HELP! Please give your conclusive thoughts on this intricate point

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> Again, finding a recognized maha-bhagavata to officially take shelter of

> will not make the reality of our daily struggle within the conditional

> world evaporate.

 

I agree but only one thing is that we will be in safe hands. Means if we

will be sincere then our progress will be guaranteed. But if we have a

madhyama or kanishtha even if are sincere we may not progress above a

particular point (like Prabhupada says in NOI).

 

Some senior devotees feel that if we are sincere but our guru is madhyama or

kanishtha still our progress will not be checked because in ISKCON

Prabhupada is there to take us back to Godhead. What do all the assembled

Vaisnavas feel about this? Let's discuss. Because in our glorious parampara

we see that the personalities who are acaryas, either had a living

uttama-adhikari as their diksha guru or their siksha guru. In most cases

both the diksha guru & siksha guru were uttama though the diksha guru may

not have been mentioned because Srila Bhaktisiddanta gave us a siksha

parampara. Only in one case that of Thakura Bhaktivinoda there is some

controversy whether his diksha guru was a maha-bhagavata or not.

 

So what I mean to say is that there is no example of an acarya becoming an

acarya simply by getting mercy of a previous acarya who is not present in

his vapuh form. All acaryas had living uttama-adhikari gurus (either diksha,

siksha or both). So whether this feeling that even if our guru is madhyama,

Prabhupada will help us to fulfil that deficiency and take us back to

Godhead is valid or not. Because there dosen't seem to be any precedent in

the sastra as far as I know. Hence if you ask my personal opinion I would

tend to think that even though we have Srila Prabhupada as our param guru,

still we need to hear from a living uttama-adhikari maha-bhagavata in ISKCON

(not outside) as our siksha guru by taking permission of our diksha guru or

accept that uttama-adhikari himself as our diksha guru if don't have one.

But I am not very sure about this point. I wanted to ask this question for

some time now. The floor is open for discussion, so dear learned vaisnavas,

for the enlightenment of a fallen person like me, please give us your

conclusive thoughts on this intricate point.

 

Your servant,

Nayana-ranjana das

Your servant,

Nayana-ranjana das