Considering “gurushu naramati..”, isn’t thinking about spiritual teachers’ human failings offensive?

Hare Krishna question is it not offensive to consider that our spiritual mentors may have human feelings the Puranic verse says that that one who considers the spiritual master to be like a human being is having a hellish mentality and clubs this mentality with with the worship of the deity considering the deity to be like stone or to be like water to see Vaishnavas from their caste so isn't it in one of your Gita Delhi articles you said that let others human feelings not deny us of our chance to go beyond our human feelings here it assumes that our spiritual teachers may also have human feelings so isn't it offensive in the light of this verse answer offense is a very strong word over here and we have to understand the context of the original verse so when the verse says that to think of the deity as stone so what does it mean are we supposed to close our eyes and think that the deity is not made of stone sometimes the deity may be made of marble sometimes the deity may be made of some other stone, is it that we just deny the fact and then what about those who are actually worshipping the deity by touching, dressing, are they supposed to just shut out their intelligence over there no, the point is that the deity is not just material the material aspect is there but there is some higher thing that is now present that higher thing is Krishna himself after the prana patishta when Krishna was requested and invoked Krishna has manifested his presence over there and to think of the deity to be just matter is offensive to not see, to deny or deride the spiritual dimension, which is the essential dimension of the deity is actually offensive now, it may well happen that the deity may sometimes get damaged and then the deity may, we have to generally the deities are put in water or something like that is done, so now are we now there is also the worship, naimittik puja Jandralishla Prabhupada introduced niftipuja in Skaun, that means once deities are made the deities are deities are worshipped lifelong or for many generations also, as long as the devotee community goes on, but there is naimittik archa vigraha or puja also, when for example Ganesh puja is there, when there is aarohan, when the deity is invoked and then is visarjan, the deity is put in water after the prescribed period of worship is over that's not considered offensive and why, yes the deity is Krishna but Krishna's presence has been invoked in the deity so that means because Krishna is present, the material element is no longer important it is Krishna who is important so same way with our spiritual master, gurushu nara matiru what it means is that the spiritual master is not just material, now if somebody is closely serving the spiritual master the spiritual master has needs of the body needs food, needs rest if he is sick, needs medication are we to just close our eyes and deny that's needed no, that is required and that is provided for, but the spiritual master is not just not motivated by merely material factors as other people are, nara matiru means to think that when the spiritual master is asking disciples to surrender that is because of being power hungry or prestige hungry no, that is ultimately the spiritual master asks us to surrender to Krishna and that is for our own well being and the transcendental dimension because of the spiritual master's devotion to Krishna, the transcendental dimension is what is manifested and that transcendental dimension enables the devotee that connects the pure devotee or advanced devotee with Krishna and lets that devotee become a puppet of Krishna, to do Krishna's will so when we neglect that dimension, then that becomes offensive, when we start seeing the devotee purely as material or thinking that the devotee is motivated by factors the way we are then that can become offensive because we are no longer seeing the Krishna factor and are reducing the transcendental to the material so the essence of offense is to reduce the transcendental to the material but when we are talking about human feelings we are not necessarily talking about pure devotees who have no human feelings, we are talking about about devotees who are more advanced than us who may be acting as spiritual teachers in various positions within the Krishna consciousness movement or in other bhakti traditions and who are who are capable of guiding us who have guided us but who may also have some human feelings so the essential point is that we focus primarily on the transcendental side, how Krishna's message is coming through them and how through their guidance we are able to go closer to Krishna but this doesn't mean that they don't have human feelings unless one is a pure devotee one still has human feelings and those human feelings will sometimes cause a devotee to fail in the terms of following the standards if one doesn't resist those feelings strongly enough by practicing bhakti so it will be offensive if we just completely reject the spiritual part and try to reduce the spiritual down to the material but admitting that there is a human dimension to an advanced devotee and recognizing that is not considered offensive what to speak of of a serious sadhaka we can say that actually Prabhupada had a particular English pronunciation now some of his pronunciation was not accurate and Prabhupada himself admitted I was wondering whether the Americans will be able to understand my pronunciation so he was he admitted that he came from Bengal and he had a particular kind of pronunciation which is not a standard pronunciation now that's not, are we to standardize that because that is a pure devotee's pronunciation? No, not necessary at all. We understand that even when the transcendental manifests in the material that manifestation happens in a particular time and place and there may be certain effects of that but what is wrong is to reduce the transcendental down entirely to the material.

The transcendental will manifest at the material level according to the socio-cultural situation of those times but still the transcendental will shine above that and enable us to write to the transcendental level so if Sairshila Prabhupada had been speaking and living in a way that was the standard culture 5000 years ago or 500,000 years ago or whatever it would have been difficult for us to relate with and the same way with Krishna when Krishna manifested as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu he lived largely in the way the culture was there at that time of course he focused on the principle of pure devotion Krishna manifested, Krishna lived largely the way Kshatriyas were living at that time so what to speak of devotees even when Krishna manifests largely his manifestation is more or less in accordance with the cultural patterns of those times so there of course there is a transcendental which is an omnipotent aspect to him but the transcendental is not necessarily entirely in contradiction with the cultural the transcendental often manifests through the cultural or through the individual specifics also so this is a complex issue and I'll suffice it to say that it is not an offense to consider that advanced devotee may have human feelings as long as we don't reduce the devotee to just the human feelings themselves or just to material factors themselves Thank you, Hare Krishna.