Can the guru take back to godhead even disciples who are still works in progress?
If somebody has a guru, but as work-in-progress devotees, what happens to them at the time of death? Can the guru take them back to Godhead? Going back to Godhead is not just a matter of physical relocation.
It's a matter of emotional reorientation. Sometimes we have a very simplistic idea. Okay, the earth is here.
This is here. And the spiritual world is here. So I just have to go from here to there.
No, if we have not developed love for Krishna, even if we go to the spiritual world, we will feel very out of place there. Because everyone else is loving Krishna, everyone is interested in Krishna and we are not interested in Krishna. So what will we do there? We will feel out of place.
Just like say, if we go to a cricket stadium where everybody is mad for cricket and we have no interest in cricket, we will feel out of place. So, going back to the spiritual world is not just a matter of physical relocation. It is a matter of emotional reorientation.
Emotional reorientation means the emotions that are invested in the world right now, we have to reorient and invest those emotions in Krishna. And a spiritual master is the primary inspiration and guide for us to do this emotional reorientation. Srila Prabhupada would say that we have to fly our own plane.
That means each of us has to take our own responsibility for spiritual advancement. Now the spiritual master's prayer, the spiritual master's guidance, the spiritual master's mercy, all of them can help us in doing this emotional reorientation. But that emotional reorientation is our choice.
It is not something which the spiritual master can choose for us. We have to choose Krishna and that choosing Krishna means that even if Krishna doesn't become our only love in this life by our sadhana practice, Krishna should become our foremost love. We love other things in this world.
It's not that we can become completely pathetic towards everything else in the world. But we have to slowly move towards making Krishna our most prominent love. We try to please Krishna, we try to serve Krishna and in that way, our emotions are invested in various things but they are most primarily invested in Krishna.
And when we live in this way, then even if we are not entirely purified, we can attain Krishna. And the spiritual master is meant to help us in doing this emotional reorientation. But this emotional reorientation is primarily our responsibility.
So thank you very much for your participation and attention. And we hope to have similar sessions regularly in future and invite you to join them also in future. And if you have any other feedback, any other questions, you can post here and I will answer in due course on the spiritualscientist.com. Hare Krishna.
Thank you very much.