Strategies and Concoctions of Bogus Gurus Revealed
Many active devotees on this website repeatedly lamented about the valuable time, money and more important ripe age of youthfulness wasted by getting cheated by Bogus Pretender Guru and blamed…
Strategies and Concoctions of Bogus Gurus Revealed Many active devotees on this website repeatedly lamented about the valuable time, money and more important ripe age of youthfulness wasted by getting cheated by Bogus Pretender Guru and blamed themselves of their wrong choice. Instead of lamenting after effects I humbly beg all devotees to study this article composed from extracts of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings.
Investment of time and austerity in studying Srila Prabhupada’s instructions can save one from such pains.
Since Srila Prabhupada’s demise in 1977, topic of who can be a Guru continued to remain a controversial topic. It has been heated up further by recent falldown of Prabha Vishnu dasa and miserable condition of his disciples. While some of devotees who are advocates truthfulness without diplomacy and ‘political correctness’ were trying to expose cheating Gurus, sentiments of some of ISKCON devotees were hurt and they blamed it back on devotees who spoke truth for not hiding these falldown as the one who bring bad name to ISKCON.
To educate the devotees who are just driven by sentiments instead of Guru-Sadhu-Sastra teachings and give clear idea of Guru tattva and prevent future miseries of false Guru choices, it’s worth examining Guru tattva scientifically based on Authentic and bona fide Guru-Sadhu- Sastra teachings of Gaudiya vaishnava sampradaya. Moreover it is essential to educate devotees to distinguish between real Guru(Sad-Guru is the term used by Guru of Srila Prabhupada) from an imposter pretender bogus guru to at least protect the legacy of Srila Prabhupada and protect good name of ISKCON getting destroyed by Sahajiya pretenders.
Srila Prabhupada says: “A devotee should have intelligence to know who is deviating. Surrender by your intelligence but don’t surrender your intelligence.” (to Bali Mardana, 1974)
What is Guru: Guru can’t be a Conditioned Soul Guru is expansion of Paramatma situated in heart of living entity. Lord sends Guru to a sincere devotee who is hankering to advance into devotional service as confirmed by Srila Prabhupada below:
The supreme spiritual master is Krsna, who is therefore known as caitya-guru. This refers to the Supersoul, who is sitting in everyone’s heart. He helps from within as stated in Bhagavad-gītā, and He sends the spiritual master, who helps from without. The spiritual master is the external manifestation of the caitya-guru, or the spiritual master sitting in everyone’s heart. [Śrīmad Bhāgavatam (4.8.44)] According to the deliberate opinion of all revealed scriptures, the spiritual master is non-different from Krsna. Lord Krsna in the form of the spiritual master delivers His devotees. (CC Ādi 1.45) Prahlada Maharaja also said, naisam matis tavad urukramanghrim (Bhag. 7.5.32) … unless one takes the dust of the lotus feet of a pure vaisnava on one’s head, one cannot understand what the supreme personality of godhead is, and unless one knows the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one’s life remains imperfect… So it is important to take shelter of pure devotee like Śrīla Prabhupāda rather than a fallen conditioned soul as Guru. Then we can’t make any spiritual advancement and develop Krsna prema.
Unless we are pure devotees or liberated souls, we should not make disciples. Instead, we should first become disciples ourselves by taking shelter of a bona fide spiritual master. [From Amrita Vani of Bhakti Siddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada] One is forbidden to accept the guru, or spiritual master, as an ordinary human being (guruñu nara-matiù)…. A spiritually advanced person who acts with authority, as the spiritual master, speaks as the Supreme Personality of Godhead dictates from within. [CC.Antya 5.71-74] Based on these Guru-Sastra quotes it’s evident that a conditioned soul cannot be Guru.
It is quite understandable. One who is under Yoga maya or Bhakti devi or Internal potency of Lord is capable of distributing mercy of Lord and deliver conditioned souls. Srila Prabhupada says that a bound person can’t free or liberate another bound person.
So Guru should be free from Anarthas and 3 modes of material energy or maya. Because one who is under spell of maya has selfish, exploitative material motives to enjoy for nature & others for his selfish pleasures and hence he is further entangled by Maya and acquires bad qualities by association of 3 modes of maya. Hence one who is under maya can’t free other person from maya and take him to Spiritual world which under Yoga maya. Srila Prabhupada confirmed in numerous places in his books that only one who is empowered by Lord can deliver conditioned souls not the one who himself is conditioned.
Unfortunately, many devotees don’t have firm faith on teachings of Srila Prabhupada, otherwise they would not have had the opinion that a conditioned soul can be Guru.
Sexual falldowns of Satsvarupa das gosvami (2002), Param gati swami (2009), and recent falldown of PrabhaVishnu Das (Ex-Swami) should serve as a rude awakening to devotees who does not believe in qualifications of Guru as taught by Srila Prabhupada.
It’s alarming to call devotees to properly study Srila Prabhupada’s in order to understand the qualifications of a guru. Unless one is liberated soul he can’t be able to in touch with super soul or paramatma and receive his orders. So a Guru must be a liberated pure devotee to be in touch with super soul.
The Lord is the Supersoul seated in everyone’s heart, and He acts as the caitya-guru, the spiritual master within. However, He gives direct instructions only to the advanced, pure devotees. In the beginning, when a devotee is serious and sincere, the Lord gives him directions from within to approach a bona fide spiritual master. When one is trained by the spiritual master according to the regulative principles of devotional service and is situated on the platform of spontaneous attachment for the Lord (rAga-bhakti), the Lord also gives instructions from within. TeSAM satata-yuktAnAM bhajatAM prIti-pUrvakam [Bg. 10.10]. This distinct advantage is obtained by a liberated soul. [Śrīmad Bhāgavatam (4.28.41)] 3 Types of Gurus: All are Non Different Diksha Guru is initiating spiritual master who gives Diksha or initiation.
Siksha Guru is instructing spiritual master who imparts transcendental knowledge to disciple.
Caitya Guru is Paramatma or Super soul who gives knowledge from within as confirmed in Bhagavad Gītā (10.10) All these 3 types of Gurus are non-different as confirmed below: One should know the instructing spiritual master to be the Personality of Kṛṣṇa. Lord Kṛṣṇa manifests Himself as the Supersoul and as the greatest devotee of the Lord.(CC Ādi 1.47) There is no difference between the shelter-giving Supreme Lord and the initiating and instructing spiritual masters. If one foolishly discriminates between them, he commits an offense in the discharge of devotional service. [CC.Adi.1.47 Purport] Diksha Guru is higher than Siksha Guru: (F)ISKCON Elite Guru Hoax and Guru Groupism It has already been established by sastra that 3 types of Gurus are non-different. So it is not true that Diksha guru is higher than Siksha guru.
Actually a Siksha Guru can be more advanced devotee than Diskha Guru.eg. Diksha Guru Syamananda prabhu, Hrdaya Caitanya Govsmi sent him for training to 6 Gosvamis of Vrndavana for they are most advanced devotees.
Eg.Narottama Das Thakura, Srinivas Acarya and Syamananda prabhu all had different Diksha diksha Gurus, but had common siksha gurus. They all lived together as Godbrothers. They did not have go problems. And guru groupism clashes that we see in current ISKCON. That is because their object of love is same: Lord Caitanya. On platform of Bhakti or Love of Godhead there can’t be any clashes. There can be clashes only on material platform of Maya.
As per sastra there can be only one Diksha Guru and many Siksha Gurus. So to control and retain monopoly over disciples Elite Gurus of post-1977 ISKCON devised a smart strategy using this principle.
If I am a Diksha guru and claim that Diksha guru is superior to Siksha Guru, it does not matter how many Siksha Gurus you have, ultimately I reign superior over them as Diksha Guru.
So, devotees need to stop accepting blindly what they have been told blindly by their selfish managerial authorities. Rather devotees should educate themselves by actual spiritual authority: Srila Prabhupada and Previous Acaryas of Parampara.
Smart Strategy: Keep Disciples in darkness and Dumbdown If a deotee study Srila Prabhupada’s books and gets educated then devotee starts questioning
their deviations and discrepancies from sastra as revealed in previous section. So it’s a very big problem and threat to elite global guru like Radhanath Swami who manages disciples around the globe.
For an Elite new age “Jet-Set” Global guru of FISCKON it is very difficult to control and keep loyalty of all worldwide community of disciples. So these elitist gurus being educated in Mundane managerial degrees of western education are naturally experts at smart managerial strategies to intimidate and mesmerize masses.
It is far easy to control and cheat masses of a corrupted society. This is the basic principles.
More a disciple is kept in darkness, easier to control the disciple and retain loyalty by imposing Self manufactured and tailor made new age managerial mundane concoctive teachings.
If somehow disciple tries to explore Srila Prabhupada’s books these leaders discourage them in all the ways claiming: “You should read my books first” “you can’t directly understand” blah..blah..blah.
Many devotees testified to this in comments. One devotee revealed that his siksha guru used to criticize him for reading Srila Prabhupada’s books more and called him as book worm and book worm can’t make a person great devotee.
More proof is in Radhanath swami’s zone devotees are forced to read local leaders books like Radhe Syam Das (Pune, India).
Siksha is more important than Diksha: Initiation is just a Formality Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura de-emphasized the traditional diksa guru parampara, which had been abused in many circumstances in the past. Instead, he stressed the Bhägavata or siksa-guru parampara. The Bhägavata succession is taken from the Srimad Bhagavatam, wherein Krsna enlightened Lord Brahma, who then spoke absolute truth to Narada Muni, who passed it on to Srila Vyasadeva. His son, Sukadeva Goswami, underwent no diksa but received the essence of Bhagavatam from Vyasa, who recited it, in seven days, to Pariksit Maharaja, Suta Goswami and others present during the recitation. All were fully enlightened but none were direct diksa disciples of Srila Sukadeva.
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta traced the Bhagavata guru parampara from Krsna to Madhvacarya, who while initiated by Acyuta Preksa of the Shankara sampradaya, is said to have received siksa of Vyasa. The Gaudiya Vaisnava parampara is therefore traced from Madhva’s siksa guru, Srila Vyasa, rather than from Madhva’s established diksa guru. So we can see that our lineage isn’t dependent upon a diksa line — in fact, it runs quite contrary to that concept.
Following instructions of spiritual master and pleasing him is more important than taking diksha from Him.
We have seen so many disciples of Srila Prabhupada and His Guru who took even sanyasa Diksha (3rd initiation) fell down. This is because they did not follow Siksha of Guru.
Though George Harrison did not take Diksha from Srila Prabhupada, Srila Prabhupada himself confirmed that he is better than many of His Sannyasa disciples.
Srila Prabhupada confirms this here: “Well initiation or no initiation, first thing is knowledge… knowledge. Initiation is formality. Just like you go to a school for knowledge, and admission is formality. That is not very important
thing.” [Srila Prabhupada Press Interview, 10-16-76, Chandigarh] “Thakura Bhaktivinoda was not official Spiritual Master of Gaura Kisora dasa Babaji Maharaja.
Gaura Kisora dasa Babaji Maharaja was already renounced order, Paramahamsa, but Thakura Bhaktivinoda, while He was even playing the part of a householder, was treated by Gaura Kisora dasa Babaji Maharaja as Preceptor, on account of His highly elevated spiritual understanding, and thus He was always treating Him as His Spiritual Master. The Spiritual Master is divided into two parts; namely, siksa guru and diksa guru. So officially Bhaktivinoda Thakura was like siksa guru of Gaura Kisora das Babaji Maharaja.” [Srila Prabhupada Letter to Dayananda, 05-01-1969] So our parampara is a Siksha parampara not Diksha parampara.
Following are more proofs from sastra: 1. Namacarya Srila Hari Dasa Thakura himself was not initiated. 2. In Bhagavad Gita (4.34) Lord refers to approach guru and enquire that was about Siksha Guru not about Diksha Guru.It’s about” Pari Prasnena” means enquiry not about Diksha. 3. If Diksha has power why so many initiated disciples including Sanyasis of great Acaryas like Srila Prabhupada & His Guru have fallen. This result is for violating their Siksha. 4. Bhakti Vinoda Thakura was never initiated by Jagannath das Babaji Maharaja..Rather he rejected his Diksha Guru Bipin Bihari Thakura for going against Siksha of Sampradaya by calling Srila Raghunatha Dasa Gosvami as “A Sudra”. 5. Prahlada Maharaj was instructed by Narada Muni in womb of mother by Siksha not by Diksha. 6. Neither Sukadeva Gosvami was not initiated by Vyasadeva nor Sukadeva Gosvami initiated Parikshit Maharaj. But still just by Siksha of Bhagavata-katha, process of Sravana and Kirtana both achieved perfection.
Go to Strategies and Concoctions of Bogus Gurus Revealed (Part-2)