http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/01-13/editorials9605.htm
Respected HH Bhakti Vikasa Maharaja,
Please accept our most humble obeisances! All Glories to Srila Prabhupada!
We from ISKCON, inc., do not consider ourselves ritviks or ritvikites but as servants, aspiring disciples of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
We do not consider Final Order to be our "Bible" or free from all defects. July 9th letter may be sufficient for us as expressing the desire of Srila Prabhupada but we base ourselves as diksha and siksha disciples of His Divine Grace primarily on His Books as His Divine Grace says "all answers are in my books."
For these reasons we did not bother replying to DOR, some of whose arguments we actually agree with, but not the main inference that we cannot be diksha disciples of Srila Prabhupada. But we do agree to the partial understanding of that paper and of the GBC Society's current understanding that Srila Prabhupada is at least the primary Siksha Guru for all. So as we are all His Divine Grace's Siksha disciples at least, as we have most of his teachings in common. Hence we have only been appreciating your Holiness's and His Grace Rocana Prabhu's struggles to establish the parampara message against all odds.
But as you have asked, we will oblige and try our best to serve our spiritual master Srila Prabhupada and his followers by preparing a siddhantic basis for our understanding which will cover the main argument/thesis of DOR that Srila Prabhupada cannot be accepted and/ or cannot accept Diksha disciples and that this is against the parampara/ tradition.
We would request Your Holiness to await that post and engage with us from your busy schedule.
It appears that Your Holiness would like to defeat us in this understanding. But we would like to engage with the esteemed senior Godbrothers to understand further the intricacies of Guru Tattva as " A sincere student should not neglect the discussion of such conclusions, considering them controversial, for such discussions strengthen the mind. Thus one's mind becomes attached to Sri Krishna." (Cc Adi 2.117).
Srila Prabhupada writes "In the Caitanya-Caritamrta it is said that nobody should be neglectful of the siddhanta because by siddhantic conclusion one becomes firm in Krishna Consciousness. So these siddhantic conclusions are being mentioned in all of my books, and the boys and girls in our Krishna Society should now give more attention for studying the books very attentively." (Srila Prabhupada in a letter on 17th February, 1970)
May Srila Prabhupada bless us with complete understanding of siddhanta regarding his position and the Guru Tattva, as fully described in his books.
Thank you for giving us this opportunity.
Your humble servant,
Nimai Pandit Das
President
ISKCON Long Island, NY
P.s. we are not part of "berating, fanatic ritviks". Hence if you were actually wishing to entangle with them, then Your Holiness would maybe disappointed with our this reply. But as the Mayapur GBC Society have "expelled" us from their version of ISKCON for being "ritviks" and as they have been fighting legally in NY courts for the last almost 9 years spending millions of dollars for us being "ritviks", our reply maybe worthwhile to Your Holiness.
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Rocana declined to publish the above post on his website .Below is his reply to Nimai pandit prabhu
Dear Nimai Pandit das,
Hare Krsna. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
We decline to publish your response to HH Bhakti Vikasa Swami, but will
forward a copy to him so that he can answer you directly, if he wishes.
We decline to publish your article because we find it to be unnecessarily
propagandist. You and essentially all your associates in Bangalore and
ISKCON Inc. have long promoted yourselves as Ritviks. Yes, 'servants' you
undoubtedly also consider yourselves to be, but we find you to be less
than honest in making this denial. Nor do we accept the reversion to a
"Prabhupadanugas" identity that is today the commonplace means of trying
to bury the history of the Rtviks' long self-promoted identity.
We do, of course, understand your desire to move away from the stigma of
the Ritvik identity, but we suggest that you will only succeed in doing so
by adopting proper siddhanta on guru-tattva, and rejecting your
asiddhantic Ritvik-vada.
You say that you don't consider yourselves to be Ritviks (although you
accept the July 9th Letter as an order for post-samadhi diksa initiations,
which we assert is precisely the definition of Ritvik-ism), and that TFO
is not your "Bible", and you suggest that for these reasons, you didn't
bother replying to DOR. We find this explanation to be disingenuous. And
more so, when you pander to Maharaj's brief article by saying that it has
now inspired your change of heart to respond to DOR. Nonetheless, we
await your reply to DOR and look forward to responding to it.
your servant,
Rocana dasa
Respected HH Bhakti Vikasa Maharaja,
Please accept our most humble obeisances! All Glories to Srila Prabhupada!
We from ISKCON, inc., do not consider ourselves ritviks or ritvikites but as servants, aspiring disciples of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
We do not consider Final Order to be our "Bible" or free from all defects. July 9th letter may be sufficient for us as expressing the desire of Srila Prabhupada but we base ourselves as diksha and siksha disciples of His Divine Grace primarily on His Books as His Divine Grace says "all answers are in my books."
For these reasons we did not bother replying to DOR, some of whose arguments we actually agree with, but not the main inference that we cannot be diksha disciples of Srila Prabhupada. But we do agree to the partial understanding of that paper and of the GBC Society's current understanding that Srila Prabhupada is at least the primary Siksha Guru for all. So as we are all His Divine Grace's Siksha disciples at least, as we have most of his teachings in common. Hence we have only been appreciating your Holiness's and His Grace Rocana Prabhu's struggles to establish the parampara message against all odds.
But as you have asked, we will oblige and try our best to serve our spiritual master Srila Prabhupada and his followers by preparing a siddhantic basis for our understanding which will cover the main argument/thesis of DOR that Srila Prabhupada cannot be accepted and/ or cannot accept Diksha disciples and that this is against the parampara/ tradition.
We would request Your Holiness to await that post and engage with us from your busy schedule.
It appears that Your Holiness would like to defeat us in this understanding. But we would like to engage with the esteemed senior Godbrothers to understand further the intricacies of Guru Tattva as " A sincere student should not neglect the discussion of such conclusions, considering them controversial, for such discussions strengthen the mind. Thus one's mind becomes attached to Sri Krishna." (Cc Adi 2.117).
Srila Prabhupada writes "In the Caitanya-Caritamrta it is said that nobody should be neglectful of the siddhanta because by siddhantic conclusion one becomes firm in Krishna Consciousness. So these siddhantic conclusions are being mentioned in all of my books, and the boys and girls in our Krishna Society should now give more attention for studying the books very attentively." (Srila Prabhupada in a letter on 17th February, 1970)
May Srila Prabhupada bless us with complete understanding of siddhanta regarding his position and the Guru Tattva, as fully described in his books.
Thank you for giving us this opportunity.
Your humble servant,
Nimai Pandit Das
President
ISKCON Long Island, NY
P.s. we are not part of "berating, fanatic ritviks". Hence if you were actually wishing to entangle with them, then Your Holiness would maybe disappointed with our this reply. But as the Mayapur GBC Society have "expelled" us from their version of ISKCON for being "ritviks" and as they have been fighting legally in NY courts for the last almost 9 years spending millions of dollars for us being "ritviks", our reply maybe worthwhile to Your Holiness.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rocana declined to publish the above post on his website .Below is his reply to Nimai pandit prabhu
Dear Nimai Pandit das,
Hare Krsna. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
We decline to publish your response to HH Bhakti Vikasa Swami, but will
forward a copy to him so that he can answer you directly, if he wishes.
We decline to publish your article because we find it to be unnecessarily
propagandist. You and essentially all your associates in Bangalore and
ISKCON Inc. have long promoted yourselves as Ritviks. Yes, 'servants' you
undoubtedly also consider yourselves to be, but we find you to be less
than honest in making this denial. Nor do we accept the reversion to a
"Prabhupadanugas" identity that is today the commonplace means of trying
to bury the history of the Rtviks' long self-promoted identity.
We do, of course, understand your desire to move away from the stigma of
the Ritvik identity, but we suggest that you will only succeed in doing so
by adopting proper siddhanta on guru-tattva, and rejecting your
asiddhantic Ritvik-vada.
You say that you don't consider yourselves to be Ritviks (although you
accept the July 9th Letter as an order for post-samadhi diksa initiations,
which we assert is precisely the definition of Ritvik-ism), and that TFO
is not your "Bible", and you suggest that for these reasons, you didn't
bother replying to DOR. We find this explanation to be disingenuous. And
more so, when you pander to Maharaj's brief article by saying that it has
now inspired your change of heart to respond to DOR. Nonetheless, we
await your reply to DOR and look forward to responding to it.
your servant,
Rocana dasa
Wow, how out-of-sorts and determined as flint is Rocana dasa to fight against Prabhupad's orders. Such is the power of position, fame and fortune to blind men... "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." Matthew 19:24
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