THE GUARDIAN OF DEVOTION (3)

SERVICE TO GURU

By Sri Dayadhar Gauranga Brahmachari Bhakti-prabhakara

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

Approaching a spiritual guide is the end-all and be-all of our lives. It is the life of our lives—our greatest fortune and easily the most difficult prospect in our life. If it is not, then in all likelihood, that is not guru—that is a sham, a social gesture fraught with misfortune and with little prospect of progress, what to speak of purity or perfection. So, to feel some difficulty or anxiety about approaching or serving sad-guru is not unfortunate. It is necessary.

Guru means teacher; teacher means pulling—the higher is pulling the lower; pulling means stretching, and you shall have to stretch your every fiber to approach Sri Guru. He has come to challenge us, “Why you are satisfied with your meager plane of consciousness? This is no habitat for the jivatma.” And when we can take such a challenge as our greatest fortune in this life, then we have come to the foot of the mountain of Truth: the lotus feet of Sri Guru. Then our task begins. The ascent is underway and mercy awaits with Her sweet waters to bathe the jiva in his sojourn.

The task need not be confused. There is only one task to be considered is the satisfaction of Sri Guru. And what will satisfy Sri Guru?Ascent. Your ascent on the path of positive and progressive immortality will satisfy Sri Guru. And how is that ascent accomplished? It is not a pushing, ascending process dependent on your capacity or sagacity. It is a pulling, descending process dependent on your humility, your utter helplessness to put one foot in front of the other. But this state of dependency is not to be confused with indolence and lethargy. Nor is it to be confused with dreamy conceptions of purity or futility of one’s prospect. It is to be equated with an intense desire for real service to Sri Guru, a relentless and quiet pursuit of that service in spite of one’s meager capacity and qualification, and a willingness to sacrifice one’s prejudicial conceptions based on experience and intellectual capacity and to stretch one’s every fiber to understand and serve the desire and conception of Sri Guru. This is unavoidable; this is inimitable; this is the real meaning of “pranipatena”—the offering of one’s all, one’s very self unto that sad-guru. And when you think you have begun to understand it, you haven’t yet begun to stretch. Do you think it is so easy to give to Guru and Krishna? It is not; full stop. Srila Guru Maharaj has spoken, “First give everything you have to Krishna and Guru—give everything until nothing is left to give. And then learn—learn to give more.” You have come here to give, you are a giving, serving moiety (part). YOU ARE THAT. And yet, you have not yet even discovered your true wealth, the great fortune which lies within you which can be given. You don’t even know that. You have come here to give and you do not even connote your true wealth? Then you must be demented. We are all bereft, we are all demented. This is our qualification to initially receive the sweet waters of mercy from Sri Guru. But who can feel fulfilled about such a qualification? Our qualification will grow with “sevaya”—sincere service to Sri Guru. And although initially it can be overlooked, ultimately that service is not what we think we can or want to do for Sri Guru, but it is what HE WANTS ME TO DO. After all, it is his service which is being offered to Krishna, not ours. And our only hope, our greatest prospect, is to come in line (connection) with that need: not our need—HIS NEED. We must learn to give what is valuable. We do not want to give some valueless thing to Sri Guru. We want to give the most valuable thing, our greatest treasure and our true wealth. Of course, at first, we must give what we think we have, such as money and some facility here and there, but, “these are negative things ... Krishna is not after these things, no. Krishna wants more—He is after the mind”—our free will, our independence. This is real giving, this is real service; this understanding is Sri Guru’s gift to us:

upadeksyanti te jnanam

This is what we are all looking for—this is the essence of our being—this is the sweetness we are all craving for; this is the real gift—affection, devotion—love, “bhakti.” This is not a cheap thing. Throughout our lives, we have developed our skills, developed our mental capacity through knowledge, and now we shall have to develop our feeling capacity, our sentiency, our giving tendency through service. This is the meaning of surrender. “I have so much capacity, so much to give, so much facility and more; yet, Sri Guru is not asking for this—he is not asking for what I can give. He is asking for what I cannot give, what I myself don’t even know I have. He wants that. And I—I have to surrender to that? Oh! What a glorious opportunity we have to discover our true wealth! He can see what I have—that which I cannot even see, and he has come to help me to discover that. This is Sri Guru and His Grace; this is “prapanna,” surrender; this is the Lord’s loving search for the lost souls epitomized in the person of Sri Guru. And this is the intrigue of our lives. Reality the Beautiful has come to find us out by his most revered servitor in the person of Sri Guru.

FULFILLMENT OF THE DESIRE OF Sri Guru

So we shall have to carefully consider our position as distant, but connected to Sri Guru. Now our prospect lies in strengthening that connection by pleasing His Divine Grace. His Mercy is waiting to be given, but our sincerity must be sure, our hand mustn’t waver. Once our relevant inguiry is completed, our own integrity of purpose must be self-evident. And no matter what stage or plane we find ourselves in, we can always rely on one thing to please Sri Guru: that is our progressive march on the path of devotion. Sriman Mahaprabhu exhibited this quite clearly in the case of Raghunath Das Goswami.

Raghunath Das came to surrender at the Holy Feet of Sriman Mahaprabhu as a young boy running from his home. His father was a wealthy landowner, but Raghunath was convinced of the propriety of surrender unto sad-guru. However, upon his surrender, Sriman Mahaprabhu ordered him to return home to finish his schooling. Although it was completely opposite to what Raghunath Das had expected from a renunciate, he obeyed. Later, he left home again to come to Mahaprabhu, and Mahaprabhu told him to serve brahmanas—the holy order of priests in the varnasrama society of Jagannatha Puri. Upon receiving money from his father’s servant, Raghunath Das would utilize the funds to offer prasad to the entire brahminical community of Jagannatha Puri. Mahaprabhu was extremely pleased. Then, seemingly against Mahaprabhu’s order, Raghunath Das became disenchanted with this level of service. He refused the money brought to him by his father’s servants and begged for his own food on the steps of Jagannatha Puri temple of Sri Jagannathaji. Mahaprabhu heard of this and praised Raghunath Das.

When I queried Srila Guru Maharaj as to why Mahaprabhu praised Raghunath Das for renouncing his service, he replied, “Mahaprabhu did not praise Raghunath for that, but for cutting the bodily connection by refusing the money from his father.”

Thereafter, without money from his father, Raghunath Das could not even maintain himself, and he would go to the gates of the Jagannatha Puri temple to beg Jagannatha prasad from the priests as they left the temple. Mahaprabhu was extremely pleased with that change of venue. After some time begging on the steps of the Jagannatha Puri temple, Raghunath Das could see that there was no difficulty in obtaining his necessities from the priests. When they saw him begging, invariably, they would have to offer him some Jagannatha prasad. Then, suddenly Raghunath Das disappeared from the steps of the Jagannatha temple one evening. He no longer begged prasad from the priests. When Mahaprabhu inquired from the devotees about Raghunath Das’s welfare, they reported that Raghunath Das was taking prasad behind Lord Janannatha’s temple. He would go behind the temple and take the unsold rice prasad that had gone rotten and was considered inedible. Raghunath Das would clean the rice and take it for his daily prasad. Mahaprabhu was excited. He went out to see Raghunath Das behind the temple and upon seeing him collecting the discarded rice he at once challenged him, “You are taking such nice prasad and you are not offering Me even one grain?”

Raghunath stepped back holding the rice away from Mahaprabhu and fearfully replied, “Oh, no my Lord, these grains are not fit for Your Grace.” Then Mahaprabhu caught Raghunath and forcefully pulled some of the grains from his hand and immediately took them. Then Mahaprabhu spoke, “O Raghunath, this is the most wonderful prasad!” And Raghunath was mortified, but fulfilled. The pleasure of Sri Guru was evident on Mahaprabhu’s face. Mahaprabhu was pleased that Raghunath Das could not see any honour in begging prasad from priests who couldn’t possibly turn him away. He had progressed from a calculative devotional sentiment to a more spontaneous, honourable and noble activity with more opportunity to receive Krishna’s mercy by refusing to take easily obtainable mahaprasad! And Mahaprabhu was pleased.

All glories to Sri Guru and Sri Gauranga. All glories to the holy feet dust of the great Vaishnavas who carry that pearl of wisdom the undefinable, unassailable conception of the surrendered souls.

CONTENTS

Editorial
Declaration of the Spiritual Succession
(1) Complete Dedication
(2) Pure Devotion
(3) The Only Enjoyer
(4) The Wave of Love
(5) The Krishna Conception of Divinity
(6) Personal Knowledge
(7) Service to Guru
(8) Marching on to Glory
(9) An Experience on the Way
(10) Advent of Golden Moon
(11) Holy Talks of the Supreme Lord

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