Next In Line For Teaching By Example | Rama Raghava Dasa

By Rama Raghava Dasa
Aug 29 2011, Augusta, Ga.

Hare Krishna. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Recently Prahlada-Nrsimha prabhu submitted an article (Fly the One Flag of Srila Prabhupada) ending with a question. The last part of the article states:

“So I have one question for Rupanuga Prabhu. You say:

“Srila Prabhupada said,

“I am the tenth Acarya in line from Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and you are next.”

So nowadays so many people misquote Srila Prabhupada and also those of us that are so fortunate to have had Prabhupada’s personal association are now 40 years older and often times in 40 years our memories fade and unless we had immediately written down things we thought we heard Srila Prabhupada say, they become mixed up in our Kali yuga memories.

Or else we heard it from someone else who heard it from someone else who heard it online somewhere, etc.

So the words we quote may not be right and thus the meaning changed. So can you give some type of reference for this quote? Can you please give some reference where you got this quote from.”

First of all, I would like to add to the question about the quote from Srila Prabhupada and ask to whom it was spoken? Was it during a lecture to a general devotee audience, or devotees in leadership positions, or to the leaders chosen to be rittvik acharyas?

Second, if Srila Prabhupada did say the above, does it mean that it’s an order to become a diksha guru? Let me give an example. In the introduction to Bhagavad Gita As It Is, Srila Prabhupada wrote:

“Here the Lord clearly tells Arjuna that He is making him the first receiver of a new parampara (disciplic succession) because the old succession was broken. It was the Lord’s wish, therefore, to establish another parampara in the same line of thought that was coming down from the sun-god to others, and it was His wish that His teaching be distributed anew by Arjuna. He wanted Arjuna to become the authority in understanding the Bhagavad-gita.“ (Bhagavad Gita As It Is, Introduction, p.4)

Srila Prabhupada is saying that Krishna wanted to make Arjuna the first authority in a new parampara. So is there any evidence that Arjuna sat on a vyasasana and gave “initiation” to any “disciple”?