08/27/98 - 2078

Re: Deepak Vohra's Comments on Sri Rama's Text

USA (VNN) - Reply to Sri Rama Prabhu's statement on Christianity and Sri Rama's response

Dear Respected Maharajas and Prabhus

Hare Krsna! Please accept my humble obeisances at your feet. All glories
to Srila Prabhupada.

I would like to respond to one particular statement made by Sri Rama Prabhu in his article entitled "Ritvik: Obscure & Irrelevant" posted on CHAKRA on August 20th. Point 3 of his article stated that ritvik proponents are "Christianizing Lord Caitanya's parampara." Now, while I am not interested in this letter in going over the arguments for and against the ritvik system (there are plenty of papers that do that!), I do take particular exception to this rather cavalier statement by Sri Rama Prabhu.

This statement is one that is thoughtlessly bandied about ISKCON these days. It seems rather childish, and dare I say it, "obscure and irrelevant", given Srila Prabhupada's clear statements about the position of Lord Jesus Christ as being the spiritual master for the Christians. As I understand it, Srila Prabhupada never criticised Christians for accepting Lord Jesus as one's spiritual master; rather, he criticised them for not strictly following Christ's teachings (e.g. he would often cite the famous biblical commandment "Thou shalt not kill" in condemning the slaughterhouse civilization of the West).

Here are just six quotes which I believe clearly show that Lord Jesus Christ is the guru for the Christians (if I have misinterpreted any of Srila Prabhupada's statements below regarding the position of Lord Jesus, I will of course gladly stand corrected).

(1) "If Mohammed as the servant of God and Lord Jesus Christ is the son of
God, then where is the break of the disciplic succession? After all the
disciplic succession is beginning from God, so how do you find that there
is no disciplic succession?" (SPL to Vrndavana Candra, 19/7/70)

(2) Srila Prabhupada: "....Or the Christians are following Christ, a great
personality. Mahajano yena gatah sa panthah. You follow some mahajana,
great personality..You follow one acarya, like Christians, they follow
Christ, acarya. The Mohammedans, they follow acarya, Mohammed. That is
good. You must follow some acarya..Evam parampara-praptam." (Conv.
Melbourne, May 20, 1975)

(3) Srila Prabhupada: "This is called guru-parampara, disciplic
succession..This is our process. We are getting knowledge from Krsna, the
most perfect. Or you get knowledge from Jesus Christ, that is also
perfect, because source is perfect." (Conv. Germany 19.6.74)

(4) Srila Prabhupada: Actually, one who is guided by Jesus will
certainly get liberation. (Perfect Questions Perfect Answers chapter 9)

(5) Tamal Krishna: Can a Christian in this age, without a Spiritual
Master, but by reading the Bible, and following Jesus's words, reach
the...
Srila Prabhupada: When you read the Bible, you follow the Spiritual
Master. How can you say without. As soon as you read the Bible, that means
you are following the instruction of Lord Jesus Christ. That means that
you are following the Spiritual Master.
Tamal Krsna: I was referring to a living Spiritual Master.
Srila Prabhupada: Spiritual Master is not question of...Spiritual Master
is eternal...[...] As you say that "by reading bible", when you read Bible
that means you are following the Spiritual Master represented by some
priest or some clergyman in the line of Lord Jesus Christ.
(Morning Walk, Seattle, 2.10.68.)

(6) Girl devotee: Is Jesus in the parampara?
Srila Prabhupada: Yes. He says, "there is God. I am son of God". That is parampara. (B.G. Lectures '75)

With respect, I remain

Your servant,
Deepak.

Dear Mr. Deepak Vohra,

Thank you very much for your comments and questions about my text. I kept that statement simple, for I thought our readers would immediately understand its import. For this I apologize.

To get better insight into the totality of Srila Prabhupada's thinking about specific religious movements, you need to make a more complete search for all of his comments. That perspective will be most useful in dispelling your doubts.

Whenever God speaks to a resident of this world, a new disciplic succession is begun. God to Jesus, God to Mohamed, Krishna to Arjuna. How well those successions are maintained is the key to the purity of the knowledge and the ease of understanding it by the sincere bhakta.

For those Christians and others who carefully follow the original teachings of their acharyas, there will be benefits commensurate with their sincerity, purity, faith, sinlessness, etc.

However, the Vaisnava siddhanta on disciplic succession is more rigorous and deeply based: Guru, sadhu, and shastra of the Vaisnavas all proscribe genuine relationships with both diksa and siksa gurus. No one is going to deny Srila Prabhupada will always our primary siksha guru and the Founder Acarya of the ISKCON, the Krishna Conscious Movement.

So where does that leave us with diksa? There are some functions of the diksa guru which are essential for spiritual advancement. The diska guru has responsibility to assign or approve the spiritual work of the disciple. He acknowledges when it is time for brahminical initiation. He must guide the neophyte through the difficult barriers by showing the correct path. If the disciple is sincere and the guru is qualified, the bhakta has a great opportunity to come to pure devotional service by obeying the orders of the guru.

Arguing the shortcomings of ISKCON is not within the scope of this short reply. We must try harder and harder to follow the bona fide path.

Then, what to do if a bhakta has no faith in a diksa guru and just wants to follow Prabhupada and his books, and possibly take instruction from sadhus? Such a bhakta will receive great spiritual benefit by taking shelter of Krishna and Srila Prabhupada. What happens at the time of death? Who can say?

Each of will find out for ourselves our future destination when the time comes. You get what you pay for. The more we are honest with ourselves, the better the result. No one can judge the position of another jiva in this matter.

Your servant,
Sri Rama das
[mailto:sri_rama@earthlink.net]