When the disciplic succession has many branches, why do we need to connect with it only through Srila Prabhupada’s branch?

Transcript

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Question. Is the disciple succession meant to be passed to one person only? The Guru may have more than one disciple. Then there should be varied lines of disciple successions existing from Brahma.
Why to choose the path through his divine grace? Is he Bhaktivedanta Swami or not? If there exists any other disciple succession, why not choose them? Yes. The Padmapurana describes that there are four Sampradayas. There are Sri, Rudra, Kumar, and Brahma Sampradayas.
So, from the Supreme Lord, the knowledge came to Lakshmi Devi, to Brahmaji, to Shiva, and to Chakrish Kumar. And from there, the paramparas are going down. So, Yudhishthira Prabhupada, the spiritual master, he had many disciples.
And through them also the parampara is coming down. So, yes, there are many varied lines. And if one is in a parampara connected with Krishna, that person can be a spiritual master.
And that person can elevate. So, one can choose any parampara. It’s not that one has to choose only on Krishna Prabhupada.
The important point is, we should choose a spiritual master and a disciple succession that inspires, facilitates, and guides us in practicing spirituality. See, if there are many traditional spiritual lineages, where they will teach the Siddhanta priorly, properly. But they will not provide any facility.
For example, if you have a youth center. All of your students and their spiritual knowledge is made available in an accessible way for them. They practice spiritual life also.
And you can do your material duties also. Now, most of the paramparas today are not so vibrantly active. So, they may have some ranches in some holy places.
And then we have to go to the holy places. The teachers will be there only. We have to stay there.
And we have to learn from them. And often, they do not have any systems by which people with the modern mindset, they may not have some scientific background. So, if you have scientific questions, there will be no answers.
If you are living in urban cities, there may not be facilities and guidances. There will not be any mentor system or counselling system for us to guide us how to practice spiritual life. So, in one sense, what has happened is, there are many disciple clans.
All of them can take us back to God. But what Srila Prabhupada has given us is, a disciple clan with many support systems. Support system means, it is accessible to us.
It is accessible, isn’t it? There are many centres. There are many centres likely to be close to where we are in our colleges. Then it is intelligible to us.
Intelligible means that things are presented in a way that makes sense. In a contemporary, logical, scientific way. Scripture is presented in an intelligible way.
It is accessible, intelligible and then it becomes manageable. We were told how we can balance our material and spiritual life. How we can do things in a way in which both aspects of our life can go on.
So, this kind of support systems are unfortunately not available. Of course, after Srila Prabhupada preached and he got success, many other spiritual teachers also, who are in the parampara, they also felt inspired. Yes, Krishna’s message can be received by people today also.
People are interested. They also try to preach it. So, it is good.
So, one can choose whichever spiritual master inspires one and Krishna Consciousness offers us certain facilities. If you feel inspired by those facilities, you can avail of those facilities. Support systems that are there in Krishna Consciousness, they are rarely available elsewhere.
And that’s why Prabhupada did not come to say that I am the only way back home. Prabhupada said, Krishna has given a way, please follow Krishna’s way. And if there are other spiritual teachers who are also teaching the same thing, we can follow them and we can also go back.
But Prabhupada also created some facilities by which we can easily practice Krishna.