[Don't have to post this if you don't want, its just some personal things I want to be clear on.]
HpS - Jaya! AGTSP pamho Thank you for the letter. It is nice to post, yes, for me it is long. I read it all focusing on the citations from Srila Prabhupada's books. I think the summary is that you and I both agree that nothing needs to have changed in the way that Prabhupada did initiations while he was here. I think we may differ in that I understand that a Madhyama-adhikari who is formally initiated is also a liberated soul in as much as a dog on a lease doesn't go to any wrong places. "diksa kale bhakt kare atma samarpan..." cited in NOI and many places. Of course there are details on this, but eventually they are important. Of course, I guess you plan to get to those in your next lifetime (Ho! Ho! Ho!).
Second point is that the situation when Prabhupada was here was in my experience not that Srila Prabhuapda was the Diksa guru and others were this or that. There was just the consciousness that Srila Prabhupada was our Guru, AND, that he wanted us to follow his representatives such as Temple Presidents, GBC Secretaries, Sannyasis. Of course, we would do that in perspective of how they were representing Srila Prabhupada properly, but this is an essential point of really being Srila Prabhupada's disciple is to co-operate with other disicples. To accept their administrative or Varna-ashrama authority or their actual superiority on terms of spiritual development.
In this we may fundamentally disagree, because even though I see many faults in ISKCON as an institution I think that it is functional and Krsna is protecting it. It may not always be. I have been ready to leave the institution on at least two occasions because I felt it had deviated. But then after intense investigation I concluded that it was still within the protection of Krsna and Prabhupada.
So, pragmatically speaking, do you feel that it is true that a Second Initiated devotee, worshipping Radha and Krsna and following the standards sincerly is also a pure devotee, albeit a second class pure devotee?
Second, can you find an institutional place in the House in Which Everyone Can Live? It is secondary but it is important. Maybe you are right the institution has deviated so much that we have to do something else. But that will also involve an institution. Of course, sannyasi types like yourself and ourselves may have very little to do with that, but it is the duty of the King to see that Sannyasis are not engaged in illicit activities.
O.K. Over to you! These dialogs help me a lot, because we get these questions a lot.
PAMHO AGTSP!
I greatly respect and appreciate you for taking the time to discuss this with me even though I take a long time to think about important things such as this and don't want to rush into anything. Also as you say on 2/27/11 HPS:"everyone does this job of Guru and Disciple and Guru and Disciple differently. We are people. So there has to be room for individual adjustment on all levels. That is natural, delightful."
Bhakta JB: As far as I know, diksa is the most important yajna in a devotee's life. It seems like you are ready to be the initiator in my case. So I want to clarify (as best as I can) my relationship with you, and my relationship to Prabhupada. This is my personal standpoint, others may feel differently and that's ok. It is said in the CC 1.1.35: "Srila Jiva Gosvami advises that one not accept a spiritual master in terms of hereditary or customary social and ecclesiastical conventions."
I will first quote some things you said in our previous exchanges that I very much liked and then I will comment on my understanding of them.
HPS on 8/4/09: "Basically I act on what I have heard from the lips of my spiritual master, "I will never die, I will live forever in my books"…. [Prabhupada] says take inititation from the Acharya….This is the same arrangment that Prabhupada had before he left, while he was here. Hansadutta would make someone a devotee. He would recommend him to Prabhupada, devotee was "Hansadutta's man", Prabhupada would accept him as initiaited disciple. My own conclusion is that you should listen to Prabhupada, follow his instructions, take initiation in ISKCON from him by his standard and your formal relation with the devotee who gives you the name, beads etc. should be worked out on an individual basis."
Bhakta JB: This is what I want to do, as you say here, take initiation from Prabhupada just like you did from Hansaduta.
HPS on 8/28/09: As far as I am concerned and I guess practically speaking everyone in ISKCON to be initiated by anyone in ISKCON means to be initiated by Srila Prabhupada.
HPS on 8/31/09: "If I give you beads and a name… I would be doing it the same way I got my name and beads with the same relationship with Srila Prabhupada. I would not expect any Crystal Clear Submission to My Mood etc….Basically al I feel is necessarry is the same etiquette and respect due a Sannyasi"
Bhakta JB: Yes, I feel all respect be due to you as a senior devotee and Sannyasi accordingly.
HPS continues on 8/31/09: "gotta formally get beads and a name. Just the same as when Prabhupada was here. Just the same….Should I act as your Anjana Suta Academy, ISKCON Diksa Guru? Are you ready for first initiation? Later is 2nd, 3rd, 4th........ "
Bhakta JB: There are two points that may need clarification.
The first is: You say "Should I act as your Anjana Suta Academy… Guru?" This I cannot accept for 2 reasons.
Reason A is: I am not smart I have a very bad memory so do not want to take any type of Anjana Suta Academy or bhakti-shastri courses. I just want to continue on with my humble service to Srila Prabhupada as I am doing now. I don't want to take time out of my service for anything else.
Reason B is you say: "Are you ready for first initiation? Later is 2nd, 3rd, 4th........ ". I will be satisfied if in this life I only get first initiation.
The second and main point is, you say: "Should I act as your … Diksa Guru?".
As far as you (HPS) being the diksa Guru - as far as I know, Diksa means transcendental spiritual knowledge. As Srila Prabhupada says in a SB lecture in Auckland on 2/22/73 "That very word initiation suggests, "This is the beginning." Diksa, diksa. Di... Divya. There are two words, divya-jnana. Divya-jnana means transcendental, spiritual knowledge."
So according to Srila Prabhupada Diksa means to give transcendental spiritual knowledge to someone else - so with all due respect, I don't feel the question is "should" you but the question is can you? I think you can only initiate on Prabhupada's behalf, not on your own behalf thus I would be considered a disciple of Prabhupada and only initiated by you. - Please let me explain:
Since the discipline and divya-jnana is coming from Prabhupada not a conditioned soul (more quotes on this are immediately following) and we are following that discipline coming from Prabhupada, then those that follow that discipline are to be considered his disciples.
Also you say that "Personally we understand ourselves at this time to be Madhyama-adhikaris… it seems more likely that I will falldown." I greatly respect this and admire your humility by recognizing your position. We are more or less all in the same boat trying to stay afloat. But with that established, then you cannot give anyone Divya-jnana (transcendental spiritual knowledge)/diksa because Prabhupada said in BG introduction: "One cannot say anything about the transcendental world without being free from materially contaminated consciousness….The words spoken by the Lord are different from words spoken by a person of the mundane world who is infected with four defects. A mundaner 1) is sure to commit mistakes, 2) is invariably illusioned, 3) has the tendency to cheat others and 4) is limited by imperfect senses. With these four imperfections, one cannot deliver perfect information of all-pervading knowledge. Vedic knowledge is not imparted by such defective living entities."
Prabhupada says in so many places this same point:
"a transcendentally situated Vaisnava is not subjected to the influence of the senses by the Lord's material rule of the six kinds of bodily change (kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, and matsarya), even when he plays the part of a grhastha.
CC Antya 5.80
Also in a letter to Mukunda on 1/10/69 Prabhupada writes: "Unless one is a resident of Krishna Loka, one cannot be a Spiritual Master. That is the first proposition. A layman cannot be a Spiritual Master, and if he becomes so then he will simply create disturbance."
"knowledge received from a person who is infected with four kinds of deficiencies is not perfect." lecture on Bhagavad-gita 2.1-5 in Germany, June 16, 1974
And in BG 2.8 "the conclusion is that a spiritual master who is one hundred percent Krsna conscious is the bona fide spiritual master"
"A bona fide spiritual master is in the disciplic succession from time eternal" Bg 4.42
"without being liberated, nobody can guide anyone. That is useless. That is andha yathandhair upaniyamanah [SB 7.5.31]. If you have no eyes, then how can you lead others? If you are blind and they are blind, then what is the use of becoming their leaders?" Morning Walk on January 4, 1977, Bombay
"No conditioned soul actually knows what is to be done and what is not to be done" BG 18.58
"If you do not get a qualified guru, then everything is bogus. If you, by good fortune, if you get the association of a guru, qualified hamsa, paramahamsa... Paramahamsa guru means sannyasi's last stage is paramahamsa….So one must find out a guru who is paramahamsa. Neither kuticaka, nor bahudaka, nor parivrajakacarya. Paramahamsa…."
lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 5.5.10-13 in Vrndavana, November 1, 1976
Bhakta JB: there are so many quotes like this but I don't want to make this letter too voluminous but Prabhupada seems to clearly say that unless one is on the topmost platform and an eternal resident of Krishna-loka then he cannot be a bona fide spiritual master.
Prabhupada Further says: "The methods, rules and regulations by which one is perfectly trained in devotional service constitute the bhakti-lata-bija, or seed of devotional service. This bhakti-lata-bija is received from the spiritual master…This bhakti-lata-bija is received when one is initiated by the bona fide spiritual master." CC Madhya 19.152
Bhakta JB: So that bhakti-lata-bija that is received with the transcendental spiritual knowledge at initiation is not coming from a conditioned soul but directly from Prabhupada, the uttama-adhikari, and after initiation it is the uttama-adhikari [Prabhupada] that I will directly follow, meditate on, listen to, and serve, not a conditioned soul.
I understand the principal of being servant of the servant of the servant and humbler then the blade of grass and learning from every one etc but I don't think this is implying that one should take spiritual initiation from a conditioned soul nor accept the same as ones spiritual master… The following is an excerpt from a nice article called “Initiation into Spiritual Life” from the Sree Sajjana Toshani on December 1928 by Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati:
"The disciple retains the right of renouncing his allegiance to the preceptor the moment he is satisfied that the preceptor is a fallible creature like himself… The good preceptor who lives the spiritual life is, therefore, bound to be wholly good. He should be wholly free from any desire for anything of this world whether good or bad….No one who belongs to this world can deliver us from worldliness."
I wrote all this because normally I meditate directly on Srila Prabhupada and feel a real and direct connection with Srila Prabhupada but over the last few days I have noticed in my meditation that you are there between me and Prabhupada and I feel you are trying to get me to go through you to get to Prabhupada and I don't like it. I like my direct connection with Prabhupada. This is what I have experienced in my daily meditations. I like you and respect you very much but don't need another conditioned soul to get in-between me and Prabhupada. I only need a priest to do the initiation yajna to formalize my direct connection with Prabhupada as we discussed in our recent emails.
I fully take direct shelter of Prabhupada as his disciple, and if you will initiate me on behalf of Srila Prabahupada with the clear understanding that I will be Prabhupada's direct disciple then that will be very nice. As you say "everyone does this job of Guru and Disciple and Guru and Disciple differently. We are people. So there has to be room for individual adjustment on all levels. That is natural, delightful." and "your formal relation with the devotee who gives you the name, beads etc. should be worked out on an individual basis."
I just read in the SB Introduction "Both of them argued from the angle of vision of authentic sastras and not on the strength of sentimental vox populi." Isn't this relevant.
Your servant Bhakta Joe Blow