By Bhakta Alex

Myth: Srila Prabhupada didn’t confirm that future disciples in ISKCON would also be his disciples
“If the GBC had any hope of upholding modifications a) & b) [to the July 9th letter suggested in maya-GBC’s official paper “Gurus and Initiation in ISKCON”, 1995], Srila Prabhupada would have had to answer this question something along the lines of: “No, they are not my disciples.” Whatever Srila Prabhupada was going on to say is irrelevant since no one can ever know. We only know that when asked whether future initiates were to be his disciples, he answered: “Yes”; again, not a good sign for modifications a) & b).” (TFO)
“Yes, they are [“your”/Srila Prabhupada’s] disciples” answer is confirmed by:
– the opening question/answers of the same May 28th 1977, conversation (“when you are no longer with us”, “ritvik, yes”);
– July 9th directive: “The newly initiated devotees are disciples of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad”;
– Srila Prabhupada’s last will: “The executive directors [for ISKCON properties] who have herein been designated are appointed for life. In the event of the death or failure to act for any reason of any of the said directors, a successor director or directors may be appointed by the remaining directors, provided the new director is my initiated disciple”;
– various testimonies- even in TKG’s confession made on December 3, 1980:
Tamal Krishna: “Actually, Prabhupada never appointed any gurus. […] He appointed eleven ritviks. He never appointed them gurus. Myself and the other GBC have done the greatest disservice to this movement the last three years because we interpreted the appointment of ritviks as the appointment of gurus.
What actually happened I’ll explain. I explained it, but the interpretation is wrong. What actually happened was that Prabhupada mentioned he might be appointing some ritviks, so the GBC met for various reasons, and they went to Prabhupada, five or six of us. [This refers to the May 28th 1977, conversation]. We asked him, ‘Srila Prabhupada, after your departure, if we accept disciples, whose disciples will they be, your disciples or mine?’
Later on, there was a piled-up list for people to get initiated, and it was jammed up. I said, ‘Srila Prabhupada, you once mentioned about ritviks. I don’t know what to do. We don’t want to approach you, but there’s hundreds of devotees named, and I’m just holding all the letters. I don’t know what you want to do’.
Srila Prabhupada said, ‘All right, I will appoint so many…,’ and he started to name them […] He made it very clear that they are his disciples. At that point it was very clear in my mind that they were his disciples. […] ‘In order for me to manage this movement’, Prabhupada said, ‘I have to form a GBC, and I will appoint the following people. In order to continue the process of people joining our movement and getting initiated, I have to appoint some priests to help me because just like I cannot physically manage everyone myself, I physically cannot initiate everyone myself.”
And that’s all that it was, and it was never any more than that. If it had been more than that, you can bet your bottom dollar that Prabhupada would have spoken for days and hours and weeks on end about how to set up this thing with the gurus, but he didn’t…” (Topanga Canyon discussion transcript that was quoted in maya-GBC’s ‘ISKCON Journal’, 1990)
Nityananda das: “In 1983 Satsvarupa published the final biographical volume of Srila Prabhupada Lilamrita. It included a very adulterated version of the May 28th transcript (Vol. 6, p.324-5), supportive of ISKCON’s unauthorized gurus. The deceptive transcript fudging and his misinterpretation in his book reveals Satsvarupa was a primary participant in the ISKCON gurujacking by falsifying Srila Prabhupada’s instructions. His transcript is so far off from what was spoken, he must have thought the actual tape would never be released. The tape and transcript remained unavailable for another two years; a total of 8 years. Thereafter he pleaded “artistic license” to explain his biography deceit to those with less intelligence.
Satsvarupa invented his own version of the May 28th, 1977 conversation with Srila Prabhupada (which he never corrected). Comparing what was actually said with the Lilamrita version:
SATS: “So they may also be considered your disciples.”
SP: “Yes, they are disciples.” (Archives Vedabase)
LILAMRITA: “So they may also be considered your disciples,” said Satsvarupa, referring to those persons initiated on Prabhupada’s behalf by the ritvik acharya. “They are their disciples,” said Srila Prabhupada. Now he was speaking of initiations after his passing away.”
Lilamrita’s use of speech marks claims these were Srila Prabhupada’s words verbatim. But Srila Prabhupada’s answer: “Yes, they are disciples,” when asked if they are his disciples, is changed to “They are their disciples.” The answer “yes” was deleted, and the word “their” was added.
By this change of Srila Prabhupada’s words, Lilamrita has changed the ownership of the disciples accepted by the “ritvik” on Srila Prabhupada’s behalf, from Srila Prabhupada to the “ritviks” themselves. Lilamrita also adds that this refers to initiations after Srila Prabhupada’s “passing away”. These changes allow Lilamrita to claim that Srila Prabhupada is stating that the ritviks he will appoint will be initiating their own disciples after Srila Prabhupada’s physical departure, i.e. acting as successor diksha gurus. This fabrication was made to claim Srila Prabhupada appointed individuals who will be successor gurus.” (‘ISKCON HIDDEN HISTORY’, vol. 5 of Personal Ambition series, pg. 37)
Myth: By saying “they are his disciples” Srila Prabhupada meant ritviks’/new diksa gurus’ disciples
Anti-ritvik papers try to make emphasis on “they are his disciples” phrase ignoring the context. According to their interpretation, this means Srila Prabhupada authorized new diksa gurus who were going to initiate their own disciples in ISKCON. Let’s see if this version makes sense.
The essence of this part of the conversation (without repetitions, etc.) is as follows:
Satsvarūpa: What is the relationship of that person who gives the initiation and…
Prabhupāda: He’s guru. He’s guru.
Satsvarūpa: So, they may be considered your disciples?
Prabhupāda: Yes, they are disciples. Why consider? Who?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. He is asking that these ṛtvik-ācāryas, they are officiating, giving dīkṣā, their – the people who they give dīkṣā to – whose disciples are they?
Prabhupāda: They are his disciples. Who is initiating… His grand-disciple… When I order you become guru, he becomes regular guru. That’s all. He becomes disciple of my disciple. That’s it.
Note: Tamal doesn’t seem to be impartially clarifying the question. He:
a) Starts off his remark by saying “no”. Srila Prabhupada correctly understood the question and confirmed that future disciples will also be his- Prabhupada’s- disciples (“Yes, they are disciples”). But Tamal tries to negate this answer. He could have said his remark without “no” to Srila Prabhupada.
b) Keep using “ṛtvik-ācāryas” phrase which is not exactly from Srila Prabhupada, at least in this conversation. Why? To try and bolster the ‘acarya’ status of the ritviks?
c) Equates “officiating” with “giving dīkṣā” which are different things, according to Srila Prabhupada’s teachings. Srila Prabhupada has just differentiated ritviks as those officiating and himself as the guru who is the initiator/diksa guru. The guru gives diksa- this word is derived from ‘divya jnana’ (transcendental knowledge), etc., which is given by the guru who is in the transcendental position. So ritviks/priests are not giving diksa (at least, in the highest, spiritual sense), but provide formal side of initiation on behalf of the acarya.
d) Formulates his question so that a different answer (preferred by TKG) may become obvious: “they are officiating, giving dīkṣā, their – the people who they give dīkṣā to – whose disciples are they?” Does he want to hear that future disciples will be their disciples?
e) When Srila Prabhupada says: “They are his disciples“, TKG rushes to repeat this phrase out of context. Why out of all the phrases he repeats these words? Then again, according to the official transcript, after His Divine Grace pronounces the phrase “His grand-disciple”
TKG says “It’s clear”. Why all this? To impress others that ‘the answer’ is new disciples will be “his disciples” (ritvik’s, according to TKG’s interpretation which he did give later on, but then confessed in 1980 that this interpretation was “wrong”)?
The above is at least suspicious, especially given the discovered facts of Tamal’s role in the poisoning Srila Prabhupada’s body that Tamal and co. had already started before the conversation, and his most active participation in other aspects of the riot against Srila Prabhupada and the takeover of ISKCON that culminated in 1977-78.
Despite all this Srila Prabhupada is unaffected by Tamal’s influence. Tamal’s is asking in plural “these ṛtvik-ācāryas… the people who they give dīkṣā to – whose disciples are they”. But Srila Prabhupada answers in singular: “They are his disciples. Who is initiating…” Then Prabhupada makes semantic pause and gets to another point- what about disciples of possible future gurus among his own disciples who are going to be appointed as ritviks: “His grand-disciple… When I order you become guru, he becomes regular guru. That’s all. He becomes disciple of my disciple.” In this situation, only Srila Prabhupada could have grand-disciples. This is obvious. Therefore, it again shows that “his” refers to himself, not to ritviks or supposed ritvik/diksa guru hybrids.
Moreover, if we succumb to anti-ritviks’ version that rests just on interpreting third person pronouns we invariably get to an absurd, contradictory meaning of the conversation. A quote from “The Final Order” (abbreviated):
“The argument that when speaking here in the third person, Srila Prabhupada must be referring to the ritviks and not himself, can be tested by modifying the conversation in accordance with this view, replacing “his”/”who” with “the ritvik” (shown in brackets):
TKG: whose disciples are they?
Srila Prabhupada: They are (the ritvik’s) disciples.
TKG: They are (the ritvik’s) disciples.
Srila Prabhupada: (The ritvik) is initiating…(The ritvik’s) granddisciple…
Given the premise that ritviks are only officiating, and that their role is only representational, it should be self-evident to the reader that this interpretation is nonsense. It is a contradiction in terms for a ritvik to have their own disciples, not to speak of grand-disciples.
The accusation may be made that we are in some way “twisting” Srila Prabhupada’s words by stating that Srila Prabhupada is talking about himself in third person. However, we feel our interpretation is consistent with the function Srila Prabhupada assigned to his ritviks. There appear to be just two possible options for interpretation in considering this conversation:
1) Future new disciples were to belong to ritvik priests, who by definition are not diksa gurus, but officiators who have been set up specifically to act as proxies.
2) Future new disciples were to belong to the diksa guru, Srila Prabhupada.
Option 1) is just absurd. Therefore, we have gone for option 2) as the only rational choice, and have thus interpreted the tape accordingly.” (End of excerpt from TFO)
Again, the above “ritvik after departure” understanding is in harmony with Srila Prabhupada’s initial answers that he is going to appoint ritviks for the future, especially when he is “no longer with us”, with the “yes” answer to the question in the second person (“your disciples”), with the July 9th directive (the final order on initiations in ISKCON) that clearly confirms that future disciples will be “disciples of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad”, with the Last Will (“my initiated disciple”), etc. Whereas anti-ritvik’s version is obviously wrong and conflicted. Its foundation is not the real content of the conversation but thoughtless or dishonest picking some pronouns here and there and giving them illogical interpretations while ignoring the whole body of evidence.