If a Gaudiya Vaishnava sadhaka feels attracted to Vishnu worship, what should he do?

Transcript

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thank you Hare Krishna question from Pravin Chennu we see that Jiva Goswami spends a lot of analysis differentiating between Krishna and Vishnu worship and similarly Bhakti Sahasrath Thakur also differentiates between how Krishna worship in the mode of Madhurya is higher than worship of Krishna so at the same time I often feel attracted to Sri Vaishnavism and also feel attracted to Vishnu worship as it is taught by Ramacharya and his followers so is this something that I should not do as a Gaurav Vishnu sadhaka or can I balance both of them answer the Acharyas have two aspects to their teachings one is their establishing Siddhanta and second is their providing practical guidance for specific seekers about how they can move forward in their spiritual life Jiva Goswami is called as Siddhanta Acharya and he is philosophically establishing the various fundamental propositions of Gaurav Vishnu and one of them is the supremacy of Krishna among all the various manifestations of supreme personality so for that purpose he just brings an elaborate number of verses and analysis to establish how Krishna is Rasaraj and Bhagavad Gita also was reaching in a Indian largely Hindu context where people were religious but Krishna worship was highly misunderstood and was highly often denigrated also so he is establishing the glory of Krishna worship and for that purpose he differentiated that now if you look at Srila Prabhupada’s teachings he was most of his preaching he was in the west and of course when he came to India India was also very westernized so the focus of his preaching was basically on how one has to be of sense gratification and how one has to actually practice spiritual life so of course Srila Prabhupada has translated Chetan Chalatam which talks about say in the Ramayan Ramayana the highest levels of pure devotion for Krishna so all those are also given but Srila Prabhupada does not go into this technical differentiation in terms of the different manifestations of Krishna and Vishnu because that is not relevant and we see even Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had multiple features in the way he dealt with people so we see two of his important associates where Ram Bhaktas and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu fully encouraged them in fact he appreciated the fixedness of their devotion to Ram and although we have one story where one devotee was when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was chanting the name of Ram but after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu chanting the name of Krishna we also have the other story where there was a devotee who was feeling agony at the thought that Sita has been abducted by Ravana and Lord Chaitanya brought a Puran in which it is described Maya Sita was taken and he appreciated the ecstasy of that devotee and he participated in that ecstasy by mitigating it so we are not in one sense Chaitanya Mahaprabhu does not demonstrate an example of Krishna fanaticism so there are examples which can go both ways we see that Vallabh Bhatta and his family they were Sri Vaishnavas and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu encouraged them and under his inspiration they became Gaudiya Vaishnavas but then they also said they are Ram Bhaktas who can be even the Ram Bhaktas so the essential point is that the Acharyas the Supreme Lord and the Acharyas they come to raise consciousness of people and ultimately they want everyone to become pure devotees now if you look at Prabhupada’s position also Prabhupada met Peter Barwash he told him you speak about and raise people’s consciousness at least on the level of no-mediety from no-mediety to no-mediety but then there are other ledgers there are some devotees where one devotee asked Prabhupada in order to expose the reality of the pain of animals can we can we paint can we depict in DTG explicit pictures of cows being slaughtered Prabhupada said no absolutely not our focus is not just to evoke some sentiments among people he said we are against illicit sex but will you show pictures of illicit sex and tell people to condemn it no, so he said let me focus on devotional service so in general the Acharyas will be present according to time and place circumstances so now in our preaching situation where people don’t even understand the existence of the soul or many people don’t even understand the existence of God and the differentiation between two manifestations of God who are in Tattva the same but are different in Rasa that is something which is completely out of the pain of people’s grasping power people’s relevance also so at our stage we have come from that same culture same society so at our stage we can safely say that for us he is not the king of Tattva somehow or other he fits the mind of Krishna that is the most important principle that we should follow while following this principle of whichever manifestation, whichever way we can fix our mind of Krishna we accept that if we are Gaudiya Vaishnavas then our primary focus of worship will be on Krishna but while we are doing that that means, now regularly we visit Krishna temples regularly we chant Hare Krishna Mahamana regularly we read books which focus on Krishna worship, the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavatam Chetanjali Tamrit but along with that we see that even the current ISKCON leaders when they go for Yatra sometimes they go to Yatras where there are other where there are the Tirthas of other Sampradayas also Chetan Mahaprabhu has gone there so we go there but we don’t speak only about Chetan Mahaprabhu’s pastimes we can speak about Ramacharya’s pastimes also Anshula Prabhupada has also written about Ramacharya, Madhacharya in a very positive way in the relevant sections Chetan, Chetan Tamrut when Chetan Mahaprabhu has gone to those holy places so the broad spirit should be that we appreciate devotion wherever it is present and we seek inspiration from that and as far as our study focus is concerned we focus on the Gaurav Vishwanath Sampradaya so it’s like a student who is studying in a particular university and the student focuses on the curriculum that he has taught in the university he focuses on studying and getting graduated through that university but at the same time the student at most if there are other universities and if the student happens to travel from that place to another university going to that university looking at the libraries it’s not considered wrong and in fact that may give more inspiration so that one can become more focused in our own studies and Bhaktivinod Thakur has a very beautiful statement in fact that applies not only to other forms like of the same lord Krishna and Vishnu but he says if I go to a place of worship of a person whose worship is entirely different from mine he is referring to Muslims or Christians then what should be my disposition over there then he says what I should see is how merciful is the lord I am paraphrasing this here how merciful is the lord that in order to attract people to him to deliver people he has assumed this aspect which I cannot understand and he is accepting worship in a way which is quite different from the way I am familiar with worshiping the lord but by seeing this my appreciation of the merciful and accommodating nature of the lord is increasing and thereby I am feeling inspired to devote myself more to the worship of the lord in the way that I am familiar with and in the form that I am I am devoted to so that means we can take inspiration from other sampradayas and we can take inspiration by going to the temples of other sampradayas also if that inspires us so that includes Vishnu worship also then our focus sadhana should be on the on Krishna so if we feel so inspired by special sampradaya that we feel as if I don’t want to chant Hare Krishna I want to chant Om Namo Narayanaya or I want to read Vishnu Puran I don’t want to read Bhagwan Puran if it is a very very strong inclination like that then one has to seriously think what one has to do it might sometimes just be cultural because I was brought up in childhood in that particular culture where Vishnu worship was there, where Vishnu sadhana was being recited so I feel attracted to that and it may not be spiritual cultural means what is the impression that I have got in my childhood, spiritual means what is the eternal svarupa of the soul in relationship with Krishna so if it is simply cultural then as we keep practicing Krishna consciousness the cultural impressions of Krishna consciousness will come in and then we will be able to move forward and become attracted to Krishna also the same but in some cases if a devotee is very strongly attracted to Vishnu Vaishnavism and that way of worship then that devotee he can pursue sadhana in that way also there is past time Prabhupada when he was in America after a lecture one young man asked him he said that Swamiji you say that your philosophy sounds like that of Buddha and Prabhupada said we follow Buddha follow Buddha follow Jesus follow Krishna follow someone don’t just talk so what did Prabhupada mean by don’t just talk that actually when you follow spiritual path by that you make spiritual advancement so Prabhupada is so accommodating over here when he says that you follow Buddhas, all the Buddhas he changes in many ways not willing but he says that even the following one will rise from the lower modes to the higher modes and one will come to some level of goodness so the point is that everybody should be focused on becoming elevated spiritually now in the Gaudiya Vishwa Sampradaya because Shri Krishna Mahamudra because we have Shri Krishna Mahamudra Brahmataranam for this age because Srila Prabhupada has presented Krishna Consciousness in a very contemporary accessible way so that’s why we have multiple additional support systems which can help us to make fast spiritual advancement and that’s why we are fortunate that we are here and if we are fortunate we stay focused and we continue on receiving the mercy of Lord Chaitanya as well as Lord Krishna Prabhupada but we don’t have to become insecure if we are attracted to other forms of Krishna we can take that inspiration and intensify our devotion to Krishna Thank you