The Mercy of the Spiritual Master

om ajnana timirandhasya jnananjana salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri gurave namah
"O Gurudeva, you are so merciful. I offer my humble pranama unto you and am praying from the core of my heart that, with the torchlight of divine knowledge, you open my eyes which have been blinded by the darkness of ignorance."


Today I am very happy to be posting again, after nearly one year away. This will be a good encouragement for me to keep reading spiritual books and keep me accountable. Today, I am sharing from Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja.

Srila Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja: Guru, the spiritual master, is the representative of Krsna. He is a very dear devotee of Krsna, who is caitya-guru, seated in the heart as Supersoul. The spiritual master is always there. Don't think that he is not physically present...He is always there. If you have developed love for the spiritual master, if you have developed that eye, ten you can see him, you can talk to him. And he is also present in the form of books, vani-rupa; his instructions are there.

<Katha Upanisad 1.2.23 quoted>

You cannot understand the absolute truth through your own mundane scholarship, you own mundane intelligence....those who are not devotees, who never come under a bona fide disciplic succession, cannot know it. 

 Then how can you know? ...Assuming a body, He personally comes as spiritiual master to teach paramatma tattva. He is caitya-guru. Unless He speaks, you cannot understand.

 ...by Krsna's mercy you get a bona fide spiritiual master, and by the mercy of the spiritual master you get Krsna. Paramatma arranges that meeting. So we must be very eager, very inquisitive, as Dhruva Maharaja was, to get the Lord. Paramatma arranged for Narada Muni to appear before him. "All right, he is very eager now. You go and show him the path, help him."

Similarly, for that disciple who is crying, "O my spiritual master has disappeared. How can I be helped? Who will teach me? How can I know? His instructions, books are there, but I cannot understand the purport. Although it is there, it is very difficult for me to understand it."

When you become very, very inquisitive, sastra has its mercy.......One who is very, very eager and very, very inquisitive, prays to his spiritual master, "O my spiritual master, you have departed. You are not physically present, so I cannot understand. I am such an ignorant fool. I have not qualification. Though your instructions are there, I cannot understand what you have said. Please help me."

- from After the Disappearance of Sri Guru, a darsana, 18 July 1986, Paris, France

Maintaining Eagerness

PICTURES LATER, SORRY


The following is from a booklet of lectures called "After the Disappearance of Sri Guru" by Srila Gour Govinda Swami:


Devotee asks: I was eager to have guru. Now I have guru, but how do I maintain this constant eagerness?

Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja: You must maintain it by thinking, "Out of Krishna's mercy I met my guru. But how can I always get the association of my guru?"

You should be very eager to always have the association of guru and listen to him. Unless you listen to your guru, your doubts cannot be dispelled. If you cannot get the mercy of guru, you cannot get Krishna. So you should be very, very eager, "How can I best serve my guru and please him?"

If gurudeva is pleased, then Krishna will be pleased and and you will get Krishna's mercy; if gurudeva is displeased then where is your position, where is your place? So our concern, our duty, is to please the spiritual master. How is that done?

guru mukha padma vakya, cittete koriya aikya, ara na kariha mana asa
One should carry out the orders of the spiritual master. Gurudeva has many instructions. Some of his instructions are general, and some are specific. General instructions are for everyone. Specific instructions are what he tells specific, individual disciples. One should be especially eager to follow the individual instructions that gurudeva gave to you.

One should think, "Gurudeva has ordered me to do this. How can I best do it? How can I best please my spiritual master? How can I best serve and please him? Doing so I will get the mercy of Krishna. Otherwise, my life is unsuccessful."

...One should think, "Oh, I can't do anything. I'm such a wretched, unqualified, unworthy person! I cannot render any service to my guru. I cannot please him. I have not gotten anything. I have not got the mercy of my guru. I have not pleased him. I have not taken advantage of meeting my guru. Oh, what shall I do? I have not done anything. I do not have the mercy of my guru! How can I get his mercy?"

You should always think like that. ...This is how you maintain eagerness.



Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja ki jai!

At one point he adds that one should not think, "I have got guru, I have pleased him," because then we will not have eagerness.

In some ways I think this is hard, and painful - to think that we have not gotten the mercy, when we are so fortunate to have met Srila Gurudeva. But, we have to have that greed for more, for his mercy, greed to be a good disciple, to follow his instructions. And I have found that when I am trying to be humble and when I am thinking, "Am I pleasing guru?" then actually there is a kind of spiritual satisfaction that comes, somehow, of knowing this is good, to think like this...

I want to maintain eagerness.

If anyone has anything to add, please do.

If you are really thirsty...

Here is Srila Gurudeva at Radha kund. I am uploading this because today on Vraj Mandala Parikrama - walking through sacred Vrndavana - the devotees are going to Radha Kund.

om ajnana timirandhasya jnananjana salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri gurave namah
O Gurudeva, you are so merciful. I offer my humble pranama unto you and am praying from the core of my heart that, with the torchlight of divine knowledge, you open my eyes which have been blinded by the darkness of ignorance.


This beautiful reassurance and encouragement to be a good disciple and be humble comes from Srila Gour Govinda Swami:

Devotee: Some devotees say that now that
Srila Prabhupada [Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja] has left they don’t know
how to get his mercy and they are not sure
what to do. In reply you said that if someone
is really eager, their guru can appear in different
forms to help. Can you explain?


Gour Govinda Swami: This is a most
important question. You can see your guru
if you have developed the right vision.
Prahlad Maharaja saw the Supreme Lord
in a stone pillar. But his father saw only
the stone. You can see your guru if you are
really eager to see him. “Yes, my guru is
here. He is speaking to me.”

If you are really thirsty you will cry for water
and run,“Where is water? Where is water?”
This isreal eagerness. In the same way, if you
are eager for your guru’s instruction then you
will be able to see how he is there. He will
give you instructions. He will definitely
impart knowledge.


Devotee: In the form of sādhu and śāstra?


Gour Govinda Swami: Just like śāstra is always
there and sādhu is always there, similarly,
guru is always there. He is eternal. But
you are not eager. You have no thirst, so how
can you get water? You are not eager for
water, so how can you get water? “Oh, I have
gotten. I have no thirst.” This mentality is
very dangerous. You think yourself so great.
You are puffed up. You are not humble at all.
In the Śrī Caitanya Caritāmṛta Ādi 17.31
Mahaprabhu says:

tṛṇād api su-nīcena
taror iva sahiṣṇunā
amāninā māna-dena
kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ

This is a very important thing. Kaviraj
Goswami says, make a garland of this verse,
put it around your neck, and do hari-bhajana.
Otherwise you are not doing hari-bhajana at
all. You are not feeling lower than the grass,
you are not more tolerant than a tree, you are
not free of false pride, and you are not giving
respect to all. So how will you do hari-bhajana?
But you say, “Oh I am doing hari-bhajana. I
am doing. I am doing.” This is not bhajana.

— From a darśana in Bhubaneswar, 14 November, 1991

"This path of bhakti is all optimism."

Here's a really amazing excerpt from Srila Gour Govinda Swami's book, Amrutera Tarangini - The Flow of Nectar.

"Somehow or other we have come to this path, so we should be serious. Our Guru Maharaja Srila Prabhupada says, 'This is for serious students.' It is for those who are very serious like Dhruva Maharaja. Dhruva was so serious and determined. 'I must get Narayana.' So be serious and determined like him, then in this very life we will get Krsna. But if there is no seriousness and determination, rather, so many material desires, still whatever little we have earned is never lost.
"There is no despondency or pessimism on this path. This path of bhakti is all optimism. Never become disappointed. If it will not be achieved in this life, definitely in the next life or the life after that it must come to us. This path of bhakti is all gain, there is no loss. We may commit some aparadha, fall down or whatever, so in this very life our advancement is checked. But whatever we have earned is with us, it is never lost.

"There is no loss, it is all gain. So there is no pessimism. This bhakti is so powerful, and this is the teaching."