Remembering Srila Prabhupada - English Fashion - Blog - ISKCON Desire Tree

English Fashion

In his class this morning Srila Prabhupada stressed the need to seriously take shelter of a guru. He said that we should not approach a guru for fulfillment of our material desires. "One should go to a guru for spiritual advancement of life, not as a fashion. People go to a guru as a fashion. My Guru Maharaja used to say that 'Don't make a guru just like you keep a dog, as a fashion.' Nowadays it has become a fashion to keep a dog. In the European, American countries it is a compulsory fashion to have a dog. Everyone keeps a dog. And they love do-o-g very much, more than anything!" Prabhupada's droll observation and his drawn out pronunciation of the word 'do-o-g' had everybody laughing. "So now we are also imitating, because India is imitator. Since the Britishers came here, we have become first-class imitator."

He told us how Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee, a Calcutta High Court judge, was asked in 1914 by one of the British rulers what he would do if the Germans came to India. Mukherjee replied that he would welcome them. When asked why, Prabhupada said he replied, "You have taught us to make like this, so we shall do that. Because you have simply taught us this, how to obey your orders. So anyone who will come, we shall do this."

Prabhupada went on, "The idea is the slave mentality. The Englishmen, in an organized way, they taught the Indians how to become servant of the Englishmen. We have seen. It is Gandhi's movement that he dismantled this idea of white prestige; otherwise, we were taught like that. Formerly, in our childhood, it was the advancement of civilization if one could imitate the English fashion. So we should not make that a fashion. Guru is not a fashion."

- From "A Transcendental Diary Vol 4" by HG Hari Sauri Prabhu

Comments