Ritvik Debate Finally Comes To An End

[Kulapavana]

nice try... the above mentioned SP letter of July 9th 1977 formalized the initiations policy in ISKCON while SP was still on earth and the Sri Vaishnava responses pertain precisely to that time period. Nobody is disputing that period. What is disputed is initiations after SP departure.

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

Though the above acharya's and scholars may not be authorities on Gaudiya Vaishnava siddhanta, their responses do represent the Vedic stance in regards to the possibility of a ritvik acharya.

 

The point seemed to go over your head. Your argument that such a system would be in complete contrast to the Vedic tradition is not at all supported by these acharyas who actually exemplify the Vedic tradition. The real vedic tradition, not the ISKCON vedic tradition.

 

I am not arguing what this letter or that letter instructed, I am dealing with logical arguments and logical flaws.

 

I would still appreciate your response to this:

 

<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); padding-left: 3ex; padding-right: 3ex;" bgcolor="#e0e0e0"> all these things were UNAVOIDABLE under the circumstances of SP's mission in the West. </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <!-- END TEMPLATE: bbcode_quote -->

That's just your opinion. The fact is gayatri diksha has never been given to women by acharyas, but Prabhupada did it. He broke the tradition and started his own tradition that is followed today. This was completely avoidable by simply following tradition, by following his own guru maharaja Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati. He did not follow his guru, he did not follow tradition. Instead he chose to break tradition and start his own tradition.

 

It is obvious that this was avoidable, thus your statement is proven false. Would you care to admit it or go around in circles? These debates can never end because no one admits when they are proven wrong by logic.

 

When defeated start another line of argument and pretend it never happened.

[Kulapavana]

 

That's just your opinion. The fact is gayatri diksha has never been given to women by acharyas, but Prabhupada did it. He broke the tradition and started his own tradition that is followed today. This was completely avoidable by simply following tradition, by following his own guru maharaja Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati. He did not follow his guru, he did not follow tradition. Instead he chose to break tradition and start his own tradition.

 

It is obvious that this was avoidable, thus your statement is proven false. Would you care to admit it or go around in circles? These debates can never end because no one admits when they are proven wrong by logic...

 

yes, that was avoidable, but SP saw that women in the west were different and gave them gayatri to encourage their participation. such inclusion was done from day one and openly discussed many times in SP books and verbal statements. Not so with ritvik initiations after SP departure. Here the record of SP position in this matter is very scanty at best, and does not convince most people, including myself, that indeed - SP wanted such system AFTER his departure.

 

what logic is there in the posthumous ritvik tradition? I see none whatsoever.

[Guest guest]

Nothing that the foolish Ritviks do represents our movement. They publish their own magazine 'Back to Prabhupada' and all the magazine does is blaspheme other Vaisnavas. If they truly represented Vaisnavism, they'd be out there engaging in pure devotional service rather than create a propaganda machine of their own trying to take devotees away from ISKCON (as they did outside Bhaktivedanta manor).

 

They have no clue really!

[Kulapavana]

Most Madhvas dont even see Iskcon as belonging to a legitimate sampradaya, the same with a lot of Sri Vaishnava scholars.

 

and the argument with the appointment of an acharya is a riot: did Srila Bhaktisiddhanta appoint SP to be acharya? did SP need such an appointment?

[Kulapavana]

 

I would still appreciate your response to this:

 

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: rgb(102,102,102) 1px solid; PADDING-RIGHT: 3ex; BORDER-TOP: rgb(102,102,102) 1px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 3ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(102,102,102) 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: rgb(102,102,102) 1px solid" bgColor=#e0e0e0>all these things were UNAVOIDABLE under the circumstances of SP's mission in the West. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- END TEMPLATE: bbcode_quote -->

 

 

In my opinion, it WAS unavoidable given the sentiments in the West. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta would have done the same had he gone to preach in US in the 1960's! he was ready to serve meat in order to attract people to Lord Caitanya's mission. this so called "break" with the tradition inspired thousands of women to join. what did the post humous ritvik system inspire? confusion, divisions, in-fighting and dereliction of duties to the mission... what a fine "addition" to our "sampradaya"....

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

 

yes, that was avoidable, but SP saw that women in the west were different and gave them gayatri to encourage their participation. such inclusion was done from day one and openly discussed many times in SP books and verbal statements. Not so with ritvik initiations after SP departure. Here the record of SP position in this matter is very scanty at best, and does not convince most people, including myself, that indeed - SP wanted such system AFTER his departure.

 

Now you are trying to change your argument after having already established it, which again illustrates why such debates are pointless. When your argument has beend defeated, you change your argument and say "wait, this is my real argument."

 

Let me remind you what you had said. These are your exact words in the first page of this thread:

 

 

"if Prabhupada indeed gave the order on implementing non-traditional ritvik initiations in our movement, than such order in itself creates an apa-sampradaya and should be rejected by devotees loyal to the disciplic succession coming from Lord Caitanya. it is a hugely important issue, without any precedent in our tradition. to think that somehow SP would break away from our sampradaya on such important issue is ludicrous and absurd."

 

"actually, the ritvik arguments are solely based on a sentiment that Prabhupada is not bound by the principle of adherence to the guru, sadhu and shastra in his actions."

 

You argued that:

1) an order against tradition, even by Prabhupada, creates an apasampradaya and should be rejected.

2) Prabhupada would not do something that didn't have a precedent in our tradition.

3) That prabhupada doing something non-traditional in our sampradaya would be ludicrous and absurd.

4) That Prabhupada's actions must all be exactly according to guru, sadhu and shastra (i.e. he cannot innovate himself).

In response I gave six quick examples where Prabhupada did things unheard of in any tradition. There are many other examples if someone sits and thinks it through, but here are the first six that came to my mind:

1) As a sannyasi he crossed the ocean, which is forbidden in scripture

2) As a sannyasi he performed marriage ceremonies for his disciples, something never done in the history.

3) He gave gayatri initiation to women, something never done by any acharya in any sampradaya

4) gave initiation by letter, something never done before

5) gave gayatri initiation by tape recording, again something never done before

6) appointed ritvik priests to initiate on his behalf while living, something no acharya has done

 

Thus all four arguments are clearly defeated. In response, rather than say you were wrong, you changed your argument midway by adding two new subjective conditions:

"all these things were 1) UNAVOIDABLE under the circumstances of SP's mission in the West" and "None of the above mentioned breaks from the tradition go 2) so completely against the vedic principles..."

 

So now your argument is Prabhupada would absolutely never, ever go against tradition... unless it was unavoidable. And what is unavoidable is of course necessarily your opinion of what is unavoidable. Thus to you it is unavoidable for Prabhupada to not perform disciple's marriages, but it is not unavoidable for him to institute a ritvik system. This of course is a completely subjective opinion of what is "unavoidable", something that wasn't part of your initial argument.

And the second subjective condition you added was that Prabhupada would absolutely never, ever go against tradition... unless it wasn't so completely against the vedic principles. Thus now you accept Prabhupada may go against tradition, the shastra, the sadhus and guru, provided it was just a little against the vedic principles. Again, it is a sliding goal post. Of course, what constitutes a little and a lot is again your subjective opinion, something that wasn't part of your initial argument.

 

But even despite this midway change, I decided to address your new argument that these changes were "unavoidable" and therefore alright for Prabhupada to do without, according to you, becoming an "apasampradaya". In response I pointed out that no acharya in the history has given gayatri diksha to women, including Prabhupada's own guru, Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati. Thus Prabhupada greatly altered the system of initiation, greatly diverged from all Vedic tradition, and changed the system of his own guru maharaja. This clearly wasn't "unavoidable", as it could have been avoided by simply following tradition, following shastra, and following his guru. But prabhupada went against these and instead started his own tradition which is still being followed in ISKCON. Thus your second argument, which itself was a moving goal post, had been clearly defeated.

 

In response, what should we expect? Of course, you chose to move the goal post yet again. This time you changed your argument to:

"yes, that was avoidable, but SP saw that women in the west were different and gave them gayatri to encourage their participation."

 

So now your argument is that Prabhupada would never go against Vedic tradition unless it was "unavoidable", or "not so much against the Vedic tradition", but even if it is avoidable, still if it "encourages people to participate" then he would go against the Vedic tradition. Exactly what constitutes "encouraging" is of course your subjective opinion. So to you, being the first acharya to give gayatri diksha to women is "encouraging people", but being the first acharya to start ritvik initiations would not be "encouraging people". Exactly why one is and one is not "encouraging people" is of course based on your personal opinion.

Again I will point out, you have changed your argument three times in this short discussion. Everytime your argument is proven wrong, you alter it to something else. Thus there is no point for me to continue in this.

In these recent ritvik threads I have seen the following:

1) Vijay tries to defeat the Ritvik philosophy by requiring everyone to accept his three presumptions. Those same three ludicrous presumptions were shown to also validate anything including the eating of meat.

 

2) Audarya Lila misrepresents the Ritvik view and then defeats the strawman argument, thinking he has defeated them.

 

3) Pankaja argued in favour of numbers, and provided a list of Swami's who supported his view. Of course he didn't even know the difference between Ritviks and Rochan Das, so he obviously wasn't in a position to comment on their philosophical validity. Again acceptance of his list of Swami's requires one's subjective belief that these people are infallible.

4) Kulapavana argued that Prabhupada would never, ever go against tradition, then subsequently slided his goal post to the side three times to make adjustments when he was proven wrong.

From what I have seen this is how these ritvik/anti ritvik debates always go, and that is one of the reasons we have never allowed posts on ritvik philosophy on these forums. The ritvik supporters insult everyone without following any manners, and the anti-ritviks resort to sentimental arguments and sliding goals.

 

Everyone is free to continue this discussion, but I will withdraw and not participate in these ritvik threads further. You can have the last words. I have only participated in this thread to show that statements like "the ritviks are completely defeated" are ludicrous. Also the idea that they are doing no devotional service is false. The Bangalore temple has distributed more books than any other temple in the world, and this can be confirmed with the ISKCON sankirtan newsletter (I believe the exact figure is 1/3 of ISKCON's worldwide total book distribution, but am not positive on that figure.)

 

[Kulapavana]

these points can be argued in many ways - for and against. ultimately we chose to accept a particular set of views based on our faith and understanding. logic alone is merely a tool for such changes and often what is logical for one person is not logical for someone else. obviously you and me have different views in the area of what is logical, and what is sentiment.

 

1. there is no VEDIC (i.e. written in the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas or Itihasas) examples of post humous ritvik system

 

2. there is no solid proof that SP actually wanted a post-humous ritvik system to be followed in Iskcon - and there is NOTHING about it in his books, where he repeated his core teachings hundreds of times

 

3. as an acharya of GV sampradaya, SP must and does adhere to the CORE teachings of our tradition

 

4. there is NO NEED of any kind for the introduction af a post humous ritvik system into our tradition

[Guest guest]

JNDas,

 

You argue vehemently with those that are opposed to ritviksm. I hope you're not a ritvik as well? Just curious.

 

 

Now you are trying to change your argument after having already established it, which again illustrates why such debates are pointless. When your argument has beend defeated, you change your argument and say "wait, this is my real argument."

 

Let me remind you what you had said. These are your exact words in the first page of this thread:

 

You argued that:

1) an order against tradition, even by Prabhupada, creates an apasampradaya and should be rejected.

2) Prabhupada would not do something that didn't have a precedent in our tradition.

3) That prabhupada doing something non-traditional in our sampradaya would be ludicrous and absurd.

4) That Prabhupada's actions must all be exactly according to guru, sadhu and shastra (i.e. he cannot innovate himself).

In response I gave six quick examples where Prabhupada did things unheard of in any tradition. There are many other examples if someone sits and thinks it through, but here are the first six that came to my mind:

1) As a sannyasi he crossed the ocean, which is forbidden in scripture

2) As a sannyasi he performed marriage ceremonies for his disciples, something never done in the history.

3) He gave gayatri initiation to women, something never done by any acharya in any sampradaya

4) gave initiation by letter, something never done before

5) gave gayatri initiation by tape recording, again something never done before

6) appointed ritvik priests to initiate on his behalf while living, something no acharya has done

 

Thus all four arguments are clearly defeated. In response, rather than say you were wrong, you changed your argument midway by adding two new subjective conditions:

"all these things were 1) UNAVOIDABLE under the circumstances of SP's mission in the West" and "None of the above mentioned breaks from the tradition go 2) so completely against the vedic principles..."

 

So now your argument is Prabhupada would absolutely never, ever go against tradition... unless it was unavoidable. And what is unavoidable is of course necessarily your opinion of what is unavoidable. Thus to you it is unavoidable for Prabhupada to not perform disciple's marriages, but it is not unavoidable for him to institute a ritvik system. This of course is a completely subjective opinion of what is "unavoidable", something that wasn't part of your initial argument.

And the second subjective condition you added was that Prabhupada would absolutely never, ever go against tradition... unless it wasn't so completely against the vedic principles. Thus now you accept Prabhupada may go against tradition, the shastra, the sadhus and guru, provided it was just a little against the vedic principles. Again, it is a sliding goal post. Of course, what constitutes a little and a lot is again your subjective opinion, something that wasn't part of your initial argument.

 

But even despite this midway change, I decided to address your new argument that these changes were "unavoidable" and therefore alright for Prabhupada to do without, according to you, becoming an "apasampradaya". In response I pointed out that no acharya in the history has given gayatri diksha to women, including Prabhupada's own guru, Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati. Thus Prabhupada greatly altered the system of initiation, greatly diverged from all Vedic tradition, and changed the system of his own guru maharaja. This clearly wasn't "unavoidable", as it could have been avoided by simply following tradition, following shastra, and following his guru. But prabhupada went against these and instead started his own tradition which is still being followed in ISKCON. Thus your second argument, which itself was a moving goal post, had been clearly defeated.

 

In response, what should we expect? Of course, you chose to move the goal post yet again. This time you changed your argument to:

So now your argument is that Prabhupada would never go against Vedic tradition unless it was "unavoidable", or "not so much against the Vedic tradition", but even if it is avoidable, still if it "encourages people to participate" then he would go against the Vedic tradition. Exactly what constitutes "encouraging" is of course your subjective opinion. So to you, being the first acharya to give gayatri diksha to women is "encouraging people", but being the first acharya to start ritvik initiations would not be "encouraging people". Exactly why one is and one is not "encouraging people" is of course based on your personal opinion.

Again I will point out, you have changed your argument three times in this short discussion. Everytime your argument is proven wrong, you alter it to something else. Thus there is no point for me to continue in this.

In these recent ritvik threads I have seen the following:

1) Vijay tries to defeat the Ritvik philosophy by requiring everyone to accept his three presumptions. Those same three ludicrous presumptions were shown to also validate anything including the eating of meat.

 

2) Audarya Lila misrepresents the Ritvik view and then defeats the strawman argument, thinking he has defeated them.

 

3) Pankaja argued in favour of numbers, and provided a list of Swami's who supported his view. Of course he didn't even know the difference between Ritviks and Rochan Das, so he obviously wasn't in a position to comment on their philosophical validity. Again acceptance of his list of Swami's requires one's subjective belief that these people are infallible.

4) Kulapavana argued that Prabhupada would never, ever go against tradition, then subsequently slided his goal post to the side three times to make adjustments when he was proven wrong.

From what I have seen this is how these ritvik/anti ritvik debates always go, and that is one of the reasons we have never allowed posts on ritvik philosophy on these forums. The ritvik supporters insult everyone without following any manners, and the anti-ritviks resort to sentimental arguments and sliding goals.

 

Everyone is free to continue this discussion, but I will withdraw and not participate in these ritvik threads further. You can have the last words. I have only participated in this thread to show that statements like "the ritviks are completely defeated" are ludicrous. Also the idea that they are doing no devotional service is false. The Bangalore temple has distributed more books than any other temple in the world, and this can be confirmed with the ISKCON sankirtan newsletter (I believe the exact figure is 1/3 of ISKCON's worldwide total book distribution, but am not positive on that figure.)

 

[Pankaja_Dasa]

(Again, will the parampara stop?)

 

ISKCON devotee: When that happens, is the parampara not stopping?

 

Sri Tatachar: No. What can be done? Srila Prabhupada has not appointed an acharya. The parampara continues through a chain of rtviks.

 

 

[Kulapavana]

 

"Sri Tatachar: No. What can be done? Srila Prabhupada has not appointed an acharya. The parampara continues through a chain of rtviks."

 

Srila Prabhupada ORDERED HIS DISICPLES to goto BR Sridhara Maharaja ('THE',SIKSA GURU of PRABHUPADA). If the devotees then would not have lied to Sridhara Maharaja, then Sridhara Maharaja would have initiated.

 

First of all, the argument with the "appointment" of an acharya is bogus: did Srila Bhaktisiddhanta appoint SP to be acharya? did SP need such an appointment? you become an acharya by your activities, not by a rubber stamp.

 

BRSM had no intention to become next acharya of Iskcon, and that was not ordered by SP. SP gave an option to his disciples to seek siksa from BRSM. SP wanted his disciples to continue the line as gurus in their own right. He said so many times.

[Pankaja_Dasa]

 

SP gave an option to his disciples to seek siksa from BRSM. SP wanted his disciples to continue the line as gurus in their own right. He said so many times.

Gave an option. Prabhuji I don't believe for a second Prabhupada didn't know the actual position of His disiples. He knew perfect, (He was more of a lion then Bhaktisiddhanata!). Do you really believe Prabhupada asked His disciples to goto BR SRidhara Maharaja for a basic sit down! You don't have to be a Guru to preach. Even a child can do it. I heard that.

[Kulapavana]

 

Gave an option. Prabhuji I don't believe for a second Prabhupada didn't know the actual position of His disiples.

 

Prabhu, I started taking siksa from BRSM in late 80's. Maharaja had no desire to become an Iskcon acharya. He simply wanted to help disciples of his beloved Godbrother in their preaching. No need to make more out of it...

[vijay]

 

1) Vijay tries to defeat the Ritvik philosophy by requiring everyone to accept his three presumptions. Those same three ludicrous presumptions were shown to also validate anything including the eating of meat.

 

 

Please refer to my previous post

[Pankaja_Dasa]

 

Prabhu, I started taking siksa from BRSM in late 80's. Maharaja had no desire to become an Iskcon acharya. He simply wanted to help disciples of his beloved Godbrother in their preaching. No need to make more out of it...

 

 

Narayana Maharaja says the same thing.

[Guest guest]

 

None of the above mentioned breaks from the tradition go so completely against the vedic principles of a guru-disciple relationship and principles of sampradayic succession presented in all Vaishnava sampradayas as this so called "ritvik initiations".

 

 

Perhaps the learned Kulapavana prabhu can enlighten us all as to which vedic principles Srila Prabhupada's ritvik system is against?

[Guest guest]

Dear JNDas,

 

Please don't misrepresent me as you have - I think it is rather unbecoming. You picked one sentence from my post and made accusastions about my intentions from that and simply ignored the rest of my post. I responded to something that Theist said. I am not interested in 'defeating' anyone, let alone a strawman. Besides that, it is not a strawman argument at all. Every single ritvik proponent that I have ever had a discussion with is adamant about the fact that no one is qualified. This is said in so many different ways but it is always the same conclusion. The whole ritvik idea stems from the fact that devotees who weren't qualified to lead tried to fill leadership positions. The 'fall down' of such individuals led to an existential crisis for some and to the idea that the safe way it to accept only Srila Prahhupada's leadership. The problem is that everyone thinks they are following Srila Prabhpuada but they all have a different idea on what that entails. You can argue with this if you like, but remember I was in the Iskcon society just after the departure of Srila Prabhupada and I am very familiar with the ideas surrounding succession and their development over time, so I do have some basis for my contention.

 

Logic can only take a person so far - not very far actually. The beginning of spiritual life is to recognize the limits of the mind and reasoning in terms of attempting to approach he who is beyond the limitations of mind and reason.

 

My own experience is what I wanted to share. I freely admit that others may have a different experience. My experience is that the bhakti tradition comes to life for me in the presence of the person Bhagavata. Due to my own conditioned state and the nature of my mind I find that I need a person to guide me through the various sounds found in scripture so that I don't draw the wrong conclusions.

 

I have been reading Srila Prabhupada's books for over 30 years. My own subjective experience is that I feel closer to Srila Prabhupada due to my relationship with his disciple. Bhakti, afterall, is about feeling. It is said that love gives a person a reason to exist - is it logical? Can you debate it with him or her? Will your logic and reason change their feeling?

 

Just to be clear JNDas - I responded in particular to Theist's comment about initiation being a formality or ceremony wherein beads and mantras are given. To be certain, initation is much more than that - it is a bond of love and commitment.

 

Hansadutta, who adopted the ritvik idea conveniently when he no longer had any power or position in the Iskcon institution due to his outlandish non-devotional behavior, once tried to tell me that I was Srila Prabhupada's disciple by dint of the intitation ceremony that he had performed. I told me that I don't feel that way at all but I appreciated his sentiment. For me, what the ritvik idea amounts to is following a ritvik, not Srila Prabhupada. I do not at all agree with the idea that Srila Prabhupada wished to set up such a system of accepting disciples indefinitely. I also find that there are so many different varieties of interpretation around this issue - but I have not found a single devotee who is espousing these ideas that I wish to associate with closely and learn from. That is not to say that these devotees have nothing to offer - it is just that I have not found it uplifting to hear from any of them.

 

So many people are reading books but who has experience? The tradition lives on in the hearts of the devotees. Adjustments will be made in the expression and transmission of the lineage according to time and circumstance. You have pointed out some adjustments that Srila Prabhupada made but I do not agree that he adjusted the system of initiation which you added to your list. I happen to agree with the assessment of Sridahara Maharaja that such an idea is what the Sikhs have adopted and he called such an idea as the death of the sampradaya. I'm not saying that because someone else said such a thing you have to accept it - but anyone should at least objectively look at who is saying what and what their devotional credentials are if they are going to decide to take up 'sides' on such issues.

 

For me, it is all irrelevant. I am not involved with Iskcon or any ritvik group in any way so this type of 'debate' has no bearing on my life really. I am in the same family so to speak so I do share my own subjective experience from time to time. My own subjective experience is that the parampara continues on through the dynamic preaching of those with genuine feeling and that it is not a stagnant dead thing, but rather a living and dynamic force which is vital as well as life affirming and changing. My own experience is that this tradition is very much about love, not law.

[Kulapavana]

 

Perhaps the learned Kulapavana prabhu can enlighten us all as to which vedic principles Srila Prabhupada's ritvik system is against?

 

the vedic principle of a sampradaya being a chain of gurus and disciples, who in turn become gurus. this is the vedic way and it has always been like that. sometimes disciples even start to initiate their own disciples while their guru is still alive (like Srila Bhaktisiddhanta), but in general they refrain from doing so to show respect to their guru (SB initiated while SGDB was alive strictly out of neccessity). this is one of fundamental principles of the transfer of vedic knowledge. and in GV that guru-disciple relationship goes even far beyond a mere transfer of knowledge.

 

I am not very learned, but I see absolutely no need for the ritvik system now, no justification for it through guru, sadhu, and shastra... and no benefit to Srila Prabhupada's mission.

 

SP has cultivated many qualified disciples who can (and DO!) act as proper gurus in our tradition, especially now. I joined 27 years ago and went through a lot of garbage while in Iskcon, but I never bought into the ritvik theory. anybody who thinks people like Kirtanananda would have acted differently if they were called "ritvik guru" as opposed to just "guru" are delusional... you just dont replace one bogus guru theory (zonal acharya) with another bogus theory (ritvikism) and hope it works.

 

ritvikism will die out with Prabhupada disciples.

[theist]

 

Just to be clear JNDas - I responded in particular to Theist's comment about initiation being a formality or ceremony wherein beads and mantras are given. To be certain, initation is much more than that - it is a bond of love and commitment.

 

Talk about misrepresenting someone. Afterall these years...sheesh.

[Guest guest]

 

"at least with the ritvik you get connected to Prabhupada."

 

Here is the danger in my view. They present themselves as able to connect you to Prabhupada via one of their initiation ceremonies. I do not believe that for a second just like Iskcon's intiations are supposed to connect you to the Parampara I don't believe that for a second either. In that I see little difference between them.

 

To be a disciple of Srila Prabhupada one must follow the discipline that Srila Prabhupada taught and that will come to mean facing the internal changes from being a lover of matter into a lover of Krsna and all other living entities. Far more than a name some beads and a ceremony. That is the real connection.

 

 

Sorry Theist - didn't mean to misrepresent you. I copied your entire post that inspired me to repond here. The thrust of what I was commenting on was the idea someone is saying what you said in paragrah one above. I have never heard such a claim from anyone. It led me to think that you were suggesting that there is no substance to initiation. Why do you think Rupa Goswami lists initiation as one of the first and most important angas of bhakti? He doesn't mean faith by that instruction either since that comes before initiation. Clearly initation means commitment from both sides and has no meaning if reduced to an ecclesiatical ceremony. If initiation wasn't important wouldn't he and our other acharyas have said follow the instructions and change your angle of vision and your emphasis in life? My feeling and understanding is that initiation from an advanced sadhaka and hearing instructions from him/her are important to advancement in the bhakti path. More important is to establish a relationship with an advanced vaishnava who you trust and who can guide you in your practice. When faith in that person develops over time the inspiration for initation may arise - but I definitely agree with you (as you have stated on many occasions) that such a thing cannot be forced. It should arise naturally in the heart.

 

Again - sorry about misrepresenting you. For clarity - can you please explain what you meant in paragraph one above if not what I responded to? Connection to the parampara is always there through initiation. I know of no other way of connecting to Prabhupada. Everywhere in Srila Prabhupada's books he gives the clear instruction that one should accept initiation into the Guru Parampara from a bona fide spiritual master. That is part of the discipline your referring to in paragraph two. I'm not into being a quote provider - just look at any book and you'll see the same thing being said over and over again. If this 'formality' wasn't important then our acharyas would not have stressed it as they did and as they do.

[theist]

 

Sorry Theist - didn't mean to misrepresent you. I copied your entire post that inspired me to repond here. The thrust of what I was commenting on was the idea someone is saying what you said in paragrah one above. I have never heard such a claim from anyone.

 

The bold type is a statemnt made by guest in post #8. I wanted to point out the ritviks are not linking anyone up to Prabhupada throiugh their ceremonies. That may be the confusion. I do hear that claim and have heard it for decades.

 

 

 

It led me to think that you were suggesting that there is no substance to initiation.

 

Let me turn it around and express it another way. Substance IS the initiation. Not the ceremony.

 

 

 

... Clearly initation means commitment from both sides and has no meaning if reduced to an ecclesiatical ceremony.

 

Yes exactly. Commitment IS the substance which IS the intiation. And what can a disciple commit to if not to the instructions of the guru?

 

 

 

Again - sorry about misrepresenting you.

 

It's cool. Confusion always comes up with the word initiation. The meaning tends to morph so much it makes talking about almost impossible.

 

 

 

For clarity - can you please explain what you meant in paragraph one above if not what I responded to? Connection to the parampara is always there through initiation.

 

As Above.

 

Yes I agree initiation is not an option, it is vital. But then again how we define initiation may be another thing.

[theist]

 

 

 

divyam jnanam yato dadyat kuryat papasya samksayam

tasmad-dikseti sa prokta desikais tattva-kovdaih

 

<DIR>Learned scholars who are expert in spiritual affairs call the process by which divine knowedge (divya jnana) is given and sins are destroyed diksa (Hari-bhakti-vilasa 2.9, from Visnu Yamala)

</DIR><DIR>From one thread by Kulavanna. I had forgotten where it was.</DIR><DIR>This is the only definition of diksa or initiation that concerns me.

</DIR>

[Guest guest]

Since someone went to the trouble of removing two of my posts on this thread and thereby discounted any contribution I tried to make I am requesting that you also remove the other post I made and any by JNDas where he refers to that post or to me by name. I really don't care why you removed my contributions - but since you took the trouble to do so I would appreciate it if you wiped the slate clean - kind of like China you know - filter information for the good of the people and all...

 

Gaura Hari Bol!

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

No posts have been removed.

 

You can find your posts here:

 

http://www.audarya-fellowship.com/forums/895643-post11.html

http://www.audarya-fellowship.com/forums/895718-post42.html

http://www.audarya-fellowship.com/forums/895742-post45.html

 

In the future if you login you can search for your posts by username.

[Guest guest]

 

None of the above mentioned breaks from the tradition go so completely against the vedic principles of a guru-disciple relationship and principles of sampradayic succession presented in all Vaishnava sampradayas as this so called "ritvik initiations".=

 

Srila Prabhupada never had a guru-disciple relationship with thousands of his disciples, simply because he never met them! They were initiated via the ritvik system as early as 1973. This system does not appear in any Vaishnava tradition, as far as we know. So by your logic, Srila Prabhupada should have been rejected for "breaking" tradition!

 

"No. Tradition, religion, they are all material. They are also all designations."

(SP Room conversation, 13/3/75, Teheran)

 

"As Hari is not subject to the criticism of mundane rules and regulations, the spiritual master empowered by Him is also not subjected."

(C.c. Madhya, 10.136, text and purport)