Sit Properly

I was at Philly Rath this weekend and there were a few book distributors selling Prabhupada’s original Gita! It was the compact edition, which I wanted and didn’t have. So I approached one nice young lad, named Philip and asked him if these were the original editions. He hesitantly told me that they were, but he had the revised edition with him too!

After I told him that I wanted to buy the original, he told me that he preferred that as well. But the whole mood of the conversation was tainted by the Ritviks.

I’ll explain.

But first, a quick history of the Ritvik movement. In my religion, we have gurus, spiritual teachers. You can have many teachers, of course, but your guru is the person who initiates you. That’s when we get the sanskrit name. The standard practice in my religion is that the guru initiates his or her disciples and when he or she “leaves his or her body” (ie. “dies”), the disciples, if they’re qualified, can become gurus. They can’t become gurus until their guru passes. And once their guru passes, he, of course, no longer accepts disciples.

The Ritviks believe something of the opposite. Srila Prabhupada, before leaving, was accepting so many disciples that there simply wasn’t any way for him to personally initiate them. He appointed a few senior disciples to initiate on his behalf. The new initiates were still Srila Prabhupada’s disciples. This is a fairly common practice. However, the Ritviks believe that even after Srila Prabhupada passed, that this system should continue. But that’s simply not how it works.

This has been a big, unending debate that is, frankly, old and worn out. Much like the abortion debate or the debate over whether Ford is better than Chevy. Of course, it’s amazingly important, but I think everyone is pretty tired of it.

The Ritviks have left ISKCON (in one way or another). It’s a touchy subject. Annoying too.

I do find myself agreeing with the Ritviks in one aspect though. I, like them, believe that Srila Prabhupada’s books should not be changed.

Herein lies the problem.

While I totally disagree with the Ritviks on every other point, especially their conclusions, I agree with them on the book changes. And so, sometimes, I find myself lumped in with them.

I don’t like this.

Sometimes, in ISKCON, it can get a little black and white. Meaning, if someone is promoting Srila Prabhupada’s original books, the first thing that comes to some people’s minds is “hey! this person must be a ritvik!” That’s a real shame.

But it goes deeper than that.

A lot of the research and cataloging of the book changes has been done by the Ritviks. Many of the websites about it are run by Ritviks. One of the sad qualities I’ve found about these people is that they (at least some of them) can get very offensive. For example, they’ll make up nasty names for other devotees based upon the spiritual names that Srila Prabhupada gave to them (which I think is an offense to Prabhupada). I don’t care what you think of these people, you simply do NOT do that!

It has gotten better lately, I’ll admit that. You can pretty well go to any of the sites and not be greeted with that nonsense all up in your face. But dig a little deeper or follow a link or two and you’re there.

Whatever happened to respectful debate?

The offensiveness is found on both sides, but mostly I’ve found it on the Ritvik side of things.

Another issue I have with some of these Ritviks is that they’ll crash ISKCON sponsored events. Like Philly Ratha-yatra. Now, you’d think “ok, here’s a place where devotees of all sects and denominations could come together, chant and dance and feast just like in the old days!” But no. The Ritviks come, distribute their “Back to Prabhupada” magazine to the unsuspecting public. Sometimes they cause a scene (though they didn’t this year), generally turning off people to the philosophy. Simply, this is not the place for such a debate.

And so when I tell some devotees that I prefer Srila Prabhupada’s original books, I’ll sometimes get that look like, “are you … one of … them?” No! Of course not! I just like Prabhupada’s original words.

Honestly, I think that this isn’t a problem for just me. I think it has polarized ISKCON. I think that ISKCON is less likely to change their printing and revising policies specifically because of the Ritviks. This is, I feel, shortsighted on both the Ritviks and ISKCON’s part. I hope this changes in the future.

And because I was criticizing some devotees, I also like to throw out a few good things. As far as the Ritviks go, their devotion to Srila Prabhupada is inspiring. While I don’t agree with their conclusions, who can say that they don’t love Srila Prabhupada? On the ISKCON side, these devotees are just trying to please Srila Prabhupada by staying true to ISKCON. I personally don’t believe that you have to agree with everything that ISKCON does in order to stay true, but that’s neither here nor there at this point.

All glories to the vaisnava devotees of all sects, denominations and affiliations! Hopefully we can all come together, if not in this lifetime, in the next or beyond.