To whoever is concerned with Iskcon or Gaudiya Vaisnavism

Dear Reader,

Please accept my koti dandavats. Sri Sri Guru Gauranga jayate. Times have been difficult for Vaisnavas after the departure of Srila Prabhupada. The amount of negative news about those who claimed to work purely for the interest of truth and Iskcon kept the faith into the GBC and Iskcon's Gurus in decline. In order to avoid any influence of other Gaudiya Vaisnavas, Iskcon denounced and minimized any and all Vaisnavas apart from their managerial control. Many of both Iskcon's critics and Iskcon's leaders blamed their difficulties on the Gaudiya Math without any substance. They proclaimed Srila Prabhupada to be the only "real" follower of his Spiritual Master. Even though Srila Prabhupada had never made any declaration that after him a different system of initiation would change the way the sampradaya would run, still many people out of ignorance and frustration concocted the post mortal rittvik initiation system.

The reaction for minimizing other Vaisnavas systematically by both the Iskcon leaders as well as their critics caused them to totally forget the common sense of the Vaisnava seva principle. The rittvik concoction took two forms:

1. Some declared that they were disciples of Srila Prabhupada without ever meeting him or receiving diksa initiation from him. Others were given the status of "disciples of Srila Prabhupada" by some disciple of Srila Prabhupada who simply speculated that he may have the right to give Srila Prabhupada's "diksa". 

2. Some received Diksa by a GBC "appointed Guru" within Iskcon. This type of appointment system can be considered a covert rittvik initiation since the GBC claimed the right to authorize or invalidate any initiation executed by their "appointed Gurus". The GBC claimed that their joint criterion was Srila Prabhupadas will coming through them. Their constant changes of opinion did not make them realize their need for help. 

It is shocking to note that the concoction even goes so far as to violate what Srila Prabhupada often pointed out to be the flaw in Christianity; a divine master of the past ending the disciplic succession. Sikh Guru Govind Singh was also concocted in the same way. Otherwise in our Brahma-Gaudiya Sampradaya, we have not experienced any Acarya changing the disciplic succession into a rittvik system.

Much has been written about this topic. I will try to remain as brief as possible. Reasons why the rittvik system is wrong, concocted, misleading and unnecessary:

1. Service to the Sadhus is the key to please Krishna. If there is a real Sadhu who is qualified to be served, we will accept him as our Siksa Guru. Gradually he may become our Diksa Guru. That can only be decided between the aspiring disciple and the initiated Vaisnava in physical absence of his Guru. This is the Law of the disiciplic succession. The Guru will appear by his own self-effulgent activities. No doubt members of the Bhagavat parampara protect all aspiring new members of the Vaisnava family. To assure all divine promises anyhow the Chaitanya Guru in the heart of everyone carries the full responsibility. If a Vaisnava, not fully self-realized and who has not yet realized his spiritual body, is requested to give initiation by someone we should consider the following aspects:

He would accept such a person in his heart on behalf of his Guru. He would see his Guru coming to him through that person to push him to surrender and to serve. He would feel himself disqualified and therefore recommend to the aspirant some other Vaisnava in whom he has full trust and serves him as well. He would consider himself a Pancharatric Guru who delivers the technicality of Diksa but who always glorifies and points to the Bhagavat Parampara Gurus such as Srila Prabhupada for full guidance through books, etc.

He would accept the aspirant only because he cannot see any qualified Vaisnava available in the locality who would have time to dedicate to this new Vaisnava soul. (From what I have heard from pure devotees, fully realized Vaisnavas will feel just about the same). 

2. Diksa and siksa are really of the same importance. If there would be nobody capable of giving Diksa we could also stop all classes and just propose to listen to tapes of Srila Prabhupada or to take initiation from a computer with the Folio installed.

3. Serving real Sadhus is the way to make advancement. Srila Prabhupada wanted all his disciples to:
-Give classes as often as possible.
-Write about Krishna.
-Initiate tens of thousand of disciples and expand the family of the Bhaktivedantas.
-Become learned in the philosophy.
-Become pure devotees.
-Never offend other Vaisnavas, what to speak of his Godbrothers.
-Be meek and humble.
-Not waste one penny that belongs to Krishna.
-Be always transparent in personal and financial aspects.
-cooperate in a fair spirit with all in order to avoid centralization which stifles the individual challenge
-Let other local people manage to let them grow in their devotional dedication.
-open a temple anywhere, but never close them
-Distribute books in such a way that people will appreciate the Vaisnavas.
-never to be diplomatic or hypocritical.
(What has happened to all these wishes of Srila Prabhupada? Some of his disciples started to violate his teachings and abuse his institution for profane purposes and thus created a disaster in the whole world.)

4. Your Sadhu is someone who is more advanced then you and who sincerely tries to please his spiritual master. If you trust in him and serve him happily, you may also want to become his disciple. To declare this transaction to be against the will of Srila Prabhupada is a big offense to the faith of the new devotee.

5. Post-mortem rittvik initiation teaches that there is no one to trust to take initiation. Why should any one trust their idea or speculation? Their amounts of twisted interpretations of Srila Prabhupada's last letter, last "will," talks of Tamal Krishna and memories of some individuals are ridiculous in the light of the real evidence. Guru, Sastra, and Sadhu are real evidence. They must coincide with each other to work or to be taken seriously. 

Guru: He never made that point previously to the letter where he appointed living Rittvik representatives. He never announced a big change in the future, but rather said, "Everything important I put in my books." There is not one quote in his books announcing a rittvik Acarya System. 

Sastra: There is no example in the Sastras of any ritvik Acarya system. There is even guidance how to behave when a Guru deviates, including the guidance to take shelter under another Vaisnava such as in that case by Narahari Sarkar. No book even speaks of the possibility to take Diksa from a post mortem ritvik representative .

Sadhus: Unfortunately the "Iskcon only Sadhu" proponents have not had the chance to realize that they made themselves and Srila Prabhupada indirectly look like fools. Gaudiya Vaisnava Sadhus, of which there are too many names to list them all, all denounce post-mortem rittvik to be a total concoction going against the very spirit of the Sampradaya.

6. No real diksa means that the ritvik representative may be shameless in his personal life and still post as ritvik Guru. Even if his personal life is a good example, Srila Jiva Goswami and Srila Prabhupada condemned this type of powerless, institutionalized, ecclesiastic initiation in their writings.

7. Iskcon temple presidents in India and other places joined the post-mortem ritvik idea in order to save themselves from the crazy GBC-appointed Guru system which has caused Iskcon and thus Srila Prabhupada uncountable losses over the years. We can sympathize with their desire to save million dollar projects from the weakness of some American offender of all Vaisnavas who does not even follow his initiation vows. Even this problem could easily have been resolved had iskcon accepted Srila Sridhar Maharaja's proposal to maintain the principal temples of Srila Prabhupada separate from individual Guru management. The exchange of individual abuse and deviation for siddhantic deviation and speculation will make things only worse.

8. The post-mortem rittvik concoction will further the terrible spirit of losing faith in individual Vaisnavas. The reaction will be that no one will trust anyone. We should accept a Vaisnava on his capacity to inspire love in us, speak, and live the truth. That capacity is not under the authority of anyone else. Vaisnavas cannot start a new initiation system as the ritvik followers propose, nor can they prohibit or oblige anyone to take initiation from anyone else.

Let them be satisfied that there is such a thing as the pancharatrik Guru who guides souls to higher teachings and higher Vaishnavas. If they do not do so, or do not recognize the importance of the Bhagavata Parampara, they will fall down. Their fate will be the same of the institutionalized Gurus, Zonal Gurus, Guru Bhogies or Guru Tyagis. We want to avoid all that calamity. This is why I humbly request all serious followers of Srila Prabhupada, whether initiated by him or not, to accept the siddhanta of Guru, Sastra and Sadhu and to pray for guidance from the Supreme Lord.

If I may, let me present a proposal to save what is left of Iskcon. 

Let the leaders of Iskcon conduct a sincere meeting in Mayapur and invite all those concerned plus all the senior Acaryas of the Gaudiya Math to attend. Let us compose and present all the questions we have been disputing over the years and let the Acaryas answer the questions in written form. Then, distribute all the answers to every delegate present. Then hold three days of 24 hours Kirtan in the presence of all delegates, after which, each delegate will give a written answer to which of the answers are acceptable to them by their own hearts command and by Guru, Sastra, and Sadhu. Ensure to invite the Post-mortem Rittvik followers as well as all the preachers outside of Iskcon who belong to Srila Prabhupadas family. You may want to prefer to invite only those who follow the four regulated principles at least. Then count which answers have received the most popular response. Finally, hand those responses to the GBC body to implement within three days. This way we may be able to save the unity of the followers of Srila Prabhupada.

I would also propose that the Brahmins of every GBC zone elect three additional most trusted members of their zone to come to Mayapur together with the non elected GBC to make sure the local devotees of each area have representatives of their need and conviction in all the GBC meetings with full voting power. Additionally, every temple president should come with two more elected members of the local temple congregation. Otherwise, not all members in and outside of Iskcon will accept that really sincere people were involved in the voting of the solutions for our divine family in the service of Srila Prabhupada. Let us test our brahminical power of discrimination. Are we all together capable to serve Srila Prabhupada or not?

Please excuse me for daring to offer such proposals. It is my duty and I hope to see better days for the Vaisnava world by this effort.

daso smi,