Christians say Jesus is the only way – do ISKCON devotees say Prabhupada is the only way?
There are many different points I will focus on a few here so there are Jesus said I am the only way then is ISKCON also like that saying that Prabhupada is the only way what about other spiritual teachers are devotees promoting sectarianism or are they fostering unity by appreciating different spiritual paths there is definitely the understanding that there are many different paths to God Krishna says rather than saying Jesus is attributed as saying I am the only way but Krishna says all people are on my path that means what does it mean all people are on my path there is a path of evolution of consciousness its one path and there are different people at different levels within that are you ok there ok so we can sit there so the its now few minutes 5 minutes so there is one path for the elevation of consciousness and different people are on the different levels in that path and in fact some people may be on that one path but they may be going away their consciousness may not be evolving it may be devolving also but its one path and on that one path for different people there may be different teachers who may inspire there may be different messages that may inspire so this diversity is very much a part of the bhakti tradition Krishna says he doesn't say I just come only once say I come millennia after millennia so I would say that we need to definitely if you look at the bhakti literature we acknowledge that there are many different paths and they all can lead to the elevation of consciousness and Prabhupada himself he would say that when he was asked about Jesus he said that he is our guru he gave up his life for the service of God how could a person exalt it so Prabhupada was very respectful to Jesus having said that there are different paths for raising our consciousness upwards that does not necessarily mean that any and every path will lead to the elevation of consciousness so from the relative perspective itself if all paths are right then within all paths there can be one path which says that only my path is right so then if all paths are right then the path which says only my path is right is right also but if only my path is right then all paths cannot be right its a logical paradox over there so there is there can be fanatical rejection there can be fanatical rejection of all paths and saying only my path is right at the same time there can also be an uncritical acceptance of all paths at a sentimental level whatever whoever is doing is alright no there are certain actions which lead to the degradation of human consciousness and they need to be avoided so I would say that understanding is also very important so with respect to specific spiritual teachers I would say that rather than getting into specifics focus on principles that we look at a particular spiritual teacher we look at their teachings we look at their followers we look at how much the people who follow that path are themselves evolved see it can be at an individual level there may be spiritual teachers who are themselves very evolved but that's ok are they able to provide a path by which their followers also get evolved sometimes some spiritual teachers have phenomenal charisma and they themselves are very exalted and followers are primarily more of admirers than seekers they just admire how great my spiritual teacher is and my greatness comes from the teacher's greatness do I evolve myself that is also something to be seen so let me complete what I am saying so there may be spiritual teachers who are advanced but we have to look at their followers we also have to see have they provided a well delineated path for advancement they may be talking about spiritually exalted truths but if they provided a path then it's fine Prabhupada was asked one time Swamiji your path sounds like that of Buddha so Prabhupada said do you follow Buddha he said no Prabhupada said follow Buddha follow Jesus, follow Krishna follow someone don't just talk so don't just talk means that suppose we consider that we are all spiritually sick and we are all meant to be healed when I am sick in advance I cannot really know whether a particular doctor's treatment is good or not whether it is going to work or not I can use my intelligence to evaluate but afterwards after I evaluate eventually I have to take the medicine so we take the medicine and see if it benefits, it's fine if it doesn't benefit we go to some other doctor so rather than endlessly debating about different spiritual teachers we can pray to God who is there in our hearts he is our guide I don't know at this stage what is the best path for me but you please guide me and among the available options that we have we just follow the path which inspires us the most and by following this if that path leads to our spiritual growth, good if it doesn't lead, we will move on to something else and as far as devotees sometimes being sectarian or discouraging questions we have to understand that not all devotees are of the same nature so there are some devotees who may not be so thoughtful who may not be so broad minded some devotees may be non-minded also so we go to any community tell you people who will be moderates people who will be fanatics, people who will be liberals it's just the nature of the world itself so we just so what we will do is we just focus on this principle that we associate with those whose thought process, whose attitudes may inspire us so if you find some devotees are sectarian, keep a distance from them find some devotees that are broad minded.