If guru-shishya parampara was always present how could monism become so prominent?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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so thank you very much so if the tradition of Krishna is always present then how could monism become so influential did Shakaracharya encounter any Vaishnavas also? Krishna usually acts in this world through his representatives and the manifestation of Krishna in every age is based on the caliber of his representatives so when Sri Prabhupada was asked how much would the Krishna consciousness movement spread he gave different answers at different times it depends on the devotees how much they spread it they take the responsibility to spread that much so now even in the bhakti tradition what is why Gautam Shankaracharya even after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appeared there were some successors of his Krishnaji, Prabhupada, Baldevudaya Bhushan but after that there was Dharma Sivlani Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s teachings of pure spiritual love of Krishna were obscured and then there was there was Appasampradaya Sahajiyas and others who distorted the meaning of Gaudiya Vaishnavism so much so that when Bhaktivinoda Thakur wanted to understand Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s teachings culturally he never knew about Gaurachandra because that was then Bengal but he wanted to know about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s teachings he wanted to read Chaitanya Charita Amrit he had to search for years to find a copy of Chaitanya Charita Amrit so what does that mean? that means that at that time whoever devotees were there, they were not so prominent so that’s why other forces became prominent so similarly at certain times it may be that certain schools of thought its proponents may be more charismatic may be more influential may have far greater appeal so just the prevalence of a philosophy does not prove its validity it’s because it’s widespread that does not mean it is true.
It simply indicates that its propagators are vigorous so even among the Bhakti tradition there have been times when the Bhakti saints have been prominent and there are other times when they are not such prominent saints. Now why that happened, it’s not for us to judge that at that time the devotees were not so dedicated we see that this is the nature of the material world sometimes there is dharmasya glani that sometimes the truth is lost and then rather than thinking that oh those devotees were not good enough, that’s why the truth got lost, we see, we focus on those devotees who actually rejuvenate the tradition, who again reestablish the pure teaching and we appreciate their sacrifice in doing so. So Krishna sometimes allows such things to happen so that those devotees who restore the tradition, their glory is established.
So if Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s mission had spread far and wide and had continued after his departure also, at one level it would have been wonderful. Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s legacy would have continued and so many people would have benefited but then for whatever reason we don’t judge his disciples, we just understand that it didn’t spread and then Sri Lakshmi Prabhupada had to practically start from scratch and started from scratch and he was phenomenally successful with starting from utterly obscure background and that’s how Krishna glorifies him. So sometimes, so we see always from a devotional perspective that the nature of the world, sometimes pure knowledge can be lost and this happened repeatedly in history and rather than blaming those people during whose existence the knowledge got lost, we focus on the glory of those who restore that knowledge.