Innocence

The Innocence of Youth

by Pragosa dasa

I recently overheard a humorous, but very interesting and instructive exchange between two lady devotees and the seven year old son of one of those devotees. The event took place while the devotees concerned were taking prasadam at a Sunday feast. After eating a considered amount it was coming to the stage where refusing the continued offerings of the servers was the more prudent thing to do. So as the third or fourth helping of cheese subji was making its way to them, one of the ladies said, as the server concerned approached (a 17 year old female devotee), "No thanks ------- prabhu, I've overdone it - again!" (She'd probably overdone it on the first helping but that's another story). On noticing the server being referred to by an initiated name the other lady devotee sitting eating inquired (after the server had departed), "Oh who did she take initiation from?" Her friend replied, (somewhat sarcastically), oh she's a disciple of Prabhupada! (a reference to the fact that this girl had apparently received 'ritvik' initiation from a certain devotee). However it was the next comment that I found particularly interesting and it came from the seven year old boy present, who wouldn't know what ritvik (or rasika for that matter) was if it jumped up and hit him between the eyes! Just a simple seven year old preoccupied with imitating Rama, Hanuman, Bhima or Arjuna and generally having a good time.

His innocent, uncomplicated response was "She couldn't be a Prabhupada disciple, she's too young!" Now someone may say "What kind of argument is that, the kid concerned knows nothing of the philosophical complexities involved in this issue." While it's true he would not be aware of any of the controversy surrounding this issue, that is precisely the beauty of his point. It is not clouded by any of this very controversy. I am reminded of Srila Prabhupada's reaction sometimes when he would be preaching to representatives of other religious organizations and the discussion would be heading for stalemate due to the participants' dogmatic use of their own various sastra. Prabhupada, seeing that this was getting in the way of having an open philosophical discussion, would often say, "Let us leave scripture aside for a moment and discuss on the basis of logic, reason and argument." So it was with this in mind that the child's comment really struck me. He knew nothing of the arguments surrounding this issue, his reaction was merely based on what he logically concluded was an impossibility based on the age of the girl concerned. Where did this understanding of his come from? As I said earlier he knows nothing about this issue therefore we can but conclude by default (at least in the eyes of this relatively innocent servant of Krsna) that as far as natural inclination and assumption are concerned the ritvik position doesn't add up.

Of course as much as we may not accept the absolute authority of the bible or the koran etc. we certainly don't dispute the fact that there is a sizeable amount of information in those scriptures. So as well as not having much basis in logic and reason the ritvik argument is also in serious short supply when it comes to sastric evidence. (Something that is apparently accepted by ritvik followers). The vast weight of sastric evidence however does support the position of regular gurus. "The Lord is the original spiritual master, and a person in the disciplic succession can convey the message of the Lord as it is to his disciple. No one can be spiritually realised by manufacturing his own process, as is the fashion of the foolish pretenders. The Bhagavatam (6.3.19) says, dharmam tu saksad bhagavat-pranitam: the path of religion is directly enunciated by the Lord. Therefore, mental speculation and dry arguments cannot help lead one to the right path. Nor by independent study of books of knowledge can one progress in spiritual life. One has to approach a bona fide spiritual master to receive the knowledge. Such a spiritual master should be accepted in full surrender, and one should serve the spiritual master like a menial servant, without false prestige." [BG 4.34 purport] This of course is one of many quotes supporting the position of the need for a 'regular' guru. There simply isn't the same support for the ritvik theory. For all those devotees lucky enough to have a copy of the Prabhupada vedabase on their computer, type in the word rtvik and see how many references there are to it (you won't need your calculator to add them up) then check the references (it won't take long) to see how many of them imply substituting a ritvik for a regular guru. This is where you enter the needle in a haystack syndrome, only it's worse than that as there is no needle present! I should announce here (assuming you haven't yet noticed) that I'm not a proponent of the ritvik philosophy, rather I'm still captivated with the immortal phrase that I first heard over 15 years ago, "You are not the body", and I am still feeling gobsmacked, awestruck and spellbound by both its significance and my struggle to really get to grips with it. My inclination to 'go further' etc. is chastened by the knowledge that I still have so much progress to make with this realisation. I'm hopeful that my understanding isn't an ill-informed or indeed blind one, as I feel convinced by the enormous bulk of evidence both from the logic and reason side as well as the sastric side, that there is no real validity in the ritvik argument. Having said that, I still very much identify with and have much empathy for those devotees who have been so disgracefully let down and cheated in the past by persons in whom they invested so much faith. I can also understand how natural it must be to, at the very least, want to take shelter in a philosophy that on the one hand attempts to show even more respect for Srila Prabhupada while at the same time protects one against ever having to go through the pain of severing a relationship with a fallen guru again. However the parampara system is a transcendental system given to us by Lord Krsna Himself, and Prabhupada could never accept the 'respect' that might come as a result of altering the very parampara system to which he was so faithful. It seems that while there are many emotional reasons to support the idea of ritvik, as indeed there are to support the followers of Narayana Maharaja, there is no real philosophical basis for such support. Of course merely 'winning' the argument from a philosophical perspective is far from sufficient.

Philosophy, although important, is not the be all and end all. Rather we should all be very concerned that our inter devotee dealings have been so impersonal and exploitative that it has practically resulted in so many taking shelter in ways that would not please Srila Prabhupada. Of course it would be easy for us to say that all responsibility lies with those that have chosen to take such a course of action, however it seems this attitude merely further ostracises and deepens the problem. Rather we should accept that we are all in some way to blame, and if we want to take solace in knowing that philosophically we are on the 'right side', well that's okay, but we should be strong enough to admit that as a society we have failed miserably in the purity, maturity and sensitivity stakes. Only when we are prepared to admit this serious shortcoming can we hope for some real progress to be made on this and indeed other issues that are born from the same root problem.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare