How can we know whether someone is following parampara?

From: Gadhadhar Pandit Group

Gadhadhar Pandit Group is a group for reading Srimad Bhagavatam of Raghunath Bhatt Vrinda Counselors from Pune which consists of HG Ananta Gopa Pr (leader), HG Vamanadev Pr, HG Sri Baladev Pr, HG Sonar Gauranga Pr & Sripad Mahaprabhu das.

So on behalf of our group, we would like to ask following questions:

When can we say that somebody is folliwng the disciplic succession? What is the criteria?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
thank you so the question is what when can we say that somebody is following the disciplic succession what is the criteria answer this is a delicate question and there are no mathematically discrete criteria by which we can judge because following parampara is not like digital logic 1 or 0 it is more like analog system there are degrees to which somebody is following parampara and somebody is somebody may be fully aligned with parampara somebody may partially align somebody may be slightly aligned and somebody may be entirely misaligned so we can understand the broad principles and the principles need to be applied in a very cautious and respectful way if we are to actually find out if somebody is following parampara or not and this issue is a matter of discussion even now because ISKCON is yet to have a clear definition of who an ISKCON member is so we can talk about following parampara at two levels somebody who is a follower and we see whether he is following the parampara or not and somebody who is a leader and whether he is following parampara or not so as far as somebody being a leader of course let us look at the followers now who can we call as an ISKCON member Vishwamitra Maharaj presented a paper in the GBC and there is an article in the Andhra Vats also about this at one level we could say only initiate all initiated devotees are ISKCON members which would be true in a general sense but initiation is a very strict criteria in ISKCON and so there are large number of people who would be left out of ISKCON membership despite being quite strict followers of the principles of Krishna Consciousness at the same time there are a significant number of ISKCON devotees who are initiated but who have become estranged and are no longer following the principles of Krishna Consciousness so at the end ultimately who is a follower that is a matter of the heart internally if somebody is following then whether that person is specifically affiliated or not that person is a member and we cannot have any cut and dry criteria for membership so if we cannot have cut and dry criteria for membership then what about leadership now in general for us in ISKCON Shri Prabhupada is our pre-eminent Shravaram and in the entire Gaudiya Parampara for us he is the link with the whole Parampara and so to a large extent following Parampara means following Shri Prabhupada at the same time what comprises following Shri Prabhupada is not so easy to understand we do have Shri Prabhupada’s course and of course we even the full Veda based it’s not an exhaustive account of Shri Prabhupada’s course a large percentage of Shri Prabhupada’s course are there and still a large percentage of what Shri Prabhupada spoke is also not there so therefore even if we look at Shri Prabhupada’s course we may find that Shri Prabhupada takes different positions on different issues at different times for example during the book distribution at some time Shri Prabhupada said that devotees should always wear devotional clothes and go out for book distribution but then when devotees told him that this would alienate the book distributors from their potential audience and would adversely affect our outreach measures Shri Prabhupada said that yes you can wear civilian clothes also but be dignified don’t become like Shri Prabhupada here itself we see an example that with respect to the same service Shri Prabhupada changed his stance and what to speak of in different places in America Shri Prabhupada emphasized book distribution in India at least during his time Shri Prabhupada emphasized temple construction and he introduced life membership so Shri Prabhupada himself used different strategies at different times so even if we take a quote of Shri Prabhupada and say that okay this is what Shri Prabhupada said and this is what you are doing and because you are doing therefore you are not following Shri Prabhupada that is also not a very sound way because Shri Prabhupada gave different quotes at different times so ultimately the parampara is a link of hearts the spiritual master’s heart is devoted to Krishna and the disciple is inspired by that selfless and pure devotion of the spiritual master and that devotion from the heart is transferred to the disciple’s heart and when the disciple becomes advanced and takes on the role of a spiritual master then the disciple who has now become the spiritual master also shares the message of his spiritual master with the world according to his circumstances so ultimately it’s a heart to heart connection and only one who is very advanced one who has been able to establish the heart to heart connection is able to evaluate whether somebody is following or not and therefore rather than looking at Shri Prabhupada’s instruction and imagining that parampara is just like one single line rather rather than expecting that everybody aligned with the literal word of what Shri Prabhupada has said which is not possible because Shri Prabhupada himself has said many different things at different times but rather we see that a person’s actions are within the circle of what is compatible with Shri Prabhupada’s teachings and the Gaudiya Vaishya Sampradaya’s teachings so instead of expecting everyone to align with one line we have a Shri Prabhupada’s instruction not one line but Shri Prabhupada’s instructions are like a broad circle of course circle is broad at the same time it has a circumference and there are certain things which are beyond that circle so what would that circle comprise of? At the most foundational level following the four regular principles chanting 16 rounds these are essential if somebody is not doing this then one is certainly not following Shri Prabhupada then once that is clear we look at Shri Prabhupada’s own life he was quite rigid about Sambandh Gyan Tattva that the philosophical understanding he was quite rigid and uncompromising but with respect to Abhidhaya how to engage devotees in ways by which people could get connected with Krishna and devotees could get connected with Krishna he was quite innovative and encouraging of innovation so Shri Prabhupada started Ratha Yatra on the streets all over the cities all over the world now there are advances no precedents for this but Shri Ram Siddhartha did not do Ratha Yatra elsewhere now if again if we just want to follow the literalistic understanding of who is following the Parampara there are many people who say that Shri Prabhupada did not follow Bhaktiswami Thakur properly Bhaktiswami Thakur never had pictures put on the books that he published pictures of Radha Krishna or Lord Jaitanya Mahaprabhu because he felt that if the book is disrespected in the picture it falls on the ground and the Lord’s picture gets in touch with the ground maybe touched by somebody’s feet so he said when we put pictures actually pictures are in one sense some representations of this divine and they will get disrupted they will get disrespected and we will commit offenses therefore we should not print pictures Shri Prabhupada engaged artists and considered pictures in fact full page pictures in all his books as one of the most important features so similarly Shri Bhaktiswami Thakur was quite open in fact he encouraged the disciples to hear civilian quotes to wear western clothes church and fan when they went to preach in Europe and Shri Bhaktiswami Thakur himself wore those clothes Shri Prabhupada refused to wear those clothes and he said that he insisted that his followers also generally wear the dhoti kurta only and in the Gauriyamat temple generally the the guru-shishya parampara the order the descending orders from left to right so the oldest acharya is at the left and the young and the recent acharyas come towards the right whereas in ISKCON Shri Prabhupada had it the other way so now if somebody is going to just stick to a literally literalist world of of the previous acharya as the definition for deciding who is the follower and such people may even claim that Shri Prabhupada is not following Bhaktiswami Thakur but obviously Shri Prabhupada followed Bhaktiswami Thakur that’s how he got the potency that’s how he clinched and that’s how he made so many people all over the world into devotees so there are let me in another simple example of of the seeming differences between Shri Prabhupada and Bhaktiswami Thakur indicate that following doesn’t mean a rigid imitation in word and action but it means intelligent application according to time, place, circumstance of the central principles so if you hear the lecture on history of Gaudiya Vaishnavism on Bhaktiswami Thakur you will see that Bhaktiswami Thakur did so many innovations that many of the orthodox Gaudiya Vaishnavas at that time considered Bhaktiswami Thakur had actually cut himself off from the parampara which is absurd he was he who spread the parampara all over India he rejuvenated and re-strengthened the parampara so those who want to say that somebody has deviated from the parampara just based on saying that the literalistic following of the words and actions of the previous Acharya then our own Acharyas Prabhupada and Bhaktiswami Thakur can be judged as not following the words of the previous Acharya of their Acharyas by this count so therefore we cannot just have sticking to the literalistic world or imitating the actions in a literalistic way so then again as I said we have to understand the essential mood of Shila Prabhupada and that’s why in our movement we have to study the Gaudiya tradition and the Gaudiya culture Shila Prabhupada’s statement arose from a culture and within that culture he spoke certain things and based on that culture so if we take Shila Prabhupada’s statement out of context and it is possible to just assemble a number of course out of context then we can charge anyone and everyone to be deviating from the parampara so the following of parampara should lead to the internal advancement and external outreach internally that person should become attracted to Krishna and that attraction should manifest in dedication and practice of devotional service its principles and externally it should manifest in vigorous preaching and the success that comes from that of course the extreme Bhaktivinoda Thakur did say that a Vaishnava is known by how many Vaishnavas he makes but that is not the only criteria for somebody with a charismatic personality and with the karma to have popularity in this life if such a person comes to devotional service that person may attract a lot of followers so we have to see whether that person is actually internally attracted to Krishna and that internal attraction to Krishna manifests as detachment from everything other than Krishna and there when one is internally attached to Krishna then when one pinches one will attract others also to Krishna so internal attraction to Krishna is not very easy to judge but what we can possibly see we generally see is the dedication to the practices of devotional service and in Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s upper criteria like this are given of external adherence to the activities of devotional service avyartha kaalatvam not wasting time and namadani sudha ruchi enthusiasm to chant the holy names and eagerness to visit the dhams so basically we can see that person’s adherence to the limbs of devotional service and the person is doing that we can safely conclude that person is following devotional service but as far as outreach is concerned a person may innovate in in ways called time, place, circumstances so every tradition has a core that is unchanging and a periphery that is changing the periphery changes because the circumstances change so Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakur never really criticize Darwin’s theory of evolution too much because that was not such a big issue during their times Shrila Prabhupada especially went to America he felt that it was significant and that was a quite a sustained critique that he offered to Darwin’s theory of evolution so this is an example again for saying that the periphery keeps changing so Shrila Prabhupada also did a lot of dynamic innovations in his preaching and to be able to be successful the way he has been and the subsequent Acharyas will also have to make some innovations so the innovations that we do are that subsequent generations of devotees that will all be actually to get people to the core they will be in the periphery and to get people to the core if somebody starts changing the core itself so somebody says that we don’t have to chant Hare Krishna we can chant any other names also of God and we can do 16 rounds like that that will be a violation of the core so again to understand whether somebody is following a parampara or not we need to understand the different kinds of organizational structures that were there in the history of Gaudiya Vaishnavism so organizational structures can be classified into three broad categories soft core, medium core and hard core so soft core means there is no authority at all there is no central one governing authority and there is a great amount of independence but there is an overall agreement in theology so if we look at the various branches of Gaudiya Vaishnavism in the post Chaitanya phase, in Mahaprabhu phase when Narasimha Das Thakur was in Kheturi Gram Shyamananda Pandey, Darshanas Acharya they were all in Bengal and Orissa in different areas or even before that in Advaita Acharya and Narendra Chakravarti and all these Vaishnavas were there if you see the books that they have written we will see that there is an overall agreement in theology but there was no one decision maker no absolute one authority when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was there he was the final authority but after him there was no singular authority there was an overall agreement in theology and that is how Gaudiya Vaishnavism came down the generations so this is soft core organizational structure so then there is medium core medium core is what in general Shila Prabhupada adopted for ISKCON so medium core organizational structure means there is one deciding body there was one deciding authority but that deciding authority gives a lot of freedom on and for the subordinates so Shila Prabhupada did not micromanage the preaching of ISKCON all over the world and if we read the books of Shila Prabhupada’s disciples whenever they would come up with some innovations for preaching if they were not too far out or they did not contradict the principles of Gaudiya of Krishna Consciousness Shila Prabhupada would encourage and appreciate if he reads the Mahakrishna Mahabharata servant of servant you will see many times when he comes up with some idea for preaching Shila Prabhupada says yes because you are so sincere and intelligent Krishna has given you intelligence from within to preach this message in a nice way and Prabhupada would quote so Shila Prabhupada encouraged innovation and Shila Prabhupada opposed centralization Shila Prabhupada made ISKCON in the model of a nuclear family every temple is like an independent center and at one time the GBC decided that to centralize all the funds of ISKCON from all the temples and then to allocate the funds according to the GBC’s discretion and when Shila Prabhupada came to know about it he was so angry that he just suspended the GBC very quickly and he wrote a letter to Nepal President saying that because the GBC has taken certain actions that without that are displeasing to me and they are not informing me about it now for the time being till you get any further information from me take instructions only from me and not from the GBC and Shila Prabhupada wrote well-known letters to various ISKCON leaders saying that and all the centralization and bureaucratization is not going to work ultimately the purpose of the leadership and the management is to inspire devotees to bring out their individual initiative so Shila Prabhupada wanted individual initiative at one time the book distributor said that let us have we have learned how to distribute books what lines to speak so we will go temple to temple and we will train the devotees in speaking these lines Shila Prabhupada became insane and he refused he said don’t tell the devotees what to speak what lines to say inspire them to distribute books he says devotional service is individual voluntary and spontaneous devotional service is individual voluntary and spontaneous when the soul desires to serve Krishna then devotional service is performed so don’t tell the devotees what to do inspire them to serve Krishna and then they will serve Krishna according to their capacity according to their inspiration so Shila Prabhupada is very strongly opposed the third organizational structure model is hardcore hardcore means hardcore organizational structure is where every single thing practically speaking is decided by the by the central authority so those who try to adhere to this model it’s very possible that if the leader somehow has some difficulties gets corrupted by power or gets affected by anarthas then all the followers can get misled and it has happened sometimes in the history of ISKCON unfortunately and even if the leader is very exemplary and extraordinary still the hardcore management model organizational structure model has a problem that it creates over dependence on the leader among the followers and it overburdens the leaders so the followers don’t grow very much and especially when the leader departs then succession and continuation becomes very difficult so in general the medium core model is what Shila Prabhupada himself adopted for ISKCON and that’s what the GBC also adopts so when Shila Prabhupada was there he was the single final authority so in that sense ISKCON was a unipolar or unicentric there’s one centre, one pole but after Shila Prabhupada departed he said the GBC is the highest authority so GBC as a body is the highest and it is for the GBC body for all its members to come together and decide if some particular action is comprising a deviation from the parampara and it is not a very easy thing to decide and especially one should not be hasty in making a decision about this it is of course possible that we may or may not feel comfortable with certain innovative activities that somebody is doing so if we don’t feel comfortable we can keep a distance from that and we can follow in the standard way and if we feel inspired to do something in an innovative way then we can take guidance of Shila devotees so we have Guru, Sadhu and Shastra that’s our standard for acquiring knowledge so we can consult with our spiritual master Sadhu isn’t referred to the previous Acharya it refers to the current Acharyas and the current senior Vaishnavas also and for the Shastra it refers to Shila Prabhupada’s books so those who stick only to the letter of Shila Prabhupada’s books and do not look at Shila Prabhupada’s life and do not especially look at the traditions from which Shila Prabhupada came they can completely misunderstand Shila Prabhupada’s essential message and the classic and tragic example of this are the Ritwiks they follow Shila Prabhupada’s books at least that’s what they claim to and they quote extensively and rigorously from Shila Prabhupada’s books but they don’t consider Shila Prabhupada as coming from a tradition and they give no regard to the Guru and Sadhu so by focusing only on Shastra they make a total mistake similarly if somebody focuses only on Guru and neglects Sadhu and Shastra then as I said that is more or less like a hardcore Mahayana structure or Mahayana structure with only one authority for that sooner or later it generates into a personality cult and the advancement of the followers depends on the stature of that personality the personality has some difficulties and the followers also get traumatized and if this personality is good the followers can make advancement but then what about when the personality departs and those who decide they would only follow Sadhu and not Guru and Shastra then these people end up basically choosing what they want to do from different people and then doing what they want to do and justifying it in the name of being Krishna conscious so we need to have surely one authority so in this way if we isolate these three and take only one of them we will be in trouble if only Shastra then we have the Ritwik problem if only Guru then we have the personality cult problem if only Sadhu and not Guru and Shastra then we have the indecisiveness and lack of commitment problem because people can just do what they want and select whichever Sadhu says what they want to hear but when we integrate all three so when we integrate what the scriptures are saying what the prophets books are saying what our spiritual master is saying and what other Vaishnavas are saying not just our spiritual master not just the current Vaishnavas around us not just the Vaishnava Acharyas not just the leaders of ISKCON but also we look at the life and model of the biggest Acharyas then we can understand what actually Gauri Vaishnavism is and what following in Parampara means so I will summarize what I spoke the first point I spoke is that rather than looking for following Parampara as just one line to which everyone has to adhere there is no such one line Krishna Prabhupada himself spoke different lines at different times so we have to see Parampara as a broad circle and we have to see whether a particular person is within that circle of compatibility with Krishna Prabhupada’s teachings and Gauri Vaishnavism and then we discussed about how there are different kinds of organizational structures hard core, soft core and medium core and Krishna Prabhupada focused and utilized the medium core for our movement and we lastly concluded how when we have Guru Shadhu Shastra together then we can actually understand what it means to follow Parampara thank you