Dear devotees
Receive all my affection from Vrindavan,
Today we are traveling to Rajesthan with a large group of devotees to visit the sacred temples there.
As you know, sometimes there is a lot of interpretation. Sometimes you interpret correctly and sometimes not. These are all things of Maya. Sometimes its Yoga Maya, sometimes Maha Maya. Maya is involved in all aspects because she is very powerful and she is established in all spheres.
For all the devotees of the Vrinda Family, today I would like to share a very important message. I just try to do and follow what is clear to me. Anyway, I have my own fight to keep. Today I want to clarify that the people who work with me and are my representatives, have exaggerated amount of trust with me, but sometimes we have different opinions on different topics. I'm known to usually repeat a phrase, and that is "all devotees who have more than 5 years in Krishna consciousness should be involved to the maximum degree to make decisions and become a responsible leader with me" I've said this many times. And many of the devotees who are with me now have more than 5 years and have taken those responsibilities.
So I am interested in how we associate for the cause. Partnering also means making choices. And the fact that we make different decisions does not mean it's offensive. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Everyone is entitled to exercise his natural intellect. Of course, submission is necessary for a community to function. There is need for someone to have the last word. For that there are directors, these are functions that can change.
So with the different functions. In fact, sometimes there are different interpretations on the same point. For example, yesterday I was talking about our relationship with the indigenous peoples and I also said that Swami Maharaj had stressed to me that some devotees say that my classes have changed a lot in this time. I gave this as an example, I even use the word "critical" and said "even Swami Maharaja criticized me ..." but I meant it as constructive criticism. Because everyone is entitled to constructive criticism. That's just one example of an observer who is showing things that are happening. Because it is so, in recent years a transformation has been going on and, for me, it has been a positive transformation. Because, for example, the gains with the South America communities that are not purely Vaishnava, have been very positive for preaching.
So we accepted the friendship with the indigenous communities just for the sake of preaching. The same has happened in relation to the many followers of impersonalism within India. I can be criticized for it, because, for example, at the Kumbha Mela I was linked to the great Impersonalist yogis and leaders to beg them for support to protect the Yamuna and Vrindavan. Same with many politicians from India, visiting their offices in Delhi and banging on their doors so they can bring attention to Vrindavan
Thus, in the Kumbha Mela we were with Gurudeva Atulananda from camp to camp for the purpose of bringing the dignity of Srila Prabhupada with our tilak and our devotional clothes to ask for attention for Vrindavan. Sure, it takes relating with all of them to make a connection. Philosophically we have nothing in common, but they are the ones who can help keep the Yamuna clean and Vrindavan is protected.
Sometimes I do things that I take full responsibility of. Of course, if I were in an institution, they would not accept a lot of it, as happened to some of my spiritual brothers who have to comply with the rules of an institution and are hampered in their preaching. What I want to clarify with all of this, is that everyone can comment on things that they do not seem to agree with. I work well with my leaders, because I want my leaders to be complete. That is why a few years ago I told my leaders that all those (especially sannyasis) who want to expand the mission can do so. So some sannyasis can give initiation to others in my name and then for second initiations to connect the new devotees with me.
Of course, that means that leaders must also open new projects. These are transitions. For you are all siksa gurus in your fields. And the importance of the siksa guru is the same as the diksa guru. There is no difference in it. This is something I've preached since we have known each other, it is not a new topic. For example, due to the dynamics of the group in Argentina, Giri Maharaj suggested to me to start some new projects where they wanted to try veganism as a means of protection to the cows. I accept the wonderful proposal of Giri Maharaj, bothe he and Padmanabha Maharaj are people of great integrity. Only some devotees interpreted it badly, but that was not the case.
I give everyone the right to evaluate the situation of the Mission and transmit it. As always in Kali Yuga there are misunderstandings. We are servants of Srila Prabhupada. So we pray: O my Lord, let me be an instrument of Your love. You are siksa gurus, meaning the sannyasis who have been here for many years supporting the mission. For example, Giri Maharaja, I gave him permission to be ritvik acarya in my name, because I'm not in Argentina very often and sometimes there are devotees who need to be initiated and they have to wait. Of course, some of you may also be ritvik acaryas, not just Giri Maharaj, but you have to become fully reliable to do so. It is not just a political position. It is not a position that someone gains only by diplomatic attitudes. I detest diplomacy.
I wanted to clarify this for all devotees of the Vrinda family. I mentioned Swami Maharaj and Giri Maharaj, but I could name other devotees. A sannyasi is a lieutenant of the Spiritual Master.... For me, Colombia is a very dear project, because the devotees of Colombia were the ones who encouraged me to take the position as a spiritual guide. So when Swami Maharaj began preaching in Colombia and winning the hearts of the devotees, it gave me great joy.
We all make mistakes unintentionally. But we continue ahead. In life sometimes there are misunderstandings, so it is always good to clarify things. I wanted to share this with you today. Honestly, for me the protection of nature is sacred. And the protection of all the rivers and waters of the world is sacred and they must be protected. I get excited a little in this sense and perhaps I over do it, but ... What do I do? If at any time I have put someone in trouble, I ask you to forgive me. It is not my intention to embarrass anyone.
A siksa guru has a very clear mission, that he can take it to the heart as he wants. If a person receives the blessing of further expanding new areas of preaching which is projected as the siksa guru, this would be like a branch of the same mission. Because we are all part of the same family. I'm still part of the mission of Srila Prabhupada. We are Gaudiya Sampradaya and we always will be, because we love Lord Chaitanya because we are of the Gaudiya Math, the Gaudiya Mission, ISKCON, Vishva Vaishnava Raj Sabha, the Chaitanya Saraswat Math, those are just names.
Hey I have authorized some devotees to expand the family, as I have done with Giri Maharaj and Padmanabha Maharaja so that the devotees can have more creativity, because for me creativity is very important. An artist draws from his own creativity. A musician must compose, a poet must write poetry ... well we are followers of creativity. To our Siddhanti Maharaj I have also said that you can initiate on my behalf. That's the idea, to better serve the new and different branches that spread through the devotees. creative. This is to increase the confidence and joy. I hope you now understand this, because the siksa guru that is next to the devotee is very important, even more than the diksa guru. But of course, there is no difference between siksa guru and diksa guru. But he who is there every day to protect the devotees is very important.
Do not forget all that we have talked about today. Reflect on this. We send blessings of Sri Gauranga Radha Vraja Mohan from Vrindavan. Much affection for all of you.
Jay Srila Prabhupada!
Your always well-wisher,
Swami B. A. Paramadvaiti.
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta siksa guru. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta siksa guru. Mostrar todas las entradas
Favorable winds to cross the ocean of repeated birth and death Sunday 04/06/14 From Brazil
Conference.
My dear devotees , greetings from Sao Paulo, the land of Gandharvika Giridhari .
Today I share with you a topic called "The favorable winds to cross the ocean of repeated birth and death " So we must talk about the constitutional nature and needs of people, their needs for love and all that. This topic is a subject of devotional security. Of spiritual protection.
Devotees habitually speak about maintenance, but today we will talk about increasing our spiritual enthusiasm. Increase favorable winds, activities, things that are considered important in spiritual life.
Imagine you 're in the ocean, lost at sea, with only a little food left to survive. A very sad situation. The people traveling with you have left the boat. It is a sailboat, it has no engine, you only depend on the wind. It is in the middle of the ocean and you have a limited time to cross, nothing is forever. Death can come at any time. You want out, you want to cross over to the other side of the ocean called samsara, the ocean of repeated birth and death. At this point in the ocean, there are no other trips , there is no past or future, only present. Only this trip at this time. And this boat is quiet because there are no favorable winds to take you in the right direction.
Suddenly a wind comes with a storm that takes you in the wrong direction and, worse yet, that wind makes you return to the starting point. Winds? Unfavorable? The wind of material enjoyment, nightlife, the Facebook, video games, the wind of the exhibitionist ego believed to be the most important, the poisonous wind that makes us lose consciousness. That is very interesting. You want to get across the ocean to get out of samsara, but unfavorable winds bring you back. They take you in the direction of your next birth. If we continue to follow the unfavorable winds, with more reason will we be moved into the next birth. In a reverse direction.
This world is full of unfavorable winds. Even something that may seem harmless, like the World Cup, that does not get us cross the ocean of samsara, rather it insures us that we will be lead to another birth into some body. Maybe you'll be born as an animal to be sacrificed to make a soccer ball. There are more serious things, totally unfavorable winds that increasingly keeps us from cross this samsara, such as abortions, the exploitation of the weak, the mistreatment of animals. However, intelligent people do not waste time and they seek favorable winds.
How are these favorable winds obtained?
Chanting the holy names of the Lord from the depths of the heart:
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare.
See who begins to sing and watch how their sailboat starts moving! If you sing louder, then it will move stronger!
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare .
Yeah? Your ship moves, it works! So you can continue singing and obtain more favorable winds that will help you on this journey so you can continue singing and also listen to the Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhagavad Gita, Caitanya -caritamrta, Sacred Scripture ... Hear books narrated by those holy saints who practice with the heart. These winds are favorable!
And to stand firm in this journey you have to have the best sadhu -sanga. Practically speaking, you have to go to Vrinda Bhumi at least a weekend to live intensely to experience the Yoga Monastery. This way one is filled with enthusiasm for the spiritual life. So then your boat will be going in the right direction with all sincerity. And when you have fear or confusion you have to approach an advanced devotee who will dispel your doubts.
Vaishnava Bhakti, Guru Bhakti, Krishna Bhakti ... When you love devotees you also love service. So you start to love the spiritual guide, begin to appreciate the deity, the dhama ... On this trip there are many temptations that distract us from the favorable winds. So we must be vigilant ... Always be carrying that gas tank of bhakti and one of the most powerful things to do which is more favorable for spiritual advancement is Krishna prasadam, everyone is left with a smile from ear to ear after honoring prasada. Full belly, happy heart :)
It's very, very important to understand that in His infinite mercy Krishna makes many favorable things for our spiritual advancement. You only need a small effort on your part . Because, even to eat prasada we have to put effort.
Even favorable winds have their stages. There are positive things to do, always keep a good intention, do not be judgmental, be more and more helpful, always working and being generous, maintaining wonderful friendships with devotees, in this way one will have the mercy of having the association of Vaishnavas. In the company of devotees under the guidance of the spiritual master, under the holy name, one is in the favorable winds of Bhakti Yoga.
Under the guidance of Guru one learns worship, puja, the mantras, the sankirtan ...
The Spiritual Master puts us in the process of Ānarta nivritti, cleaning impurities from the heart. He removes the negative things in life, he removes the worldly desires separate from Krishna. That is what one promises the spiritual master, that he will go on the right path and that you will leave all the undesirable things for the spiritual path. After being freed from all those attachments, the devotee remains fixed in his spiritual process, coming to the point of Nistha, where he is fixed in Seva. There the sail boat opens in full force and favorable winds carry him safely on his way. So, my dear, very careful maintain your spiritual life, full of favorable winds. Keep your temples very beautiful. That is also a favorable wind. Arrange beautiful classes, there are so many books of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Sridhara Maharaja for inspiration ... And do not forget something important ...Our spiritual life becomes even more favorable and ecstatic when we perform austerities to help others.
Just as you are on your boat in the middle of the ocean of samsara trying to cross clinging onto favorable winds, you can help others who are stranded on the road. You can say, "Come, take this rope, I'll pull your standing boat, I have good wind here ..." That's the favorable wind of the preacher, who not only cares about himself, but cares to help everyone in crossing the road. To cross this ocean of samsara clinging onto favorable winds you should feel very grateful and very compassionate ...
That is my message to all of you today ....
Follow the favorable winds ...
Jay Srila Prabhupada!
Your always well wisher,
B. A. Swami Paramadvaiti
Vishnu Priya Ashram From Guatemala 8/25/13
Conference.
My very dear devotees,
Accept my affection from Guatemala.
Today I want to speak of Vishnu Priya Ashram and the beautiful opportunity we all have to become Vaishnavas or vaishnavis.
The illusory condition in which we find makes us waver between good deeds and bad deeds all the time. Men can behave in positive or negative ways as well as women. Vaishnava and vaishnavi is synonymous with sainthood. A person who intends and tries to be a Vaishnava or vaishnavi is on the path of holiness. Sure, a true Vaishnava or vaishnavi never consider themselves Vaishnavas. They see themselves as not "Vaishnava" and see all others as Vaishnavas. A true devotee should think: I'm not a Vaishnava, I'm not a vaishnavi. If I think others are not Vaishnavas, I become offensive and if I think I am a Vaishnava then I have gone crazy. That's the secret of success: seeing all others as Vaishnavas, but thinking of oneself as a Vaishnava. That is the correct Vaishnava mind, humble and respectful.
Now I want to refer specifically to vaishnavis. But I do not just mean how men should view women, but as men should see and appreciate the vaishnavis and further more, how the same devout vaishnavis should see and appreciate the other vaishnavis and Vishnupriya Ashram, the place of the vaishnavis.
The number one lesson here is:
-That all women belong to Vishnupriya Ashram, but even if a mother does not live in the Vishnupriya Ashram, she is part of it. Each devotee should engage herself in having a concrete link with Vishnu Priya Ashram. Why? Because spiritual education of women is the basis of society.
Also, something very important is that both our family and the mission of Mahaprabhu in general is full of mothers. Even if we did a count among which we are now in this room, we can see that there are more mother devotees. Imagine! This was not so in the beginning of our own Mission. Actually, the fact that more men or women is not the main point. The important thing is to understand that women are mothers, are vaishnavis and that they are the "secret weapon" of Srimati Radharani. "Secret weapon" of Srimati Radharani means that they are the best preachers and moralizing agents, that mothers can maintain the standard of Vedic culture, as the vaishnavi is also a representative of Mother Earth, they are the basis of religion.
Women are much more inclined to religion than men. As soon as a woman has a child all the potential of protection and conservation blooms because a child is not a fad, a child means responsibility and care to minutest detail. If we get to the plane of preaching, each new soul that comes to the temple, each new bhakta is like a son to care for. And the same care that is required by the new bhaktas is also needed by the Deities, the administration of the temple, the Laksmi of Krsna, etc. Well, it all belongs to Srimati Radharani in Her service to Sri Krishna.
Those who look after the children, who are the future of society, that responsibility and care also comes from the mothers. Therefore children are born from the womb of women and not men's arms :) God knows how things are organized. The design of God is perfect, we need not correct it ... but now human nature has become so crazy that they think they can do it as well.
So think a bit and analyze the position of women:
She is the guardian by nature, cautious and steady.Therefore they are compared to the Goddess of Fortune, because they are full of qualities. Thus, a Vishnu Priya Ashram is the refuge of vaishnavis serving Srimati Radharani. They are sites of protection to women, mothers, young women. Protection of women by women. Women should be protected, but never feel independent, that is against their nature and their own psychology. So the role of men is to become guardians of the mothers and where there is no man who fulfills this role, a senior mother should give the other mothers the greatest care. In a spiritual family there is also the guru and his supporters like the sannyasis, who are the protectors of all, both men and women, however, mothers need guidance in daily life and for that there is no one better than another mother who the can protect them if there is no husband to do so.
A Vishnupriya Ashram is the site of maximum protection for women and children. Therefore, our spiritual family must be aware to always support the Vishnupriya Ashram, our daughters, sisters and mothers should never feel abandoned. The reality of the spiritual life is that we are servants and to Krishna we are all feminine in nature, Krishna is the only Purusha, and we are all Prakriti.
The temporary male or female body is just that, temporary. No matter the rank or role we have, what matters is how we develop it, because if not properly used it becomes useless. So women in our family are protected, they are never abandoned, they are not independent and yet are empowered to do all that is at their fingertips.
The Vishnupriya Ashram school is for mothers to become pure devotees, servants and protective experts of Vedic values, family and society. Several of the larger projects we are doing are headed by women in our family: the House of Wisdom, the Oidatherapy, the Spoon Revolution, the Global Awareness Compact ... most are mothers who bring the pulsing beat of these services. Therefore devotees should become qualified to become true protectors of mothers, responsible true leaders of deep religious values, otherwise, without these they will be guided only by their own mind which will seek to satisfy the senses. So men should work hard to be trustworthy people, 100 percent, and fulfill their guardianship to mothers in all circumstances.
A devotee should strive to become a great devotee and set aside anything which is unfavorable to the development of bhakti. A devotee, just one vaishnavi is someone very powerful. So I started the Vishnupriya Ashrams, to encourage them to take leadership, to preach and to protect other mothers. Every devotee is able to establish a new Vishnupriya Ashram, making programs, preaching, etc.. A mother must recognize the validity in all that has been received and refrain from being exploited by others, not to be minimized or belittled, there in Krishna Consciousness there is magic , because you can transform the karmic qualities into the service of Lord and His devotees.
Vaishnavi Dignity in action. Mothers who have been abandoned by their husbands, single mothers, etc.. are only the symptoms of Kaliyuga and a society of irresponsible sex addicts. There should be no unprotected women and single mothers. However, all of them can find refuge in the Vishnupriya Ashram. The capacity that mothers have are wonderful and those who minimize this are fools who does not understand anything. Even in some of our churches there are mothers who are temple presidents who have done their service much better than all the devotees who came before.
The submissive nature of the mothers qualify them for such things. And that submission is very important in the spiritual process, it is the submission to the Guru and the Vaishnavas what makes someone to assume more responsibility in their service. Spiritual life without service, just does not work. The Guru can not be present in every little detail, especially when the family grows and spreads quickly, so leaders need confidence to help you make your service better and protect others. Men and women who are responsible. Thus a vaishnavi decides to abandon a life of worldly womanhood and instead of becoming a fool watching TV or running after men, or someone influenced by consumerism she decides to assume the role of a representative and protector of dharma.
My dear vaishnavas and vaishnavis, this is an invitation to a life rendered in service and backed by sincerity, a life dedicated to the service of the Lord and the Vaishnavas. So I am giving this lecture today, because I want each of you understand the importance of Vishnupriya Ashrams and become committed to supporting the protection and development of the vaishnavis. Without the Vishnupriya Ashram one can not guarantee the protection of children, or the conservation of dharmic values. And all those pious youth living in Vishnupriya Ashrams like brahmacarinis and are doing service, but also have aspirations to find a good devotee with whom they can establish a beautiful family in service to Sri Krsna, they will achieve that only with lioness preaching ... preaching and serving so selflessly and honestly.
It is the spiritual intelligence of women and the vaishnavi's qualities which allow a family to remain united and dedicated to God. The essence of our life is to serve, serve and serve and thus the Vishnupriya Ashram school teaches one to learn to serve. We must move away from the exploitative and selfish mentality that has been spread throughout the material world of illusion and help dedicate lives to service.
Whoever worships Krishna becomes someone very special and if you do so from the bottom of your heart, all imperfections disappear soon. So we continue in appreciating the Vaishnavas and Vaishnavis who worship Krishna. From Guatemala I leave you with a special greeting with great fondness. I am very happy to see the pioneer devotees here. Preaching and pioneering is very nice. It is the best use of one's life that can be done in this human birth. When I see the work that the couple of Rupa Manohar Prabhu and Mother Parvati in Guatemala have done I get excited by seeing the power and mercy that Krishna delivers to a family dedicated in their service to Him. At the same time I am very happy that tomorrow I get back to my Datadesh prabhu, where Sri Krishna allowed me to do service over the years.
I believe that every day that I can do service it is an extraordinary gift that Srila Prabhupada has given me in life. I firmly believe that the essence of this process is to be happy with what you have and the people around you, because only when you learn to appreciate what you have and you are happy with it you can make others happy. I feel really happy in Mexico, Guatemala and am now in Colombia. Happiness is unique to each site. I ask you, my dears, do not stagger over the inconsistencies. That is the happiness I wish for all of you and it is the happiness I'm experiencing anew for approximately the last forty years.
Of course, there is also sadness in the way and certainly the highest sadness is not able to meet any of you, or worse, not even knowing how you are. Srila Prabhupada once said: "I receive too many letters, but still I feel anxious when I do not receive a letter from you" :) Imagine, Srila Prabhupada had such tenderness for each of us. With these words I say goodbye for today is my last day in Guatemala and there are many things still to be done.
I leave you with a big hug from the heart.
Srila Prabhupada ki jay!
Your always wisher,
Swami B. A. Paramadvaiti.
Institutional Authority vs. Authority of the Spiritual Master 7/7/13
Today I want to talk about a very delicate subject: institutional authority vs. the authority of the spiritual master. I read that in one Vaishnava institution the institutional authorities released a new rule, in which they say that the spiritual master should always be under the administrative and governmental rules of the institution.
Of course, we do recognize that spiritual masters are not independent. They depend on their own spiritual master’s blessings, on the sadhus’ criteria and on the scriptures in order to draw a truthful authority of conclusion. And of course, there is the inner consciousness, which is of top importance in any circumstance of life. Our inner consciousness, is not independent either - it has to associate, compare and check itself with guru, with sadhu and with sastra.
Why is this topic important? It is very simple: because people can commit mistakes. Even if they are sitting on the chair of the teacher – be it siksa guru or diksa guru, they can still commit errors. This is the reason why the scriptures have given this indication of assisted checking for when there is a question and there is a doubt, so to be saved from what we may call arbitrary speculation of an individual. Now, we may think “All Glories to Democracy”, because in this case we have a group of people who vote on a topic and in this way they supposedly come up with the right solution. If the democracy is a democracy amongst true and very sincere sadhus, it will actually have validity - the sadhu democracy may work up to a certain point. But if they are not, then we can see that even groups of people with voting powers can still make errors. In other words, they are not a guarantee that you will never commit a mistake.
Srila Prabhuhada, our most beloved spiritual master, is so extraordinary that he continued receiving titles even after his departure - such as Senapati (chosen empowered agent by Lord Chaitanya) and Shakti Avesa Avatar (empowered incarnation of Lord Nityananda’s spreading love potency). He has been recognized for his extraordinary contribution to the world.
Nevertheless, if you want to pick on Srila Pabhupada and find fault in him, you may actually be able to do so. If he gave sannyas to a person, who later failed in his sannyas, you could say –if he was trikalajna, somebody who has knowledge about the past, the present and the future, could he not have foreseen what would happen? Or what about his establishment of cow protection farms, which due to the circumstances later turned out to be unsustainable? Or how about establishing Gurukulas, where later some degraded individuals abused children?Didn’t he see that, didn’t he know that?
My personal answer to this is that Srila Pabhupada worked for his ideal with whoever Krishna sent to him and he gave them a chance – by telling them what to do and by giving the right example how to do it. So you could say that Srila Pabhupada never failed us. He gave us the love of his guru. But because he was preaching in the Western world, there was an incredible risk taken.
Whether you are in business, in politics or in a spiritual community, there are always trust issues: you have to give the keys to somebody; you have to give the management of the funds to somebody. In human life there are always trust positions which could be powerfully utilized for truly beautiful things, but which could also be misused. So considering this fundamental condition, we are very concerned to find some security measures to counteract abusive situations.
Fortunately, we have one safeguard in our system and this is Parameshvara – the supreme controller Lord Krishna. He knows everything and he is the benefactor judge of everyone. In other words, if you do wrong, he’ll judge you, but for your benefit. He will still make some arrangements, which will favour you in some way - and save you from your own faults. But even there we see that sometimes Krishna loses his patience - if we may dare say so, my dear Lord Govinda. In a sense He says: “This or that person’s earthly chance has come to an end for this round. He has to go and come again.” It’s up to Him, He is the supreme controller – and we are in safe hands with Lord Krishna. He sent us our spiritual master Srila Pabhupada, so that we have a solid foundation of how to practice Krishna Consciousness even in the degraded Western circumstances, as long as we stick to his safeguard instructions:
Number 1 is chanting Hare Krishna.
Number 2 – follow the 4 regulative principles,
Number 3 – keep reading the scriptures and
Number 4 – do service.
Without service even the chanting becomes a kind of “I’m asking for service, I’m asking for service - but when the service comes I’m not available anymore”.So the question of having an institution ruling above the guru has to be analyzed very carefully and also very generously. After Srila Pabhupada left this world and some of his leaders stopped working properly (to say it in soft words), some devotees suggested that it was best to eliminate the spiritual master function, and have Prabhupada as a huge major spiritual master of all present and coming devotees.
This proposal, that every initiation after Prabhupada would be a ritvik initiation, where the actual guru Srila Prabhupada, would practically equalize Krishna Consciousness with Christianity. There is the Son of God, he saved us all - of course we don’t accept that he died for our sins, so that we could keep sinning, this is another degradation of true spirituality. According to Christianity, you are connected to Jesus by coming in contact with one of His institutions with several different practitioners, of whom you may like some or be inspired by some, but they never become that fully important, because the fully important position is given to Jesus.
So the suggestion of putting an institution over the Guru is a very strange proposal in a sense. If you analyze it, it is not ritvik of Srila Pabhupada – it would be a representational initiation on behalf of an institution. Where is Prabhupada there? The institution has already shown faulty judgements on many past occasions – for example, faulty judgements in respect to Vaishanvas who belong to other Vaishnava institutions and are initiated by spiritual masters from the same lineage, but not from the same institutional framework.
There are plenty of other examples of grand institutional misjudgment that causes quite some havoc both in the individual life as well as in the structural thinking of the people who are educated under such a system. Excuse me for the comparison, but when the socialists created a system about educating their children, they gave them a kind of a package for dealing with life according to the socialist parameters. A capitalist existence gives another type of frame, and a totalitarian military dictatorship has another framework. And if there is a king, he might be like a dictator in one way, but may also happen to be much beloved and caring to all his subjects – all these circumstances put another framework of psychological guidance towards behaviors in that system.
So when institutions cast judgements which end up becoming systems, rules or regulations, it creates an impact upon the people who have to live under the influence of such judgements. It is different when you have a guru, be it siksa or diksa guru. Mark my words, I say both of them have the same validity to a certain degree – and Prabhupada wrote (or quoted Srila Jiva Gosvami) that it is an offense to see a difference between siksa and diksa guru. So this is a very important point.
I will tell you something from my own spiritual family, the Vrinda family. I initiate devotees, it is my service in this family, and then I move on my journey as a beggar of love to the next destination. The people I initiated stay behind with the diverse qualities of siksa gurus who are hopefully of the highest quality, but may not always be. They take care of the new devotees for the period of 364 days until I come back for 1 day. Of course, people can have contact with me in many ways through my teachings, and my question and answer sessions, which I continuously try to supply to the devotees, but nevertheless many devotees in our mission see me once a year for a day – and many of them even less, because I can’t visit every place for a day each and every year.
So who is looking after the devotee, who’s delivering the guru tattva? These are the siksa gurus, those very wonderfully surrendered devotees and good examples, who have taken Krishna to heart, like I took Prabhupada to heart – hopefully. I wish it may be so, because taking your guru to heart makes you a transparent via medium of what he is to you through the authority and supervision of Sri Paramatma, the Lord in the Heart. You have to understand one thing – all glories to Srila Pabhupada, but he is not the Paramatma. Being the greatest and the most beautiful of all spiritual masters in the history, never ever he had impressed upon us, that he is identical to Paramatma - and as a matter of fact he is not.
So this is a very interesting thing to take into consideration: that the final guide, quality guarantee and quality control of Guru Tattva rests in Sri Paramatma, Chaitya Guru, and all the others have a chance to participate by divine grace to deliver the divine goods of their Guru Tattva as they were able to appreciate them and as they were able to preserve them, and as they were able to deliver them to you and as you are able to receive them.
So there are quite a few steps built into the system, which are somewhat faulty, but because of the quality control and the quality guarantee of Sri Paramatma for his devotee, there is nothing to be feared. Just we have to know how to deal with the diverse circumstances as we proceed. And when my Gurudeva said that he wanted all his disciples to become spiritual masters, he was not joking. And also I can only second it, because to me everyone who has come to me is actually a disciple of Srila Pabhupada. That they are under my guidance and can maybe be inspired in their service by my existence is a special mercy upon me, so that I can be somehow useful for the Divine purpose. I don’t feel that it is more than that, but I don’t feel that this is little.
I feel that it is far, far high and incredible mercy if we can be an instrument of His love – that’s what we always pray for: Oh my Lord, please let me be an instrument of your love!”
This is what it’s all about. Anyhow – just as much as I can be so, you can be and shall be so too, if you are ready to go along with the requirements. It is like when you give a class in front of an audience, you are not the one who is doing the talking – at least you are not supposed to be – you are supposed to be the transparent via medium for your Guru’s message to be delivered. That’s why I always say “My dear Friends, please try to be a speaker on behalf of Krishna, because Krishna has given you the mouth so that you can deliver beautiful speeches on his behalf on Harikatha or even on Prabhupada Lila, for example. Krishna Lila Amrita, Prabhupad Lila Amrita – yes, to hear the glories of the devotees is very dear to the Lord.
Srimad Bhagavatam is full of stories about the glories of the devotees - and don’t think that telling the story of Prabhupada is any less ecstatic than hearing the story of Dhruva Maharaj. These are the extraordinary features that we are coming in contact with the high delivery of the mercy – and whoever gets the mercy, that’s a beautiful story, makes up for another conversion.
Of course, if I have been a Muslim before I met the devotees, this doesn’t make me immediately Haridas Thakur. There are a lot more certain things in the divine planning department, which is the plan that Haridas Thakur was Brahma, who by the mercy of Lord Gauranga had the chance to appear in His lila as the Nam Acharya but still, when Muslims convert to the love of Vaishnavism we rejoice. It as an extraordinary beautiful thing to happen. The whole world is one family. We all belong to one another. All sectarian “I am better than you” thoughts are not appropriate or applicable of how to deal with others in this world - something, which is often forgotten in institutional law making, and which is not so spiritual.
Like when an institution releases a law, which says: “You are not allowed to take siksa instruction from somebody, who is outside of our institution”. It sounds very similar to some political systems where you are not even allowed to know what the opposition proposes, otherwise you will be considered a betrayer and will be dealt with like a traitor. In a time of conflict traitors are shot, and in a spiritual institution those considered traitors are shunt, rejected, badly spoken about and denounced.
So philosophers and spiritual intellectuals have to deal with everything, including opposing views. If you are a Brahmin or a sannyasi and cannot deal lovingly with opposing views, then you become a frog-in-a-well kind of philosopher. You think “All that is happening in my well is my wisdom” but you know what Prabhupada said about the frog-in-the-well philosophers. If there are opposing views, we have to think about them and either refute them, according to Guru, Sastra and Sadhu, or accept them with constructive criticism of what we are doing.
If the truth is approaching in the form of an opposition towards my misgivings, then shall I reject the truth because it doesn’t come within the institutional frame? This is a very dangerous attitude. It means that you create a philosophical jail, where you are limited to the conception of often polluted interests of law makers, which then contaminate the whole possibility of having a transcendental vision - and it is exactly here where the spiritual master comes in. The spiritual master is a free thinker. He is a person with an individual personal realization and criteria, who can evaluate faithfully, according to Guru, Sastra and Sadhu, whatever he sees, plus he can adopt to time, place and circumstance to whatever circumstance presents itself, which can be even new to what his Guru had explained.
One of the best examples about it is called Facebook. Facebook definitely did not exist at the time of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Shridhar Maharaja. When I last saw my mother, who used to be illiterate about computers, she knew more about Facebook than me. I was very surprised but Facebook is a great Maya, a great illusion. It can really serve for getting Krishna, for losing Krishna, for wasting your time to an extreme. But at the same time Facebook can be considered a fantastic tool for announcing temple activities and for active communication with other people in the world.
So, we have Zuckerberg, the inventor of Facebook. He is a human being who became the instrument of delivering a technology, which is putting people in contact with each other like never before. And it became a disease - there are Facebook clinics already. There are people, who lose contact with the external world because they became too mesmerized with the technology and the “I like you”/“You like me” business.
The real substance of propagating Krishna Consciousness through Facebook gets lost, because such a person is not even practicing it at that point. But if a temple or a project uses Facebook to announce to thousand, two thousand, three thousand people their next activity, it becomes a very useful and appreciated tool. It’s a double sided sword, which can cut the right thing and the wrong thing.
Srila Prabhupada didn’t say anything about Facebook. So, does that mean that the new spiritual master shouldn’t say anything about it either, just because they should only say what Srila Prabhupada has already said? Such type of a concept kills the whole thing. The spiritual master has to have criteria of how to utilize the new technology. I am giving only one example but there are plenty of examples.
Time, place and circumstances may be favorable for development of Krishna Consciousness. The individual realization is the last checking point and that cannot be safely checked, when it is obvious that there is a deviation from the principles of Bhakti. I will give you a very extreme example but here we are talking the naked truth.
There was a guy, who considered himself a spiritual master, so he went from India to one Latin American country and started to give initiations. He was a nice looking young man and many of the girls he initiated fell in love with him and he also fell in love with them. But not only with one devotee - he fell in love with a few of them. He became lusty after several of them. He was with several of them. It is very embarrassing for a spiritual master but of course he was not a real spiritual master. One, who falls down for illicit sex life is not a spiritual master. The girls eventually found out that he was not falling down with only one of them, but with many. They felt cheated and, of course, they were cheated. Probably, he told each of them “You are the star of my life” and everybody wants to be the only star on the sky. When they found out that they were one out of many, the girls went together and denounced him at the immigration office, so he was kicked out of the country. His own disciples kicked him out of the country. You may talk about democracy, vox populi or whatever, but the truth is that his own disciples kicked him out of the country. The girls later took shelter from a very sincere senior devotee and continued their spiritual life.
So, yes, failure can be there in the individual spiritual master, and failure can be there in an entire institutional group of GBCs, coming together and casting the vote for this or that. Myself, I went through a period of my spiritual life, when I was under the voting system of such an advisory board. At that time there was a rule that nobody could be removed from the top system unless there was 75 % of the vote against him. I went through the list and realized that more than 25% of them were in questionable condition. Whatever they would vote about, they would not come up to 75% to remove somebody with faulty behavior, because more than 25% were with faulty behavior.
They killed themselves. They had created a system, whose guard process could not function anymore. There was no real safeguard - on the contrary, it was releasing faulty legislations and faulty guidelines. It was then that I decided to search for a Sadhu who can guide me, because I didn’t want my life restricted and limited to the faulty judgments of people, who prohibited me from following my own heart and understanding of what Srila Prabhupada wanted me to do.
Now I read that this absolutism was also applied to the individual spiritual master. Spiritual masters were demoted to be really just ritualistic mantra deliverers, because you can get the mantra from a tape recorder or from the mouth of anybody. Recordings have been used by Srila Prabhupada himself for some of the second initiations, when he was not personally present.
Some people said: Well, since it has been done while Prabhupada was there, why not do it also now, when he is not here anymore - it is still the same mantra with the same power. Yes, that’s true, it is the same mantra with the same power but the element of accepting the spiritual master is to surrender to somebody and to serve somebody. You say – no, you don’t have to serve Guru, you only have to serve the institution of the Paramaguru. That means all your service has been put in the framework of the abstract connection because you do not trust anybody completely.
This is another deficiency because the element of love and trust is instrumental. It is the key to giving yourself and being enthusiastic for spiritual life. And it goes both ways - the guru loves and trusts you because otherwise how would he tell you to go out and preach? If the guru thinks that you are just a bogus and you will talk nonsense or cheat people, is he going to tell you to go out and preach? Am I going to tell you to give a daily class about Krishna, if I know that all you are going to say is lies that confuse people? I would be suicidal then. So, I say, give the message of Srila Prabhupada with love and trust, you are capable, and Krishna may agree to speak through you. Who knows, tomorrow when you are out there and preach about Krishna, somebody might say: “I love what you say. I have 10 000 dollars and I’m not doing anything with them. Can you use them for Krishna?” Why not? Is it prohibited to receive a donation for Krishna? No, it is not. So he comes and gives it to you because you gave a class that deeply touched him. Now you have 10 000 dollars. Thank you!
If you, in that moment, think that the money is yours, well, you fall down right there. You have received this on behalf of Krishna and you are supposed to use every penny for Krishna, otherwise you are cheating. But when I speak about love and trust, I mean that the guru trusts you to do this properly. If somebody does not do it properly, it is up to their reaction. In other words, the disciple has to be responsible. But I cannot base my whole life on mistrust, because if I mistrust everybody, then I cannot preach. I cannot say - there is something very secret, very sacred, very beautiful, and very incredible and I would almost give it to you but the problem is that I cannot trust you. This maha something, it can be shhh something, and you have to figure it out by your own inner realization. No, it is not like this. As soon as I preach the maha mantra, I’m giving somebody a chance to get rid of all the sinful activities and to enter into spiritual understanding - and this is the power of the mantra, not the power of my words. It is all the power of grace. So, when you don’t trust people you are in bad shape. Now, vice versa, the trust also goes that I give you my time and you also trust me.
Spiritual life is a trust relationship. Even an ordinary marriage is a trust relationship because you work together, you put your money together and you sleep next to one another, which means that while you are sleeping, the other one could theoretically pull a knife. Nobody has a bodyguard next to their husband or wife. If marriage is a 100% trust relationship, so how cannot a guru-disciple relationship be a trust one? And there is no institution, which stands above the husband and wife relationship, except the court. Sometimes husband and wife end up in court and she says that he did this and that, and the court may judge on the relationship, but who is the court above the guru? Where is that court? The disciple surrenders to the guru and says: “Please, give me the mantra! Please, give me service! Please, accept me! I want to be your spiritual son!” And the guru says: “Yes, I accept you as my child and I accept you to be a part of my family.”
There is a very intimate personal connection. Who is going to judge that? Of course, the truth will judge, Paramatma will judge, the history will judge but in that personal private connection, who is going to be the judge? If there is anything going wrong, only Krishna himself can straighten it out. Because if you say there is a guru, there is a disciple but above them there is a Sadhu Samaj, GBC and if you have a problem you speak to them and the guru has nothing to say, he can only repeat what the advisory board has said, then that means that the advisory board doesn’t trust the guru. So how come that the disciple is supposed to trust the guru then?
The advisory board says: we don’t trust the guru. Just take the mantra from him but don’t trust him. But you should trust us with our criteria because we have put the guru and we can also remove him. We will give you a substitute guru if one fails. We have some spare gurus for such cases but everything rests in the advisory board, it doesn’t rest in the guru’s position. But this is not the presentation sustained by Bhagavad Gita (4.34), where it says:
tad viddhi pranipatena
pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam
jnaninas tattva-darsinah
You should approach a guru, ask him humbly questions, you should offer your obeisance and become very humble, put your head on the ground and serve him and he will instruct you, when he sees your sincerity. He will teach you the truth, which he has seen. This is the question: has he seen it or has he not seen it? Well, we believe he has seen it if he has met Srila Prabhupada and lives in Srila Prabhupada’s service. And if he has not seen it, then Srila Prabhupada and Krishna have seen it and they will be in charge of this.
Coming back to the point of siksa guru - it is such a powerful institution and it is sometimes given to people such as temple presidents who have only spent two years in Krishna Consciousness. Sometimes people just have to take over the temple management duties. When I became a temple president in Denmark, I scarcely had two and a half years in the movement and out of a sudden a whole temple was depending on me. So we have to see the practical side of it as well. And we have to see how important are love and trust. If we are going to eliminate love and trust from the transaction of the spiritual organizations, spiritual master, representative of the spiritual master and want to make the whole thing institutionally governed, then we are not following the tradition of our spiritual Paramapara.
In our tradition the ritvik system is in the heart of the devotee because he feels that his guru is the real guru. This is appropriate. But institutional connection, even the institutional formal diksa guru connection, has been rejected in some of the cases in our Guru Parampara.
Like when Bhaktivinod Thakur declared his main connection to be Srila Jagannath das Babaji Maharaja and he was not his diksa connection but he gave a preference of the siksa guru connection over the diksa connection. And there are other examples like that, where Srila Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar Maharaja explains that this is Siksa Guru Parampara. So, this is one of the considerations here. And if you reflect upon it, you will find that institutional Parampara is not prepared very well. Or I may ask you, where is the institutional Parampara of Srila Rupa Goswami in the Radha Govinda mandir of Vrindavan, or the institutional Parampara of Sanatan Goswami in the Radha Madan Mohan temple, or the institutional Parampara of Ragunath das Goswami, Madhu Pandit? Where are they? Virtually they are absent. Some people claim that it is a family right thing and others see that the buildings are administrated by the Indian archeological society. So, where is the Parampara? The institutional Paramparas have practically disappeared or there are some people, who practically claim that they have it. At least we can see that they haven’t done much work. And in the case of Srila Prabhupada, he had to go against the institutional Parampara because there was no connection available. When he went to the west he actually tried to represent one of the Indian teachers, who had higher position in the institution of his guru but Krishna didn’t want it. So Srila Prabhupada had to start his own institution but don’t forget that he also said: “There are many institutions, which are for saving people from ignorance and giving them Krishna and my institution is one of them.” Srila Prabhupada never said: “My institution is the only institution and all the other institutions are invalidated and we should go against them” - or anything like this. Or: “They are deviations because they are not coming to surrender to my institutional framework.”
Whoever comes up with such ideas, I must honestly say, is bogus. He is sectarian, he is fanatic and even worse, he may have become a Vaishnava aparadhi and if you practice or teach Vaisnava aparadha, what good fortune will come to you? It is the elephant offense – diminish, minimize, criticize and mistreat people who are connected to other spiritual families. These are all different types of Vaisnava aparadha. So, only individuals can save us because they can imbibe, what is called love and trust and they can get personal realization, which we hope they will get.
I hope all my disciples will be so qualified siksa gurus that they will deliver the mercy of my diksa guru in 100% quality. This is quite an expectation from those beloved friends of my soul. I want them to represent 100% of something that I cannot understand myself. Good question, no? But do I understand Krishna? No. Do I understand Srila Prabhupada? No. I love him! I feel grateful! I try to do, what he told me to do but I don’t want to lie that I understand Srila Prabhupada. Do I understand Srila Shridhar Maharaja? No.I have heard that Krishna doesn’t understand himself. So then I don’t feel that bad that I don’t understand Him either. But simply because Krishna doesn’t understand Himself, it doesn’t make Him less Krishna or His mission less important for the world. I don’t think so. This is the domain of love and trust. In love and trust sometimes you do not understand.
I do not understand the power of the Maha Mantra but I have seen it. I have seen how it works on people. I am very grateful for the power of the Maha Mantra, but understanding it? Understanding the Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam? I read them every day. I think it is really great stuff, which is taught there, but do I understand Shrimad Bhagavatam?
aham vedmi suko vetti
vyaso vetti na vetti va
bhaktya bhagavatam grahyam
na buddhya na ca tikaya
Lord Siva said; "I know the meaning of the Bhagavat and I know that Sukadeva knows it also. But for Vyasadeva he may or may not know it. The Bhagavat can only be known through bhakti, not by mundane intelligence or by reading many commentaries."
On the whole, Srimad Bhagavatam, the spotless Purana, can be learned only through devotional service, not by material intelligence, speculative methods or imaginary commentaries. Sukadeva Goswami understood the Srimad Bhagavatam. Vyasadeva maybe understood it but maybe not. How come that he did not understand it when he wrote it down? How would he not understand? Because sometimes, Srila Shridhar Maharaja says, things descend in a special way through somebody to somebody else. The one in between, does not understand but the one, who receives it, understands. That’s what Srila Sridhar Maharaja wanted to say. That’s what we love and that’s what we trust.
We love and trust that this mission is Krishna’s mission and if anything goes wrong, He will come and intervene. And still, we teach people to love their diksa and siksa gurus because if we do not tell them to love and trust their siksa gurus, they will not be inspired. They will not have enthusiasm to serve their diksa and siksa gurus, to participate from the core of their heart, to risk themselves like their gurus are risking themselves for them and for the service of their guru.
At the end Shrila Prabhupada said: the gurus are self revealed. They are acting on behalf of their Lord, their spiritual master and their own consciousness. And if divine grace descends upon them, then they will be able to show some incredible transformation, either in quantity or in quality, or in both. Otherwise not, krsna sakti vina nahe tara pravartana. Those empowered will be recognized as genuine representatives of Parampara and of their spiritual master. And what will they say if you approach them and ask them personally about this?
They will say: no, no, no, I am not empowered. What is happening here is the power of my guru. All glories to him! Me and you are all depending on his grace but this is not ritvik, it is representative.
Through the humble representative and through that chain or succession this whole movement has continued and is alive. The institutions can do some check and balance; they can organize things that cannot be done by as easy individuals - for example, the Vishva Vaishnava Raja Sabha. It invites all the Vaisnava groups to help clean the holy dham together. If you only clean 100 or 200 m in each direction of your beautiful Mandir, we already have a clean Vrindavan. There are so many temples now everywhere. So we have the spirit of doing things together, of helping each other. For example, if one devotee publishes a beautiful book on science of spirituality (like one devotee called Govardhan did in Mayapur – he showed the importance of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings and the evidence, found in the scientific discoveries for the transcendental teachings), will it not be appreciated and used by all Vaisnavas? Can science or social work be restricted to one institution? Would any Vaisnava make charitable medical service and restrict the charitable help only to people who belong to his institution? When scientists, philosophers and charitable people become sectarian, then you can surely tell that this is the end of spirituality.
Therefore in the department of spiritual philosophy and also, where this philosophy is applied in practical decision making, there has to be freedom, there has to be individual criteria and there has to be love and trust. Otherwise, there will be no joy and no progress.
If these observations were for the benefit of anybody who listens to them, I will be greatly rewarded, because my only ambition is to become servant of the servant of the servants of those wonderful Vaisnavas. We have to develop taste for Srila Prabhupada and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Thank you.
Your always well wisher,
Swami B.A. Paramadvaiti
Of course, we do recognize that spiritual masters are not independent. They depend on their own spiritual master’s blessings, on the sadhus’ criteria and on the scriptures in order to draw a truthful authority of conclusion. And of course, there is the inner consciousness, which is of top importance in any circumstance of life. Our inner consciousness, is not independent either - it has to associate, compare and check itself with guru, with sadhu and with sastra.
Why is this topic important? It is very simple: because people can commit mistakes. Even if they are sitting on the chair of the teacher – be it siksa guru or diksa guru, they can still commit errors. This is the reason why the scriptures have given this indication of assisted checking for when there is a question and there is a doubt, so to be saved from what we may call arbitrary speculation of an individual. Now, we may think “All Glories to Democracy”, because in this case we have a group of people who vote on a topic and in this way they supposedly come up with the right solution. If the democracy is a democracy amongst true and very sincere sadhus, it will actually have validity - the sadhu democracy may work up to a certain point. But if they are not, then we can see that even groups of people with voting powers can still make errors. In other words, they are not a guarantee that you will never commit a mistake.
Srila Prabhuhada, our most beloved spiritual master, is so extraordinary that he continued receiving titles even after his departure - such as Senapati (chosen empowered agent by Lord Chaitanya) and Shakti Avesa Avatar (empowered incarnation of Lord Nityananda’s spreading love potency). He has been recognized for his extraordinary contribution to the world.
Nevertheless, if you want to pick on Srila Pabhupada and find fault in him, you may actually be able to do so. If he gave sannyas to a person, who later failed in his sannyas, you could say –if he was trikalajna, somebody who has knowledge about the past, the present and the future, could he not have foreseen what would happen? Or what about his establishment of cow protection farms, which due to the circumstances later turned out to be unsustainable? Or how about establishing Gurukulas, where later some degraded individuals abused children?Didn’t he see that, didn’t he know that?
My personal answer to this is that Srila Pabhupada worked for his ideal with whoever Krishna sent to him and he gave them a chance – by telling them what to do and by giving the right example how to do it. So you could say that Srila Pabhupada never failed us. He gave us the love of his guru. But because he was preaching in the Western world, there was an incredible risk taken.
Whether you are in business, in politics or in a spiritual community, there are always trust issues: you have to give the keys to somebody; you have to give the management of the funds to somebody. In human life there are always trust positions which could be powerfully utilized for truly beautiful things, but which could also be misused. So considering this fundamental condition, we are very concerned to find some security measures to counteract abusive situations.
Fortunately, we have one safeguard in our system and this is Parameshvara – the supreme controller Lord Krishna. He knows everything and he is the benefactor judge of everyone. In other words, if you do wrong, he’ll judge you, but for your benefit. He will still make some arrangements, which will favour you in some way - and save you from your own faults. But even there we see that sometimes Krishna loses his patience - if we may dare say so, my dear Lord Govinda. In a sense He says: “This or that person’s earthly chance has come to an end for this round. He has to go and come again.” It’s up to Him, He is the supreme controller – and we are in safe hands with Lord Krishna. He sent us our spiritual master Srila Pabhupada, so that we have a solid foundation of how to practice Krishna Consciousness even in the degraded Western circumstances, as long as we stick to his safeguard instructions:
Number 1 is chanting Hare Krishna.
Number 2 – follow the 4 regulative principles,
Number 3 – keep reading the scriptures and
Number 4 – do service.
Without service even the chanting becomes a kind of “I’m asking for service, I’m asking for service - but when the service comes I’m not available anymore”.So the question of having an institution ruling above the guru has to be analyzed very carefully and also very generously. After Srila Pabhupada left this world and some of his leaders stopped working properly (to say it in soft words), some devotees suggested that it was best to eliminate the spiritual master function, and have Prabhupada as a huge major spiritual master of all present and coming devotees.
This proposal, that every initiation after Prabhupada would be a ritvik initiation, where the actual guru Srila Prabhupada, would practically equalize Krishna Consciousness with Christianity. There is the Son of God, he saved us all - of course we don’t accept that he died for our sins, so that we could keep sinning, this is another degradation of true spirituality. According to Christianity, you are connected to Jesus by coming in contact with one of His institutions with several different practitioners, of whom you may like some or be inspired by some, but they never become that fully important, because the fully important position is given to Jesus.
So the suggestion of putting an institution over the Guru is a very strange proposal in a sense. If you analyze it, it is not ritvik of Srila Pabhupada – it would be a representational initiation on behalf of an institution. Where is Prabhupada there? The institution has already shown faulty judgements on many past occasions – for example, faulty judgements in respect to Vaishanvas who belong to other Vaishnava institutions and are initiated by spiritual masters from the same lineage, but not from the same institutional framework.
There are plenty of other examples of grand institutional misjudgment that causes quite some havoc both in the individual life as well as in the structural thinking of the people who are educated under such a system. Excuse me for the comparison, but when the socialists created a system about educating their children, they gave them a kind of a package for dealing with life according to the socialist parameters. A capitalist existence gives another type of frame, and a totalitarian military dictatorship has another framework. And if there is a king, he might be like a dictator in one way, but may also happen to be much beloved and caring to all his subjects – all these circumstances put another framework of psychological guidance towards behaviors in that system.
So when institutions cast judgements which end up becoming systems, rules or regulations, it creates an impact upon the people who have to live under the influence of such judgements. It is different when you have a guru, be it siksa or diksa guru. Mark my words, I say both of them have the same validity to a certain degree – and Prabhupada wrote (or quoted Srila Jiva Gosvami) that it is an offense to see a difference between siksa and diksa guru. So this is a very important point.
I will tell you something from my own spiritual family, the Vrinda family. I initiate devotees, it is my service in this family, and then I move on my journey as a beggar of love to the next destination. The people I initiated stay behind with the diverse qualities of siksa gurus who are hopefully of the highest quality, but may not always be. They take care of the new devotees for the period of 364 days until I come back for 1 day. Of course, people can have contact with me in many ways through my teachings, and my question and answer sessions, which I continuously try to supply to the devotees, but nevertheless many devotees in our mission see me once a year for a day – and many of them even less, because I can’t visit every place for a day each and every year.
So who is looking after the devotee, who’s delivering the guru tattva? These are the siksa gurus, those very wonderfully surrendered devotees and good examples, who have taken Krishna to heart, like I took Prabhupada to heart – hopefully. I wish it may be so, because taking your guru to heart makes you a transparent via medium of what he is to you through the authority and supervision of Sri Paramatma, the Lord in the Heart. You have to understand one thing – all glories to Srila Pabhupada, but he is not the Paramatma. Being the greatest and the most beautiful of all spiritual masters in the history, never ever he had impressed upon us, that he is identical to Paramatma - and as a matter of fact he is not.
So this is a very interesting thing to take into consideration: that the final guide, quality guarantee and quality control of Guru Tattva rests in Sri Paramatma, Chaitya Guru, and all the others have a chance to participate by divine grace to deliver the divine goods of their Guru Tattva as they were able to appreciate them and as they were able to preserve them, and as they were able to deliver them to you and as you are able to receive them.
So there are quite a few steps built into the system, which are somewhat faulty, but because of the quality control and the quality guarantee of Sri Paramatma for his devotee, there is nothing to be feared. Just we have to know how to deal with the diverse circumstances as we proceed. And when my Gurudeva said that he wanted all his disciples to become spiritual masters, he was not joking. And also I can only second it, because to me everyone who has come to me is actually a disciple of Srila Pabhupada. That they are under my guidance and can maybe be inspired in their service by my existence is a special mercy upon me, so that I can be somehow useful for the Divine purpose. I don’t feel that it is more than that, but I don’t feel that this is little.
I feel that it is far, far high and incredible mercy if we can be an instrument of His love – that’s what we always pray for: Oh my Lord, please let me be an instrument of your love!”
This is what it’s all about. Anyhow – just as much as I can be so, you can be and shall be so too, if you are ready to go along with the requirements. It is like when you give a class in front of an audience, you are not the one who is doing the talking – at least you are not supposed to be – you are supposed to be the transparent via medium for your Guru’s message to be delivered. That’s why I always say “My dear Friends, please try to be a speaker on behalf of Krishna, because Krishna has given you the mouth so that you can deliver beautiful speeches on his behalf on Harikatha or even on Prabhupada Lila, for example. Krishna Lila Amrita, Prabhupad Lila Amrita – yes, to hear the glories of the devotees is very dear to the Lord.
Srimad Bhagavatam is full of stories about the glories of the devotees - and don’t think that telling the story of Prabhupada is any less ecstatic than hearing the story of Dhruva Maharaj. These are the extraordinary features that we are coming in contact with the high delivery of the mercy – and whoever gets the mercy, that’s a beautiful story, makes up for another conversion.
Of course, if I have been a Muslim before I met the devotees, this doesn’t make me immediately Haridas Thakur. There are a lot more certain things in the divine planning department, which is the plan that Haridas Thakur was Brahma, who by the mercy of Lord Gauranga had the chance to appear in His lila as the Nam Acharya but still, when Muslims convert to the love of Vaishnavism we rejoice. It as an extraordinary beautiful thing to happen. The whole world is one family. We all belong to one another. All sectarian “I am better than you” thoughts are not appropriate or applicable of how to deal with others in this world - something, which is often forgotten in institutional law making, and which is not so spiritual.
Like when an institution releases a law, which says: “You are not allowed to take siksa instruction from somebody, who is outside of our institution”. It sounds very similar to some political systems where you are not even allowed to know what the opposition proposes, otherwise you will be considered a betrayer and will be dealt with like a traitor. In a time of conflict traitors are shot, and in a spiritual institution those considered traitors are shunt, rejected, badly spoken about and denounced.
So philosophers and spiritual intellectuals have to deal with everything, including opposing views. If you are a Brahmin or a sannyasi and cannot deal lovingly with opposing views, then you become a frog-in-a-well kind of philosopher. You think “All that is happening in my well is my wisdom” but you know what Prabhupada said about the frog-in-the-well philosophers. If there are opposing views, we have to think about them and either refute them, according to Guru, Sastra and Sadhu, or accept them with constructive criticism of what we are doing.
If the truth is approaching in the form of an opposition towards my misgivings, then shall I reject the truth because it doesn’t come within the institutional frame? This is a very dangerous attitude. It means that you create a philosophical jail, where you are limited to the conception of often polluted interests of law makers, which then contaminate the whole possibility of having a transcendental vision - and it is exactly here where the spiritual master comes in. The spiritual master is a free thinker. He is a person with an individual personal realization and criteria, who can evaluate faithfully, according to Guru, Sastra and Sadhu, whatever he sees, plus he can adopt to time, place and circumstance to whatever circumstance presents itself, which can be even new to what his Guru had explained.
One of the best examples about it is called Facebook. Facebook definitely did not exist at the time of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Shridhar Maharaja. When I last saw my mother, who used to be illiterate about computers, she knew more about Facebook than me. I was very surprised but Facebook is a great Maya, a great illusion. It can really serve for getting Krishna, for losing Krishna, for wasting your time to an extreme. But at the same time Facebook can be considered a fantastic tool for announcing temple activities and for active communication with other people in the world.
So, we have Zuckerberg, the inventor of Facebook. He is a human being who became the instrument of delivering a technology, which is putting people in contact with each other like never before. And it became a disease - there are Facebook clinics already. There are people, who lose contact with the external world because they became too mesmerized with the technology and the “I like you”/“You like me” business.
The real substance of propagating Krishna Consciousness through Facebook gets lost, because such a person is not even practicing it at that point. But if a temple or a project uses Facebook to announce to thousand, two thousand, three thousand people their next activity, it becomes a very useful and appreciated tool. It’s a double sided sword, which can cut the right thing and the wrong thing.
Srila Prabhupada didn’t say anything about Facebook. So, does that mean that the new spiritual master shouldn’t say anything about it either, just because they should only say what Srila Prabhupada has already said? Such type of a concept kills the whole thing. The spiritual master has to have criteria of how to utilize the new technology. I am giving only one example but there are plenty of examples.
Time, place and circumstances may be favorable for development of Krishna Consciousness. The individual realization is the last checking point and that cannot be safely checked, when it is obvious that there is a deviation from the principles of Bhakti. I will give you a very extreme example but here we are talking the naked truth.
There was a guy, who considered himself a spiritual master, so he went from India to one Latin American country and started to give initiations. He was a nice looking young man and many of the girls he initiated fell in love with him and he also fell in love with them. But not only with one devotee - he fell in love with a few of them. He became lusty after several of them. He was with several of them. It is very embarrassing for a spiritual master but of course he was not a real spiritual master. One, who falls down for illicit sex life is not a spiritual master. The girls eventually found out that he was not falling down with only one of them, but with many. They felt cheated and, of course, they were cheated. Probably, he told each of them “You are the star of my life” and everybody wants to be the only star on the sky. When they found out that they were one out of many, the girls went together and denounced him at the immigration office, so he was kicked out of the country. His own disciples kicked him out of the country. You may talk about democracy, vox populi or whatever, but the truth is that his own disciples kicked him out of the country. The girls later took shelter from a very sincere senior devotee and continued their spiritual life.
So, yes, failure can be there in the individual spiritual master, and failure can be there in an entire institutional group of GBCs, coming together and casting the vote for this or that. Myself, I went through a period of my spiritual life, when I was under the voting system of such an advisory board. At that time there was a rule that nobody could be removed from the top system unless there was 75 % of the vote against him. I went through the list and realized that more than 25% of them were in questionable condition. Whatever they would vote about, they would not come up to 75% to remove somebody with faulty behavior, because more than 25% were with faulty behavior.
They killed themselves. They had created a system, whose guard process could not function anymore. There was no real safeguard - on the contrary, it was releasing faulty legislations and faulty guidelines. It was then that I decided to search for a Sadhu who can guide me, because I didn’t want my life restricted and limited to the faulty judgments of people, who prohibited me from following my own heart and understanding of what Srila Prabhupada wanted me to do.
Now I read that this absolutism was also applied to the individual spiritual master. Spiritual masters were demoted to be really just ritualistic mantra deliverers, because you can get the mantra from a tape recorder or from the mouth of anybody. Recordings have been used by Srila Prabhupada himself for some of the second initiations, when he was not personally present.
Some people said: Well, since it has been done while Prabhupada was there, why not do it also now, when he is not here anymore - it is still the same mantra with the same power. Yes, that’s true, it is the same mantra with the same power but the element of accepting the spiritual master is to surrender to somebody and to serve somebody. You say – no, you don’t have to serve Guru, you only have to serve the institution of the Paramaguru. That means all your service has been put in the framework of the abstract connection because you do not trust anybody completely.
This is another deficiency because the element of love and trust is instrumental. It is the key to giving yourself and being enthusiastic for spiritual life. And it goes both ways - the guru loves and trusts you because otherwise how would he tell you to go out and preach? If the guru thinks that you are just a bogus and you will talk nonsense or cheat people, is he going to tell you to go out and preach? Am I going to tell you to give a daily class about Krishna, if I know that all you are going to say is lies that confuse people? I would be suicidal then. So, I say, give the message of Srila Prabhupada with love and trust, you are capable, and Krishna may agree to speak through you. Who knows, tomorrow when you are out there and preach about Krishna, somebody might say: “I love what you say. I have 10 000 dollars and I’m not doing anything with them. Can you use them for Krishna?” Why not? Is it prohibited to receive a donation for Krishna? No, it is not. So he comes and gives it to you because you gave a class that deeply touched him. Now you have 10 000 dollars. Thank you!
If you, in that moment, think that the money is yours, well, you fall down right there. You have received this on behalf of Krishna and you are supposed to use every penny for Krishna, otherwise you are cheating. But when I speak about love and trust, I mean that the guru trusts you to do this properly. If somebody does not do it properly, it is up to their reaction. In other words, the disciple has to be responsible. But I cannot base my whole life on mistrust, because if I mistrust everybody, then I cannot preach. I cannot say - there is something very secret, very sacred, very beautiful, and very incredible and I would almost give it to you but the problem is that I cannot trust you. This maha something, it can be shhh something, and you have to figure it out by your own inner realization. No, it is not like this. As soon as I preach the maha mantra, I’m giving somebody a chance to get rid of all the sinful activities and to enter into spiritual understanding - and this is the power of the mantra, not the power of my words. It is all the power of grace. So, when you don’t trust people you are in bad shape. Now, vice versa, the trust also goes that I give you my time and you also trust me.
Spiritual life is a trust relationship. Even an ordinary marriage is a trust relationship because you work together, you put your money together and you sleep next to one another, which means that while you are sleeping, the other one could theoretically pull a knife. Nobody has a bodyguard next to their husband or wife. If marriage is a 100% trust relationship, so how cannot a guru-disciple relationship be a trust one? And there is no institution, which stands above the husband and wife relationship, except the court. Sometimes husband and wife end up in court and she says that he did this and that, and the court may judge on the relationship, but who is the court above the guru? Where is that court? The disciple surrenders to the guru and says: “Please, give me the mantra! Please, give me service! Please, accept me! I want to be your spiritual son!” And the guru says: “Yes, I accept you as my child and I accept you to be a part of my family.”
There is a very intimate personal connection. Who is going to judge that? Of course, the truth will judge, Paramatma will judge, the history will judge but in that personal private connection, who is going to be the judge? If there is anything going wrong, only Krishna himself can straighten it out. Because if you say there is a guru, there is a disciple but above them there is a Sadhu Samaj, GBC and if you have a problem you speak to them and the guru has nothing to say, he can only repeat what the advisory board has said, then that means that the advisory board doesn’t trust the guru. So how come that the disciple is supposed to trust the guru then?
The advisory board says: we don’t trust the guru. Just take the mantra from him but don’t trust him. But you should trust us with our criteria because we have put the guru and we can also remove him. We will give you a substitute guru if one fails. We have some spare gurus for such cases but everything rests in the advisory board, it doesn’t rest in the guru’s position. But this is not the presentation sustained by Bhagavad Gita (4.34), where it says:
tad viddhi pranipatena
pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam
jnaninas tattva-darsinah
You should approach a guru, ask him humbly questions, you should offer your obeisance and become very humble, put your head on the ground and serve him and he will instruct you, when he sees your sincerity. He will teach you the truth, which he has seen. This is the question: has he seen it or has he not seen it? Well, we believe he has seen it if he has met Srila Prabhupada and lives in Srila Prabhupada’s service. And if he has not seen it, then Srila Prabhupada and Krishna have seen it and they will be in charge of this.
Coming back to the point of siksa guru - it is such a powerful institution and it is sometimes given to people such as temple presidents who have only spent two years in Krishna Consciousness. Sometimes people just have to take over the temple management duties. When I became a temple president in Denmark, I scarcely had two and a half years in the movement and out of a sudden a whole temple was depending on me. So we have to see the practical side of it as well. And we have to see how important are love and trust. If we are going to eliminate love and trust from the transaction of the spiritual organizations, spiritual master, representative of the spiritual master and want to make the whole thing institutionally governed, then we are not following the tradition of our spiritual Paramapara.
In our tradition the ritvik system is in the heart of the devotee because he feels that his guru is the real guru. This is appropriate. But institutional connection, even the institutional formal diksa guru connection, has been rejected in some of the cases in our Guru Parampara.
Like when Bhaktivinod Thakur declared his main connection to be Srila Jagannath das Babaji Maharaja and he was not his diksa connection but he gave a preference of the siksa guru connection over the diksa connection. And there are other examples like that, where Srila Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar Maharaja explains that this is Siksa Guru Parampara. So, this is one of the considerations here. And if you reflect upon it, you will find that institutional Parampara is not prepared very well. Or I may ask you, where is the institutional Parampara of Srila Rupa Goswami in the Radha Govinda mandir of Vrindavan, or the institutional Parampara of Sanatan Goswami in the Radha Madan Mohan temple, or the institutional Parampara of Ragunath das Goswami, Madhu Pandit? Where are they? Virtually they are absent. Some people claim that it is a family right thing and others see that the buildings are administrated by the Indian archeological society. So, where is the Parampara? The institutional Paramparas have practically disappeared or there are some people, who practically claim that they have it. At least we can see that they haven’t done much work. And in the case of Srila Prabhupada, he had to go against the institutional Parampara because there was no connection available. When he went to the west he actually tried to represent one of the Indian teachers, who had higher position in the institution of his guru but Krishna didn’t want it. So Srila Prabhupada had to start his own institution but don’t forget that he also said: “There are many institutions, which are for saving people from ignorance and giving them Krishna and my institution is one of them.” Srila Prabhupada never said: “My institution is the only institution and all the other institutions are invalidated and we should go against them” - or anything like this. Or: “They are deviations because they are not coming to surrender to my institutional framework.”
Whoever comes up with such ideas, I must honestly say, is bogus. He is sectarian, he is fanatic and even worse, he may have become a Vaishnava aparadhi and if you practice or teach Vaisnava aparadha, what good fortune will come to you? It is the elephant offense – diminish, minimize, criticize and mistreat people who are connected to other spiritual families. These are all different types of Vaisnava aparadha. So, only individuals can save us because they can imbibe, what is called love and trust and they can get personal realization, which we hope they will get.
I hope all my disciples will be so qualified siksa gurus that they will deliver the mercy of my diksa guru in 100% quality. This is quite an expectation from those beloved friends of my soul. I want them to represent 100% of something that I cannot understand myself. Good question, no? But do I understand Krishna? No. Do I understand Srila Prabhupada? No. I love him! I feel grateful! I try to do, what he told me to do but I don’t want to lie that I understand Srila Prabhupada. Do I understand Srila Shridhar Maharaja? No.I have heard that Krishna doesn’t understand himself. So then I don’t feel that bad that I don’t understand Him either. But simply because Krishna doesn’t understand Himself, it doesn’t make Him less Krishna or His mission less important for the world. I don’t think so. This is the domain of love and trust. In love and trust sometimes you do not understand.
I do not understand the power of the Maha Mantra but I have seen it. I have seen how it works on people. I am very grateful for the power of the Maha Mantra, but understanding it? Understanding the Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam? I read them every day. I think it is really great stuff, which is taught there, but do I understand Shrimad Bhagavatam?
aham vedmi suko vetti
vyaso vetti na vetti va
bhaktya bhagavatam grahyam
na buddhya na ca tikaya
Lord Siva said; "I know the meaning of the Bhagavat and I know that Sukadeva knows it also. But for Vyasadeva he may or may not know it. The Bhagavat can only be known through bhakti, not by mundane intelligence or by reading many commentaries."
On the whole, Srimad Bhagavatam, the spotless Purana, can be learned only through devotional service, not by material intelligence, speculative methods or imaginary commentaries. Sukadeva Goswami understood the Srimad Bhagavatam. Vyasadeva maybe understood it but maybe not. How come that he did not understand it when he wrote it down? How would he not understand? Because sometimes, Srila Shridhar Maharaja says, things descend in a special way through somebody to somebody else. The one in between, does not understand but the one, who receives it, understands. That’s what Srila Sridhar Maharaja wanted to say. That’s what we love and that’s what we trust.
We love and trust that this mission is Krishna’s mission and if anything goes wrong, He will come and intervene. And still, we teach people to love their diksa and siksa gurus because if we do not tell them to love and trust their siksa gurus, they will not be inspired. They will not have enthusiasm to serve their diksa and siksa gurus, to participate from the core of their heart, to risk themselves like their gurus are risking themselves for them and for the service of their guru.
At the end Shrila Prabhupada said: the gurus are self revealed. They are acting on behalf of their Lord, their spiritual master and their own consciousness. And if divine grace descends upon them, then they will be able to show some incredible transformation, either in quantity or in quality, or in both. Otherwise not, krsna sakti vina nahe tara pravartana. Those empowered will be recognized as genuine representatives of Parampara and of their spiritual master. And what will they say if you approach them and ask them personally about this?
They will say: no, no, no, I am not empowered. What is happening here is the power of my guru. All glories to him! Me and you are all depending on his grace but this is not ritvik, it is representative.
Through the humble representative and through that chain or succession this whole movement has continued and is alive. The institutions can do some check and balance; they can organize things that cannot be done by as easy individuals - for example, the Vishva Vaishnava Raja Sabha. It invites all the Vaisnava groups to help clean the holy dham together. If you only clean 100 or 200 m in each direction of your beautiful Mandir, we already have a clean Vrindavan. There are so many temples now everywhere. So we have the spirit of doing things together, of helping each other. For example, if one devotee publishes a beautiful book on science of spirituality (like one devotee called Govardhan did in Mayapur – he showed the importance of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings and the evidence, found in the scientific discoveries for the transcendental teachings), will it not be appreciated and used by all Vaisnavas? Can science or social work be restricted to one institution? Would any Vaisnava make charitable medical service and restrict the charitable help only to people who belong to his institution? When scientists, philosophers and charitable people become sectarian, then you can surely tell that this is the end of spirituality.
Therefore in the department of spiritual philosophy and also, where this philosophy is applied in practical decision making, there has to be freedom, there has to be individual criteria and there has to be love and trust. Otherwise, there will be no joy and no progress.
If these observations were for the benefit of anybody who listens to them, I will be greatly rewarded, because my only ambition is to become servant of the servant of the servants of those wonderful Vaisnavas. We have to develop taste for Srila Prabhupada and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Thank you.
Your always well wisher,
Swami B.A. Paramadvaiti
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