(The Harmonist or Sree Sajjanatoshani VOL, XXXI, MARCH 1, 1935, No. 13)
The addresses received by the Editor on His sixty-first birthday in His official capacity as the servant of the Divine Line of the Acharyas, are published in the present number of the Journal. The addresses elucidate the position and function of the spiritual preceptor whose authority, derived from the Source of all Power, is potent to convey the Transcendental Sound to the sealed ears of the denizens of this mundane world who are as a rule averse to and ignorant of the service of the Absolute.
Sree Vyasa Deva is the Divine propagandist. His function is to prevent any misunderstanding regarding the meaning of the revealed Scriptures. He is the eternal wielder of this power who always acts through him. He is what is called a Saktyavesa Avatara, i.e., Descent of the Power of the Divinity through the medium of an agent. The function of Sree Vyasa Deva is that of the preacher of the Word of God. Mere verbal recital of the texts of the Scriptures is not the living mode of preaching. Empiric exposition of any texts of the Scriptures is the preaching of untruth under the guise of Religion. Neither of these is the function of the bona fide preacher of the Word.
For the prevention of such misinterpretation of the texts of the revealed Scriptures Sree Vyasa Deva compiled the Brahma Sutras in which he has sought to set forth, in a condensed and systematic way, the total position of the philosophy of the revealed Scriptures. For the same purpose he has further given to the world the greatest of all Theistic Scriptures in the form of Srimad Bhagavatam. The former sets forth the philosophical grounds for the faith that is revealed in the concrete form in the Bhagavatam. The Brahma Sutras lead to the Bhagavatam. Those who have no realisation of the concrete Reality cannot enter into the philosophy of the Vedanta. For this reason Srimad Bhagavatam has been declared to be the unambiguous exposition of the Vedanta. All living theistic expositions by the bona fide preacher of the Word are based upon his constant and uninterruptible realisations of the Eternal Activities of the Absolute Person, that are described by Sree Vyasa Deva in the Srimad Bhagavatam.
Unless there is the spiritual connection between the utterances of the preacher and the Concrete Reality, or rather unless the utterances of the preacher are a part and parcel of the Activities of the Divinity descending to the plane of mortal cognition through the medium of the preacher, there would be no meaning in paying one’s attention to such empty discourses. There would be positive and often fatal harm by such practices to all concerned. Sree Guru is the spiritual Vicar. He represents Sree Vyasa Deva.
Those who suppose that his utterances are prompted by malice and ignorance, like those of the deluded teachers of empiric wisdom, owe the misfortune of opposing the Voice of the Truth to their deliberate perversity in adhering to proved untruth.
All empiric wisdom is proved untruth. Anything that is limited or isolated is, therefore, untrue. It is the business of our senses to break up and offer a distorted picture of the Truth to our defective mental receptivity. The Whole as whole is never perceptible to our mind and senses. The part is never perceptible to our mind in relation to the Whole. This makes everything we perceive to be false and unintelligible. The indivisible unity of the Truth is ignored by all empiric savants who claim to possess any partial and progressive enlightenment. As a matter of fact real enlightenment is categorically different from all experience that can be had through our present defective equipments. The soul, who is eligible to have the sight of the Truth, is necessarily equipped with perfect senses and an unerring mind. The Transcendental Sound appearing on the lips of Sree Guru Deva has the power of preventing the exploitation of the soul by the mind and senses, constituted of mundane stuff, asserting themselves against the soul by the working of the Divine mundane energy. It is only by the support of the Divine Spiritual Energy that it is possible for the soul of man to maintain his own against the sinister influences of the mundane power of Godhead.
Sree Vyasa Deva is the medium of the appearance of the Divine Spiritual Power for helping us to understand the real meaning of the Transcendental Sound identical with Godhead, and thereby to attain the inclination for His spiritual service by willing subserviency to the Powers of Light. Sree Vyasa Deva is the agent for the proper communication to jivas of the realisation of the transcendental nature of the Divine Sound. He is the medium of the Appearance as well as the exponent of the Word of God. It is this latter function that is all important from the point of view of the requirements of the conditioned soul. As exponent of the Word Sree Vyasa Deva is realisable as identical with the Divinity Himself. Until this Divine nature of Sree Vyasa Deva is manifested to the conditioned soul by the Mercy of the Divinity, the fettered soul is in no position to approach even the Descended Word by way of worship.
The worship of Sree Vyasa Deva is equivalent to the worship of Sree Guru, or the bona fide spiritual preceptor, on a level with the Divinity Himself. The preacher of the Word is not merely an inanimate channel of communication. He shares as functionary, the Nature of the Divinity Himself. Till this is revealed to the disciple the latter is unable to catch the spiritual import of the utterances of the real preceptor. Every preacher of the Word has to face a situation of being offered the sincere homage of the noblest souls by the Divine Dispensation, which is, however, not opposed to the true spirit of unalloyed monotheistic worship.