Official Ramakanta vs. IRM discussion thread

[Guest guest]

Posted by Yaduraja on Jul 10, 2006:

 

Dear Ramakanta Prabhu,

PAMHO. AGTSP!

 

Oh, I beg your pardon, I thought that was your final statement. The fact

that you wish to carry on indicates to me that you are not yet completely

confident that you have proved our position unproven. From my side I was

more than happy to leave things where they were.

 

You write:

 

> I withdraw following statement:

>

> In 1968 Srila Prabhupada did not want to be the sole diksa guru for ISKCON

> for its entire duration.

>

> And replace it with following:

>

> In 1971 Srila Prabhupada did not want to be the sole diksa guru for ISKCON

> for its entire duration. This is confirmed by following:

>

> "Now, they’re competent. They can, not only the swamis, even the

> grhasthas, they are called dasa adhikari, and brahmacaris, everyone can,

> whoever is initiated, he is competent to make disciples. But as a matter

> of etiquette they do not do so in the presence of their spiritual master.

> This is the etiquette. Otherwise, they are competent. They can make

> disciples and spread." (Room Conversation, July 18, 1971)

>

> If you still see a contradiction in my statements and therefore consider

> me defeated, please tell me.

 

I think the fundamental problem we have here is what I said very early on in

our debate. You have not explained clearly your OWN position with regards

initiation within ISKCON as I define below in bold, hence whenever you are

pinned down you blithely shift position and try to carry on as if nothing is

wrong. Enough is enough.

 

The IRM have been very open and straight forward about our position. It was

set out in 1996 by Krishnakant Prabhu in The Final Order, and although the

GBC have had to withdraw their own position paper that TFO set out to

attack, privately admitting it contained ‘lies’, we still stand 100% behind

our position.

 

You, on the other hand, have thus far failed to set out YOUR position, but

have claimed your position is simply that our position is unproven. This is

not good enough. Indeed I think this is your main problem and why you have

to keep shifting your position from day to day as one after another your

arguments falter on the rocks of self contradiction.

 

Before I go any further in this cat and mouse game of trying to pin you down

to a position by which you will stand or fall, I request you to now clearly

set out the following:

 

According to you, Ramakanta Prabhu, precisely HOW, WHEN and WHERE did Srila

Prabhupada authorise the GBC to disband the ritvik system he put in place

just four month before his departure, and HOW, WHEN and WHERE did he

authorise the GBC to replace him as the diksa guru for ISKCON.

 

(You may recognise these as modifications a and b from TFO).

 

I refuse to continue debating you unless you now ‘come clean’ about what

YOUR POSITION is over the above. Also the following is a straw man argument:

> I refuse following stupid arguments:

>

> "Ramakanta conceded that in 1966 Srila Prabhupada wanted to be the sole

> diksa guru for ISKCON in 1966. Therefore, in 1966 Srila Prabhupada wanted

> to be the sole diksa guru for ISKCON for its entire duration."

 

And with regards:

 

> "We do not have to prove our claim because it is a negative. The burden of

> proof of the opposite of our claim is on you."

 

You have agreed that Srila Prabhupada established himself as the sole diksa

guru for ISKCON in 1966. This is the status quo personally set up by Srila

Prabhupada that YOU must prove he ordered to be CHANGED. The burden of proof

falls on you to prove the status quo must change, not on us that it merely

continue.

 

It is completely foolish and illogical to request someone to prove that

somebody did NOT do something. How many more times must i explain this to

you? You must prove he DID order the ritvik system stopped, and his

replacement as the sole diksa guru for ISKCON.

 

As I already explained to you several times, our claim is based on all the

available evidence that is pertinent to this debate. Are you really

suggesting we can stop any system Srila Prabhupada put in place just on some

whim that MAYBE he asked for it to be stopped? Surely you cannot be that

much of a cheater? Anyway we can discuss further these points AFTER you tell

us what YOUR position is in relation to the above in bold.

Many thanks

Ys

Yadu