19980407 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.17.27 - Vyasa-puja

vande 'ham sri-guroh sri-yuta-pada-kamalam sri-gurun vaisnavams ca
sri-rupam sagrajatam saha-gana-raghunathanvitam tam sa-jivam
sadvaitam savadhutam parijana-sahitam Kṛṣṇa-caitanya-devam
sri-radha-Kṛṣṇa-padan saha-gana-lalita-sri-visakhanvitams ca

The following is a class given by HH Jayapataka Swami Maharaj on April 7th, 1998 at Sridham Mayapur, India. The class was given on Vyasa puja day and begins with a reading from the Srimad Bhagavatam 11th canto chapter 17 verse 27.

ācāryaṁ māṁ vijānīyān
navamanyeta karhicit
na martya-buddhyāsūyeta
sarva-deva-mayo guruḥ

Translation by His Divine Grace Sri Abhaya Charan Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad.

We are taking the translation from Chaitanya Charitamrita Adi Lila chapter 1, verse 46.

Although this verse is from 11th canto Bhagavatam 17th chapter 27th verse. But they already translate that into Chaitanya Charitamrita.

“One should know the ācārya as Myself and never disrespect him in any way. One should not envy him, thinking him an ordinary man, for he is the representative of all the demigods.”

Purport by His Divine Grace Sri Abhaya Charan Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad

This is a verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (11.17.27) spoken by Lord Kṛṣṇa when He was questioned by Uddhava regarding the four social and spiritual orders of society. The Lord was specifically instructing how a brahmacārī should behave under the care of a spiritual master. A spiritual master is not an enjoyer of facilities offered by his disciples. He is like a parent. Without the attentive service of his parents, a child cannot grow to manhood; similarly, without the care of the spiritual master one cannot rise to the plane of transcendental service.

The spiritual master is also called ācārya, or a transcendental professor of spiritual science. The Manu-saṁhitā (2.140) explains the duties of an ācārya, describing that a bona fide spiritual master accepts charge of disciples, teaches them the Vedic knowledge with all its intricacies, and gives them their second birth. The ceremony performed to initiate a disciple into the study of spiritual science is called upanīti, or the function that brings one nearer to the spiritual master. One who cannot be brought nearer to a spiritual master cannot have a sacred thread, and thus he is indicated to be a śūdra. The sacred thread on the body of a brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya or vaiśya is a symbol of initiation by the spiritual master; it is worth nothing if worn merely to boast of high parentage. The duty of the spiritual master is to initiate a disciple with the sacred thread ceremony, and after this saṁskāra, or purificatory process, the spiritual master actually begins to teach the disciple about the Vedas. A person born a śūdra is not barred from such spiritual initiation, provided he is approved by the spiritual master, who is duly authorized to award a disciple the right to be a brāhmaṇa if he finds him perfectly qualified. In the Vāyu Purāṇa an ācārya is defined as one who knows the import of all the Vedic literatures, abides by their rules and regulations, and teaches his disciples to act in the same way.

Only out of His immense compassion does the Personality of Godhead reveal Himself as the spiritual master. Therefore in the dealings of an ācārya there are no activities but those of transcendental loving service to the Lord. He is the Supreme Personality of Servitor Godhead. It is worthwhile to take shelter of such a steady devotee, who is called āśraya-vigraha, or the manifestation or form of the Lord of whom one must take shelter.

If one poses himself as an ācārya but does not have an attitude of servitorship to the Lord, he must be considered an offender, and this offensive attitude disqualifies him from being an ācārya. The bona fide spiritual master always engages in unalloyed devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. By this test he is known to be a direct manifestation of the Lord and a genuine representative of Śrī Nityānanda Prabhu. Such a spiritual master is known as ācāryadeva. Influenced by an envious temperament and dissatisfied because of an attitude of sense gratification, mundaners criticize a real ācārya. In fact, however, a bona fide ācārya is nondifferent from the Personality of Godhead, and therefore to envy such an ācārya is to envy the Personality of Godhead Himself. This will produce an effect subversive of transcendental realization.

As mentioned previously, a disciple should always respect the spiritual master as a manifestation of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, but at the same time one should always remember that a spiritual master is never authorized to imitate the transcendental pastimes of the Lord. False spiritual masters pose themselves as identical with Śrī Kṛṣṇa in every respect to exploit the sentiments of their disciples, but such impersonalists can only mislead their disciples, for their ultimate aim is to become one with the Lord. This is against the principles of the devotional cult.

The real Vedic philosophy is acintya-bhedābheda-tattva, which establishes everything to be simultaneously one with and different from the Personality of Godhead. Śrīla Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī confirms that this is the real position of a bona fide spiritual master and says that one should always think of the spiritual master in terms of his intimate relationship with Mukunda (Śrī Kṛṣṇa). Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, in his Bhakti-sandarbha (213), has clearly explained that a pure devotee’s observation of the spiritual master and Lord Śiva as being one with the Personality of Godhead exists in terms of their being very dear to the Lord, not identical with Him in all respects. Following in the footsteps of Śrīla Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī and Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, later ācāryas like Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura have confirmed the same truths. In his prayers to the spiritual master, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura confirms that all the revealed scriptures accept the spiritual master to be identical with the Personality of Godhead because he is a very dear and confidential servant of the Lord. Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas therefore worship Śrīla Gurudeva (the spiritual master) in the light of his being the servitor of the Personality of Godhead. In all the ancient literatures of devotional service and in the more recent songs of Śrīla Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and other unalloyed Vaiṣṇavas, the spiritual master is always considered either one of the confidential associates of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī or a manifested representation of Śrīla Nityānanda Prabhu.

Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta Swami translation and purport. Hare Krishna!

In the verses leading up to the CC, it mentions yadyapi āmāra guru — caitanyera dāsa

tathāpi jāniye āmi tāṅhāra prakāśa

Although I know that my spiritual master is a servitor of Śrī Caitanya, I know Him also as a plenary manifestation of the Lord.

So this simultaneously, oneness and difference is demonstrated here in this verse. I know my guru is a devotee of Lord Chaitanya but I also know he is a representative or he is a manifestation of the Lord. These two diverse understandings are possible when they are inconceivable. That's why acintya bhedabeda tattva. In the purport Prabhupad explains Lord Nityananda who is Balaram Himself, the first direct manifestation or expansion of Krishna is the original spiritual master. He helps Lord Krishna in His pastimes as He is the servant of the Lord. The purport also mentions the spiritual master's eternal occupation is to expand the service of the Lord by training disciples in a service attitude. guru kṛṣṇa-rūpa hana śāstrera pramāṇe

guru-rūpe kṛṣṇa kṛpā karena bhakta-gaṇe

According to the deliberate opinion of all revealed scriptures, the spiritual master is nondifferent from Kṛṣṇa. Lord Kṛṣṇa in the form of the spiritual master delivers His devotees.

Purport

The relationship of a disciple with his spiritual master is as good as his relationship with the Supreme Lord. A spiritual master always represents himself as the humblest servitor of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but the disciple must look upon him as the manifested representation of Godhead.

11:48 from the Srimad Bhagavatam in all the descriptions of an acharya that mentions some of the 12:01 and regulations, teaches the disciples to practice the Vedas, gives initiation and so on. No where does it say specifically that one has to be a self effulgent uttama adhikari. Then when he goes into a dark room, he only divides to return back automatically. He likes to move out because it's a 12:35 or something. Somehow some people this time, all of a sudden, in the definition of the Guru which is taking from Prabhupad's books.. like this the scriptures, the highest level of guru and said anyone doesn't come out, the more respects to that Guru, then they cannot be 13:02. And they avoid all the other verses that Prabhupad says.So the Guru meets his representatives, Guru follows vedas, teaches disciples. So, they say, why the Guru is worshipped? Because, okay he is a man and well he can be worshipped. Otherwise he shouldn't worship. But then in these verses, it says worship a guru not because of 13:32 we consider him to be a, otherwise then we would have to callibrate worship of uttama adhikari Guru, madhyama adhikari Guru and kanishta adhikari Guru and so on.

We worship the Guru because he is representative of Krishna. He is an external manifestation of Krishna. That is why we worship the Guru on the Vyasa puja day as representative 13:55 mantra.It does say a Guru has to follow the rules and regulations, has to be in the service attitude to Krishna and it's some minimum requirement. Somebody says I'm God. Somebody is totally fallen , taking 14:19 sense gratification and not having that service attitude of engaging in devotional service, 14:30which means not able to represent Krishna, full in the spiritual master. These are the, in the tradition actually, the other disciple should help to spread in the 14:50. to represent Krishna.

In the purport here Prabhupad explains that a guru is like a parent, without attentive services of the parents, a challenge cannot be managed. Similarly without the care of the spiritual master, one cannot act to the plane of transcendental service. This is important for star management. to facilitate the spiritual master, to give care to the disciples. In this time today where gurus may also be GBC's, may also be temple presidents, in some places may be many things and somehow sometimes difficult to equate and consolidate, balance all of these different roles.

They say that each time 16:06, they would like to see the GBCs take more spiritual, you can say they were shiksha gurus and something like that, more of a type like that carrying forward ISKCON.

 Although according to our present definition, our GBC has little of that role and more of its supervisory administrative roles. So these things that ISKCON is doing, topics of discussion during this year worldwide 16:46. We can see here that the role of Guru in ISKCON is to care for devotees and one of the definitions that the GBC was evaluated are this year is that there should be a shiksha guru. That means that they will care for all the devotees in ISKCON, not just their own disciples this time. They 17:06 obey not only care among the disciples.

So the situation iskcon as a spiritual family, where actually the leaders not only are concerned about initiated disciples whom they are directly responsible for. But in a broader sense, they are also concerned that everybody in iskcon is properly situated in the Guru disciple relationship is being cared for properly, is able to advance effectively in Krishna consciousness.

So to find a balance between all of these things is actually very critical matter and 18:00by being fully in this short period of time but in principle, we can see how the function that works is scary.And that's also mentioned later on in CC and text 62 which is quoted in Bhagavatam 9.4.68 “Saints are My heart, and only I am their hearts. They do not know anyone but Me, and therefore I do not recognize anyone besides them as Mine.”

In the purport Prabhupad explains The Lord, being full and free from problems, can wholeheartedly care for His devotees. His concern is how to elevate and protect all those who have taken shelter at His feet. The same responsibility is also entrusted to the spiritual master. The bona fide spiritual master’s concern is how the devotees who have surrendered to him as a representative of the Lord may make progress in devotional service. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is always mindful of the devotees who fully engage in cultivating knowledge of Him, having taken shelter at His lotus feet.

How the Lord, He whole heartedly takes care of His devotees and how the guru is entrusted to take care of those who have surrendered to Him or this time to the GBC or then those who have taken shelter of Iskcon in a broader sense, one needs to watch out for. So the caring aspect is very important is the principle point said.

Prabhupad says nobody can advance without the care of the spiritual master. In the Krishna Bhajanamrita, Narahari Thakur mentions that disciple has to inevidently hear from many different people. Not only the guru is giving a lecture. See there are lectures from all kind of Vaishnavas. The experience that has come and then one also sees these Vaishnavas as kinds of gurus because if we hear from them, we respect them as a kind of guru. But amongst all the gurus, the diksha gurus and siksha gurus are special. Because these are gurus that we've accepted as directly our representatives for Krishna.

Therefore it says that whenever we hear something, that new, you never heard before, new idea, new concept, before we store the way in our consciousness and then at some point, we ask our own Guru - Is this concept alright?

Everything we get in our Krishna consciousness goes to the filter of the spiritual master. Just like nowadays bubble water, india is a huge industry. Some say filtered so many times, as coarse as filter, this filter that filter, so many filters there, also carbon. But our Krishna consciousness, we have the Guru filter. This is to protect us from concepts which may lead us down the wrong path.So in our devotional service, we actually have an invisible but very deep dependance on the spiritual master.

Everything we do for Krishna, we have to offer, as a offering to guru who in turn offers ot to Krishna. So all our services are offered to Krishna through our Guru. Whatever knowledge we get, which is not directly from Prabhupad's books, even sometimes we may not, we want to clarify our understanding of Prabhupad's books. We get different ideas of the same teaching. So whatever we get that we want to be sure that we accept someone as our spiritual master, means if we want to hear from him and the diksha guru's permission is needed to take a siksha Guru. So if the diksha guru approves someone to be a shiksha guru, that means that we know that, okay, this person is also approved to approve philosophy, approve filter, to sanction.

Now, we see, like, Sandeepani Muni, he had few, you know. Don't think he had so many, when he was taking care of Krishna, it didn't seem like he had so many disciples at one time. Traditionally maybe, we hear of course Durvasa Muni had 50,000 or 10,000 disciples walking with him. We heard how Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, how he had 10,000 initiated disciples. You know Srila Prabhupada had 5,000 initiated disciples. So Prabhupad did delegate. He did want the GBC's and temple presidents should take up major role and guiding his disciples and not to present different things when he is present.

So in Iskcon, we also have infrastructure meant for caring for devotees. Leaders are also representing a guru. Sometimes there is almost a competitive mood between a local leader and a guru and this is something that leads to always be doubts. In Mysore, I don't find so much of a problem especially from a person also, my disciples and temple presidents has no such problem, most of the god brothers.

But sometimes, there maybe that misunderstanding. So always the harmony between the leader, GBC, gurus, this is something that always needs to be worked out. So then devotees feel well cared for and feel well connected with Krishna and their guru or gurus. Previously maybe for Vyas puja or in some places it's primarily only initiated disciples come. But if you see that in ISKCON, already this has happened. The broader vision of devotees that they take care about other devotees, so many devotees would feel grateful and would feel maybe also like to participate in such respect of guru as representative of Krishna.

In ISKCON we have diksha as the only link whereas there may be many lateral links of the shiksha guru. You know many disciples appreciate the guidance given by HH Bhanu Swami especially in South India or even in Mayapur or, similarly Bhakti Charu Maharaj, Harikesa Swami and many others, Indradyumna Swami do their 27:01 to do others. I always came to see so many spiritual masters are there that are trying to help each other and caring for the disciples.

Different ways, different moods may be there but the goal is the same. So when we see ISKCON as a family where there a whole new family business, is caring for the devotees and what is that care, to see that anyone develops a proper service attitude. But the guru is serving the disciple by trying to engage them in Krishna's service or take them from influences of Maya, encourage them in their devotional service and then he has help by many other devotees. Because how can the spiritual master do all this alone. Radhanath Swami is coming here. He has organized a counsellor groups in Chowpatty to help. Couple of years, I've been mentioning that having such a system for caring for disciples and devotees. Bhakti Vriksha, Bhakti Vrinda groups are also supposed to help to the spiritual masters, caring for their disciples and the criminal personality towards temple president is the most responsible for him, caring for all of the devotees, very grateful.

Like the temple presidents, by zone, they are helping me or taking care of devotees and even in other zones, they take care of my, help my disciples, talk to devotees that are dependent on me. I could start mentioning many names but like Madhu Pandit Prabhu, Aishwarya, Sriji and can't remember others. Bhakti Purushottam Swami, there are many others but 29:22 everybody just over there, back together, there's quite a number. So I don't want to discriminate to a few, everyone.

And devotees, they need also to consider. I remember one time Prabhupad was walking down the stairway in Calcutta and you know Calcutta is a narrow horrible stairway. This is divided into half because of dispute over who owns the stairs and things so on. She was going down. Who wants a different property. Old property was divided into two family shares. Then, you know how devotees crowd behind the guru sometimes. It almost, it is like a push from behind.

Like, yesterday in the procession, I was on this car. Some devotees were pulling from behind and many were pushing. It's like they are actually pushing the devotees or pulling, faster than they could pull. That's totally out of control. So anyway there was such a kind of situation and then Prabhupad almost slipped and fell down the stairs and some devotee from behind shouted out : Watch out!! Be careful Prabhupad!!. Then Prabhupad stopped and turned around, heard and said my responsibility is to look and care for you, your spiritual life. Your responsibility is to care for my body. If I fall down the stairs, in other words, it is your responsibility. I'm not watching out for myself. I'm too busy watching out for you to worry about my body.

Thus a disciple's domain is to care for the guru's body, care for the guru's infrastructure and the Guru then he can just hope how to take care of the devotees. There's an interesting point, interesting message that Prabhupad gave them. Sometimes Prabhupad got sick and we had to do everything for him. Brahmananda Maharaj, when he was Brahmananda Prabhu, he mentioned that 1967, that Prabhupad had a minor stroke and he actually became partially paralysed. He couldn't move at all. This whole side of the body became like, I didn't know about this. Not so specifically mentioned anywhere.

He said we had to actually bathe Prabhupad, they had to do so many things for Srila Prabhupad.They had to sit there and had to help him to pass urine, everything. And still Prabhupad, he was just concerned because mentally everything was on him. He was concerned about the devotees, this preaching. So physically he wasn't able to move very well. So sometimes Prabhupad says we'll will get sick or something that Krishna gives the opportunity to the devotees. Guru becomes less self sufficient, then disciples have to take more care.

Maybe in this personal experience, we see different kinds of disciples take different amount of concern about the spiritual master. He felt difficult because maybe the spiritual master 33:08, he didn't sleep. Only 2hrs 3hrs a day. So actually, but the disciples, the secretaries, they can't keep up with that. So they had to have like shifts, just keep up with the. Like when we are on the recent Ganga safari. Run the safari. I get up in the morning, everyone else would be asleep. So I had to go myself in the early morning to find, you know where to bathe and what to do 33:43. Sometimes there was 33:45 in the grass, sometimes I had to wake up somebody to help me. Sometimes, I didn't want to wake up anybody, so I went on my own and then basically that's how I slipped and fell, broke a bone.

But it's like that. When Krishna is showing, the guru also has to also, not the disciples be dependent but disciples have to take that responsibility to see to one side of their guru's like care and facilitate that the guru can give maximum time in caring for the devotees. Actually sometimes, the devotees, they cannot force to do. They feel, they cannot push the guru. So I'm always thinking how to make myself more accessible in different ways. So this is a big contract, so much service to do, you want to be accessible. Sometimes if they go through the secretary, he's in appointment, by the time it's all over, they won't let you see you.

 So actually to create the proper situation so that one can care for all the devotees when needed. Prabhupad had this wonderful system, wherein in Mayapur, he'd just open the door from 5 to 6 everyday. It was open door. Anyone wanted to, they go and see him. So that way, he was açcessible to devotees and only those who had personal problems would get personal interview or those that are working directly with him. So on one side, we see how Krishna cares for the devotees through the spiritual master. Another side of the spiritual master also has to lead the preaching. He has to teach, see that the devotees spread the movement. Engage everyone in devotional service.

 So it's actually very full time engagement. Spiritual masters don't have a private life. Their whole life is dedicated to serving Krishna and caring for devotees and so there's no time when they are alone or they have any privacy. That's why some great Vaishnavas, they didn't want to be moved. They just wanted to remain 36:28 and then more. In the bhajanandi more or whatever, they wanted to serve Krishna and be absorbed in His pastimes and once your guru means, you give up life to your disciples, to help them. The disciples in reciprocation have to help the guru so that they can also do their service.

 So these are some of the 37:02 circumstances that come from this and then amidst of all this the disciple goes to, although sometime with a guru, sees the guru has all these material activities like eating, sleeping, everything. But he is not supposed to consider guru as an ordinary man but to see the guru as a representative of Krishna. So how you clean all these things, quite complicated. The way we do it, because we see that I'm not pure enough to directly see Krishna. So Krishna is working through this person to help them, to bring up my consciousness, to force me in different ways to develop a serving attitude. 37:55 force me or curse me 37:57 somehow or the other begin by service attitude, life surrendered to Krishna, mortal fight.

And by developing personal relationship in our hearts with the spiritual master, that is acceptance Prabhupad explains in the purport that that is not different. That's report to our relationship with Krishna, right. So that we don't become offensive, that's why we, because we are working intimately with the guru and many devotees, some may have to work intimately. That's why we do such things as Guru puja and thank for forgiveness, we do Vyasa puja to get rid of all the offences. When we do the push backs, we bow down 3 times, Prabhupad says that, like clears up whatever offences were there in previous year in our Guru disciple relationship.We clear it up and it's like a pure job ekadasi is for ekadasi.

The pushpanjali on Vyasa puja is for offending a guru and from that time you really try to establish ourselves in better consciousness than what there was before. So the idea is that through respecting the guru atleast the formal ceremonies helps us to remind ourselves not to just see the spiritual master as an ordinary person but that he is a devotee and how Krishna is working through this devotee to help.

And Krishna gives the power of attorney to the guru to give blessings to the disciples, devotees. So that's why when Guru is not identical in all respects 39:58 particular aspect of giving mercy and caring for devotees and that respect, there's a oneness.

Guru's not the Super soul. He may not know exactly whatever the devotee is thinking. But through the Super soul, he may get some idea that this disciple is in good consciousness or this disciple is not in good consciousness. It's the duty on the disciple's part of our loving exchange to open the mind to the guru, reveal the mind, express it out so that all doubts are cleared up after respects and so on. Also the guru to receive, to open the mind to give instructions. And for those who are helping the guru and caring for devotees, then they also need to be very sensitive about all these issues as well as try to present the guru and caring for the devotees. And then inspire devotees in their relationship with their spiritual masters. A guru and their gurus , they have guru and diksha gurus are guru and then they have gurus. Others who are showing us the way are called shiksha gurus. So it's in the very next verse than to this one in the CC that mentions śikṣā-guruke ta’ jāni kṛṣṇera svarūpa

antaryāmī, bhakta-śreṣṭha, — ei dui rūpa

One should know the instructing spiritual master to be the Personality of Kṛṣṇa. Lord Kṛṣṇa manifests Himself as the Supersoul and as the greatest devotee of the Lord.

We have 2 shiksha gurus, one is Krishna in the heart who guides us and the other shiksha guru is external. So in ISKCON, the diksha guru is also shiksha guru. There'll be more shiksha gurus. Generally diksha guru is also shiksha guru in formal circumstances in this fact atleast. That's what standard Prabhupad established. We say Prabhupad is our foundational shiksha guru. That means you read his books, we also get instruction.So we have internal, we have Prabhupad, we have our initiating guru as diksha guru and more. So devotees need to be very far conscious about how to deal with the different types of gurus, accept devotees and in this way we can grow in our spiritual family environment, in a very healthy way. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare ( devotees repeating along with Guru Maharaj).Hare Krishna prabhuji