Mayavada?

[Guest guest]

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

> Now, within the context of our everyday society, using this as a marker by

> which to assess the spiritual status of individuals (non-female or

> otherwise), what is the status of devotees in general (conditioned or

> liberated)?

 

"Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura explains that even if a devotee wishes

the Lord to fulfill a particular desire, the devotee should not be

considered a sakama-bhakta (a devotee with some motive). In the Bhagavad

Gita (7.16) Krishna says:

O best among the Bharatas, four kinds of pious men render devotional

service unto Me-the distressed, the desirer of wealth, the inquisitive and

he who is searching for knowledge of the Absolute." The arta and the

artharthi, who approach the Supreme Personality of Godhead for relief from

misery or for some money, are not sakama-bhaktas, although they appear to

be. Being neophyte devotees, they are simply ignorant. Later in the Bhagavad

Gita the Lord says, udarah sarva avaite; they are all magnanimous. Although

in the beginning a devotee may harbor some desire, in due course of time it

will vanish.

Therefore the Srimad Bhagavatam enjoins:

A person who has broader intelligence, whether he is full of all material

desire, is free from material desire or has a desire for liberation, must by

all means worship the supreme whole, the Personality of Godhead."

(Bhag.2.3.10)

 

Your servant Gunamani d.d.