durgame pathi me ’ndhasya
skhalat-pāda-gater muhuḥ
sva-kṛpā-yaṣṭi-dānena
santaḥ santv avalambanam
(Cc Antya 1.2)
My path is very difficult. I am blind, and my feet are slipping again and again. Therefore, may the saints help me by granting me the stick of their mercy as my support.
Gaudiya Goṣṭhī Pati Śrī Śrīla Bhakti Siddhanta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda Jagad Guru told that— “So long as people are going to depend upon their own power and intellect, till then they cannot meet with sad-guru“. When our ears are no more going to cooperating with our dirty material mind, when our eyes are no more going to cooperate with our dirty material mind, when our tongues are no more going to cooperate with our dirty material mind, then in that case we can get the scope to do hari-bhajana. It is our wicked mind which is always putting us into trouble. We cannot concentrate in bhajan unless we sell our head to guru-vaiṣṇava. We hear from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that there are two types of minds, one is sati mati (chaste mind) and the other one is the mind like a prostitute.”
A chaste mind means– mumukṣor matiṁ satīṁ yacchati vāsudeve. When the mind is running towards her husband (the Absolute Husband Bhagavan Śrī Kṛṣṇa) than it is called a chaste mind, because a chaste lady always thinking about her husband, not about any other man or any enjoyment. Śrīla Prabhupāda told that, when all our sense organs running towards the Supreme Lord by the kṛpā of sad guru that is called bhakti. And when our mind is running towards material shape and design (material objects), that is called maya (material enjoyment). Maya is providing us with sparkling toys to test our chastity, and as long we are attracted to those things, we are no more than a prostitute who is betraying her own husband (Śrī Kṛṣṇa).
One of Kṛṣṇa´s śakti is called ākarṣaṇa-śakti (attractive power) and another one is called vikarṣaṇa-śakti (repulsive power). If a man can enter the path of bhakti then according to his sukṛti he can receive divine help to go ahead in the way of his spiritual progress. Due to taṭastha position jivas are feeling two types of pressure inside heart, one can try to through them into the ocean of maya and another can pull them towards aprākṛta-jagat. Only when we can attain śuddha-bhakti by the kṛpā of guru-vaiṣṇava then we will be able to reach the Lotus Feet of the Supreme Lord. That’s why in śāstra everywhere we can find–
‘sādhu-saṅga’, ‘sādhu-saṅga’ — sarva-śāstre kaya
lava-mātra sādhu-saṅge sarva-siddhi haya (Cc Madhya 22.54)
“The verdict of all revealed scriptures is that by even a moment’s association with a pure devotee, one can attain all success.
Here siddhi includes kṛṣṇa-prema. It does not matter how pure one has become by his own efforts, without the contact of a pure devotee who is having śuddha-bhakti in his heart, one can never come out successful. Only if we can keep Guru and Vaiṣṇava inside the heart, then all other problems can disappear. Those cannot stand in front of guru-vaiṣṇava. But divine help cannot come to us as long we are passive. One who wants to perform hari-bhajana, then cannot indulge in physical comforts. Too much attention to physical body and devotion to Kṛṣṇa cannot go simultaneously. As soon as the desire to serve Kṛṣṇa increases, the engrossment in the material body decreases. If listening and chanting are performed properly, physical idleness will diminish. To think himself as an enjoyer is the greatest impediment in the way devotion. Only when Guru and Vaiṣṇava watching that we are going to avoid everything (all material comfort, all material enjoyment) for the sake of aprākṛta-seva of the Supreme Lord, then we can enjoy Their divine help, otherwise not. If guru-vaiṣṇava going to bestow their merciful glance than that is more than sufficient, because that is called bhagavat- kṛpā.
Without guru– and vaiṣṇava-kṛpā we are blind, because with the help of our material eyes we can only see stool and urine or flesh and blood, that is our blindness (lack of tattva-jñāna). Guru and Vaiṣṇavas can give us the stick of mercy by the help of which we get support while walking over this slippery and dark way, because otherwise any time we can fall.