BY: ROCANA DASA
Aug 28, CANADA (SUN) — A weekly response to Dandavats editorials.
Today's Obeisances looks at the recent Dandavats editorial by Bhadra Govinda dasa (JPS) entitled, Siksa or Diksa Sampradaya
Bhadra Govinda prabhu, please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. In opening in this way, one acknowledges that he is in disciplic succession from Srila Prabhupada. As the nomenclature "(JPS)" indicates, Bhadra Govinda dasa is a diksa disciple of HH Jayapataka Swami. It's interesting to note that in his article he fails to acknowledge his own spiritual master, who he obviously considers to be in disciplic succession. He does not acknowledge the fact that he has presented this question to his spiritual master, and that what we're about to hear is the answer given by HH Jayapataka Swami, which is now being passed on to us by Bhadra Govinda, to the best of his understanding and realization. This is really the essence of what sampradaya means. The initiation aspect, as Srila Prabhupada has mentioned many times, is just formality.
The author is concerned over the fact that there is a buzz amongst certain elements of the ISKCON society as to whether the sampradaya, as listed in Srila Prabhupada's books, is what one would consider a siksa lineage. As we know, this "list of 32" is a continuation of the list that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur passed down.
The author appears not to have a historical perspective on the list, and doesn't mention that this list caused a great deal of consternation when it was first presented, particularly amongst the well established diksa lineages in the Bengali community at that time. In fact, this list was the focal point of a major contentious issue that arose between Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur and his own brother, Lalita Prasad. Their disagreement evolved into two opposing philosophical camps.
So this is not simply a terminology problem, as the author would like to have us believe, but rather touches upon a very important aspect of our philosophy. Our sampradaya, like all surviving bonafide Vaisnava sampradayas, rests on the understanding that we have a unique, pure, unalloyed siddhanta which was preserved and passed on without any adulteration. How that passing on occurs is secondary to the fact that it does occur. Basically, whoever is presenting, preaching and living this siddhanta should be considered and worshipped as a bonafide spiritual master in our Sampradaya, regardless of his guru's circumstances.
Naturally we as Vaisnavas try to comply with the Vedic traditions such as varnasrama and the official initiation process, which includes diksa and siksa initiations, as well as sannyasa initiation and vartma-pradarsaka, which essentially has no formal initiation process attached to it. This is the tradition, but the overall message of our siddhanta is that it's completely transcendental and has nothing to do with any circumstances or formalities this material world might present. Lord Krsna can't be restricted by some material set of circumstances.
Ideally, one gets diksa initiation from a bonafide Vaisnava sampradaya guru. But that is not always possible, especially under our Kali Yuga circumstances. The ultimate issue here is what is bonafide and what is not bonafide. This primarily means, is the siddhanta completely intact as it's passed down by the guru to the disciple?
A very important modern example of this dynamic is Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur, who took diksa initiation from a guru in an exclusive diksa lineage. As his lila unfolded, he later associated with Jagannath das Babaji and Gaura Kisora das babaji, who he understood to be bonafide Vaisnavas representing Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu's sampradaya, namely the Gaudiya Vaisnava Sampradaya. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur did not include the name of his diksa guru in the "list of 32", and he seldom associated with him once he had contacted the pure siddhanta.
Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur did not reject his diksa guru and get re-initiated, but he obviously considered his siksa relationship to be more important because it was completely pure. So basically it's the purity that matters -- that the pure message is being passed down regardless of any set of circumstances that may individually be presented to sincere candidates in Krsna Consciousness.
Not surprisingly, Bhadra Govinda dasa does not bring up the modern circumstances that we are all having to encounter in ISKCON. Many persons since the time of Srila Prabhupada's departure have been presenting themselves as bonafide diksa gurus in our disciplic succession, when in fact they have proven themselves to be otherwise. Many of these individuals "fell down", for various reasons. The real question is, were their disciples truly initiated into our sampradaya? In other words, were these disciples presented with incorrect siddhanta?
There is very little monitoring of whether a diksa guru that has been approved by the GBC is truly presenting our siddhanta, not only in words, but in actions. In most cases, the fallen gurus left because they weren't following our practices properly. As such, there's a good chance that they passed along a lot of philosophical misconceptions to their disciples. According to ISKCON, the only rectification is that they become re-initiated. No analysis is done to determine whether or not philosophical misconceptions were passed on as truth to the unfortunate disciples, although this is what really needs to be remediated.
ISKCON's policy of re-initiation actually began during the Zonal Acarya era. When one of the Zonal's like Jayatirtha or Bhagavan fell down, his disciples were re-initiated by another Zonal Acarya. This was done quickly and with little fanfare, so no attention would be given to the fact that Zonal Acaryas were themselves unbonafide gurus.
Of course, the institution's fallback plan consists of pointing to Srila Prabhupada as the maha-siksa. This is all well and good, and thankfully we have such a circumstance at this point in history. But still, if a person has been carrying philosophical misconceptions and has to sort them out simply by reading Srila Prabhupada's books, without any personal guidance, chances are that there's little chance of rectifying such entrenched misconceptions.
When a guru falls down in ISKCON, the siksa option is not encouraged as a bonafide option for the disciples. Only re-initiation is recognized as a solution. To my knowledge, ISKCON has never formulated a policy on siksa that provides sastric references and defines precisely how siksa is to be understood and relied upon within the Society.
Srila Prabhupada's original siksa arrangement for managing the movement during his lila period was based on the principle that the local leaders - who were mainly the ones recruiting, training, performing the fire sacrifices and engaging Srila Prabhupada's disciples - should be considered siksa gurus.
From what I've seen over the last 15 years at ISKCON temples, particularly on the West Coast, there is no longer a siksa guru program of any kind. This program has been dismantled and replaced by a Board of Directors or an absentee GBC arrangement. Here in Vancouver, BC our circumstances are unique in that we have three co-GBC's, one of whom has usurped even the Temple President's position. The way Hari Vilasa dasa has set things up, the Temple President position is redundant and unimportant, because the Board answers directly to him as GBC. He is the de facto temple leader, and any other Temple President could simply be vetoed by the Board. ISKCON Vancouver leaders say that they can't find a local devotee who is qualified to take over as Temple President. In fact, it really appears that the job has been made so impossible by the current Board/GBC arrangement that no one qualified wants the job, because it would so painful to operate under those circumstances. Unless the Temple President is a disciple or close associate of the GBC-in-charge, it's a thankless task that no one qualified would want to accept. In addition, the temple says it can't afford to support a full-time Temple President. It seems that everyone here is part time, including the GBC, the Board members, the Vice President, and many of those working in the temple.
This really is a breakdown of our parampara as far as I'm concerned. Bhadra Govinda dasa talks about how the seed is planted and has to be cultivated. But under the circumstances described above, the cultivation comes from having daily association and supervision by a siksa guru. This arrangement has been undermined by the environment ISKCON has created at the local temple level.
First and foremost one has to be understand the position of the Sampradaya Acaryas who are included on the list Srila Prabhupada provided. You can be 100% guaranteed that these personalities are presenting the siddhanta correctly, cent percent. Srila Prabhupada is the pure expression of what it means to be in our Sampradaya under the current time, place and circumstance. Anyone who belongs to our Sampradaya has the authorized right to challenge anyone, regardless of what kind of guru designation they have, in terms of how they comply with the teachings and pastimes of the Sampradaya Acarya.
Our recent Sampradaya Acaryas instructed that we are not interested in re-establishing the diksa lineage concept. That is simply the eastern version of religiosity. Although Bhadra Govinda dasa points out that there are many branches and sub-branches coming out from these Sampradaya Acaryas, we are only interested in those which are bonafide. As for the others, we are not interested in what their pastimes were, or what un-bonafide siddhanta they propagated. In fact, it appears today as if these sub-branches have pretty much petered out. As Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur recognized, and as Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur spoke out against, there was a diksa lineage going all the way back to the original associates of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and they looked upon our pure disciplic succession as being the enemy, due to preaching on this principle of who is really in our sampradaya.
Individuals at this time, place and circumstance have to recognize the truth when it comes to what is our actual sampradaya. One should keep in mind that as the Sampradaya Acarya, Srila Prabhupada made whatever adjustments suited his mission and circumstances, and his system cannot be duplicated or imitated. Of course, there were many imitators, and many were taken in by them. Even during Srila Prabhupada's lila period, we found that less intelligent disciples became more attached to their siksa gurus who were poorly imitating the Sampradaya Acarya. This was personified by personalities such as Kirtananada, whose followers took up after their siksa guru even though he was blatantly disregarding the teachings of their own Spiritual Master, Srila Prabhupada.
The system Srila Prabhupada set down for us is particularly suited for someone in his rare set of circumstances. Yet what we find today is a poor imitation of that system, wherein diksa gurus supposedly come in and plant the seed, then do nothing to cultivate it. The GBC has also undermined a circumstance that would provide siksa gurus with the incentive to teach the disciples. In fact, many diksa gurus today feel threatened by someone who is taking the position of siksa guru, because their disciples naturally become more attached to the siksa, who has the compassion to instruct and teach them.
We must take into account that this is Kali Yuga, and that many people are either born in the West or contaminated by Western culture. At the same time, we have had the rare opportunity to come in contact very recently with an absolutely pure Sampradaya Acarya, in the form of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada. Those initiating gurus who claim to recognize him have to be tested by the disciples as to whether their seed is capable of growing into the bhakti-lata-bhjia without any genetic modification.
Obeisances to Dandavats, and to Bhadra Govinda dasa.
