As followers of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, we are part of the Brahma Madhva Gaudiya Sampradaya. This means that our line started with Lord Brahma, who received the Vedic knowledge directly from Krsna and passes through Srila Madhvacarya, who personally received the knowledge from Srila Vyasadeva and through Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and his followers, culminating with Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura and Srila Prabhupada.

We all understand that the teachings given by Srila Prabhupada emphasize the acceptance of a spiritual master, who creates the link between the aspiring disciple and the previous acaryas, going all the way to Krsna. Although the spiritual master accepts the responsibility of delivering the disciple out of the material world, he doesn’t do that by his own strength. What the guru does is to connect the disciple with his own spiritual master, who in turn connects him with his own spiritual master, all the way to Krsna. Just like when we hold to a chain to be pulled out of the ocean, our deliverance from the material world is done by the whole Parampara. Although we hold to the last link of the chain (the spirtual master), the lifting is done by the combined work of all links, all the way to Krsna. For this system to work, it’s essential that not only the disciple remain connected to the spiritual master, but that the spiritual master himself remains connected to his own spiritual master, since a link disconnected from the chain has no value.

However, when we talk to talk to representatives of the traditional Madhva Sampradaya we are challenged by their understanding that the deliverance is not done by the spiritual master, but by Madvacarya alone. According to them, one may receive initiation from a Sannyasi, or from any genuine follower of Madvacarya, including even a family member, like the father or uncle, but in any case, the deliverer is Srila Madvacarya. Representatives of the Madhva Sampradaya have a great appreciation for Srila Prabhupada, and according to them, Srila Prabhupada plays, for Iskcon devotees, a similar role to the one played by Srila Madvacarya in the Madhva Sampradaya. In other words, in their understanding, Srila Prabhupada alone is the deliverer of all his followers.

At first, this appears to contradict the teachings of Srila Prabhupada and the instructions left by him for the continuation of the parampara. In fact, Ritviks use this as an argument to support their philosophy that no guru is necessary and that one can be connected to Prabhupada through any priest giving initiation in his name. Is it so?

Not really. As in other philosophical points, both views are reconciled when one has a higher understanding.

The first point to understand is the position of Srila Prabhupada in our society. Is he just another guru, a prominent acarya, or a sampradaya acarya? This question is answered in the book “Srila Prabhupada The Founder-Acarya of Iskcon” (you can just Google it to find the PDF of the book). This book is accepted as a foundational book, or in other words, a book that holds conclusions that all Iskcon members and followers of Srila Prabhupada are supposed to be well familiar with. It goes through all the rationale that leads to the conclusion that Prabhupada is the prominent acarya for our society, just like Madhvacarya is for the traditional Madhva Sampradaya, a conclusion that is well supported by numerous arguments, starting from the title “Founder-Acarya” that Srila Prabhupada insisted in being used. This puts Prabhupada as the main guide and ultimate deliverer of all Iskcon devotees, just as the Madhvas also conclude.

So, how does it fit into the idea of the spiritual master being the deliverer of the disciple that Prabhupada himself taught? Doesn’t this conclusion support the ritvik philosophy? Actually not, but this requires a little brain to be understood.

Prabhupada is considered the prominent acarya of our whole society (the Sampradaya-Acarya) not only because he is the founder of our society, but also because he is accepted as a pure devotee and as the bonafine representative of Krsna. He gave the spiritual process and all the philosophical guidelines we are supposed to follow, adjusting the Gaudiya Vaishnava philosophy to our reality. Just like Vyasadeva took just 400,000 verses out of the 1,000,000,000 verses of the original Purana, Srila Prabhupada discarded all the non-essential parts of the philosophy, focussing on what is really important in our day and age. In this way, he cut out all the nonsense and gave us a practical process we can successfully follow. Thanks to Srila Prabhupada’s contribution, even a spiritual master who is not similarly empowered can deliver his disciples by connecting them to Srila Prabhupada. Because Prabhupada is already doing the heavy lifting, the spiritual master doesn’t necessarily have to be an empowered acarya like him, he just has to be his bonafide representative. The guru is still the deliverer of the disciple, and the responsible for connecting him with Srila Prabhupada and the rest of the parampara, but he is just the last link in the chain and not the sole deliverer.

Whe can see that in certain periods of the history of our movement, we had gurus who claimed to be deliverers of his disciples, putting themselves in the same position as Srila Prabhupada. We can also see that some of them have fallen down and others were somehow or other corrected in their understanding. Nowadays we fortunately have a better understanding of this point, and as a result fewer falldowns.

When we can properly understand the role of the spiritual master of the role of the Sampradaya-Acarya (Srila Prabhupada himself) we can properly understand their roles, and see how the view of prominent teachers of the Madhva Sampradaya relates to the teachings of Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada is the ultimate deliver of all his followers because he is our connection with Krsna. However, simultaneously we are connected to Srila Prabhupada by our own spirtual master. The spiritual master connects us to Srila Prabhupada, and Srila Prabhupada connects us to Krsna. In this way we are delivered. Srila Prabhupada is the deliverer, but at the same time the initiating spiritual master, as well as the siksa-gurus are essential since they connect us with him.

In this way, there is no conflict between the teachings of Srila Prabhupada and the teachings of the teachers from the Madhva Sampradaya, nor is there support for the Ritvik theory, which is just a gross misunderstanding of the whole process of parampara. The problem with the Ritvik theory is that it replaces the spiritual master with the role of a priest who just performs the rites. There is a fundamental difference between the two since the spiritual master plays the role of a genuine representative of Srila Prabhupada, who teaches the disciple and connects him to Srila Prabhupada, assuming the responsibility of keeping him connected to the parampara and thus allowing him to be delivered by Srila Prabhupada and the previous acaryas. The ritvik priest, on the other hand, is just a formal priest who assumes no responsibility for the disciple. One who follows the ritvik philosophy remains thus disconnected from the parampara and from Srila Prabhupada himself.