Approaching a Guru for Spiritual Knowledge
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Chapters
The role of the divine teacher
This is Kierkegaard, who is a Danish philosopher, who lived from 1813 to 1855. He's generally regarded as the father of existentialism. He was Christian.
He wrote, or he believed, that if the truths of religion are not innate within man, they must be brought to us by a teacher. If God comes to teach as He is, man would be overawed or overcome.
Therefore He comes as a servant of God in human form. Man's general position is as good as animal. Therefore, in the human society, there is a system of education.
But man being advanced in consciousness, he can be properly educated so that he can understand what is God by the teachings of authority. And that is our basic system.
In the human form of life, not generally, but in special cases, they are very much inquisitive to understand about God; that is technically called brahma-jijñāsā. Inquiring about the Absolute.
That is only possible in the human form of life. Generally, any human being can be educated in the spiritual life or God consciousness.
But if anyone awakens his inquiry, as it is stated: tasmād guruṁ prapadyeta jijñāsuḥ śreya uttamam, if one is actually anxious to inquire about God or the supreme knowledge, then he has to approach a guru — that's a fact.
Without approaching a bona fide guru, there is no possibility of understanding the nature of God and our relationship with Him. So one has to approach a guru. To accept a guru is not a fashion, it is necessity.
If one is actually inquisitive, it is a necessity.
Qualifications and service to the guru
So the qualification of guru is also given there, what sort of guru he is: śābde pare ca niṣṇātam. A guru is he who has taken full bath in the ocean of spiritual knowledge or Vedic knowledge.
Śābde pare ca niṣṇātam means the Vedic words or vibration of sound. But that is not ordinary sound, material sound, but spiritual sound. Just like we are chanting Hare Krishna mantra. This is spiritual sound.
So one who has taken a full bath in the ocean of spiritual sound and how he has realized, the symptom of his life is that that guru is no more interested in materialistic way of life.
Such guru does not manufacture any gold or juggler rewards to attract some policemen and make money; that is not guru. And guru means he has no more interest in material things. Śābde pare ca niṣṇātam.
Brahmaṇy upaśamāśrayam: he has taken shelter of the Supreme Brahman, completely satiated of material desires.
So one should approach sad-guru, and then that vidhinā uparipāsa... By serving such guru, and surrendering unto him, and then questioning him, he can make actual progress in spiritual life, and then he understands properly what is God, what is our relationship with Him.
That is perfection of human life. But isn't he incorrect in maintaining that if God comes to teach as He is, man would be overawed? Therefore He comes as a servant of God in human form.
But Krishna came as He was and taught... No, Krishna came as He was, but people misunderstood Him because He was talking just like a human being.
But people, when He asked, "sarva-dharmān parityajya," people thought it is too much. So they are misguided. Therefore, later on He came as a devotee, Caitanya Mahāprabhu, to teach how to approach God.
That is the answer of Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya. Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya understood His activities, and he wrote about 100 verses appreciating Caitanya Mahāprabhu's activity.
And the first one is: vairāgya-vidyā- nija-bhakti-yoga-śikṣārtham ekaḥ puruṣaḥ purāṇaḥ / śrī- kṛṣṇa-caitanya-śarīra-dhārī kṛpāmbudhir yas tam ahaṁ prapadye.
He understood Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu while they were talking on the Vedānta philosophy, that Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu is the same Krishna.
Distinguishing material lust from spiritual love
Now He has come to teach the human society bhakti- yoga, which is vairāgya-vidyā. Devotional life means renounced life. Vairāgya-vidyā: vairāgya means renunciation.
Anyone who has no more interest in a materialistic way of life. That is bhakti-yoga. Vairāgya-vidyā-nija-bhakti-yoga.
So here is the person, Sri Krishna Chaitanya, in the form of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu; he is none but the same original Krishna.
He has come to teach us the same philosophy as he did, uh, while teaching Arjuna in Bhagavad-gītā, but this time he has come as a, uh, devotee of Krishna.
Uh, similarly, another author, Rūpa Gosvāmī, understood him, that here is Krishna and he is the most munificent incarnation because Krishna, in order to give himself to the devotee, demanded full surrender.
And here Caitanya Mahāprabhu, without any demand, is he not only giving Krishna but, uh, the love of Krishna; therefore he is mahā-vadānyāya kṛṣṇa-prema-pradāya te.
So Krishna, uh, the Supreme Lord, is affectionate towards us because we are all sons; we are rotting in this material way of life.
So he comes himself as he is, he comes as a devotee, he leaves his instruction in the Bhagavad-gītā, again he advises his devotees to preach the philosophy of Bhagavad-gītā.
So he always answers to enlighten the human being how to go back to home, back to Godhead. Kierkegaard wrote one book called "Works of Love", in which he saw God as the hidden source of love.
He says a man must love God in unconditional, in unconditionable obedience and love him in adoration. It is incomparable with respect to your own.
That is the sākṣāt of Bhagavad-gītā: God uh, demands that you give up your own plans or any other so-called intelligent person's plan or philosopher's plan. Take my plan: sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja.
Just surrender unto me fully, then I shall take care of you so that you will not suffer. That is our position.
If we fully depend on Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, then he will guide us how to make progress back to home, back to Godhead. As far as defining love, what is love, people speak of love.
He says if someone asks, "What is love?" Paul answers, it is the fulfillment of the law.
Love is a matter of conscience, and hence it is not a matter of impulse and inclination, nor is it a matter of emotion, nor a matter for intellectual calculation.
There is only one kind of love, and he says that is spiritual love. Yes. Love in the material world is impossible. In the material world, everyone is interested for his own sense gratification.
The love between man and woman, young boy, young girl—that is not love, that is lust, because both the parties are interested in sense gratification. But that is not love.
Love means, you know, the parties will not think of his own sense gratification, but for the sense gratification of the beloved. That is pure love.
That is not possible in the material, but we see the example of love in the picture of Vṛndāvana. In the Vṛndāvana village, everyone—men, animals, fruits, flowers, water—every... They are only for loving Krishna.
They do not want any return from Krishna. That is real love. Anyabhilāṣitā-śūnyam. If one loves God with some motive, then is material love. Pure love is simply to satisfy the desires of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Therefore, in the material world, the word "love" is misused. The propensity of lusty desires is going on as love. Real love is only with God, individually, collectively.
Anyway, Krishna, the Supreme Personality of God, is the supreme object of love, either by adoration or by serving or making friendship with Him, or loving Him as child, or loving as beloved.
There are five different relationships: śānta, dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya, mādhurya. That is the order. He says, ultimately, love of God is the decisive thing. From it stems love to the neighbor.
If you love God above all else, then you also love your neighbor, and in your neighbor, every man.
That is our Krishna consciousness movement; we are learning how to love God, and we are teaching the same principle to the whole world without any discrimination.
Understanding the nature of god and energy
God is one. Not that there are different gods or different faith. God cannot be two. Eka brahma dvitīya-nāsti: God is one. There cannot be any competitor. His name is Asamaurdhva. Nobody is equal to Him.
Nobody is greater than Him. Nobody is equal. So, in any form of religion, if love of God is instructed, that is first-class religion. It doesn't matter whether it is Christian religion or Hindu religion or Muslim religion.
The test is how the followers have learned to love God, and God being the center of love and everything being God's expansion, so a lover of God is lover of everyone.
He does not discriminate that only man should be loved and man should be given service.
No, he is interested with all living entities, never mind in which form he is existing; the interested lover of God loves everyone, and the love reaches everyone.
The example is given in this connection: just to water the root of the tree means to expand nourishment for all other parts of the tree, namely the trunk, branches, leaves, twigs, everything.
Or to supply food in the stomach means satisfying the necessities of all parts of the body. So this is the fact: God being everything, mayā tatam idaṁ sarvam, as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā.
Nothing can exist without God. And everything is expansion. Another... what is there in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa? It is said that the fire remaining in one place distributes its heat and light.
Eka-deśa-sthitasyāgner jyotsnā vistāriṇī yathā. The fire can distribute its heat and light although localized in a place; similarly, God is in His own abode, but by His energy He is present everywhere.
Sarva-vyāpī, all-pervading. The all-pervading feature of God means everything is manifestation of His energy. Nothing can exist without God. But it does not mean everything is God. Everything is resting on His energy,
But not everything is God. In spite of expanding God by His different potencies, He keeps His personality, that is God. Concerning individuality, Kierkegaard writes: "God is the origin and wellspring of all individuality.
To have individuality is to believe in the individuality of everyone else. For the individuality is not mine, it is the gift of God through which He permits me to be, and through which He permits everyone to be."
This fact is explained in the Vedic literature. Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām, Kaṭha Upaniṣad, that He is also a living being and we are also living beings. So He is also eternal, we are also eternal.
So qualitatively we are one, but quantitatively we are different. Because eko bahūnāṁ yo vidadhāti kāmān, that one singular number, eternal living being, Kṛṣṇa, God, is maintaining everyone. So that is the difference.
The one living being, the supreme living being, the great living being is maintaining other living beings who are part and parcel of the Supreme.
So both of us, we are living beings, individual, eternal, but God is supreme, we are subordinate. That is the point. So our natural position should be to love God, being part and parcel of God.
Concerning the mind... in the morning...
Concerning the purpose of prayer, he writes: "The true relation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed for, but when the person praying continues to pray until he is the one who hears what God wills." Yes.
That's prayer. He becomes qualified to understand God and to talk with God, to take direction of God, that is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā.
Teṣāṁ satata-yuktānāṁ bhajatāṁ prīti-pūrvakam dadāmi buddhi-yogaṁ taṁ yena mām upayānti te. Our ultimate goal is to give up this material world and go back home, back to Godhead.
The process of devotional service and purification
So, this being the ultimate goal of life, if we offer prayer to the Supreme Lord — not only prayer, prayer is one of the services, there are different nine kinds of service: śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam.
So this is also sad-bhakti. Either you take all the nine different items, or you take some of them, or at least one of them, then you make progress in spiritual life. So some of them offer prayers.
Just like Christians, Mohammedans, they offer prayer. So it is as good as the Hindus give service in the temple, because the devotee cleanses the temple and offers food. This is called arcana.
Arcanam is also devotional service, as well as offering prayer.
So by this devotional service, one makes progress in spiritual life, and when he is sincere in his service, then God is within him, He takes charge of him and gives him instruction how quickly and swiftly he can approach God.
So this is fact. He is not hankering after our service. He is complete in Himself. He doesn't require anyone's service. But if we offer service to Him, then we become purified, and at a state of complete purification,
we can talk with God, we can see God, we can take His instruction, as Arjuna is talking with God personally, taking His instruction and acting according to His instruction.
Kierkegaard felt that God's will—he says there is a God—His will is made known to me in Holy Scripture and in my conscience, and that God intervenes in the world through the individual acting according to Scripture.
That is our word as sādhu-śāstra-guru-vākya, cittete kariyā aikya. And we can approach God by understanding a saintly person, by studying the Vedic scriptures, and explained directly by the bona fide spiritual master.
The sādhu means saintly person, and śāstra means scriptures, and guru means spiritual master, that they should be corroborated. A sādhu is he who talks in terms of scripture.
Similarly, guru is he who talks in terms of scripture. Guru cannot manufacture words which are not in the scriptures. And that is not scripture which does not tally with the words of guru and sādhu.
So these three items should be corroborated, and then we can understand who is guru, who is sādhu, and what is scripture;
then we take instruction from them and we can perfectly make progress towards understanding of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He says the only thing which interests Him, God, who is all majestic, is obedience.
It is so easy to see that one to whom everything is equally important and equally insignificant can only be interested in one thing: obedience. Yeah. So that is one time, and Krishna, God, demands that. Full obedience.
Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. That is the qualification. So original obedience is to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Similarly, obedience to the spiritual master is representative of God.
So anyone who carries out the order of God, he can become guru. Because he's not manufacturing anything, he's simply presenting what God is speaking, or His śāstra is speaking.
God, when He comes as incarnation, He does not speak anything which is not in the scripture. In Bhagavad-gītā, Krishna gives a reference to the Brahma-sūtra, Vedānta-sūtra.
He is God, whatever He is speaking, that is final, that's a fact. Still, He's giving honor to the Vedānta-sūtra. Brahma-sūtra-padaiś caiva hetumadbhir viniścitaiḥ.
He's giving reference to the Brahma-sūtra because spiritual knowledge is ascertained there with logic and philosophy.
So we cannot accept anyone as incarnation of God if he speaks nonsense, not corroborating to the standard scripture.
Concerning worship, he writes: "The only adequate way to express the sense of God's majesty is to worship Him, to renounce everything as an act of worship offered to God, and so not because He needs to use you as an instrument, but to renounce everything yourself as the most insignificant superfluity."
Worship begins with denunciation or the renouncing of any motive. Not to be a big one. Our only business is to love God. That is first-class religious system which teaches the followers to love God without any motive.
Ahaituky apratihatā. Such kind of worship will not be checked by any material condition. In any condition of life, one can love God. God will help. Buddhi-yogaṁ dadāmi tam. That is pure worship and pure love for God.
Personalism versus impersonalism in worship
This is the last point we're making on Kierkegaard. It's concerning God's personality. He writes: "God is certainly personal, but whether He wishes to be so in relation to the individual depends on whether it pleases God.
It is the grace of God that He wishes to be personal in relation to you. If you throw away His grace, He punishes you by behaving objectively or impersonally towards you." That is very good.
Impersonal conception of God is a... is a troublesome business. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā: kleśo 'dhikataras teṣām avyaktāsakta-cetasām. Find out these words.
kleśo 'dhikataras teṣām avyaktāsakta-cetasām / avyaktā hi gatir duḥkhaṃ dehavadbhir avāpyate. "For those whose minds are attached to the unmanifested, impersonal feature of the Supreme, advancement is very troublesome.
To make progress in that discipline is always difficult for those who are embodied." But... but the purpose...
The group of transcendentalists who follow the path of the inconceivable, unmanifested, impersonal feature of the Supreme Lord are called jñāna-yogīs, and persons who are following Krishna consciousness engaged in devotional service to the Lord are called bhakti-yogīs.
Now here the difference between jñāna-yoga and bhakti-yoga is definitely expressed.
The process of jñāna-yoga, although ultimately bringing one to the same goal, is very troublesome, whereas the path of bhakti-yoga, the process of being in direct service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is easier and is natural for the embodied soul.
The individual soul is embodied since time immemorial. It is very difficult for him to simply theoretically understand that he is not the body.
Therefore the bhakti-yogī accepts the deity of Krishna as worshipable because there is some bodily conception fixed in the mind which can be thus applied.
Of course, worship of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His form within the temple is not idol worship.
There is evidence in the Vedic literature that worship may be saguṇa and nirguṇa, of the Supreme possessing or not possessing attributes.
Worship of the deity in the temple is saguṇa worship, for the Lord is represented by material qualities.
But the form of the Lord, though represented by material qualities such as stone, wood, or oil paint, is not actually material. That is the absolute nature of the Supreme Lord. A crude example may be given here.
We may find some mailboxes on the street, and if we post our letters in those boxes, they will naturally go to their destination without difficulty.
But any old box or an imitation which we may find somewhere which is not authorized by the post office will not do the work. Similarly, God has an authorized representation in the deity form which is called arcā-vigraha.
This arcā-vigraha is an incarnation of the Supreme Lord. God will accept service through that form. The Lord is omnipotent and all-powerful.
Therefore, by His incarnation as arcā-vigraha, He can accept the services of the devotee, just to make it convenient for the man in conditional life.
So for a devotee there is no difficulty in approaching the Supreme immediately and directly, but for those who are following the impersonal way to spiritual realization the path is difficult.
They have to understand the unmanifested representation of the Supreme through such Vedic literatures as the Upaniṣads, and they have to learn the language, understand the non-perceptual feelings, and they have to realize all these processes.
This is not very easy for a common man.
A person in Krishna consciousness engaged in devotional service simply by the guidance of the bona fide spiritual master, simply by offering regulative obeisances unto the deity, simply by hearing the glories of the Lord, and simply by eating the remnants of foodstuffs offered to the Lord realizes the Supreme Personality of Godhead very easily.
There is no doubt that the impersonalists are unnecessarily taking a troublesome path with the risk of not realizing the Absolute Truth at the ultimate end.
But the personalist without any risk, trouble or difficulty, approaches the Supreme Personality directly. A similar passage appears in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
It is stated there that if one has to ultimately surrender unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead, this process—this surrendering process—is called bhakti, but instead takes the trouble to understand what is Brahman and what is not Brahman and spends his whole life in that way, the result is simply troublesome.
Therefore it is advised here that one should not take up this troublesome path of self-realization because there is uncertainty in the ultimate result.
A living entity is eternally an individual soul, and if he wants to merge into the spiritual whole, it will... but the blissful portion is not realized.
By the grace of some devotee, such a transcendentalist, highly learned in the process of jñāna-yoga, may come to the point of bhakti-yoga or devotional service.
At that time long practice in impersonalism also becomes a source of trouble because he cannot give up the idea.
Therefore, an embodied soul is always in difficulty with the unmanifest, both at the time of practice and at the time of realization.
Every living soul is partially independent, and one should know for certain that this unmanifested realization is against the nature of his spiritual blissful self. One should not take up this process.
For every individual living entity, the process of Krishna consciousness which entails full engagement in devotional service is the best way.
If one wants to ignore this devotional service, there is the danger of turning to atheism. Thus this process of centering the attention on the unmanifested by Lord Krishna.
He says if you throw away His grace He punishes you by behaving objectively toward you. And in that sense, one may say that the world has not got a personal God in spite of all the proofs.
But while dons and parsons, that is priests, dribble on, talk on about the millions of truths of God's personality, the truth is that there are no longer the men living who could bear the pressure and weight of having a personal God, because he feels that a personal God would make demands on man, and so therefore men reject the idea of a personal God.
Yes, personal God means He's demanding, as Krishna is divine.
Man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru. Always think of Me, become My devotee, worship Me, and become My devotee and give up all other engagement, simply be engaged in My service. This is the demand of God.
And if we carry out this demand, then we are perfect. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti. If you simply carry out the orders of God, then we become qualified, fit for going back to home, back to Godhead.
This is clearly stated. We have to give up this body. But a devotee, a pure devotee, after giving up this body, he doesn't accept another material body, but in his original spiritual body, he goes back to Godhead.
Well, that's the end of Tricky God.