No 11 — The excellent trick (program) of Mayadevi to try to prove a critical fall down case as a vanchana-moye lila

If you are always in illusion then delusion is a must, so what solution can be there for the pollution inside your heart

People are in great confusion about bhakti and pratibha

(Who Can be Called as a True Disciple?)

Date 08.01.2025

Gauḍīya Goṣṭhī Pati Śrī Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Ṭhākura used to say that— “Demons can also quote scriptures”. It is a fact that most of the time false things can even become more attractive than the original things. We know that all that glitters are not gold. If I ask you that whom you can give priority?  To deva guru Bṛhaspati or to the guru of demons – Śukrācārya? If you are a devotee, then surely you can subscribe deva guru Bṛhaspati, but if you are a foolish demon, then surely you can choice Śukrācārya, because externally it seems that there is some special power with him, which deva guru Bṛhaspati doesn’t have. In fact, asura’s guru Śukrācārya has more efficiency than deva guru Bṛhaspati. Śukrācārya has some special mantra power. He can bring back life into a dead body, which you cannot find with deva guru Bṛhaspati. Now whom you like to subscribe? Such confusion prevailing everywhere. People are in great confusion about bhakti and pratibhā (genuineness). At present due to this kind of fallacy whole devotional world is in confusion. Some group can try to project Ananta Vasudev ji and Sundrananda Ji as great mahāpuruṣas, although they left Śrīla Prabhupāda like stool and urine. They accepted a new guru. Maybe for this reason you can have your desire to point out this as Vanchana moye līlā!

One can find some special genialness in some one, but cannot prove that bhakti is flowing there. This is the fact. Śrī Śrīmad Bhakti Prajñana Kesava Gosvāmī Mahārāja said that— “We worship Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta  Sarasvatī Ṭhākura as the personification of the divine message (vāṇī), and yet when one of the main assistants in his vāṇī-vilāsa-līlā (preaching pastimes), a particularly bright writer, was overwhelmed by a weakness of heart and suddenly left the Maṭha to go to Dhaka, Prabhupāda was not in the least perturbed. On the other hand, he would become extremely anxious if one of his servants, whose name was Pancanana and who happened to be illiterate, went out of his sight for even a moment. This seems quite startling and perplexing, but in reality, it is not, even slightly. These interactions reveal the full current of the nature of bhakti. Unlimitedly greater than service to Prabhupāda by moving a pen, which brought about a revolution in the world, is the service propensity of an illiterate person’s heartfelt affection for him. The root fibre of the aptitude for bhakti is attachment to the lotus feet of Śrī Guru.”

If you are in confusion and unable to recognize pure guru-Vaiṣṇava, then this is a great offense. So, you should remember this point very carefully to protect bhajan life. Sometime you find some extraordinary qualities in someone, which is called pratibhā, but you should always remember that pratibhā is surely not bhakti. Sometime you are in confusion by observing some special qualities such as abnormal speaking power, abnormal writing power, abnormal speculative power or abnormal technical knowledge etc. in someone. You can see the example of Dig Vijayi Paṇḍita. Surely, he was enjoying the full kṛpā of material Sarasvatī, but in front of Śrīman Mahāprabhu he was just stupid and speechless. Why? Because aprākṛta Sarasvatī is the vidyā śakti of the Supreme Lord—who is always there with her Swami. So how it is possible for Dig Vijayi Paṇḍita to establish his own vidyā śakti in front of Śrīman Mahāprabhu the Supreme Lord? Śrīla Prabhupāda is para-vidyā Sarasvatī—I mean Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvatī, so how you can violate (ignore) him to establish all new new achar-  vichar and siddhāntas! 

Sometimes you can see that some of our guru-varga having no sufficient material education. But surely, they are realized souls. Yet sometimes still you can see they are going to take some help from some material pratibhā ban (genius). Why? Simply because they want to utilize the special quality for the cause of guru and Gauranga sevā. This is Their causeless mercy upon them. We should remember that— “Bhakti is the natural function of our soul”—which is repeatedly confirmed by Śrīla Prabhupāda in front of us. Aprākṛta divya-jñāna can only be found in those realized sādhu-guru- Vaiṣṇavas. Special pratibhā in the form of material knowledge or capacity cannot stay for long time with bonded souls. But if the guru-varga somehow can utilize the particular pratibhā of any jīvattma for the cause of aprākṛta sevā, then that jīvatma can get absolute benefit, what wrong in it? In that case, we should not have the misconception that the pratibhā ban (genius) is more important than guru-Vaiṣṇava. Even the yogis and jñānis must somehow take the help of Bhakti Devī to get success in their line of bhajan. Otherwise, they can never come out successful. That is the excellent and unique divine glory of Bhakti Devī.

It is true that Śrīla Advaita Prabhu had a few so-called sons and disciples who were independent, but Śrīla Acutyānanda Prabhu was a real Vaiṣṇava ācārya. It is also true that some so-called disciples of Śrī Vīrabhadra Prabhu became independent and created the Neḍā-Neḍī sampradāya, but it is also observed in Vaiṣṇava history that he had also some disciples who were mahā-bhāgavatas and Gosvāmīs. Rāmacandra Purī, the so-called disciple of Śrīla Mādhavendra Purīpāda, was an impersonalist and he was always against Hari-guru-Vaiṣṇava, but Śrīla Īśvara Purīpāda by the absolute mercy of his Gurudeva Śrīla Mādhavendra Purīpāda performed the activity of an ācārya.

By the very desire of Śrīla Prabhupāda himself, the expansion of the devotional dynasty and the current of Bhaktivinoda (bhaktivinoda-dhārā) will never become extinct. Except for a mahānta-guru who is empowered by Kṛṣṇa, there is no other possible way to increase the devotional dynasty—this is according to śāstra and sadācāra (proper etiquette). This is already confirmed by Śrīla Bhakti Rakshak Śrīdhar Dev Gosvāmī Maharaj.

Once, many disciples of Śrīla Prabhupāda gathered together and, through his personal assistant, Śrī Paramānanda Prabhu, submitted a query to him: “Among the many devotees in the Maṭha who, having accepted the shelter of your lotus feet, sincerely and incessantly engage in rendering various kinds of services for your divine pleasure both day and night, whose service do you consider to be the topmost?”

Śrīla Prabhupāda replied to such a profound question with simple words: “The greatness of a person’s service to the Vaiṣṇavas is directly proportional to the amount of love and affection he has developed in his heart for those Vaiṣṇavas; the greater the affection, the greater the service.”

When Śrīla Bhaktī Rakshak Śridhar Dev Gosvami Mahārāja was asked— “All those sannyāsī, vāṇaprastha, gṛhastha or brahmacāri preachers, through whom Śrīla Prabhupāda preached his instructions in various countries, by the strength of their speech, their management of the mission etc. became famous and widely accepted even during Śrīla Prabhupāda’s manifest appearance—do they have more bhakti and are they the leaders of the mission?

His answer was— “‘Only those who, during the manifested presence of Śrīla Prabhupāda, became famous and widely accepted, have more bhakti or are the leaders of the mission’—such a consideration cannot be correct in all cases. Again, in some places it can be justified. The most worshipable Śrī Śrīla Prabhupāda, in the previous year in Darjeeling in a letter to the most worshipable Bhakti Vaibhava Sāgara Mahārāja, gave his gracious blessings to him. On numerous occasions in front of many disciples, Śrila Prabhupāda has said about Śrīpāda Sāgara Mahārāja “He is a jīvan-mukta mahā-puruṣa.” Becoming deceived, the materially-minded section, or people desiring to gratify their own senses see the external form of Śrīpāda Sāgara Mahārāja and say, “He is not a very big man—he doesn’t have a form that pleases our eyes, his name has not been mentioned much within the circles of gossip. The people of this world do not know him. He has no practical knowledge or experience as far as preaching is concerned. Thus, he is also not a great man.” So, is that consideration, correct? Who will become the leader of the mission? One who follows proper conduct or one who is a miscreant? If Śrīla Sāgara Mahārāja does not have the power of eloquent speech to please the ears of the public can he not become the leader of the mission? In answer to this, materially-minded people will certainly say, “He cannot!” This is because they only recognise expertise in material skills. They hide the article ‘Baḍa Āmī o Bhāla Āmi’ (‘The Big I and the Good I’) written by Śrīla Prabhupāda himself. They want to become the masters of the queen of calculation, and they consider the sevāka-sampradāya of Śrī Rādhārāṇī to be very inferior. Their only yardstick of measuring bhakti is expertise in material skills.”

He further said that— “There is a vast difference between the real disciples of Śrīla Prabhupāda and such pseudo-disciples who were impelled by the deceitful mentality of misusing supramundane divine knowledge and pretended to take formal initiation from Śrīla Prabhupāda. One section is artificial, another section is real. One section is the Nārada of the drama party, and the other section are the followers of Guru-pāda-padma, the incessant chanter of hari-kīrtana who is the non-different personification of Nārada.

Moreover, there are also differences in qualification amongst those who are truly disciples of Śrīla Prabhupāda.

The siddhānta and thinking of the true devotees that have taken shelter of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s feet are strung upon one thread. Just like the conclusions of the Six Gosvāmīs or Śrī Śrīnivāsācārya, Thākura Narottama, Śrī Śyāmānanda and other ācāryas—every one of them is of the same significance. In other words, they are aligned with the siddhānta of Śrīman Mahāprabhu. It is not that within some sections there are apparent similarities, and in some sections, there are apparent differences amongst the true disciples of Śrīla Prabhupāda. The siddhānta and thinking of persons situated in the true philosophical current within the line of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura (śrī-bhaktivinoda-dhārā) is distinctly in unison with every practitioner of the current within the line of Śrīla Mādhavendra Purī.”

Śrīla Bhakti Rakshak Śrīdhar Goswami Maharaj further used to say that— “Śrīla Prabhupāda has disciplined people who have accepted the dress of a preacher but who were going astray in various ways due to the faults of weakness, vaiṣṇava aparādha, material desires etc., sometimes in a meeting, sometimes by writing letters and speaking hari-kathā to them in different ways. A reading of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s letters, articles and discourses bears witness to this. Śrīla Prabhupāda, seeing the desire for power in one such an eminent preacher, himself composed an essay for his benefit in The Gauḍīya called Baḍa Āmi o Bhāla Āmi and when the sannyāsī-preacher was staying in Dhaka, he informed him in a letter that, “This essay has been written for you. You should read it very carefully.”

For the benefit of him and others like him, Śrīla Prabhupāda again published an article called Ālekhya (‘Painting’) in The Gauḍīya. When Śrīla Prabhupāda saw the oil painting of the respected preacher in a householder’s home in Calcutta, he expressed his pastime of anger and wrote a letter to him in Dhaka from Śrī Gauḍīya Maṭha on 16th May (1935). His words are quoted below:

“It is better not to have, or keep oil paintings of ourselves in the homes of devotees. One should always bear in mind that the desire for fame is like the stool of a pig. If our photo is worshipped during our lifetime, we will become degraded. There are two paths — śreyaḥ (the path of renunciation) and preyaḥ (the path of enjoyment). Travellers on the path of bhakti are the followers of śreyaḥ. The company of material enjoyers is inauspicious for us.” (Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Letters Vol. 3,page 51 & 52)

Gaura Hari Hari Bol