The Final Summary

[Guest guest]

Dear Maharaj's & Prabhus, Please accept our humble obeisances. All Glories

to Srila Prabhupada.

 

Since myself and Madhu will be busy on the court case for the next few weeks

we shall not have time to respond to members of this conference as we have

been doing. We just wanted to say thank you for all your questions and

points. We have recieved much encouragement from less vocal devotees,

fearful of reprisals, who say they have found our postings very helpful in

understanding the relevance of Srila Prabhupada's instructions on the issue

of initiation.

 

We have seen nothing on this conference which comes close to the evidence

requested in TFO, and now by us in the high court. There is no direct order

from Srila Prabhupada which states that the ritvik system must stop on his

departure, and that the ritviks (and everyone else) must then turn into

diksa gurus. We have seen nothing close to this. Only indirect evidence has

been offered, and of this nearly all was dealt with previously in TFO over

two & half years ago.

 

Private unpublished (in 1977) letters setting out a law which does not exist

either previously, or in Srila Prabhupada's books or general instructions to

the whole movement, will not convince us any more than they will the court.

The best evidence (Hassan) was only discovered accidently two years ago, and

in any case is only indirect (in that it does not address the ritvik system)

and fails in other key areas as explained previously. Although H.H.JPM had

claimed dozens of such quotes, in the end HS only produced 14 which we

refuted with no counter-response from him. Generally the approach of members

of this conferance has been to simply re-present endlessly points that were

addressed by the IRG already previously. This was pointed out numerous times

to little effect. Some even boasted that they had no intention of even

reading the very position paper they were supposedly defeating. In this way,

through sheer sloppinness and laziness, so much time was wasted.

 

The following points were raised in this discussion, and we feel our

answers have not been refuted:

 

1) No-one has been able to prove from Srila Prabhupada's teachings that the

guru must be physically present at the time of the initiation ceremony. Hari

Sauri prabhu has since accepted the guru only needs to be within the same

universe, and so is very close to accepting our position since Srila

Prabhupada said he remains in the universe until all his disciples are

liberated.

 

2) Although many devotees go on about the ritvik system being unprecedented,

this form of argument is itself unauthorised and unprecedented. Nowhere did

Srila Prabhupada ever teach that a guru's orders can be rejected solely on

the basis that it may not have been given in an identical form previously.

And in any case to prove the system unprecedented requires relevant

historical evidence that is also missing.

 

3) It was argued by Basu Gosh prabhu that Srila Bhaktissidanta's critical

term 'ultra metampsychosis' meant accepting an historical figure as one's

saviour. This we disproved and we heard nothing back.

 

4) Basu Gosh's defence of Pradyumna's observations of the Gaudiya Matha

was also defeated.

 

5) No-one could disprove the fact that diksa is defined as the transmission

of transcendental knowledge from guru to disciple.

 

6) No-one could prove that in all the statements where Srila Prabhupada said

such transmission did not require the physical presence of the guru, he was

only reffering to siksa. The supposition that only diksa relationships

require physical presence was thus never demonstrated.

 

7) Conference members constantly confused the issue of accepting an external

'physical' guru, with the idea that such a guru did not need to be

physically present'. Srila Prabhupada clearly teaches both things, so

therefore the quotes about 'physical' guru must mean what we say or he would

be directly contradicting himself. No-one could refute the point that these

are two entirely seperate issues.

 

8) Although endlessly accused of stopping the parampara, no-one dealt with

our response, that Srila Prabhupada will only remain current for the

duration of ISKCON.

 

9) No-one could refute the fact that current links may remain current for

long periods of time.

 

10) Badra Balaram prabhu had said there are over two hundred quotes where

Srila Prabhupada directly states that he wants his disciples to become diksa

gurus on his departure. Yet he has failed to produce any. He has also just

given new quotes which no-one has ever seen before, though sadly without

references.

 

11) Badra Balaram was also unable to show where Srila Prabhupada ever said

we needed to have the help of a current ISKCON guru to get the full effect

from his books.

 

12) No-one could refute the fact that Srila Prabhupada approved the July9th

letter, and that this rendered irrelevant any talk of how the letter came to

be typed by his secretary.

 

13) Ajamila presented evidence in a way that contradicted the GBC's

understanding of the 'law of disciplic succession'. We then pointed out

where exactly he had contradicted the GBC and he was unable to refute the

point. He then lied to everyone saying that he had not contradicted the GBC.

He then tried to worm out of it by saying he had only contradicted the GBC's

assumption, which of course means he contradicted them.

 

14) Ajamila has used every ill term possible to describe the ritvik system

and those who advocate its re-instatement, yet he described as 'learned'

Mayesvara who has consistently taught that both the ritvik system and the

current guru system should run in parallel within ISKCON. When this was

pointed out to Ajamila he at first denied it with a torrent of

characteristic invective. When we proved through quoting Mayesvara's papers

that we were correct, he then privately tried to get Mayesvara to do a

'U-turn' in order to save face. Mayesvara did not comply and even after all

that Ajamila ended by saying he still thought Mayesvara was learned, and

hence that his ideas were well founded.

 

15) Let it be known that as a result of the above Ajamila supports the idea

that ritvik should run alongside the current guru system within ISKCON.

 

16) Ajamila has no idea what argumentum ad hominem means, since he

constantly uses such arguments, but then denies that he uses them.

 

We could go on and on, but the message should be clear. We were not in the

least convinced or impressed by any of the arguments put forward in favour

of abolishing Srila Prabhupada's ritvik system.

 

Moreover the sheer stubbornness of members merely increases the realisation

that our current course of action in the courts is right and proper.

 

Srila Prabhupada's movement is currently dominated by individuals who are

inimical to his instructions, who cannot hear good advice, and who are set

on a path that would bring ISKCON to ruin eventually. Although our action

may be unpopular with some, we must persue it for the sake of the many.

 

For the time being we shall be debating your great champion Ajamila on

CHAKRA. So we suggest you send him any further points you think will help

him win the debate.

 

ys Adri and Madhu