100 Deviations: The Life and Teachings of His Holiness Sivarama Swami

By ISKCON Revival Movement

This book continues our series detailing the teachings of those claiming to be successor diksa, or initiating gurus to Srila Prabhupada, the original guru of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or Hare Krishna movement).

This series provides the viewpoints of those claiming to be Srila Prabhupada’s successors, via their own words. In this way, though ISKCON’s members may argue that “we do not accept the ISKCON Revival Movement and its ritvik philosophy”, they cannot argue that they refuse to accept the words emanating from the “lotus mouths” of persons whom they accept as being as good as God.

Though this book is titled 100 Deviations: The Life and Teachings of His Holiness Sivarama Swami, readers should note that it is not that we are alleging that the Swami is deviating. Rather, it is the statements and actions of Sivarama Swami documented in this book, which prove that the Swami is himself admitting he is deviating. Therefore, anyone upset or disturbed at the contents of this book must take up the matter with the source of the contents of this book, which is Sivarama Swami himself.

Since this book is Sivarama Swami presenting his own life and teachings in his own words, it can thus be considered as an “autobiography” of this ISKCON guru.

“How much respect is meant to be offered to Vaisnavas [...] we should be very careful in terms of our interpersonal dealings amongst Vaisnavas, particularly when we speak, because in Kali-yuga, especially in our sort of communication age, everyone is free to speak and say anything about anyone else.  So, number one - we should not criticize others.”
-  HH Sivarama Swami

“It is a matter of how to deal with, restrict, constrain JPS (Jayapataka Swami) in a way that does not break him, his disciples and also protects the Society from him […] From the evidence I would say that he is a sick person, obsessed, and that obsession makes lying or duplicitous behaviour fully reconcilable with service to Prabhupada and Krishna Consciousness.” 
-  HH Sivarama Swami 

• Language: English
• Publisher: ISKCON Revival Movement
• Release date: Aug 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519904461

Book preview

Introduction

This book continues our series detailing the teachings of those claiming to be successor diksha, or initiating, gurus to Srila Prabhupada in ISKCON¹. This series provides the viewpoints of those claiming to be Srila Prabhupada’s successors via their own words. Hence, though ISKCON members may argue that we do not accept the IRM (ISKCON Revival Movement) and its "ritvik² philosophy, they cannot argue that they refuse to accept the words emanating from the lotus mouths" of persons whom they accept as being as good as God. In this, we are adopting the following methodology taught to us by Srila Prabhupada:

"There is a Bengali proverb: tora sil tora noda, tora bhangi dantera goda. I take your mortar and pestle and I break your teeth. This means that we use the scientists own weapons and with them we defeat their atheistic philosophy. […] Similarly, we can use our materialistic knowledge to defeat the atheistic philosophy of the scientists. So you also can continue your studies and learn what is sil and noda (mortar and pestle) so you can break their dantera goda (break their teeth)."

(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 8/3/1976)

Thus, the validity of the whole GBC³ guru successor system is destroyed via the contrary and contradictory conclusions of any one of its supposed bona fide representatives, since each is accepted as bona fide by every other, and each has the same authority as another for being bona fide, with each having been authorised as bona fide guru in the same manner.

This book is unlike a book called "100 Deviations of Ritvikism", which simply consisted of, and would have been more aptly titled, "100 Deviations About Ritvikism", since it fabricated what ritvikism was supposed to be, rather than basing its attacks on direct quotes from IRM publications (see the proof for this here: www.iskconirm.com/docs/webpages/100_deviations.htm; or go to the IRM homepage at www.iskconirm.com, and see under Replies to GBC Papers). Rather, our publications are a bona fide presentation of 100 Deviations, since each deviation or contradiction is substantiated via a direct quotation from the personality concerned.

Note: All emphases in the quotations that follow in this book have been added by us via underlining, with any explanatory notes in italics.

¹ International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or Hare Krishna Movement

² Officiating priest who initiates disciples for and on behalf of the guru, Srila Prabhupada

³ Governing Body Commission (ISKCON’s managerial authority)

CHAPTER ONE

I Deviate By Usurping Srila Prabhupada’s Position

His Holiness Sivarama Swami (SRS) has been acting as a full-fledged successor ISKCON diksha guru to Srila Prabhupada for the last 25 years, being worshipped and regarded as good as God by his disciples. In this chapter we present statements from SRS himself as to why this action of his is deviant, since he admits in different ways that he should not be acting as such a diksha guru, and that actually Srila Prabhupada should be the diksha guru. Thus, every statement presented in this chapter will be evidence of his continued deviant behaviour.

Srila Prabhupada clearly states that:

A Guru can be Guru when he is ordered by his Guru. That’s all. Otherwise nobody can become Guru.

(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, 28/10/1975)

Even SRS agrees that Srila Prabhupada needs to give such a direct order:

Prabhupada says, ‘when I say, then he will become guru’.

(SRS Istaghosti⁴ on Back To Prabhupada Special Issue 1, 17/7/2008, Budapest)

Yet in the next three entries below SRS admits that Srila Prabhupada did not give any orders to either himself, or to anyone else, to become a successor diksha guru. Rather, he became a diksha guru due to a combination of being asked to do so in 1987 by the GBC and the urging of a prospective disciple:

1) I became guru without any order from Srila Prabhupada – 1

Let us just discuss the instructions, so even granted that Srila Prabhupada did not give the order now you, you and you, be gurus.

(SRS Ritvik debate, Bhaktivedanta Manor, 3/1/1997)

2) I became guru without any order from Srila Prabhupada – 2

"And although Srila Prabhupada’s vision of, as with other things, the way in which this process of parampara⁵ guru-disciple relationship continues within the Krishna Conciousness movement was sort of implicit in the way in that he established ISKCON."

(SRS Podcast, Manor Initiation Lecture, 11/1/2009)

3) I became guru without any order from Srila Prabhupada – 3

"At this time I also was asked to take up the role of initiating spiritual master. I didn’t consider that this would be very conducive to my personal spiritual life and I was satisfied for others to do that service and that I would stay in the role of sannyasi⁶, a preacher, siksha guru, GBC, and probably it was at Gaurangi’s⁷ repeated prompting that ultimately I began to think seriously of that service and took it up.  I can’t even remember at what time but I think at some time in 1987."

(SRS Podcast, 4/10/2006)

4) Srila Prabhupada should be diksha guru as he gives divya-jnana⁸

"Caitanya-caritamrta describes that when one is, performs those purificatory activities by which Krsna accepts someone as His very own within His family, that is called diksha. And then in further detail, what does that mean? It means divyam jnanam yato dadyat kuryat papasya sanksayam, that...that divya-jnana, or that, one has the transcendental knowledge; just like we sing every day, Divya-jnana hrde prokasito. Transcendental knowledge by which ignorance is destroyed, because that’s the real sum and substance of what purification is about."

(SRS Podcast, Scotland Initiations, 9/1/2008)

"And uh, that’s a very important realization because we are, we are still very very small uh, until actually our lives become one with that of Krishna. Just like we sing in the morning, guru muka padma vakya cittete koriya aikya. So when so when