Some thoughts on guru tattva and discipleship

[Talk to god family meeting of Radhanath Maharaj disciples at Sydney, Australia]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
And please don’t leave without a clue.
You can hear me. No problem. I got a sound system upstairs.
You didn’t want it. All right. So you can hear me.
So thank you for coming today evening. I’m sorry, there’s a little bit of back and forth about the exact timings. So I’ll speak this in three main parts.
I’ll speak about. About how. So Sradhanath Maharaj is fulfilling.
The vision of Shila Prabhupada through both his submission and his own inspiration. And then from that, I’ll draw some lessons about how we can serve our spiritual master and grow in our bhakti. And lastly, I’ll talk about some thoughts on Guru Tattva as it unfolds in our life.
So how many of you have been to Govardhan Eco Village? OK. So Govardhan Eco Village is a project on which Sradhanath Maharaj has spent a huge amount of energy in the last few years. Now, even when he’s in India, most of the time he’s not at Radha Gopinath temple.
He spends more time in Govardhan Eco Village than in the temple also. And basically, if we look at what Maharaj has done over there. He has, when Shila Prabhupada was in America, he basically wanted a replica of Vrindavan in the West.
Because that was what the new Vrindavan project was meant to be. And the idea was that people from the West may not come all the way to India to Vrindavan. And yet there is a whole experiential aspect to bhakti which cannot be overlooked.
It is not just about some experience of bhakti we get in kirtan, in darshan, but coming to a place just centred on Krishna that has its own charm. Of course, Prabhupada wanted devotees to come to Vrindavan, Mayapur, but he knew new people may not come. Not even all devotees would be able to come.
So he wanted a place for pilgrimage in the West. And that’s what he wanted new Vrindavan to be. But for various reasons, it didn’t work out.
So then, in some ways, that same purpose Maharaj is serving by the Govardhan Eco Village. So if you go to India, it’s eminently worth it to go and see. There is the replica of all the seven temples that are there in Vrindavan.
And now, most famously, yes, there’s the Radha Madan Mohan temple, which is actually the same dimensions as the original Radha Madan Mohan temple. And the pujari who had Maharaj, when the temple was inaugurated, Maharaj invited the pujari from the Radha Madan Mohan temple, the priest over there, as well as the Radha Madan Mohan deities are in Karoli. And there in Karoli, the pujari was also invited.
So those priests said that Radhanath Maharaj has, after 500 years, reunited Madan Mohan with his temple. So now, if you even see the picture, it’s magnificent. Towers above the whole landscape.
There are small, small replicas of the other temples, but there’s a magnificent replica of the Madan Mohan temple, full size. And thousands and thousands of Western devotees have come over the years there to experience India. And many of them, this is their first trip to India.
So one idea is that actually we want a replica. That was Prabhupada’s vision, that we need to have a replica of Vrindavan. So it couldn’t be in America.
It was in India. So now Maharaj did some things for Western people also. So when I was in Vrinda, when I had been to Govardhani College, I asked Maharaj this question.
Maharaj, what was your inspiration or vision behind starting this? So that morning I had given the Bhagavatam class. And somehow Maharaj came and sat in the class. So I became quite nervous.
Earlier Maharaj was wearing Bhagavatam class in Radha Gopinath temple, but he was from his room. He didn’t come and sit in here, but he heard the class. And then after that, when I was speaking, that afternoon I was speaking with Maharaj, telling him about my Western outreach and he was asking me these things, how things are going.
So then I asked him about this, about the vision for the Govardhani College. So he said that every phase in history has its own stress or its own flow. And we need to tap its flow.
So when Prabhupada went to America, there were the hippies. The flow was counterculture. And when Prabhupada gave them a completely different culture of living, Prabhupada tapped into that and he was phenomenally successful.
When Prabhupada came back to India, at that time, actually we were not that successful in terms of recruiting people to become full-time devotees. There were very few Indians who became Prabhupada disciples in India at that time. Because in India the mood was of cultural nationalism.
And you just become liberated from foreign rule after so many, not just the 120, 150 years or 200 years of the British rule, but before that several hundreds of years of Islamic rule. So it’s a mood of cultural nationalism. And when Prabhupada brought in Western disciples who had become culturally Indian, not just spiritually or devotionally Indian, but culturally Indian, wearing dhoti, kurta and sarees, it created a sensation.
And Prabhupada used that to attract people. So the times were still not right when Prabhupada went in 65. Before 65 he had been trying a lot to preach but was not very successful.
When he came back in 70s, he was successful but in a way different from what he was in America. In America people became devotees and moved into the temples. That didn’t.
That happened for very, very few people in India. But thousands and thousands of people became admirers, appreciators and supporters. So Prabhupada created the life membership programme and Prabhupada built big temples.
So Maharaj said that now in many ways the mood in the world, especially the Western world, is of environmentalism. And so Govardhan Eco Village has the replica of New Vrindavan, of Vrindavan basically, but that is not what is going to necessarily attract people because what do people know what is Krishna? So what he has done is he has this whole eco-friendly project over there. And that’s what draws people.
So today the whole mood in the world is that, not what you believe or what you practise, we don’t care. The mood is, okay, whatever you believe and whatever you practise, how does it make a difference in this world? How does it make a difference to my life? How does it make a difference to my world? So if you can demonstrate that practically to people, then people are ready to follow. So there is an otherworldly aspect to spirituality and there is this worldly aspect.
So people in general are not concerned that much with the otherworldly aspect. Of course, that is important, but we can’t expect them to suddenly develop concern for that. They are concerned about this worldly aspect.
So if we can show in this world how we can create a better planet, at least help to create a better planet, how we can help deal with issues in this world by the practise of bhakti, then that will attract people. So when I said Maharaj heard my Bhagavatam class that day, Maharaj said that, so I observed this and he said that, Chaitanya Chaitanya, I am not a very organised person. I am spontaneous.
And he said, of course. I had spoken in my class. It won’t work like that.
It doesn’t have multitasking capacity. It’s charging, it’s not speaking. No idea.
That’s okay, you can hear me, no? Yes. No need. So then in my class I had spoken in the morning about how we have impulses and we have instincts.
Impulses are usually anti-intelligent. To eat too much, to sleep too much, to surf too much, whatever. We have impulses.
But instincts are like programmed intelligence. Some people just come to a room and ask, you put this painting here, you get a curtain like this, you put this sofa here, it will look beautiful. Somebody might be staying in that room for six months and they will not think about it.
So that’s instinct. You just know how to do it. Some people have an instinct for music, some people have an instinct for language, like that.
Some people have an instinct for decoration. So I said that instincts are what we need to channel and develop. And impulses are something which we have to restrain.
So then Maharaj, he said, I am spontaneous. Maharaj said, I hope I am not impulsive, I am instinctive. And then he said that, but, now this is a very serious point, he said, but my instincts have been shaped by my almost 50 years of chanting Hare Krishna every day.
Of almost my 10 years of deity worship, several times every day. Of my 20-30 years of congregation preaching, community building. And before that all my journey home experiences.
So it is based on these instincts, I have, I saw this need and this is how we develop it. So here, it has, now it has, it has been able to do a lot of, it has been able to reach a lot of people who are not being reached in the western world as well as in India. In India also many corporates come over there for a retreat and then they have their own corporate training and they have some spiritual training also.
So a lot of people who we had not reached earlier are being reached over there. And of course we have the farming going on, we have the community development going on, lots of things are happening. So here, the theme which I am going to draw from this is that when we want to connect with our spiritual master, when we want to serve our spiritual master, when we develop a connection with our spiritual master basically, there is one thing that a spiritual master has a vision, has a desire, has an aspiration, and we try to fulfil that.
And that’s what Maharaj wanted to do when he did the Govardhaniko village. But it’s not only that. Because we all have been given our intelligence and we have our own individuality and we have to use it in the service of Krishna.
So when Maharaj made the, initially when they wanted to make the New Vrindavan, they wanted to make it completely free from electricity or anything of modern technology. And they tried it for a long time and it didn’t work much. So when they made Govardhaniko village, Maharaj said, we want this to be natural and comfortable.
Not natural and austere. Natural and comfortable. The idea is that this is where if people want to come, we don’t want to make people’s coming to Krishna more difficult than what it needs to be.
There’s anyway difficulties there, but we don’t want it to be more difficult than what it needs to be. And for that purpose, so you could say the vision for that is from Srila Prabhupada. But along with that, it is also from his own experience, from his own inspiration.
So Maharaj said that when he came to, of course there are multiple reasons for this, but he said when he came to Vrindavan, the first thing he saw was the Madan Mohan temple. The Madan Mohan that captured his heart. And Madan Mohan is So to summon the deity.
So you want people to be attracted to Krishna. So Madan Mohan is the deity. That’s why among all the temples, Madan Mohan is a special large temple over there.
And when we are trying to serve our spiritual master or in general grow in bhakti, there is the aspect of submission and there is the aspect of taking, of finding our own inspiration and serving. So Maharaj had some association of Srila Prabhupada personally, but not much. Simultaneously, however, he had, of course, association through the wine always.
So the way the movement has spread now, I was with one devotee in the Muruvillamba farm and he is from another part of the world. He’s from Europe and then he was in UK. Then he went.
He’s from UK. He went to Ireland. He came back to Scotland.
He was travelling to various places. So once he asked Maharaj, Maharaj, should I go here or should I be here? Maharaj said that whatever you Maharaj said, three things to him. He said, be Krishna conscious, be happy and cooperate with the local authorities.
So I was thinking about this, that this is a principle that we can apply in our lives. Be Krishna conscious. Wherever we are, ultimately we are connecting with the spiritual master and Srila Prabhupada to be Krishna conscious.
So our particular services, our jobs, our family obligations may take us to various places. Some places we may have a lot of association. Some places we may have less association.
But it is for us to be Krishna conscious. And Krishna consciousness is not meant to be simply an austerity. We want to be happy in Krishna consciousness.
In fact, one of the main reasons why he started the council system was to have, you could say, lateral support. There’s a vertical support from the spiritual master. But along with that, there’s a lateral support also.
Now that can come in various forms to the devotee care system or whatever, in different parts. But the idea is that one of the main purposes of the council system was that devotees should feel inspired to keep practising bhakti throughout their life. They feel connected.
They feel supported. And so we all have to find out what are the things that we can happily do in Krishna consciousness. Sometimes we may have to do some austerities also.
But sometimes we also have to. But we also need to overall look at what can we do steadily and happily in Krishna consciousness. So once I was at a programme and we were talking about while practising bhakti, there are many things we have to tolerate.
So I asked, what all do we have to tolerate? So one devotee raised his hand enthusiastically. He says, yes, we have to tolerate devotees. So I said, yes, that’s a good realisation that we have to tolerate devotees.
We shouldn’t just give up because we find some devotees troublesome or whatever. But if as we mature further, as we advance further, we will also realise that devotees are tolerating us. It works the other way also.
So within devotee association, there will be some devotees association who will inspire us. Some devotee association may not inspire us so much. So we have to take the responsibility for staying happy.
Be Krishna conscious and be happy is actually a rephrasing of Srila Prabhupada’s instruction, chant Hare Krishna and be happy. Now the interesting analysis of chant Hare Krishna and be happy. Is this one instruction or two instructions? What do you think? Two will become one.
Yeah, sometimes two should become one. Actually there is a nice verse, 2.22 in the Bhagavatam which says, Atavai kavayo nityam bhaktim paramaya mudha Vasudeve bhagvati kurvantya atma prasadhanim. So therefore the great sages with great joy, atavai kavayo nityam bhaktim paramaya mudha, with great joy they practise bhakti.
Kurvantya atma prasadhanim. Atma prasadhanim means that which gives great joy to the soul. So they practise with great joy the process that gives great joy to the soul.
So what does this mean? One example to understand this could be that say, if somebody has been sick for a long time and finally they have found a medicine that works. But because their sickness has been chronic for a long time, the cure is also going to take some time. So although they are not happy in the sense that they are cured, but they are happy because they have found a cure.
So and they can be happy that I am on the path to recovery. So there is a happiness to be cured and there is also happiness to be on the path to be cured. So therefore, if you consider it this way, Krishna consciousness is something which will cure us.
It will make us, as we connect with Krishna, it will give us eternal happiness eventually. But till then, because we are the part of the material world, sometimes ups and downs will be there. So we need to be happy.
That means chant Hare Krishna and be happy. You can see them as two parallel instructions which will eventually become causal. Chanting Hare Krishna will itself lead to happiness.
But right now we can see it as parallel. So similarly, be Krishna conscious and be happy. And being happy is not in a narcissistic sense that I’ll do whatever I want to be happy, I don’t care for others.
But within the purview of devotional activities, we try to be happy. And one way, one very valuable way to be happy is by being grateful. Generally, if you look at dissatisfaction in every situation in our life, there are some things which we have and some things that we don’t have.
So yesterday I wrote an article on the Gita Daily, I write these articles on the Gita every day. So to be happy is possible, but to be happier than others is impossible. Why is it impossible? Yeah, two reasons.
One is that we imagine others to be happier than they are. And secondly, we equate happiness with certain things. And there will always be people who have those things more than us.
So to be happy is possible, but to be happier than others is impossible. So now to be happy means in whatever situation we are in, we look at the things that we have, not at the looks, look at the things that we don’t have. Look at the things that are right in our life, look at the things, not at the things that are not right in our life.
So even Krishna Consciousness applies. In Krishna Consciousness also, we might feel that I need certain kind of association, certain kind of facility, certain kind of devotees, certain kind of services. And if I get that, I’ll be happy.
But if I don’t get that, so I’m unhappy. But even in Krishna Consciousness, if you understand that now we are in Krishna’s inner circle, ultimately Krishna cares for everyone. But ye thamam prapadyante, that means, as all people surrender to me, I reward accordingly.
What that means is that Krishna, that the circles are like concentric. And those who are more surrendered, they are in more and more inner circle of Krishna. Everybody is in Krishna’s circle, but everybody is in circles of different radii.
So when we are practising Krishna Consciousness, when we are committed to the practise of Krishna Consciousness, that means we have come into a significant inner circle. And when you come in that circle, that means what we need for Krishna Consciousness, Krishna knows it better than us. So not just in our material life, but even for our Krishna Consciousness, what we need, Krishna will provide us.
So one thing that may make us dissatisfied in our Krishna Consciousness is that we don’t get association of our spiritual master. Now, of course, as a devotee, as a disciple or aspiring disciple, naturally aspire for the association. But at the same time, we also understand that it is Krishna with whom we are connecting.
And Krishna knows our need and Krishna will fulfil that need in some way or the other for us. So that means that, of course, there is an aspect that we always want more association of the spiritual master, more association of like-minded devotees. So Prabhupada summarises this dynamic very nicely.
A devotee desires the darshan of Krishna, but doesn’t demand the darshan of Krishna. So we desire, but we don’t demand. So we desire naturally for, we always desire more association of the spiritual master, more association, more personal time or whatever, but we don’t demand it.
We understand that whatever I need for my spiritual growth, Krishna will provide me that. Of course, we seek for it according to our capacity, but we don’t demand it on particular terms. And that brings, not demanding on particular terms, brings the third point.
What are the first two points? No, no. With respect to what Maharaj said, be happy. And third? Cooperate with the local authorities.
So now this is an important point to understand that we are a part of a big movement, a big community, which is now global. So each place will have its own leadership with its own vision of how to share Krishna Bhakti. And once Maharaj has asked, sometimes with some people our wavelength doesn’t match.
So what do we do? So Maharaj said, humility means to change your wavelength so that it matches. Now we may not be able to do it entirely. The principle here is that as much as possible, if we can work cooperatively with the local authorities, then that indicates our service attitude, not just towards Maharaj, but also towards Prabhupada because everybody is trying to serve Sri Prabhupada.
And if somebody wants to, has some particular inspiration to do something in a particular way, then that’s also fine. But we can do it in a way that doesn’t come off as defiance to the local authority. Once two devotees had a very serious conflict and I was there in Maharaj’s room at that time and they were talking.
Maharaj said that some people can get along with some people, some people can’t get along with some people. So whatever happens, he says, don’t spoil your relationship with devotees. If you can’t get along with someone, keep a distance.
But don’t spoil your relationship. Don’t commit offences. So we all, if we can find a service which we can do, which can help us do all these three things, be Krishna conscious, be happy and satisfy the local authorities, then we are immensely blessed.
And if you can find that, there’s nothing like it. And we will find it gradually. It’s not necessary that a service is something suddenly one day we wake up and it’s like a flash of lightning and we see the service.
We keep doing whatever services we get the opportunity to do. And by doing that, we also observe what are the services that we feel happy doing, what we are able to do well. And gradually we can gravitate towards that service.
So for us, this point of, and I was thinking of this desire, but not demand. So Maharaj never demanded Radhanath, means spiritual master association. But he took that instruction, took his own inspiration and has continued serving Shri Prabhupada and the broad movement across the world.
So same spirit we can have. Yes, we want to, we want to serve our spiritual master. But if we do this thing, be Krishna conscious, be happy and cooperate with local authorities, then we can flourish in our Krishna consciousness.
And the last point I’ll talk about is the guru tattva briefly. This is a very complicated subject, but I’ll make two or three main points. Traditionally, broadly, there were two kinds of gurus.
One were the sannyasi gurus and the other were the grahastha gurus. The sannyasi gurus were those who were basically travelling monks. And they would visit a particular place, they would do some kirtan, they would do some katha, and people would feel very inspired by them.
And after that they would depart. And they would never come back to that place also. Now, at least when we have sannyasi gurus, we know their schedule, we can plan our schedule and then we can say where we can go and get association.
There, at the time of sannyasis, they had no plan, no schedule, no way to know anybody’s schedule also. It’s very difficult. So if you see Madhavendra Puri, he visited Shantipur once.
And Advaita Acharya saw him over there. Advaita Acharya was inspired and took initiation from Madhavendra Puri. And there is no description that they ever met each other after that.
So when Advaita Acharya flourished his devotion and he became a leader of the Vaishnava community over there. So this is where the sannyasi basically gives inspiration and departs. And it is within the community that the disciple or the seeker continues one’s bhakti.
The other were grahastha gurus. The grahastha gurus were more like the priests of the local temples. And they would be there for the marriage ceremony, for the child’s name giving ceremony, for the various other ceremonies that are part of a normal life of samskaras and spiritual culture.
Now they may or may not have been as advanced as sannyasis. Sannyasis were always more respected because of their initiation. But these priests were the people who were more available for everyone.
And there is a written tradition and there is an oral tradition. If you see before, about 300-400 years ago, the printing press was invented in America, in Europe about 500 years ago. And then it came to India recently.
So prior to that, most of the instruction was given through the oral tradition. And every village would have some learned pandits and they would speak Krishna katha. And that’s how people would be nourished.
And some travelling monks came, mendicants came, they would also speak. So the idea was that there is a nourishment, one kind of nourishment by the travelling sannyasis, another by the local priests. And people would flourish in their bhakti in both ways.
And whether somebody got initiation from here or here, it was not that important. The important thing was that there was a whole community in which people advanced. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu also, he met Ishwara Puri only twice.
First was in Bodhgaya when he had gone to take, to do his sadhana ceremony for his father. And then later on, actually once there and once in Maya Puri itself, when Ishwara Puri had come there. Those two play times basically.
And he took that inspiration, that nourishment and continued his own bhakti. Now when Ishwara Prabhupada started ISKCON, it was a very unusual, historically unprecedented situation you could say. Because Prabhupada was a travelling sannyasi, but there were no local priests and there was no local community.
In fact, Prabhupada installed Jagannath because Jagannath accidentally manifested. Shamsundara and Malati Mataji, they found Jagannath at, what do you call it? Antique shop or gift shop, whatever. Not an antique shop, but like a shop of, what is it, second hand items, something like that.
So basically they found it and Prabhupada was so pleased. Prabhupada offered obeisance and he said, let’s instal. Now after Jagannath was installed in one place, another place, by that time actually Prabhupada had not yet published Chaitanya Charita Amrit.
And you see in Bhagavad Gita there is no mention of Jagannath. So many devotees, there is one devotee who wrote a letter to Prabhupada, Prabhupada, we are worshipping the deities as per the rules that you told us, but can you please tell us who are these deities? So Prabhupada had to start things in a very historically unprecedented way. So he was a sanyasi, but he had no support of a community, no support of local priests also.
So he played all those roles. Now in order to play all those roles effectively, Prabhupada also in his talks and his books emphasised the position of the spiritual master very heavily. Because in a sense he was the only authority.
Of course he delegated a lot of authority to his senior disciples who were also leaders, but the principle was that the spiritual master is the guide. So in Prabhupada’s books the core content is eternal. But Prabhupada is also speaking in a particular historical context.
So if we read Prabhupada’s books then we will feel that the spiritual master, we may feel sometimes that the spiritual master is the only source of spiritual advancement. And yes that is true, but a spiritual master is not just one person. The guru is a person and the guru is also tattva.
Tattva means the spiritual master, the guru is ultimately the principle that connects us with Krishna. The guru is a manifestation of Balaramji. And therefore Prabhupada wrote a letter, wrote a Vyasa Puja offering to his spiritual master and there he said there is one guru who manifests as many.
So Prabhupada also told that there is riksha guru and there are shiksha gurus. And among shiksha gurus there can be many and the shiksha gurus can also inspire us in multifarious ways. So at a practical level even during Prabhupada’s times, after the 1970s, those devotees who came before the 70s they had a lot of association of Prabhupada before.
But after the 1970s the movement has become too big and Prabhupada wanted to focus on his writing, although he never could in an instructed way. But basically because of that he didn’t have much time to associate with each of his disciples. So that time also it was primarily for the shiksha gurus that most devotees got their shiksha, got their inspiration and they moved on.
Today also we are now gradually moving towards from the extraordinary circumstances in which Prabhupada started the movement, we are slowly moving towards what was the tradition. What was the tradition? That there is a local community, there are local priests and there are devotees who are part of the local community. So we don’t see in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s times, there might be a few renunciates, most of the people there are the grahastha community, but they are all well knit together in the practise of bhakti.
So that’s something similar to what the situation we are currently in. And here if you understand that there is one guru tattva and that guru tattva manifests in various ways and that Krishna manifesting through the various gurus, shiksha and diksha gurus can draw us towards him. Can connect us towards him.
So here, what is the importance of diksha guru then if Krishna can manifest in different ways? I’ll conclude with this example, then we can have some questions later. Suppose we enter into a university. Now, if say, somebody is entering into a university for some elite course, so maybe somebody is doing a PhD or somebody is doing a course for very special people.
Then, for special talented students, then the HOD or the dean of the university may personally approve each admission. Evaluate, vet and approve each admission. After that, when the student is actually going to do the PhD, with the approving authority, the dean or the HOD may not be the person who is constantly working with that student.
The student may have their own PhD guide. And most of what the student learns will be from the PhD guide. Now, of course, the PhD guide and the HOD both are working together only.
They are working in the same department. But the student will learn primarily from the PhD guide. And that’s how the student will grow.
So similarly for us, when we enter into the bhakti university, at that time when entering into the bhakti university, we are actually a part of a whole tradition of learning. And in that tradition of learning, we are moving toward Krishna, the spiritual master and the connection of the spiritual master, initiation by the spiritual master. All these are like the formal entry into the university.
But along with that, the practical learning may happen through different shiksha gurus. So now this can happen in two different ways. One is that the university itself has a particular area in which they want research to be done.
And then there’s a particular faculty over there. And they tell the student, you work with this faculty, you do research in this area. The other is that the student has an interest in a particular area.
And the student has an interest in a particular area, that in that university there might be multiple faculties. And the student might go to a particular faculty who is also studied in that area, who is also a specialist in that area. And the student might work with them.
And usually it is neither entirely this nor that. The university has its own interests. And the research candidate also has their own interests.
And they take to work together and find some medium. So similarly for us, our spiritual master is a diksha guru. And the spiritual master is the person who formalises our entrance into the university.
Now, of course, it’s an open learning environment. So we can continue learning even if there is no formal entry into the institution. Even if you accept a spiritual master in our heart, we are connected.
And we can continue learning. But the stress here is that the learning process will happen through the particular PhD guide with whom we are learning. So similarly it will be through a particular shiksha guru with whom we are working.
So we don’t want to undermine the diksha guru, but we don’t want to undermine the shiksha gurus also. Because ultimately the point is not just to have the association of the spiritual master. The point is not just to spend time with the spiritual master.
The point is to grow in knowledge and devotion for Krishna. Just like in a university, the point is not to spend time with the Achyuti. The point is not to take a selfie with the Achyuti and show the whole world.
The point is actually to study and do research and graduate. Similarly, our point is to be Krishna conscious. And so that can happen through various shiksha gurus also.
And for that purpose, this whole idea of creating a community of devotees who can support, of creating shiksha gurus, that is what Maharaj has stressed in his training. Traditionally, when ISKCON started, in the West the main service was book distribution. In India the main service was life membership.
Of course they were distributing books also, but it was mainly life membership. Then, and of course later on Prabhupada wanted to build temples, so it was fundraising. But Maharaj got the charge of the Radha Gopinath community in the late 1980s.
So he said, in the 1990s also, he said that we will, the brahmacharis here will not do any fundraising and they will not be involved too much in the temple management. They will not, for some years they decided not even book distribution. So then many of the Grahastha leaders they thought, what are they going to do then? So Maharaj said no.
They will study Shastra and then they will teach Shastra. So people were quite sceptical at that time, but Maharaj personally would take classes every day, sometimes two, three times a day. You have Bhagavatam class, you personally take Chaitanya Chaitanya Dama’s class.
That time in India, Maharaj would practically every evening have a programme. I mean the same devotees would come to the various programmes. So one devotee I was there with recently, he told me he had gone for a programme.
So after that, after that programme, all the devotees would come to meet Maharaj. All the Grahasthas, Maharaj would hug them personally. So there was a couple who came for the first time.
So then they saw that everybody is standing in a queue. So there Prabhu went and Maharaj hugged them. And Mataji didn’t know she had come for the first time, she also stepped forward.
And Maharaj folded his hands. Mataji, I am not so advanced. So the point I am making is that Maharaj gave a lot of association to those devotees and he trained them and eventually many of them became counsellors.
And those brahmacharis who trained, now they become travelling preachers. So basically to create sustainability for the devotee’s nourishment, there is one spiritual master, but a spiritual master creates a community of teachers. So there can be Grahastha teachers, there can be brahmachari teachers.
And it is through the various shiksha gurus. Now this is just in our God family, but the same principle is now manifesting in different ways through different spiritual masters also. But in many ways Maharaj was the pioneer in this.
He said, let’s stop temple construction. Maharaj has built now a nice beautiful community in Govardhanika village. And Radha Gopinath temple is also beautiful.
But he did not focus on building a temple. He did not focus on too much of book distribution or fundraising. He focused on devotee cultivation, on community building.
And community building, what does it mean? It means that there is a community only when there are multiple sources of inspiration. Otherwise, it’s more like a personality centred thing, which is also good in its own way, but it has its limitations. So if you go to the Radha Gopinath temple, you see that the ashram itself is, it’s not exactly, it is not a chair.
It’s like a couch. So the whole, that symbolism itself indicates that it’s not as one teacher. So he deliberately, most temples, no temple has like that.
I have not seen any temple which has that. A big Vyasasana, so that Sunday programme and other programmes and Maharaj has God brothers coming. So multiple speakers speak together.
And we have this in our tradition also, Vandeham Shri Guru, Shri Uttapakadagram, Shri Gurun Vaishnavamsha. So Gurun is the various spiritual masters. It’s the plural.
So you have one Guru, but you have many Gurus also. And Krishna also in the Bhagavad Gita in the fourth chapter when he talks about this, tad viddhi pranipatena pariprasthena sevaya upadekshanti te jnanam jnanina sattva-darshina. It’s interesting, Krishna uses the plural over there.
Jnani is singular, jnaninas is plural. So he’s saying, go to the self-realised souls, learn from them. So for us, whichever Shiksha Guru we can get inspiration from, nowadays through the internet, there’s a lot of illusion available, but a lot of devotion, knowledge also is available for us.
So we take the responsibility to nourish ourselves. If we have the personal association, that is wonderful. If we don’t have personal association, still we take the responsibility to nourish ourselves.
So maturity means to recognise that no one is obliged to fulfil our need. Maturity means to recognise that no one is obliged to fulfil our need. It doesn’t mean that our need will not be fulfilled.
But no one is obliged to fulfil. Like a small baby, a baby feels hungry, baby starts crying. And the mother, the father, the caretaker who are there, run and feed the baby.
Now if an adult is hungry and starts crying, he’ll say, grow up. Now the adult’s hunger is as much a serious need as is the baby’s hunger. But the adult knows that nobody is obliged to fulfil my need.
I have to take the responsibility. Similarly for us, to mature in Krishna Consciousness means to recognise that no one is obliged to fulfil our need. But we take the responsibility to find out how our need can be fulfilled.
We find out how we can be best Krishna Conscious, how we can be happy, and how we can cooperate with local authorities. Local authorities are like the shiksha gurus we have. We work with them and thus we can flourish in our bhakti.
So that’s briefly what I wanted to speak. We’ll have a few minutes for questions. I’ll quickly summarise what I spoke.
So I spoke on the theme of how we can learn to practise bhakti from the example of our spiritual master. So we talked about bhakti, there is submission and there is inspiration. Submission to authority and personal inspiration both.
So how Maharaj manifested that in his Govardhan Eco Village project. Prabhupada’s dream was that there should be like New Vrindavan, a place for western people to come. But somehow it didn’t happen in New Vrindavan in West Virginia.
So Maharaj manifested it in Govardhan Eco Village. Simultaneously with that, by manifesting New Vrindavan over there, also what he has done is, seen what is the need of today’s times. He said we have to present bhakti according to the need of the times.
So when Prabhupada went to the west, it was just reject. The counter culture was there. He rejected everything.
When we came to India, it was cultural nationalism. India is so great and even western people are following India. But now the mood is of contribution.
OK, whatever your philosophy, whatever your practise, what difference does it make in the world today to us? So taking that with respect to environmentalism, the whole mood is to demonstrate how we can live eco-friendly by practising bhakti. So there is this principle of submission to authority and there is a principle of individual initiative. So of how we can practise bhakti.
Prabhupada himself, he was told by his spiritual master to practise bhakti, preach in the west. He did that. But then he spent a significant time in India because that’s where he felt he could have a sustainable structure for the practise of bhakti.
So now how does that apply for us in our lives? I talked about those three instructions. What are they? Be Krishna conscious, be happy, cooperate with authorities. So I talked about the first two being that they chant Hare Krishna and be happy.
They are both causal and parallel. It’s like even if we will be happy when we are cured, but we can also be happy that we are, we have got the cure, even if we are not yet cured. And a significant part I focus on that, cooperate with local authorities.
This is not just an institutional necessity, but it is the traditional operating principle. I talked about our past where there were sannyasi gurus and there were grahastha priests. And along with the grahastha priests, even if the sannyasi gurus were there, the grahastha priests and the community over there was the primary source of nourishment and sustenance for devotees.
When Prabhupada’s time, it was a historically anomalous thing. As I said, Prabhupada emphasises the spiritual master very heavily. But he also talks about shiksha gurus in his books.
And I concluded the example of the student doing PhD. The diksha guru is like the HOD who gives admission to the university. But the shiksha gurus are like the specific specialists who are the PhD guides who help the student to grow.
And for each one of us, we have to find out, we have to take responsibility for our Krishna consciousness, for our spiritual growth. Maturity means to recognise that no one is obliged to fulfil our needs. So, but for fulfilling our needs, Maharaj in his own way, he has created a community.
He was there. But what was, so we are moving toward the tradition that there’s not just one diksha guru, but there are many shiksha gurus. And together with all of them, we can practise our bhakti and flourish in bhakti.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Any quick questions, comments? In the last example, where you explained how diksha gurus is like a guru who approves, and he’s the one who connects us to the spiritual, to the parampara.
But then in our case, we have Sri Prabhupada, and that’s what we see in IBC, that he’s like treated as an akshaya. And we have many diksha gurus. And we are at different places, not in association of our own spiritual masters.
So how, in our Krishna consciousness, attachment to our own spiritual master is important? And how does that happen, actually? And how do we fit in the whole scenario? Good question. So how does attachment to the spiritual master fit into our movement right now? Yes, I’ll talk about it. See, there is a verse by Jiyu Goswami which says, who says that, keep your mantra and your guru gopaye, keep it secret.
So the idea over there is twofold. At one level, A B A Gushuk 3 B 1. We want to broadcast the glories of our spiritual master. But at another level, it is the relationship with the disciple and the spiritual master is a personal relationship.
If you see Vishwanath Chakrathakur, in his commentary, he just talks about obeisances, offering obeisances to the spiritual master. But he has a whole 12 cantos of Bhagavatam commentary. But he doesn’t mention his spiritual master by name very often.
If I’m not mistaken, not even once he mentions directly. But he’s grateful to his spiritual master. Because when Baldevidya Bhushan, when he’s writing his Govinda Bhashya commentary on the Vedanta Sutra, he doesn’t mention Vishwanath Chakrathakur at all.
Vishwanath Chakrathakur was such a great acharya. He doesn’t even mention Jiyu Goswami. Why? Because the Vedanta Sutra commentary is for the broad Indian body of scholars.
And they are not going to accept as authority the authorities of our tradition. So when he has to substantiate a point, he quotes from the Upanishads, from the Vedas, from the Bhagavad Gita. Lakshmi and Smriti.
So we have to, we may have great devotion to our spiritual master particularly, but we have to present ourselves in a way that serves the purpose of furthering our service. That serves the purpose of furthering our service. So we see Baldevidya Bhushan in the Govinda Bhashya commentary, he doesn’t talk about his Guru.
In his Gita commentary also, he’s inspired by Vishwanath Chakrathakur, but Vishwanath Chakrathakur has a commentary which is more rasik for devotees to relish. Baldevidya Bhushan has a more tattva gyan centred commentary, philosophical. So he doesn’t mention Vishwanath Chakrathakur over there.
It’s not required for that context. So we live in a community now where, as you rightly said, Prabhupada is a central acharya for us. So we don’t, for us our Guru is, not exactly Gopayaj, that means we hide the Guru, but there’s no need to broadcast, talk about our Guru.
We talk about Krishna, we talk about Srila Prabhupada, we talk about the process of Krishna Bhakti and connect people with that process of Krishna Bhakti. How specifically they want to get connected further, that’s up to them. So in a sense, again, we are following what was in the tradition.
See, we don’t see Advaita Acharya telling everyone, oh, my Guru is so great, all of you take initiation from my Guru. Doesn’t do that, you know. He has his own Guru, he has his inspiration, but he just practises Bhakti and shares Bhakti with others.
As far as our personal attachment to the spiritual master is concerned, generally, attachment, if you see, in general in the world, how does it develop? See, it’s multiple ways. One is if we just spend some time with someone, that is one way to develop attachment. Another way is that we hear from them.
So when we spend time with them, often the attachment that may develop may be material. But if we hear from them, there’s a much deeper attachment that develops. So just by hearing from them, attachment can develop.
It can also develop by hearing about them from others. So that’s why the spiritual master has written books, especially books about their personal life, a personal journey. Spending some time reading that is also helpful.
Associating with those who are inspired by the spiritual master, that also gives us inspiration. So we don’t have to worry too much if there is no overflowing personal attachment to the spiritual master. Because the whole point is there is emotionality and there is emotion or sentimentality and sentiment.
So once Shuddha Kirti Prabhu, he was travelling with Prabhupada Sarovar and he said that, Prabhupada, wherever I go, devotees are welcoming you with ecstatic kirtans and they’re crying tears seeing you. And whenever you leave from that place, devotees are crying tears. But I’m always with you and I have no tears.
And Prabhupada just looked at him and said, but you are serving me. You are serving me. So if tears come, that’s wonderful.
But the more important thing is not whether tears come or not. The more important is whether there is commitment in service or not. So we could say that there is, we don’t want to say somebody who has a lot of emotion, who has a lot of emotional attachment is necessarily showing.
They could have deep attachment, but the real test is commitment to service. So if you’re just trying to do that, hear regularly and associate as much as possible by that, the attachment will develop. It’s not that we have to somehow imagine and do something artificial to develop that attachment.
We try to just commit ourselves to the process of bhakti, the attachment to Guru, attachment to Krishna, attachment to Vaishnavas. All of it, we don’t have to, we don’t have to take one limb and overemphasise it. We don’t have to de-emphasise it also, but we don’t have to overemphasise it also.
So we do the practise of bhakti and within that, the attachment to Guru, Krishna and Vaishnavas all will develop. During the disciples meeting, we try at least once. What can you do in disciples meeting? What do you currently do? We begin with Guru Puja, we sing the National Anthem for Guru Maharaj.
We listen to Guru Maharaj’s lecture and then we discuss points from that. It’s a nice plant. That’s good.
You are focussing on the centre, on the special master’s words. That’s very good. If some of you have had associated with some senior devotees where you heard some personal experiences with Maharaj, you can share that also.
But what you are doing is good enough. That’s nice. Another thing which you could do to make it a little more sharing is that instead of hearing a lecture of Maharaj together, all of you can plan that you can hear something and then you all share one, one point.
It will make it more, it’s not just hearing, but it’s all more, all of you will also connect more. And then you could also, let me just try how it works. Just a thought that will make sure that the hearing of Maharaj is not just at this time.
You also hear it at other times. And not only just hearing, but also noting down. Because sometimes we may not exactly be able to share that at other forums.
We will share the point, but we are not able to share the source. But if you have that, then you could not only speak the point, but you could also speak what about that point inspired you. So that way you can, It’s like not just hearing vertically, but you are also hearing laterally.
And since you are not a very big group, so it’s possible that you could do that. That would, that might also help. Recently, when we had Jaya Spiritual Guru Maharaj, the temple of Ganesha Maharaj, whether we can have it in the temple? I know that Guru Maharaj doesn’t like respectfully saying, no, no, no, what will you go? I think a lot depends on the local temple’s tradition.
So the local temple has a tradition of various spiritual masters, Jaya Spiritual happening in the temple. Then our spiritual masters also happen, that’s not a problem. So what Maharaj’s concern is that, that the temple where he is, for example, Radha Kopinath, that shouldn’t become centred on him.
In some ways it is, because it’s mostly his disciples. But the temple is centred on, in terms of worship at least, is centred on Krishna and Shila Prabhupada. So that’s why he doesn’t have his Vyasa Puja in the temple.
But I’m not sure whether that principle will apply at other places. So other places, again, there’s no like, obviously he’s not going to be the centre of worship, because there are many spiritual masters. So Maharaj stays for a good amount of time in Chicago, and from what I know, in Chicago, temple only they do the Vyasa Puja of Maharaj.
Although Maharaj is not there at that time. I’m not sure about this, I can confirm this. But I would say in this case, there is no need to go against the tradition of local temple.
We don’t impose on the local temple. But we don’t have to also, local temple and Vyasa Puja, we don’t have to also oppose. That would be my understanding.
But I can find out more about how it is done in other places. But do they do it for other Gurus also? It depends as to what is convenient. Not convenient, look at what is most congenial.
Sometimes the temple authority may say a particular thing, just going along with that would be good. But the other people in the community may not be so happy with that. You don’t want to ruffle feathers.
So whatever works the best. Anything else? Can you check if Ganesha Prabhu has come? Then I’ll have to leave. There will be ups and downs and all that.
So one has to just tolerate and just hope that this is going to be to the bliss that it is talked about. So along the way, there will be challenges, there will be difficulties, there will be downfalls. So that is to be expected, right? Yeah.
So it’s like, if you experience unhappiness, phases of unhappiness, that’s just a part of life in the world. So when we say we have to be happy, it’s just the idea that we don’t make happiness the main purpose of our life. I think, were you there for the retreat when I talked about happiness as a, happiness is not the product, but it’s a byproduct.
So if we see that happiness is a byproduct, then we try as much as possible for happiness. But if it doesn’t, I mean, we don’t try to be unhappy, obviously. We try to do the things which make us happy.
But happiness is not our primary purpose. Our primary purpose is to be Krishna conscious. And while being Krishna conscious, so it’s like we are on a journey.
So if we have, both roads are equidistant, and one road goes to some beautiful area. Because in the night side, one road is, it goes to some not so beautiful, maybe some ugly areas also, some nasty areas. You would prefer this road.
But if this is the only road available, there is a road we have to go through, we’ll go through that. We’ll keep focussing on going onwards. So when it says be happy means that you don’t have to choose necessarily a more difficult road.
But being Krishna conscious is the first thing. Being happy is not the first thing. So even sometimes in distress, we may find it that the intensity of our Krishna consciousness may increase.
Because basically, what does distress mean? See, all of us have some shelters in the world. As if right now, I tell you that an earthquake occurred in Japan. Okay, that’s just one news.
Okay, the earthquake occurred in Melbourne. Oh, really? And we have some friends in Melbourne. If you say earthquake occurred in Sydney.
Oh, which part of Sydney? We’ll be more concerned. But if the earthquake occurs right under you, then you don’t need a news report for it. You’re actually experiencing it.
So basically, the closer the quake occurs to where we are grounded, that much more we’ll be shaken. So for all of us, we want to be grounded in Krishna, but we are also grounded in various other things. We may be grounded in our wealth, our social status, our health, our so many other things like that.
Now, these are also groundings that are required in the world, but they are not the ultimate ground. So when some distress happens, that basically is like the ground near us or the ground under us is getting shaken. So when that happens, we can either get agitated and panicky or we can try to move toward the ground that will never shake.
And Krishna is the ground which never shakes. So we could say that we are anyway trying to move toward Krishna. All the various grounds that we have, our family, our financial security, our health, our social relationships, all that.
These are all meant to provide us, you could say transitional security. There’s security in it, but it’s transition, it’s not permanent. This transitional security is meant to take us toward Krishna.
So they are like various bridges. But sometimes when those bridges start shaking or breaking, then either we can fall with it or we can accelerate moving from the bridge toward Krishna. And as rightly said that it’s not that these things will be permanently there and we go through a dark phase in our life.
It’s one good thing to do is, when we are going through unbearably bad times, decrease your working time to manageable units. Don’t think in terms of one year or five years. Think in terms of one day.
Okay, I’m going through this difficulty. What will happen after this? What will happen after this? Suppose somebody loses a job, somebody gets a health issue. If we think too much in long term, there are too many variables and unpredictables over there.
If we try to figure them all out, we’ll just go mad. Just focus on, decrease the frame of reference. Okay, in this day to day, what can I do to not make things worse? At least that much.
Or what can I do to make things better? So I decrease the frame of reference, take one day, one day, one day. Gradually you’ll find that the dark phase, it’s not like a dungeon in which we are trapped. It is like a tunnel.
And at the end of the tunnel there will be light. Okay, thank you. He will be there.
Okay, yes, last question. Yes, last question, yeah. You were saying how we should have many shiksha gurus.
But if present the shastras, the words or the instructions of the spiritual master should never be like, we should never disobey them. So when you have many shiksha gurus, should you take all their instructions like that? Or how should you approach that? Okay, good question. If you have multiple shiksha gurus, then we also said we should never disobey the instructions of the shiksha guru.
So how does that work out? That’s why generally the shiksha gurus won’t give direct instructions about practical details. They will give instructions and principles. Like say, chant Hare Krishna, serve devotees, worship deities, whatever.
Practical instructions usually the shiksha guru doesn’t give. Of course, in specific situations, for specific items, that shiksha guru may give. But otherwise, even in Chowkpatty, in the early Radha Gopinath community in the early days, Maharaj has given the practical guidance, but thereafter he was focussing more on letting the grahastha community guide the grahasthas and letting the senior brahmacharis guide the younger brahmacharis.
So, yes, we don’t… In general, it is not that the spiritual master will give an instruction, that the shiksha gurus will give other instructions. Rather, you could say, the shiksha guru will give the broad direction of where to go, and the shiksha gurus will help us clear the path. This is the direction you want to go.
How can you go along this path? This path is easier, this path is not so practical. Or this obstacle in the path, you can remove it. So they are all working together.
If there is a conflict, then it’s best that we defer to them only. Either ask the shiksha guru, this is what I have heard from my shiksha guru, or if the shiksha guru is accessible, ask the shiksha guru itself. But generally, that kind of issue will not come.
Thank you.