Śrīla Prabhupāda's Hare Krishna Society

Prabhu,
Please give me
some suggestions

Hare Krsna Prabhus--

Pranams
All glories to Srila Prabhupada

What follows is a recent letter we received at our website www.harekrishnasociety.org from a devotee in Mysore India and I was asked to reply to his questions. There are literally thousands like him worldwide asking the same questions and they all want Srila Prabhupada as their param guru--which he can be if we simply accept and follow his instructions...

Haroi bol
Damaghosa das
-----------------------

From: DasDasDas@aol.com
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:43:39 EDT
Subject: reply to your questions
To: love*******krishna@yahoo.com

Hare Krishna Prabhu,
All the glories to Srila Prabhupada. Prabhu, I am Sri****** living in Mysore, India. I am a trying to become a devotee of Lord Krishna and I am following ISKCON from past three years. Also I am chanting 16 rounds of Hare Krishna Maha Mantra daily without fail and I am following 4 regulative principles. I am mad after Srila Prahbupada's books. But I have got doubt in accepting a guru. In our ISKCON, Mysore devotees says that Srila Prabhupad is the only Guru. But some of the ISKCON followers especially followers of Jayapathaka Maharaj they say that now Srila Prabhupada is not Physically prsent so that we have to accept a guru other than Srila Prabhupada like that they say. But I have already accepted Srila Prabhupad as my acharya or Guru. Prabhu please give me some suggestions. I have seen in your website it is written that you have got your own views based on Srila Prabhupada's teaching similarly I too have my own opinions based on Srila Prabhupada's books, now I am feeling difficulty in accepting some other guru and in your website it is also written that any one can discuss with you. So that I am sending this mail to you prabhu I request you to kindly give some suggestions, since you are an initiated desciple of Srila Prabhupada. I will be waiting for your answer. Hare Krishna Prabhu.

Hare Krsna Sri****** prabhu--

Obeisances

All glories to Srila Prabhupada

Thank you for your letter and inquiry.

You write that iskcon mysore temple devotees say you have to accept a "living guru" since Prabhupada is now not physically present.

This is old news to thousands of Prabhupadanugas worldwide who dont accept this nonsense about the "need" to have a physically present guru.

A very simple thing to do is to ask any of these "vapu vada" devotees to show you any place-even ONE place- anywhere in any of Srila Prabhupadas books where he states you NEED a physically present guru to accept.

Simply , they cannot do it because there is NO place anywhere in Prabhupada's books where he says this nonsense.

Rather he states just the opposite--you have to accept a maha bhagavat as guru because only he is capable of delivering any conditioned soul.

And the way you accept such a maha bhagavat guru is to listen to him, read his books, and if you accept and follow what he states, then you are already initiated into this sampradaya.

Just like Srila Prabhupada met Srila Bhaktisiddhanta maharaj when he was around 20 years old, and at that time, Prabhupada states that he accepted him as his guru and was initiated at that time just because he accepted the disciplic conclusion thru Bhaktisiddhanta maharaj. Then around 11 years later he accepted formal initiation-BUT he considered at that time when he first met him-that he was his param guru, and was his disciple. And that was his initiation the real initiation.

We suggest you read our book online (our website) entitled Srila Prabhupada siddhanta--it will clear up any doubts you may have.

Thank you for you nice inquiry-and if you have further questions feel free to write to me...

Damaghosa das
Hare Krsna Society

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