NO ONE WAS APPOINTED

Question from a sincere follower of Srila Prabhupada...

Hi Mataji,
the gurus that we have TODAY. THEY were appointed BY Prabhupada to be initiating Guru?

My answer, as I see it....
No. No one was appointed. When He was very ill nearing the time for His disappearance He appointed some of the senior disciples to perform the initiation ceremony on His behalf. He was too physically weak to do "anything" at that time.

The controversy that arose was that as soon as He disappeared these disciples claimed they had now become initiating gurus in their own right. But there is nothing to support that anywhere. They present a letter and a garbled tape with a few sentences on it that can be interpreted in a million different ways as some sort of proof.

There were many, many tape recordings made at the time near His disappearance but they have all mysteriously disappeared.

From what I see of the tendency of these people to improve upon Srila Prabhupada's books by changing them in thousands and thousands of unnecessary revisions I think the same mentality is there in this guru issue.

Personally, I think there is a movement and ISKCON is functioning somewhat but it is a bit confusing for someone who wants to try to take shelter and serve there now. Just my honest opinion.