When discussing certain topics – like the answer to the essential question, “Where do I come from?” – I have a few times heard senior disciples of Śrīla Prabhupāda suggest that Prabhupāda told us things that are different from what Śrī Jīva Goswāmī told us. If asked how Prabhupāda could teach something different from what he was taught, they explain that he could do so because Krishna directly gave him this new information. If asked which version we should accept and adopt, they explain that it is our duty as followers of Śrīla Prabhupāda to accept only his opinion, and reject the opinion of the previous ācārya.
I can accept that Prabhupāda may have known more than his gurus, or better understood how to explain certain things to the people he was teaching, because this is not unprecedented and doesn’t go against the fundamental principle of guru paramparā. (For example: Śuka is glorified as being even more capable of fully revealing the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam than his father and guru, Vyāsa.) However that’s not exactly what is being suggested in the above scenario. What is being suggested there is that Prabhupāda can contradict his gurus’ conclusions – because Krishna told him to.
I disagree. First of all, it goes against everything I learned from Prabhupāda about guru paramparā. Secondly, it definitely seems unrealistic that Prabhupāda received fundamental information from Krishna that contradicts what his own guru received from Krishna, what Śrīla Bhaktivinoda received from Krishna, and especially what the founders of Gauḍīya Siddhānta – Śrī Rūpa, Sanātana, and Jīva Goswāmīs – received from Krishna. Did Krishna change his mind about reality recently?
When I find Prabhupāda saying something that seems to contradict his gurus, I have two options:
(a) conclude that Prabhupāda doesn’t purely represent his guru-paramparā.
(b) conclude that I misunderstood Prabhupāda.
Everyone will surely agree that b is a whole lot more likely than a. Especially since so many of the quotes brought out from Prabhupāda are not even from his books, but are from far more contextually-sensitive recordings, conversations and letters to very specific individuals, at very specific times, in very specific circumstances – making it very easy to misunderstand Prabhupāda.
But somehow a lot of senior devotees seem to insist that they understand Prabhupāda correctly, even though their understanding paints an absolutely unacceptable picture of Prabhupāda as someone who does not represent his own gurus on fundamental principles like the answer to the question, “Where do I come from?”
To insist on interpreting Prabhupāda’s statements in a way that would put them at odds with Śrī Jīva and the Goswāmīs is an inadvertent insult to Śrīla Prabhupāda, because it indirectly says, “he doesn’t purely represent the Six Goswāmīs. He has different opinions.”
I wish more people would adopt this point of view and “choose option b,” desisting from insisting that Prabhupāda has a “second opinion” on tattva. Because that insistence means he doesn’t represent his guru-paramparā and therefore isn’t a bona-fide guru. Insisting that Prabhupāda could reach a different conclusion from an absolutely essential ācārya like Śrī Jīva Goswāmī inadvertently turns out to be an insult to the most important and compassionate Vaiṣṇava in our contemporary world: A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swāmī, because it indirectly says, “he doesn’t purely represent the Six Goswāmīs.”
This causes such a problem for everyone.
There are infinite possible ways to illustrate, explain, clarify, and apply a tattva, but there are never multiple, contradictory versions of a tattva. If we think there are two versions of tattva to choose from, we are wrong.
In guru pamaparā there are never “two opinions” on any fundamental subject. There is one opinion, with infinite ways of expressing, explaining and applying that opinion. If someone has an opinion different from the opinion of Bhāgavata Purāṇa as explained by Śrī Jīva, that person is simply not a representative of Śrī Jīva’s Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava school. Maybe their opinion is brilliant, maybe its ridiculous, that’s unsure. What is sure is that, if it differs from the opinion of the Six Goswāmīs it is not a gauḍīya vaiṣṇava opinion.
There are infinite possible ways to represent, illustrate, explain, clarify, and apply a siddhānta (a philosophical conclusion), but there cannot be two contradictory siddhāntas in the same school.
If we think there are two to choose from, we are wrong.
Vraja Kishor das
www.vrajakishor.com