original]
“Whether Srila Prabhupada is physically present or not is utterly irrelevant to the transcendental process of diksa, as he made amply clear in his books, in his lectures, in his conversations and letters - time and time and time again:
“ ‘Physical presence is immaterial’, (S.P Lecture 19.1.67)” [etc.]
RESPONSE:
What this amounts to, clearly, is an attack on the idea of disciplic succession. According to the dictionary meaning, succession is “the coming of one person or thing after another in order, sequence, or in the course of events.”
It’s this idea of “sequence” our friends have trouble with. Why should the succession go from Srila Prabhupada’s spiritual master, to Srila Prabhupada, to his disciples, to his grand-disciples, and so on? Why not just directly from Srila Prabhupada to anyone, now or 9,000 years from now?
Thus, what are friends are arguing for is not “disciplic succession” but “disciplic cessation”—an end to the parampara system. Or—to be fair to them—a 9500 year period in which the succession is “put on hold.” Followed, in their account, by the demise of ISKCON and, in short, the utter disappearance of Krsna consciousness.
You see, they’re not arguing that the disciplic succession should end. Just that it should go on hold until spiritual life on earth becomes untenable and such niceties as “disciplic succession” no longer matter anyway.
And that, you see, is what Srila Prabhupada “consistently taught up until 1977.” Got it?
Hare Krsna.
———————————————————————————————-
© 1998 Jayadvaita Swami. You may freely copy and distribute this document, provided you do so keeping it unaltered and complete, with all its components—the introduction, Part 1 and Part 2. Hare Krsna.
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