SB 7.7.30 – Association and Guru-seva

Giriraj Swami: Today, we shall read from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Seven, Chapter Seven, “What Prahlāda Learned in the Womb,” Texts Thirty and Thirty-One. Only Text Thirty has been written on the board, so we will chant that one responsively. Please repeat.

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

TEXT 30

guru-śuśrūṣayā bhaktyā
sarva-labdhārpaṇena ca
saṅgena sādhu-bhaktānām
īśvarārādhanena ca

COMMENT

Can someone turn this? Because it’s facing away from them. But move it back a little so they can also see.

TEXT 31

śraddhayā tat-kathāyāṁ ca
kīrtanair guṇa-karmaṇām
tat-pādāmburuha-dhyānāt
tal-liṅgekṣārhaṇādibhiḥ

TRANSLATION

One must accept the bona fide spiritual master and render service unto him with great devotion and faith. Whatever one has in one’s possession should be offered to the spiritual master, and in the association of saintly persons and devotees one should worship the Lord, hear the glories of the Lord with faith, glorify the transcendental qualities and activities of the Lord, always meditate on the Lord’s lotus feet, and worship the Deity of the Lord strictly according to the injunctions of the śāstra and guru.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

In the previous verse it has been said that the process which immediately increases one’s love and affection for the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the best of the many thousands of ways to become free from the entanglement of material existence. It is also said, dharmasya tattvaṁ nihitaṁ guhāyām: actually the truth of religious principles is extremely confidential. Nonetheless, it can be understood very easily if one actually adopts the principles of religion. As it is said, dharmaṁ tu sākṣād bhagavat-praṇītam: the process of religion is enunciated by the Supreme Lord because He is the supreme authority. This is also indicated in the previous verse by the word bhagavatoditaḥ. The injunctions or directions of the Lord are infallible, and their benefits are fully assured. According to His directions, which are explained in this verse, the perfect form of religion is bhakti-yoga.

COMMENT

So, I will read the previous verse because it is leading up to and important in relation to today’s verse.

TEXT 29

Of the different processes recommended for disentanglement from material life, the one personally explained and accepted by the Supreme Personality of Godhead should be considered all-perfect. That process is the performance of duties by which love for the Supreme Lord develops.

COMMENT

So, we are all entangled in material existence, and entanglement of material existence involves so many problems and difficulties. Janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam. The Bhagavad-gītā instructs us to always be aware of the faults of material existence; of the repetition of birth, death, old age, and disease. And those are just the primary miseries.

There are other miseries that afflict us all the time, unlimited, but one is anger, another is sorrow, another is anxiety, another is fear. We are always subject to these miseries. But most ordinary people try to distract themselves from the real problems of life, from the pain of material existence. And they do so in endless varieties of ways - useless books and magazines, useless television programs and films, all varieties of sense gratification; meat-eating, taking intoxicants, gambling, indulging in illicit sex.

But although they try to distract themselves, ultimately, the reality exists, which is that they are in an awkward position in material existence, they are spiritual beings. The soul, like the Supreme Soul, is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha, it is by nature eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss. And in material conditioned existence, they are covered by the material body, and thus they experience temporary life, ignorance, and pain.

So, when we become a little sober, a little intelligent, we can face the reality of our existence as it is, and then we can make some solution. Otherwise, as long as we remain engaged in various activities to divert us and distract us and entertain us and amuse us, we will remain in the same regrettable position.

Recently, I’ve been listening to discussions between Srila Prabhupada and newspaper and magazine reporters. And one of them was saying that people feel that we are negative about life. Srila Prabhupada said, “The reason is because they have a different perspective, and we have a different perspective. They are living in the prison, and that is all they know. Now, if I come and tell people, ‘Prison life is not good, you should leave the prison, your real life is outside the prison in freedom,’ is that negative? No, that’s very positive. ‘Get out of the prison and enjoy life and freedom.’ But because all they know is prison life, they think, He is being negative. No, it’s very positive.”

And similarly, the reporter said, “People say that you are taking your disciples, so many young men and women who could be contributing to the world, out of society and depriving the world of their contribution.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “It’s the same problem, that they have a different perspective and we have a different perspective.

They are in the prison, breaking bricks, and they are looking at us and saying, ‘Why aren’t these people breaking bricks too? They are not contributing.’ But our contribution is different. Our contribution is to tell the prisoners, ‘This is not your real life, to break bricks. You don’t have to break bricks. You can leave the prison and enjoy life and freedom.’ But they are thinking, Swamiji is taking so many young men and women and depriving the world of their contribution of breaking bricks.”

And then another reporter asked him, “How do you deal with negativity?” And Srila Prabhupada said, “What do you mean by negativity?” “Well, people who are against you.” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “Why are you asking me this question? Everyone has people who are for them and everyone has people who are against them. Don’t you have people who are against you?” He said, “Yes.” “So, why are you asking me this question? That is for everyone. That is true of everyone.”

And then he explained that the reason people are against us is because of ignorance. They identify with the body and with material existence. And when they see that we are acting on a different platform, the platform of the soul and spiritual existence, they are against us because they see we are different, we are not participating with them or encouraging them in their material existence.

So, she said, “Well, how do you deal with it?” “Well, their problem is ignorance, so we deal with it by giving them knowledge. We approach them and give them books. And every day, we are distributing,” I don’t remember the figure, but “Hundreds or thousands of books. And people are paying hundreds and thousands of dollars every day. So, how can you say they are against us? They are taking our books, they are giving contributions, how can you say they are against us? They are not against us. They are for us.”

And then the lady said, “Well, that’s a very positive attitude.” So, this is the predicament, that people are in the material world, in the prison house of material existence, being forced to work, labor hard, and always in fear of receiving some harsh punishment.

So, a sober person, an intelligent person will inquire, “How to get out?” And there are hundreds and thousands of approaches how to get out, which I need not mention, we all know. But of all of those hundreds and thousands of processes that promise to get us out of material entanglement, the process given by the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the best, because He is the Supreme authority, He has created the material world, He knows what the material world is, and He has simultaneously given us the method by which we can get out of the material world. And that method is the process by which one develops love and affection for Him, for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and that is sādhana-bhakti.

In Srila Rupa Gosvami’s definition of sādhana-bhakti in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, he says that devotional service performed by the senses which awakens dormant love for Krishna is sādhana-bhakti, or devotional service in practice. So, that is the method, the best of all methods, enunciated by the Supreme Lord Himself to get us out of the material miseries. That is the method by which we develop love and affection for Him. That is Text Twenty-Nine.

Now, what is that method? What are the activities - bodily, vocal, and mental? What are the activities that we can perform to awaken our dormant love for Krishna? Those activities are mentioned in Text Thirty and Thirty-One. So, we shall continue reading the purport. What is the method? Sādhana-bhakti.

PURPORT (continued)

To practice bhakti-yoga, one must first accept a bona fide spiritual master. Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (1.2.74–75), advises:

guru-pādāśrayas tasmāt
kṛṣṇa-dīkṣādi-śikṣaṇam
viśrambheṇa guroḥ sevā
sādhu-vartmānuvartanam
sad-dharma-pṛcchā bhogādi-
tyāgaḥ kṛṣṇasya hetave

One’s first duty is to accept a bona fide spiritual master. The student or disciple should be very inquisitive; he should be eager to know the complete truth about eternal religion (sanātana-dharma). The words guru-śuśrūṣayā mean that one should personally serve the spiritual master by giving him bodily comforts, helping him in bathing, dressing, sleeping, eating and so on. This is called guru-śuśrūṣaṇam. A disciple should serve the spiritual master as a menial servant, and whatever he has in his possession should be dedicated to the spiritual master. Prāṇair arthair dhiyā vācā. Everyone has his life, his wealth, his intelligence and his words, and all of them should be offered to the Supreme Personality of Godhead through the medium of the spiritual master. Everything should be offered to the spiritual master as a matter of duty, but the offering should be made to the spiritual master with heart and soul, not artificially to gain material prestige. This offering is called arpaṇa.

COMMENT

So, the preliminary processes of devotional service mentioned by Srila Rupa Gosvami run parallel to the instructions here in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. First, guru-pādāśrayas tasmāt, one should take shelter of the lotus feet of a spiritual master. Kṛṣṇa-dīkṣādi-śikṣaṇam, one should take initiation from him, and one should learn from him, one should take instruction from him. And then viśrambheṇa guroḥ sevā, and one should serve him, viśrambheṇa, with great respect. There are two words: great respect and intimacy. But especially here, viśrambheṇa means with great faith and respect.

The same instructions are there in the Bhagavad-gītā given by Krishna Himself. Tad viddhi praṇipātena. Praṇipāt means to fall down before the spiritual master, which really means to surrender to the spiritual master. Paripraśhnena, to inquire of him. The same thing, sad-dharma-pṛcchā, inquire about eternal religious principles. Tad viddhi praṇipātena paripraśhnena sevayā, render service. That is also mentioned here, viśrambheṇa guroḥ sevā. These are the first items of devotional service; all other items are built upon these. These are the foundations. And unless the foundation is strong, the rest of the structure will be in a precarious position. First, the foundation must be strong.

When I first met Srila Prabhupada and came to the association of devotees, I was aware of so many practices. We were given the whole morning program, the evening program, and the day’s activities. And there were so many different activities. We have maṅgala-ārati, we have singing the Nṛsiṁha prayers, we have tulasi-puja, we have japa, we have maṅgala-ārati, sandhya-ārati, śṛṅgāra-darshan, guru-puja, and then so many activities during the day. And we accepted the process and we followed it.

But about two years after I met Srila Prabhupada and came to the association of devotees, I had a very, very significant conversation with Tamal Krishna Goswami, in which he gave me a different perspective.

The background is that in October of 1970, I and a number of devotees from the United States were asked to go to India to meet Srila Prabhupada there and begin the activities there. And there in Bombay, I met Tamal Krishna Goswami, and he was the GBC for India. And in Bombay, we put on the first pandal program, which was very successful. Srila Prabhupada was very pleased and he sent Tamal Krishna Goswami and me to Calcutta to arrange a similar program there.

And so, the two of us rode together on the train and we had a lot of time to talk. We were all so busy. Srila Prabhupada had such big plans and he kept us fully engaged. So, we hardly had time to talk, what to speak of eat or sleep. But on the train, we had some time, and we began to develop our relationship.

And then one night in the Calcutta temple, it’s still there, 3 Albert Road, somehow, everyone else had taken rest. I mean, everyone would take rest at nine o’clock, and somehow, I was out on the balcony, just sort of looking over the balcony at the pond, the [Unintelligible 00:40:33], and thinking. And Tamal Krishna Goswami came up to me and he also just stood next to me, leaning over the balcony, looking out into the night, and we started talking. I won’t share all the details of the discussion now, but I might sometime.

I received a letter two days ago about the Pandava Sena Youth Festival or retreat that will be held in Houston from August 4th to 9th. And then as an addition to the festival, devotees will be coming from Houston to Dallas for two days, August 10th and 11th. And the theme of those two days will be remembering Tamal Krishna Goswami.

But now, to come back to the main point that I want to mention from the discussion he and I had in Calcutta. He said that he had discovered that the essence of spiritual life, the key to spiritual advancement is service to the guru. So, I thought about it. I mean, his words made a deep impression on me.

And you have to understand that at that time, we did not have many books. And even the first edition of the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is was abridged. We didn’t have all the purports, and many of the purports that we did have were incomplete. But now, if we read carefully, we find in different places what Tamal Krishna Goswami told me that night is mentioned. And Srila Prabhupada himself says in the purport to the verse tad viddhi praṇipātena that the secret of spiritual advancement is to please the bona fide spiritual master.

And every morning, we sing yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādo, that by the mercy of the spiritual master, one receives the benediction of Krishna. And yasyāprasādān na gatiḥ kuto ‘pi, that if one does not please the spiritual master, or without the mercy of the spiritual master, one cannot make any advancement, or one has no means of making progress, or as Srila Prabhupada says, one has no actual standing. But at that time, it was a secret. It seemed to have been a secret that was revealed to me by Tamal Krishna Goswami.

And thereafter, I saw devotional service in a little different way, from a little different perspective. Everything then became seen in relation to Srila Prabhupada, to pleasing Srila Prabhupada. Otherwise, there are so many dos and don’ts, how do you know what’s more important? Suppose you can’t do everything. How do you know what’s more important? How do you decide? Of course, we had our authorities. And when I joined, I just did whatever my authorities told, I didn’t even have to think about it, I didn’t even have to ask the question of what was more important.

But as time passed and I had more responsibility, sometimes I had to make a decision of what is more important and what is less important. And then the criterion was, “What would Srila Prabhupada want? What would please Srila Prabhupada?” And then all the different activities included in devotional service were seen from that point of view, “What would Srila Prabhupada want? What would please him?” And of course, different things, different approaches are relevant at different stages of one’s spiritual progress.

Once, Tamal Krishna Goswami and I were with Srila Prabhupada in Juhu. We were still struggling to get the Juhu Land. So, Srila Prabhupada was living in the unfinished house of one of his staunch supporters, Sri P.L. Sethi. And a few devotees; Tamal Krishna Goswami, Brahmananda Prabhu, few devotees stayed with Srila Prabhupada in the house. I was the Temple President in Juhu, so I would stay in Juhu, but I would spend a lot of time at the house.

So, Srila Prabhupada was very, very concerned about the Juhu Land. He had already brought the Deities of Radha-Rasabihari and he was very, very concerned that the struggle with the landlord should be resolved. And we had a friend, a life member, who was a lawyer, Susheel Asnani, and he was helping us deal with the matter. So, one morning, at maybe six in the morning, Srila Prabhupada sent Tamal Krishna Goswami to phone Mr. Asnani and find out what had happened. And we had no phone, so Tamal Krishna Goswami had to go out at six in the morning, it was just dawn, still dark, and knock on the doors of people’s homes and ask to use the telephone.

So, he phoned and then he came back and he gave the report to Srila Prabhupada. And Tamal Krishna Goswami was very annoyed. I don’t know how many of you have seen Tamal Krishna Goswami when he was very annoyed, but one could say that he was smoldering with anger. He was smoldering with anger because on behalf of Srila Prabhupada, he had gone out early in the morning and phoned Mr. Asnani. Mrs. Asnani answered the phone and told him, “My husband is doing his puja.” Tamal Krishna Goswami said, “Well, please tell him that Srila Prabhupada sent me to ask him a question, and Srila Prabhupada is waiting for the answer.” So, Mrs. Asnani went and came back to the phone and said, “You can phone him in an hour after he is finished with his puja.”

So, Tamal Krishna Goswami gave the report to Srila Prabhupada and he said, “Here is the pure devotee, the representative of Krishna wanting to get some information from him, and he is busy doing his puja. He can’t come to the phone.” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “Actually, for someone in Mr. Asnani’s stage, it’s good that he is very strict about his puja.”

Because he was, let’s say, more on the material platform, you could say, more kaniṣṭhā, more on the material platform. So, for him to be strict in that way was actually good because when you are just beginning spiritual activities, it’s so easy to find excuses not to do them, “Telephone call! Great, great. Now I don’t have to do my puja. Now I don’t have to chant my rounds, now I don’t have to read my shlokas. Oh, that came. Oh, I’m so glad you phoned.”

But Srila Prabhupada wanted us and he said explicitly that he wanted us to act on the madhyam platform, to preach. In other words, to preach means prema-maitrī-kṛpopekṣā. The madhyam Vaishnava gives his love to the Supreme Personality of Godhead; maitrī- he makes friendship with devotees; kṛpā- he gives mercy to the innocent by giving them the message of Krishna; and upekṣāḥ- he neglects the envious, he avoids them, he doesn’t try to preach to them. He might give them some prasāda or something, but he doesn’t try to convince them philosophically.

But definitely, it was a very significant conversation that I had with Tamal Krishna Goswami, and that perspective became my guiding principle in devotional service, “What will please the spiritual master? What would the spiritual master want me to do?”

And although Srila Prabhupada made that statement about Mr. Asnani, he gave me a different type of instruction. Because we were so busy, as I mentioned, it came to the point where I didn’t have time to read Prabhupada’s books, and I was in anxiety about it. I didn’t say anything, but I was in anxiety about it. And one day in his room in Calcutta, Srila Prabhupada quoted a verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam,

naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu
nityaṁ bhāgavata-sevayā
 
Bhāgavata-sevayā—there are two Bhagavats; the book Bhagavat and the person Bhagavat. And Srila Prabhupada told me that by serving the person Bhagavat, one gets the same result as by reading the book Bhagavat. He was encouraging me. I didn’t say anything directly about my anxiety, but he was encouraging me, “If you serve the person Bhagavat, all the truths of the book Bhagavat will be revealed to you, even if you never read the book.”

So, we had that faith and conviction and we had that realization from our practical experience, but that is not to say that we should not read the books or attend the classes. We should. That’s only in extreme situations when we really do not have time, but otherwise, we must. Srila Prabhupada worked so hard to translate and publish the books so we could read them.

Once again as a neophyte hearing so many things, this is actually a little earlier because I heard that if we just have the desire to become Krishna conscious, that will make us Krishna conscious. Actually, tatra laulyam that if one has that intense desire, laulyam, to become Krishna conscious, that will propel one to become Krishna consciousness.

But anyway, as a neophyte, having heard that statement, I asked Srila Prabhupada, “I heard this. So, if eagerness is the only price we have to pay to become Krishna conscious, then does it mean that we don’t have to read your books?” You could see my devious mind trying to find some way to. . . And Srila Prabhupada said, “Well, if you are actually eager, you will accept anything that will help you in Krishna consciousness. So, why would you not read the books?”

So, time, place, and circumstance, but as a rule, we want to do everything that Srila Prabhupada instructed, that our gurus have instructed. And primary are the ones mentioned in this verse or these two verses. And then,

saṅgena sādhu-bhaktānām
īśvarārādhanena ca

In the association of devotees, worship the Lord. So, association is very, very, very important. We cannot make it on our own, we need the association of devotees.

There is one devotee in India, he had done a lot of service for Srila Prabhupada, Adirama Prabhu. But somehow, after so many years of intense service, now as a grihastha, he had built a house for himself that would have meant he was living some distance from the temple. And Srila Prabhupada was very concerned about it. He said, “With so much difficulty, someone becomes a devotee, and then if he moves away from the association, everything will be lost.”

And he gave his own example and that of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura. Because sometimes people would cite Prabhupada’s example as a grihastha, but anyway, Srila Prabhupada said, “Bhaktivinoda Thakura and I were different. We could live away from the association of devotees in the temple and be strong in Krishna consciousness, but you all neophytes, if you live away from the association of devotees, away from the temple atmosphere, you’ll be affected by the karmis’ poison,” as Prabhupada put it. In other words, you will be affected. Man is a social animal, we need association.

So, if we don’t have the association of devotees, what will we have? We’ll have the association of non-devotees and we’ll be influenced by their association. And that will take us away from Krishna consciousness. That association can come in the workplace, can come in the university or college, it can come in any activity in the material world, it also comes in books and magazines, and comes on the internet. You can have that association anywhere. And now with the internet, you can do it secretly, no one will know what you are reading, no one will know what you are looking at. And so, you can more easily engage in activities, which are against the devotional principles.

But in summary, it would be some form of associating with non-devotees. Whatever that nonsense on the internet is, it’ll be some form of associating with non-devotees or devotees or weak devotees, mixed devotees. Sādhu-bhaktānām really means pure devotees. Pure devotees in the sense that they have no other desire than to become Krishna conscious. It doesn’t mean they are fully self-realized, but it means that they have no other purpose than to serve guru and Krishna and become Krishna conscious.

So, mixed devotees can be problematic because they are mixed. They want to talk about Krishna but they also want to talk about other things. They want to serve Krishna but they also want to do other things. Properly speaking, they are still on the material platform and therefore, they are called bhakta-prāya, which means almost devotees. They are not really devotees but they are put in the category of devotees because it’s prohibited to associate with non-devotees intimately, and if they don’t get association, they’ll never make progress. So, in order to enable the more advanced devotees to associate with them without violating the principle of not associating with non-devotees, they are called devotees. They are devotees, but bhakta-prāya, almost devotees.

So, we want to be careful to keep the Krishna conscious part as the focus and not the other parts. Sometimes devotees ask me, I’m sure many of you have been asked the same question or maybe even asked the same question. “Devotees come to me, they trust me, they feel comfortable with me, they want to reveal their minds to me, and when they do, they talk about their problems, they talk about their problems with other devotees, maybe even the temple authorities, and they end up criticizing other devotees. And I do not want to hear that, but at the same time, I don’t want to offend the devotee who’s coming to me or hurt the devotee who’s coming to me, or if the devotee is weak, then I might be the devotee’s main link to Krishna consciousness. And if the devotee feels rejected by me, then the devotee will be very discouraged. So, what do we do?”

And this is something I heard from His Holiness Radhanath Swami, “You don’t reject the person, you don’t reject the person’s association, but you limit the association to chanting and hearing about Krishna.” And depending on who you are, who the other person is, what your relationship is, you could put it in any number of ways. The easiest way, and if it’s true, you probably really should say it is that, “I still have rounds to chant, I’d love to spend time with you, so how about you stay and we chant japa together?” Or, “I have a certain quota of reading I do every day, I haven’t done my reading yet, but I’d love to spend time with you. You can stay with me and we can read together.”

That way, you are not rejecting the person, you are welcoming the person, but you are keeping the activity favorable to Krishna consciousness. You are not letting it sort of degrade into other topics.

Now, it may happen that someone really is disturbed and needs a sympathetic ear, and sometimes we do that, but as a general principle, we should keep our focus on guru and Krishna and service to guru and Krishna and not allow our mixed tendencies to react. Like some chemicals, if you put them together, they don’t react well. They might fizz or make a bad smell or cause an explosion or something. So, this association of mixed devotees, we don’t want it to react in a negative way. And so, the safest is to just keep that desire that every devotee has to serve Krishna in the forefront and use the association for that.

I read Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Vaibhava, a wonderful book by Bhakti Vikasa Swami, a three volume set, that Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, at his home. . . Many of you have been there in Godrumadvīpa, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s home, he would not allow any thoughts other than of Krishna. Just wouldn’t allow it. I mean, this is sādhana-bhakti. Sādhana-bhakti means we have not awakened our dormant love for Krishna, these are the practices that will bring us to awaken our dormant love, but we haven’t awakened our dormant love for Krishna. It’s not natural to always think of Krishna and never forget Him. So, we have to make an effort.

And so, sometimes you think, Bhaktivinoda Thakura is so powerful, and we might have a sort of romantic idea of what things were like in the past, “They just naturally talked about Krishna.” But no. Every acharya deals with conditioned souls and makes the effort to elevate them to the spiritual platform. And so, they set limits, they draw the line.

And so, Bhaktivinoda Thakura was, “You can’t talk about anything except Krishna.” That was the rule of the house. If you didn’t want to follow the rule, you couldn’t be there. The great acharya, Srinivas Acharya, Bhakti Chaitanya Swami told us in relation to Vraja mandala parikramā. So, he had an ashram, and his rule for Ekādaśī was, and that’s a strict observance of Ekādaśī, that you stay up the whole night chanting and hearing the glories of the Lord. So, what he did in the ashram is he had a pole across the room, and he would have the brahmacharis tie their sikas to the pole. So, if during the night on Ekādaśī, they started to nod out, as we say fall asleep, they would get yanked by the sika and woken up.

So, we shouldn’t have any illusions. Every acharya deals with conditioned souls who begin on the neophyte platform and gradually tries to elevate them. So, this thing about our talking, prajalpaḥ. Of course, Srila Prabhupada was very liberal, but he certainly knew the science, and he, in his own way, instructed us. And of course, there is one talk Prabhupada gave. He said, “Don’t talk nonsense. If you’ve got time, chant Hare Krishna. Don’t waste time, don’t talk nonsense.”

This is very interesting. I didn’t see it but Satsvarupa Maharaja told me about it. One day, Satsvarupa and Tamal Krishna Goswami were sitting next to each other in the little garden at the back of Juhu, talking. I think we had a bench there. So, they might have been sitting on the bench, talking, and Srila Prabhupada happened to come out onto the balcony of his apartment, which just overlooked the garden. He was chanting japa. And he saw the two of them sitting next to each other and talking. So, Srila Prabhupada called from the balcony, “What are the two of you talking about?” So, immediately, they said, “Service. We are talking about service.” And the way Satsvarupa Maharaja described it, Prabhupada looked at them with a very penetrating gaze, a little skeptical, “Yeah, all right. Service. Sure.”

But Satsvarupa got the distinct impression that Prabhupada was really questioning what they were talking about. He didn’t want them to be just talking about anything. So, we have to be vigilant like that. The acharyas, the authorities should be vigilant. Of course, now as Kali-yuga has progressed, there is so much influence of Kali and devotees’ faith is eroded in so many ways for so many different reasons. It’s not always that easy to give devotees direct instructions, even though the instructions are for their benefit, but they might react, false ego.

So, we might not say to devotees, “What are you talking about?” We might, but we might not. But actually, this type of care is very beneficial. The association of devotees means not only do they help us engage in favorable activities like this, worshiping the Lord, but they also help us avoid unfavorable activities by their example, but also by their words. So, we should welcome that positive influence.

Sometimes due to circumstances, a devotee may be living away from a temple, away from the association of a community of devotees. That’s definitely a very difficult situation to be in, but sometimes the circumstances are such, or they seem to be such. So, in that case, with one’s family members, one should try to keep the association as spiritual as possible. But the thing is also Prabhupada wanted us to preach, and we can’t really be fully engaged unless we preach. We need to mobilize all our resources, and the way we mobilize all our resources is by preaching.

So, if by chance we are away from the temple, then we try to make our home like a temple. It doesn’t mean just pictures and Deities and an altar, but it means the activities in the home should be the same as the activities in the temple. And we should preach, we should invite people to our homes, we should go out, we should have programs, and really start our own temples and make our own community of devotees.

So, actually, there is one more section here I haven’t read, and we’ll just finish this. So, I got a little ahead of myself here. So, after discussing offering everything to the guru, serving the guru with heart and soul, not artificially for material prestige, Srila Prabhupada says,

PURPORT (continued)

Moreover, one should live among devotees, saintly persons, to learn the etiquette and proper behavior of devotional service.

COMMENT

This is very important.

PURPORT (continued)

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura remarks in this connection that whatever is offered to the spiritual master should be offered with love and affection, not for material adoration.

COMMENT

This is a big thing because gurus are big people, they are famous people, and so we get prestige by being associated with them. Last September or so, we had H.H. Ṛtadhvaja Swami’s Vyasa-puja here, and many of the gurukula graduates spoke about their association with him. And one little anecdote was that he phoned one of the boys and he said, “This is Ṛtadhvaja Swami. Your prestige just went up. You got a phone call from Ṛtadhvaja Swami.” So, that’s there.

One of my śikṣā-gurus is His Holiness Indradyumna Swami. He is my śikṣā-guru on many levels, but he is also my vartma-pradarśaka-guru and śikṣā-guru for Facebook. I never imagined that I would ever do such a thing as join Facebook. And Indradyumna Swami said, “Maharaja, times are changing. They aren’t what they were, and if we are not in step with the times, we are going to be left behind. So, you have to do this.” So anyway, I thought, Okay, I’ll give it a try. I’ll try it for a few months and see how it goes.

So then, I would ask him, “What do you do about this? What do you do about that?” Because then you get all these little messages, “Hare Krishna, Maharaja,” and just all sorts of little messages. Of course, I don’t know if he really follows it completely, but he said he doesn’t reply to those. He says, “For most people, it’s just a matter of false prestige. They don’t really have any strong spiritual desire, but they just want to send a little message and then get a reply. And then, “I got a message from Indradyumna Swami on Facebook. He said Haribol to me.”

So, that’s there in the material world, and it can even be there in the association of devotees, “It’s very prestigious to be seen. I’m close to the gurus. He’s a big man, so much prestige, not just prestige but authority, controlled so much [Unintelligible].” But that is not the real guru sevā. That is not what’s being mentioned here. śuśrūṣayā. It should be done with heart and soul. It should be done really in the mood to serve the guru without any personal consideration of gain or loss, just to serve the guru and please him. That’s the only reward we want. We just want to see that the guru is happy, that Krishna is happy. Yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādo.

PURPORT (continued)

Similarly, it is recommended that one associate with devotees, but there must be some discrimination. Actually, a sādhu, a saintly person, must be saintly in his behavior (sādhavaḥ sad-ācārāḥ). Unless one adheres to the standard behavior, one’s position as a sādhu, a saintly person, is not complete. Therefore a Vaiṣṇava, a sādhu, must completely adhere to the standard of behavior.

COMMENT

So, this works both ways. Earlier, I mentioned the risks that we face dealing with mixed devotees or devotees who are really not up to the standard of sad-ācārāḥ. The other side of it is that people are looking to us for association. People are meeting us on the street, people are coming to the temple, they are seeing us as devotees.