Gurus and non-sastric statements

[Guest guest]

The following is a short piece I drafted after considerable discussion with

a Godbrother serving as a guru within ISKCON after I had objected to his

publication of statements unverifiable by sastra or by any other method of

acquiring knowledge.

 

This essay appeared in Vaisnava Sanga magazine, May 2003.

 

 

Guru, sadhu, and sastra are the infallible guides to understand the Absolute

Truth. A guru's qualification is that he speaks according to sastra.

Everything he says must be backed by sastra.

 

However a guru is not merely a scholar. He must not only know the statements

of sastra but must understand the conclusion and purpose of sastra, which is

called siddhanta, and must explain sastra according to siddhanta. The basic

siddhanta of all sastra is that Krsna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead

and that all other living beings are His eternal parts and parcels and

servants. A guru is one who fully understands this and teaches it to others,

on the basis of sastra.

 

Without a guru to guide one, sastra can be bewildering because it presents

various paths for persons at different levels of understanding. Furthermore,

sastra has some sections and statements that are inserted to mislead persons

who wish to be misled because they are antagonistic towards the Supreme

Personality of Godhead. Examples are statements in Mahabharata concerning

Krsna and Balarama being incarnations of hairs of Maha-visnu, and of Krsna's

apparent death. A guru guides his disciples through such complex sastric

discussions and helps them to understand the actual message of scripture.

 

Paradoxically however in rare cases sometimes even a guru may make

statements that cannot be corroborated by sastra or that appear to be

against siddhanta. For instance Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura in his Sri

Krsna-samhita presented Srimad-bhagavatam in a manner calculated to be

acceptable to mundane scholars of his age. The Thakura did so in order to

gain acceptance by the scholars so that they could begin to hear his actual

message of surrender to Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Similarly

a preacher may to attract an audience with no initial interest in Krsna

consciousness address them in their terms and on their level. Intelligent

devotees should know that statements even by recognized acaryas that are not

in line with sastra may be understood as a preaching ploy but are not to be

taken as authoritative.

 

There is however a risk that preachers take in making non-sastric statements

to attract persons uninterested in sastra. The risk is that less intelligent

followers will fail to differentiate between their sastric and non-sastric

statements, and will misunderstand their non-sastric statements to be as

absolute as those in line with sastra. It thereupon becomes incumbent upon a

guru who takes such a risk to try to save his errant disciples from such

illusions propagated in his name. A difficulty may be that even after

apparently taking to Krsna consciousness, a so-called devotee may remain

attached to his previous perceptions and may be reluctant to give them up.