Guest guest Posted May 18, 2006 Report Share Posted May 18, 2006 Hare Krishna, Krishnakant Prabhu, Please accept my greetings. All glories to Srila Acaryadeva and Srila Gurudeva, the most faithful servants of Srila Prabhupada. By glorifying their names we can get the mercy of Srila Prabhupada; by offending them we can only condemn ourselves. You claim: >“Proof 4 as presented in the BTP Special Issue, is derived from the following words of Srila Prabhupada: “The spiritual master must never be carried away by an accumulation of wealth or a large number of followers. A bona fide spiritual master will never become like that. But sometimes, if a spiritual master is not properly authorized and only on his own initiative becomes a spiritual master, he may be carried away by an accumulation of wealth and large numbers of disciples.” >(Nectar of Devotion, Chapter 14)” However, I based my argument on the quote you presented on the Special Issue, namely, “But sometimes, if a spiritual master is not properly authorized and only on his own initiative becomes a spiritual master, he may be carried away by an accumulation of wealth and large numbers of disciples.” Furthermore, your recapped ‘proof’ reads: A. Nectar of Devotion states that when not properly authorised – sometimes the Guru falls. B. Hence, if Guru falls, then he was not properly authorized. C. But all Gurus authorized in exactly the same way. D. Thus all Gurus not properly authorized. E. Ritvik system authorized by July 9th directive remains. Hence, the part of the quote that you claim I am excluding was due to your excluding it in the Special Issue. You quoted Srila Prabhupada beginning with a ‘but’, something you had warned me not to do, yet you did it yourself in your widely distributed Special Issue. So, based on what you wrote on the Special Issue, it does not follow that if a guru falls, the he was not authorized. However, I will admit that if for A you instead use “A bona fide spiritual master will never become like that (that is, “carried away by an accumulation of wealth and disciples”),” then we can write: If guru authorized, then guru will not fall. The contrapositive of this statement (and hence logically equivalent) is: If guru falls, then guru is not authorized. Of course, this is the statement you want, but it does not follow from the quote you cited. You do not have, as you claimed, a biconditional statement. You simply have two conditional statements, namely, 1) If guru not authorized, then guru may or may not fall. 2) If guru authorized, then guru will not fall. Again, notice that you do not need the first conditional statement at all to show B. You simply needed to consider the contrapositive of 2). Therefore, your ‘proof recapped’ should change to: A. Nectar of Devotion ‘states’ IF GURU AUTHORIZED, THEN GURU DOES NOT FALL. B. Hence, if Guru falls, then he was not properly authorized. C. But all Gurus authorized in exactly the same way. D. Thus all Gurus not properly authorized. E. Ritvik system authorized by July 9th directive remains. Now, that point is settled. I will accept B, which was proved *independently* of what you had for A. Notice the simplicity of this argument, just consider the contrapositive of a quote you apparently ignored in your Special Issue. At least be a gentleman and admit that you never had a biconditional statement, as you claimed in your last two messages, although you do get the conclusion you wanted, namely B. Now, before we move on to C, we should address some problems with B. You claim: "There is no other statement from Srila Prabhupada giving the cause of guru fall-down outside of being UNauthorised – that is, nowhere does Srila Prabhupada state that a guru fall-down will occurs as a result of a guru actually being correctly AUTHORISED." Can you prove this claim? Furthermore, can you prove that you know every statement of Srila Prabhupada, even the non-recorded ones? Without knowing every statement, you do not have the complete set of axioms, and therefore you cannot conclusively say that above statement is true. Now, pay attention to the quotes I cited in my last message. That is why they were there. It would be offensive to say that an authorized guru has fallen. If our guru falls, then we should think that it was his lila. That is why I quoted Srila Prabhupada in my last message thus, ******************* 75-05-11. Morning Walk. Perth Devotee (2): So, Srila Prabhupada, isn’t Lord Brahma the original spiritual master in our sampradaya? Prabhupada: Yes. BUT WE SHOULD TAKE THAT IT WAS HIS LILA TO SHOW THAT “EVEN I AM SUBJECTED. How much you should take risk here.” WE SHOULD TAKE LIKE THAT BECAUSE HE’S OUR GURU. We should not take him that he was subjected to lusty desires, but he made a show that “Even I am also subjected.” And he gave up this, changed the body for that. THEREFORE WE SHOULD NOT OBSERVE IF THERE IS A SHOW OF A FAULT OF THE GURU. We should take a different way. [...] You should not imitate them; simply you should imitate their instruction. ******************** Notice that Srila Prabhupada warns us not to see fault in the guru. But that doesn’t change the Vedic fact that Lord Brahma was chastised by Lord Siva for his apparent falldown, even though he was authorized by Krishna Himself. But he’s the acarya of our sampradaya, so we offer our obeisances to him. ********** 70-02-27 Letter to Jagadisa “Regarding your questions concerning the spirit souls falling into maya's influence, it is not that those who have developed a passive relationship with Krishna are more likely to fall into nescient activities. USUALLY ANYONE who has developed his relationship with Krishna DOES NOT FALL DOWN in any circumstance, BUT because the independence is ALWAYS there, the soul MAY FALL FROM *ANY* POSITION or relationship by misusing his independence. But his relationship with Krishna is never lost, simply it is forgotten by the influence of maya, so it may be regained or revived by the process of hearing the holy name of Krishna…” ****************************** We are warned not to see fault in the guru, yet Srila Prabhupada further warns us that *anyone* may fall down. That is the purpose of Lord Brahma’s lila, that ANYONE may fall down. So, even though Srila Prabhupada did something logically equivalent to what you claim in B, that quote must be seen in the context of all his teachings, including these two quotes. Therefore, we cannot proceed to C. At Srila Acaryadeva’s feet, hector ------ On Wed, 17 May 2006 17:41:20 +0530, VSNL wrote > Dear Hector Prabhu, > Please accept MY HUMBLE OBEISANCES. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. > 1) You stated in your last mail to me, that you were "writing to inform you of the end of this debate." Yet 6 days later, you have written again to say that now you are ready to “proceed with the debate”. Also you state in the current mail that what you write now will "finish the debate". So after you get defeated again now, will we really not hear a another peep from you again, or will your ego force you to once again do yet another flip-flop and contradict yourself in a matter of days? > 2) When you began this debate with me, you stated that you would prove my arguments wrong "based solely on deductive reasoning flaws." Then after you got defeated, in your last mail you suddenly realised that deductive reasoning "is not the proper way to understand spiritual matters", and that having tried to use it yourself, you admit the debate was 'all nonsense to which I have been part'. And that this was one of the reasons you were ending the debate. Yet now you have written back attempting to use the same 'nonsense' deductive reasoning to defeat my arguments. > So after you get defeated again now, will we really not hear anymore deductive reasoning from you, or will your ego force you to once again do yet another flip-flop and contradict yourself in a matter of days? > 3) In your last mail you wrote you were ending the debate because "it is wiser for me to avoid falling pray to anger, which might lead to vaisnava- aparadha." Therefore we can only assume that your return to the debate 6 days later is motivated by a desire to fall prey to anger and commit Vaisnava aparadha. Hardly the behaviour of a vaisnava! > 4) You claim that you stopped offering me obeisances "due to respect for those you have offended". But those offences you claim were made by me way before this debate began, and yet you happily offered me full obeisances all the way through the debate until your last mail. Therefore by your own words, you have shown great dis-respect to all those I am supposed to have spent a “substantial part of my life” offending. Hence by your own reasoning you have already committed the Vaisnava aparadha you were supposed to avoid by withdrawing from the debate. > 5) You also claim that you are responding to my proof 4 as presented in "The Final Order". Actually the proof was not presented in the "The Final Order" but the BTP Special Issue, which is a different document. You obviously have a problem concentrating and grasping simple details. > 6) In your last mail you asked me to not "waste your time on preparing a revised edition of The Final Order to make up for these mistakes", and that > "my only advice to you is to devote your energies to discussing Krishna- katha." Yet YOU are more than happy to continue “wasting time” pointing out these same supposed “mistakes”, and are unable to follow your own advice to “devote your energies in discussing Krishna-katha”, having decided instead to once again enter this 'nonsense' debate. > 7) Belatedly, to rectify a breach of etiquette, you have only NOW decided to get authorisation from your would-be guru maharaja for this debate, and even then only when reminded by someone else to do so. Maybe this forgetfulness was due to your being too busy glorifying someone other than your own guru maharaja - namely Gour Govinda Swami. (Note to Hector: Keep this up and you may find your upcoming initiation cancelled. How about spreading around some of this glorification for your actual would be guru - HH Hrdyananda Maharaja!) > 8) You advise that I should change the "focus of Back to Prabhupada to discussing Srila Prabhupada’s lilas, like his lila with Gour Govinda Maharaja." Yet just a few lines previously, you had stated that such a thing would not even be possible, for in regards to Srila Prabhupada's lila with GGS you state that "unfortunately, neither you nor I were qualified to receive the mercy of being present during those most intimate exchanges. Nor are we qualified to receive it now as sound vibration or in written form." So why ask us to discuss something which cannot even be discussed? Thus you are again speaking your usual flip-flop nonsense, only this time it took just a few lines, rather than a few days, for your contradiction to manifest. > 9) You had previously asked your ritvik advisor Madhudvisa Das, in regards to the guru system in ISKCON: "what steps should be taken to correct the mistakes? Also, how would one go about deciding who is qualified to offer diksa so that the parampara is not broken?" > (For the record Madhudvisa Das believes Srila Prabhupada set up a ritvik system for ISKCON, just as the IRM does. He adds however, unlike the IRM, that Srila Prabhupada also wanted his disciples to become qualified diksa gurus, but only by leaving ISKCON and setting up their own mathas in competition with ISKCON.) > Well Hector prabhu, your ritvik advisor has spoken and answered your heartfelt and earnest enquiry. He has told you to reject HH Hrdyananda Goswami as your guru, because, as he states, "if you accept the wrong guru your whole life is wasted", and therefore he states, you should "find a qualified spiritual master." Now that your advisor has answered the question you asked him, will you do yet another flip-flop and reject the very advice you sought out? Or will you for once be consistent and reject HH Hrdyananda Goswami, as advised? > 10) In regards to my proof 4 which you were challenging, you claim that "As I have stated three times already, the original claim in Point 1 was that your purported proof 4 in IRM’s The Final Order: “One guru falls = no Gurus authorised” was not logically sound." Your original claim in point 1, as sent out and read by the whole world, was that proof 4 was not logically sound BECAUSE one could apply it to the Gaudiya Matha. This assertion of yours was of course defeated, and you have made no attempt to defend this defeat. Rather to avoid conceding defeat you suddenly began a brand new debate having abandoned the actual debate you challenged me to, hoping that in presenting a flurry of 'logic' gobbledegook, everyone would forget that the actual debate you had challenged me to - YOU HAD ALREADY LOST. When this diversion did not work, you simply ran away from the debate and claimed you no longer wished to continue. That also did not work, following my stinging and comprehensive rebuttal, and now you have returned again to the debate, trying to camouflage your defeat in the manner just quoted. > From the proceeding 10 points, it is very clear that you really have no idea whether you are coming or going, and given such mental instability, the last thing you should be attempting to do is have a rational debate. (HH Hrdyananda Maharaja could only have asked you to continue this debate due to his not having followed it closely thus far - which is reasonable given his busy schedule - or because he deliberately wants you to be made a laughing stock so he has an excuse to reject you for initiation, given that you have revealed yourself as a No. 1 fan of Gaura Govinda Swami, who, which as anyone who knows the history will tell you, was not exactly a favourite of the GBC or his guru godbrothers). > With such a comedy of errors (or is it more akin to a Shakespearean tragedy?) before we even BEGIN again dismantling the latest new argument you have presented, one has to seriously accept that it would be over-kill to continue and humiliate you even further. Compassion for you may call for me to stop at this point. However I owe a greater responsibility to all the hundreds of persons who are reading this 'debate', to demonstrate to them the gibberish the mind begins concocting when it tries to defeat the words of Srila Prabhupada. In this way you have performed a very valuable service, in that your contradictory ramblings have given everyone further confirmation of just how futile it is to try and defeat Srila Prabhupada's words. > So we come to your response to my comprehensive defence of proof 4 as given in my last mail. You have essentially just repeated what you wrote previously with some additions. I will again comprehensively defeat your argument, as follows: > a) First I will demonstrate from Srila Prabhupada's words how proof 4 is irrefutable. > b) Then I will demonstrate the same proof using a simple Boolean logic truth table. > c) Then I will use the foregoing proofs to once again demolish the statements you have made. > a) Proof from Srila Prabhupada's words > Proof 4 as presented in the BTP Special Issue, is derived from the following words of Srila Prabhupada: > “The spiritual master must never be carried away by an accumulation of wealth or a large number of followers. A bona fide spiritual master will never become like that. But sometimes, if a spiritual master is not properly authorized and only on his own initiative becomes a spiritual master, he may be carried away by an accumulation of wealth and large numbers of disciples.” > (Nectar of Devotion, Chapter 14) > From these statements we can conclude: > a) That an unauthorised guru sometimes falls down (where falls down refers to being carried away by wealth and followers). > Proof: “Sometimes if a spiritual master is not properly authorized and only on his own initiative becomes a spiritual master, he may be carried away by an accumulation of wealth and large numbers of disciples.” > b) That an unauthorised guru sometimes does NOT fall down. > Proof: The word ‘sometimes’ in the statement quoted above. > c) A Bona fide guru NEVER falls down. > Proof: “The spiritual master must never be carried away by an accumulation of wealth or a large number of followers. A bona fide spiritual master will never become like that.” > d) A Bona fide guru cannot be an unauthorised guru, because a Bona fide guru NEVER falls, but an unauthorised guru sometimes DOES fall. > Proof: Combining proven statements a) and c) above. > e) A Bona fide guru is therefore an authorised guru. > Proof: Proven statement d), states that a bona fide guru is not an unauthorised guru, and since ‘not unauthorised’ is simply a double negative leading to the converse, authorised, then if one is proven to *not* be an *UN*authorised, they must be authorised. (Also if both unauthorised and authorised gurus fell, then a bona-fide guru could never exist (since he NEVER falls), as there are only two states of being, unauthorised and authorised, and the bona fide guru could not be either authorised or unauthorised.) > f) An authorised guru never falls: > Proof: Combining proven statements c) and e). > g) If a guru falls, then he was not authorised. > Proof: Combining proven statements a) and f). > h) Any other gurus authorised in the same way as the guru who fell, were also therefore not authorised. > Proof: The definition of the words ‘same way’. > This is a longer drawn-out version for proof 4 than given in the BTP Special issue, which is what you are trying to challenge. I apologise for taking > all these ‘baby steps’, but since you are clearly having mental difficulty, I thought it would be best. Every statement above is taken directly from > the words of Srila Prabhupada, or follow automatically from such statements. It is therefore impossible to refute them, since the statements of Srila Prabhupada are axiomatic, or self-evident truths. > It is because it is impossible to refute the words of Srila Prabhupada, and therefore the proofs which are based on these words, such as proof 4 above, that you attempted to refute it using ‘logic’ gobbledegook, or ‘deductive reasoning’, since the words of Srila Prabhupada cannot be challenged. However the proof above is based on the ‘descending process’ of gathering knowledge since it comes directly from the words of Srila Prabhupada. Your attempts to challenge it however are based on ‘deductive reasoning’, as yourself admitted at the outset in your original ‘challenge’ e-mail where you stated to me that you had “decided to present a challenge to some of your principal arguments, based solely on deductive reasoning flaws.” You further add in your current mail: “Only when Krishna impelled me to purge your arguments and use symbolic logic was I able to see the fallacy.” > So your whole argument is based, by your own admission, NOT on Srila Prabhupada’s words, as Proof 4 is, but on ‘deductive reasoning’ and ‘symbolic logic’. > So this alone should tell you why you have so far been singularly unable to dent this proof – since the proof is based on the descending process gathering of knowledge, and your arguments against it are based on the ‘ascending process’ of gathering knowledge, which in this case is deductive reasoning and symbolic logic, which you yourself admitted are ‘all nonsense”. > However to satisfy you, I shall now present this proof in the form of a simple Boolean logic truth table. > B) Proof Presented as Boolean Logic Truth Table > For the above proof, we can construct the following truth table: > Falls Not Falls > Authorised Guru F T > Unauthorised guru T T > This tells us two things: > a) If the guru does fall, the guru was unauthorised. > b) If a guru does not fall, the guru could be either authorised or unauthorised. > Thus since the truth table tells us that guru falls = guru not authorised, > it follows that anyone else who became guru in the same manner of authorisation, is also unauthorised, > regardless of whether they fall or not, since unauthorised gurus also sometimes do not fall. > Therefore consider two gurus, guru A and guru B. > guru A and guru B became gurus in the same manner on the same date. Subsequently guru A is found to have been ‘carried away by wealth and followers’ – e.g. he marries a follower even though he is a sannyasi and uses ‘guru money’ to fund a new life-style, and leaves ISKCON. >From the > above truth table we can conclude that guru A was unauthorised. Therefore guru B is also unauthorised, having been authorised as guru in the same way as guru A, even though guru B has not yet been ‘‘carried away by wealth and followers”. To see the example come alive, we can substitute any of the 11 zonal acharyas who have fallen for guru A, and any of the 11 zonal acharyas who have not yet fallen for guru B. Since they both became gurus via the same process of authorisation, we can conclude that guru B is also unauthorised even though he may have yet to fall. > C) Applying above proofs to Hector’s statements > Now with the foregoing proofs, let us see how your statements stack up. > You have said, where P = guru not authorised; Q = guru falls: > “If P, then (Q or –Q). > This conditional statement is always true, regardless of the truth values of > P and Q. Nothing further can be logically concluded.” > Here you have correctly applied the BOTTOM HALF the truth table given above, but you have > ignored the top part of the truth table, which follows from the fact that PART of the above > statement – If P then Q is bi-conditional, whilst the other part – If P then –Q is conditional – as is > clear from the truth table. This was already explained to you last time, and having chosen to simply ignore this point, you > again are easily defeated. > You then go on to say: > “The inverse of this sentence is: > If (Q or –Q), then P. > That is, if guru falls or not falls, then guru not authorized. This is what > we get with the out-of-context quote from Srila Prabhupada.” > Again this is incorrect, because since PART of the statement is conditional, the inverse is not logically equivalent, as you yourself > have stated just a few lines later: > “These two statements, namely the conditional and its inverse are not logically equivalent.” > Another classic Hector flip-flop. > Moving on now to your ‘CASE 2’ you say: > “However, you decided to completely ignore the fact that we are changing > Srila Prabhupada’s words by deleting the word sometimes to make the > conditional statement “If P, then Q”. To change Srila Prabhupada’s words to > suit our needs is an even greater offense. I only accepted the deletion to > show you yet another deficiency of the argument.” > This is another flip-flop. YOU are the one who ‘deleted the word sometimes’ not me. > Here is the proof. On May 8th, you wrote: > “While going over your arguments, I realized I had overlooked a much simpler logical flaw that would have avoided much time and words in establishing the truth of point 1, that is, to establish the logical invalidity of your purported Proof 4 in IRM’s The Final Order: “One guru falls = no Gurus authorised.” > You then go on to state what you think is the logical flaw, by giving two ‘cases’, where my proof falls-down, and in ‘Case 2’, you state: > “For the sake of argument, let us ignore the word ‘sometimes’.” > YOU stated this, not me, unless now you have also become mentally confused about whether or not your name is Hector or Krishnakant. > Previous to your deletion above on May 8th, I had only written about how you were defeated in trying to apply Proof 4 to the Gaudiya Matha. It was then to AVOID this defeat, that you suddenly claimed that you had “overlooked a much simpler logical flaw”, and suddenly gave two ‘cases’ to make your point, with one of your ‘cases’ being ‘Case 2’, where you decided to delete the word ‘sometimes’, as quoted above. So to state that that “WE are changing Srila Prabhupada’s words by deleting the word sometimes to make a conditional statement” is just an outright lie, and to then say “I only accepted the deletion”, is a further lie, since you are speaking of a deletion YOU alone made, so where is the question of ‘accepting’ it? > What I actually did, was RESPOND to the argument you made using the deletion to show that it was in any case flawed, and then I applied MY argument to that PART of the statement ‘If P then Q or –Q’ which IS biconditional (i.e. the ‘if P then Q’ part, or the first part of the truth table), for as I say in my concluding statement to the argument presented by me my previous mail: > “Thus in both your case 1 and case 2, you have incorrectly assumed the *relevant part* of the statement in question (If P then Q) is conditional rather than bi-conditional,” (emphasis added) > Thus at NO POINT DID *I* delete the word ‘sometimes’. Rather I simply defeated YOUR argument which YOU made by deleting Srila Prabhupada’s words, and then applied my argument to the first part of the truth table (“relevant part of the statement in question”). The fact that I am referring specifically to PART of the statement (since the word ‘sometimes’ splits this statement into two), proves that I always took the word ‘sometimes’ into account when presenting MY arguments, even though YOU deleted this word. > You then go onto present another argument AGAIN deleting the word ‘sometimes’: > “Nevertheless, even if we commit yet another offense and now add meaning to > Srila Prabhupada’s words, […] Hence, consider the contrapositive of Srila Prabhupada’s > modified dictum (that is, ignoring ‘sometimes’). […] With this reasoning, the result of our deletion > of ‘sometimes’ your purported proof 4 not only collapses, but gives a > conclusion contrary to some of IRM’s conclusions.” > You TWICE state here (highlighted above) that your argument is based entirely on deleting the word ‘sometimes’. But proof 4 is based on > KEEPING the word ‘sometimes’, so you are demolishing an argument which has NOT been presented by myself. > Therefore you are demolishing a ‘straw-man’ argument. This is understandable since you can NOT defeat the > argument presented AS IT IS – but rather must DELETE the word ‘sometimes’ from it. But this word is the KEY to > the proof, since it establishes the TWO parts of the truth table, with one part being conditional and the other being bi-conditional, > which in turn, establishes the proof. > Conclusion > 1) Your ORIGINAL challenge to me, consisted of claiming that Proof 4 was incorrect because it could be applied to the Gaudiya Matha. > You further added also that it was a mistake to consider the first 11 ‘zonal acharya’ ISKCON Gurus as having been authorised in the same manner > as the next 93. You subsequently admitted that you were mistaken in both your points: > “Yes, I did made a mistake when I did not separate the first eleven gurus from the other 93,” > (Hector Rosario, May 4th, 2006) > “It was a mistake on my part to bring up the Gaudiya Matha for not having yet realized the gross logical flaws at the beginning of the purported proof 4” > (Hector Rosario, May 16th, 2006) > So YOUR are defeated comprehensively in the debate you actually challenged me to in front of the world on April 30th, 2006. > 2) To hide this defeat you subsequently began a new debate, giving a completely different argument with which to oppose Proof 4, and then abandoned the debate altogether, only to return. This bizarre behaviour of yours has given rise to 10 acts of self-contradictory behaviour, listed at the beginning of this reply, which you have generated in just 2 weeks of ‘debating’. It is clear from this that you are not mentally stable. > 3) The new argument you have presented to try and salvage your pride from the defeat you suffered in the debate you challenged me to, has also been comprehensively defeated due to: > a) The fact Proof 4 is based entirely on Srila Prabhupada’s words and is therefore irrefutable. > b) The fact that your argument is based by your own admission on the ‘ascending process’ of acquiring knowledge which you claim "is not the proper way to understand spiritual matters” and is “all nonsense”. Thus by your own analysis, you should have been able to predict your defeat in presenting this argument. > c) The fact that your argument ignores that Proof 4 involves BOTH a conditional and bi-conditional statement. > d) The fact that part of argument is based entirely on a ‘straw man’ argument, namely DELETING the word ‘sometimes’ from Srila Prabhupada’s actual statement, even though the proof you are attacking depends on this word. > e) The fact that due to this deletion of yours, you end up losing half of the relevant truth table, once the proof is translated into your ‘symbolic logic’ method of debate. And it is this part of the truth table, which you lose due to offensively deleting Srila Prabhupada’s words, which establishes the biconditional nature of the part of the statement made by Srila Prabhupada, hand in hand with the conditional nature of the other part of the statement, which establishes Proof 4. > Thus from every angle of vision, whether in terms of your actions, whether in terms of Srila Prabhupada’s words, or in terms of your symbolic logic, you dear Hector, have been comprehensively and overwhelmingly defeated. You had stated that if this could be done then, “I will accept you have Srila Prabhupada’s blessings.” Therefore be a gentleman, and at least CONCEDE defeat. > Thank you, > Your servant, > Krishnakant Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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