Bhakti Bhringa Govinda Swami: I recently heard a story about a guru and disciple relationship. The Guru was Ramanuja Acarya and he had one disciple his name was Dasati. This Dasati, after Ramanuja, he was probably the greatest scholar in the whole world. He was really a wonderful-wonderful vaisnava. And he knew, he really-really knew the Vedas nicely. So one day he went to Ramanuja Acarya and he said: “Guru Maharaja, I would like for you to explain me Krishna’s final statement in the Bhagavad Gita.” That statement is:
sarva-dharman parityajya
mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo
moksayisyami ma sucah
Krishna says we should abandon everything that we have and surrender to Him. So he said: “Guru Maharaja, please explain to me all the internal and esoteric meanings of this verse.”
And Ramanuja said: “Actually, I’m not qualified to describe this. But I know in one village there is this very old saint, and he knows so much, go there and serve him”. So Dasati followed Ramanuja’s instructions, he went there and he found this very old and saintly sadhu in the village. And he served him so faithfully. He did everything for the sadhu.
And finally one day that saintly sadhu looked at Dasati and said: “Maharaja, you’ve been serving me so nicely! What can I do for you?” So he said “Please explain to me all the meanings of this verse from Bhagavad Gita”. And that sadhu looked up and said “For me to even say something to you would be totally foolish, you know so much more than myself, therefore all that I can say is go back and serve Ramanuja”. So he went back to the place where Ramanuja was.
Just at that time one lady from a far village came to see Ramanuja. She was from a brahman family. And she had just gotten married into a family and she said: “Ramanuja, these people that I married into their family, they treat me like a slave. They expect me to cook all the food, wash all the pots, and wash all the clothes, and keep the house clean and the worst thing is that the well is at least 3 kilometrs from the house. And they expect me to go and collect the water also. It’s too much for me. And they always abuse me and they speak badly to me and I just don’t know what to do”.
Ramanuja said “Well, it’s easy. You need to get a servant to carry the water and do the cooking.”
Just at that time Dasati arrived, and Ramanuja said “He can go with you as a servant, he can carry the water and do the cooking”. And without saying anything Dasati just went with that lady.
And every day he started doing all the cooking, carrying all the water, cleaning everything, and the people in the house would abuse him and they didn’t even know that next after Ramanuja he was the greatest scholar in the whole world.
That went on for about 8 months. And then one day one great-great scholar came to that town and he was giving a lecture on Bhagavad Gita. And this scholar he was a horrible impersonalist. And he was saying such things in his lectures like “God has no form”, “God has no senses”, “God is only unmanifested Brahman”. And everybody from the [indistinct] went to hear this lecture. And Dasati was given permission by the family to go and listen. And Dasati was becoming crazy listening to this impersonalist speak.
So finally the man finished his lecture and Dasati said: “Sir, you have said that God is impersonal. But actually this is foolishness.” This man looked at Dasati “If you know is correct then you establish the truth”. Dasati immediately stood up and very elaborately established how Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead according to all the Vedic understandings.
And all the people of the town were looking at this person and they were saying “Who is this?” and the man on the platform was saying “You’re just a water-carrier! You’re just the cook! What do you know about Veda? What do you know about the truth?”
And Dasati spoke – everyone was amazed. And the man came off his platform and on the spot he surrendered to the feet of Dasati. And Dasati went back to the house to cook and collect water.
Then finally the word got out that this was Dasati. And Dasati had defeated that great Mayavadi and people went to Ramanuja and they told him how Dasati had defeated this Mayavadi. But what Dasati was doing was just He was carrying water and cooking for some karmis. And he was happy doing that.
They said “Maybe we should bring Dasati back to You”. At that point Ramanuja said “No-no, I will go to Dasati”. And so he went there and Dasati saw his Guru Maharaja come and he was in so much ecstasy, he fell down and embraced the lotus feet of his spiritual master. And he [Ramanuja Acarya] said “Now let us go back to Sri Rangam”. And there on the way he walked alone with Dasati, he said:
Now I will explain to you the meaning of verse 18.66 from Bhagavad Gita, because you have shown that truly you are a prideless person. You have shown that you are not attached to the concept of being the greatest scholar in the world.
You have shown that you are not attached to the concept of being such a great sanyasi. You have shown that you are not attached to the concept of being a temple president. You have shown that you are not attached to the concept of being a GBC. You have shown that you are not attached to the concept of being the best harmonium player. Or the best camera person. You see. You have shown that you are not attached to all these things.
“You have shown that you are just attached to following the instructions that you receive from Your spiritual master. Therefore you are qualified to understand Bhagavad Gita.”
So this is the natural relationship between a disciple and the spiritual master.
A disciple should follow the instructions of the spiritual master. Very happily, just like Dasati, who could go carry water and cook. You see. It was very easy for him to do. You see.
So we should look at ourselves – are these things easy for us to do? To chant 16 rounds. To follow 4 principles. To read Prabhupada’s books. To conduct our affairs in just the way affairs are conducted in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. You see. To dress the way that we dress in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Some people can’t even dress properly. See. To eat the way we’re supposed to eat, to eat Krishna prasadam.
So basically a disciple means one who follows. And remember the example of Dasati. He would follow so much that even though he was the greatest-greatest of all Vedic scholars he could just go and carry water for karmis.
Initiation talk from “Lectures 2007-2008” [00:00:00-00:16:57]
Sri Vrindavan Dham farm, Kazakhstan
Source: http://m.dandavats.com/?p=21991
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