Inquiries Into the Absolute: Digest 128, Does spiritual advancement

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Digest 128, July 18th, 2005. Answers by His Holiness Romapada Swami Maharaja

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Does spiritual advancement depend on degree of advancement of spiritual master?

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Q: Srila Prabhupada said in certain places that one should accept a spiritual

master whose guidance will make one's life perfect. Would it make any

difference to one's spiritual progress if the spiritual master one accepted

was:

(A) At a different level of realization to, say, another spiritual master?

(B) Both coming from a bona fide disciplic succession.

Or does progress of the disciple depend more on one's sincerity and the Supreme

Lord within the individual heart can make up for any deficit on the part of the

spiritual master in terms of his/her realization?

 

Answer:

The qualification of a bona fide spiritual master is that he is a transparent

representative of the predecessor acharyas within the disciplic succession, he

must have received knowledge from his spiritual master in disciplic succession,

and he must be strictly following those teachings by both prachar and achar.

 

It is also further recommended that one accept a spiritual master who is on the

topmost platform of devotional service, i.e. an uttama adhikari. How we can

identify such an uttama adhikari is explained by Srila Prabhupada in Nectar of

Instruction Text 5: essentially such a devotee is always engaged in serving

Krishna's interest 24 hours a day, having lost interest in everything else and

having realized himself to be an eternal servitor of Krishna. (Please see NOI

Text 5 translation and purport http://vedabase.net/noi/5/en)

 

Shastras do enjoin that before surrendering to a guru, it is the duty of the

disciple to ascertain that the spiritual master is a pure representative based

on the above mentioned scriptural standards, and to develop the confidence that

'Here is a person unto whom I can fully surrender'; but it is beyond the

disciple's jurisdiction or ability to try to judge the degree of their

realization or to compare two exalted vaishnavas. Doing so would be

presumptuous and could easily become seriously detrimental to one's own

devotion.

 

Having surrendered to the spiritual master, he should be accepted as a

confidential servitor and direct representative of Krishna. Srila Prabhupada,

in fact, taught us that the guru is not many, there is only one guru since

anyone who is representing the disciplic succession is essentially transmitting

the same absolute message and descending mercy.

 

All spiritual perfection can be achieved by faithfully serving and pleasing

one's spiritual master. This is the mystery of disciplic succession.

 

Within all of this framework, we should understand that it is Krishna who is

doing the delivering, not the jiva soul who is one's spiritual master. If we

take shelter of the system given by Krishna (and outlined above), all spiritual

perfection will follow; this is not realization- of-guru specific. Once again,

Krishna is the deliverer, and he has His agents or instruments through whom He

acts.

 

 

This digest on the web:

http://iskcondc.org/cgi-bin/renderphilo.pl?digestname=digest128

 

All previous digests in one file (with responses to about 400 questions):

http://iskcondc.org/cgi-bin/renderphilo.pl?digestname=digest00

 

Responses to Some Frequently Asked Questions (Karma, free-will, demigods, Lord

Siva, why are we here, how to control the mind, Deity worship, marriage, Jesus

Christ, spiritual and material relationships and morality of Lord Krsna's

conjugal pastimes, spiritual master, spirit soul/jiva/living entity):

http://www.iskcondc.org/cgi-bin/renderphilo.pl?digestname=digest999_faq

 

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