(6) Guru's Wealth

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Krishna Janmastami, Tarakeswar
23 August 2019, midnight, part 6
Translated from Bengali

I have told you this many times. 'I have become a scholar', 'I have become a doctor', 'I have become an engineer' – 'What makes you think that I do not understand the scriptures?! How dare you! I am a great pandit, so why would I not understand what is written there?' This is not material knowledge – material knowledge may have some value, but what scriptures contain is transcendental. The knowledge of the relationship is not attained through material erudition. One can be materially extremely learned, have all kinds of honours and degrees, but it is impossible to develop devotion or come to the Lord through that. You can possess much material knowledge, it may have its value, but the Supreme Lord is adhoksaja (He is situated beyond material perception), so as far as devotion to Him is concerned, material knowledge has no value. 'Nayatma pravachanena labhya na medhaya va bahuna srutena. The Supreme Soul is not attained by reasoning, intelligence or extensive learning' (Kathopanisad 1.2.23).

You can be a college professor, a president of a country, a chief minister of a state, you train and become sportsman, you can sing well, you can dance well, you can be a great actor, but all these skills cannot teach you anything about God. You can enter a school or a college with those skills, but you cannot enter a spiritual university with it. A singing teacher can teach you to sing, a sports couch can teach you a sport, a dancing teacher can teach you to dance – in the same way, a spiritual teacher can teach you spiritual matters. A great maha-bhagavat guru can give you the Lord. When we talk about a guru, we mean such a guru who can give one God. A guru is not just a devotee who treats you affectionately – a guru is somebody who has come to God himself. One becomes a guru by finding God and by tangibly coming to God.

What does a guru do? He tells about the message of the scriptures to a chaste, affectionate disciple. Scriptures means the truth, the actual knowledge – scriptures means God. A guru has got the knowledge of the scriptures in the line of bona fide disciplic succession. A genuine acharya is established in this scriptural conception and has direct experience of God. Great souls who belong to a bona fide current of teachers (guru-dhara) can distribute the message of the scriptures to others. They can impart the knowledge of the revealed scriptures and God (amnaya-tattva). The very gist of Vedas is a genuine instruction, a truth, a garland of perfect spiritual conclusions. The guru can reveal God through the medium of the sound, through the medium of the scriptures. God appears within sound, and this sound springs up from the heart of the guru.

The scriptural truths emerge from the guru's mouth, eyes, nose – Krishna always, constantly appears from within him. Gurudev is full of Krishna. Krishna appears from every pore of his body, from every tip of his hair. Wherever he looks, whatever he says, whatever he thinks, he does everything in relation to Krishna. Gurudev always thinks only about Krishna.

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