Gauḍīya Goṣṭhī Pati Śrī Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvati Gosvāmī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda told that—“To seek the satisfaction of public and to seek the satisfaction of Supreme Lord is not the same. And to declare this point loudly in front of public is called bhakti.”
We Gauḍīya Devotees must shout like lion to preach this aprākṛta siddhānta vichar of Śrīla Prabhupāda the Great– without any fear or compromise. Common public must be aware of those factors regarding śuddha–bhakti siddhānta vichar, otherwise all those heartless imposters (or those show-bottels) — they can take undue advantage of the foolishness of those common people. It is very easy to cheat those innocent common people, but nobody can cheat those paramahaṁsa Guru-Vaiṣṇavas. Our only shelter should be the Lotus feet of those great great guru-vargas those who have been preaching fearlessly about that Absolute truth. To preach about that Absolute truth one himself must stand on the absolute platform.
Śrīla Prabhupāda many times told –“A sycophant is neither a guru or a preacher.” To speak half-truth is more dangerous than to speak total lie. Śrīla Prabhupāda also used to say –“If I myself not going to follow the aprākṛta-guru–paramparā, but getting ready to preach something else instead, than it is surely not bhakti”.
Most of the people they are in big confusion about those most vital points. But the tragedy nowadays is that if pure Guru-Vaiṣṇava speak about that Absolute truth, then most of the people they became very angry, because they cannot digest the Absolute speech, especially when their heart is contaminated with different kind of anyābhilās. But this is not the fault of those pure Guru-Vaiṣṇavas, rather it is their fault. Because of our lack of submission (ānugatya) we cannot deserve that our dīkṣā is complete. Those who try to point out some faults with pure Guru-Vaiṣṇavas, their darśana is surely very dirty, they have no clear understanding of aprākṛta –guru-vaiṣṇava-tattva. In this regard our Śrīla Rupa Gosvāmīpad has given us the following advice—
dṛṣṭaiḥ svabhāva janitair vapuṣaś ca doṣair
na prākṛta tvam iha bhaktajanasya paśyet
gańgām bhasāḿ na khalu budbudphenapańkair
brahma dravatvam apagacchati nīradharmaiḥ (Upadeśāmṛta Vers 6)
Devotees in this world should not be seen from a material perspective. Any apparent imperfections found in their natures or in their appearance should be overlooked, because such faults are like the foam and mud visible in the water of the Ganges. Such things appear due to the nature of water, but the divine nature of the Ganges is never diminished.
It is the nature of those bonded souls to find faults with those Śuddha-Guru-Vaiṣṇavas. So naturally they can put challenges against them or can fight with them, so much audacity or-so much false ego they have. To crush down their wrong conception Śrī Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvati Gosvāmī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda used to speak one nice story–
A highly conceited person used to consider everything on this earth to be very insignificant to his own estimate. Once he came to the conclusion that the sky itself is most proud and apparently the strongest of all. “Natural calamities like storm, shower, thunderbolt etc. come directly from the sky. The clouds roar from the sky and this reflects that the sky is very much boastful of its own position, and as such, the sky must be given a good lesson.” Accordingly, this proud person speculated that he should tear the sky apart by his own strong fists. With this determination in mind, one day he started vainly punching towards the sky in order to control it. In fact, the sky remained as unperturbed and as graceful as before. On the other hand, the puffed-up person became gradually tired of throwing ineffective blows at the great sky. Ultimately, he became so exhausted that he falls down on the ground and hurt himself.
In the same way the spiritual master and the Vaiṣṇavas remain unperturbed and graceful while they are engrossed in devotional service to the Supreme Lord Śrī Hari, while the mundane fools consider such real devotees responsible for all sorts of calamities and derangements in this world for their boastful attitude. Because of their false apprehension about pure Guru-Vaiṣṇavas, many such people exhibit their unfounded offences towards those divine honest devotees, really this is most unreasonable, but their false attempt of punching goes all in vain. Those pure Vaiṣṇavas, as the ever – benevolent great sky, remain calm and quiet, while the atheists themselves undergo continuous material agonies.”
All the activities of Śuddha-Guru-Vaiṣṇavas are meant for our absolute good. They have their right to speak us heavily to deliver us from material clutches, so this kind of their heavy speech no doubt is the expression of more and more tṛṇād api sunīcena bhava, but bonded souls can just take it opposite way. They can think that due to lack of tṛṇād api sunīcena bhava they have no softness (tenderness), so they are speaking so heavily. But those fortunate souls– those who are in line with Gauḍīya Goṣṭhī Pati Srila Prabhupāda can grasp those very deep darśanaik-vichars (siddhānta-vichar). Also, when Śrīla Vrindavan das Ṭhākura Mahashaya wanted to provide a kick on our heads- then common people could not realize his causeless mercy upon us, so they started agitation against him. Even they started speaking that Śrīla Vrindavan das Ṭhākura Mahashaya is devoid of tṛṇād api sunīcena bhava, they could not realize that out of his causeless mercy upon us he wanted to give us the dust particles from his lotus feet on our head to convert our demonic mood into a humble Vaiṣṇava mood to deliver us from material clutches. So, this is sure that simply by external activities or mood of a Śuddha-Vaishnava one should not pass any dirty remark. In this regard we have the following example (story) by Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Once there was one sadhu who used to maintain himself by begging. He went from door to door and finally one lady gave him one chapati and in another house someone offered him some ghee, but by providence will one street dog came and grasped the chapati from the hand of the sadhu and run away. Quickly the sadhu also started to run behind the dog. Watching this, one person who observed the whole incident started speaking— “You call yourself a sadhu, you are supposed to be detached from this world. Only because some hungry dog snatched away your chapati you are chasing that dog. What kind of sadhu you are. You should be ashamed of the fact, not?” Then the sadhu replayed— “My dear friend, that chapati was very dry, that’s why I thought that the dog can enjoy it more if some ghee could be applied on it.” In the same way only by external appearances we can never understand a pure sadhu, all their actions, all their speaking, talking, walking is only for the benefit of others. So, we have no right to apply our fault-finding mentality on pure Guru-Vaiṣṇava.
Our false ego is our main enemy. Our false ego coming to contaminate our heart in different ways like – due to our high family heritage or due to our opulence’s or due to our high educational qualifications or due to our handsome (or beautiful) looking (appearance) etc. etc. We know the following śloka from Śrīmad Bhagavatam spoken by Śrīmate Kunta Devi—
janmaiśvarya-śruta-śrībhir
edhamāna-madaḥ pumān
naivārhaty abhidhātuṁ vai
tvām akiñcana-gocaram ŚB 1.8.26
My Lord, Your Lordship can easily be approached, but only by those who are materially exhausted. One who is on the path of [material] progress, trying to improve himself with respectable parentage, great opulence, high education and bodily beauty, cannot approach You with sincere feeling.
Mainly the fragile castle of the false ego standing on the basis of the main four pillars as mentioned before. So naturally Śuddha-Guru-Vaiṣṇava first of all like to destroy the castle of the false ego resting inside our heart to deliver us.
To crash the false ego resting inside our heart–a real spiritual preceptor knows the right treatment for those willing disciple those who are ready to submit unto the lotus feet of Sad Guru cent per cent. In that case some gentle punishment and reprimands by Guru-Vaiṣṇavas are highly beneficial for their disciples and servitors. Śrīla Bhakti Pragyan Kesava Gosvāmī Maharaj mentions in this regard— “The resolve to accept discipline finds its success in the title ”disciple”. Even though I became the disciple of Śrī Gurudeva, who is most compassionate, whenever he mildly disciplines me out of his causeless mercy and with the determination to eliminate all the obstacles from the path of my devotional practice, I find it totally unacceptable. At that time, I am even audacious enough to claim that he is heartless, that he lacks affection and that he is biased, unintelligent and so forth. I am willing to be humiliated, reprimanded, and heavily beaten by maya hundreds of times, but I cannot accept or tolerate the affectionate, transcendental discipline of Śrī Gurudeva. Consequently, I forever relinquish devotional service to Kṛṣṇa and thus I commit spiritual suicide.”
Gaura Hari Hari Bol