Hide your guru!

 

Hare Kṛṣṇa, everybody.

Welcome to a New Vraja-dhāma!

And I was just conversing as to how we are going to photograph offering Śrīla Prabhupāda this second volume of Vilāpa Kusumāñjali. Looks skinny. So, then I will go and then you can just chant in mean while. Just chant something.

Hare Kṛṣṇa, dear devotees!

This is volume two of English version of the Vilāpa Kusumāñjali. And number three is all written, but it is yet to be produced and the artwork we are just starting. And I am working on the fourth volume. And then there is eight volumes, although I figured there could be a ninth one. Just the artwork. Just the art. Here is the hero of the book.

…….. (Hungarian).

And many lovely pictures. So, this book is the beginning of dressing Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. There are two books. That is just about that. So that is how Raghunātha Dāsa Gosvāmī wrote it. So, if you really follow all of that, then you become a really qualified pūjārī. So now these books are available, and whatever quantity, and then we are sending a whole bunch to the UK. Everybody else has to order them from SRSbooks.

Well, for those of you who see from the other picture, we have a whole temple room full of devotees here. They are all in bliss, because they have been on padayatra.

And then I have another book, which is for Hungarian devotees, and that is Saṅkalpa Kaumudī. And that is all philosophy. So, these are also available from Bhakti devi. And of course, they are also available in English - they have been for a long time.

You going to see a slowing down in the availability of Hungarian books, because if you do not buy them, we are not printing them. So, we are going to print volume one of this, but we are not printing volume two. Just because there is not enough purchase to warrant printing. Now I am just talking about Hungarian. So, please support book distribution. And believe it or not, it is what Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted.

Śrīla Prabhupāda went to the āśram of one of his godbrothers. He had a very nice time there and he was nicely taken care of. And then, as they were leaving, near the gate, they had a big bookstall and also a small printing press. When they had left, then one of the devotees commented that Śrīla Prabhupāda, they are also printing books and distributing books. There was books of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvati Thākura, Bhaktivinoda Thākura, and Prabhupādas answer was – yes, but where are their books?

In other words, he was talking about his godbrothers books. So, it is our family business. And something that all the devotees should do so that we can just really flood the world with transcendental literature. And of course, Śrīla Prabhupāda books who will always remain the law books and the most perfect literature. But that does not mean that other books are not wanting. Goswāmīs wrote books. Rūpa Goswāmī wrote books. And then so many other. Also, devotees wrote books. They are not like Rūpa Goswāmī’s books, but still, they are literature glorifying Kṛṣṇa.

Okay so these books are also in, of course, in English. This has been available for a year, as well as volume one. Actually, I will just explain one phenomenon about printing. 20 plus years back then I wrote one book. And then we printed that book and we translated it and then we sold it. Over the period of those years now we have how many books? With Vilāpa that makes 20. I mean with Nava Vraja-mahima. So now we have 20 books. And in order to actually keep making these books available it is not such an easy thing as one you just do one. You have to continually to print them. You have to sell them. And that is something that is actually this mass the continual publication of other books also then slows down the ability for us to produce these other books. And quantity that we publish these books in is why they are so expensive. So Hungarian languages - there is not many Hungarians in the world. But there is a lot of English-speaking people. So, if we print more of these, instead of 1000 we print 5000 then the prices really change drastically. Yes, so if we were doing 5000, 10,000 then both we would be able to finance free printing of other books, and at the same time we would be able to offer them at a lower price. Anything else? Okay so for all devotees, if you can help out, following Śrīla Prabhupāda desire, that we should also not, obviously not, just write the books, but sell them, which is of course not at the cost of us selling the Śrīla Prabhupādas books. That is our first priority. But then we have also other priorities.

Okay one more thing before we start and that is Nitya Seva. Usually I give my report on Nitya Seva. I have a good report since the last time I spoke, which was I think about a month ago in Budapest. And here are the following devotees who are starting Nithya Sava. Mantramala Devi Dasi, Kṛṣṇa Lila and Charna Renu. They paid it off in one go. Malini Devi Dasi and Todh Gabbi. And then we are getting starting from Bhakta Pramod and Bhaktin Julia from the UK. So it was a good month. Tamahara Prabhu from Germany, he also started. And Anuragi you know that?

Let us start - eight o'clock.

oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā

cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yenatasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ

[Gautamīya-tantra 7.10-11]

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! After the last class that I gave, which was a month ago, go from giving class once a day to once a month. I do not expect that to be, at least go back to doing it once a week, but we are still grappling with issues of the body. But a few devotees came up with questions about a certain verse that they had both heard and seen in the Guru Disciple course. And they wanted to understand what this was about. I have also heard that concept, which is the concept of hiding your spiritual master. And I really studied the source of the verse and see how it was being applied. And some of the things seem to be a little extreme in terms of its application. So, I decided to talk about that here. It furthers the overall concept or the overall topic of speaking about the spiritual master.

So, this is the verse. And we can all chant it. Sanātana Goswāmī quotes this in Hari-bhakti-vilāsa. So, it has a very authoritative source. But it is from a Sammohana Tantra. And it goes as follows:

gopayed devatām iṣṭāṃ

gopayed gurum ātmanah

gopayec ca nijaṃ mantram

gopayen nija-mālikām

(Hari-bhakti-vilāsa, verse 2.147)

One should hide one’s iṣṭa-deva. One should hide one’s guru. One should hide one’s mantra. And one should hide one’s japa-mālā.

I will repeat it again.

One should hide one’s iṣṭa-deva. One should hide one’s guru. One should hide one’s mantra. And one should hide one’s japa-mālā.

Before I speak, I am going to also show you some of a set of written comments which promote this concept of hiding your guru. There will be a few times when I do sort of quite lengthy reading, just stay with us. And the Hungarians will have to read for themselves. We are only reading aloud in English.

The following is found in a certain publication. So, I am reading now.

““Who is your guru?” This is often the first question devotees ask each other upon being introduced. And yet quoting Sanātana Goswāmī, the ISKCON Disciples Course teaches that, as far as possible one should keep the identity of one's guru a private matter. How does a newcomer resolve this bewildering contradiction? Why would it be said that one's guru should remain a secret? There are two reasons.

A humble devotee does not proudly present himself as a disciple of any particular guru for a mature devotee does not try to borrow prestige from an exalted mentor. Śrīla Prabhupāda said that a bug may sit on the throne, but that does not make him a king.”

That is the first and the second.

“A disciple should feel so unworthy, that he keeps his guru's identity secret so as not to embarrass his guru for having accepted such an unqualified disciple.”

Okay, he is continuing now to write.

“To identify as a disciple of a particular guru excessively and publicly can become a kind of upādhi, another external designation such as man, woman, black, white, old or young.

Short of keeping one's guru a total secret, if a devotee simply adopts a more modest attitude and respects the mood of a guru-neutral community, everyone feels comfortable and accepted. This is sama-darśinaḥ in relation to gurus.”

And the last comment here:

“The community mood of sama-darśinaḥ regarding gurus is vital and effective for building devotional communities in the West. Observant preachers minimize the importance of any individual guru and focus on the needs of young devotees to develop appreciation for Śrīla Prabhupāda. At such and such place, this approach has resulted in a community with disciples of fifteen different gurus who live in the mood of harmony and cooperation. Such and such places students and staff appreciate their gurus in private meetings with God-brothers and God-sisters. In public, they glorify Lord Kṛṣṇa and Śrīla Prabhupāda, which brings together all the devotees.”

Okay, so you have seen this. We will come back to these again on an individual basis.

Let me start off with those comments of mine, which support the specific mood, which supports the idea that, yes, we need to protect Śrīla Prabhupāda's exalted position, just because of the effect of time. Lord Kṛṣṇa says,

evaṁ paramparā-prāptam

imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ

sa kāleneha mahatā

(Bhg 4.2)

He says, time is very great. The effect of time is so powerful, that even the paramparā system that he sets up, even that breaks. So, we really need to do the best that we can, to avoid such a situation. Now, fortunately in the past in ISKCON we have had a history in which gurus, and now I speak about dīkṣā gurus, eclipse Śrīla Prabhupāda's position, as may some of their disciples. And that is really unacceptable. So, we need to strike a balance and this is quite a unique phenomenon, because there is a very little history of gurus acting within an institution. Now, by that I mean many gurus over countless generations in the same institutional format.

So, I take it that, what you have seen here, is really trying to strike a balance. And I am also all for a balance. Although, as you will see, I do not believe that this is balancing anymore, this is like tipping in the opposite direction. So, how is it that we ensure that devotees recognize Prabhupāda as the Founder Ācārya, that they appreciate his mood in preaching, in presenting Kṛṣṇa consciousness for the next 10,000 years? It is not easy, it is not the first time. I mean, you have heard about this before and you are going to be hearing a lot more about it in the future.

When I also looked up in the Guru Disciple course, which I only saw a long, long time ago when it was in the formulation still, what is being said about this specific verse and this idea of hiding your guru is relatively neutral. So, I can say it is quite balanced. But how those words, that is in a document, is being taught, that is another thing. And I think that what you have just read is an example of it being taught off balance.

These five or six paragraphs really, sort of, take it way, way too far, and that also is a problem. So, in my earlier talk, I pointed out that just protecting Śrīla Prabhupāda's position does not guarantee that ISKCON is going to sail on without any problem for the next 10,000 years. We have other principles that we also need to be protecting. We have got a whole siddhanta to protect and for that you need to know what the siddhanta is also.

So, we have to protect for instance the concept that our primary business is distributing Śrīla Prabhupāda's books. That is not an opinion that is shared by everybody, not even by Śrīla Prabhupāda's disciples. Some. So, it is not that everybody in the world has got a set of Prabhupāda's books in their home. So, there is a lot of things that our society needs to be protected and one of them is, you have to protect the position of the guru.

So, we do not keep the guru in the right position. Ultimately the disciples will deviate one way or another. And our movement is based on people and if those people do not know how to work under the spiritual authority, then there is no ISKCON.

Unfortunately, there is a concerted effort by some devotees which is not a secret, to minimize the role of the spiritual masters in general. But that is not a theory. I have first-hand experience on the GBC body and speaking with GBC members. And you can look at courses online on YouTube. Some of that is a reaction to how some gurus behave. As I mentioned earlier, I do not say that everyone is acting properly, but decapitating all gurus just because of a few is not a good idea.

As far as the Guru Disciple course, I have generally had very, very positive feedback from the devotees, but I have had also some complaints from those who have taken the course and those who have given the course, particularly about this presentation.

So, as I mentioned before in short, my approach has always been to really elevate Śrīla Prabhupāda, we should just do the things he told us to do. We should distribute more of his books. We should manifest varṇāśrama. We should open restaurants in every town in village. It is well documented, what Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted of us. Do it and everyone will recognize who Prabhupāda is.

What was that story? Who wrote me that story? Just trying to figure out which of the saṅkīrtana of the devotees wrote me the story so I can remember the story. I can not. It was such a wonderful story. It went something like this. A devotee approaches a lady on the street, and first the lady sees the front of the Gītā, and she sort of turns away. But as the devotees holding the book, he turns it around. There is a picture of Prabhupāda, and then she says, that is him. And saṅkīrtana devotee says, do you know him? And a lady takes the book out of his hand and looks closer at the cover. And she says, yes, yes. I had a dream, and he came in my dream, and in my dream, he came and he told me, you go buy this book. She bought the book. Yeah, these things happen with Prabhupāda s books. There is no competition.

And as I said, at least my conclusion is, that, to minimize or to undermine the vaiṣṇava tradition, then that will really be a problem for us. It is going on. It is happening. I have given one example, for instance, of devotees they bow down, touch their heads to the ground. They do not bother saying the praṇāma-mantra. But that is the good one. The other one is, well, you know, they are on a bicycle, and they just like drive past and nod their head.

Prabhupāda had had this term, the poison has entered. Prabhupāda used to use this term to see this spiritual master as an ordinary person. So that is a danger. Why? Because he is Kṛṣṇa’s representative. The Caitanya-caritāmṛta starts by describing the position of the Guru.

Okay, back to just the translation of the verse. And I would like to first just examine the verse itself and show you the context that it is in. And then I would like to go over these other statements that we have read. Okay, so here is the verse again.

One should hide one’s iṣṭa-deva. One should hide one’s guru. One should hide one’s mantra. And one should hide one’s japa-mālā.

So here there is four restrictions that we see. And it does not seem like our current practices in Kṛṣṇa consciousness at all follow these four restrictions.

Okay, but the interesting one is, gopayed devatām iṣṭāṃ, hide your Deity. Quick, close the curtains. What does it mean? It has no explanation. So, who is our deities? How does this relate to us? Our iṣṭa is Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Rādhā Kṛṣṇa. So, what does it mean to hide them? We have got public altars, we have got 30,000 people coming here a year. That is same all over the world. We have got hundreds of temples, and it is not just us. It is so many Gauḍīya vaiṣṇavas and so many other vaiṣṇava traditions. They are not hiding their Deities. What to speak of things like the Jagannātha festival. So how does this gopayed devatām iṣṭāṃ match with Jagannātha festival that is been going on since who knows how long?

And that we are obviously distributing books that are just glorifying iṣṭa deva’s and telling people who they are. It is something that only makes somewhat sense if we are talking about what is actually your internal meditation in terms of, I do not know, what resident of vṛndāvana are you following? But that is certainly not for the general class of devotees, for very advanced people.

Okay, so we skipped the next one. We will come back to this about the gurum ātmanah.

Gopayec ca nijaṃ mantram, so, hide your mantra. We do that, when devotees get second initiation, then they are told that, this is not something that you talk to others about. And do not talk to just everybody about this. If you have questions, you talk to your spiritual master or your temple president, although for instance, in terms of our Gayatri Mantras, I have, I do not know, a 600 page book. It is just about what our mantras are about.

That is just because Prabhupāda has put, every gāyatrī mantra is in Prabhupāda's books, written out, not only once, but several times. Some of them, several times. So, there is brahma gāyatrī and gaura gāyatrī and kāma gāyatrī and gopāla mantra, they are all there.

And then we distribute the books. It is a fact! When you see how other mantras are presented in writing. It is like this very, very confusing riddle that you'd have to sit and try and figure out.

So as individuals, it seems like, yes, we are supposed to do this, but it is not just black and white, that institutionally we do not do the same thing. And then gopayen nija-mālikām, hide your japa-mālā. We do, we have a bead bag that we chant. Generally, at least I was given a bead bag, they said, is to keep your beads from getting dirty. So not really that I am hiding it, actually, from somebody. And how often, when you are preaching, do you show beads or devotees who have nāma hatta groups, then you have got your beads out and you are chanting together. I mean, we did not hear these things from Prabhupāda. Prabhupāda was just happy we were chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa and he really minimized the rules and regulations. So, we do not exactly hide our beads either. Okay, so three of these things really do not find much foothold in the way that we are functioning in Kṛṣṇa consciousness today.

Gopayed gurum ātmanah, all right, now, what about hide your guru?

I ask for older devotees and certainly, my God-brothers, this is something that we never, ever heard of before. But I will come to that later. Based on the fact that these one, two, three really are not applied nowadays, the implication will be that, well, then why should this one be? Or if we do, it is going to be in some kind of qualified form.

These are just not things that have been emphasized to us in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. They are not in Prabhupāda's books. This verse does not appear in Prabhupāda's books. In fact, it does not appear anywhere in the Folio that I have, which has thousands of books, with the exception of a few that I will explain to you.

So, it seems that somehow or another, it is really questionable, this whole concept of hiding your guru. So, this is just a quick look at the verse itself. Now I would like to show you the context in which it is in.

This Hari-bhakti-vilāsa is something that Caitanya Mahāprabhu told Sanātana Goswāmī to write. Now Gopāla Batta Goswāmī had already compiled many of the verses that are being cited in this book. And then Sanātana Goswāmī expanded on it and put it into a format that Caitanya Mahāprabhu, we read in Caitanya-caritāmṛta, he just lists all the things that should be in the book. And one of the things is accepting a spiritual master and getting initiation. So that is where this verse comes up. So, there are 104 requirements for taking initiation. And the verse that follows this gives another 103 items.

So once again, Śrīla Prabhupāda was quite happy if the devotees were following four items, what to speak of 104! But I will just show you some and these are not exclusive. I will show you some of the other items that are included in this 104, which shows that there really not something that are practical for our life.

There is a whole list of foods that you should never eat, okra for one, spinach. Now, that is very interesting because Caitanya Mahāprabhu's one of his favourite foods was spinach. Not only that, but there is one type of spinach called a Acyūta-Shak, and he says, if you eat this, you get love of God. But here he says, do not eat spinach. So, is it relevant to us or not?

Then it says that ,

A disciple must completely fast on a ekādaśī and stay, awake all night and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.

It is obvious we do not do that. Śrīla Prabhupāda really simplified that for us. Even Gauḍīya Math does not follow that, some individuals may, but then it says the following. Do not eat spinach. There you go - fast on ekādaśī. Now this one.

The prospective disciple should consider his spiritual master to be as good as the Supreme Lord.

Ok, that is nothing new.

He should offer his obeisances to him and circumambulate him. He should then offer one-half, one-fourth or one-tenth of his entire wealth to his spiritual master's dakṣiṇā.

Although circumambulation is there throughout the Bhāgavatam, ok, but it is a minor point, but Prabhupāda never thought us to circumambulate him. The other is about dakṣiṇā. It is very rare. You could say that there are some devotees, but it is really quite rare. And usually, dakṣiṇā a becomes sort of a token amount. And sadly, the token amount has not changed in fifty years. So, we do not do that. We do not expect that. We just, you know, whatever dakṣiṇā devotees give.

This indeed is the duty of all true disciples to repay the debt to their spiritual master by offering him with pure hearts, their wealth, and even their very lives.

So, now that is even rarer than dakṣiṇā, that devotees will actually offer their lives. I want you to do this. I want you to go in the gośala and serve there for the rest of your life. It is rare that actually becomes realized. We see that among so many devotees who get initiated, that potentially could be doing that, go off and live their lives, rather than give their lives. I would not talk more about that. Last one.

The night before dīkṣā, the disciples should spread a black deer skin on top of kuśa grass, and then lie down on it with his head facing either east or north, while meditating on a spiritual master.

I mean, obviously, you know, where is the black deer? I haven't even seen a black deer. You know, there is deer around here, but none of them are black. Ok.

Then there is a summary of all of these 104. And when it comes to our gopayed verse, it only mentions one thing. Do not reveal your dīkṣā mantra. It does not mention the other three.

So, I will just give you that in context that you can see that so many things that were required of a disciple are no longer required. It is the guru and the ācāryas to make adjustments according to time, place and circumstance.

Where we all getting the black deer skin? The night before the yajña you got all these devotees laying in the courtyard, swatting mosquitoes. Yes, the idea being is that if so many other things have also not been applied, maybe one of the reasons we never heard about this verse for at least 40 years in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, is because it is not applicable.

Now, this verse appears in this Sammohana Tantra, which is sāttvika tantra. So, it is in śāstra. But of course, the whole point here is that it does not mean that everything is in śāstra is always applicable at all times and in all places. Some things are, Kṛṣṇa is God, does not change. Mahā mantra does not change. But nonetheless, other things do.

So, aside from that, I only found two references outside of Hari-bhakti-vilāsa. One is book written by Bhakti Pramoda Purī Mahārāja, Śrīla Prabhupādas God-brother. But he is not commenting on the guru, hiding the guru, he is commenting on keeping your mantra secret.

And the other one, I will have to quote the other one, because it is for me, I quoted it. Seems like I quoted it in Nava-Vraja-Mahimā. It is not here. This is, you will find this in one of the volumes.

“Śāstra says, gopayed gurum ātmanaḥ: “One should hide one’s guru,” meaning that disciples should refrain from flaunting their spiritual masters out of false prestige. Still, I am proud of Śrīla Prabhupāda.” (Nava-vraja-mahimā, Volume Seven, Chapter Thirty-Two, Brahma-gāyatrī to Guru-gāyatrī)

So, it was a reference, but it was meant for glorifying Śrīla Prabhupāda. So, and no explanation. Please keep in mind - Śrīla Prabhupāda never wrote this in his books. Never quoted it. No other ācārya quoted it. At least not in the references I have. Jiva Goswāmī, Viśvanātha, Sanātana Goswāmī, Rūpa Goswāmī. I have all their books, not quoted. And it is not referred to in another śāstra. Whether other śāstra says this or not, I do not know, I did not research that. And then Sanātana Goswāmī does not comment on it.

The conclusion then becomes stronger from just studying the verse itself, that when we are looking at the context as well as the scriptural usage, that this is not really something that is for us in this age. Which means that it is not something that is completely irrelevant, but this word “hide”, it is too extreme.

So, now, and I hope you are all with me, yeah, this is not going to be a short class, but we are doing pretty good. We are half the way there. Now I am going to go over those quotes that I read earlier. You are going to sit here for two hours. Yesterday I spent eight hours. And the day before I spent four hours. I am just saying that because when you really want to understand something, or if you want to check on something, do not just accept it on face value, then you need to do your own research. And that is why this Folio is such an extraordinary facility for actually looking up things and studying. I did not mind spending ten hours on this, because this could really change the entire direction of our movement.

And generally, the way things happen is that there are a small active group who have a certain power. Now I am not referring to the GBC, I am just referring to the devotees, who have a very strong opinion about hiding gurus. And regardless of what your opinion is, they are taking the movement in a certain direction, and they are taking it. So, what is the best way to actually sort of brainwash generations, educate them in what you want them to think? That is how communism took hold and so many other different ideologies. Same thing, we need to educate our devotees in order to make them be Kṛṣṇa conscious.

So, I will go through these six paragraphs one by one. And I said this is in the publication. So, it starts off with this paragraph.

““Who is your guru?” This is often the first question devotees ask each other upon being introduced.”

Is that what you do? Yeah. Anybody else, is that what devotees regularly do, when you meet somebody? What is your name? My name is Kṛṣṇa Dasi. Who is your guru? Hey, we got a lot of devotees nodding their heads. We did not do it. There is only one person who did it and that was Prabhupāda. Sometimes he asked his disciple, what is your name? 5000 disciples of Prabhupāda was not expected to know their name. Who is your guru? The devotees got really perplexed. There was only one guru and that was Prabhupāda.

“And yet quoting Sanātana Goswāmī, the ISKCON Disciples Course teaches that as far as possible one should keep the identity of one's guru a private matter. How does a newcomer resolve this bewildering contradiction? Why would it be said that one's guru should remain a secret? There are two reasons.”

So here the author, the proponent of hiding the guru, agrees that this is a bewildering contradiction. So based on what Śrīla Prabhupāda writes in his books and speaks in his lectures, his personal conduct, giving so much emphasis, sākṣād-dharitvena samasta-śāstraiḥ (Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, Gurv-aṣṭaka). Then he agrees, that a devotee is going to be bewildered, when he is taught, that you should hide your guru, remain a secret.

So, what you need to see is are these answers that he gives, do they actually resolve this bewildering contradiction? Are they satisfactory? So here are the answers that he gives.

A humble devotee does not proudly present himself as a disciple of any particular guru for a mature devotee does not try to borrow prestige from an exalted mentor. Śrīla Prabhupāda said that a bug may sit on the throne, but that does not make him a king.

Okay, I am just going to take these one long phrase at a time.

A humble devotee does not proudly present himself as a disciple of any particular guru.

Well, they do. You just said that they do. And why would they do that? It is part of your sharing. Your exchange with someone else as to who you are. Someone would ask me, what is your name? My name is Peter. All right, but there are a hundred million Peters in the world. Can you tell me the other part of your name? So, then we also give the whole family name.

When you do a yajña, it is asked of you, who is your guru? What is your sampradāya and who is your guru? This is really part of our identity. So, it is to say that one is not supposed to be presenting that, it is not a practical reality. And of course, when every day we are reinforcing that, I mean aside from mangala āratik, where we are meditating on our spiritual master, so eight times we are saying, vande guroḥ śrī-caraṇāravindam. And then brahmanas, three times a day, they are worshiping their spiritual master. It is a very reinforced identity.

So, in a proper way, why would not a devotee be proud of his guru? There are so many gurus to choose from. So obviously he chose one, because he or she thought that Kṛṣṇa is speaking to me through this person. Prabhupāda is speaking through this person. So, that is something to be proud of.

In other words, pride, depending on what type of pride that you are talking about, but do not have to be make a thing of it, that type of proud, where it says my guru is better than your guru. Children are proud of their father, and the boy says, well my father is stronger than your father. Anyway, that is childish. That is good for kids. But we appreciate that whoever we are talking to, they are equally proud of their guru. And they have a right to be.

A humble devotee does not proudly present himself as a disciple of any particular guru for a mature devotee does not try to borrow prestige from an exalted mentor.

For me, it is such a belittling thing of devotees, that this is why they say the name of their guru, because, well, if my guru is great, then I am great. So, there is two words. He may be proud, but that does not make him vain. And then, who in the world said, that this is what a mature devotee does? I mean there is lots of descriptions of advanced devotees or mature devotees in Shastra. Nowhere does it mention that he does not mention the name of his guru.

So, this whole statement here is such a loaded statement. A mature devotee, so immediately this becomes like a second. Oh yeah, right. If I want to be mature, and everyone wants to be mature, then I will not be saying the name of my guru, because otherwise I am trying to become big, because he is big.

This is called intimidation in English, which is generally the process, by which sort of this type of philosophy or development is going. You know that if you do not take a lower position, that that just means that you are minimizing Prabhupāda. If you are speaking your name, you are minimizing Śrīla Prabhupāda. As we were talking last time, if you do not say that actually, I am a... how was it? I am a follower of such and such guru and Śrīla Prabhupāda is my spiritual master. And if I do not say that, then I am minimizing Śrīla Prabhupāda. So, this is all called intimidation, who wants to be minimizing Śrīla Prabhupāda.

But devotees should not be intimidated. Although it is a fact, which is what after the last class, devotees were asking me, we have been taught that we should just accept our authorities. So, I mean that is a pretty intimidating thing now to say, that we should also possibly investigate what they are saying, if it does a sound right.

And it is a fact, we are taught to follow our authorities, but we are also taught that we should know the difference between right and wrong. So, and the last thing he says is, that:

Śrīla Prabhupāda said that a bug may sit on the throne, but that does not make him a king.

Now, this is a very bad example and it is badly used. It is false logic and it is bad philosophy. So, it is not our exchange. We are not talking here about trying to become Prabhupāda or trying to become a guru. So, Prabhupāda would use this example just because a bug is sitting on the throne, does not make him a king. Okay, that is clear, but we are not talking about that. We are not talking about anyone becoming, either becoming a guru or becoming a king. We are talking about praising and naming our spiritual master.

So, there is no problem if the bug is praising the king. In court, everyone is praising the king and everyone is chanting his name. Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja ki jay! Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja ki jay! If you watched Mahābhārata, Mahārāja Santanu ki jay! So, that is what you do and, you know, the bugs can also do that.

So, this example is got nothing to do with this whole idea that this is a reason why devotees should not mention the names of this spiritual master, or hide them. So, we are not getting really the kind of balance that we are looking for.

Okay, now, quote, okay, here is the next.

A disciple should feel so unworthy, that he keeps his guru's identity secret so as not to embarrass his guru for having accepted such an unqualified disciple.

I do not know, what you think of that. For me, it is really mind-blowing. I am embarrassing my guru because I am so fallen. Śrīla Prabhupāda so often spoke his guru maharājas name. What to speak of members of all the disciplic succession. It is a fact, that a disciple may feel unworthy. There is no teaching, there is no logic that supports the rest of the statement that he is - I do not want to embarrass my guru. If people know I am his disciple, I am going to be humiliating my guru.

Prabhupāda's answer sometimes to points like this were, he would say,

Why are you unworthy? Do not be unworthy, you should be worthy.

Prabhupāda did not buy into things like this. A disciple may be unworthy, but he is still proud or he is still appreciative that his spiritual master has mercifully accepted him, even though he is unworthy. All of us here are completely unqualified for Kṛṣṇa consciousness, at least we were, before we came to our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.

Rūpa, Sanātana, when they came to Caitanya Mahāprabhu, so they said, yes, we are so fallen, we are so unqualified. Lord Chaitanya did not tell them, do not embarrass me. He just said, your humility is breaking my heart. And obviously, Chaitanya Mahāprabhu, by his mercy, he is accepting such unqualified people, and such wonderful things are taking place because the devotees are becoming worthy. And a guru is not connected to such negative ideology. The disciple is unworthy because the guru is qualified. By his mercy, the unworthy disciple becomes worthy. The disciple is very appreciative, that, despite his unworthiness, spiritual master has accepted him and brought him into the disciplic succession. And because so many devotees, now you can count them, maybe by the hundreds of thousands, they have become worthy, that is why we have Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement all over the world.

No one else did it. It was the unworthy people who, by the grace of Śrīla Prabhupāda and then by the grace of Prabhupāda's followers, are spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness all over the world. They are worthy, yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādo, because by the grace of the guru, they are also getting Kṛṣṇa's grace. It is a very irrational thinking.

Now here is the third quote.

To identify as a disciple, in other words, when you identify yourself, as a disciple of a particular guru excessively and publicly can become a kind of upādhi, another external designation such as man, woman, black, white, old or young.

At least my take on this to the first part, to identify as a disciple of a particular guru excessively and publicly can become a kind of upādhi. What is wrong with excessive identification? And who is to say what is excessive?

Śrīla Prabhupāda single-handedly spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness, because he repeatedly quotes that the Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura says, that the order of the spiritual masters of the disciple's life and soul. Prabhupāda was not the only person who Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura ordered to preach all over the world, but they did not do it. But Prabhupāda did it. Why? Well because he had more than they did. So, I was told to do it. Okay, but why did not you do it? It is a pretty embarrassing question. Why did not you do it? You know, yes, as they say Prabhupāda, they call Swamiji. Swamiji was told to do it. But Swamiji did it. Why did not you do it?

So, you know, we are singing every day - he is my master birth after birth. Is that excessive? And in Hari-bhakti-vilāsa we were reading, it said, give your life to the guru. Is that excessive? You know, when Śrīla Prabhupāda tells a newspaper reporter, if I tell him to kill you, he will kill you. Is that excessive? It is a question of who sets the standard as to what excessive is.

In Bhāgavatam Nārada Muni says, the following, ācaran dāsavan nīco gurau sudṛḍha-sauhṛdaḥ (Bhāg 7.12.1). With a great vow, the brahmacārī should live at the guru-kula like a slave, only for the benefit of the guru. Is that excessive? Actually, it says dāsavan, and dāsa we usually translate a servant. But Prabhupāda in the word for word says - like a slave. I mean, that is extreme. You know, we go on our communications and we tell people that, you know, we are slaves here.

So, so many times Śrīla Prabhupāda said, the life and soul. Life and soul means, you know, it is the everything. And there are so many activities that come into this category of excessive. This is one, you are a slave.

Here is another one that, you know, I do not know of any devotees doing, but, you know, this is in Caitanya-caritāmṛta. So, Mañjarī did not put the whole quote. I will read what comes before.

The faithful disciple will collect some earth from the birthsite of his spiritual master and eat a small portion daily:

To teach others by example how to be a faithful disciple of one's spiritual master, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, visited the birthplace of Īśvara Purī at Kāmarhaṭṭy and collected some earth from his birthsite. This He kept very carefully, and He used to eat a small portion of it daily. (Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi-līlā 9.11).

Was Lord Caitanya excessive? Prabhupāda here is commenting, that this is what a faithful disciple should do. When we go to Kolkata, we should go to Prabhupādas birthplace. Finally, ISKCON has got Prabhupādas birthplace. The Prabhupādas said, you should purchase that land and build a temple. So, is this excessive?

I remember, once we had a Vyāsa-pūjā ceremony here, and there was a guest, and she was watching how devotees were scooping out handfuls of water and drinking it from the foot bathing water. And some weeks later she phoned me up and said, Mahārāja, she says, something very strange going on over there! She says, they were drinking the water that they wash your feet with. It was embarrassing because the …. said, but that is our tradition. But she thought it was excessive. What to speak of eating dirt from the earth, from the guru's birthplace?

To do it excessively and publicly.

I mean, it is a fact that you are not meant to do everything in public. But that is not true that we should not do anything in public. For instance, there is this discussion. When the guru arrives at the airport, should the devotees offer their obeisances or not?

I mean, when Śrīla Prabhupāda came, the whole airport was shut down. Such a loud kirtan, they could not make announcements. And Śrīla Prabhupāda just walked his head high. He never said, quiet them down or stop or anything like that. Of course, whether we want to do that or not, it may be a little embarrassing for the person in question. In devotee clothes there is one thing, but when that guru comes in in western clothes, people looking around, what happened? They are looking for something? So, yeah, there are some things that are sort of controversial. Should we or should not we? It has not been resolved as yet.

Narottama wrote, Guru Vandana, the worship of the Guru,

hā hā prabhu koro doyā, deho more pada-chāyā, ebe yaśa ghuṣuk tribhuvana.

Tribhuvana, you can not get any more public than that. May your glories be spread throughout the three worlds. Well, what do you say? That is a pretty public thing.

So, this idea that, you know, to identify as a disciple of a guru excessively, how do you excessively identify? For instance, you are part of a family. How do you excessively identify as part of a family? This is my father, and this is my mother, but I do not try to be too excessive about my identity with them. They are your parents. You know, they brought you into this world. They raised you. So, similar to the spiritual master, has accepted you, and has actually taught you transcendental knowledge. What is it that it is not excessive?

And then we say publicly. So, for instance, when we, of course, we talk about, praising throughout the three worlds, that is a pretty public thing. But this is, you know, we are part of the same way, spiritual family, and it is our culture. We identify as the servant, dāsa-dāsa-anudāsa( Cc Madhya 13.80). It is the same thing. When you do a yajña, or even you just making a simple offering, if you have a real brāhmaṇa, he is going to say, what is your gotra? So, you have to say, I am in the Acyuta gotra, I am in Kṛṣṇa's family.

And here is an example of, for instance, what Śrīla Prabhupāda writes:

 “It is the duty of a son or a disciple to offer respects and recite suitable prayers when he approaches his father or spiritual master” (Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, chapter 89).

I will continue later. This is also in Hari-bhakti-vilāsa. Hari-bhakti-vilāsa says,

you should stand up whenever your guru enters, and you should say words of praise.

So, that is why you say jai. So, the standard is, with guru, with a king, when you see them, you praise them. And the most compact praise is that you say, jai Śrīla Prabhupāda, jai Yudhisthira Mahārāja, and so on.

Now, this is in the same book where this other verse came from. It is part of the same theme of accepting a guru and taking initiation. So, how do you keep him a secret, if at the same time, whenever you see him, you are supposed to stand up and praise him?

Okay, so this is Prabhupāda's purport to that verse:

In this verse Śukadeva Gosvāmī offers his respectful obeisances kṛṣṇāya munaye, which means to Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa. One must first offer one's respectful obeisances to one's spiritual master. Śukadeva Gosvāmī's spiritual master is his father, Vyāsadeva, and therefore he first offers his respectful obeisances to Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa and then begins describing topics of Lord Hari. (Bhāg, 7.1.4-5)

So, aside from the significance of what is being said here, it is to offer respect and recite suitable prayers, Sūta Gosvāmī is repeating this in front of sixty thousand people, and Vyāsadeva has written it down for the whole world. So, how is it not public? The whole purpose is public.

So, that is dealing with these first two points, which is to say that it is excessive and it should not be done in public, but that this can become a kind of upādhi, another pretty far-out thing.

 Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ tat-paratvena nirmalam hṛṣīkeṇa hṛṣīkeśa-sevanaṁ bhaktir ucyate. (Nārada Pañcarātra, Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.1.12, Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 19.170 )

Upādhi, Śrīla Prabhupāda uses this word, quotes that verse very often. But here is Prabhupāda’s explanation of upādhi. Here is a Prabhupāda’s word – the impurification.

The impurification is that upādhi, designation. I am thinking, "I am American," "I am Indian." This is designation. Actually, spirit soul is neither American nor Indian nor Hindu nor Muslim. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.9.11, August 17, 1968, Montreal)

So, why is this excessive identification by the... and publicly showing one's relationship with the spiritual master? Why is it become an upādhi for people who know that they are spirit soul, first of all? I mean, of course, everything, I will use the word, everything can be taken to its extreme. And very good things can become destructive. You know, now around the world, attacking people with knives has become very common. So, what is that? You just, you know, ban knives? You collect all the knives in the world. Just because it is misused, there are, you know, cars. Many of the devotees came here in automobiles. Millions of people die around the world in automobile accidents. Let us stop automobiles.

Now, that may happen to be a great idea. Life would completely change. The whole world would change. Economy would change, lifestyle would change, people would change. Let us get rid of a few things. Now, I am being extreme. Get rid of mobile phones, get rid of automobiles. Life would be a different story.

So, this is not the case. It is just such a… I find it offensive that these type of attitudes are sort of projected onto the devotees. Identifying with your guru is a upādhi. It is an external, superfluous, offensive thing. Some extreme people, if they knew the author of this, they could take very serious exception to these statements.

And aside from the fact that this whole idea, that being a man, woman, old or young, identifying with that is a upādhi. Well, not for the devotees. That is the whole principle of varṇāśrama, is that you take into consideration the external guna and karma influences. I may be a devotee, now I am talking in general, someone may be a devotee, but that the fact that they identify and function as a woman is not a upādhi.

So, this is also part of another aspect of changing ISKCON standards that is actually making everyone equal, which is what the world around us is all about. Whereas varṇāśrama is all about spiritual equality and seeing the material differences and then engaging people according to the expertise that they have materially.

Okay, everyone's doing very good, so please just hang in there. Okay, this is the fourth statement and it is sort of the last that we are going to take apart.

Short of keeping one's guru, a total secret. If a devotee simply adopts a more modest attitude and respects the mood of a guru-neutral community, everyone feels comfortable and accepted. This is sama-darśinaḥ in relation to gurus.

Well, okay, short of keeping one's guru, a total secret. Well, up to now everything that I have heard is all about keeping the guru a total secret. The whole idea is that institutionally, in the minds of the disciples, it should be kept secret. Now, then we say, if a devotee simply adopts a more modest attitude, in other words, if you do not agree with this, then you are not modest. Being modest is to follow what is being presented here. If you are eating dust from guru's birthplace, then you are not modest. You are publicly telling somebody who your guru is, and you are not modest. If you stand up when guru comes and you are not modest, so yes, it is intepidation. And I always ask, did Śrīla Prabhupāda say this? Or did he teach this?

Then he says, and respect the mood of a guru-neutral community. Guru-neutral community. That was the first time I ever heard such a thing. What to speak of Śrīla Prabhupāda, but even in the GBC and śāstra, where does this guru-neutral community come from? The Vedic culture is that, Prabhupāda was saying, in a village, there is the guru, and he is not neutral. Everyone respects him as their teacher, as their spiritual mentor, as their spiritual guide, and their worship and such. That was the community. And when there were many gurus, then they also received, and I will read, how they receive respect and so on.

So, this idea that guru-neutral means no one should really show respect or have any interaction other than really in a very private environment with your guru. The mood of a guru-neutral community. Then everyone feels comfortable and accepted. We do not have a guru-neutral community, but the devotees feel comfortable and accepted? I do not want to intimidate you. Is it okay? No? So, if you read śāstra, for instance Jaiva-Dharma gives the example of a guru's co-existing and so on, and how that goes on generations.

Personally, I live in a community. It is not particularly guru-neutral, but I think that devotees are generally quite comfortable and accepted. And very often I am quite amazed that sometimes new guests will walk in the temple and say some senior devotee guru walks in, and everyone else offers obeisances. And that person will bow down also. Is it not? You have seen that? Does it happen? For me, it is quite, you know, I did not do that, when I first walked in. Especially in religious countries, in the west it means Christianity. It is not unusual for them to, you know, the pope kisses the ground. And, you know, people, if they get to meet the pope, they will kiss his hand. Or even a bishop and so on.

Actually, when I was still a little old, my parents had acquaintances. The tradition, when the man came to meet the lady, he would kiss her hand. Kezicsókolom. Do not just say kezicsókolom, but you do kezicsókolom. Kezi, it means hand and csókolom means kiss. So you show respect. It was nice. Any respect is nice.

Sama-darśinaḥ in relationship to gurus. I will not mention that here, but I will mention something. Now, wait till I get to it a little later. Okay, here is the fifth quote. Okay, this is the last. And I am only mentioning two points here.

The community mood of Sama-darśinaḥ regarding gurus is vital and effective for building devotional communities in the West. Observant preachers…

Who said?

Observant preachers minimize the importance of any individual guru. And focus on the needs of young devotees to develop appreciation for Śrīla Prabhupāda. At such and such place, this approach has resulted in a community with disciples of fifteen different gurus, who live in the mood of harmony and cooperation. At such and such place, students and staff appreciate the gurus in private meetings with God brothers and God sisters. In public, they glorify Lord Kṛṣṇa and Śrīla Prabhupāda, which brings together all the devotees.

So, this is long, but I am just going to bring out two points. Sama-darśinaḥ regarding gurus. That means that we all see gurus the same. Same here, same as anybody else. In other words, we are our people, so, guru is also a person, therefore just same as a person. Now this is not how Kṛṣṇa spoke this verse, where the sama-darśinaḥ comes from!

Vidyā-vinaya-sampanne brāhmaṇe gavi hastini śuni caiva śva-pāke ca paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ (Bhagavad-gītā 5.18)

He is talking about a paṇḍita, a learned person. What does the learned person see? He sees the soul in every different living entity. That is sama-darśinaḥ. It does not mean that you relegate all living entities. This is egalitarianism, that everyone is equal, sama-darśinaḥ, we see everyone equally. It is a misapplication of philosophy, but to say that, you know, gurus are same as everybody else.

Policemen are the same as everybody else. The cook is the same as everybody else. Everything all of a sudden just deteriorates. You have nobody to feed you, you have nobody to keep law and order in society. Everybody is the same. It is a twisted ideology. Rather, vaiṣṇavas are meant to see oneness and difference.

That is our philosophy. Yes. Oneness of soul, difference of body. Oneness of soul, difference of ashram. Oneness of soul, difference of varna. Oneness and difference. Yes, he is also a person, but he is a different person than me.

Somebody on the street comes up to me and say, Hey, you are arrested. I do not pay any attention to him. Policeman comes and says, you are arrested, then you run. That is what we used to do sometimes. It depends how old they were.

Śrīla Prabhupāda did emphasize oneness, but here is the kind of oneness that Prabhupāda emphasized.

This is the business of the disciple. How to glorify the spiritual master, parampara. I glorify my spiritual master, you glorify your spiritual master. If we simply do that, glorify, then Kṛṣṇa is glorified. (Class on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.5.23, August 4, 1974, Vṛndāvana)

This is what we learn.

Now, I am going to read something probably you have never heard, and it is going to be a lengthy read. And it is about making distinction between different people according to their seniority. You see some very interesting things, how even you do not even worship all gurus equally. And interestingly, this quote will explain why it is that, for instance, the author of this document, why he sees like this. This is the idea of how to make distinctions and see difference, and how it is the duty of vaiṣṇavas to do that. And when they do not do that, they fall down. Okay.

This book is called Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta. It is a small book about a hundred verses. I am not reading all hundred verses. But it is specifically answering certain questions. Here the question is how are gurus worshiped. It also answers the question of what happens when a guru falls down and how do you reject the spiritual master. We will not discuss that. Okay. So now I am starting here.

It is true that the devotees are all equal. How can those material people of little intelligence, who fear the beggar or the devotees dressed in rags distinguish between the greater and lesser devotees? They do not distinguish between the power of a small fire and a huge fire. They consequently should treat all devotees equally. Will they die because of not recognizing the distinctions? Equal treatment is acceptable for them. (Srila Narahari Sarkara Thakur, Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta, Verse 29)

So here he is talking about people who are not really very intelligent and who want to treat everybody equally. So, he says it is okay. For them it is okay because at least they are showing a certain degree of respect.

But the devotees who are expert in their actions, who have developed special intelligence by hearing, seeing and understanding make distinctions of devotees having lesser and greater spiritual power. They know the lesser or greater power of Kṛṣṇa in the body of a particular devotee. They treat the devotees in different ways because of their ability to distinguish the difference. If they do not act though understanding the difference in a devotee's potency, they are considered faulty. When respecting or worshipping the lesser and greater devotees they first worship the devotees of greater spiritual strength and then those of ordinary strength. (Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta, Verse 30-32)

So now here he is saying, but devotees, devotees who have heard, who have chanted, who have been trained and educated, who actually have intelligence, they should be able to see and know to what degree Kṛṣṇa is present within the heart of a Vaiṣṇava and they should worship them and give respect accordingly.

Read this carefully.

If devotees of lesser power, being without intelligence, become angry on seeing the worship of the devotees of greater power and influence, their own power will be destroyed by the power of great devotees. (Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta, Verse 35)

So here there are two categories of devotees being made. Those who are less advanced and those who are more advanced, and if those who are less advanced become angry to see that those who are more advanced are worshiped in a different way, then that is bad for them.

 If well known, serious devotees, expert in their treatment of others who know everything, do not act in this way, though have knowledge, they are destroyed. By distinguishing the lesser and greater they live. (Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta, Verse 35)

So here it says, but if someone is actually very advanced and still, he does not act in the right way, then he says they are destroyed. Their responsibility is distinguishing the lesser and the greater.

All devotees are gurus. The dīkṣā and śikṣā gurus are special. (Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta, Verse 42-43)

This is śāstra. By the way, this is Narahari Sarakhara.

All the devotees are gurus. The dīkṣā and śikṣā gurus are special. (Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta, Verse 42-43)

This is not sama-darśinaḥ. We are saying that they are special.

How should one treat them? One should follow their orders. If they are both of lesser spiritual strength, one may learn special teachings from the mouth of other great devotees and then offer that knowledge to the guru. Knowledge may be learned from many gurus, but one should not ignore the dīkṣā guru and primary śikṣā guru. (Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta, Verse 45-47)

There is another separate topic of how, if one's own guru is not sufficiently advanced, how he or she may take guidance from somebody who is more advanced. In any case, here it is very clear that there is a distinction being made between devotees in general and devotees acting in the capacity of dīkṣā and śikṣā guru.

We have a habit of calling anyone who gives śikṣā, śikṣā guru, and in one sense that is correct, but the strict meaning of śikṣā guru in Gauḍīya culture is that person who, if it is not your dīkṣā guru, maybe your dīkṣā guru, who is giving you guidance on your svarūpa and how to cultivate your eternal relationship with Kṛṣṇa. It is not somebody who is solving marital problems or even necessarily just teaching those things which are already in the books. That is a different topic. OK.

Therefore, in all cases, one must worship the guru and all the devotees as both are worthy of worship, but one must serve the guru especially with body, mind and words. (Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta, Verse 50)

So, this is again making a distinction. So, it is saying that, yes, you should worship everybody, but the worship is not the same.

While doing service, if others disregard one's guru, one should take the side of one's guru since the guru is the prominent person. (Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta, Verse 51)

This says that if someone is criticizing the spiritual master or there is a disagreement, a disciple's natural position is to side with the guru. He said, why? Because he is the prominent person, at least in that devotee’s life. So, this is interesting, is not it?

Look, the father is like the guru. His older and younger brothers are also gurus, but the father of one's father or a great relative, worthy of greater respect is also guru, but his worship should be double that of the father. This is well known amongst the virtuous people. (Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta, Verse 52)

In other words, you are supposed to give twice as much respect to your grandfather as you give to your father, not equal. And if the grandfather's brother comes in, then you give him twice the respect you give to your father. How do you give twice as much respect? One way is - you seat your father on a lower chair and you seat them on a higher chair. One is that you give your father this much prasādam and you give them that much prasādam.

Distinguishing the powerful and the lesser devotees is the life of the devotee. All should act according to this principle. Hearing from the guru or by one's intelligence, that is the method. The devotees should accept themselves as the servant of the guru and the devotees. That is the highest dharma. (Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta, Verse 57-58)

Is that a little different than what we have been hearing up to now? But it also has a different effect. It has the ring of truth. So,

Distinguishing the powerful and the lesser is the life of the devotee.

There is no sama-darśinaḥ here.

All should act according to this principle. Either you learn it from your guru or by your intelligence. The devotee should accept themselves as the servant of the guru and devotees. This is the highest dharma. (Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta, Verse 57-58)

So, this whole idea of bringing down is such a depressing thing, as opposed to this being such an elevating thing. And if your father sits on a smaller chair and your grandfather sits on a big chair, is your father going to get upset with you? Not, when that is the culture. Then he will praise you. Our idea is to learn vedic, but actually our idea is to learn vaiṣṇava culture. This is vaiṣṇava culture. How do vaiṣṇavas deal?

This other thing is not vaiṣṇava culture. This is the mleccha, rākṣasa culture, that is being taught in the world today, so that eight-year-old children in school, they are being taught - it does not matter what body you have. Whether you are a boy or a girl, it is how you feel. This is school and you can not stop it. And if you are a boy, but you feel like a girl, when you are 11 years old, you can have a whole sex change. Anyway, but this is the culture where all this is coming from and that everybody is equal. And that women should do the same thing as men, men should do the same thing as women, and everyone should be able to do anything.

Yes, we were all the way back there, where he was focusing on the needs of the young devotees, that this guru-neutral, this was not guru-neutral society. Focus on the needs of young devotees. Yes, we should. Which means that we should actually teach them the principles of respect, because it is not taught.

So there was this idea that we see respect of gurus or seniors of the 64 items of devotional service,14^th:

One should also stand up before the deity and the spiritual master just to show them respect. (Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 22, 122)

 This is public, this is in a temple, that is what it says. It is not that, you know, sama-darśinaḥ, we are all people and we just behave, you know, like everybody is all the same.

Which will mean, if it does not already mean, that, you know, women should not sit on this side and mince it on this side. Everyone should just sit wherever they want. This is what I wanted to mention earlier about this idea of what suits the needs of the devotees. And when I mentioned it to Devamrita Mahārāja, he like jumped up and almost hit the roof in bliss. It is certainly not something that is going to be appreciated by everybody.

When we were preaching as young devotees, we preached about Kṛṣṇa and we preached about Prabhupāda. It was not the guru neutral position. We were not preaching about Prabhupāda because of the founder ācārya. We never heard of that at that time. And because we preached that here is the living example of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Here is a pure devotee. And devotees came, we made many devotees.

After Prabhupāda's disappearance, there was the zonal ācārya system which certainly had its excesses and faults. But aside from that, then we also preached about a person, living person. And obviously we preached about Prabhupāda, and that is how we made the devotees.

Kṛṣṇa was here 5,000 years ago, but without his representative as guru and in his mūrti form, there is not going to be any devotees in the world. People are not interested in an institution, especially in our day today. And they are not so much interested, even if you tell them, yes, here is Śrīla Prabhupāda. They will certainly appreciate him in all the ways that he should be appreciated.

But they want to know, show me the person, that is evidence that Kṛṣṇa consciousness works. It is like Christianity. Everyone points to Jesus Christ as the perfect person because there is so few perfect persons after him.

So that is what devotees want. And that is what the devotees need. They need living guides. Living guides explain you what the founder ācārya said, what he wanted. Why we need gurus at all? There is the Bhagavad Gītā! Because we need gurus to explain the Bhagavad Gītā. Otherwise, it is perfect. Yes. And when you have living gurus, then you drive certain projects. Gives inspiration. It inspires book distribution, Vaiśeṣika Prabhu inspires book distribution. You can elaborate further on Śrīla Prabhupāda's books. People write books, they lead kirtans. And you can not argue with it. They enthuse devotees. What do you do? Argue with that? That is a fact.

These are some of the ways that gurus in a life spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And you wonderful devotees, we are coming to an end with our conclusion. So, could say many things, but the point is that in the mood of elevating Śrīla Prabhupāda, what we are doing is actually we are minimizing Prabhupāda and we are minimizing guru.

What we are saying is that Śrīla Prabhupāda teachings, books, personal association, could not elevate somebody to fit into what we read from Kṛṣṇa Bhajanāmrta. And as I mentioned the last time, you know, technically speaking, there is no worship of the guru allowed in the temple room, except for vyāsa-puja, which personally I agree with, I think this is a Śrīla Prabhupādas place. However, the temple room is only one part of the temple. Receptions, foot bathing, generally they are sort of found upon as being excessive.

In India, if a vaiṣṇava walks into a village, people will come out and wash your feet. It is like saying hello. It is like banning saying hello in our culture, provided that we really want to have a culture.

So, this damage should not be allowed and with this idea of hiding the spiritual master is going too far in terms of finding a proper balance. Yes, dīkṣā guru, śikṣā gurus makes mistakes. Sometimes they cause headaches for the society, but that is the difficulty that comes along with this whole concept of two absolute authorities. Who is more absolute? The guru has to be absolute for his disciples, and the guru has to be under the absolute authority of the GBC and its GBC secretaries. Some people will argue philosophically that that makes him relative. So how can you make an absolute person relative, subordinate to some managerial body?

That is really the major question. Go this way, go that way. You know, completely neutralize the guru and then, yeah, then they are just like everybody else to under the authority of the institution. But then guru disciple does not work. And what we do have and did have as a problem is when the gurus act quite independent of the society. They do not, they are not accountable and yet at the same time they benefit from the society. It is going on.

So, gurus get the benefit of money, disciples, but no accountability. And it impoverishes ISKCON and takes away manpower from doing what he should be doing. So, balance, we have got to get this balance. This effort has also been balanced. What was presented from this hiding the guru and I am just making this presentation with the hope of, you know, bringing it back a little more.

Sometimes ISKCON is going too far. Then with things like female dīkṣā gurus, then it is like going in a completely in the wrong direction. I do not know what it, when Hungarian, what do you have, but it makes us a laughing stock in the eyes of Gauḍīya vaiṣṇavas.

So, I do not think the idea is about hide your guru, what it sounds like is lock your guru in a box. And Hungary, you have that jack in the bean box, you open the box, the BANG! - jumps out. So, it is like that, the gurus in a box, and then you go to a secret place, you open the box. So, I would really suggest that the guru, the guru disciple course, extract this gopayed gurum ātmanah.

The mantra, its explanation, the whole idea should just be taken out. You could try to footnote it, but you can not footnote the word hide. Hide means hide. Get ready.

Okay, and I conclude with a short quote from Prabhupāda. This is what Prabhupāda said about worship of guru. This is from Hari Śauri’s diary.

Tamal Krishna Mahārāja came to Prabhupāda with a doubt he had about the work going on in New Vrindāvan. He wanted to know whether it was all right that Kīrtanānanda Mahārāja was expending so much money and energy on building the palace. Surely this was at the expense of book distribution he suggested.

Śrīla Prabhupāda assured him it was proper. "No, it is all right. He is doing it as an offering to his guru." (A Transcendental Diary, Volume Three, July 17th, 1976)

As far as I know, and I have read and heard that, and I think from Tamal Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja himself, that it goes further.

He says,

No, it is all right. He is doing it as an offering to his guru. There is no limit as to how much one can actually glorify the spiritual master.

Thank you very much. You have been very patient. Śrīla Prabhupāda ki jay!