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Articles by Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Goswami

Posted by manitabh on December 15, 2011 at 1:07pm in Krishna
1: Assuming Responsibility of Being Guru2: A Lecture in VrindavanaAssuming Responsibility of Being GuruWe have taken upon ourselves the responsibility of welcoming this grave charge. All the audience have accepted ordinary seats, I alone have been provided with a lofty seat. All are being told in effect-"Do have a look at a big animal from the Zoo-gardens. What arrogance! So foolish! So wicked! Have you ever seen such a big brute? Garlands of flowers have been put round his neck! What laudations! What bombastic long-drawn, and hyperbolic adjectives! And how complacently too he is listening to the praise of his own achievements, how intently, and with his own ears! He also evidently feels delighted in mind! Is he not acting in plain violation of the teaching of Mahaprabhu? Can such a big brute, so selfish and insolent, be ever reclaimed from brutishness?"I happen to be one of the greatest of fools. No one offers me good advice on account of my arrogance. Inasmuch as nobody condescends to instruct me I placed my case before Mahaprabhu Himself. The thought occurred to me that I would make over the charge of myself to Him and see what He would advise me to do. Then Shri Chaitanyadeva said to me:"Whom-so-ever thou meet'st,instruct him regarding Krishna,By My command being Guru deliver this land;In this thou wilt not be obstructedby the current of the world;Thou wilt have My company once againat this place."In these verses is to be found the proper explanation of the apparent inconsistency noticed above.He whose only teaching is humility greater than that of a blade of grass, said-"By My command being guru save this land!" In this instance Mahaprabhu Himself has given the command. His command being "Perform the duty of the guru, even as I do it Myself. Also convey this command to whom-so-ever you chance to meet." Chaitanyadeva says, "Tell them these very words, viz. By My command being Guru save this land. Deliver the people from their foolishness." Now who-so-ever happens to hear these words would naturally protest with palms joined-"But I am really a great sinner; how can I be Guru? You are Godhead Himself, the Teacher of the world. You can be Guru." To this Mahaprabhu replies:"In this thou will not be obstructedby the current of the world;Thou wilt have My company once againat this place.""Do not practice the craft of a guru for the purpose of injuring others through malice. Do not adopt the trade of a guru in order to get immersed in the slough of this world. But if you can, indeed, be My guileless servant you will be endowed with My power-then you need not fear."I have no fear. My gurudeva has heard this from his gurudeva. And it is for this reason that my gurudeva has accepted even such a great sinner as myself and has told me: "By My command being guru save this land." It is only those who have never heard these words of Gaursundara who say "How odd! To listen to one's own praise!" While the guru is instructing his disciple in the eleventh Skandha of the Bhagavatam what a great sin, in their opinion, is he not perpetuating! What is the acarya to do when he has to explain the shloka, acarya mam vijaniyat: Never disregard the acarya; never entertain the idea that the acarya is your equal in any sense." These are the words of Shri Krishna Himself by which the jiva is to be benefitted. Is the guru to take himself off, to desert his seat-the seat of the acarya-from which these words are to be explained? That office his gurudeva has conferred on him. If he does not act up to its requirements he is doomed to perdition by reason of his offense against the holy Name in the shape of disrespect towards the guru. He has to do it in spite of the fact that such procedure is apparently open to the charge of egoism.When the guru imparts the mantram to the disciple should he not tell him by this mantram to worship the guru? Should he say instead, "Give the guru a few strokes of the shoe or the horse-whip?" The guru is never to be decried. The guru is the abode of all the gods. Should the gurudeva abstain from communicating these words to his disciple while reading the Bhagavatam to him? "To him alone who possesses guileless spiritual devotion, similar to the transcendental devotion that is due to Krishna Himself, to the gurudeva, the holy mysteries are manifested." Is the gurudeva not to tell these things to his disciples? Athau gurupuja: the worship of the guru has precedence over all others." The guru is to be served just as Krishna is served. The guru is to be worshiped in a particular way. Is the guru to desert his seat without telling all these things to the disciple? In the angle there is always the defect in the shape of absence of the fullness, the evenness of level, of 180 degrees or of 360 degrees. But in the plain surface, in 360 degrees, there is no such defect. That in the emancipated state no defect is possible, this simple truth ordinary foolish people entirely fail to grasp.As the saying goes, "Having started on the dance it is no use to draw close the veil." I am doing the duty of the guru, but if I preach that no one should shout "Jai" to me, that is to say, if I say in a round about way, "Sing Jai to me," it would be nothing short of duplicity. Our Gurudeva has not taught us such insincerity. Mahaprabhu has not taught such insincerity. I have to serve God in the straightforward way. The word of God has come down to the gurudeva; I have to obey it in all sincerity. I will not disrespect the guru at the instance of any foolish or malicious sectarians. Especially as Shri Gurudeva has directed me saying, "By My command being guru save this land." This command has my gurudeva preached. My gurudeva in his turn has conveyed the command to me. I will not be guilty of any insincerity in carrying out that command. In this matter I will not accept the ideal of ignorant, insincere, pseudo-ascetic sectarianism. I will not learn insincerity. The worldly-minded, the malicious, the pseudo-renunciationists, the selfish cannot understand how the devotees of God, spurning at everything of this world by command of God, never, not even for a second, deviate from the service of God through all the twenty-four hours.Hypocritical sectarians, pseudo-Vaishnava sects, those sects that cherish internally the longing for earthly fame, naturally enough think "What a shame it is for one to listen to the eulogies of disciples occupying the seat of the guru." But every Vaishnava regards everyone of the Vaishnavas as the object of his veneration. When Thakura Haridasa exhibits the attitude of humility Mahaprabhu says-"You are the greatest of the world, the crest-jewel of the world. Be agreeable, let us have our meal together." He carried in His arms the body of Thakura Haridasa which is eternally existent, self-conscious and full of spiritual bliss. In the community that follows Shri Rupa, the qualities of desiring no honor for oneself and of readiness to duly honor others are fully present. Those who detect any disparity are, like the owl, blind while the sun shines. They commit an offense by such conduct.If I disobey the law which has come down to me through the chain of preceptorial succession, the offense due to omission to carry out the command of the guru will sever me from the lotus-feet of Shri Gurudeva. If in order to carry out the command of the Vaishnava guru I have to be arrogant, to be brutish, to suffer eternal perdition, I am prepared to welcome such eternal damnation and even sign a pact to that effect. I will not listen to the words of other malicious persons in lieu of the command of the gurudeva. I will dissipate with indomitable courage and conviction the currents of thought of all the rest of the world, relying on the strength derived from the lotus feet of Shri Gurudeva. I confess to this arrogance. By sprinkling a particle of the pollen of the lotus-feet of my Preceptor crores of people like you will be saved. There is no such learning in this world, no such sound reasoning in all the fourteen worlds, in no man-gods, that can weigh more than a solitary particle of the dust of the lotus-feet of my gurudeva. Gurudeva in whom I have implicit trust can never spite me. I am by no means prepared to listen to the words of any one who wants to hurt me or to accept such a malicious person as my perceptor.A Lecture in VåndävanaA Lecture in Vrindavanaby Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Goswami22nd Kartik, 1928, Friday AfternoonI have no capacity to tend to the feet of the denizens of this holy place. Yet by the grace of Shri Gaurasundara and urged by your good wishes, I stand here to speak only if I may thereby serve the servants of Shri Gauranga. Indeed if we can truly serve the feet of the devotees of Shri Gauranga, by whose graceful glance alone all desires, hopes, and aims in life are easily fulfilled, then that will be a crowning achievement.We are proud of our ego. We are either given to judge sinful and pious acts or think how we can lord it over others by acquiring power. These are all base self-glorifications. But one devoted to Gauranga says that all desires actuating every object from the pillar to the highest being (Brahma), all labour for worldly possessions, all longing for enjoyment and every kind of renunciation after satiety, are all pseudo-existent and evanescent, i.e., subject to change and time. When we lose anything so acquired, life seems vacant and useless. But it is quite futile to try to straighten the tail of a dog-such being the end of all enjoyments in the fourteen spheres. All pleasures acquired as the fruits of worldly work are transitory.Carried away by sense-perceptions of eye, ear, touch, taste and sound we turn into ego-worshippers. In this state the pure activity of the soul lies dormant. Then we also desire the pleasure in heaven. And when such ideas are strong in us we err by identifying ourselves with this mind, which thus seems to be the enjoyer of the things of this world. This propensity for selfish enjoyment deadens the pure function of the Soul.But the Soul knows that Shri Krishna is the One Absolute Truth.Shri Narayana is the embodiment of His Majesty. Narayana though is the ultimate source of the Absolute Truth, Krishna's transcendent designation, form, qualities, and sportive activities (lila) excel Narayana's Majesty by His display of sweetening Beauty. In Krishna the fullest majesty is mellowed by the most delicious sweetness (madhurya) which predominates. When we do not know all these and forget our true selves, we cannot understand the activities of a Vaishnava and the transcendental truth underlying such activities, and so give ourselves up to worldly enmity and friendship, taking things transitory and illusory as eternal and real.Secondly, Krishna is completely all-cognisant. Material objects are not self-conscious. God is ever existent. It is, indeed, through mistake that we consider ourselves as Brahman. It is only then that such useless arguments for the effacement of all super-sensual diversity or variety in Absolute Truth take hold of us. The function of the spirit is clogged and our minds run after worldly enjoyment. The materialised mind thinks that sensual enjoyment is obtained at Krishna's feet. But at the feet of Krishna everything is spiritual and so not an object for the gratification of our senses. When truth is obscured in us carried away by egotistic tendencies, we take things material as of the spirit.Krishna is bliss. In Him dwells perfect joy-He is the embodiment of it. Sensual knowledge or joy is not perfect;-therein all our longings are not realised. Under the spell of sense perceptions we imagine that there might be unalloyed happiness in ego-worship or in the kaivalya state of Patanjali.All seeking after joy is the function of the soul. When the desire for joy wakes up in our minds we commit a blunder in running after worldly objects and enjoyment. It is only when we receive a spiritual sight of Krishna that we understand that His service must, of necessity, be the sole aim in life. As long as we thus hanker after our own pleasures we try to enjoy the world through the senses and are given to hollow argumentation. But this world is not made for our enjoyment. When spiritual bliss will appear in us like the incessant flow of oil then shall we be truly tied to the feet of Krishna.Such numerical variety as that of one, two and three exists only in worldly diversity. This diversity acquires a certain inexpressible sameness in the world of spirit. Then we can appreciate that Krishna alone is the eternal Truth Absolute. When the very existence of Truth and sensiency in our own selves becomes solely relative to Him only then we are established in our real normal state.At present many false meanings have been imported into the word "devotion." Regard for one's parents, loyalty to man, obedience to the teacher, etc., pass as bhakti. But the root "bhaj" means "to serve." If we do not clearly judge as to what must be the medium of that service then it is sure to be misapplied. As Chaitanya-candramrita sings:kalah kalir balina indriya-vairi-vargahshri-bhakti-marga iha kantaka koti-ruddhahha ha kva yami vikalah kim aham karomichaitanya-candra! yadi nadya krpam karosi"This is the quarrelling age. The senses, which are our enemies, are now very powerful; and crores of thorns choke the path of pure bhakti. I am quite at a loss to know what I shall do or where I shall go unless Chaitanya Candra shows mercy unto me."We live in the Kali-yuga-this is an age of strife. So it happens that the self-luminous path of pure devotion is completely covered up with millions of thorns in the shape of foolish argumentations and wordy wranglings. In these circumstances it is absolutely impossible to have the knowledge of pure devotion without the mercy of Chaitanya Candra. Shri Chaitanya Candra is Krishna Himself. He is the Godhead. We cannot know God by the exertions of our senses. As the Katha Upanishad says:nayamatma pravacanena labhyona medhaya na bahuna srutenayam evaisa vrnute tena labhyastasyaisa atma vrnute tanum svam"The knowledge about the all-embracing Oversoul cannot be attained either through reasoning, argumentations or hearing the Vedas; only to him does He manifest His person whom He accepts."Godhead is eternal. We cannot attain to Him unless we realise He is bliss Himself. One confined within his psychic range in a hundred ways cannot know what God is and so accepts things other than God as objects of his worship. Unable to understand the true subject and object of enjoyment, as well as the nature of enjoyment itself, he imagines the world as created to afford him every kind of pleasure. This materialised mind strives only after selfish enjoyment. By this fleshly form we cannot serve Krishna. It is possible only in spirit. The atomic theory of the world knows nothing of that service.In the variety of His manifestations, Absolute Truth Himself is to be determined from Narayana. In Krishna exists Narayana, Who is His Majestic form. Baladeva is the manifestation of His Self. He is the all-pervading Oversoul. With the revelation of the function of supreme knowledge in our soul, we come to know that Krishna is the Absolute Truth. He is also perfect bliss, reverence does not stand in His way. Intimate service cannot be rendered if one is actuated by reverence. Yet Krishna is the eternal object of the devotees' whole-hearted service. But He is to be served with the ever-existent senses of the soul. We cannot serve Him through imagination or sentiment. Super-sensuous knowledge of our relation with Him is essential. There is nobody whom I can call my own except one who is solely devoted to Krishna. Krishna alone is the one object of my service. This faith is the one glory of the Vaishnava. This is the supreme necessity of life. Material fame full of the idea of selfish enjoyment is never desirable.Time is running short. The time for the evening wave-offering ceremony is drawing nigh. I must no longer encroach upon your time of service. If it be Krishna's wish I shall again try to serve you. A thousand obeisances at the feet of the devotees of Krishna.

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