Lecture by HDG Bhakti Siddhanta Sarasvati Thakura on his Vyasa-puja

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Assuming Responsibility of Being Guru

We have taken upon ourselves the responsibility of welcoming this grave

charge. All the audience have accepted ordinary seats, I alone have been

provided with a lofty seat. All are being told in effect-"Do have a look at

a big animal from the Zoo-gardens. What arrogance! So foolish! So wicked!

Have you ever seen such a big brute? Garlands of flowers have been put round

his neck! What laudations! What bombastic long-drawn, and hyperbolic

adjectives! And how complacently too he is listening to the praise of his

own achievements, how intently, and with his own ears! He also evidently

feels delighted in mind! Is he not acting in plain violation of the teaching

of Mahäprabhu? Can such a big brute, so selfish and insolent, be ever

reclaimed from brutishness?"

I happen to be one of the greatest of fools. No one offers me good advice on

account of my arrogance. In as much as nobody condescends to instruct me I

placed my case before Mahaprabhu Himself. The thought occurred to me that I

would make over the charge of myself to Him and see what He would advise me

to do. Then Sri Caitanyadeva said to me:

"Whom-so-ever thou meet'st,

instruct him regarding Krishna

By My command being Guru deliver this land;

In this thou wilt not be obstructed

by the current of the world;

Thou wilt have My company once again at this place."

In these verses is to be found the proper explanation of the apparent

inconsistency noticed above.

He whose only teaching is humility greater than that of a blade of grass,

said-"By My command being guru save this land!" In this instance Mahaprabhu

Himself has given the command. His command being "Perform the duty of the

guru, even as I do it Myself. Also convey this command to whom-so-ever you

chance to meet." Caitanyadeva says, "Tell them these very words, viz. By My

command being Guru save this land. Deliver the people from their

foolishness." Now who-so-ever happens to hear these words would naturally

protest with palms joined-"But I am really a great sinner; how can I be

Guru? You are Godhead Himself, the Teacher of the world. You can be Guru."

To this Mahaprabhu replies:

"In this thou will not be obstructed

by the current of the world;

Thou wilt have My company once again

at this place."

"Do not practice the craft of a guru for the purpose of injuring others

through malice. Do not adopt the trade of a guru in order to get immersed in

the slough of this world. But if you can, indeed, be My guileless servant

you will be endowed with My power-then you need not fear."

I have no fear. My gurudeva has heard this from his gurudeva. And it is for

this reason that my gurudeva has accepted even such a great sinner as myself

and has told me: "By My command being guru save this land." It is only those

who have never heard these words of Gaursundara who say "How odd! To listen

to one's own praise!" While the guru is instructing his disciple in the

eleventh Skandha of the Bhagavatam what a great sin, in their opinion, is he

not perpetuating! What is the acarya to do when he has to explain the sloka,

acarya ma vijaniyat: Never disregard the acarya; never entertain the idea

that the acarya is your equal in any sense." These are the words of sri

Krishna Himself by which the jiva is to be benefitted. Is the guru to take

himself off, to desert his seat-the seat of the acarya-from which these

words are to be explained? That office his gurudeva has conferred on him. If

he does not act up to its requirements he is doomed to perdition by reason

of his offense against the holy Name in the shape of disrespect towards the

guru. He has to do it in spite of the fact that such procedure is apparently

open to the charge of egoism.

When the guru imparts the mantram to the disciple should he not tell him by

this mantram to worship the guru? Should he say instead, "Give the guru a

few strokes of the shoe or the horse-whip?" The guru is never to be decried.

The guru is the abode of all the gods. Should the gurudeva abstain from

communicating these words to his disciple while reading the Bhägavatam to

him? "To him alone who possesses guileless spiritual devotion, similar to

the transcendental devotion that is due to Krishna Himself, to the gurudeva,

the holy mysteries are manifested." Is the gurudeva not to tell these things

to his disciples? Athau gurupuja: the worship of the guru has precedence

over all others." The guru is to be served just as Krishna is served. The

guru is to be worshiped in a particular way. Is the guru to desert his seat

without telling all these things to the disciple? In the angle there is

always the defect in the shape of absence of the fullness, the evenness of

level, of 180 degrees or of 360 degrees. But in the plain surface, in 360

degrees, there is no such defect. That in the emancipated state no defect is

possible, this simple truth ordinary foolish people entirely fail to grasp.

As the saying goes, "Having started on the dance it is no use to draw close

the veil." I am doing the duty of the guru, but if I preach that no one

should shout "Jai" to me, that is to say, if I say in a round about way,

"Sing Jai to me," it would be nothing short of duplicity. Our Gurudeva has

not taught us such insincerity. Mahaprabhu has not taught such insincerity.

I have to serve God in the straightforward way. The word of God has come

down to the gurudeva; I have to obey it in all sincerity. I will not

disrespect the guru at the instance of any foolish or malicious sectarians.

Especially as Çré Gurudeva has directed me saying, "By My command being guru

save this land." This command has my gurudeva preached. My gurudeva in his

turn has conveyed the command to me. I will not be guilty of any insincerity

in carrying out that command. In this matter I will not accept the ideal of

ignorant, insincere, pseudo-ascetic sectarianism. I will not learn

insincerity. The worldly-minded, the malicious, the pseudo-renunciationists,

the selfish cannot understand how the devotees of God, spurning at

everything of this world by command of God, never, not even for a second,

deviate from the service of God through all the twenty-four hours.

Hypocritical sectarians, pseudo-Vaishnava sects, those sects that cherish

internally the longing for earthly fame, naturally enough think "What a

shame it is for one to listen to the eulogies of disciples occupying the

seat of the guru." But every Vaishnava regards everyone of the Vaishnavas as

the object of his veneration. When thakura Haridasa exhibits the attitude of

humility Mahaprabhu says-"You are the greatest of the world, the crest-jewel

of the world. Be agreeable, let us have our meal together." He carried in

His arms the body of thakura Haridasa which is eternally existent,

self-conscious and full of spiritual bliss. In the community that follows

Sri Rupa, the qualities of desiring no honor for oneself and of readiness to

duly honor others are fully present. Those who detect any disparity are,

like the owl, blind while the sun shines. They commit an offense by such

conduct.

If I disobey the law which has come down to me through the chain of

preceptorial succession, the offense due to omission to carry out the

command of the guru will sever me from the lotus-feet of Sri Gurudeva. If in

order to carry out the command of the Vaishnava guru I have to be arrogant,

to be brutish, to suffer eternal perdition, I am prepared to welcome such

eternal damnation and even sign a pact to that effect. I will not listen to

the words of other malicious persons in lieu of the command of the gurudeva.

I will dissipate with indomitable courage and conviction the currents of

thought of all the rest of the world, relying on the strength derived from

the lotus feet of srilaGurudeva. I confess to this arrogance. By sprinkling

a particle of the pollen of the lotus-feet of my Preceptor crores of people

like you will be saved. There is no such learning in this world, no such

sound reasoning in all the fourteen worlds, in no man-gods, that can weigh

more than a solitary particle of the dust of the lotus-feet of my gurudeva.

Gurudeva in whom I have implicit trust can never spite me. I am by no means

prepared to listen to the words of any one who wants to hurt me or to accept

such a malicious person as my perceptor.

 

 

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