Srila Prabhupada Realizations By Guru Maharaja Part-2

What is the meaning of Acarya? Acarya means the spiritual master. So Prabhupada is not only the founder of ISKCON, but Prabhupada is also the spiritual master of everyone in ISKCON. Srila Prabhupada is not just the spiritual master of his disciples, Srila Prabhupada is the spiritual master of all the devotees of ISKCON for all time. As long as ISKCON will be there Srila Prabhupada will remain the Acarya of ISKCON. Does that mean there shouldn’t be any other guru’s? No, there will be gurus but those gurus will be subservient to Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada is the principle Acarya and all the gurus are subordinate. That is the difference between ISKCON and any other institution.
To properly understand this point, let us consider how the initiation system used to be conducted in the past. In the past the guru used to have his ashram and the disciple used to come and get trained by the guru in his ashram. When the guru retired he handed the ashram over to a selected one. He used to appoint an Acarya, and that person used to continue. The other disciples, if they wanted, they could have their ashram and they could continue educating or training their disciples. So it was a small set up. The guru used to educate his disciples himself in a personal way. But with Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s sankirtan movement there appeared to be need for a world-wide propagation of Krishna consciousness and this revival of Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s mission was started by Bhaktivinode Thakur. Prior to Bhaktivinodhe Thakur, Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s teachings were practically lost. In the desert of apasampradayas, the nectarean stream of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s sankirtana teachings got lost and Bhaktivinodhe Thakur came to revive that flow of nectar. Bhaktivinodhe Thakur himself could not do much preaching. He just founded the foundation of Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s movement. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur started the propagation. Bhaktivinodhe Thakur gave the blueprint in his books and writings but Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur started the propagation. That propagation started in the form of Gaudiya Math, his institution. His institution was very effective during his presence. There were 64 Math’s or centers throughout India in those days. The kind of people that surrendered to him were amazing, they were very prominent, very cultured, very wealthy, well established individuals. Gaudiya Math was thriving at that time. But soon after Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur’s disappearance, his institution actually crumbled. Why did it happen? When we go into the history then we find that Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur did not want to appoint an Acarya. He did not appoint any successor Acarya.