Spritual challenges

Dear readers,

By the causeless mercy of Śrī Guru and Śrī Gaurāṅga, we are discussing spiritual topics for our purification. In this article the focus will be on challenges in spiritual life which looks unconquerable.

Śrī Guru is always emerged in worshipping his eternal spiritual masters and his eternal Lord. Gurudeva is sevaka-bhagavān. If we minimize our servitude mood towards Śrī Guru obstacles will come into our spiritual life.

If someone is fortunate enough, only he will be able to understand this topic or secret. He is a real disciple or we may say he is qualified to receive mercy from Śrī Guru and Śrī Gaurāṅga. Once Śrīla Prabhupāda asked his disciples, "which verse is the most important in our literatures?" The devotees recited many verses from Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. Lastly, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, "no, the most important verse is: yasya deve parā bhaktir yathā deve tathā gurau tasyaite kathitā hy arthāḥ prakāśante mahātmanaḥ. Only unto those great souls who have implicit faith in both the Lord and the spiritual master are all the imports of Vedic knowledge automatically revealed." [Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.23]

To please Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, we have to focus on Guru’s pleasure at every moment. This is an important instruction in our Vaiṣṇava philosophy. Because we have other desires then to serve Śrī Guru and Śrī Gaurāṅga, we are unable to understand the essence of this topic or secret. Even śāstra and sādhu warns us not think of Śrī Guru as an ordinary human being, still we don’t know why we see so many faults in Śrī Guru. Sometimes the mind thinks it is very difficult to find a pure devotee, because a fault-finding nature is hampering us in every step of our spiritual life. We are restless, we are searching purity in others but we are not searching purity in ourselves. The mind is not allowing us to see our own shortcomings. We are always ready to blame others, eventually this becomes our hari-kathā. Directly or indirectly this is our kīrtana. For example, the kind of food which is in our stomach, that sort of smell always comes in our mouth. Unless we abide by the mood of Śrī Guru by associating with him, serving him and by achieving a speck of dust from his lotus feet we can’t solve this issue.

We have to remind ourselves that not only by studying śāstra or by preaching, the essence will reveal to us. However, it will be revealed to us by engaging ourselves in Śrī Guru’s services. Śrī Guru and Śrī Gaurāṅga are the absolute objects, we cannot serve them with the idea of them being non-absolute. By nature we are true lovers of the absolute, but our love towards non-absolute objects is our creativity. Therefore, the natural love and the so-called love we created are different like hell and heaven. Just like the affection of a mother towards her son and daughter and a chaste wife towards her husband is natural, similarly if we want to see what real love and affection for the Lord is, we can see that within Śrī Guru. There is no other way to realize that. That is the real austerity in our spiritual life. Our attempt in spiritual life is to search out that real asset of Śrī Guru. For that purpose we have to become an active member of Śrī guru-saṁsāra.

We don’t have true attraction towards the lotus feet of Śrī Guru. He comes to attract us. But who is Śrī Guru? One who engages himself twenty-four hours in Guru’s and Kṛṣṇa’s loving service and engages others in Kṛṣṇa’s service, is Śrī Guru. Kṛṣṇa is All-attractive, similarly Śrī Guru, who is a pure devotee, is also all-attractive. But the difference is that Kṛṣṇa attracts all living beings as the Enjoyer, but in the case of Śrī Guru he is always engaged in how to give enjoyment and pleasure to Kṛṣṇa. As a real servant he attracts others, this is his life and soul. By his pure unalloyed loving service as a humble servant he attracts everyone and gives them a chance to drink the sweetness of Kṛṣṇa’s service, kṛṣṇa-sevānanda. If we are unable to understand this tattva or if we are delayed in understanding this topic then inauspiciousness like a black cloud in the sky will cover our life. This is always happening in our case. Constantly we have to pray and cry for Śrī Guru’s mercy. Once our sincere prayer touches the heart of Śrī Guru, by his mercy and by his arrangement, he will lead our spiritual life. Thereby we will develop attraction towards Śrī Guru.

By Kṛṣṇa’s arrangement or by our previous sukriti, we have a chance to meet a pure sādhu. However, due to our pride we will not be able to recognize him. Our qualifications are material, and still we are puffed up because of these qualities. We have to remember: dīnere adhika dayā kare bhagavān kulīna, paṇḍita, dhanīra baḍa abhimāna. “The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, is always favorable to the humble and meek, but aristocrats, learned scholars and the wealthy are always proud of their positions.’’ [Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta Antya-līlā 4.68]

To become a real servant, it is essential to become free from false pride. How is it possible to become free from false pride? Only when we develop our attraction and attention towards Śrī Guru, and when we follow his instructions with a simple heart, we may know how heavy he is and how light we are and how many faults we have. Our pride covers up our consciousness, therefore we don’t have a chance to find out our own faults, and its root cause. If pride is there it means you are sitting on Śrī Guru’s head, and not at his lotus feet. In Oriya this is called ‘Guru-Giri’. In public we present ourselves as humble to achieve fame, but in the mind there is pride in different forms. The mind is prompting us, ‘no one is humble like me’. Due to this mentality we are far, far away from Śrī Guru.

When we are preaching or singing, we forget that Śrī Guru and Śrī Gaurāṅga are the real preacher or singer. When people are glorifying us, at that time we tend to forget this important message and become eager to hear our own glorification with ears wide open. We glorify Śrī Guru and Śrī Gaurāṅga even for our own glorification. By such hearing and chanting we are not giving pleasure to Śrī Guru and Śrī Gaurāṅga, rather we are promoting ourselves by using their glories. This is serious duplicitousness, on the outside we are glorifying and on the inside we are always measuring, comparing or calculating like a measuring scale. On the outside we are worshiping Śrī Guru with different paraphernalia, but inside our heart we are always taking the importance, knowledge and devotion of Śrī Guru in consideration. We have to remember that our consciousness is always in māyā, and sometimes in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We are not a physician, we are seriously diseased. We don’t know the result of this serious offense.

By the glorification of others or by our own qualifications, we tend to forget our position as an order carrier of Śrī Guru and Śrī Gaurāṅga. Because of this we are not protecting and mentioning the institution founded by Śrī Guru. Actually, we have to establish the position and philosophy of the Founder ācārya within the society. Managing and preaching does not mean we are establishing ourselves, we are establishing the position and philosophy of the ācārya. By doing this service Śrī Guru and Kṛṣṇa will take care of us and protect us. Those who are always busy for themselves, they feel unprotected. By establishing the teachings of the ācārya and the paramparā without desiring anything, is the formula of real spiritual protection. All of our attempts should be based on how to understand the position of Śrī Guru and the ācārya and how to establish his mission. It is not an easy task. When we perform our bhajana, only then we can face challenges from the inside, but when we try to establish the mission of Śrī Guru, mostly we have to face challenges from the outside. Especially we have to face enviousness. Therefore, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, ‘’why did my Guru Maharāja said that the material world is not a fit place for any gentlemen to live, because we will always be surrounded by envious people.’’ Still, without that engagement is there another way to get that mercy?

All paraphernalia belong to Śrī Guru and Śrī Gaurāṅga. Utilizing their paraphernalia’s in their service and for their pleasure in the mood of servitorship is a challenge for us nowadays. Due to our enjoyment propensity, we are seeing all their paraphernalia’s as material. Not only are we thinking that we arranged all paraphernalia, we are also forgetting the important message that we are an instrument in the hands of Śrī Guru and Śrī Gaurāṅga. Even instruments have some individual power in a system. Our perfect position is like one of a dancing doll. If we become a dancing doll in the hands of Śrī Guru and Śrī Gaurāṅga, our life will become successful. For that we have to pray, ‘‘please Śrīla Gurudeva use me in your service, I am useless.’’ This should be our humble prayer at the lotus feet of Śrī Guru and Śrī Gaurāṅga.

Vaiṣṇava dāsānudāsa
Haladhara Swami