Qualification of a Spiritual Master | 19 May 1997 | Washington | Śrīla Gopāl Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī Maharaja

Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. Om Agyante Melanda Siya. Jñānānjanāśalakya, jakṣuram milita-niena, asmai Śrīguraveṇa-maha. Śrīcetānyāmano bestam, sapitāmīna bhūtale, svayam rūpa-kadāmayam, tadāti svāpadaṁ dikhaṁ. Bande ham Śrīguru, Śrī uttapa dakhaṁ nānt, Śrīguruṇvaiśṇavaṁ sat. Śrīrūpaṁ sa-grājatāṁ sa-ha-gnāda-gūṇaṭṇa-mītam tam sa-jīvam, sa-dvētam sa-bhādatām, rijaṇā-saītam kṛṣṇa-cetanya-sevām. Śrī-rādhā kṛṣṇa-pradānta sa-ha-gnāda-niṭṭhaṣṣrīviṣa-khaṇ-bhītam śa, e kṛṣṇa-karunā-sindho dīṇa-bandhu-jagāt-vahre. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare. Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. First we want to remind everyone, tomorrow is a very auspicious day. Experience of Lord Nrsimhadeva. All of you should come to the temple for Lord Nrsimhadeva's birthday celebration. We all go to Lord Nrsimhadeva when we are in difficulty. So we should also worship Lord Nrsimhadeva when we are not in difficulty. So we sang a bhajan, very famous bhajan called Sri Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Prabhu Da Kora Mora composed by a great Vaiṣṇava saint called Narottama Dāsa ṭhākura. And in this prayer Narottama Dāsa ṭhākura reflects the mood of a devotee. The mood of the Vaiṣṇava is that He always considers Himself to be the most fallen. Nurdāma dāsa ṭhākura says, "Ātma Mahāprabhu, please be merciful unto me. You are the most merciful of all incarnations." There have been so many incarnations of the Lord. Caitanya Mahāprabhu has been described as the most merciful of all incarnations. And Nurdāma dāsa ṭhākura further says, You have appeared to save the fallen people. "Hādi-pavāne du tava-avatāra." You see, people today are so degraded. They are engaged in so many sinful activities. And Caitanya Mahāprabhu's movement has descended to save these people. And He says, "Of all the fallen people, I am the most fallen." Actually, Daraḍanaṣṭhākura, is an incarnation of a mañjarī. Mañjarī is an assistant to the gopī, and the gopīs help Rādhā-rāṇī in serving Kṛṣṇa. So, and he was born in a very rich family. His father was a king in Bengal 500 years ago, and he was the only son, and he was very attracted to Caitanya Mahāprabhu's movement. His father tried to attract him through so many lucrative offers, but he was not at all interested. And he composed many wonderful prayers glorifying Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Nityānanda as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So he says that, "I am the most fallen of all." And then he prays to Lord Nityānanda. I was so happy that he had these Deities of Gaura-nitāi. He says, "Lord Nityananda, aah, Prabhu Nityananda premananda sukhī." "Lord Nityananda, You are in total bliss, but I am very unfortunate, I am very sad. So You please be merciful unto me so that I can also become blissful." Then he prays to the husband of Sita, namely Advaitācārya. Advaitācārya is actually an incarnation of Mahā Viṣṇu. And it was Advaita Acharya who prayed for Lord Caitanya to descend. Advaita Acharya would sit on the bank of the Ganges, worship the Tulsi, and he was praying that, "Lord, You please descend. People today are so degraded that unless You come, they will not be saved." Of course, Advaita Acharya was Maha-Vishnu. Maha-Vishnu can do anything. But he wanted the Lord to descend. So then he prays to Advaita Ācārya and says that, "Unless I get Your mercy, I will not get the mercy of Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda." And then he proceeds to pray at the lotus feet of the 6 Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana, Āsa, Rūpa, Sanātanā, Rūpa Raghunātha. And he also prays at the lotus feet of Nokanātha, and Sarup Damodar. Lokanāt Dāsa was the spiritual master of Nārādhama Dāsa ṭhākura. Lokanāt Dāsa only had one disciple, and that one disciple was Nārādhama Dāsa. Actually, it's a very nice story of how Nārādhama Dāsa got initiated. He approached— you all know that story? Want to hear? So Nārādhama Dāsa approached Lokanāt many times for initiation. Lokanādaṣa said, "You are so advanced, how can I initiate you? I can't initiate you." So he went on refusing. So one day Lokanādaṣa, after, you know, in 500 years ago, people used to pass stool in the open field. So Lokanādaṣa, after passing stool in the open field in Vṛndāvana, He went and hid behind the bushes. He wanted to see who comes and cleans this place. And then he went, he was hiding behind the bushes, and he saw that after he would pass stool and go away, Narottama Das Thakura would come and clean the whole area up. So when he saw that Narottama Das was doing such menial service to him, then he agreed to initiate him. And he only initiated one disciple, and that is "Narottama dasaḥ." So he prays to the six Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana and Śrīla Urdhvaṇa Mahāprabhu and Lokanātha dasa, spiritual master, for their mercy. And then lastly he prays, I'm just giving you a very summary explanation because I want to proceed to explain something else. Then he prays to the mercy of Śrī Nivāsa-ācārya and he says, "Rāmachanda-saṅgamāge narottama dasa." So Ramachandra Chakravarti was a very great Vaiṣṇava sage who was on the planet about over 500 years ago. Ramachandra das and his wife, they were grihastas, just like most of you are grihastas. They were grihastas, but they were such staunch devotees of Caitanya Mahāprabhu that Narottama das ṭhākura prays, "When will I have the associate Ramachandra sanghamāge?" "Nanotama das." He says that, "I am praying that I may have the association of Ramchandra das, because by sadhu-sanga one can make spiritual advancement." So that was a brief explanation. I was thinking that on this trip I'll lecture on, from a book called "The Nectar of Instruction." Have you all seen this book? I'm sure you all have seen it in the bookstores, huh, and on the book tables. So this is actually a small book. It only has 11 shlokas, but actually it contains the essence of a Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy. This book was written by Rūpa Gosvāmī and published as Śrī Udaya Śrīmad. So I was thinking that every evening in these house programs we'll take on one verse. We'll start with the first verse today. Tomorrow there's no program, then do text 2, text 3, text 4, and try and do as many verses as we can. It's a book that all devotees must study. Everyone who is serious about spiritual life, he must study Bhāgavad-gītā, must study Bhāgavatam, Kṛṣṇa Book, Nectar of Devotion, and Nectar of Instruction. These books contain the essence of our Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy. Actually, the literature that we have is so vast that nobody, no other religious movement can compare to it. For example, if we talk about Christianity, you have one main book, the Bible, and you have some other books. Talk about Islam, you again have one main book. But in our Vedic philosophy, we have so many texts, and each of them are so detailed. And the texts left behind by the six Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana are the most voluminous in history. Caitanya Mahāprabhu Himself left behind only 8 verses that we know as what? As Sikṣāstaka. But He instructed His followers to write volumes of books. Jīvagosvāmī was the youngest of the six Gosvāmīs. He alone wrote more than 400,000 ślokas, just alone. Forget what Rūpa Gosvāmī wrote, Sanātan Gosvāmī wrote, Gopālprabhatta Gosvāmī wrote, the others. So we should try and understand the scriptures. Of course, we don't expect all of you to read all the Gosvāmī literature, but at least we should start off with the most important of the Gosvāmī literature. And the most important has been touched upon by Śrīla Prabhupāda. Prabhupāda translated the Bhaktirasamhita Sindhu, which has been published as Nectar of Devotion, and he translated Śrī Upadeśamitra, which has been published under the title of The Nectar of Instruction. So it contains very important messages for all of us. Nectar of Instruction was compiled by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī. We are known as Rūpa-nugas. Why are we known as Rūpa-nugas? We are known as Rūpa-nugas, of course, in Washington. Rūpa-nuga Prabhupāda was a G.B.C. at one time. So you may think, "Oh, we are known as Rūpa-nugas because we are serving in Washington." No, we are known as Rūpa-nugas all over the world because we are followers of Rūpa Gosvāmī Prabhupāda. Therefore we are known as Rūpa-nugas. And like we are also known as Prabhupāda-nugas, because we also follow Śrīla Prabhupāda. So Rūpa Gosvāmī, just to give you a little background, Rūpa Gosvāmī and his brother Sanātan Gosvāmī, we all know that they were holding very important positions in society. They were virtually running the kingdom of Nawab Husseyn Shah. Today, of course, Bengal doesn't have much material significance, isn't it? The whole world wants to come to America today. Nobody wants to, very few want to immigrate to Bengal. There's no big rush of people standing in line to get a visa to go to Bengal. But you go all over the world, people are standing in line to get a visa for United States. Am I right? They think they're getting a visa for United States is like like just one step short of going to heaven, or many things. So, about 500 years ago, Bengal was the richest kingdom on this planet. India was the richest country in the world, and in India, the richest province was the province of Bengal, and it was being ruled by a Mohammedan king called Nawab Hussein Shah, but the population was predominantly Hindus. So the king was a good diplomat, and he was looking for someone to run his kingdom, someone who was very popular with the citizens. So he did a big research, extensive research, "Who should run my kingdom?" And everyone said, "These two brothers are very popular, Arjuna and Sanatan." Arjuna and Sanatan are their initiated names, but anyway. So the king finally asked them to run his kingdom. Initially, of course, they refused. They said, "No, we are only interested in doing Kṛṣṇa-katha, Bhāgavata-katha. We are not interested in all this diplomacy and running of the kingdom." But the king said, "If you don't run this kingdom, I am going to destroy all the Hindu temples in Nagaur." So it was more out of concern that the temples be protected that Rūpa and Sanātana agreed to take on this responsibility. But They were running virtually like the Prime Minister and the financial treasury minister. They were running the whole kingdom. Arupagosaṁī first gave up the service, and then Caitanya Mahāprabhu sent him to Vṛndāvana to write books. He told the Gosvāmīs to go to Vṛndāvana, identify the places where Lord Kṛṣṇa had performed His pastimes, and to write books after studying the Vās Vedic literature and explained the essence of the Vās Vedic literature which they have done in their books. So Rūpa Gosvāmī is considered the leader of the Gosvāmīs. So he has presented this nectar of instruction or Śrī Upadeśamitram. So we will read the first verse. I am sure all of you have heard it before. You can try repeating after me. Vāca vega manaḥ sakroḍavegaṁ. Vāca vega manaḥ sakroḍavegaṁ. Divāvegam adālapastavegam. Divāvegam parāvāśatevegam. Itanvegam abhishaheta dīrā. Itanvegam abhishaheta dīrā. Sarvāma pīvāṁ petṛṁ ca śreṣyaḥ. Sarvāma pīvāṁ petṛṁ ca śreṣyaḥ. Translation: I'll skip the word meaning, we'll go straight to the translation. A sober person who can tolerate the urge to speak the mind's demands, the actions of anger, and the urges of the tongue, belly, and genitals is qualified to make disciples all over the world. So Rūpa Gosvāmī is first explaining to us what is the qualification of a spiritual master. Of course, eventually these are the qualifications of one who is serious about spiritual life. But Rūpa Gosvāmī says, "Only such a person can be entitled to make disciples who has control over the following vegaṁ, or pushings in the body." Vegaṁ, vegaṁ means pushing in Sanskrit. So Rūpa Gosvāmī is saying, one who is serious about spiritual life must have control over the following pushyās. First is vācā. Vācā means speech. So Kṛṣṇa has given us this tongue. Majority of the people, if you ask them, "What is the purpose of this tongue?" They will say, "Speak without discrimination," which is known as prajālpa. And eat without discrimination, isn't it? That's what majority of the people think. And people love to use their tongue, isn't it? People love to talk, love to sing, so on. Now, you know what is the latest craze all over the world now? Who knows? Huh? Cellular phones. Now they have their cellular phones all over the world. All day people can keep talking. I don't know how big a hit it is in America, but in India and Europe it's a big hit. I was just in London for a few days. Almost everyone's over there walking around with a cellular phone, and the cellular phone companies make it really attractive for you. Like in England, you can have a cellular phone and after 5 o'clock it's free, local calls. So everyone says, "Oh, that's a great deal. After 5 or 6 it's free." So anyway, everyone loves to talk, huh? You see people driving cars and, you know, speaking on the phone at the same time now. Even in India it's caught on very well. It's become a status symbol in India now, cellular phones. Everyone carries a cellular phone. So Kṛṣṇa has given us this tongue. What should be the purpose of this tongue? We should use this tongue with the greatest of caution. Vipāda, this, vācā means speech. So according to the scriptures, the tongue should be used to glorify the Lord. Prabhupāda used to give an example of the frog, mēṇḍaka. You have more mēṇḍaka here? Frog? The frog croaks, eh? Makes "kank, kank, kank, kank." And when it does "kank, kank," what does it do? Who does it send the notice to? Snake. Snake. It sends a signal to the snake, "This is where I'm sitting. Come and attack me." And the snake identifies the location of the frog and goes and attacks. So we have this tongue, and this tongue should be used for something positive. Not for negative. So we should use this tongue for chanting the names of the Lord, for glorifying the transcendental activities of the Lord, for talking about Kṛṣṇa-katha. Many times we hear that Kṛṣṇa appears to kill the demons. But Kṛṣṇa doesn't have to appear just to kill the demons. Just like there are millions of people dying of heart attacks and other diseases, isn't it? Does Kṛṣṇa come personally to kill them? By the laws of nature they die. But Kṛṣṇa appears more to create kṛṣṇa-katha, transcendental subject matters for discussion, pastimes with His devotees. Just like tomorrow we are going to celebrate the appearance of Lord Nrsimhadeva. This is a very unique appearance of the Lord. The Lord appears as half man, half lion. And He appeared as a half-man, half-lion, and He protected His devotee Prahlāda, and He annihilated the powerful demon Hiranyakāśipu. So this is just one of the many, many incarnations of the Lord. I don't want to describe the story today because we want to describe it tomorrow. Haha. So the point is that the Lord appears to create Kṛṣṇa-katha. Now some of you may say, "Swamiji, we all do jobs, we are business people, we can't go and chant and do Kṛṣṇa-kathā in our office, isn't it? So what do we have? What is your advice to us? What do we do?" So the answer is, of course, you may have to be, you may have to make some adjustments. Like obviously, if some of you are working outside, you do jobs or business, or you are students in a campus, or whatever, you may have to engage in some, what may be called, professional talk or mundane talk. But we engage in mundane talk, professional talk, to the extent that it is necessary and not beyond that. You understand? That's the point. You don't extend, you don't use the tongue beyond what's necessary for subject matters that are not directly related to Kṛṣṇa. That is important. So some of the other— the tongue must be controlled, the power of speech. We may, we may talk about mundane subject matters, the professional subject matters, to the extent that is necessary in your job or in your business or whatever. But nevertheless, we should use the tongue also to vibrate the glories of the Lord. And our prime goal should be to engage the tongue in kṛṣṇa-katha. In the Bhāgavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa gives a practical advice. He gives an example of a lotus flower that is in water, but it is not touched by the water. Have you heard of that example? Lotus flower that is in water but not touched by the water. So if our tongue is being used to vibrate the glories of the Lord, Then even if you are in the material world doing a job, doing business, or studying academically, you will not be disturbed by it, because the constant chanting of the holy names of the Lord, using the tongue to recite the glories of the Lord, will keep you in a spiritually safe position. So Rūpa Gosvāmī says, one who is serious about spiritual life, must control the power of speech. The temptation to speak nonsense will always be there. The temptation to indulge in mundane talk will always be there. But we must understand that time is of the essence. It is said, "With the rising and setting of the sun, the duration of life of everyone but one who surrenders to the Lord is being reduced." We don't ever realize that every morning when you get up, you're getting a signal that there's one day less left in your life. And in the evening when the sun sets, it has given you the message: one day less left in your life. Do any of us ever think like that? Except those that are devotees, maybe. But by and large, we don't think like that. The rising and setting of the sun reduces the duration of life of everyone but one who is actually a devotee of the Lord. So time is of the essence. Chanakya Pandit has said, "Ayusha kashana ekopina labhaya swarna koti bhi," that even if you lose a minute, you will not be able to make it up with the wealth of the entire world. Therefore, we must control our tongue, use our tongue productively for Kṛṣṇa conscious activity. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Prasad Raavalay! Halleh lama halleh! Lama lama halleh halleh!