How may we be misled by externals when seeking a spiritual guide?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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in our journey to Krishna. Thank you. Question how we may feel misled by externals when choosing to follow someone either in our material life or even in our spiritual life? Answer Generally we begin our search for anything by relying on the resource that we use maximum for our day-to-day functioning, that is our senses and primarily our eyes.
So when someone or something looks attractive or impressive, we are naturally attracted to that. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing because after all the externals also matter but the externals are not the only thing that matters and if you over rely on externals, then we miss out on a lot of important things such as the person’s character the person’s deeper capacities to understand the person’s inner nature so we will begin with externals but we can’t rely on externals alone with respect to spiritual life also this over reliance on externals can come when we look at certain specific abilities in people some people might be able to recite mantras or shlokas in a very precise intonation and meter and that can seem very impressive to some people and of course grit needs to be given where it is due if somebody has dedicated a significant amount of time to learn certain skills, to recite certain mantras very well that is a skill which is to be valued but the Bhagavatam says that Suta Goswami was not very good at reciting mantras and yet he was selected by the learned assembly at Namisha Aranya to be the speaker whose message would elevate them so what did they see in him that means they saw beyond the capacity to recite mantras to to his overall wisdom and devotion so there is ritual specialization and there is spiritual dedication so sometimes we may judge a person’s caliber by their ritual specialization now if somebody is good at rituals that is good it is not that again as I said we appreciate that expertise that is there in someone but you also recognize the point that ritual specialization alone does not equate with spiritual elevation or station or even spiritual realization so when we go to a doctor the way the doctor dresses expertly putting a stethoscope around the neck and maybe the way the doctor speaks medical terms all that is impressive but if the doctor’s medicine is not working in terms of healing us then we would not want to take the medicine of the doctor similarly if somebody’s association is not inspiring us to become spiritually dedicated spiritually realized spiritually elevated then we have to check whether that association is or the guidance therein is the best for us there might be ritual specialization and if that is what specifically for our service we need to learn then we can and should learn that from them but then we have to be clear that this is a skill and this skill can help me in my devotion but learning this itself is not devotional if we can be clear about this differentiation then we won’t mistakenly equate one for the other and thus we can move forwards in our spiritual journey towards the supreme and ultimately we can attain the supreme so we can become absorbed bhakti sanjayate bhakti it is devotion that engenders devotion the bhagavatam describes the past time of the yagic brahmana they were expert in ritual specialization and they wanted to make sure that the ritual of the sacrifice they were doing well but they completely missed out the point of spiritual dedication wherein they didn’t realize that the lord of the sacrifice was Krishna and he was coming through his representatives and they neglected him and thus it was a disaster for them when that happened similarly if we consider another point here that if somebody can speak very articulately and can even quote a lot of scripture to support their point but if they are not devoted to Krishna and if they don’t inspire us to go towards Krishna then again we cannot accept their guidance in the 8th canto there is a story of Bali Maharaj and his guru Shukracharya now Bali was a demon and Shukra was a brahmana and yet when the supreme lord came to him in the form of Vamana Bali was ready to give him charity but Shukra told him don’t give charity and Bali Maharaj rejected the advice of Shukracharya and that rejection of his guru enabled him to become that is a significant part of his extraordinary devotion that elevated him to the level of a great character like Mahajana who is mentioned in the extraordinary supreme treatise on devotion that is the Srimad Bhagavatam so Bali Maharaj was not carried away by the rituals expertise or the scriptural learning of Shukracharya now prior to this actually Bali Maharaj had been practically killed against the demons and Shukracharya had revived him so Shukracharya definitely had extraordinary powers and Bali Maharaj is grateful to him for having used those powers for him and he rewarded him also by giving him honor and gifts but when it came to the point of the ultimate purpose of all dharma that is surrender to Krishna and when Shukracharya stopped him from that then Bali Maharaj stopped taking his guidance in today’s world when we seek to grow spiritually we need to make sure that we are not caught we are not distracted by externals in terms of people’s capacity to recognize what is to be done and what is not to be done in terms of simple expertise in certain fields of course that expertise might be extraordinary in its own right, it may not be simple but it’s simple in the sense that it’s not spiritual so it’s something which comes by past karma and present karma some people have some talent from their past and if they have some commitment then that expertise comes up but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are spiritually elevated so spiritual elevation is seen by one’s own devotion to Krishna one’s own willingness to put the world aside for being devoted to Krishna and one’s willingness to or one’s capacity to inspire similar dedicated devotion in others and even if one doesn’t have any extraordinary abilities at a material level that spiritual dedication is there that is what is most significant thank you