Further Dangers of Rittvik

Here Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada contrasts the guidance received from a physically departed spiritual master, Jesus Christ (or Srila Prabhupada), and a physically manifest guru. This is not only applicable to current rittvik advocates but all current followers of Srila Prabhupada since there is no known physically manifest pure devotee.

From Amrita Vani, the Spiritual Master by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada, English translation by Bhumipati dasa

40. If Jesus Christ was a jagad-guru and his instructions capable of bringing us deliverance, why do we need a spiritual master?

We accept both the universal spiritual master and the initiating spiritual master. By accepting only the jagad-guru, we may face many anarthas. If at present we want to follow Christ’s orders by accepting him as jagad-guru, and we think that we do not require an initiating spiritual master, we will certainly face the doubt about how well we can follow Christ’s orders. The Supreme Lord or universal jagad-guru delivers His instructions about the Absolute Truth only through the disciplic succession. As I sit on the bank of the Ganges in Navadvipa, far from the Himalayas where the Ganges originates, and am able to touch her water here, the initiating spiritual master similarly brings the Ganges of pure devotional service, which emanates from the Lord’s lotus feet, and places it in my hand and on my head. If the flow of the Ganges did not come to me, then because I am an ordinary, powerless, poor person, I would not have been able to climb the Himalayas to touch her water. Or if the flow of the Ganges from the Himalayas was interrupted on the way, I would have had to face the danger of accepting a polluted flow instead of the pure Ganga. If the instructions Jesus Christ gave two thousand years ago do not come to us through disciplic succession, or if we have to sort them out from books, then perhaps we may create a blunder and accept a perversion of the truth taught in the name of Christianity. We may even come to accept something opposite from what he taught, thinking it his actual philosophy.

The initiating spiritual master is also jagad-guru because he is a manifestation of the original jagad-guru. Out of his causeless mercy he delivers the message of the original jagad-guru through the disciplic succession. He does not cheat nor flatter the disciple, nor does he yearn for any material gain from me. He is simply a messenger of the Absolute Truth.