Lord Balarama’s Appearance Day—One Teacher Many Voices

Giriraj Swami: So we are gathered here on the most auspicious occasion of Lord Balarama’s appearance day at the lotus feet of the deities of Sri Sri Krishna-Balarama. Lord Balarama is considered the original spiritual master. Of course, in terms of His existence, He is the first expansion of Lord Krishna, and as the first expansion of Lord Krishna, He is the first servant of Lord Krishna and thus He fulfills the function of the spiritual master of engaging in service to Krishna and giving knowledge of Krishna. 

Once in Calcutta Srila Prabhupada raised the question, “What is the duty of the spiritual master?” And then he gave the answer that the duty of the spiritual master is to serve Krishna and then he asked, “What is the duty of the disciple?” And then he gave the answer that the duty of the disciple is to assist the spiritual master. He gave the example that in the temple there are so many duties to perform and the spiritual master, as the servant of Krishna, is responsible for the service. So when the spiritual master tells the disciple to wash the floor the disciple should think that actually my spiritual master has to wash the floor and I am just assisting him. So Lord Balarama, as the first expansion of Krishna, is the first servant of Krishna. 

In terms of rasa, as Balarama, He serves Krishna as a friend in sākhya-rasa, but because He is elder to Krishna there is also a paternal element to Balarama’s service and therefore He is able to serve Krishna in vātsalya-rasa or with vātsalya-bhava but then again because He is the expansion of Krishna, He is the servant of Krishna and therefore He also serves Krishna in dāsya-rasa or dāsya-bhava. Of course there is one other rasa, mādhurya-rasa, and Balarama also wanted to serve Krishna in mādhurya-rasa and therefore He expanded Himself as Anaṅga-mañjarī who is the younger sister, I mean in terms of līlā, Anaṅga-mañjarī is the younger sister of Srimati Radharani, and thus Lord Balarama serves Krishna in mādhurya-rasa. 

So I am going to take a little break. I have a lot to say but I am going to take a little break now and let some other speak a little and then I will come out with what I want to say. 

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We have been discussing about Lord Balarama as the original spiritual master and about praying to Him for spiritual strength. Of course, bala means “strength” and rama means “pleasure.” So Balarama can give us spiritual strength and we actually derive pleasure with spiritual strength because with spiritual strength we can serve Krishna and by serving Krishna we experience the highest pleasure. In fact, bhakti is composed of two elements, two of Krishna’s potencies. One is saṁvit and one is hlādinī. Saṁvit means “knowledge,” knowledge of Krishna and hlādinī means “pleasure.” Bhakti is composed of knowledge of Krishna and pleasure. We give pleasure to Krishna through bhakti and we also experience pleasure through bhakti, through hlādinī-śakti which is personified as Srimati Radharani. 

As Srila Prabhupada has explained and as many scriptures explained spiritual master has two divisions dīkṣā-guru and śikṣā-guru. The rule is that one may accept only one dīkṣā-guru but he may accept many śikṣā-gurus although he need not in one context. When Srila Prabhupada detected that his disciples were sort of straying here and there he said, “I am your dīkṣā-guru and your śikṣā-guru.” But in principle, one may accept only one dīkṣā-guru but may accept many śikṣā-gurus on basis that śikṣā-gurus support one’s service to one’s dīkṣā-guru and there Srila Prabhupada gave the example that the dīkṣā-guru is like the father, just like you have only one father you have only one dīkṣā-guru. But anyone who helps you to understand—of course he was really talking about himself he was the dīkṣā-guru and because Srila Prabhupada is the founder-acharya, he has special position in the spiritual lives of all the devotees in ISKCON—and but anyway he said that although he was referring to himself as dīkṣā-guru of all of us at the time but he made the point that one has only one dīkṣā-guru just like one has only one father but that anyone who was helping one to understand what one’s dīkṣā-guru has taught or helping one to serve one’s dīkṣā-guru he can also be accepted as spiritual master or śikṣā-guru. 

Lord Balarama, as the original spiritual master manifests Himself through so many spiritual masters through the line, and for us Srila Prabhupada is the founder-acharya and for some of us he is our dīkṣā-guru as well. But even then Lord Balarama is manifesting in infinite number of forms. He speaks to us through infinite number of mouths and Srila Prabhupada also speaks to us through many mouths. Srila Prabhupada himself set the example by taking advice that others gave to him as if it was coming from his own spiritual master, for example, when the time came one of his godbrothers, Bhakti Prajna Kesava Maharaja advised him to take sannyasa. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura had instructed Srila Prabhupada to preach and Bhakti Prajna Kesava Gosvami Maharaja advised Srila Prabhupada that, “If you want to preach you should take sannyasa.” and later Srila Prabhupada commented that he felt that his Guru Maharaja had spoken to him through that godbrother and on occasion even an ordinary person can give us advice. I mean on occasion what we would call ordinary people gave Srila Prabhupada advice and he took it as God-sent, Lord Balarama. 

So recently I visited His Holiness Satsvarupa Maharaja who was my first temple president and śikṣā-guru as we were –actually as I was singing the second praṇāma-mantra to Srila Prabhupada, namas te sārasvate deve—-I thought of him because he is the one who taught me the mantra. In the beginning of ISKCON we didn’t have the second pranama-mantra. We only had the first one, nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya. He taught us that the second one and he taught us so much about spiritual life and when I joined he was also the editor of Back to Godhead magazine. So he was always encouraging devotees to write and he encouraged me to write and eventually I got the inspiration to write an article about ‘guru’, which he helped me with and eventually the article appeared in Back to Godhead. By then I had already gone to India and when Srila Prabhupada got the magazine and read the article, he called for me and he said, “I read your article. It is very nice. You should write.” So that is perhaps the main instruction Srila Prabhupada gave me because at the time he said that should be my main business to write. Of course in between there were many other services. Srila Prabhupada engaged me in the Juhu project but still the instruction was there, “You should write as your main business.” So when I went to visit Satsvarupa Maharaja, he pulled my book, Watering the Seed off of the shelf and he started to read from the back of it to where Srila Prabhupada said that, “You should write.” and my main business is to write and he was sort of prodding me what am I doing. I had already told him about the festival book but he considered that there was a difference between a book, which is a collection of shorter pieces, and a book which is written from beginning to end. Of course I explained that——but anyway—- I accepted the point. I told him that I knew that but that to really write a whole book from beginning to end specially about historical period would require a lot of concentration and that right now on the one hand Visakha Priya was still compiling the basic material about Bombay and on the other hand I was involved with the hospice and the widows’ ashram in Vrindavan and even though they didn’t take that much time they sort of—they require the type of attention that I couldn’t immerse myself in that historical period while I had like different—this type of service. But I felt that probably within a few months the festival book would probably be finished. Visakha Priya would have most of the material organized and at the same time the hospice and the kirtan ashram wouldn’t be so troublesome for me. The talk was pleasant and when he was reading I actually felt—very deeply I felt Srila Prabhupada’s presence. I felt he was speaking with authority that was coming from Srila Prabhupada and then we discussed various topics and parted our ways and I didn’t think so much of it after I went back to where I was staying and then went for my walk. But the next morning, I found a tremendous impetus within me both to work on the Boston book –sorry to work on the Bombay book and to move the hospice project and the kirtan ashram along faster so that I could be free from those disturbances so that I could concentrate on the Bombay book and I actually did some work on the Bombay book which I hadn’t done for a few weeks and sort of did somethings to push the hospice and other projects along. So I thought this is spiritual master. He gives the appropriate instruction and on top of it he gives the inspiration or the empowerment to do it. This is spiritual master. 

Later I mentioned the incident to Aghari Prabhu who is in charge of Satsvarupa Maharaja’s care, sort of organizes his medical care and the other services around him and in fact he has provided the house where Satsvarupa Maharaja’s stays. I told him my little story and he told me his little story that he had joined, not sure it was late ‘76 or sometime in ‘77, but he had never had much association with Srila Prabhupada. He just saw him four or five times and he was initiated by Srila Prabhupada and then in November 14 1977 Srila Prabhupada left and Aghari Prabhu said he was just devastated, just I don’t know, he didn’t expect it. Somehow he just felt devastated and he felt like a great sadness in his heart that was just lingering and then Satsvarupa Maharaja returned from India, from Vrindavan. He gave a series of talks, which were published as a small book, very beautiful small book called, ‘He lives forever,’ black and white picture of Srila Prabhupada on the cover. Anyway he said somehow Satsvarupa Maharaja came back from India and like went into his heart and did something and took away all the sadness like it just went away, just wasn’t there. So then he was saying that is his guru. He is able to do that. 

The idea is that Lord Balarama speaks through an infinity of mouths. He works through infinity of agents who we can call spiritual masters and in our context we find the same thing with Srila Prabhupada. He is the founder-acharya, he is the world-acharya and he is also the direct spiritual master of some of us but even otherwise he is the main instructor for many many devotees and he also works through his agents and as I felt he was working through Satsvarupa Maharaja with me and then I thought back of my first article that Satsvarupa Maharaja had helped me with and Srila Prabhupada was pleased by it and I have always been wondering how I could actually write a book. I mean, I can write small pieces and I can sort of assemble the small pieces in some sort of collection but wasn’t sure how I would write a whole book and even then it is not just a question of writing a whole book. It is also a question of what to write because we have the Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta. There is a lot of historical information in it but what is my contribution? Why am I writing? Am I just more or less say the same thing and add some details.? And I knew the answer is that, no I am writing because I have to share my realizations with Srila Prabhupada and my realizations about my service to Srila Prabhupada but how to do it I couldn’t say and His Holiness Satsvarupa dasa Gosvami gave me some ideas but I am sure when I actually start to work with the material, things will become clear and things will also become clear that somethings were not clear and I wouldn’t want him to hear that I am expecting that he’ll help me because I don’t want to put him in anxiety but I know he will just like—he helped me with my first article so that’s given me a lot of confidence, not just hope but assurance that the effort can be successful. At the end of the whole series of realizations that he was going to help me with the book I felt very elated, actually felt very elated—I am going back to Godhead, I am going back to Godhead and I was actually thinking Satsvarupa Maharaja was taking me back to Godhead, how? By helping me write the books and by writing the books may be you know—-at least I have to do that before I could go back. What else? At least I have to do that. So I thank His Holiness Satsvarupa dasa Gosvami for all the help he has given me over the years and to Srila Prabhupada for bringing me close to him. That was also very interesting how Srila Prabhupada brought me close to him although I had so many authorities who were very helpful to me but at the same time Srila Prabhupada also sort of well—there is one instance it was the first time he actually asked for me to speak to him alone and from then on even though I was under other senior devotees he also would reciprocate with me directly. Still I was under their guidance and their management and so I thank Srila Prabhupada for all the help that he has sent to me through his other disciples like Satsvarupa Maharaja, Tamal Krishna Goswami, His Holiness Śrīdhara Maharaja, so many others and ultimately I must express my gratitude and appreciation to Lord Balarama who is the origin of all of it. I could go on but just with the deities that are here would take a long time. 

I might also mention that one of our devotees here who have been doing service for about three years in the area, her grace Krsangi dasi will be leaving soon back to Mauritius to engage in service there. So we also would like to express our appreciation and gratitude to her for all the wonderful service she did while she was here especially with the tape ministry. Just with her in LA it is partly in shambles so when she goes to Mauritius I do not even know what will happen to it but we all have our destinies to fulfill. It seems to be in her destiny to go back to Mauritius to do service there for some time. So we pray to Lord Balarama to give her strength in her new service and mission and to Srila Prabhupada to send her—well to Lord Balarama and Srila Prabhupada to provide, to speak to her in ways that she can hear, through mouths that she can hear even while she is geographically separated from us. We are sure that her future in devotional service is very bright. She is very bright and very sincere. So we should all give her our best wises and prayers to Lord Balarama and Srila Prabhupada to give her strength in her service. 

Hare Krishna!