The Definitive Analytical Study & Presentation On The Rtvik Guru Debate In ISKCON

Any and All Members Of ISKCON - Followers / Well-Wishers Of ISKCON and His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad and His mission.

To Dispell the Myths - And Document The Factual Evidences

This site was deliberately made as an Audio-Visual "Presentation" - The purpose of the presention is explained in the Introduction.
Enter The Presentation: Then press the [START] button to watch the Introductoin for more information.

Since this is an AUDIO-Visual presentation that extensively incorporates video, a Speaker or Headphones are Required.
A High Speed Internet connection is also needed.

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KNOWN ISSUES: (3D version) Video starts lagging the audio. The issue is with the Chrome browser. more ►

In 1970 Srila Prabhupad wrote a formal paper he titled the "Direction of Managment" [DoM] by which he formed the GBC (The Governing Body Commission). The DoM laysout the fundamental structure of how Srila Prabhupad wanted his ISKCON Mission to be managed by the Temple Presidents and GBC.
A brief summary: more ►
I will be producing an extension to this presentation on the Direction Of Management as soon as I can get to it.
You can check back to this site in April or May of 2022. OR if you prefer, you can request we email you when it is up.
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Back in 1968 I had given my life to Jesus and to preach God's word. But, very quickly I realized I didn't know who God was. I read the Bible from end to end, and found no real diect information about God, the Person. What does He look like? What does He do? What is His kingdom really like to live there. I found nothing in the Bible. I then read the Torah, then the Koran, but they were of the same origin, and none of them gave any real infromation of Who God 'really' was.
Eventually I found Buddhism and was attracted to the deep introspection of Eastern thought, meditation and chanting of Sanskrit mantras. But, shortly I realized that again there was no direct or detailed knowledge as to who God, the Person, really is.
In 1969 at the college library I found a small Bhagavad Gita. Not Prabhupad's, but it was just the verses translated into English. it changed my life. I had been searching for what God Looked like, and what His kingdom is like, and I found the most profound Teachings of God in the Bhagavad Gita.
But, there were no picures in that book. And, again, no descriptions of what He looked like, and what His kingdom was really like.
So my search to find out Who God really was, what He looks like, What He does, what His kingdom is like, continued.
I finally realized what I needed was a Guru, someone who already knows God in full, a truly Self-Realized master. I must find such a guru and surrender my life to him, and he can teach me who God is.
For some time I searched and prayed for my guru. But, I found no one living in this world who was really and truly Self-Realized. I then became convinced that my guru was no longer living in this world, so I thought I can only find him in the library, in a book that he had written.
One evening I prayed intensely for God to send me my guru in the form of a book. And I prayed that in this book my guru will tell me everything I want to know about God.
This was now the summer of 1970. The next day I went to the West Covina branch of the Los Angeles County Library system - and there - waiting for me were 3 books.

The Krsna Book,
the Teachings of Lord Caitanya and
the Nectar of Devotion.

Those 3 books had been donated just the day before by, what the Librarian described as a man with a shaved head, pony-tail and flowing white robes.
She asked me if I knew who that was, and I said, "Yes". That was an angle sent by God.
I told her I had been praying to God to send me these books, and so he had sent one of his angles to bring them for me.
The librarian's knees buckled and she caught herself by grabbing onto the counter. She almost fainted. After that, she said nothing more, but, her hands were trembling as she completed checking the books out for me.
The reason I told her that, is because at the time, that is what I thought because of the way she described the person who donated the books. At that time I had never seen a devotee or knew how they dressed. I had prayed intensly to God, the Father, to please send me a book written by my guru who would tell me all about Who God really is. And, the next day these 3 books were there. And the librarian told me the person who brought them wore flowing white robes. So, that had to have been an angle who brought those books.
It wasn't until eary in 1982, nearly 12 years after this took place, that I first told this story to anyone. And, the first person I told this to happened to be Jayatirtha, my local GBC in Detroit at the time. He had been the Temple President in LA in 1973 when I joined the temple there and one day he asked me how I came to join ISKCON, so I told him. This was just months before Jayatirtha left ISKCON. He told me that was he who donated these books to that library. (He truly did act as God's angle because he brought me SP's books - he gave me my guru and my guru gave me Krsna.)
Jayatirtha told me that the very first box of the Krsna Books had just arrived from the printers just the day before. The next day he had to come to West Covina as he was servicing a shop that sold the Spritual Sky incense. That store was near the library. For a year the temple had the hard book printing of the Teachings of Lord Caitanya, and earlier that year the hardbound Nectar of Devotion arrived from the printers. And now they had the hardbound Krishna Book. Devotees hadn't yet distributed many of the hardbound books, and so he thought why not donate the very first Krsna Book to be distributed, along with the other 2 hardbound books, to the West Covina library, since he would be driving right by it that day. He told me that this was the very first Krsna Book to be distributed - and I got it just 2 days after it arrived from the printers.

Even though I immediately accepted SP as my guru in the summer of 1970, I even woke up the next day a vegetarian, which even I didn't know why, (I had touched the Krsna Book). I didn't know anything about any temples. 3 years later, in 1973, I joined the Los Angeles temple. Srila Prabhupad gave me initiation later that same year.
In 1974 I began training to paint for Prabhupad's books for the BBT, but in the fall of 1974 Bharadraj had returned from India to start what became known as the F. A. T. E. multi-media museum project. I joined with him and that became my main service while Srila Prabhupad was with us in this world.
I began as an artists, but, suggested the museums add sound/lighting and effects, and so my service turned to designing the electronic control system for the museums. Then I started producing the Audio-Visual presentations.
In 1985 the GBC elected me as ISKCON's Minister of Audio-Visual Productions.
As I began producing this presentation - in my prayers I offered Srila Prabhupad the use of my services, and offered to produce for Him whatever he wanted me and directed me to produce. In my prayers I told him that I no longer cared which side of this issue I would present, as my only prayer was that He guide me in such a way that this presentation will be what HE wants, not what ameyatma das wants.
This presentation is the summum-bonum end-results of those prayers.

Within the presentation, there will be a Table of Contents ( ToC ) or the Main Menu where all the main sections and indivual videos are listed and can be accessed.

From the ToC you can view all of the links to the presentation's content. The site uses Web-cookies which then saves data on your device as to where you are at in the presentation, which shows you have watched. You can also create a "Play Later list", etc.

(We use cookies to keep track of what videos you have watched and the Play Later List - However, cookies are stored on Your devic
If you use a different device it cannot access those cookies and will uses it entirely separate set of cookies)

Once you Enter the presentation - after the scene loads, on the bottom of the screen will be the Video Control panel
It has 2 rows,
On the top raw is a Settings button (gear), Prev, Next, Forw (10 sec), Back (10 Sec) Play/Pause Speed Control (at times you may want to speed the presentaion up to view it in less time), a Vol Control, and the FPS (frames per second) session_status
The lower row shows the current playing time, the current location and Title of Video, and the duration length of the video

On the far left bottom of window are an M for Menu (you can click on the M, or use the keyboard "M")
To the Right of M is either an empty space, or you may see a Yellow and Red "R" - used to RESTORE camera view to Presentation view
The presentation is made within a 3D virtual world, and you can move about the scene, if you like, by using the Keyboard (arrow keys or W A S D) Or the Mouse (holding the left key and moving the mouse), or touch and drag on touch devic
However, once you do Move the camera, or start walking around the scene, then the yellow/red "R" will appear. This means you have moved around and the camera is no longer
being controlled by the presentation. You can return to the Presenation View (Restore the view) at any time by pressing "R" (clicking on it, or the key 'R"')

When you see the "R" Flash for a few seconds, that means that you are not in the presentation view, and the presentation would have moved the camera view to a didferent locaiton. So if you are not seeing what the audio of the presention is talking about, and the "R" is visible, just hit R to restore the view
MENU brings up the Navigation Menu
Settings (Gear), you can deselect AutoPlay. By default the system is set to Automatically Play after loading in the video/animation files
And, after the current video plays, it will automatically go to next video, and again automatically start playing it
If you don't want this, de-selecting AutoPlay, the system will still load the next video, but, it will not autotically start playing it.
Use PLAY/Pause to start/pause
PREV takes you back to the PREVIOUS Video (or text file)
NEXT takes you to the Next file
automatically begin playing after the page loads.
FULL SCRN (or F11) puts the presentation in Full Screen (highly recommended)
There is also a volume level bar where you can select the current volume level
Time, current playing location and length of presentation is shown, as well as a progress bar.
You can drag the Current Time indicator left or right to Rewind and Fast Forward to anywhere in the presentation at anytime (just as you would via a video). It is really quite simple and straight forward.
Once a presentation has completed the control panel will again come up. You can view the next presentation listed in the Table of Contents by pressing NEXT, or you can use the Navigation Menu to select your next choice, or goto the Table of Contents from the Menu to select your next choice.

Remember, the Table Of Contents has the feature of allowing you to Tag each section yourself manually. After viewing a presentation it is a good idea to go into Table of Contents and flag it as Viewed.

Taking control of the Camera :
You can also take control of the camera and move the camera around in the scene. You can zoom in/out, dolly in/out, pan left/right and up/down and rotate the camera in the scene. Each scene is built as a 3D set and this allows you to interactively move the camera view around in real time while the presentation is being played. In some scenes the program may block or restrict or reset camera location at times.

3D camera controls:
Middle Mouse Wheel : dollys camera in/out
Left Mouse Button (holding down) and moving the mouse : Tumble or rotate the camera around at it's focus point
Right Mouse Button (holding down) and moving the mouse : You can select and move around 'some' of the 3D objectes in the scene
Keyboard Cursor Keys : Up / Down / Left / Right pan the camera in those directions
(Holding the SHIFT key + the cursor keys speeds up the panning, and holding CNTRL key + cursor keys goes even faster)
Cursor Up/Down + 'D' key : Dolly the Camera In/Out
Cursor Up/Down + 'F' key : Change the Focal Length (zoom setting) of the lens, from extreme wide angle to far far telephoto
'R' key will RESET the camera and movable 3D objects to the presentation's proper or programmed location

Future Use of the Presentation System we developed:
The presentation system we have created and used to present our Analysis of the Rtvik issue has been developed with the aim of using the same presentation system to produce online A/V presentations of Prabhupad's Bhagavat Philosophy. Online 3D museum sets with Audio and 3D animation to present our philosophy. This is our main goal and intended use for creating this presentation system.
We simply decided, however, that the first presentation we make will be for ISKCON internally, and present our analysis on the Rtvik issue. As soon as production for the Rtvik site is complete we will focus on an interactive 3D animated presentation on Bhagavad Gita As It Is.