The Uttama-adhikari as taught in Purport to NOI 5

[Guest guest]

Dear Mahamantra and others

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

 

We read with interest your report of the current situation in Iskcon Russia.

 

In response I would like to begin by quoting something that Badrinarayana

Prabhu wrote on GBC com recently, I haven't asked him permission to copy

this, but I don't think he will mind.

 

"I know that this is a well worn phrase, but in addition to the above con-

cerns, time is showing that the one real asset we have which the

Gaudiya Math or anyone else does not have, is an institution which

strictly follows Srila Prabhupad's standards, goals, and siddanta.

We can give them Srila Prabhupad's mercy and path and other cannot.

In my opinion, that is the case we should make and live. To the degree

that we blur and dilute that path is the degree to which we pale by com-

parison with the Gaudiya Math, and actually lose our right and mandate to

lead the world, in my opinion.

 

I would also offer that it is not just what we can deliver as an

institution

but in our personal character as well (and I am speaking to my self here

too). What profile we push for our gurus and authorities, without sub-

stance behind it is not going to make a bit of difference ultimately. We

have gurus with ample pomp and circumstance, and they lose disciples

left and right. We have gurus who are modest in their presentation and

who's disciples are completely fixed, happy, dedicated, and loyal.

 

We have had years of demanding respect without necessarily command-

ing it by personal qualities and example, and look where that has gotten

us. The naive, the sentimentalists, and the unbalanced are another thing,

but quality people are not fools; they can see and sense genuine com-

passion and concern for them, they can see renunciation and detachment

from matter, and they will go where they find it."

 

Thank you Badri for so nicely articulating my thoughts on this subject.

 

Our faith is that Srila Prabhupada was the one disciple of Srila

Bhaktisiddanta who got his full unadulterated mercy. What other disciple did

what Srila Prabhupada did?

 

Srila Prabhupada himself said in this regard that of all his Godbrothers he

had come out a "little successful" because " I have strictly followed the

order of my Guru Maharaj".

 

This is the secret of success, so if we want to have any hope of attaining

success then we should follow in Srila Prabhupada's footsteps in this

regard.

Srila Prabhupada told us to cooperate with the GBC and manage our society as

it was being managed in his time. If he had told us to make a program of

regularly hearing from his Godbrothers we sould have certainly done that. I

was there with Srila Prabhupada in the last days, I never heard any such

instruction from his lips.

 

I plan to remain loyal to Srila Prabhupada's instructions and patiently

expect his mercy. If others think they have a faster way to get back to

Godhead then what can we say? We are prepared to suffer their ridicule a

thousand times over, but won't budge an inch in our determination to remain

fixed at the lotus feet of our most merciful deliverer. Srila Prabhupada ki

jai!

 

Your servant

Trivikram Swami