"By the mercy of the Guru even a dumb man can become a great speaker, and even a lame man can cross mountains." - Srila Krsnadasa Kavirajah Goswami
"All my disciples will take the legacy. If you want, you can also take it. Sacrifice everything. I, one, may soon pass away. But they are hundreds, and this movement will increase. It is not that I give an order, 'Here is the next leader.' Anyone who follows the previous leadership is the leader.... All of my disciples are leaders, as much as they follow purely. If you want to follow, you can also lead. But you don't want to follow. Leader means one who is a first class disciple. Evam param parapraptam. One who is following is perfect."
(Srila Prabhupada, Back to Godhead magazine, Vol. 13, No. 1-2)
This clear instruction tells us that all are authorized as leaders, whether small or large, but one must actually become qualified and do the service. Just as the sun shines upon land and sea equally, without discrimination, so the full mercy is available to all who accept it.
But one must actually BE QUALIFIED to provide such services as diksa guru. ALL are qualified to act as siksa gurus in some capacity according to the degree we repeat Srila Prabhupada's instructions without deviations. And, one who is actually an advanced self-realized pure devotee, he can act as diksa guru, but obviously not by occpying his spiritual master's temple and stealing everything as his own, thus cheating all the Godbrothers and the ongoing initiates and attempting to cheat even the Spiritual Master. He must go out and form his own ashramas and sanga as auxiliary to his Guru's mission, just as Srila Prabhupada did.
The GBC goonda boys erred, in that none was qualified to be diksa guru, but ambition is there, so like unknowing kanisthas, they rubber-stamped neophytes and poisoners and fools and abused real pure devotees. In reaction to this madness, the IRM etc went too far the other way, and now also abuse recent qualified devotees saying none are "authorized" ie where is the papers? But there ARE NO PAPERS!
Srila Prabhupada himself had no written authorization. He is the example setter. He had a general spoken authorization. So as IRM specificaly calls for some vague unprecedented written authorization, where is the precedent for that? I have never seen such a thing mentioned or called for anywhere in any of the Vaisnava literature, except someone's recent imagination.
Did Srila Bhaktisiddhana Saraswati or Srila Gour Govinda or Srila Prabhupada or Srila Puri Maharajah or Swami Narayana Maharajah leave a written authorization for anyone? Not one of them did? So no one is qualified, or they made a mistake, or is that not the correct process? Is it as above; all are generally authorized, but some will actually, or perhaps even one, will step up to the plate in reality, and be seen to be clearly advanced devotee worthy of our services, like a small spark of Srila Prabhupada? Then he or she may have their own disciples and mission following Srila Prabhupada, just as our Srila Prabhupada actually did himself. Krsna will raise them up, as He did Srila Prabhupada.
And the fruits must be more renounced loving inclusive broad-minded pure devotees, not more fascist corporate fat cats, otherwise it is clear that the leader(s) and messages are bogus. To avoid that confusion and falldown of which we have now so many practical examples, the disenchanted say "no more gurus!" just Srila Prabhupada, and that works very well indeed within our society. Seeing this coming, Srila Prabhupada left us a nice ritvik system, as we always followed, as there were only neophytes in Iskcon in general at the time. We can follow that system eternally and there will be peace and surety.
But is this "written authroization" idea correct, or merely a convenient group institutional thinking ?
You need to be a member of puredevoteeseva to add comments!
Replies