The officiating-acarya system with regular gurus & their disciples

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Krishna Kirti Prabhu writes:

 

> The obvious problem with that is, if we accept this idea that the Absolute

> is not absolutely appearing on the lips of a non-uttama guru, then why

> should we even consider listening to him? For example, I might say

> something about shastra--it is Krishna's words. But if my understanding

> (due to my inferior advancement) is not proper, my interpretation will

> misinform you. Then, because you have a incorrect understanding, your

> activities based on that incorrect understanding will also faulty. And

> because they are faulty, you will not get the desired result.

 

This argument is completely invalid. Whatever you say the Absolute appears

absolutely only on the lips of an completely unalloyed devotee i.e an uttama

adhikari. One may be repeating Krishna's or guru's words as it is but one

may not have realization. Simply repeating like a parrot is not enough. That

is why only the pure devotee can fully give us the Absolute Truth because he

has realized the Absolute Truth.

 

upadeksyanti te jnanam

jnaninas tattva-darsinah (BG 4.34)

 

The self-realized souls can impart knowledge unto you BECAUSE THEY HAVE SEEN

THE TRUTH. (part of the translation).

 

Whatever level of advancement one has to simply repeat what he has heard

from his guru. So even if one is a less advanced devotee, if he repeats

nicely, we hear from him & surely get benefit and Prabhupada instructed us

to do so that's why we are doing it. But even in this repeating process, one

will most effective, when he speaks with complete realization i.e a words of

a pure devotee.

 

WHEN IT IS CHANTED BY A *PURE DEVOTEE OF THE LORD IN LOVE, IT HAS THE

*GREATEST EFFICACY ON HEARERS, AND AS SUCH THIS CHANTING SHOULD BE HEARD

FROM THE LIPS OF A *PURE DEVOTEE OF THE LORD, SO THAT *IMMEDIATE EFFECTS CAN

BE ACHIEVED. (Srila Prabhupada in Chp 6, Topmost Yoga System).

 

I do not know why KK prabhu has missed such a simple & basic principle of

Krsna consciousness and is giving arguments against this principle. The

principle is that the potency of the Holy Name depends on the level of

purity & realization of the chanter. There are hundreds of quotes of Srila

Prabhupada on this.

 

> But that is not to say that the

> absolute truth is not fully appearing on the lips of even your kanistha or

> madhyama gurus.

>

> For example, if I tell someone that Krishna is God (paramesvara), then how

> is my instruction faulty? Is it tainted? Is it somehow "impure"?

 

The instruction is perfect but it will impregnate the heart of the disciple

to the extent of the purity & realization of the teller and also the

sincerity of the listener.

 

> This is where the difference lies between the realization of the various

> grades of devotees, gurus, etc., is in the capacity of devotee. Take

> Dhruva Maharaja's mother, for example. She is a simple woman, not learned

> in shastra, but her instruction was nonetheless perfect: "Only Lord Vishnu

> can help you, you must approach Lord Vishnu."

 

Actually your example proves exactly the opposite of what you are going to

prove. Suniti insrtructions on their own were not enough for Dhruva for

God-realization because Suniti was not on the highest platform. She just

showed the way. Dhruva had to take instructions from an uttama like Narada

Muni to be able to see Lord Prsnigarbha face to face. Both Narada Muni &

Suniti gave more or less the same instructions but the mantra from the lips

of Narada Muni had the ultimate effect.

 

> Other examples of pure devotees who were not uttama adhikaris are Tapana

> Mishra and Chandrashekhara. Srila Prabhupada clearly describes them as

> kanishta adhikaris, yet he also describes them as great devotees. They

> are personal associates of the Lord. As such, they are 100% in touch with

> the Lord. But why are they kanistha adhikaris?

 

> "Although a kanistha-adhikari also cannot tolerate such blasphemy, he is

> not competent to stop it by citing sastric evidences. Therefore Tapana

> Misra and Candrasekhara are understood to be kanistha-adhikaris because

> they could not refute the arguments of the sannyasis in Benares. They

> appealed to Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu to take action, for they felt that

> they could not tolerate such criticism although they also could not stop

> it." (CC Adi 7.51 purport)

 

This is a highly innappropriate example. Please do not take everything on

face value & commit offenses against nitya-siddhas. Prabhupada is just

trying to make a point here. In BG 1.29, Prabhupada says that Arjuna was

overcome with material fear and this is the material conception of life. But

we know Arjuna is an eternal associate of the Lord and was put in such a

bewilderment so that the Lord can speak the Gita for the benefit of all the

living entities. Similarly Tapana Misra & Candrasekhara being the eternal

associates of the Lord are playing the part of kanishtha-adhikaries so that

the Lord can perform the pastime of converting all the Mayavadis into

Vaisnavas, which anyway only the Lord can do.

 

> This is the difference between a kanistha, a madhyama and an uttama. All

> three classes of Vaishnavas can be pure, but their knowledge of shastra

> (and hence ability to explain them) is different. That means that gurus

> who are in the lower stages may not be able to conclusively answer all

> queries of their disciples, or successfully answer strong challenges from

> the atheists.

>

> In practical dealings, this may mean that a disciple who does not get a

> conclusive explanation on a troublesome issue might just fall away, or

> that if an atheist challenges our preacher in a public place and wins,

> then all those who are listening will consider the atheist right and the

> devotee wrong and hence go down the wrong path. Hence, it can be said

> that the direction given by the kanistha and madhyama gurus is

> insufficient.

>

> But, as pointed out above, insufficient does not mean that what

> instruction they CAN give is not the 100% absolute truth. I may say, "You

> should offer all your food to Krishna", and you might challenge "Why?"

> Now, where is the impurity in this instruction? It is pure, and therefore

> it is 100% representative of the absolute truth. But my capacity to

> explain it is limited.

 

No, the capacity is also limited and the spiritual potency in the

instruction of a less tha 100% guru is also limited even though the

instruction is as per sastra & sadhu. SBSST told SP on Radha-kunda, if you

ever have money, print books. Since it came from the lips of the pure

devotee it carried the full potency of the Lord and was bound to be

fulfilled and not otherwise.

 

> If we accept a radical (absolute, 100% :-) interpretation of

> "insufficient", that the kanistha and madhyama gurus are truly unable to

> deliver their disciples (or deliver anyone, just one person), then that

> would contradict Srila Prabhupada's statement that a kanistha or a

> madhyama adhikari can become a guru, because "guror na sa syat", one

> should not become a guru unless he is able to liberate his dependents.

> Therefore, this radical interpretation of "insufficient" is incorrect.

>

> Considering these points, that although a non-uttama guru is limited in

> his ability to speak on shastra, what he CAN speak is still 100%

> representatvie of the absolute truth, and, therefore, the absolote truth

> also appears on their lips.

 

This is complete speculation. Please quote sastra for this statement. Kindly

read NOI carefully, Prabhupada clearly says in NOI:

 

"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 understood that they cannot advance very well toward the

ultimate goal of life under his insufficient guidance. Therefore a disciple

should be careful to accept an uttama-adhikari as a spiritual master."

 

Prabhupada says that insufficient guidance does not mean his ability to

speak on the sastra but his inability to ensure the advancement of the

disciples toward the ultimate goal of life i.e back to Godhead. If the

madhyama or kanishtha guru is 100 % representative of the Absolute Truth and

the Absolute Truth appears 100% his lips then why does Prabhupada instruct

us to be careful to accept an uttama-adhikari as our spiritual master.

According to you, just so that we can quote sastras better. This is

nonsense. Please stop making these kind of interpretations.

 

I repeat as I have established at the very beginning of this message that

the Absolute appears absolutely only on the lips of a completely unalloyed

100 % devotee i.e an uttama adhikari. I can quote many verses to prove this.

Trivikrama Maharaj quoted an essay by SBSST establishing this.

 

>This is true because if whatever they say is

> not 100% representative of the absolute truth (mixed with some maya), then

> you would never be able to make advancement, because your devotional

> practices based on their instructions would be intrinsicly misguided.

 

That is why Srila Prabhupada says:

 

"A person who is liberated acharya and guru cannot commit any mistake, but

there are persons who are less qualified or not liberated, but still can act

as guru and acharya by strictly following the disciplic succession."

 

Note that Prabhupada mentions that such a non-liberated guru & acharya

should be strictly following the disciplic succession to be able to guide

the disciple. So there is no question of misguiding if the less than 100%

guru is strictly following the disciplic sucession. Ofcourse such a guru

cannot also guide 100% as we have seen above.

 

> What we are advocating is that for someone to properly represent the

> absolute truth, the minimum qualification is that he must conform to

> qualifications laid out in Nectar of Instruction verse 1. Then you have

> some ability to save someone, deliver them from the cycle of repeated

> birth and death, even if you are not an uttama-adhikari.

 

Please quote sastra for all this interpretations. You seem to go on making

statements completely off the sastra.

 

> Again, your ordinary life guard, although he is not the world's champion

> swimmer, still has the ability to save you if you are drowning. Of

> course, there may be some situations where only the world's greatest

> swimmer can rescue someone before it becomes too late, but the ordinary

> lifeguard is still useful. And you will still have the utmost honor for

> him when he does save you.

 

I would say that the less then 100% guru is that lifeguard who knows

swimming but has yet not reached the shore. So he can help the drowning man

by holding him up and swimming with him but reaching the shore is not

guaranteed because he himself has not is trying to reach the shore. Whereas

an expert swimmer is an uttama-adhikari who has come from the shore itself

and can not only lift up the drowning man but also can take him back to

Godhead (shore of the material exsistence).

 

> Assessing gurus according to their disqualifications can be very

> subjective and unreliable. As conditioned souls, it is our propensity to

> find faults in others, therefore, what we consider to be the

> disqualification of someone else may not be factual.

 

Rupa Goswami in NOI and Bhaktivinoda Thakura in HNCintamani says that one

should distinguish between a kanishtha, madhyama & uttama and act with them

accordingly otherwise one's spiritual progress is checked. Prabhupada had

described the same things about uttama, madhyama & kanishtha gurus in NOI

purport. You don't have to do assessing 24 hrs a day for 365 days a years

and for as many years you live that my guru is what. Actually this assessing

is to be done before taking initiation. (Therefore a disciple should be

careful to accept an uttama-adhikari as a spiritual master.SP in NOI)

This is required in ISKCON. The aspiring disciples should be educated about

the qualities of an uttama-adhikari guru and the difference between uttama,

madhyama & kanishtha gurus. Just like if one goes to purchase 24 carat gold

in the market, one should the exact characteristics, identification &

symptoms of the 24 carat gold otherwise he will be cheated.

 

A disciple may agree to knowingly accept a madhyama-adhikari as his guru in

the absence of an uttama because he feels the need for personal guidance at

every step but he does so with knowledge about the position of his guru, so

he is not bewildered afterwards. If one has not done so before initiation,

after initiation, he should not take a magnifying lens for trying to find

out whether his guru is kanishtha, madhyama or uttama. He should not try to

judge each & every action of his guru. This will be an offense. An uttama is

easily detectable because he is self-effulgent according to Srila

Prabhupada. Madhyama & kanishtha gurus can be identified as ones who commit

some or more mistakes resp. and how strictly they follow their own spiritual

master. It is not so difficult to understand. After taking initiation, the

disciple becomes duty-bound to respect, serve & worship his guru even though

he may be a madhyama or even a kanishtha, according to his position. And he

should keep his ears & eyes open for an uttama siksha guru according to

Narhari Sarkara Thakura. This kind of discrimination is not at all

offensive, infact it is required as told by the acaryas. Ofcourse we

diffenciate on the madhyama-adhikari platform because we have to act as

preachers. Because uttamas don't discriminate. They feel lower than all.

 

> That is why

> I object to what has been proposed as a "demphasized guru system" (past

> words from Nayanaranjan Prabhu, and also, aparently, mooted by Maharaj)

> because it is just contrary to the natural vaishnava way of doing things.

 

Actually Trivikrama Maharaj and me have come to the same conclusion

without taking any help from each other. I came to know HH Trivikrama

Maharaj's ideas only when this thread started but I had already dicussed

this with KK prabhu about a year and a half back in ISKCON India N & D.

 

> And as I pointed out before, there is the example of Lord Caitanya's

> dealings with Ramachandra Puri. Why was Lord Chaitanya not relating to

> Ramachandra Puri as according to Ramacandra Puri's level of spiritual

> advancement?

 

Sometimes Lord Caitanya used to respect RP, sometimes neglect him. And if He

respected him as guru because of him being His guru's godbrother, he never

accepted any guidance from him.

 

> Therefore, I consider this "demphasized guru system", even on the plea

> that a guru is not an uttama adhikari, is not in line with the teachings

> of our acharyas. What it will do is encourage devotees to find faults,

> and thus develop avaishnava qualities like fault finding, because, by the

> very nature of this proposed system, you have to assess your guru's faults

> and worship him accordingly--according to what he is not. Bhakti Vikas

> Maharaj's assessment that it could lead to creating a culture of "hindu

> family priests" with whom we only maintain a formal relationship and have

> no trust in is therefore very realistic.

 

In fact the present system that less than 100% gurus can transmit 100&

knowledge, is leading to fault finding etc. etc. Because you expect them to

give 100% Krsna prema but your hopes are belied because you see faults.

Then you feel cheated. And then you become a Rtvik.

 

I may not be able to contribute more on this very important discussion

because of very very tight printing schedules here and I am completely

overburdened here.

 

Your servant,

Nayana-ranjana das