If the process of KC delivers us then how do we understand the verse that the guru is the only way to Krishna’s mercy?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
close to Krishna and our willingness to accept the help of Krishna.
Thank you. A very clear indication that the spiritual master is the giver of Krishna’s mercy. Without a spiritual master’s mercy, there is no mercy possible.
So, doesn’t this clearly indicate the spiritual master is the deliverer of the disciple? So then, how can we say that actually it is the process of Krishna consciousness that is the deliverer? Answer, I’m attaching here with this paper by His Holiness Bhaktirasamvit Maharaj, which is talking about who is the deliverer, especially in the context of the current ISKCON scenario. So, I’ll summarize and elaborate what he has spoken, what is written in that paper, and those who want can download the paper also and read it. So, this word itself indicates that actually it is Krishna who delivers.
So, by the mercy of the spiritual master, one gets the mercy of Krishna. And it is the mercy of Krishna, it is the ultimate deliverer. And if you see the whole Guruvashtakam, in which this verse comes, is glorifying the spiritual master for his connection with Krishna.
Spiritual master is not an independent deliverer. He is delivering to the disciple Krishna’s mercy and through that Krishna’s mercy he is delivering the disciple. So, the word delivering has two means.
One is to give, just like a postman delivers the post. And the second meaning of deliver is to free from problems. So, here we refer to deliver as to help go back to Godhead.
Now, sometimes in the traditional setting, the disciple and the guru would live together and the disciple would regularly interact with the guru almost on a daily basis. He would see the guru, hear from the guru and in that way this guru would be the primary inspiration for the spiritual disciple. And then that’s how we could say that the spiritual master is the primary inspiration which enables the disciple to practice the process of devotional service and by which the disciple becomes liberated.
So, now the question comes up, what happens nowadays? Nowadays, the spiritual masters are traveling and the disciples may get to see them once in a few months or for a few days or sometimes once in a year for a few days. So, does the spiritual master still play the role of the deliverer? Yes, Shloka Prabhupada has explained that there is Vani Sangha and Vapu Sangha. There is association through words and association through physical proximity.
And among these two, the association through instructions is the most important. So, even in a traditional Vedic setting, it is not that the guru would always be at the same place. Sometimes the guru would also be traveling and the disciple may not get to see the spiritual master.
So, for example, in Chetan Charita Amrit, we see that Advaita Acharya took initiation from Madhavendra Puri, but then Madhavendra Puri was constantly traveling and he did not come very regularly to Mayapur. So, then Advaita Acharya took initiation from Madhavendra Puri, but his inspiration, he was getting inspiration from the memory of his cleaners. But then he continued on his process of devotional service on his own without having necessarily regular association with the spiritual master.
So, now in the way that Shloka Prabhupada set it is gone where there are multiple gurus and there are many, not just many viksha gurus, but there are many, many more shiksha gurus also. So, who is it that actually delivers the disciple? Is it the spiritual master alone? This raises sometimes a perplexing question that if it is the spiritual master who is the deliverer and sometimes the spiritual master has problems. Sometimes the spiritual master falls away from the spiritual path.
Then who is the deliverer of the disciple? Does the spiritual master, does the disciple need to take initiation again? Technically speaking, no. Once the disciple has been initiated by a spiritual master who was in good standing when he gave initiation, that time he acted as the connection of the disciple with the guru-shishya parampara. And once that connection is established, that connection is for eternity.
So, as far as the connection is concerned, that for that purpose one doesn’t have to take re-initiation. Because we have to clearly understand the spiritual master is not a deliverer independent of Krishna or the parampara. Krishna himself manifests as the guru-tattva.
There is Balaramji who is considered to be the Adiguru. And Balaramji gives the chit-potency, basically sat-chit-ananda. These three are the three dynamic principles, we could say, three modes of spiritual existence.
Just like we have here. We could roughly say like that. So, how does the sat-chit-ananda work? Sat provides us the facilities for serving Krishna.
Chit provides us the knowledge of how to serve Krishna. And ananda is the experience of happiness that we get when we use the knowledge to serve Krishna to engage the eternal facilities that are there for serving Krishna. Sat indicates that these facilities are forever available, they’re eternal.
So, now these three act in a perverted way in the material world. The facilities for serving Krishna are there in this world also. So, they may not be eternal in this world, but still the facilities are there.
But chit, the knowledge of serving Krishna is not there. The conditioned soul has the knowledge of trying to enjoy separate from Krishna. And with this perverted chit, when the soul tries to use the worldly facilities for his own enjoyment, then instead of ananda, the soul gets dukkha.
So, the essential difference between the material and the spiritual world is that there is no knowledge of why and how to serve Krishna. So, then in this material world, if a soul becomes devoted to Krishna and becomes dedicated to sharing the knowledge of how to serve Krishna with other people, then that soul assumes the role of a guru. So, the soul who takes up the chit-put in C, from the spiritual world, through the scriptural knowledge coming in the guru-shishya parampara and shares that knowledge, takes on the role of a guru.
And that soul becomes a manifestation of the guru-tattva, manifestation of Brahmaji, Balramji. And Balramji and Krishna are non-different. So, in that sense, the spiritual master is a soul, in one sense like us, in the sense of sojiva.
But he has taken up the responsibility of manifesting the knowledge of how to serve Krishna to the conditioned souls or to the aspiring devotees. So, whatever knowledge that the person provides when he is well connected with Krishna, that is valid always. But then later on, if that particular soul who has taken up the service of becoming a spiritual master is for some reason not able to continue it, falls away, then the disciple can still use the knowledge and continue to serve Krishna.
So, the connection with Krishna is established forever once there is initiation. Sometimes the disciple may feel that I need more emotional support, I need more a sense of formal connection with some other spiritual master. And at such a time, they can approach another spiritual master for shelter.
But that doesn’t mean that if a disciple feels that there is no need for me to approach any other spiritual master, that doesn’t mean that he can’t be delivered. Because it is the guru tattva that is delivering and the diksha guru acted as the connector with the guru tattva. Now, and that connection is forever, once it is done.
So, like earlier I had given the example of the registrar of a college admitting the student to university. Now, if the registrar also has some problems, still the admission stands. So, in the practical life of a devotee, of course, the spiritual master having difficulties is an exceptional situation.
So, the point I’m making here is that Krishna is, Krishna continues to act in the life of the disciple through the various other manifestations of the guru tattva, that is the shiksha gurus. And the shiksha gurus are also capable of delivering the disciple in the sense that, that particular seeker, even if he’s not now having a spiritual master in good standing. So, in normal situations, different devotee disciples may get initiation from, inspiration from different people at different levels.
Sometimes the spiritual master may be far away and the disciple may not be able to associate the spiritual master regularly. And even if he associates with the spiritual master regularly, still he may not be able to feel so inspired from the spiritual master. And he may feel inspired by some other spiritual master or some other devotees.
So, then this doesn’t mean that he’s rejecting or minimizing the spiritual master, but just that inspiration cannot be legislated or demanded. So, then from whoever he gets that inspiration, that person plays a crucial role in the deliverance of the disciple. So, the diksha guru is important, but in the practical scenario, often it is the shiksha gurus who will play a major role in the advancement, the guidance, and eventually the deliverance of the disciple.
So, it is not that the spiritual master is acting independently, he’s acting by the mercy of Krishna. And even with the mercy of Krishna, he is not the only channel of the mercy of Krishna. The mercy of Krishna can come from many sources.
Now, in principle, we talked about re-initiation. What about initiation? As is mentioned in this paper, initiation is not absolutely essential, but shiksha is essential. And to formalize the connection with the spiritual master and to make oneself committed to the practice of devotion service, it’s best to take initiation.
We shouldn’t assume that we are in the elite category of the rare few souls who can advance without initiation. Just like say somebody can become a PhD without going to college, just because of some exceptional merit. The government may give honorary PhD, but we shouldn’t assume like that we are in that elite category.
It’s always good to be humble and take initiation from the spiritual master. But once you have taken initiation, still we cannot legislate inspiration. Naturally, we will serve the spiritual master well, whenever we have the opportunity to serve him.
But still inspiration may come from different sources. And whichever source that inspiration comes from, ultimately it is Krishna who is giving that inspiration for us. So we see this in the lives of many of our acharyas also.
Bhaktivinoda Thakura took initiation from Das Babaji. But his primary initiation, inspiration, sorry, Bhaktivinoda Thakura took initiation formally from Vipin Bihari Goswami. But his primary spiritual inspiration came from Jagannath Das Babaji.
So this sort of situations are always possible. And they are possible not just in the real world because of the crisis and tragedies that beset the real world, but they are possible even in the devotees who are not just liberated souls, but who are eternal associates of Krishna. So that’s why we can’t absolutize the statement that the spiritual master is the only channel of mercy.
This is a devotional song. And in the song, certain emotions are expressed. And those emotions are extremely valuable, valid.
At the same time, the principle, yasya prasadat. So who is that yasya? That yasya doesn’t have to be only one. That yasya can be many.
Because the whole spiritual, Bhaktivinoda, Vishwanshu Thakura is not singing this song, taking the name of his spiritual master specifically. He’s describing the characteristics of the spiritual master. And those devotees who exhibit these characteristics, they all can fall in the category of the guru to whom he’s offering vande guru shri charanaranyam.
He’s not even referring to any process of initiation in the guru ashtakam. All that he’s saying is that the spiritual master is engaged in confidential service of Krishna and he’s expert at engaging the devotees in the service of Krishna. So, he’s not talking about a necessarily about a formal connection through initiation in this verse.
He’s talking about how the disciple is being engaged. So, in the practical reality of this song, the engagements are provided by the shiksha guru, the local temple authorities and guides. And so, this can refer to them also.
Of course, it doesn’t have to refer to them. And normally, the disciples will meditate on the spiritual master, on their initiating spiritual master when they recite this verse. But if we look at the specific content of the verse, then it is not in any way saying that it has to be only fun over there.
This describes characteristics of the spiritual master in terms of the devotion to Krishna that he has and also in terms of the way in which he engages the disciples in Krishna and the devotees in Krishna’s service. The word disciple is not used. Devotees is used.
So, then this can apply both to diksha guru as well as shiksha guru. So, the essential message from this verse is that we need mercy to make spiritual advancement. So, who will give us that mercy? That can be our diksha guru, that can be our shiksha guru.
And generally, it works out to be a combination of both. And what will be the proportion of whom? That will vary according to person to person, according to one’s situation. So, now, what do we actually mean when we say in the process of Krishna consciousness is the deliverer? And we shouldn’t think of the process in an impersonal, mechanical sense, like, say, the process of chemical reactions, when two chemicals took place.
That is not the essence of the process of Krishna consciousness. In the Gopal Tapani, it is described that actually Krishna resides in the process of Bhakti Yoga. So, Krishna is non-different from Bhakti Yoga because Bhakti Yoga is ultimately Ladin Shakti, it is Radharani.
And Radharani and Krishna are ultimately one. So, when we say that the process of Krishna consciousness delivers a person, it essentially means that actually it is Krishna who is delivering the person. So, and that is the essence of the spiritual master delivering also.
So, the spiritual master is not a solo deliverer. He delivers through many people who all cooperate in the guidance provided for the person to make spiritual advancement. Thank you.