Guru and Disciple Relationships
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · Italy · 2025
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Invocation and introductory prayers
Namaḥ oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine Namaste sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī- प्रचारिне nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaḥ ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca patitānām pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ
Jaya Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Prabhu Nityānanda Śrī Advaita Gadādhara Śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare
Pradisha Mamavacamprasuta Vasakalah Pasidatam Dayandu Butani Shivamitodya Manashavadram Bajata Doksha Jadesya Tamati Ratya to ki.
So first of all, I would like to thank and express my gratitude to Madhavananda Prabhu, to Prabhudasi Prabhu, to Aviram Thakur Prabhu for hosting this retreat in Italy.
I beg your forgiveness for not being present as I was supposed to be. Here in Govardhan we also have little retreats so we have a little audience in front of me too.
And again I'm very very grateful to Madhavananda Prabhu for holding the fort and uh giving his association to all those devotees who have come for this event.
Now, regarding the topic which you introduced, I will speak a few words on this very important topic.
So, in one sense, When we're talking about spiritual life, when it comes to spiritual life, it seems to be very natural to have a teacher, to have a guide. Because spiritual life is a practical discipline.
It's not a theoretical discipline. When it comes to theory, you may not need a guide if you have little brain and internet connection.
So if these two conditions are fulfilled, then you know for any theoretical discipline you just need to download some information, study this information, retain this information in your memory, and operate with this information, whatever you like.
But when it comes to practical disciplines, like simple disciplines playing music or surgery, much more difficult practical discipline, you need an experienced guide.
Because the discipleship or studentship implies transmission of some experience, not just transmission of theoretical knowledge.
When I was a university student we usually had big, big lectures where you know 200 plus people were present and some big professors would come to these lectures to deliver the speech.
And I was usually sitting back in the audience somewhere and was wondering why do we waste our time? You know, he's speaking something which I already know.
And why does he have to have such a big professor to speak such platitudes? Which which is a common kind of knowledge. And uh what does it mean, all his degrees and uh credentials?
Uh You know, if any normal person can explain the same things. So it was not clear, it's still not clear to me why such pomp should be accompanied with you know explaining some theoretical knowledge.
But But when we had smaller groups and we had some practical lessons, it was much more entertaining and much more interesting and much more useful too.
Because again, for practical knowledge, it's very difficult to transmit it if you have a bigger group. You cannot really transmit, you cannot really make the practical knowledge as a mass production.
You cannot make a conveyor belt of practical knowledge. Practical knowledge implies in normal sense, in ordinary sense in you know in our life, basically, heart to heart relationship.
And it's usually being done by experienced teacher who is transmitting knowledge not just by saying or speaking something, but by showing something in his own example and by establishing the connection with the student.
This connection with the student, heart to heart connection, when the student manifests certain eagerness, certain desire, certain enthusiasm to learn, it melts the heart of a teacher.
And when the heart of a teacher is in this melted state, liquid state, then the experience which is accumulated over the years of his own practice is naturally flowing from his heart to the heart of the student.
So therefore, this personal relationship is a prerequisite of transmission of some practical knowledge.
Even in chess playing, the biggest chess players, the best chess players, the most intelligent people in the world who know and who have this intuition, they still need their trainers with some experience to become really good, you can to a certain extent obtain practical knowledge without a guide, but you will never be really good.
Experiencing God beyond theoretical knowledge
You will always remain on a mediocre level at best if it comes for this transmission of practical knowledge.
And when we're talking about spiritual life, spiritual life is a practical knowledge because you cannot just learn the theory. There is God and there is a relationship with God.
No, you have to really experience the presence of God. Unless you experience the presence of God in your heart and in nature and in your life, you will always remain doubtful.
You will always remain in a state of doubts whether God exists or not, whether he hears my prayers or not, and if he does hear my prayers, why does he remain silent? Why is he not answering my prayers?
Why is he just keeping mom without saying a word? I am here crying and I am desperate and I'm trying to establish some relationship, but there's no answer.
I heard once a joke that in Jerusalem there is this Wall of tears, the remains of the second temple which was destroyed, and the Orthodox Jews they come to this wall of tears and uh they spend uh the whole day uh praying in front of this wall of tears and they are you know doing this very uh pitiful kind of movements and uh repeating some prayers, Jewish prayers.
So there was one Jew who was praying to this wall of prayers of tears for 50 years. And there was a big celebration.
He came, this was the 50th anniversary when he started doing this ritual, sitting in front of this wall and doing these very ardent prayers.
And one journalist came to celebrate the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his continuous prayers.
And the journalist being naive, he asked him the question: how do you feel after 50 years of praying and praying and praying? What is your feeling? And the answer was, I feel like I'm praying to the wall.
He is praying in front of the wall.
So the idea here is that if you do it on your own, then uh you can uh expect uh the response from God which this poor Jewish person received, you just feel that nothing is really happening.
So, again, in one sense, it seems to be the most natural because that's why that's the reason why we came to spiritual life.
We came to spiritual life not for some theoretical knowledge. We came to spiritual life to experience something which we didn't experience otherwise.
Experience the happiness which was not available to us in our quote unquote normal life. Experience some peace, some extreme joy or even more elevated emotional states.
So, and for that, we definitely need somebody who does have this experience of joy, peace, and elevated emotional states.
Two primary qualifications of guru
Otherwise, why would we become his disciples? And therefore it is explained in the 11th canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that there are two main qualities of a teacher Bhagavatam that there are two main qualities of a teacher
or spiritual master of a guru. Tasmād gurum prapadyeta jijñāsuḥ śreya uttamam.
If you want to achieve śreya uttamam, the highest good, the highest benefit, the best which you can achieve in this life, you have to surrender to guru.
You have to basically relinquish your independence and become the disciple, which means to follow certain discipline, to follow the orders of a guru, to become an obedient servant of a guru.
And śabda-pare niṣṇātaḥ, the two main qualities of a guru is that he is niṣṇātaḥ. Niṣṇātaḥ means that he is very expert. An expert in śabda-brahman and Parabrahman.
Expert in śabda-brahman basically means he's expert in theoretical knowledge, he knows śabda. Śabda means revelation, śabda means scriptures.
So he has to be expert because the theory, the theoretical knowledge, has to be there. It's a part of our studies. There is no doubt about it. We should not underestimate the need of theoretical knowledge.
We have to understand very clearly the logic because without understanding the logic, the unusual transcendental logic of scriptures, transcendental logic of revelation, of śabda of Vedas, we will not be able to concentrate our endeavors on spiritual practice.
Because the doubts will practically destroy our enthusiasm. There will always be doubts and doubts will remain till the moment when we see God face to face. So it may take some time. It may of course happen tomorrow.
Nobody knows. But most probably it will not happen tomorrow. Most probably it will take little longer and more endeavors for us to achieve this elevated state of consciousness when we become eligible to see God.
So therefore, śabde-pare, śabde, śabda-brahman and niṣṇāta is the first qualification for Guru, but the second qualification of a guru is that parā-brahman-niṣṇāta. He is expert in para Brahman.
Parabrahman means transcendental Brahman. It basically means that his consciousness does not fully belong to this world.
It basically means that his consciousness is transmitted or transferred or projected to the spiritual realm and by being present in the spiritual reality, at least partially.
Maybe not fully, maybe not completely, because he has to be present in this world at least for some time, at least while he's eating, or of course, you know, for some very elevated saints, even while they're eating, they are not really in this world, they are in transcendental realm.
But in any case, at least for some time his consciousness has to be in the spiritual reality, and he has to experience the spiritual reality.
And by experiencing spiritual reality, he will be able to instill the enthusiasm within the heart of his disciple.
He will be able to transmit the emotions of joy and peace and happiness which he is himself experiencing while being with God. It's a mystical process, it's somewhat mystical
thing, but you know, sometimes uh anyone who has some spiritual experience knows that all of a sudden he has completely causeless feeat of happiness. -> feat of happiness. There is no external cause of happiness, and still he is happy.
He is happy despite external circumstances. And this happiness does not have any material causes. This happiness is difficult to explain, but it's easy to experience if you have this experience.
And in the beginning, when we have this experience of causeless joy we may attribute it to some you know sentimental condition of our mind or anything else.
But when this experience is being repeated, when it comes again and again and again in our life,
and when it comes to our life in the most difficult situations, which sometimes happens, then we see it's a confirmation. There is a higher reality which is intervening with my life.
I remember in the very beginning I was very, very—I'm still very, very beginner in this spiritual path because the spiritual past is not easy.
But I had a few experiences of this kind when I was in the most externally difficult situation, when I was basically
interrogated by some you know uh secret service secret intelligence service and uh was uh was threatened uh there were promising to me that I would end up in prison in labor camp and I basically my whole life will be ruined because I was engaged in the spiritual discipline.
And in this moment of time, couple of times, I wouldn't say that it was always like this, but uh at least uh on a few occasions all of a sudden, in the middle of this complete messy and traumatic circumstances, I would feel that I would feel extreme waves of joy, so much so that I would look at this officer with a lot of pity
in my eyes, and I would internally say, why you're wasting your time? You should better chant Hare Kṛṣṇa instead of doing this nonsense.
So uh when this comes in this kind of situations, when this sort of uh experience comes to you, then you kind of become more serious and you understand there is a higher reality which is ready to intervene.
And again, God is very, very tactful when he intervenes in our life, and he does, he actually does it on a daily basis, if not more often. He is there, he is absorbing everything which is there, and he comes.
He comes at least you know he's he's definitely guiding us. He's definitely watching us, guiding us. If we have even a little spark of spiritual desire to become more connected with Him. He is there to help us.
But He is very tactful. When He is intervening into our life, He is doing it in a very tactful manner, perhaps too tactful, so much so that we may not even notice how he is doing it.
But nevertheless, in certain circumstances, He shows He removes our doubts.
He gets into our life and he says, I'm here, hello. Yeah. And then disappears again into some sort of darkness which is covering over our consciousness and again we are quote unquote left alone, even though we're never left alone.
Mechanism of guru disciple connection
So again, what I want to say is that we need to have a teacher to speed up this process of uh uh acquiring transcendental experience. Uh and uh I already explained the mechanism how it works. The mechanism is like this.
When the connection is established, and with this connection is real, when it's not just official connection. When we're not just satisfied with formal connection with the teacher.
For some people they don't need anything else. They need just some formal connection, some formal approval, and they're happy with this. And that's something, some starting point. It's a good point to start with.
It may not be the ideal, but it's okay. But when the real connection is established, then when the spiritual master sees the endeavors of a disciple, then his heart naturally melts.
And therefore, it is stressed in our scriptures that we need a teacher, but the teacher, one one condition, one other condition, which has to be there in place, the teacher has to be not indifferent.
He has to have snigda. Snigda basically means some oil within his heart. Oil means the oil of love.
He has to be he has to have some kind of strong desire to bring some happiness to his disciples, some progress to his disciples. He has to pray to God.
My dear Lord, please give this particular such and such das or such and such devidasi some very profound experience. Please give them enthusiasm, give them the power to continue with spiritual life.
So if this is in place, then uh naturally and that definitely requires certain uh condition of humility on the part of disciple and uh emotional Emotional involvement of a guru in the disciple's life.
So again, I started explaining this that in one sense to have a guru and to become a disciple is the most natural thing.
Resistance to authority in modern times
But there is another point which is following, which is follows, which follows, and that is in another sense, it's very, very unnatural.
Because we are being independent, modern thinking people, it's very difficult for us to understand this concept. Why do we need a guru? Why do we need to surrender?
Why do we need to somehow or other to enter into this troublesome relationship? Why do we need to get rid of our independence? Why this whole thing is, why it should be there?
And there are a lot of spiritual movements in these earths which minimize the need of a spiritual teacher for spiritual practices, the whole Protestant religion is basically like this.
The whole Protestant religion appeared as a reaction to misuse of this spiritual power.
And you know, it's not unusual in spiritual life, when somebody in the position of a teacher or spiritual master gaining this power over the life of his or her disciples would misuse it.
Again and again and again in the spiritual history of humanity and in the spiritual history even of our little glorious movement, International Society for Krishna Consciousness, we can see that people misuse this position.
And by misusing this position of power, it's a very powerful position, and therefore there is a great temptation to misuse this position in your own interests.
And by misusing this position, they're ruining the spiritual life of people.
And as a reaction to this, as a natural reaction to this, completely natural and understandable reaction to this sort of phenomena, the different kinds of philosophies are being developed
that actually we don't need a teacher, or we need just formal initiation, or we can just, you know, get it from Jesus Christ or whatever. So we don't need heart-to-heart relationship. We don't need too close relationship.
It's very dangerous. It's not good for your spiritual life. Ultimately, you know, you don't have to surrender. Just you know, just do whatever scriptures say. Actually, that's the real meaning of the word Protestant.
Oftentimes people misinterpret this word Protestant as somebody who is protesting against something. Actually the word Protestant doesn't mean protesting. It means pro-Testament.
It basically means the spiritual movement which diminished the role of a spiritual teacher or guide or priest in favor of the testament or the scripture.
You don't need the guide, everything else, everything you need is there in the scripture. The only thing which you need is just to follow as meticulously as possible whatever is there.
And that's why the whole Protestant religion appeared, pro-Testament, no need of priests, no need of intermediary somebody the intermediate link between me and God. And in one sense it's true.
In one sense, you know, God is there in the heart of every living entity. He revealed his will in his scriptures. And why do you need uh somebody between you and God?
You can directly address God in your prayers and everything else. So these two positions are there and usually
people are kind of you know choosing between these two position and take uh certain stance uh in uh this uh whole uh spiritual mess or whatever. And uh so uh again uh uh to restate my original thesis.
Yes, in one sense it's very understandable we need a guide. And from the other point of view, it's also very understandable we don't need any guide.
Why why should we why should we really get into trouble by entering into this personal relationship and especially for us again, modern people, entering into relationship is very difficult.
That's why the family life is in such a mess and shambles because it's difficult because relationship means some obligation, relationship means troubles, relationship means you know relationship it's a mess.
It's always a mess.
Scriptural imperative of accepting guru
So uh so uh these two positions are there and they are uh on two sides of the scale. But of course, if we want to truly follow the Vedas, the spiritual scriptures
of Great Bharata, Great India, then they stress again and again and again the need of a teacher. The Vedic Protestantism has never been popular in India till recent years.
In recent years, of course, we do have Vedic versions of Protestantism. But But because again the need and the stress of a teacher is so greatly emphasized,
the whole Mahābhārata, the whole hundred thousand verses of Mahābhārata start from three stories about the relationship of disciple and guru, of Shishya and Guru, disciple and teacher.
And these three stories, three very interesting and very dramatic stories, they show three kinds of disciple. Disciple in the mode of ignorance, disciple in the mode of passion, and disciple in the mode of goodness.
But in any case, no matter in which mode you are now, what is your state of consciousness in any case the lesson of the three stories beginning stories of Mahābhārata they're all the same, you need a guru.
Even if you are a disciple in the mode of uh ignorance, uh still you need a guru. Uh and uh still it will be helpful, still, it is very very beneficial to have Guru.
Of course, Vedas also warning us that you should examine your guru, you should not be in a hurry in entering this relationship. You should know the criteria how to enter into this relationship.
So Vedas do not favor this Protestant point of view. They uh it definitely this kind of spiritual practice may give you some benefit,
but ultimately if you de-emphasize the role of a spiritual guide or spiritual teacher or spiritual instructor in your life, you can be sure about one thing: that ultimately, your understanding of spiritual life and spiritual practice will be shifted on the side of material activities.
In a sense that you will always look for some material benefit derived from your spiritual practices. That's unfortunately the result. Or you will go into another extreme and you will be driven by the desire for liberation.
So these two extremes, karma and jñāna, they are there as a very again natural tendencies within our heart, and uh if you don't have spiritual guide and relationship, real relationship with spiritual uh teacher, then there is a great chance that you will either go into one extreme or another extreme.
And we can see this again in the spiritual history of humanity or religious history of humanity basically the whole American culture was created by Protestants.
Protestants were severely persecuted in Europe, and because of this persecution, they moved to America, the land of religious freedom, and they created the whole culture of America and the whole culture of America which was ultimately transmitted back into Europe.
This is how it was done historically. This very powerful Protestant, culture of Protestant values, of being very successful materially person, it was ultimately exported from America practically all over the world.
If you see the Protestant teachers or Protestant preachers who are you know preaching sometimes very vigorously, they very much emphasize the material success as an indicator of your spiritual development.
Ultimately, you know, if you're a good person and if you're a religious person, you have to be materially successful.
And there is plenty of different seminars given by these Protestant teachers: how to become successful, how to become rich, how to obtain this level of well-being in this material world.
So we can see historically how it goes.
Navigating the narrow path of devotion
You are emphasizing the uh involvement into your life, uh, somebody who is more spiritually experienced, and as a result, uh you get this uh inclination uh into some you you substitute your spiritual development with the material progress or material success.
So especially in the path of bhakti, which is a very narrow path in between these two extremes, the extreme of karma and extreme of jñāna, which is a narrow path of spiritual emotions between these two desires, which are very prominent in our heart.
Either desire for liberation. I'm sick and tired of this material life. I won't just you know uh commit spiritual suicide. I don't want to exist.
God is, you know, everything is so evil and so bad and this world is so bad and let me nurse into God and whoever he is. You know, let me not exist.
This is one tendency very strong in our heart. And another tendency: okay, everything is fine. Let us be successful and let us not to be very much, uh, hanged up about the future existence and this and that.
So if we want to take this narrow path, which is according to Kaṭha Upaniṣad, kṣurasya dhārā niśitā duratyayā, so it's like a razor edge, uh the edge of the razor. It's very narrow.
If you want to do this, then you have to have a guide in this journey. This is not an easy journey.
This is the journey which promises a lot, especially in the beginning, and gives a lot of spiritual enthusiasm in the beginning, but then the path becomes more and more and more and more narrow, and the whole situation becomes more and more dense.
Dense not in the sense of dancing, but it becomes very dense, very thick. You know, you're going through a very dark and unknown place.
Many spiritual seekers they experience this dark side of the soul or dark night of the soul, when you are in a very critical condition. And you already... And even Arjuna is expressing this doubt to Kṛṣṇa.
He says, Kṛṣṇa, you know, what if I start this spiritual journey and I will not arrive to the destination? Where I will be? Well, I where I will find myself.
I I already left uh something which I know and I didn't come uh to something which is uh supposed to uh uh Be, I will not achieve. Will I not become like a cloud which is completely torn apart, torn apart by the wind.
So of course Krishna says, don't worry, don't worry, don't worry, everything will be okay. You know, there is no loss, everything will be okay. And everything will be okay. There's no doubt about it.
The spiritual path is a sure path of success because we're meant for spirituality. By our very constitution and nature, we're meant to practice something spiritual.
The vacuum which any living entity, any human being feels if he's not he or she is not practicing spirituality is so pronounced and acute that basically, he or she have to take drugs or to be completely drowned in sex or to be engaged in all kinds of nonsense just to fill up this emptiness in the heart.
So again, spiritual life is difficult, but it's important. It's vital.
It's natural for a human being to become some sort of spiritualist and to try different spiritual practice and ultimately, find your path which will bring you closer to God.
But because it's a journey and not an easy journey. You really have to have some guide who will say, you know, this is this is a problem. This is a mistake which you are doing in a very again spontaneous way.
Not being a bad person, but because you're prone... We are all prone to do some mistakes. This is some extreme you're going into. Please return into the path which for sure will bring you to complete success.
So that's that's the need. And yes, it is difficult, yes, spiritual life is difficult, yes, sometimes we become frustrated, disillusioned, or you know, disgusted even.
I see it again and again and again, you know, there is some negative emotions which are coming.
And basically it's uh it's natural, it's honest. Certain part of our being attached to this material existence revolts against spiritual discipline, revolts against spiritual practice, revolts against spiritual teachings, even.
You know, this rebellious nature is there, we should not underestimate it, we should not uh downplay this sort of uh acquired nature which is there within our heart.
And that's why we need a guide who is loving, who is personal, who does not try to turn your spiritual life into some conveyor belt, who will not exploit your most subtle sentiment which you have within your heart who will not exploit your spiritual aspirations which you have, who will not betray you, who will guide you till the end, and who will be there waiting for you in a spiritual world to receive you and to introduce you to your new family and new environment.
So So while explaining these two different positions, I obviously favored one of those. Because uh that is our teaching.
And Madhavananda Prabhu uh he has a lot of experience in this regard and I'm sure he can share some of his experience, perhaps good experiences and maybe not so good experiences.
And we all have, we all have some good experiences and not so good experiences.
Recognizing divine presence through guru
But ultimately we have uh to and actually let me spend two more minutes before I finish this completely unprepared talk uh on this very difficult subject matter.
So ultimately, what I wanted to say: why it is so difficult and why it is so necessary for us
to accept Guru because the most difficult, perhaps one of the most difficult points of our philosophy is to say that you should accept your guru as practically as as good God. And all the Shastras say this.
You have to you have to have a certain attitude and you have to uh uh you know accept certain person who has obvious flaws.
I remember when somebody first uh showed me a picture of a spiritual master and said he's a perfect being and I saw that this perfect being on a photograph had glasses and I was wondering how he is perfect if he wears glasses because glasses means he is imperfect.
So this is the most difficult point of our philosophy to accept somebody who has obvious flaws, obvious deficiencies, obvious kind of human traits.
To accept somebody who is obviously human uh in your life as on the level of God. So why it is so necessary because uh Because we don't hear the voice of God within our heart.
Because our soul is in darkness, our consciousness is in darkness, because we are like this poor Orthodox Jew who has been praying to the wall of tears for 50 years and never get any response.
For that, we need somebody who will speak straight and directly to us. And when He speaks to us, we have to accept that it is God Himself who is speaking to us through this particular person.
And when we recognize the voice and the tone of God, who is speaking through somebody whom we accepted irrevocably in our life as the spiritual guide and spiritual authority.
When we recognize the tone and the tenor of the voice of God speaking through a particular spiritual master to whom we surrendered, then we will be able to recognize the presence of God within our life, and ultimately we will hear the voice of God within our heart.
And sometimes we may be surprised because God will speak with us from within our heart with the voice of our teacher. And we will hear His voice within our heart.
Or somebody else, like Śrīla Prabhupāda, in a number of occasions. He would meet with an ordinary person, and an ordinary person would tell him something and he will say, Oh, this is my spiritual master speaking to me.
Oh, this is God Himself who is speaking to me through this particular person.
So we have to recognize the voice of God by entering into this relationship and then there is more chance for us, much more chance that we will hear the real voice of God, whether it will be this you know frequency or some other frequency, but there is much bigger chance for us that the voice of God will be more uh pronounced and more uh audible uh within our heart as a reply to our prayers, to our practices, to our tears of desperation and tears of despair when we are in difficult situations.
At least this has happened to me. I'm uh in one sense uh expressing my experience uh in the beginning I said that uh I had some experience uh of of the involvement of God in my life in a very difficult kind of situation.
And in these situations, God appeared from within my heart and his voice was exactly the voice of my spiritual teacher to whom I was, I must say, quite surrendered at that time.
So I heard his voice and I understood, oh, this is God. He is saving me from the sin. He is helping me. He is intervening into my life. So So that's my uh little introduction or uh contribution to this topic.
Thank you very much, Hare Kṛṣṇa. I don't hear what you are saying but I I believe you.
So Gumaraj, any questions possible? Uh well for a couple of more mi couple of minutes we can dedicate to question and answer if there is any but not more than couple of minutes Yes. I have a comment.
I just thought it was really uh uh telling that as soon as you finished it started pouring down rain. Thank you very much. Wonderful talk. Okay. Thank you, Madam Nandaprabhu. Thank you again for coming to this retreat.
Really, really appreciated. So any question?
Maintaining personal connections in modern times
Yes. Yes. for staying even though not presently unpersonally present when you are present as if you are in person with this top anymore.
So my question is you said that the relationship is with the master it must be personal and also an almighty tradition because it has always been personal person and we few disciples So how to manage this concept nowadays that it is not easy to have few disciples if you are not qualified. And if you are not qualified, better not to have any one percent.
So how to deal with this appealing contradiction within modern time and also movement that we need we need to make followers and to spread consciousness consciousness around the world.
And so thousands of people attracted to come, but there's also not enough uh qualified guys in numbers to ready to Or if they, as the pastors taught us, if there were some uh some someho otherw did qualify, but because too many people arrived all together and they they support it
The question is very uh relevant. The question is basically, you know, uh if a spiritual teacher is qualified, then how in a modern scenario you can expect that he has very few disciples because you can only maintain personal relationship if you have a few disciples, and in the modern scenario, you know you immediately have thousands of disciples and you have to travel all over the world and Śrīla Prabhupāda establish Krishna consciousness and you know how to remain personal in this completely impersonal modern world and how to maintain personal relationship with the guru who has 5,000 other personal relationships and how the guru can manage so many personal relationships and you know how much uh liquid he has to have in his heart to give to so many disciples?
Well, it's a difficult question indeed. And yes, we are dealing with the personal world,
we are dealing with all these modern technologies which very rapidly depersonalize relationship, all this social media, Zoom and everything else, you know, and even mobile phones.
They give an illusion of relationship but ultimately destroy relationship. To easy access, you know, all the Zoom stuff and uh you know messengers, Whatsapp and Telegram.
Ultimately, they they destroy the deep heart-to-heart relationship because they give a substitute, they give an illusion of some sort of relationship.
And then, of course, internet, you can always download a lecture of your spiritual and you know, listen the lecture, don't even have to download, it's there on YouTube and you are there on YouTube and you're all tubed together on YouTube, and you're doing something, and with one ear you listen to the lecture of your spiritual master.
Well, despite all these difficulties, we should try to remain personal.
And we should not also underestimate the involvement of God into this relationship because if the disciple is real, and if guru is real, and if their relationship is real, if the disciple expresses a real mood of surrender, then also God is there and He also reciprocates.
We many times have this experience, we have some very important question in our mind and we want to ask Guru and we we you know somehow rather we turned on his lecture and here he is uh talking and answering exact our question which we had in mind.
So, who guided us to turn on this particular lecture of a guru? It was Krishna, he was in the heart.
He knew the question and he answered the question through the normal or proper channel how our spiritual questions have to be answered.
So if if the relationship, if the intention, let's put it like this, if the intention of a guru and the intention of a disciple are real and strong to maintain personal relationship, then this personal relationship will be facilitated by Krishna himself by different means.
The ardent desire in the heart of a disciple to enter into personal relationship with Guru and the ardent desire of Guru to help his disciple will not be unanswered.
It will definitely be somehow rather answered, and we have to have strong faith in it.
And we know that, you know, Śrīla Prabhupāda's involvement in the life of his disciples sometimes very tangible, even though he was not personally present.
So if we maintain this attitude, yes, I want to be in personal relationship, then Krishna will facilitate this personal connection and personal relationship.
But it's very important for us to not to become frustrated and to insist, yes, I need personal relationship.
This personal relationship will be the personal touch in the relationship will remain despite of all these objective difficulties. I guess we should finish our talk today. Thank you very much. Thank you, Purnachandra.
Thank you. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Thank you.