If you don't feel the urgency of completely taking shelter of Krishna right now as your only duty, you are in a very dangerous and precarious spiritually compromised position. In fact, whether you realize it or not, you are experiencing the most dire of all possible emergencies. Why? Because death can come at any minute, and if you are not prepared, you will be forced by the laws of nature to remain within the cycle of birth and death. Therefore if you don't feel the urgency, you must immediately, with as much sincerity as you can possibly muster, beg the Supreme Lord to save you from your fallen condition and restore you to sanity as His eternal servant. Otherwise, you are completely lost, whereabouts unknown, like a vanished astronaut accidently separated from his space capsule drifting aimlessly in outer space with no hope of ever being recovered.


Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Emphasizing the Importance of Human Life
Noida, India--8 April 2011

http://www.backtohome.com/images/2011-Spring/Lecture_Noida.JPG
 

Challenge: You Are Misinterpreting the Verse

You wrote:

But can't God be approached directly without going through a spiritual master? We can surely approach Him directly through prayer and scriptural study. But as soon as we do that we discover that He is ordering us to become the devotee of His devotee in order to become His devotee. This is stated by Lord Krishna in the Adi Purana as follows:

ye me bhakta-janāḥ pārtha
na me bhaktāś ca te janāḥ
mad-bhaktānāṁ ca ye bhaktās
te me bhakta-tamā matāh

"My dear Arjuna, those who are My direct devotees are actually not My devotees, but those who are the devotees of My devotee are factually My devotees."

I have some questions. In the childhood of Krishna, He stopped people from worshiping Indra, who was a devotee of Krishna. Also on the other hand you say that one should chant Krishna directly as it gives maximum benefit and on the other hand you say one should be the devotee of the devotee.

I personally never feel for devotee too much, but I am always in love with Krishna and am always benefited. I remain always happy even I when undergo the worst conditions. I am sorry, but I think you are misinterpreting the meaning of this verse. 

You contradict yourself when you say one should worship directly Krishna so that you will be able to see the absolute truth yourself. You contradict Srila Prabhupada, who said in an interview that a real guru always says I am the servant of Krishna and I will make you the servant of Krishna.

Please explain. 

Regards, 
V.J.
 

Answer: We Present As It Is, Without Interpretation.

We do not give interpretations on the words of scripture. We simply present the scripture as it is. Krishna clearly states in Sanskrit in the Adi Purana that the one who is only His devotee is not His devotee. The word "na", which means "not" is clearly stated there. So, there is no question of interpretation.

If a devotee becomes proud as Indra became proud, he is not worthy of being worshipped. We approach Krishna by becoming the devotee of His pure devotee, not those devotees who are infected by pride.

The Hare Krishna mahamantra has been given to us by the mercy of Lord Krishna's pure devotee, Srila Prabhupada. This is why it has so much potency. The Padma Purana states that if we receive the mantra from another source besides the pure devotee who is coming in disciplic succession, it will have no effect:

"sampradāya-vihīnā ye mantrās te niṣphalā matāḥ"

I have studied Srila Prabhupada's teachings full time for the last forty years, and I can assure you that I am purely presenting his teachings. I can give many, many verses and quotes to prove it. Here's a verse by Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti, one of the greatest Vaisnava acharyas in our line of disciplic succession. Srila Prabhupada quotes this verse in his purport to Sri Caitanya Caritamrita Adi Lila 9.11 as follows:

yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādo
yasyāprasādān na gatiḥ kuto ’pi

“By the mercy of the spiritual master one is blessed by the mercy of Krishna. Without the grace of the spiritual master one cannot make any advancement.”

I appreciate very much your loving sentiments for Krishna. But I beg you to kindly note that if you want to elevate your sentiments to the perfectional stage of pure devotion, you will have to obey Lord Krishna's order to become the devotee of His devotee. This is how we show Krishna our dedication to Him, by obeying his order to approach the spiritual master to inquire about the science of bhakti and render service unto Him:

tad viddhi praṇipātena
paripraśnena sevayā
upadekṣyanti te jñānaṁ
jñāninas tattva-darśinaḥ

"Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized souls can impart knowledge unto you because they have seen the truth."--Bhagavad-gita 4.34

We never say that one cannot directly approach Krishna. One can easily do so, for example, just by reading the above verse. But when one does so with full humility, he will hear Krishna's order to approach the spiritual master and will dutifully do so on the order of Krishna. If he refuses to obey Krishna's order, then he has not properly connected himself with Krishna.

It's a fact that Srila Prabhupada says that he is the servant of Krishna and that he will make his students also the servants of Krishna. He does this by teaching them how to be the servants of Krishna's servants. This why Lord Caitanya has prayed as follows:

nāhaṁ vipro na ca nara-patir nāpi vaiśyo na śūdro
nāhaṁ varṇī na ca gṛha-patir no vanastho yatir vā
kintu prodyan-nikhila-paramānanda-pūrnāmṛtābdher
gopī-bhartuḥ pada-kamalayor dāsa-dāsānudāsaḥ

“I am not a brahmana, I am not a ksatriya, I am not a vaisya or a sudra. Nor am I a brahmacari, a householder, a vanaprastha or a sannyasi. I identify Myself only as the servant of the servant of the servant of the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krishna, the maintainer of the gopis. He is like an ocean of nectar, and He is the cause of universal transcendental bliss. He is always existing with brilliance.”

So don't try to be a bigger devotee than the great Vaisnava acharyas by thinking that you can ignore Krishna's devotees and only give your love to Him. There is no one more dear to Krishna than His devotees, so if we ignores His devotees, He will ignore us.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari
 

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