Bogus spiritual masters by Srila Prabhupada

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Bogus spiritual masters by Srila Prabhupada

Sometimes somebody sees, "Oh here is a religious process, if I become a guru or preacher or priest in this religion I can get some followers, I can get some prestige, I can get some wealth." But this is very sinful because as a result of this sinful activity the knowledge of Krishna consciousness is not manifest. Such a preacher may become an expert in the philosophy. He may understand it from an intellectual point of view but because his motivation is not pure the result, the purifying effect of his preaching, won't be there. The whole world at the moment is full of such rascals who don't even believe in what they are saying. Many Christian preachers and even our so-called Hare Krishna preachers don't even believe in God. They may be very expert, they may know many verses from the Bhagavad-gita or the Bible, they may be very expert at presenting philosophical arguments, at defeating opposing philosophies and answering questions but actually they don't believe in Krishna and they don't serve Krishna. They like to sit in front of a big audience on an elevated seat and give a class and instruct people but they don't want to cook for Krishna, they don't like worshipping the Deity in the temple, they don't want to do any actual physical work for Krishna; they actually want to become Krishna, they want to become the enjoyer. The process of Krishna consciousness is not to become the enjoyer but to become the servant. A real devotee is the servant of the servant of Krishna. Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu said, "I don't want to become a great devotee, I simply want to become the servant of the servant of the gopis in Vrndavana. The gopis are Krishna greatest servants so Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu doesn't want to become Krishna's servant directly, nor does he want to become directly the servant of the gopis, he wants to be the servant of the servant of the servant of the gopis. This is very instructive, we should become the servant of the servant of the servant of Krishna, not that we should have a desire to become a big preacher or something else. If as a result of becoming the servant of the servant of Krishna we have some realisation we naturally want to give people the benefit of that realisation, we want to tell them about Krishna.

This is the purport of the verse I a speaking on. The verse says: "If one is unhappy to see the distress of other living beings and happy to see their happiness his religious principles are appreciated as imperishable by exalted persons who are considered pious and benevolent." The real purport of this verse can only be understand when one becomes purified by engaging in Krishna consciousness because when we become purified through serving Krishna we can see things as they are. In our ordinary condition under the modes of nature, generally we are influenced by the modes of passion and ignorance, we can't see things as they are. We accept something which is very obnoxious and creates many painful suffering reactions as being a happy condition. We think if someone has a nice women, a nice house and lots of money he is happy. When this verse talks about the distress of other living beings, it doesn't mean somebody who is poor or doesn't have a nice girl friend, it means somebody who doesn't have any spiritual knowledge.