Guest guest Posted May 4, 1999 Report Share Posted May 4, 1999 > > I am not sure where I got it from. Do you believe that to be false? If > > you believe that a madhyama-adhikari can be an authorized spiritual > > master belonging to guru-tattva, what is that based on? > > It is that, so far, I have simply never seen any evidence that > would confirm something like that, i.e. that only uttama-adhikari is to be > giving initiations in our Sampradaya. On the other hand, I have encounted > several instances where the possibility of even kanistha-adhikari becoming > a guru is an open option. Like: > > "One should not become a spiritual master unless he has attained > the platform of uttama-adhikari. A neophyte Vaisnava or a Vaisnava > situated on the intermediate platform can also accept disciples, but such > disciples must be on the same platform, and it should be undersood that > they cannot advance very well toward the ultimate goal of life under his > unsufficient guidence. Therefore a disciple should be careful to accept an > uttama-adhikari as a spiritual master." > (NOI Text 5) Interesting. I cannot see from this text that kanistha-adhikaris can give initiations, though. > Obviously, an uttama-adhikari is the best. But the other kinds > of are aslo there, they are not rejected as unbona fide. > They are just of an infereior type, but are nevertheless the > factual spiritual events. So how does one know whether a guru is actually authorized or not? According to GBC, it is enough that one has reached a certain age, and has not had a falldown in a certain time period, and that at least 3 GBC's reccomend such a person as being guru. Is that really the way to judge a guru's qualification? I just wonder. My conviction while reading Srila Prabhupada's books has always been that the guru is supposed to be someone really special, a person who can actually give you Krishna. A person who gives you mercy, and who genuinely makes you attracted by Krishna and inspires you to get rid of the impurities in your heart. > When speaking about spiritual master here, Srila Prabhupada's > emphasy is on *guidence*. Not on formal initiation. And in that > regard, as confirmed in the CC, one may have unlimited number of > shiksa-gurus. Sure. > > I know you have been > > checking these things out thoroughly, because I believe that these > > things are also important to you. I hope you can help me with my > > understanding of this basic issue. > > > I think we can help each other, since every of us got a bit of > a valuable understanding that can be exchanged among. This is a basic point in spiritual life, and it would be nice to understand it properly. I am very greatful that some of you who have been active in spiritual life for many more years than me can give your inputs on this. > As known to me, there are certain conditions that give right to > a disciple to reject a guru who deviets from the line of the > Guru-parampara. In ISCKON, a re-initiation is a matter of a > "daily life". Yesterday I sent the Krsna-bhajanamrta to the conferance, and while reading what is the basis of rejecting a guru, I have no doubts what my own conclusions are in that regard. > However, here we are in the field of _personal_ decisions. That is true. The guru-disciple relationship is something very personal. > The re-evaluation of one's own relationships. That is quite > different from finding that, because the initiating guru > felt, therefore all inititations that occured till that moment > were thus proven to be not valid. Are we going now to strip down > all the brahmin-threads and neck-beads from all those devotees > who were wearing them for 10, 15, 20 years? Take these devotees > down from puja services, out from cooking, from giving SB clasess, call > them again with their "karmi" names, and so on. And put them back into > bhakta-classes till they get another initiation from another "bona fide > ISCKON" guru? If the claim is that those > initiatons were not valid, then that's what you got - a couple > of thousands of devotees posing with unvalid beads and brahmana > threads for two decades, while they were all the time never even > validly initiated into practicing KC. Too contradictory. Our > godbrother, Vaidyanath prabhu, has been just accepted as a full > voting GBC man. A bit too high position in ISCKON for somebody > who is to be considered to even never received the valid initiation. Interesting points. I just wonder, if all of these devotees are actually initiated, who is their connection? Is it really so that if a guru falls down, the initiations are still valid if one thinks so oneself? I really wonder about this. They could obviously be connected through siksa from Srila Prabhupada, but brahmin threads cannot be received by a guru who is no longer on the planet. I understand that this is a very sensitive point, but what is actually correct according to guru, sadhu and sastra on this one? > But I certainly may understand your decision to proclaim your > initiation as not valid anymore. After all, it's us who were > left by him. It is the feeling of betrayal that pains, not > really his "proving to be not uttama-adhikari", or fall down. > Anybody in this world may fall down, the chances are all there. > It is rather the surprise that quite some don't fall. True. Thank you for understanding my decision. I also have to admit that I thought that he was an uttama adhikari, which was one of my reasons for choosing him as my spiritual master, and he never really admitted that it was a wrong assumption. That also gives me a lot of pain, and I am sure I am not the only one. Here we worship him as so great all this time, and maybe he knows in heart that it is not so. And I am sure he is not the only one in such a situation in among ISKCON gurus. That fries out a lot of devotees. I know that my wife has been worshipping him and doing so much selfless service and serious sacrifices for him for many years, and I saw how cheated she felt when he just left, "manifesting" that he all the time pretended to be someone he was not. Maybe that is not fair to say, but that is really how it feels. I think we have to observe the effects this has on people. If we look at all the fall-downs of the "big shots" in ISKCON's history (and most of the big shots have fallen), and see how it all felt for the disciples, should we not learn something from that? Is it not to be considered dangerous to take the role of guru prematurely? How many people has to become devestated and heartbroken before we deal with this? As it is now, it is considered a great offence to question someone's qualification as a guru. But what if people can see that a person is not actually qualified? Must we always wait until the guy actually falls before we discuss this? How many percent of all the gurus in ISKCON have fallen down? Is it 50 %? More? Is this not something to be concerned about? > > That does not block me from advancing in spiritual life, though, I just > > have to understand that I have to make further efforts to actually be > > connected. But that is probably so even for those who receive diksa from > > a bona fide guru. > > There is nothing to block one from advancing in spiritual life. > Nothing but one himself. The Supersoul is just next to the soul. > There is nothing else in between the two, but the desire of > the soul. That is all what is needed to advance - a genuine > desire. Then even if the initiating guru leaves you, you are > not left by Krsna, or put back by Him "into the beginning", > having all your devotional service to Him rejected, all > your connections to the Parampara suddenly ripped into the > pieces... Spiritual advancement never goes in vain, of course. But I just wonder if we do anyone a favour by saying that they are still connected with the sampradaya through their presently fallen spiritual master if they are not. If they are, fine, but I have never seen anywhere in sastra that one is still connected through one's diksa initiation if the diksa-guru falls. One can still be connected with siksa, of course, but then that should be emphasized. > But what do you mean with "those who receive diksa from > a bona fide guru"? There are presently some 100 initiating > gurus in ISCKON that are understood to be bona fide. I don't > think, however, that they all are uttama adhikaris. Me neither. > Some may > happen to fall down in future, some may not. And even those > who die "unfallen" (or even as uttamas!) might not been uttama > adhikaris all the time, during their giving initiations (that > means - presently). I don't even think that everybody in ISKCON > is in such illusion to believe that a guru they are taking > initiation from must be an uttama-adhikari. That may be correct. I am personally not desperate to have a diksa guru right now, and I guess I will be careful to accept a person as my guru unless I "am sure" he knows the truth, and not just thinks he knows. Thank you for taking your time to explain me. 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Guest guest Posted May 5, 1999 Report Share Posted May 5, 1999 > > > I believe there has been some further commentation on the list. I find it most > inspiring and chant each name every morning from memory. > > But I also know that in the same Bhagavad-gita Srila Prabhupada has stated > that Arjuna is the beginning of the parampara, yet he is not listed. Also > between some of those gurus listed were all of the mahajanas who obviously > were bonafide gurus. > > I am interested in more info on this also. Must be like a highlights film. Also, it is instructive to note that the list is a siksa disciplic succession and not diksa, as I believe I have been told. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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